Many thanks to Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) graduate student Shiyuan Liao for an objective and sobering webinar presentation about the uses and risks of plastics in our supply chains and product lines. The webinar was sponsored by SolPods, a nonprofit student-focused community in the sustainability field, and introduced by its Co-Founder and Executive Director Amy Farrell.
Here in the energy corridor of Houston TX, plastics is a major industry sector. Petroleum (i.e. crude oil) is transformed into petrochemicals, which in turn is utilized to manufacture plastics. Thus, plastics is a significant wealth driver in our regional economy.
The recent news of microplastics being detected in human brains reminds some of the historic case of the now-banned insecticide DDT entering human bodies through the food chain and then causing damage in successive generations that inherit the chemical as fetuses.
Fortunately, unlike the situation in the DDT case, medical researchers have not definitively identified any harmful impacts of the presence of these microplastics in human bodies. Nevertheless, it is obviously a potential concern, one that was addressed by Shiyuan Liao in the Q&A discussion after her presentation.
Interested in learning more about the topic? You may wish to reference the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board's measurement and reporting standards for Chemicals. It can be accessed by visiting the "Resource Transformation" industry sector of the SASB standards.
Plastics and microplastics are also covered by the Global Reporting Initiative's standards for Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Fishing (GRI 13), for Materials (GRI 301), and for Waste (GRI 306). Although the first standard only applies to a single industry sector, the latter two apply to every sector.
Finally, the Target Indicators of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals covers plastic debris density in SDG 14.1 (Life Below Water, Marine Pollution).
Incidentally, these resources are all freely viewable or downloadable on the following web pages:
https://sasb.ifrs.org/find-your-industry/
https://globalreporting.org/standards/download-the-standards/
As you can see, the topic of plastics is a deeply complex one. Again, many thanks to Shiyuan Liao and SolPods for educating us on the subject matter.