The DOI matches its Crossref record; 12 of the 12 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Plastics, the environment and human health: current consensus and future trends
Open accessAbstract
Plastics have transformed everyday life; usage is increasing and annual production is likely to exceed 300 million tonnes by 2010. In this concluding paper to the Theme Issue on Plastics, the Environment and Human Health, we synthesize current understanding of the benefits and concerns surrounding the use of plastics and look to future priorities, challenges and opportunities. It is evident that plastics bring many societal benefits and offer future technological and medical advances. However, concerns about usage and disposal are diverse and include accumulation of waste in landfills and in natural habitats, physical problems for wildlife resulting from ingestion or entanglement in plastic, the leaching of chemicals from plastic products and the potential for plastics to transfer chemicals to wildlife and humans. However, perhaps the most important overriding concern, which is implicit throughout this volume, is that our current usage is not sustainable. Around 4 per cent of world oil production is used as a feedstock to make plastics and a similar amount is used as energy in the process. Yet over a third of current production is used to make items of packaging, which are then rapidly discarded. Given our declining reserves of fossil fuels, and finite capacity for disposal of waste to landfill, this linear use of hydrocarbons, via packaging and other short-lived applications of plastic, is simply not sustainable. There are solutions, including material reduction, design for end-of-life recyclability, increased recycling capacity, development of bio-based feedstocks, strategies to reduce littering, the application of green chemistry life-cycle analyses and revised risk assessment approaches. Such measures will be most effective through the combined actions of the public, industry, scientists and policymakers. There is some urgency, as the quantity of plastics produced in the first 10 years of the current century is likely to approach the quantity produced in the entire century that preceded.
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Citations
Cites
Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments
Barnes, D. K. A., Galgani, F., Thompson, R. C., & Barlaz, M. (2009) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0205 · Cited by 6,126
Self-citationPlastics Recycling: Challenges and Opportunities
Hopewell, J., Dvorak, R., & Kosior, E. (2009) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0311 · Cited by 3,201
Transport and release of chemicals from plastics to the environment and to wildlife
Teuten, E. L., Saquing, J. M., Knappe, D. R. U., Barlaz, M. A., Jonsson, S., Björn, A., Rowland, S. J., Thompson, R. C., Galloway, T. S., Yamashita, R., et al. (2009) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0284 · Cited by 2,938
Self-citationBrowne, M. A., Dissanayake, A., Galloway, T. S., Lowe, D. M., & Thompson, R. C. (2008) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/es800249a · Cited by 2,263
Self-citationDecrease in anogenital distance among male infants with prenatal phthalate exposure
Swan, S. H., Main, K. M., Liu, F., Stewart, S. L., Kruse, R. L., Calafat, A. M., Mao, C. S., Redmon, J. B., Ternand, C. L., Sullivan, S., et al. (2005) · Environmental Health Perspectives · doi:10.1289/ehp.8100 · Cited by 1,586
Self-citationBiodegradable and compostable alternatives to conventional plastics
Song, J. H., Murphy, R. J., Narayan, R., & Davies, G. B. H. (2009) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0289 · Cited by 971
Phthalates and other additives in plastics: human exposure and associated health outcomes
Meeker, J. D., Sathyanarayana, S., & Swan, S. H. (2009) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0268 · Cited by 835
Self-citationSynthetic fibers as an indicator of land application of sludge
Zubris, K. A. V., & Richards, B. K. (2005) · Environmental Pollution · doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2005.04.013 · Cited by 723
Exposure to Bisphenol A and Other Phenols in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Premature Infants
Calafat, A. M., Weuve, J., Ye, X., Jia, L. T., Hu, H., Ringer, S., Huttner, K., & Hauser, R. (2009) · Environmental Health Perspectives · doi:10.1289/ehp.0800265 · Cited by 374 · cited 4×
“…exposure of adults in the USA to BPA is likely to occur from multiple sources and that the half-life of BPA is longer than previously estimated, and the very high exposure of premature infants in neonatal intensive-care units to both BPA and phthalates is of great concern (Calafat et al. 2009).”
InfluentialUNEP/IOC Guidelines on Survey and Monitoring of Marine Litter.
Cheshire, A. C., Adler, E., Barbière, J., Cohen, Y., Evans, S., Jarayabhand, S., Jeftic, L., Jung, R. T., Kinsey, S., Kusui, E. T., et al. (2009) · United Nations Environment Programme · doi:10.25607/obp-726 · Cited by 346
Cited by
Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean
Jambeck, J. R., Geyer, R., Wilcox, C., Siegler, T. R., Perryman, M., Andrady, A., Narayan, R., & Law, K. L. (2015) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1260352 · Cited by 13,163
Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments
Barnes, D. K. A., Galgani, F., Thompson, R. C., & Barlaz, M. (2009) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0205 · Cited by 6,126
Self-citationMicroplastics as contaminants in the marine environment: A review
Cole, M., Lindeque, P., Halsband, C., & Galloway, T. S. (2011) · Marine Pollution Bulletin · doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2011.09.025 · Cited by 6,023
Accumulation of microplastic on shorelines woldwide: Sources and sinks
Browne, M. A., Crump, P., Niven, S. J., Teuten, E., Tonkin, A., Galloway, T., & Thompson, R. (2011) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/es201811s · Cited by 4,548
Self-citationThe Physical Impacts of Microplastics on Marine Organisms: A Review
Wright, S. L., Thompson, R. C., & Galloway, T. S. (2013) · Environmental Pollution · doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2013.02.031 · Cited by 4,524
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Metadata
- Authors
- Thompson, R. C., Moore, C. J., vom Saal, F. S., & Swan, S. H.
- Venue
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2009-07-27
- Volume
- 364
- Issue
- 1526
- Pages
- 2153-2166
- ISSN
- 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2970
- OpenAlex
- W2119654329
- Cited by
- 3,032
- References
- 12
- FWCI
- 22.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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