Meet Dr. Shanna Swan, one of the world’s leading reproductive epidemiologists and a longtime researcher of environmental chemicals and reproductive health.

For more than three decades, Swan has studied how endocrine-disrupting chemicals can affect hormones, fertility and human development. Her research has helped draw global attention to declining sperm counts and raised broader questions about how everyday  exposure to chemicals in our food, homes and environment may be affecting human health.

In a new conversation with EARTHDAY.ORG, Swan joins Jillian Semaan, Global Director of Food and Environment, to discuss the connections between plastics, food and fertility — and why those links may matter far beyond the laboratory.

The interview takes a closer look at the many ways people can come into contact with chemicals during an ordinary day. Swan discusses chemicals found in plastic, personal care and household products, food packaging, cookware and other common consumer goods.. She also explains why scientists are paying close attention to certain chemicals commonly found in consumer products and what researchers are still trying to understand about their effects on reproductive health.

But the conversation is not only about alarming statistics.

Swan also talks about practical steps people can take to reduce exposure in their everyday lives. From reconsidering t food storage and cookware to paying closer attention to household products and other common sources of exposure, the interview offers a more practical ways to limit exposure and make more informed choices. 

At the same time, Swan makes clear that individuals should not carry the full burden of protecting themselves. The conversation also explores the role of manufacturers, governments and chemical regulation — and what it means to decide whether a product is truly safe before it becomes part of everyday life.

From reproductive health e to the choices families make in the kitchen, Swan’s conversation with EARTHDAY.ORG highlights the connection between human health and environmental health — and why reducing harmful chemical exposures  matters for both people today and future generations.

Watch the full episode on Saturday, August 22nd. RSVP to receive a link to view the stream.

The post Everyday Chemical Exposures Put Us All at Risk appeared first on Earth Day.

Where human and environmental health intersect, Dr. Carlos A. Faerron Guzmán offers a perspective that goes beyond hospitals and medical treatment: planetary health.

In his discussion with an EARTHDAY.ORG educator Dennis Nolasco, Dr. Guzmán reflects on practical experience from his work as a physician in an Indigenous community in southern Costa Rica, highlighting how closely human health depends on the surrounding environment.

Set within the broader discussion of the Earth Week 2026, his message focuses on the idea that environmental conditions and human health are deeply connected. Dr. Guzmán argues that problems such as respiratory illness, extreme heat, limited access to nutritious food, infectious disease, and emotional stress should not be viewed in isolation from climate disruption. Rather than treating these issues as separate topics, Dr. Guzmán presents them as part of a larger system in which damage to air, water, land, and local environments directly affects people’s lives.

Dr. Carlos A. Faerron Guzmán is an international scholar and educator in global health whose work focuses on equality in healthcare. His teaching and research reflect a strong interest in how social and environmental conditions work together to shape well-being across communities. He holds leadership and academic roles at University of Maryland Baltimore, John Hopkins University, the InterAmerican Center for Global Health, the School of Professional Studies at Northwestern University, and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

Earthday.org’s 2026 theme, Our Power Our Planet, reflects how actions we take now can save us the invisible costs of climate change in the future. Our health starts with our environment, and we have the power to keep that environment clean and thriving.

Q: Carlos, welcome. You’ve worked on the frontlines where health and environment intersect. Was there a moment or experience that made you realize the planet’s health and human health can’t be separated?

I’ll say there was kind of a slow movement towards that recognition. Early on in my career as a physician working in an indigenous territory in southern Costa Rica I started understanding how these interconnections of health and the environment happened. I grew up mostly as a, let’s say, a city person. I didn’t fully understand out of lack of lived experience and somewhat ignorance how directly the environment actually shapes health, food, daily life and even things like our spirituality. So what I saw in that indigenous territory was that the environment was not something that was a backdrop to health, it was more or less the foundation of health.

A lot of times in urban life. It’s easy to think that health is managed in clinics. In that indigenous territory called La Casona It became very clear to me that actually health begins much, much earlier. In the land, in the soil, in the water, in the food systems and in the ecosystem — the other living beings that are surrounding us — and that experience really exposed that this way of understanding health from a very urban perspective is very very limited.

I say that cured me from that urban illusion. So when you see that food comes directly from the soil that you’re surrounded by, when you’re seeing that your health depends right on the water that’s in the river, and that even the identity of people are so tied to place. The idea that environmental degradation is separate from health really becomes very difficult to defend.

Q: For those hearing “Planetary Health” for the first time, how would you explain it in a way that connects to someone’s daily life? For example, what’s a simple way to see this link while walking through a city or sitting in a doctor’s office?

Planetary health is a simple idea. We can have layers of our understanding, but the simplest way to explain it is that the health of humans depends on the stability of the natural systems that support our well-being. The simplest way that we interact with natural systems is the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil where our food comes from, the climate that helps us live stably, so to speak. The ecosystems, the bees and the other aspects of living things that live with us. If those systems are degraded, then our health is deeply affected.

And whether you notice that immediately or not, those things are interconnected. So let’s say I’m gonna use an example from a normal city block anywhere in the world, and in that city block you can have things like excessive heat trapped in concrete. You can have pollution of the air coming from traffic. You can have little presence of greenery that provides little shade, creating a hotter environment. You’re seeing that in the neighborhoods that flood quite easily after heavy and extreme rains. You can even see it when you go to the supermarket. The quality of the food that we buy. Right? So in our daily lives, we’re encountering these ways in which natural systems degradation is starting to impact our health.

We as physicians, we’re also seeing this at the end of the process. We see more cases of asthma, more cases of heat stress, more cases of anxiety, more cases of infectious diseases, more cases of malnutrition because people are struggling to access healthy food.

And these are not separate problems. These are all interconnected through what we call global environmental change. So planetary health should not be thought about as an abstract environmental issue. It’s really about whether we can thrive breathing clean air or drinking safe water. And in general, just supporting those living conditions that support our health and the health of the other species that live with us.

This is why we call it planetary. Our planet Earth shows up in the conditions of our bodies. And that is because science keeps telling us this more and more. Everything is interconnected. 

Q: Where do you see climate change already showing up in people’s bodies or communities today — even in ways that aren’t labeled “climate-related”?

One thing I’ll say when we talk about planetary health, right, we’re not just talking about climate change. We’re talking about “everything” change, so to speak. We have huge changes in our biodiversity. We have huge changes in the quality of our soils. We have huge changes in the quality of our air, in the quality of our water.

We see changes happening at every single natural system that we know. And climate change is definitely one of those very prevalent symptoms of our larger syndrome. But I think one of the biggest misunderstandings is that climate change is a future problem.

It’s actually very visible in everyday health and in every person around the world. You see it in everything from worsening respiratory diseases and that changing towards not just someone that has asthma but has a more severe case of asthma, not someone that has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but has a more severe case of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Right. Because in a sense, right, the world is becoming hotter, becoming more polluted, and it’s making it harder for people to just get their daily necessities of clean air, clean water, good food, being met. 

I think even today, as we’re seeing it, due to ongoing geopolitical aspects and conflicts, we see it in our food systems. We see higher prices, we see reduced access.

And as changes in temperature and rainfall patterns really start being unpredictable, it affects what we call vector borne diseases like mosquitoes, and we see rising cases of things like dengue. And the numbers tell us if we don’t start changing the way we look at these challenges, these challenges are only going to get worse.

So climate change is already showing up in people’s lungs, people’s diets, people’s stress level, and every single choice they make in their daily lives. This is not something of the future.

This is something that’s happening right now. 

