The Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics to track impact of plastic production and pollution on human health

(Press-News.org) Chestnut Hill, Mass. (8/4/2025) – With the latest round of negotiations to finalize a United Nations global plastics treaty set to begin, a group of international researchers, writing in the most recent edition of The Lancet, have called for greater vigilance and regulation to curb the health impacts of plastic pollution and have announced a new project to track these impacts.

An estimated 8 billion metric tons of plastic waste now pollute the planet. Across their lifecycle, plastics – including plastic chemicals - result in a range of adverse health outcomes, the researchers write in a Health Policy report for the British journal.

“We want to make people aware of the fact that plastic is not as safe, not as convenient, and not as cheap as they think it is,” said co-author and Boston College Professor of Biology Philip Landrigan, MD, director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health. “Plastics are made from fossil fuels, contaminate food and water, are tied to many human illnesses, and impose steep costs for medical care and environmental damage.”

Tracking these impacts and a range of public and private interventions to meet the expected goals of the UN treaty will be the focus of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics, a joint initiative of Boston College, Germany’s Heidelberg University, the Centre Scientifique de Monaco, and Australia’s Minderoo Foundation.

The Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics debuts Monday, August 4, and will be available at www.bc.edu/plastics-countdown, according to Landrigan, lead author of the landmark 2023 report of the Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health.

“The Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics is going to provide policy makers and the public with credible information on how we are addressing the global plastics crisis as the UN plastics treaty comes into force,” said Landrigan, “The countdown will track the effectiveness of the treaty by gathering information from around the world that is currently scattered across many databases and give us a coherent, up-to-date picture of what plastics are doing to human health,” Landrigan added.

Representatives from UN member states will gather in Geneva, Switzerland from August 5 – 14 for the anticipated final negotiations to complete a global plastics treaty to end plastic pollution. The mandate for these negotiations is to develop an international, legally-binding compact on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastic products.

Writing in The Lancet, Landrigan and an international team of scientists note that without changes, plastic production will almost triple between 2019 and 2060. They discuss evidence that plastics endanger human health at every stage of their life cycle – in production, use, and disposal – and highlights: 

●  The main driver of plastics’ worsening harms is continuing year-to-year increase in global plastic production.  Plastic production is on track to triple by 2060.

●  Airborne emissions from plastic production include particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides as well as hazardous chemicals to which plastic workers are exposed.

●  Plastic production is an important driver of climate change, releasing more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere each year than Brazil

●  Chemicals in plastics are responsible for many of plastics’ harms to health. There is strong evidence that these chemicals harm health at all stages of human life, with infants in the womb and young children especially vulnerable.

●  There is great lack of information about which chemicals are present in plastics, their production volumes, uses, and toxicity. Seventy-five percent of plastic chemicals have never been tested for safety.

●  Microplastic particles have been reported in human tissues and body fluids and are linked to heart disease and stroke. While further research is needed to understand the relationship of microplastics with health impacts, a precautionary approach is warranted.

●  An estimated 57 percent of plastic waste is burned in the open - a major source of air pollution in low- and middle-income countries.

●  Plastic waste can provide a habitat for mosquitoes to lay their eggs and for the growth of microorganisms, potentially contributing to the spread of malaria and dengue and to increasing antimicrobial resistance.

Modeled on the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, the Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics will identify and track a series of indicators that document the impacts of plastics and plastic chemicals on human health across all stages of the plastic life cycle. The first indicator report is expected in mid-2026.

Landrigan notes that the climate crisis and the plastics crisis are highly interconnected. Both arise from humanity's misuse of fossil fuels - gas, oil and coal.

“There is no understating the magnitude of both the climate crisis and the plastic crisis,” Landrigan said. “They are both causing disease, death and disability today in tens of thousands of people, and these harms will become more severe in the years ahead as the planet continues to warm and plastic production continues to increase.”

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