Bottled water is a big no, no!

So I stumbled across a couple of articles this week that caught my attention. As an avid drinker of bottled water, I was surprised to see a headline telling me to stop if I don't want to get sick! Water? Sick?! What?! Here's the low down...

Chemicals used in producing these bottles and aluminum cans, known as bisphenol A (BPA) have been studied, with the results suggesting that this chemical contributes to health problems such as heart disease and cancer. The test took place in the US, where half the test subjects were asked to drink soy milk from a can, lined with BPA, and the other half from a glass bottle. Soy milk was chosen because it is known to not have any effects on blood pressure. They took urine samples before and after drinking, and found that within a few hours, those who drank from a can as opposed to a glass bottle, had levels of BPA that rose 16 times higher. Blood pressure also increased; they took a systolic blood pressure reading (the top number from a blood pressure reading), which revealed that the mercury in the blood increased on average by 5 mm. It is known that every 20 mm increase can double the risk of cardiovascular disease. This is because BPA can block estrogen receptors whose sole purpose is to repair blood vessels and control blood pressure. Although these effects weren't long lasting, it doesn't take a genius to understand that constant consumption from cans and bottles allows the level of BPA to increase overtime, leading to long term health problems, like hypertension (high blood pressure) (New York Times 2014).

It's interesting to note that in 2012, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of BPA in baby products such as bottles and cups, due to “some concern about the potential effects of BPA on the brain, behavior and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and children”. In 2010, Canada branded the chemical as a toxic substance, also banned in child and infant products.

Why have they not introduced this as a law for it to be banned in general? Maybe it's because some scientists have said they have found no concrete evidence that BPA is the cause for heart conditions, there's just a correlation between the two. I think it's probably down to the usual, money and business side of things.

Some companies are labeling their plastics and cans as 'BPA free' to encourage consumers, but don't be fooled! When a chemical is taken away, it's normally replaced with something else... in this case it's most likely bisphenol S, or BPS. This chemical hasn't been studied as much, but the University of Calgary tested both the chemicals on zebrafish, because they share around 80% of the same genes as humans. They found ''abnormal growth surges in neurons, which resulted in hyperactivity'', but the American Chemistry Council released this statement soon after those results were published, "The relevance of this limited study on zebrafish, as asserted by the authors, is not at all clear, and it would not be scientifically appropriate to draw any conclusions about human health based on this limited experiment.", and also went on to say that the levels of BPS that the fish were exposed to were a lot higher than any human would be ingesting. There's yet to be a response from the FDA, but give it a few more years for scientists to gather conclusive evidence, and hopefully some laws will be put in place regarding this chemical.

Of course it's not just your health it can hurt, the environment gets a bashing! All that plastic produced and left to do it's own harmful thing (my previous blog touches on the affects of plastic in the oceans), and all the energy used to produce these bottles, leaves it's mark. According to the United Nations Environmental program, 22-43% of plastic worldwide is dumped in a landfill site; 10-20 million tons of plastic ends up in the oceans annually. This plastic pollution is estimated to cost $13 billion annually, due to the damage caused on the marine ecosystem, as well as the cost of the clean up. Tourism and local water-based businesses such as fish farms are also included in this estimation of money loss, due to the impacts it has on the marine life, and the collection of mass plastics at certain sites.

So what can you do?

Try and stay away from packaged food and drinks contained in cans/tins/plastic. As a rule of thumb, if the plastic bottle has the number 7 in a triangle, stay away from it! It means that it's made of a 'miscellaneous' plastic that doesn't fit into other categories, with BPA being one of these. Also stay away from 3 and 6, as these contain polyvinyl chloride and polystyrene, respectively. These are known to be harmful too.

What you're looking for on a plastic container SOURCE

Put down that beauty scrub!

Microplastics are pretty self explanatory; they're pieces of plastic at a very small scale, 1-5mm in width. They are found in a variety of places, one of them being cosmetic products! Ever used a face scrub? Or even whitening toothpaste? If so, you've helped contribute these microplastics to enter the marine environment ... this is a problem!

Why?

Well, microplastics are divided into two sub categories; 'primary microplastics' - manufactured and used in products/by humans, and 'secondary microplastics' - broken down microscopic pieces from larger plastic debris. Both kinds cause a big threat to the environment.