Q: You co-authored a recent Annual Reviews piece on Planetary Health: Focusing on the Intersection of Human Health and the Earth System. Which findings struck you most personally — something that surprised you or changed how you think about health care itself?

I’ll say the central message of that piece is that the Earth crisis is fueling a global health crisis.

And those things cannot be separated and understood in different policy realms or solution realms. They need to be seen as one and be tackled as one. And part of what we talk about in that paper is the transgression of what we’re now calling planetary boundaries, which are these limits which the best science deems is a safe living space for the majority of humanity.

So that’s what we call the concept of planetary boundaries. Anything above a planetary boundary is deemed unsafe for humans. So you think: how much climate change before it becomes unsafe? How much pollution before it becomes unsafe? How much biodiversity loss before it becomes unsafe? 

So the most recent assessment of the boundaries tells us that six out of the nine boundaries have already been transgressed to dangerous levels, which means that we are already operating outside much of the safe space and that human society is at high risk.

And we’re seeing that in everything from coastal Bangladesh to central Texas to the Amazon. We’re seeing it all over manifesting in different ways as a manifestation of the Earth crisis. And one of the things that in the paper we really emphasize is that the data keeps showing that health is often harmed before there’s actually a transgression of the boundary.

Especially health is mostly harmed in vulnerable communities. So there are communities already that are starting to pay the price of this Earth’s crisis very early. And these are communities all around the world.

And that challenges us to think that we shouldn’t wait until everything is color red and the alarms are ringing. Which is kind of what the Planetary Boundaries framework kind of depicts.

Q: Are you seeing momentum within the medical field toward viewing environmental protection as part of health care itself? What would help accelerate that shift?

Yeah, I’ll say there is momentum, but I’ll say also that the momentum is quite uneven and that it’s slower than what we want and what science would justify. So there is growing awareness, I’ll say that. There are more people around the world that are recognizing how the environment is interconnected with our health.

But that recognition is not necessarily leading to institutional change or systemic change. So that is still, let’s say, lagging a bit. And we still see that health systems around the world and education systems around the world are still treating the environment factor as kind of secondary rather than a core determinant of health. And this is a structural problem that we know is about training, it’s about finance, about governance.

And those are still organized in a kind of an old way where we’re treating illness rather than preventing it or promoting a healthier environment. So we need to change both in our imagination, how we do these things right and how we actually act. So we think at the Planetary Health Alliance that accelerating this shift means integrating planetary health into education, changing incentives, recognizing environmental risk as a clinical reality.

So we have training modules for clinicians and public health professionals that want to understand how do we actually go about doing this. 

And then there’s another aspect of planetary health that’s interesting around the medical field and health system, which is looking inwards, so to speak, and saying, “What’s my role in, you know, the environmental issues? How am I disposing my waste?”

There are countries where the footprint of a health system can be anywhere between 5 to 10% of the environmental footprint from that country.

So it’s not minor that we ourselves, from the health systems, the health professionals are part of the problem. And we could be doing more in that sense. So there’s kind of many ways or many paths that can lead to convergent solutions towards reaching that momentum that you were mentioning earlier.

And as I said earlier, part of the challenge is how do we distribute this momentum where it is mostly needed. Because right now there’s a handful of countries that are trying to advance this of university systems, of health systems, of policy and decision makers and many other actors that are trying to move forward. But we really need convergent actions.

And then because priorities are shifting in other parts of the world due to geopolitical, political circumstances and, you know, lobbying and many other things, then we see that momentum lagging or even, you know, struggling to pick up. So it’s unfortunate, but in the Planetary Health Alliance, I’ll say we’ve captured a lot of that momentum and we try to systematize it in order to be inspirational to others.

Q: You’ve argued that climate action is one of the most cost-effective public health investments. What does a prevention-focused health system look like in practice — and what would it take to move from treating illness to preventing it at scale?

In a lot of my classes, I usually tell my students when we think about prevention in health systems, we think about it too narrowly.

Our own definition of health is too narrow. And because our definition of health is narrow, then our actions are narrow. So we think about prevention and health systems on things like screenings and vaccines. But actually prevention is much more than that. It’s also about those very basic things like air, water, good housing, stable food availability, and the quality of that food.

Right. So securing all those aspects should also be part of what we understand as a preventative health system. So a preventative health system should not be thinking about things downstream. Yes it should, but we also should be looking at the upstream conditions as part of when we think about goals involved in health policy, not just external environmental issues.

When we think about, you know, a planetary-health-friendly health system. It’s more around a priority problem. And we really need to start getting our priorities straight as societies, as voters, as professionals of healthcare or professionals in education. In general the world really needs to start thinking about what it is that we want to do and what kind of future we want to create.

And I think one way to look at this is through one specific lens, which is climate action. It’s a very powerful health investment. It produces not just benefits for us today, but benefits for the people in the future. And all aspects of our health and our well-being will be improved through climate action.

I recently saw a cartoon that says, “What if we created a better world for nothing? And climate change was just a hoax?” If you think about it, it is like we could be creating a better world just because. Even if there was no climate change.

Climate change exists and it’s very real, but what’s stopping us from creating a better world? So I think, again, priorities need to be set out straight. This relates to people’s values, relates to constitutional values and many other things that I talked about a lot in my classes.

Q: You’ve said education is your passion. What’s one way we can better connect with people who don’t see climate change as personal yet — to make them realize it’s about their kids’ asthma, their food, their mental health?

There’s no one way. And if we had the one best way, we would be repeating and repeating and rinse and repeat.

But different parts of society, different geographies will react to different things. And I think understanding that is a good place to start. Now there is science that is telling us what type of messages tend to hit best with certain parts of communities and societies and professions. So even looking at that science is a good starting point.

But for the most, I think, we’re starting a lot of the time in the wrong place. We—and I might be even at fault at this at times—We start with abstract language, instead of things like lived experience.

So we start seeing climate change as personal. Not as global averages, but daily lives. As you were saying, impacting people’s asthma, the cost of food, the heat, the stress, the sleep. But even if you do that, there’s going to be a part of society that thinks that’s immune to that, right? Whether because they have strong social networks or they have high resources or simply they’re, you know, not empathetic.

And that’s where I think appealing to people’s values and common sense and common good is important. So, we need to bring it down to people’s personal lives. But still we know that more information is not always gonna lead people to change.

Education, as we traditionally think about—and you’re an educator, so you know what I’m talking about—Education is not about putting more information in people’s brains. It’s not just about giving more information, new information. It’s also about how we look at stuff. How we frame the challenges, how we frame that solution.

So kind of boiling it down to everyday climate and health connections, it’s about not just telling you these are the impacts, but reframing what actually counts as health issues. So how does this affect their body? How does this affect their family? How does this affect their communities? How does this affect the overall long term well-being of a country?

And we might start seeing that when that happens the conversation might change. So in Costa Rica, for example, we see this in Latin America in general. We start seeing people from all around the spectrum starting to recognize how, you know, the heavy rains, the dengue, the food insecurity—all these things are now made more explicit in the way we communicate them.

And asking people to reframe this is not just impacting a sector of society. It’s impacting the country as a whole. It’s impacting global as a whole. And we need to start thinking about solutions together. So the goal is to make climate change visible, not something that is abstract, not something that is distant. It’s bringing it to people’s day-to-day lives, but also bringing it to the things that they care about the most.

Q: You’ve spoken about how pollution shifts costs onto families and health systems. Can you walk us through an example of that “invisible bill” we’re all paying — and why prevention could actually save money and suffering alike?

