[All-postdocs] Plastics and human health talk - Sarah Dunlop - 2 PM TODAY!

[Mark E Hahn]

Biology Department FYI (see attached flyer for more info):



Plastics and human health – making the invisible visible

Dr. Sarah A. Dunlop

Head, Plastics & Human Health, Minderoo Foundation

TODAY!  Wednesday, April 19, 2023 – 2 pm, Clark Lab 507



Abstract

Plastic, 99% of which is made from fossil fuels, is the signature material of our age and one that has yielded multiple benefits to civil society. However, there are significant costs to planetary health and human health across the plastic life cycle. Most obvious is the visible plastic pollution that reaches every corner of the planet, in particular the ocean, and yet we have not yet been able to stop the pollution. The Minderoo Foundation seeks to solve intractable problems and the Plastics Initiative’s goal is to eliminate the harmful effects of plastic on people and the planet, with a current focus on the Global Plastics Treaty. The Plastics and Human Health program puts human health centre-fold by undertaking extensive literature reviews and supporting keystone research thereby ‘making the invisible visible.’ We examine the less obvious, namely, the toxic chemicals that are released during plastics’ production, use and disposal, which are detected in many different types of human biospecimens. These chemicals harm multiple aspects of human health across our lifespan from the unborn fetus, at birth as well as in children and adults, with particular impacts on the poor and vulnerable in both the Global North and South. In addition to chemical leakage, although we know that micro- and nanoplastics are shed during production, use and disposal, we know far less about their direct impacts on human health, largely due to lack of reliable measurement techniques. We therefore established the Minderoo Centre - Plastics & Human Health with a purpose-built plastic contamination-controlled laboratory to develop techniques to examine, for example, post-mortem human brain. With plastic production set to treble by 2060, harms will also increase and we call for reduced production, better regulation, extended producer responsibility and both social and environmental justice.

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biodep maillist  -  biodep at whoi.edu<mailto:biodep at whoi.edu>
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