Plastic Pollution: How Can the Global Health Community Fight the Growing Problem?

Correspondence to Dr Dieudonne Bidashimwa; dbidashimwa@ fhi360. org © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Reuse permitted under CC BYNC. No commercial reuse. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. BACKGROUND Plastic pollution is a global crisis of increasing scale and severity. From the extraction of raw materials for production to the ultimate disposal of massive waste, plastics impact negatively several environmental domains, animal health and potentially human health, with possible global health and social implications. These effects of plastics are poised to increase with the rate of pollution. The annual rate of mismanaged endoflife plastic entering terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems will respectively reach 11 million tons and 18 million tons per year in 2040, more than double those of 2016. These threats are being recognised and challenged through global agreements spearheaded by the United Nations (UN) and other international bodies to prevent, reduce and control plastic pollution. Individual nations are also taking action, with bans in over 120 countries on selected singleuse plastics. Despite concrete and coordinated preventive and mitigation measures, growing plastic production, overreliance on singleuse plastics, ineffective waste management, and slow decomposition are leading to a significant worsening of pollution and associated impacts. 7 Pollution—‘unwanted waste released to air, water and land by human activity’—is increasingly recognised as a threat to human health, yet the growing burden of plastic pollution specifically does not appear to be a priority on the agenda of the global public health community [Global health is defined as ‘an area for study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide. Global health emphasises transnational health issues, determinants and solutions; involves many disciplines within and beyond the health sciences and promotes interdisciplinary collaboration; and is a synthesis of populationbased prevention with individuallevel clinical care’.]. Guided by a mission to promote health and reduce health inequities within human populations, the global health community is encouraged to take a multisectoral view and join the movement combatting the plastic pollution crisis. 13 The aim of this paper is to raise global health professionals’ awareness of the problem posed by plastic pollution and to propose what can be done in response. We begin by making the case that plastic pollution is a One Health problem because of interconnected impacts on environmental, animal and human health. We SUMMARY BOX