Invisible bill is a good term because it tells us about the costs that we’re not seeing. When we pay for gas at the pump, when we pay for plastic in a supermarket, we’re not paying for the real cost of that.

There’s, you know, externalities that go into that production process to get from under the Earth to that gas pump that are not necessarily easily seen. and this is why the invisible bill is a good concept. 

So I’m going to go back to perhaps the example of the kid with asthma that’s exposed to polluted air from traffic or industry or the production of dirty energy. And that kid is developing asthma and having to visit the E.R. every now and then to get treatment and starts having issues to thrive because of this asthma and can’t control their asthma. 

So there’s, you know, the price we pay in the pump or the price we pay for energy. But there’s also kind of the invisible bill, as you were saying, which is the family that is paying for the medications, the clinical visits. How about that kid missing school and what that means for that kid’s life? How do we put a cost on that? How about future missing work or all the stress that is causing not just to the kid, but also the family?

And then there’s the health system. The health system is paying through emergency visits, long term care, increased demand, worker burnout. And all that is caused by us and air pollution or the way we produce our energy. The entity that is responsible for the pollution is not really paying for the damage.

And obviously this is one example, but it’s not limited to just asthma. It also applies to polluted water, heat-related illnesses, and food system impacts.

Um so we often say “profits are concentrated, but the damage is distributed.”

Q: Fixing “the air and water” can’t fall on individuals alone. What’s one bold move you’d like to see from governments, businesses, and health systems to anchor prevention in policy — not just personal choice?

Well, I don’t know if it’s bold but it seems rational. I’ll say that I’d like to see more rational decisions being taken. And one of the decisions or rational moves that we could take is apply a concept that’s been part of how we think about these challenges for a while in all policy frameworks.

Now we’re looking at planetary health in our policy. And that really means that all major decisions that countries and societies make—be it energy, economy, transport, housing, food—that the decisions aren’t made until we have clarity on what will be the impact on people’s wellbeing now and into the future.

So I don’t know if that’s bold, but I think that’s rational, right? Health shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be the central metric of whatever we do in policy. And there are frameworks to look at. And these are already being applied in certain parts of the world.

For our government it means embedding health into planning, into budgeting into regulation. But it also can apply for other stakeholders like businesses.

For businesses, it would mean recognizing that shifting a cost to society is unacceptable. That’s a value decision. And I think that decision needs to be made. But it also can be a carrot and stick, right? So governments can play a role in how businesses make those decisions, right? For families or for health systems, for example, that shifting means using the influence, right, and their knowledge and their accumulated trust, and that form of power that is not just economic, but health system has a lot of power in the form of influence and moral and knowledge and data, of course, that can advocate for this approach.

Q: If we reimagined health care as prevention on a planetary scale, what would that system look like? How would it feel different from today’s model?

So, if we were to design a planetary health intervention that can trickle down or go from bottom up and spread around the world, the world would look different, right? I mean, the system wouldn’t be organized as reactive. It wouldn’t wait until damages were caused to react. It would immediately start shaping the things that I’ve been mentioning. You know, how we organize cities, how we produce food, how we produce environment, or how we produce energy, how we treat the environment, right?

People would start experiencing health and well-being in a much different way. They would experience it in the walk in the park with the cleaner air. They would walk through safer neighborhoods. They would have more safe, stable conditions and predictable conditions to make better life decisions.

So the measure wouldn’t be things like how many people I treat or how successful were those treatments, but how many people I’m keeping on the healthy side, how well is the planet doing? How many diseases am I preventing? There would be different metrics there that will help us. Tell us if we’re being successful.

And today, the end stage parts of systems, like hospitals, are carrying the burden. In this planetary-health-forward world we would still need hospitals, of course, but they wouldn’t carry the burden. The burden would be distributed much more in the other systems that keep us well.

Q: As Earth Day 2026 approaches, what gives you hope?

One thing that keeps giving me hope over and over again is that when I look at what’s happening around the world, it’s that we know probably 90% of the solutions that we need to implement.

There’s clear strategies being created. There’s clear technology, there’s clear governance schemes, there’s clear policy packages. They’re clear metrics. We know that most of these things work. And we know what that looks like. We can imagine ourselves in that world of cleaner energy, better food systems, healthier cities, stronger preventative public health systems.

We’re not navigating in the dark, but there are definitely forces pushing against that. But, what I do admire for the people working in the frontlines is their consistent push forward that also gives me hope.

And thinking about it from a public health side, as a public health person myself, just thinking about these things as we’ve been saying, the interconnectivity of how one thing that moves forward can then have a trickle down effect on how other things happen. How just secure and safe water can have, you know, immense, immense consequences for good for the people that are accessing that safe water.

The same goes for food. With better quality of the food, with better access to food, people’s lives will get better, not just now, but into the future. To think about that baby in a womb, getting nutritious food and the life trajectory of that baby suddenly improves exponentially. So that gives me hope as well, that there are kind of lock on effects that we can have down the line that we know are possible.

And I think kind of the question now is how do we actually act on what we already know? And from the Planetary Health Alliance, we’ve been working hard with different sectors of society and stakeholders to try to see what is that best “how.” How do we take that knowledge that we’ve created, those technologies, those governance schemes, those policy packages, those behavioral changes, you know, those solutions from all sides and how do we best implement them? Because I think the alliance is in itself pushing forward and trying to find those convergent actors in order to do that more quickly and create that shift that we need.

The post Climate Change in Our Bodies and Our Communities: 22 Minutes with Dr. Carlos Faerron Guzmán appeared first on Earth Day.

It’s Halloween, which means costumes, candy, and scary movies. Fear turns to fun on October 31 because Halloween lets us seek scary thrills that can’t hurt us. When we feel like threats are closing in on us and things are getting truly scary, we just turn off the TV and turn on the lights. But there is one terror that we can’t escape, no matter the time of year.

We’re talking about climate change! Here are five of the scariest, most bone-chilling facts about climate change to get you in the mood for terror this season (and hopefully also scare you and your fellow trick-or-treaters into action to address it).

1. Within the next 2 decades, global temperatures are likely to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

In its highly-anticipated Sixth Report in 2021, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that a certain amount of global warming is locked in and is irreversible. They reported that from 2011–2020, the global temperature had already reached 1.1 degrees Celsius above 1850-1900 levels. 

In 2024, global temperatures rose above 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time, and if this trend persists, we will have failed to reach our climate goals established under the Paris Agreement. As climate change becomes more severe, it is predicted to increase the frequency of “fire weather”, kill 70-90% of coral reefs at 1.5 degrees Celsius warming, and raise our sea levels globally by .3 meters above 2000s level.

Scientists estimate that we are on track to reach the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold by 2030 and reach the “tipping point” for climate change. Although the 1.5 degree threshold is considered by the signatories of the Paris Agreement as an acceptable level of global warming, every “extra bit of warming increases the severity of many weather extremes, ice melt and sea-level rise.” Yet, little has changed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s like the movie Don’t Look Up; we know what’s happening but we aren’t doing enough to change the outcome.

In 2019, global carbon emissions from fossil fuels and industry reached a high of 36.44 billion metric tons. In 2020, emissions from fossil fuels and industry fell by 5.8 percent due to COVID-19 and the resulting economic crisis. Despite that year’s reverse trend, however, 2022 emissions were back up to 36.8 billion metric tons. In the latest estimates from 2024, fossil fuel and industry emissions reached a new record high of 37.41 billion metric tons of CO2.

Four years later, Professor Forster’s eerie words still hold true.

2. The last 7 years have been the warmest on record

In 2023, NASA announced that the summer of 2023 was the hottest summer on record globally, surpassing the intense heat experienced in 2016. One year later, 2024 is confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as the hottest year on record. 

