The Plastic treaty: What is in it for Africa?

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Abstract

The new plastic treaty, slated for 2024, represents a shift in the global fight to address environmental pollution and degradation. The international agreement, unlike previous resolutions, covers the lifecycle of plastics and represents a legally binding instrument for ending plastic pollution across all ecosystems. Plastic waste contamination poses significant challenges to African nations. It challenges food security, ecological variation and economic development. The African region has been identified with a high level of enactment of waste management policies but a deficiency of sustainable measures to adopt and implement these policies. The new treaty could provide an instrument for collaboration and innovation and set the stage for Africa to transition to a sustainable plastics environment that promotes zero‐waste.

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Discovery and quantification of plastic particle pollution in human blood

Heather Leslie, Martin J. M. van Velzen, Sicco H Brandsma … (2022)

Plastic particles are ubiquitous pollutants in the living environment and food chain but no study to date has reported on the internal exposure of plastic particles in human blood. This study's goal was to develop a robust and sensitive sampling and analytical method with double shot pyrolysis - gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and apply it to measure plastic particles ≥700 nm in human whole blood from 22 healthy volunteers. Four high production volume polymers applied in plastic were identified and quantified for the first time in blood. Polyethylene terephthalate, polyethylene and polymers of styrene (a sum parameter of polystyrene, expanded polystyrene, acetonitrile butadiene styrene etc.) were the most widely encountered, followed by poly(methyl methacrylate). Polypropylene was analysed but values were under the limits of quantification. In this study of a small set of donors, the mean of the sum quantifiable concentration of plastic particles in blood was 1.6 µg/ml, showing a first measurement of the mass concentration of the polymeric component of plastic in human blood. This pioneering human biomonitoring study demonstrated that plastic particles are bioavailable for uptake into the human bloodstream. An understanding of the exposure of these substances in humans and the associated hazard of such exposure is needed to determine whether or not plastic particle exposure is a public health risk.

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A global mass budget for positively buoyant macroplastic debris in the ocean

Laurent C. M. Lebreton, Matthias Egger, Boyan Slat (2019)

Predicted global figures for plastic debris accumulation in the ocean surface layer range on the order of hundreds of thousands of metric tons, representing only a few percent of estimated annual emissions into the marine environment. The current accepted explanation for this difference is that positively buoyant macroplastic objects do not persist on the ocean surface. Subject to degradation into microplastics, the major part of the mass is predicted to have settled below the surface. However, we argue that such a simple emission-degradation model cannot explain the occurrence of decades-old objects collected by oceanic expeditions. We show that debris circulation dynamics in coastal environments may be a better explanation for this difference. The results presented here suggest that there is a significant time interval, on the order of several years to decades, between terrestrial emissions and representative accumulation in offshore waters. Importantly, our results also indicate that the current generation of secondary microplastics in the global ocean is mostly a result of the degradation of objects produced in the 1990s and earlier. Finally, we propose a series of future emission scenarios until 2050, discussing the necessity to rapidly reduce emissions and actively remove waste accumulated in the environment to mitigate further microplastic contamination in the global ocean.

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Challenges and emerging solutions to the land-based plastic waste issue in Africa

Yannick Beaudoin, Joan Fabrés, Kristian A. Teleki … (2018)

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Author and article information

Contributors

Deborah Oluwaseun Shomuyiwa: (View ORCID Profile)

Don Eliseo Lucero‐Prisno: (View ORCID Profile)

Journal

Title: Public Health Challenges

Abbreviated Title: Public Health Challenges

Publisher: Wiley

ISSN (Print): 2769-2450

ISSN (Electronic): 2769-2450

Publication date Created: June 2023

Publication date (Electronic): April 04 2023

Publication date (Print): June 2023

Volume: 2

Issue: 2

Affiliations

[1 ] Faculty of Pharmacy University of Lagos Lagos Nigeria

[2 ] Department of Public Health Federal University of Technology Owerri Owerri Nigeria

[3 ] School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs Northeastern University Boston Massachusetts USA

[4 ] Department of Global Health and Development London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London UK

[5 ] Faculty of Management and Development Studies University of the Philippines Open University Los Baños Laguna Philippines

[6 ] Faculty of Public Health Mahidol University Bangkok Thailand

Article

DOI: 10.1002/puh2.83

SO-VID: dfafda51-62df-49f2-9d67-8239ff88c274

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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The Plastic treaty: What is in it for Africa?

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Most cited references 13

Discovery and quantification of plastic particle pollution in human blood

A global mass budget for positively buoyant macroplastic debris in the ocean

Challenges and emerging solutions to the land-based plastic waste issue in Africa

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Cited by 5

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