By Will Atwater
Since the 1950s, plastic has seemingly become the Swiss Army knife of daily living. It’s in everything from medical devices and car parts to electronics, clothing and more. Plastic’s multifunctionality has helped drive down product costs across many industries, including plumbing, where PVC is a durable, less costly alternative to galvanized pipe.
Yet the same qualities that make plastic so useful — durability, light weight and low cost — also make it hard to avoid. Plastics and microplastics are now showing up in air, drinking water, food, household dust and beyond.
As evidence accumulates of people’s exposure to plastics — especially microplastics — many are growing concerned about how these particles and the chemicals associated with them may affect their health and are looking for ways to reduce the potential harm from a material woven into nearly every part of modern life.
A continuous stream of research suggests that the ingestion of microplastics by humans — particles 5 millimeters or less in size — may contribute to inflammatory bowel disease. Other studies indicate that microplastics can alter how hormones function in the body. A study published in 2019 estimated that humans may inhale between 74,000 and 121,000 microplastic particles annually.
These findings may leave people asking which exposures they can realistically control and which everyday changes might make a difference to their health.
A 2024 analysis by Duke University researchers of more than 2,700 plastic additives found that more than 150 are classified as cancer-causing. Meanwhile, roughly 90 percent of the additives they examined have never been adequately evaluated for cancer risk.
The authors found that many of these lesser‑known additives appear to disrupt the same biological processes as known cancer‑causing chemicals do.
Replacement chemicals
In a separate, 2023 analysis, Duke researchers estimated that plastic litter and mismanaged waste cost the United States between $436 billion and $1.1 trillion each year, once public health, environmental damage and economic losses are factored in. In North Carolina alone, the tab tops $56 million a year.
One of those costs is to human health.
“We have found altered reproduction, as well as cellular changes in organs like the liver and kidney following dietary exposures to microplastics,” said Melissa Chernick, a Duke University toxicologist. She’s been studying how plastic particles and their chemical additives affect zebrafish, which are used in medical research because they have a surprising number of genes that are similar to humans. In the lab, Chernick and her colleagues expose those fish, and others, to different types, shapes and sizes of plastic fragments through direct exposure in the water and by eating other fish that are contaminated.
“This suggests that the additives are leaching out of those plastics and are the cause of these changes,” she said at a presentation at the recent North Carolina Water Resources Institute’s annual conference. “Our follow-up experiments with just chemical additives support that they are enough to alter metabolism in fish.”
For Chernick and other researchers, that’s the larger issue as companies remove additives of concern. For example, a decade ago Bisphenol A, or BPA, received a lot of attention for the way it can mimic human hormones, and it was taken out of multiple products. But many of the substitutes have never been fully tested, they warn, and could be just as dangerous.
She emphasized that researchers still know little about what happens to these molecules once they’re in the human body: where they end up, how long they linger and whether current lab methods can even measure the effects accurately. She said the evidence so far is strong enough to warrant additional research, but it is not yet definitive enough to answer basic questions about all the plastic people carry around inside them, and how long it remains in the body.
Even as scientists untangle what’s inside plastic, communities are still grappling with the problem of how to get rid of our waste — and how to keep so much of it from leaking into the environment in the first place.
Forever plastics
At the heart of the problem is a broken recycling system, according to the World Health Organization. Many plastic items carry the recycling symbol but aren’t actually recyclable in most curbside programs. What is accepted for recycling often varies by city or county, depending on what a local contractor can sort, process or sell at a profit. That patchwork of rules leaves many consumers unsure about what belongs in their recycling bins and what doesn’t.
When nonrecyclable items end up in the cart, they can contaminate entire loads of material, sending more single‑use plastics to landfills and, eventually, into waterways. Investigations in recent years have shown that the plastics industry may have sold the public a bill of goods — heavily promoting recycling even as it knew most plastic was unrecyclable.
Environmental advocates argue that the combination of single‑use plastics flooding the market and a dysfunctional recycling system places the burden for managing all that waste squarely on consumers, while manufacturers and retailers largely avoid responsibility.
Now, there is a movement underway to shift more of that responsibility away from households and local governments and back to the companies that produce and sell single-use plastic.
What consumers can do
While policy changes and corporate accountability move slowly, advocates say the solutions have to operate on multiple levels. Recommendations include everything from policies that reduce how much plastic is produced and sold in the first place, to everyday choices that limit how much of it ends up in people’s bodies.