And not only is food security severely at risk because of climate change, but our human security is as well. With temperatures rising due to climate change comes the risk of heat stress, the leading cause of weather-related deaths. 

As we enter the spooky season, the Washington Post reports that it will be an unseasonably hot one in the US. As a marine heatwave amplified by long-term global warming sweeps across the US, we are likely to experience temperatures above seasonal averages, with the Ohio Valley, Appalachians and Northeast predicted to experience 10 to 20 degree deviations.

 “Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important — the important things are long-term trends,” said Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Director Gavin Schmidt. The current long-term trend is that each year is getting hotter and hotter. 

Are you scared for our future, yet? Well get ready, because it’s going to get even scarier.

3. Our extinction rate is currently estimated to be 1,000-10,000 times the natural rate.

Imagine dressing up as a frog for Halloween and having to explain to younger generations what a frog was and why it’s gone. Currently it is estimated that  41%  of all amphibians species are at risk of extinction due to climate change — so this could be a reality if we don’t act soon.

Extinction is a natural phenomenon, claiming about five species per year. But some experts suggest we’re in the midst of the sixth mass extinction — one that is caused mostly by human activity.

According to a 2023 report, 48% of species are declining and on their way to extinction. It also revealed that the 33% of species listed as non-threatened by the IUCN Red-List are actually decreasing. By mid-century, over one third of the total species found on Earth are predicted to disappear because our extinction rate is currently 1,000 to 10,000 times the natural rate. In 2024, 21 species were declared extinct by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which tragically included the beloved Bachman’s Warbler.

Allowing this to continue is “a crime equivalent to tossing books from the Library of Alexandria thoughtlessly into a fire, erasing the shared inheritance of all mankind,” according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Science in a review from 2009.

Species diversity is crucial for ecosystem resilience, and without it, ecological communities will not have the strength to withstand change — especially not the change we’re throwing at them.

4. Climate change is already happening, and it’s detrimental to human life, too

The impacts to human health are much scarier than any child-eating clown movie.

Rising temperatures — coupled with cities that lack the capacity to minimize the accumulation and generation of urban heat and the increasing population of elderly — have increased heat-related deaths, according to an article published in 2024 by the World Health Organization.

A 2018 report concluded that the lack of adaptive capacities and effort toward reducing emissions threatens human lives and the national health systems people rely on, by pushing services to their limit and disrupting core infrastructure. Vulnerable communities are already being hit first and worst.

But hyperthermia is not the only risk climate change brings to human life. Pollution worsens air quality, and as of 2021, has been reported to be responsible for 1 in 8 deaths worldwide. This makes air pollution the second leading risk factor for death worldwide. 

A warming world also increases the intensity of natural disasters.

According to NASA, extreme wildfire activity has more than doubled worldwide.  This year, California saw one of the most destructive wildfires in US history in terms of loss of life, structural damages, and acres lost. In 2024, an intense wildfire in Chile killed 136 people, making it the deadliest disaster in the country since the 2010 earthquake and tsunami. Not only are the fires themselves deadly, but the smoke they produce is as well. As of this year, smoke from wildfires in Canada and the American West are predicted to cause more than 40,000 premature deaths per year. This is more than all the fatalities from car crashes in 2024. 

Hurricanes are reaching new extremes, too. According to scientists, 84% of Atlantic hurricanes between 2018 and 2023 were, on average, 18 mph stronger because of climate change. It has become immensely more difficult to escape these storms unscathed, and it will only get harder in the future.

Have you noticed that the Halloween season doesn’t feel the same either? If we can’t wear a full costume without sweating then something is wrong, right?

That’s because climate change is shifting the seasons. Over the past five decades, the vegetation season has become lengthened by an average of one month. This means that spring arrives earlier, while fall is delayed. This not only affects Halloween, but it might affect your Christmas plans too! Because of this change in seasons, many popular ski destinations around the world are forced to make their own artificial snow to stay open.

This change in season not only makes dressing up in a full-body werewolf costume uncomfortable but also disrupts the natural interactions between species, their habitats, and their migration patterns. 

BOO!

5. Many leaders still aren’t taking it seriously.

The world has been aware of climate change at least since the IPCC formed in 1988. Scientists and the public rallied around environmental policy, but many global governments had a different idea.

They were going to ignore it.

Countries contributing the most to global emissions have the best chance of curbing climate change, but leaders are doing little to address it.

Although it has been seven years since the Paris Agreement entered into force, none of the world’s major economies are on track to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

To outline steps to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to climate change, parties submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years. February 10 was the deadline to submit updated NDCs, however, some countries failed to submit theirs, including many of the world’s major polluters. Although the US submitted their NDCs, they have since withdrawn from the Paris Climate agreement. Climate literacy is among the climate goals that have missed the mark. Climate literacy (as supported by an integrated K-12 curricula) is needed to prepare youth with an understanding of the climate crisis and skills to create solutions, yet not one country has thoroughly addressed it within its NDC.

Everyone may die at the end of horror movies, but we don’t have to.

We’re not in a Hollywood studio, helplessly in the hands of sadistic screenwriters. We can actively choose to change the ending of our story — and for that we should feel hopeful.

In 2019, younger generations took matters into their own hands and started striking for the climate. They skipped school completely to plead for an end to inaction toward climate change and demanding world leaders to undertake environmental reforms. A 2021 study revealed that 83% of people aged 16-25 feel that we have failed to take care of our planet and concluded that it is vital for governments to take “urgent” action against climate change. In June of this year, UNICEF described this eco-anxiety as “an emergent mental health problem.”

The next UN Conference of Parties (COP30) will be held this November. In this international meeting of heads of state and governments and stakeholders, countries will have an opportunity to heighten their ambition on climate change. 

After decades of inaction on climate change, we don’t have any more time to spare before it’s too late. Join the movement and add your voice to this urgent call for change. You can sign the Global Plastics Treaty petition, and spread the word to your friends! Or, you can donate to our Canopy Project, which organizes tree plantings all over the world, and take the effort not to buy clothes that promote Fast Fashion.

This Halloween we must face our fears. The human-made monster that is climate change won’t go anywhere if you just close your eyes or turn off the TV. Action and advocacy are the only way to flip the script — and not wind up like your favorite victim at the end of the horror film.

The post 5 Climate Change Facts to Scare You Into Action This Halloween appeared first on Earth Day.

Updated: 9/22/2025

Over two billion metric tons of unsustainable, municipally generated waste are thrown away globally every year, entering our environment and impacting climate change, wildlife, and human health. If we continue practicing waste management strategies as we do today, the total waste generation for 2050 is projected to be around 3.78 billion metric tons if urgent action is not taken, representing an estimated 1.66 billion metric ton increase in waste since 2020. In other words, we are creating more trash than ever!

Sixty-two percent of global waste is collected in controlled municipal facilities, while the rest is dumped, burned, or discarded. Of the total municipal waste that is collected, only 19% is recycled and 30% ends up in sanitary landfills. Sanitary landfills aim to prevent waste from leaking into the environment through the soil and groundwater by using lining materials and water disposal plans that are tailored to the local surroundings. They also use landfill gas collection systems to keep greenhouse gasses (GHGs) created by decomposing trash from being released directly into the atmosphere. When our waste does enter the environment, it poses risks to the Earth, animals, and our own health.

Trash Exacerbates Climate Change

In the United States, the primary system for controlling waste is the use of sanitary landfills, but this type of site is expensive to operate and only accounts for 8% of the world’s landfills in total.  