Plastic has been considered to be a brilliant, synthetic material, due to its versatility. It's cheap, durable, strong, easy to mould, lightweight, and a great substitute for expensive materials e.g. cosmetic products use microplastics as exfoliators, instead of using natural ones like pumice and ground almonds. However, these features that make plastic a desirable material for manufacturers to use, proves problematic. Because they are durable and resistant to corrosion, it means that they stay in the environment for a very, very long time. They're also a lot less dense than water, which makes them easily transported around the globe via currents. Industrial coastal areas, gyres (large scale system of circulating ocean currents), and shorelines are the most commonly found areas containing washed up microplastics; currently, the maximum amount of microplastics found in an area was 100,000 particles m³, in Sweden. Annual production of plastic has increased a gigantic amount, from 1.5 million tonnes back in 1950, to a current annual record of 290 million tonnes! Needless to say, that is a lot of plastic.

They pose a threat to the environment because marine animals are ingesting these plastics. Marine life consists of organisms, large and small. Filter-feeders are of major concern, because they capture and ingest anything of a particular size, which these microplastics fall into. Larger species like whales are also targets by the way they ingest; they can take up to 70,000 litres of water in one gulp, which can contain thousands of microplastics! (Wright & Thompson 2013)

Below is an image that sums up the pattern of these microplastics quite well:

It's a good example to explain how these microplastics are able to enter the food chain within the marine ecosystem. Filter feeders and suspension feeders ingest these plastics, but then release them in fecal matter, which then gets ingested by deposit feeders, after the plastic has drifted further down into the water. This is such a problem, because it means that these microplastics are spread far more easily around the oceans and waters, and at greater depths.

It's not just these small feeders, a study by Murray and Cowie found that crustaceans and fish have been reported to contain plastic in their gut: '83% of animals collected from the Clyde Sea contained plastic, nylon-strand balls. Laboratory-based feeding experiments using ‘seeded’ fish revealed 100 per cent of individuals ingested and retained 5 mm nylon rope fragments'. Seabirds have also been found to contain plastics in their guts, with a staggering 90% of the world population estimated to be affected.

A carcass of an albatross containing a whole lot of plastic in its gut. Source: Chris Jordan photography

These plastics can do quite a lot of damage to these poor creatures. They can cause blockages in their digestive system, which results in starvation and death. They can also confuse the animal by thinking it's full, which again leads to starvation and death! Death by internal damage from sharp edges, toxins being absorbed... the list is endless. They can also latch on to the outside of species, like algae. This binding has proven to be problematic because it stops the process of photosynthesis to happen, due to oxygen and light being blocked and not absorbed.The binding nature of these microplastics is also a concern, because it means that synthetic/natural organic pollutants can stick to them, and then be transferred many miles away, with the potential to affect human life, not just marine (Zarfl and Matthies, 2010). Here is a list of chemical organic pollutants that have been found in the oceans and what they can do:

• Aldicarb – High toxicity to the nervous system
• Benzene – Chromosomal damage, anaemia, blood disorders, leukemia
• Carbon tetrachloride – Cancer to the liver, kidney, lung, and Central nervous system damage
• Chloroform – Liver and kidney damage
• Dioxin – Skin disorders, cancer, genetic mutations
• Ethylene dibromide – Cancer and male infertility
• Polychlorinated biphenyl – Liver, kidney and lung damage
• Trichloroethylen – In high concentrations, liver and kidney damage, also skin problems, and suspected cancer mutations
• Vinyl chloride – Liver, kidney and lung damage

These are currently considered to be at low levels, and are unlikely to have a great impact on a global scale. However, species considered to be higher up in the food chain are known to carry these chemicals among their flesh. If this spreads, it's very likely that these chemicals can reach humans.

What can we do?

The 'Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation' are currently trying to get a national ban for the use of microplastics in cosmetics and household items. Industries need to find a way to use less plastic, under the guidelines of Source Control (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink). Rather than taking these shortcuts by replacing safe, organic products with plastic, find a way to incorporate them that's economically effective. Oh, and RECYCLE! Do we need to keep on producing such vast levels of plastic annually if the option and technology is there for us to reuse what we already have?!

Novel Entities

So you've seen me mention these 'novel entities' a few times now, and I've kept you waiting to find out exactly what they are!

Novel entities are also known as chemical pollutants, which might help you guess what they are. They're compounds (something composed of two or more elements) that affect not only human health, but the environment too, seen at local and global scales. Radioactive and organic compounds are the main pollutants, including organic polymers and plastic polymers that degrade into microplastics. Heavy metals are also considered to be a novel entity, as are manufactured chemicals.

The reason why they're such a concern is because of how durable they are, and how their chemical make-up can be distorted and changed to something far more harmful. Not forgetting to mention the fact that there's around 100,000 different chemicals being traded globally (the figure is ever increasing as more and more are being produced). Their ability to travel on a global scale is also a problem, and these novel entities can have a major impact on the Earth systems; this is because they release chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere. You may have heard of these before, they're released into the atmosphere by aerosols, fridges, solvents, etc.. Once considered completely harmless, but we have seen these CFCs have a negative impact on the stratosphere. Professor Rowland and Dr Molina from the University of California proved in 1974 that they undergo 'photolytic decomposition by UV radiation', which produces inorganic chlorine that has destroyed parts of the ozone layer.

