Hold onto your reusable water bottles! 🚰 A new study just dropped, revealing that plastics are packing even more chemicals than we thought. Turns out, our daily plastics — from snack wrappers 🍿 to smartphone cases 📱 — may contain at least 3,000 more chemicals than previous estimates. That's a whole lot of hidden ingredients! 😱
Environmental agencies like the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) had estimated around 13,000 chemicals in plastics. But this fresh report by a team of European scientists found over 16,000 chemicals lurking in plastic products. And guess what? About a quarter of them could be hazardous to our health and the planet. 🌍💔
Dr. Jane Muncke, one of the report's authors, said, \"To really tackle plastic pollution, we need to look at the full life cycle of plastics and address the chemicals issue.\" 🔄🧪 The study, funded by the Norwegian Research Council 🇳🇴, comes at a crucial time as global leaders are working on the first-ever treaty to combat the plastic pollution crisis. 🌐🤝
With around 400 million tonnes of plastic waste produced every year — that's like throwing away nearly 1 million jumbo jets ✈️ — it's clear we've got a plastics problem. This study shines a spotlight 🔦 on the need for better regulations and innovations to reduce harmful chemicals in plastics.
So next time you're sipping from that plastic straw 🥤 or unwrapping a candy bar 🍫, remember: there's more to plastics than meets the eye. Time to rethink how we use and produce these materials for a healthier future! 🌱✨
Reference(s):
Study finds plastics contain more chemicals than previous estimates
cgtn.com