The most common type of landfill system is open dumping, which are landfills that do not have any safeguards that prevent trash from being exposed to the environment. They account for around 40% of waste globally, and while they are more cost-effective, open dumping systems accelerate climate change by allowing toxins to leak out of the trash and into the soil, groundwater, and nearby waterways.

These open landfill sites also allow greenhouse gasses, like carbon dioxide and methane, to be released directly into the atmosphere. It was estimated in 2024that around 10% of global methane emissions are produced by landfills. Methane is one of the largest contributors to climate change with a warming potential over 80 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 20 year time frame. 

This means that even though innovative climate mitigation strategies, including the development of various climate-resilient policies, are trying to tackle the problem of climate change, global waste management practices are undermining these efforts. 

A recent Harvard study showed that greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) across seventy U.S. landfills were on average 77% higher than estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This crucial lack of reliable government data is deeply concerning and may mean we are vastly underestimating how much landfills sites are contributing to GHG emissions and therefore impacting climate change. 

Trash Is Killing Wildlife 

In addition to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, trash pollution is also incredibly harmful to the world’s wildlife, especially when waste ends up in the ocean..

All kinds of marine species, including fish, mammals, birds, and crustaceans, consume fragments of plastic or solid waste as it degrades into smaller and smaller pieces. Wildlife is often unable to distinguish between food and plastic waste, and in some cases they are even attracted to it by its smell. 

In 2021, researchers found that an estimated 19 to 23 million tons of plastic waste enter aquatic environments annually, with at least 1,500 different species having been found to have consumed plastics, including whales, sea turtles, and seabirds. For example, a krill-obligate blue whale is said to ingest around 10 million pieces of microplastic every single day. 

Plastic pollution is even becoming the daily diet for many sea-birds, and in 2015, a staggering 90% of sea-birds were found to have plastics in them, causing many of them to get sick and die as a result. Even if these creatures don’t consume plastics in one form or another, plastic trash often injures and maims them. 

Some of this ocean plastic is entering the human food chain when we eat the crustaceans and fish that have consumed microplastics. Our waste problem is severely plaguing the health of the world’s species, including our own.

Trash Impacts Human Health

Human health is being deeply impacted by this lack of environmental accountability and awareness.  Over 1,000 chemicals used in the manufacturing of millions of different plastic products on the market today are classified as endocrine-disrupting, with some of them being carcinogenic. They have been associated with some cancers, infertility, Alzheimer’s, miscarriages, developmental issues, and more. 

PFAS, also known as ‘forever chemicals’, have been in existence since the 1940s and are used on items to repel oil and water, which makes them useful in products like nonstick cookware, stain resistant clothing, and firefighting foam. When these items are dumped in landfills, it creates another pathway for these dangerous chemicals to enter the environment, where they can ultimately poison us and all other living creatures. 

Bad trash management could be the downfall of humanity, wildlife, and the health of all ecosystems. If emissions from landfills continue to increase as projections forecast, our climate will not only be negatively impacted, but human health will be too. It’s a sobering fact that even though high-income countries only account for 16% of the world’s population, they are responsible for around 34 percent, or 683 million metric tons, of the world’s trash. 

There’s never been a better time to find out more about plastic pollution and how you can help reduce your own waste. Think before you buy, do I really need this item or will I use it a few times and throw it in the trash? Reject fast fashion, give up single-use plastics for good and sign our plastic petition. 

The post How Our Trash Impacts the Environment appeared first on Earth Day.

This Women’s Equality Day, let’s  talk about something that deserves way more attention than it gets: what’s really in our period products. Yep, we’re going there because it turns out that those everyday pads, tampons, and even period underwear we rely on every month might be doing more than just soaking up flow. 

Recent studies have uncovered something pretty unsettling: many feminine hygiene products contain harmful plastic chemicals, including a group called PFAS; short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. These are notoriously called “forever chemicals” because once they’re in your body, they stick around for a long time. Testing revealed that 48% of pads, 22% of tampons, and a whopping 65% of period underwear contained PFAS. These chemicals have been linked to hormonal disruptions, fertility issues, immune system suppression, and even certain cancers. 

So the question is: why are corporations allowed to put chemicals like these into our bodies with ​​little oversight– and why does the FDA turn its head? 

Invisible Ingredients, Real Risk

The global feminine hygiene market is valued at over $4.5 billion in the US alone, making pads and tampons not just necessities, but big business. With big business comes big secrets. Despite their massive market stake, most companies disclose little to nothing about what’s inside their products. 

Independent testing has revealed what’s hiding in them: carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, reproductive toxins, and allergens. Vaginal and vulvar tissue is far more absorbent than skin, meaning chemicals in period products can enter the bloodstream quickly. The very products designed for intimate health may actually compromise it. 

The kicker is; the FDA regulates these items as medical devices, not consumer goods. That classification exempts them from the labeling requirements we expect from everyday items like cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, and over the counter drugs. Companies can voluntarily disclose ingredients, but most do not. Consumers are left in the dark about what they are putting into their bodies. 

The Additives No One Asked For

Pads and tampons aren’t just cotton anymore. The market thrives on engineering products with advanced polymers, nonwovens, adhesives, and fragrances – none of which are there for your health. Fragrances, for instance, contain dozens of disclosed chemicals designed to “mask odor”, but in reality, they disrupt pH levels, upset bacterial balance, and can lead to infection, and then more stink. It creates a mean cycle. 

And then there’s microplastics – tiny fragments that don’t biodegrade and accumulate in the body over time. Studies suggest that they may disrupt hormones and contribute to long-term health problems as well. When you use an “Ultra-thin” pad or “super-absorbant” tampon, think about the cocktail of synthetic fibers and plastic that stick around in you long after you toss them out. 

What’s marketed as comfort and innovation comes at the expense of transparency and safety. 

Pads Outlive People 

The same plastics and chemicals don’t just vanish after we’re done with them. The average person who menstruates will use up to 17,000 tampons or pads in their lifetime. With most pads made of nearly 90% plastic and tampons often wrapped in plastic applicators and packaging, the waste adds up. A single pad can take 500–800 years to decompose, meaning one person’s lifetime of period product waste will outlast them for centuries. Tampon applicators and wrappers disposed improperly pollute oceans and beaches, while microplastics leach toxins into soil and waterways. In short: the very products meant to manage a natural cycle are helping fuel an unnatural environmental crisis.

The Cost of Bleeding

Here’s the other piece of the puzzle: not everyone has the luxury of choice. While some people can debate whether to buy organic cotton tampons, 500 million people lack access to basic menstrual products altogether. This lack doesn’t just affect hygiene, but it ripples into education, work, and health.

Missing school or work because of a period reinforces cycles of poverty and stigma. And when low-income communities do have access, it’s often to the cheapest, disposable products ,that not only generate mountains of waste, but also tend to have more toxic chemicals, fragrances, and plastics than higher-quality or reusable alternatives. Health inequality becomes environmental inequity. 

Some governments are stepping up. Scotland now provides free products for all, and Kenya eliminated the tampon tax altogether back in 2004. Most of the world, unfortunately, has not caught up. Even fewer governments actively encourage sustainable, non-toxic menstrual product options.

Breaking the Cycle 

Period products shouldn’t come with hidden risks, toxic chemicals, and a side of climate destruction. Yet here we are, operating in a market that prioritizes profit over health. 

The good news? Change is possible. Stronger federal laws, like New York’s disclosure act, could pull back the curtain on what’s really in these products. Transparency would put pressure on companies to clean up their act. 