Scientists still don’t know exactly how plastic particles and additives move through, persist in, or exit the human body. Even so, Chernick and her colleague, Duke researcher Nishad Jayasundara, who leads the project, say it’s reasonable for people to treat the evidence as a warning sign and take simple steps to limit exposure where they can.
There are things consumers can do now, according to Chernick and Jayasundara, and others they suggest people consider when feasible:
Skip hot plastic water bottles
Avoid drinking from plastic bottles that have been sitting in a hot car or in the sun. When you can, switch to a reusable metal or glass bottle instead.
Don’t microwave food in plastic
Heat leftovers in a glass or ceramic dish first. Even if a plastic container says “microwave safe,” it’s safer to keep hot food away from plastic.
Choose less plastic around your food
Look for products with minimal plastic, especially where it touches your food or drink, and buy loose produce instead of items wrapped in plastic when your budget allows.
Swap out plastic in your kitchen
Replace plastic cutting boards with wood and use glass or metal containers for storing and carrying food instead of plastic lunch boxes and tubs.
Be mindful of microfibers from laundry
Choose clothes made of natural fibers like cotton, linen or hemp, because clothes made from synthetic fibers shed tiny plastic threads. Use a glove or paper towel to clean the dryer’s lint trap, then wash your hands afterward.
Consider filtering your drinking water
Consider using a drinking water filter, such as a reverse osmosis or a granular activated carbon system. These filters can help reduce microplastics in tap water and refilled jugs.
Pay attention to indoor dust
Microplastics are also in indoor air and dust. If possible, use a vacuum with a HEPA filter, and dust with cotton or other natural‑fiber cloths instead of microfiber to cut down on particles that settle on floors and surfaces.
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Recycling industry long-timer here. There are a lot of good points here, but we need to be very careful about how we talk about recycling and the recycling industry in these conversations. Articles like this saying “a broken recycling system is the heart of the issue” erodes the public’s confidence in their recycling programs because they imply that recycling doesn’t help, and that’s the last thing we need. The recycling system is not broken, and it is not to blame for the microplastics crisis, nor any waste crisis; it is one of the only activities that the public engages in that is actually helping.
The real issue is far bigger and harder to solve: we lack an intentionally designed system with a cradle-to-cradle model. We have the ability to design ourselves out of this waste crisis, but we’d have to invest a great deal of resources have much stronger regulation to achieve a truly circular economy.
Recycling began as a way to address the waste crisis, well before plastic was a prominent material in the waste stream; we also have glass, metals and fiber (paper). Recycling companies and government programs have worked to curtail the ever-growing disposable lifestyle that has emerged over the last several decades, while creating a positive economic impact. In the Carolinas alone, the recycling industry supports 16,000 jobs and billions of dollars in economic impact. Recycling is a reaction to what is being produced, and our system is not intentional. Products and packaging are usually designed without the end in mind. It’s true that product manufacturers have claimed and pushed out messages that their packages and products are recyclable, without regard in many cases to whether those products actually move through established recycling systems effectively. There are a few companies that intentionally design and create truly recyclable or sustainable packages of their own good will and, while inspiring, its niche.
The chasing arrows with a number that you find on plastics is called the resin identification code, it is an industry standard to simply identify what type of plastic a container is made from. It is not and never has been intended to indicate something is recyclable.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment and for sharing your perspective from inside the recycling industry. I also want to note that your submission was edited in line with NC Health News guidelines, which limit comments to about 350 words.
I understand your concern with the phrase “broken recycling system,” and I agree that recycling plays an important role in helping to limit litter and reduce the amount of material going to landfills and incinerators. My intent was not to place blame on recyclers or recycling programs, but to describe the system as a whole and where it is falling short. My reporting has found widespread public confusion: many people engage in “wish‑cycling,” and the resin identification (chasing arrows) symbols are often interpreted as meaning something is recyclable when that is not always the case. The U.S. also ships millions of pounds of scrap plastic abroad each year, and, as you noted, recyclers here struggle to make the economics work.
Taken together, these factors suggest that, if not broken, the current system is under significant strain and in need of major reform. I understand that many critics and experts point to measures such as extended producer responsibility and stronger product‑design requirements as key tools for improving the system, which aligns with your point about the need for more intentional, cradle‑to‑cradle design. Thank you for adding valuable nuance to this discussion and helping readers better understand where recycling fits into the larger picture.
Regards,
Will