It’s Time to Break Up with Plastic

Whether you’re celebrating love this month or not, it’s always a good time to celebrate yourself. But is it contradictory to treat yourself to a new workout class, elaborate coffee drink, or end-of-long-day takeout if those precious indulgences often come with an equal amount of hormone-disrupting toxins?

If you were triggered by that question, same. As a microplastics expert with 10 years of experience collecting plastic pollution samples across the world and communicating the science of plastic’s toxicity to audiences of all types, I could preempt the defensiveness that might have come from my posing the question above.

Here’s my take: the only thing worse than the possible health impacts of plastic and microplastics, is stressing about the possible health impacts of plastic and microplastics. And I say that as someone who knows the stakes here. Yes, microplastics and the toxins that bind to them have pretty strong negative human health implications. But taking action to change our habits for the better is most effective when it comes from an empowered, informed, and connected place. And a note, many people don’t have that luxury – the plastics industry most strongly impacts the health of predominantly lower-income folks globally.

So, what does it mean to be empowered, informed, and connected on the topic of plastics and microplastics in our everyday world? Let’s break it down.

Empowered: There are 1 million ways to take action to shift the tides, and you do have immense power. If microplastics can have such a macro impact, then so can each of us. Here are some amazing concrete steps that you can start, today:

Don’t eat hot food or drinks that have been in plastic, especially black plastic. Toxins from plastic containers leach when heated. Unfortunately, this goes for regular hot coffee cups, which are lined with plastic and leach more microplastics than bottled water!

Switch your workout and sauna clothes to non-plastic alternatives. When we sweat, our pores open letting more toxins in. Limit polyester and nylon, and opt for natural fibers. Some great alternatives are Reprise Activewear, Jungmaven, Hardtail, MATE, and Pact.

Get involved in achieving a tiny, local win. Local impact matters the most, and what you think is a small step isn’t. This could be getting your child’s school to ditch plastic at lunch, your local cafe to ditch plastic straws, or even voicing your support for plastics regulation in your city or state. There’s plenty!

Informed: Understand how bad plastic really is for our health. There’s so much confusing information circulating in the ether, that if I wasn’t an insider my head would be spinning. “What does it mean that there’s an equivalent size of a plastic spoon in my brain?!” Let’s cut to the chase: in environmental law, there’s a famous concept called the precautionary principle. It means that if something seems to be a risk, we should take action to limit that risk before waiting to know the granules of exactly how bad the risk is.

Plastics are made from fossil fuels, and refined through many chemical processes into materials that we use all day. Lots of classes of chemicals in plastic are known toxins. Many are endocrine disruptors, meaning they have the ability to mess with the hormonal processes of our bodies. And on a scarier level, there is new research everyday that draws connections even closer: recently, a study was released that showed that people with plastic in certain neck arteries had a significantly higher risk of heart attack and death. And we know that microplastics cross the placenta into fetuses, which are most at risk for being affected by endocrine disrupting chemicals associated with plastics. So in short, yes, plastics are bad, and while we don’t know exactly how bad, we have plenty of science to show that we should be limiting our exposure and plastic production.

Finally, connected: Community is everything. Learning new information and making lifestyle changes is so hard to do alone. And there’s no reason we should be taking action alone. Cultivate community around these topics, ask your friends and family what they’re feeling about this issue, and find new community who can act as your gentle accountability buddies.

Remember, progress over perfection. But loving yourself and others – including folks you don’t even know – does indeed mean breaking up with plastic.