In the meantime, don’t panic: just get picky. Look for brands that are transparent about their ingredients and free of synthetic fragrances, dyes, and chlorine bleaching. Explore reusable or organic options where possible. Bonus: many of these choices are also more eco-friendly and budget-friendly in the long run.

Periods are already enough to deal with. Toxic chemicals, corporate secrecy, and environmental destruction shouldn’t be part of the package. Period.

You can help make a difference – sign EARTHDAY.ORG’s petition for the Global Plastics Treaty. Help stop plastic pollution and protect both people and the planet. 

It’s not just our bodies under attack, it is the Environmental Protection Agency too. If you care about the environment, and are in the U.S., we need your voice. Add your name to our public comments on the EPA’s intentions to gut the agency’s ability to regulate pollution due to climate change, also known as the Endangerment Finding. 

This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is also cleared for use. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at davies@earthday.org or fielder@earthday.org. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.

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Plastics are all over the planet. Plastics are in our bodies, our food, our air, and our soil, all of this we are getting more familiar with. But plastics are also in the human penis and that takes some getting used to – it is disgusting, disheartening, and an all around bummer, but true. What is more disturbing however is how it got there in the first place and what impact it is having on us. 

A new study from the International Journal of Impotence Research, recently reported that it had detected microplastics in all of the test subject’s penises. This is leading to many questioning just what is being put into our bodies and what effect it is having on us. Plastics and the additive chemicals used in their production have been linked to an increase of infertility amongst men and are potentially linked to impotence as well. 

This should be alarming to everyone with a penis. If any other industry was actively causing erectile dysfunction and infertility as blatantly as the plastics industry, it wouldn’t be tolerated. So why do we continue to give plastics a pass? Many of the additives that leach out of plastics include chemicals called phthalates or plasticizers, which make plastics more flexible. Or chemical compounds like BPA (Bisphenol A), which make plastics more durable. BPA is already classified as an Endocrine Disrupting Chemical (EDC) which means it comes with a whole host of health related issues all of its own. 

Research suggests the health implications presented by microplastics and their additive chemicals extend to children even before birth. There’s evidence microplastics can interrupt maternal-fetal communication and potentially damage DNA. Some studies report finding links between microplastics and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Reports have linked microplastics to autism and other endocrine disruption issues which can (amongst other things) manifest as early onset puberty. As well as association with some cancers, including in the prostate gland of fetuses.

So, imagine a scenario where a well-known razor company suddenly announces, “Sorry folks, but as it turns out what you have been shaving with has been depositing tiny bits of metal into your genitals and making you infertile.” Public reaction would be one of pure outrage and panic. No one would trust the brand, everyone would stop shaving and people would demand answers and accountability immediately.

Now, let’s consider plastic. Plastic is one of the most, if not the most ubiquitous man-made material, on Earth. We have it wrapping our food, in our toiletries, our carpets, furniture, clothes, cars, toys, it’s in our medical devices, and a large component of our modern electronics. Despite its startling widespread use, scrutiny and monitoring of plastic is minimal. Unlike the hypothetical razor blades that would incite immediate and widespread concern, with a worldwide ban in days, plastic has discreetly integrated itself into nearly every aspect of our lives with zero accountability.

Scientists now have a database of the known chemicals that are utilized in the production of plastics. There are 16,000 plastic chemicals and at least 4,200 are extremely toxic to humans, and only 980 of those have been regulated across the globe. 

Up until recently all health implications have been largely ignored, maybe this new ‘penis problem’ will wake everyone up to the reality that plastics are an environmental and human health problem!

The post Men vs. Plastics appeared first on Earth Day.

It appears that baby fever is all around us, from ads for a never ending supply chain of new infant products on television, to the rise of mommy vloggers on social media, to a seemingly obsessive array of articles on how to raise a baby Einstein. What we probably do not see on our timelines is that infertility is a real and growing issue which affects approximately 1 in every 6 couples who hope to conceive. In fact, the worldwide fertility rate has been decreasing at a rate of nearly 1% per year from 1960 through 2018. 

Recent studies have revealed a hidden and often tiny villain behind this infertility crisis: plastics. Specifically, micro and nanoplastics, which range from a little larger than a sesame seed to the size of a virus in your body. These plastic particles alone are not the only issue, as their toxicity is amplified by the hormone disrupting chemical additives, such as phthalates or bisphenol A (BPAs), which leach out of them. 

It Starts with Sperm

For men, common causes of infertility are connected to decreased sperm counts and lowered sperm viability. A recent study showed evidence that microplastic exposure decreased survival and DNA integrity of sperm, ultimately leading to issues with fertility and egg fertilization. In addition, mitochondrial dysfunction and DNA fragmentation were observed after merely 30 minutes of exposure to micro- and nanoplastics. By creating issues with energy production and genetic material in these ways, sperm can ultimately be rendered unable to survive after exposure to plastics.  

The major real-world consequences from these plastics are fast approaching, and may already be here. Some countries including Japan and Korea are nearing, on average, the minimum amount of microplastics in our bodies to cause major consequences for fertility. Even for regions that aren’t yet approaching that number, contaminants and additives in plastics can still change chemical properties that may make plastics more harmful. 

How Plastics are Harming Female Reproduction at Every Level

Women with fertility issues definitely aren’t strangers to the consequences of plastics, either. Common causes of female infertility include early onset menopause, ovarian aging and issues with egg production. Though more studies are needed on human subjects, mice studies show evidence that microplastic exposure leads to a decreased survival rate of oocytes, which are precursors to eggs. 

Research has shown that plastic particles can permeate protective barriers in our bodies, such as the placenta, during pregnancy. In fact, microplastics have been detected in both the human and fetal sides of the placenta, showing how plastics may not only harm fertility but may also create risks during pregnancy even after fertilization of the egg. One recent study found microplastics present in 100% of human placentas tested. 

Even After Conception, We Aren’t Out of The Woods

In multiple studies chemical additives called phthalates, often referred to as plasticizers as they make plastics flexible, and commonly found in things as wide ranging as from cosmetics to shower curtains, have been linked to hormone disruption. Disruption of key hormones can cause a host of fertility issues, including miscarriage, which affects 1 in 8 pregnancies. In one Harvard study, women with the highest concentrations of phthalates in their urine were 60% more likely to miscarry in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy than those with the lowest concentrations. 

Phthalates are not the only harmful additive chemicals. As stated in EARTHDAY.ORG’s BABIES VS. PLASTICS report, Bisphenol – A, (BPA) has also been linked to miscarriages. One shocking study revealed that women with the highest levels of this chemical in their blood were 83% more likely to miscarry in the first trimester than those with the lowest levels. These increased rates of miscarriage are due to both direct harm to fetal development via egg injury as well as indirect harm through penetration of the placental barrier. 

What Can We Do?

Despite these grim statistics, hope isn’t lost. There are many ways to decrease our exposure to harmful micro- and nanoplastics, as well as the common additives that amplify their effects. Phthalates are typically found in items like cosmetics and hair care products, so pay special attention to the ingredient lists on these products and avoid anything with phthalates in them and over all try to use less products.

To avoid BPA, which is commonly found in plastic bottles, it is recommended to avoid plastic bottles in favor of glass or stainless steel bottles. It is important to be aware of BPA-free labels, though, as some contain replacement chemicals that are just as harmful as BPA.

Avoid wearing fast fashion, as these garments are comprised of synthetic textiles made from plastics like nylon and polyester. Vacuum as much as you can, as microplastics make up a fair percentage of house dust – so it is important to sequester them to stop them from being inhaled. Avoid food wrapped in plastics, and NEVER eat food cooked in the microwave inside plastic containers, even if it says they are microwave safe! They leach plastic chemicals into your food, and then into you.