This is a good example for another reason why they're a problem... they can alter some of the other planetary boundaries; the destruction of the ozone layer relates to the 'Stratospheric Ozone Depletion' boundary. The Climate Change boundary can be affected by heavy metals, released into the atmosphere by coal burning - mercury in particular. The Biosphere Integrity boundary can be compromised from the inhalation/digestion of these chemicals, eventually eliminating entire species.

Why are there no threshold boundaries?

Rockstrom and Steffen never went into much detail as to why the boundary had no quantified limits (they have rough estimates), but in their first paper, they suggested to focus on 'persistent pollutants' that are used globally, and to observe long term effects on living organisms from chemical pollutants.

Persson et al 2013 explored the idea and came up with a way to define these limits. They proposed that novel entities aren't a stand alone planetary boundary, but can dictate the behaviour of others if certain conditions are met. These conditions are:

1. The chemical or mixture of chemicals has a disruptive effect on a vital Earth system process.

2. The disruptive effect is not discovered until it is, or inevitably will become, a problem at a planetary scale.

3. The effects of the pollutant in the environment cannot be readily reversed.

If ALL of these conditions are met, only then can a chemical/compound be considered as a planetary boundary threat.

But really, these don't explain anything! (In my opinion) They summarise that we do not know what effects these chemical pollutants are having on the Earth system, and we probably won't find out what effect it does have until it's too late! Not very helpful!

They do however explain that it is important to test all of these chemicals in a controlled environment in order to see what impact they could have on our Earth systems. Things like measuring toxicity levels, for all species, and of course global concentrations of chemicals.

Currently, we do not know what the global levels are for these chemical pollutants, nor do we know their effects. All we can do right now, is keep an eye on these levels, to notice any changes to the Earth system that seems problematic. Sounds like trial and error to me, which isn't very conclusive!

Planetary Boundaries

Back in 2009, two scientists, Johan Rockström and Will Steffen introduced the concept of planetary boundaries. They presented this information to all the relevant people who work in government, science, public sector, private sector... basically all the people that should/need to be concerned with sustainable development. This year, they updated their research and produced a recent paper on this concept (they gathered more data essentially, that allowed them to be more specific with their theory).

The idea is that the Earth is treated like a framework, which is very sensitive to change. What drives these changes? Human activity, and what it does to the global environment. Rockstrom and Steffen (along with 26 other academics) broke down this framework into nine different 'planetary boundaries':

• Climate Change
• Biosphere Integrity
• Biogeochemical flows (sulphur and nitrogen cycles)
• Ocean Acidification
• Land-System Change
• Freshwater Use
• Stratospheric Ozone Depletion
• Atmospheric Aerosol Loading
• Novel Entities a.k.a Chemical Pollution

Each boundary has three thresholds, where most of them can be defined by controlled variables such as temperature, sea level, amount of chemicals found in the atmosphere, etc., and each threshold has a range of values, because the Earth is just too complex to pin-point exact figures.

The 'below boundary' (the safe zone) is where any change to these variables is seen to not have a negative affect on a continental or global scale to the environment;

The 'zone of uncertainty' is where we have evidence that the variables have reached a point where change in the environment is being noticed, but isn't necessarily detrimental;

And then there's 'Beyond the zone of uncertainty', which is deemed 'unsafe' as it is definitely causing a change that is (most likely) not reversible.

Rockstorm and Steffan, have come to the conclusion that two of these boundaries have entered the danger zone (beyond the zone of uncertainty). Biosphere Integrity - Genetic Diversity (we have seen the extinction rate of species increase significantly from 0.1-1 extinctions per million species-years, to >100 E/MSY); Biogeochemical Flows (the use of fertilisers and burning of fossil fuels has increased the level of Nitrogen which is polluting water systems).

Interesting to note that in their original 2009 report, they concluded a crossing of zones within three boundaries! The third being (shocker) Climate Change, but since then it's no longer in the danger zone... very interesting! Why not?!

All but three of the boundaries have definite quantified limits: Biosphere integrity - functional diversity, novel entities and atmospheric aerosols. Why? Because there just isn't enough data (yet!) regarding the usage and impact, however, they do have proposed boundary zones.

I'm going to be focusing on these novel entities, and what evidence there is that they are affecting the environment. Maybe in my research, I'll help find what the quantified limits should be!

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead