Sydney University researcher Nick Chartres reviewed 3000 studies on the health effects of microplastics. The review was conducted by University of California.
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00:00We had a mix of human and also animal data, but primarily animal data was used, and what
00:07we found was we saw changes in things like organ length and function of the lung, but
00:15we also saw biological changes within the lung and also the colon, so these mechanistic
00:20changes which are linked to things like cancer.
00:24So we saw chronic inflammation quite high in the lung, and we also saw that quite high
00:28in the colon as well, consistently across all the studies that we identified, and this
00:33has been used now by different agencies around the world to identify predictors of cancer.
00:38This is important for people to understand, we have around 460 million metric tonnes of
00:43plastic being made each year, that's set to triple in the next 20 years, or next 30 years.
00:50We know that the primary proportion of plastic is from single use plastic, and 98% of that
00:55comes from fossil fuels.
00:57People need to understand that the fossil fuel industry is going to transition away
00:59from energy and transport in the next decade, obviously as we move away from it, and this
01:03is going to be the new revenue stream.
01:05So we're going to get exposed to more and more plastic, and as I said this bioaccumulates
01:08in our bodies, so we need to take action now and ban single use plastics.
01:11Just removing plastics from your environment at home is critical, that will reduce the
01:15exposure but again people need to understand the government needs to take action because
01:18we know this stuff is in our environment outside of our home, but yeah, remove as much plastic
01:22as you can at home, and obviously in food as well, try not to eat out of packets.