Though small amounts of microplastics may not cause major issues, we cannot be 100% sure of that. Still, making small changes in the products we use can add up to big differences in the amount of plastics we are involuntarily ingesting and inhaling, and therefore potentially fertility as well. This is why Earth Day 2024’s theme is Planet v. Plastics. If we can reduce our exposure to plastic, we can work toward saving our families as well as our planet. To learn more about this goal and how to take action, join the movement and sign the Global Plastics Treaty Petition.

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Earth Day is celebrated all over the world every April 22 with more than one billion people taking the time to advocate for the planet and the health of all living things. From joining the Great Global Clean Up, to backing calls for the teaching of climate education in every school, to signing the Global Plastic Treaty – there are endless ways to get involved.

Each year Earth Day has a theme, set by EARTHDAY.ORG – the organization created by the same people who invented and orchestrated the first Earth Day 54 years ago. This year’s theme is Planet vs. Plastics. Why?

Because plastic pollutes our planet and its production produces greenhouse gasses (GHGs) that contributes to climate change. Right now, the manufacture of plastics accounts for 4% of GHG emissions but if we continue our present plastic producing trajectory this could triple by the year 2060.

Plastics are made from oil, and are therefore a part of the fossil fuel industry. The vast majority of plastic is never recycled but instead contributes to an epic waste crisis as well as killing wildlife. Now, there’s growing evidence we are inhaling and ingesting tiny particles of plastics, known as microplastics, as well as toxic chemicals leaching out of them.

Humans are not designed to ingest plastics, so it’s not surprising that there is growing evidence of associated health risks. Research suggests the health implications presented by microplastics and their additive chemicals are particularly relevant to babies both before and after birth. In one recent study, 100 percent of placentas tested had microplastics. 

It’s not just babies that are impacted; some studies report finding associations between microplastics and specific cancers, Alzheimer’s and a new study of heart patients undergoing plaque removal surgery found polyethylene microplastics in nearly 60% of them.

We will likely never be able to limit ingesting and inhaling plastics completely but here are some tips to help mitigate your intake:

Limiting plastics on the menu:

1. Avoid eating too much red meat. There’s growing evidence red meat contains plastic particles and shellfish consume microplastics which then remain in their digestive tracts!  Aim, to make wise protein choices!
2. Try to sweep or vacuum as much as possible in your home because dust is full of plastic fibers and particles.
3. We all know single-use plastic water bottles are bad for the environment.  But, now there’s new evidence the water in single use plastic bottles can contain up to 240 000 nano particles of plastic per bottle.
4. Try to avoid microwaving your food in plastic containers because the heat releases plastic chemicals, like BPA, into your food.
5. Use as few toiletries as possible because they often contain plastic chemicals like phthalates. Plus, the plastic packaging used in the beauty and personal-care market creates vast amounts of plastic pollution. In 2018, 7.9 BILLION rigid units of plastic packaging were created in the US alone!
6. Some studies have found leafy vegetables contain less microplastics than root vegetables, so opt to include them in your recipes.
7. Finally avoid wearing polyester, it’s a textile made of plastic which sheds microplastic fibers you will end up breathing in.

The one key thing ALL of us can do this Earth Day to ensure we ALL cut back on our plastic consumption is to call for governments around the world negotiating on the UN Global Plastic Treaty to drastically limit plastic production by 60% by 2040. 

This year, these critically important UN led negotiations are taking place in Ottawa, Canada, on April 22, which is of course Earth Day!

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Obesity is a sensitive subject that has dominated headlines in the last decade, and much attention has been given to the known contributing factors associated with it: diet, genetic disposition, exercise, and other health conditions. March 4 marks World Obesity Day, an international event to draw attention to the causes of and solutions to the issue. But a less understood factor that scientists are continuing to study is exposure to plastics and the chemicals within them.   

Any kind of judgment based on weight or body size is inappropriate, but education on the things we are exposed to every day, and how they affect our health, is crucial. People in the U.S. use around 0.75 pounds of plastic each day, making us the second-highest consumers of plastic in the world. This volume of plastic comes with a whole array of issues including one that relates directly to our health. 

We are inhaling and ingesting tiny microscopic fragments of plastics, known as microplastics, and a range of toxic plastic additive chemicals as the plastic packaging and products degrade over time. It is hard to imagine that these products could be harmful to us, but research into the endocrine-disrupting chemicals in plastic additives reveals that plastic can have startling health impacts.  

What are EDCs?

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, are natural or man-made chemicals that can block or interfere with the body’s hormones and alter the functions of the endocrine and metabolic systems. Over 350,000 synthetic chemicals have been produced and used over the past 40 years, and industry creates hundreds more each year. The Endocrine Society estimates that at least 1,000 of these man-made chemicals may be EDCs. 

A recent study of over thirty common plastic objects found that over 98% of the 55,000 chemicals in these items were not even identifiable, meaning that scientists have no idea what plastic additive chemicals we are being exposed to, let alone what they might be doing to us.

Eleven of the identifiable chemicals were known metabolic disruptors. Scientists believe that many more of these unidentifiable chemicals could be EDCs with significant health impacts, but our knowledge of these “mystery chemicals” is appallingly limited.  

Shockingly, there are several known EDCs in everyday objects. Bisphenol A (BPA) is found in plastic containers and can leach into the beverages we drink and the food we eat. Manufacturers add phthalates, also called plasticizers, to countless household objects like hygiene products and vinyl flooring. Since the 2000s, these chemical additives have become increasingly prevalent in plastic products, namely food and beverage packaging.

How do these chemicals contribute to obesity?

The connection between EDCs and human obesity is still under investigation by scientists, but animal studies suggest that EDCs can influence the regulation of body weight by altering appetite, aiding in fat cell creation, and increasing fat retention. These chemicals bioaccumulate in our tissue and remain in our bodies for years, resulting in continuous exposure.  

Other studies show that these chemicals can alter glucose metabolism and stimulate fat storage. The chemicals block the connections between hormones produced by the endocrine system and their receptors, effectively disrupting the normal functions of metabolism and appetite. EDCs have also been linked to disorders associated with obesity, including insulin resistance, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. 

Thus, even individuals who exercise and consume a consistently healthy diet could experience adverse health impacts if exposed to enough EDCs over their lifetimes. While scientists continue to study the various ways that EDCs can interfere with our health and uncover new chemicals that play a role in obesity, we know enough about several of these disruptors to take action. 

So what can we do?

One way to curb the effects of EDCs on human health is to alter our behavior as consumers. It may seem like the only safe option is cutting out plastic completely, but in a world dominated by synthetic materials, this is nearly impossible. We can buy fewer products with known EDCs, such as BPA and phthalates, and we can use less plastic overall to reduce our exposure to potentially risky chemicals. 

An easy fix is to drink less bottled water. A recent study found that a single bottle of water contains thousands of nanoplastics, much more than previously estimated. Consider purchasing fewer items and beverages with plastic packaging and buy fresh or unpackaged food instead.  

Another simple solution is to vacuum your living space frequently — we ingest microplastics and microfibers in the air we breathe, and vacuuming can help reduce the amount of tiny synthetic particles that we ingest. 

Education and awareness of EDCs is also crucial. EDCs are especially harmful to children because they come into contact with more of these substances as they crawl and teethe. Aidan Charron with the End Plastics Initiatives feels especially strongly about this: “When I wrote EDO’s report, Babies vs. Plastics, I was shocked to discover just how uniquely at risk babies are when it comes to inhaling and ingesting microplastics. Parents need to know what they are giving to their kids.” In 2012, the FDA banned the use of BPA in baby bottles and cups, but items created before this ban could still contain harmful additives. 

Most importantly, we need substantial regulation to address known EDCs and increase research into potentially harmful chemicals. The BPA ban was necessary, but it only addressed the tip of the iceberg. The EU is currently preparing an initiative to ban BPA in food packaging, a move that the FDA continues to shy away from, claiming that the levels of BPA in packaging are safe. We must expand the small field of research and ask the FDA to constantly assess the risks of these chemicals. 

We must reinforce the responsibility of the government to put pressure on the producers of plastics with increased regulation — simply asking companies to stop using these cheap chemicals is not going to fix the problem. Implementing something similar to the EU’s REACH program, which requires manufacturers to record each chemical substance they use into a central database, can at the very least make this information accessible to consumers. 

Some even argue that the entire process for chemical approval is ineffective because it allows substances to enter the market before they have been adequately tested, and that the precautionary approach used by other countries like the UK allows for better protection of consumers. 

Plastic remains a constant environmental and human health concern. EARTHDAY.ORG’s theme for Earth Day 2024 is Planet vs. Plastics — we are dedicated to campaigning for an end to plastic pollution for our planet and for its people. Learn more about why we wish to End Plastics, and sign the Global Plastics Treaty today.

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Plastic is everywhere. It seems impossible to estimate how much we depend on this popular material. Plastics have only been around for a fraction of the planet’s history — since the early 20th century — but while they may give us short term convenience they are causing irreparable environmental damage that will impact our world for hundreds of years. They also pose considerable risks for wildlife and human health, and they are a unique hazard because it is virtually impossible to avoid plastics.  Nobody can completely opt out of exposure to them. 

Fifty years ago, our reliance on plastic would have seemed absurd in a world where most everyday items were made from glass, clay, wood, metal, or paper. Clay, for example, was used to make pots. Tin and paper were used for food packaging. Many times, fresh produce from local grocers came in no packaging at all, while drinks came in reusable glass bottles. 

In the early 1900s, initial research into naturally plastic materials began for specific industrial applications such as car manufacturing. Later, chemical modification of these materials, synthetic plastics, began production on a much larger scale. Plastic research and development truly began taking off during WWII when other natural materials became more scarce or expensive.

In the 1950s, plastic production exploded, and companies such as Dow and DuPont patented new plastics for public use. The burgeoning plastics industry allowed companies to increase their profits exponentially, as there were seemingly endless uses for plastics and they were cheap to produce.

Marketing was crucial. Anything and everything could be replaced with colorful, shiny plastics. Plastics promised to make our lives easier. They were cheaper than natural alternatives, could be mass produced, and were less liable to break. 

Early Plastic Research 

Before the 21st century, research into the health impacts of plastic was almost nonexistent. Consumers adopted these materials without questioning if they were good for us or not. According to the Plastic Health Map created by the Minderoo Foundation, from 1961 to 1980 only 47 studies were conducted to assess the human health effects of plastics. Most of these studies examined synthetic polymers which had become inescapable in the average household. Brand name polymers such as Nylon, Teflon, and Mylar were virtually everywhere. The limited research focused on the impact polymers have on the skin as well as the digestive and immune systems. 

From 1981 to 1990, scientists began looking into the effects of plastic on the endocrine, metabolic, and nutritional systems. Notably, research into PCBs examined the health of workers with occupational exposure to these highly carcinogenic chemical compounds.

The EPA has determined that PCBs are a probable human carcinogen. Epidemiological studies found that rare liver cancers and malignant melanoma were more common among workers with daily exposure to PCBs. These compounds have also been found to have a toxic effect in animals that can wreak havoc on their immune, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine systems. 

Companies such as Monsanto knew of the danger of PCBs as early as the 1960s. An internal study found that they caused tumors in rats, but these corporations enjoyed  decades of PCB production without regulation. The 1979 Toxic Substances Control Act finally banned PCB production in the United States.       

Even then, PCBs were not entirely eliminated. They are still present in materials produced before the ban, such as colorful plastics that use PCB pigment, and it’s estimated that 83% of total PCBs produced still persist in plastic objects, the environment, and our bodies. 

Scientists Find Dangerous Effects 

From 1991 to the turn of the 21st century, the diversity of plastic research expanded. Phthalates became a topic of scrutiny for scientists. These additive chemicals which make plastics more durable are used in cosmetics, toys, and vinyl flooring — and these are just a few examples of the everyday objects that utilize PVC, a high-strength plastic that contains phthalates.

Infants in particular are exposed to high levels of phthalates via teething products and toys. By their very nature children chew on inanimate objects for the first couple of years of their lives  – but during this development phase, they are ingesting microplastics and the phthalates that leach from them. Microplastics are tiny slivers of plastics that break off from larger plastic items and they are typically no bigger than a grain of sand. In 2008, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act limited the level of phthalates that were acceptable in children’s toys but they are still used in the production of many plastic toys, just at low levels. 

Microplastic and phthalate exposure has been linked to adverse effects on the reproductive system in animals. Studies also detail the impacts on the endocrine system of children. They have also discovered phthalate exposure can cause higher systolic blood pressure, earlier menopause, low birth weight, pregnancy loss, and preterm birth in women. Researchers believe this is because women tend to be more exposed to phthalates than men via cosmetic products.

In the 2000s, the prevalence of the chemical additives known as bisphenols, PFAS, and PBDEs exploded. PFAS are toxic fluorine compounds also known as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down in the environment. PBDEs are added to reduce flammability of objects. Bisphenols such as BPA are used to make epoxy resin and plastics that are present in commonplace objects like water bottles and food storage containers. Bisphenols have been observed to interfere with various cell functions which can lead to cardiovascular diseases, neurological disorders, reproductive abnormalities, and diabetes. 

PFAS have been used since the 1940s, but as plastic food packaging became more common, our exposure to PFAS in plastic increased. A significant amount of research on PFAS is ongoing. But we do know that exposure may lead to reproductive and developmental effects, increased cancer risk, and interference with hormones and the immune system. 

There are thousands of PFAS that have yet to be studied, but they continue to be used in plastic products. Per the FDA’s advice, manufacturers have voluntarily agreed to phase some PFAS out of food packaging. While this step is a good start, it minimizes only one pathway for contact with PFAS. 

What We Don’t Know About Plastics

From 2011 to 2022, the number of studies on plastics more than quadrupled. Specific health outcomes and the variety of health impacts between demographics received more attention. But what is most striking about the current body of research is what we still do not know. Of over 10,500 chemicals used in plastic production, we have only researched 1,557 of them. The health impacts of thousands of chemicals already being used in plastics remain unknown. 

Additionally, from 1961 to 2022, no human exposure studies examined the effects of microplastics or nanoplastics. Most studies were conducted in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan, meaning that the effects on industrializing nations (which often suffer more acutely from plastic pollution) were barely investigated. 

In order to address today’s plastic crisis, we need to expand the narrow body of research and invest in a huge array of scientific research dedicated to examining the health impacts of plastic, microplastics and their additive chemicals. But most importantly of all we need to limit our exposure to plastics which means drastically reducing our plastic production, so that by 2040, we have reduced it by 60%. 

For more information on plastics and human health, view the Plastic Research Health Module and for more background on plastics view our Plastic Tool Kit. We need to take action immediately to limit plastic production and prevent pollution for ourselves and the planet — so we invite you to sign the Global Plastic Treaty Petition to make your voice heard.

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