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This is the story of a new world,

a world that begins in the mysterious,

and invisible
universe of atoms and molecules,

which combine countless numbers
to form everything we see and touch.

It is the story of how man,
investigating nature,

has learned from nature's examples

to join these same atoms
and molecules to form substances

never before seen under the sun.

These new materials
are the world of plastics.

The world that nature forgot.

We discovered these miracle materials.

We didn't ask the right questions.
We just said, "Wow!

Look what this stuff can do.
It's so cool."

And now we're realizing
we made some big mistakes.

Microplastics are possibly
the most serious type

of pollutant
our society has ever created.

These invisible particles
have been found

on the highest mountains,
in the deepest ocean sediments,

and now we're finding microplastics

wherever we look in the human body.

And once these tiny particles
are in our bodies,

they're oozing their toxic ingredients

on a minute-by-minute basis.

We know that the chemicals
that are in plastics

could create health problems
like obesity,

or diabetes, or heart disease,
or fertility problems,

or possibly even cancer.

It's a conundrum we find ourselves in.

We got a figure out
how to deal with that conundrum.

Every day, I start my day

by putting plastic in my eyes,
and it's crazy,

because I literally see the world
through a plastic lens.

I started investigating
plastic about 15 years ago.

That's when people started
looking at the Great Garbage Patch,

and then we started noticing
that it was impacting animals.

One of the first things that
we saw was the bird carcass.

It was shocking. There was probably
as much plastic in the bird

as there were bones left in the bird.

So, for me, it was realizing

that a lot of plastic
was disguised as food,

and a lot of animals have started eating
a lot of those plastics.

But in fact, human beings
have much more contact with plastics

than your average animal will.

I think about brushing my teeth
with plastic bristles.

They're in the dust, so, we're actually
breathing microplastics.

One study found that it's in about
83 percent of the drinking water

that comes out of our taps,

and of course, microplastics
are in the food that we eat.

We are slowly turning
into plastic people.

And scientists have been
studying plastics

and the impacts of plastics
on our environment,

on the planetary body.

But what we really need
to start doing now

is looking at the impacts
on the human body.

And that's what I'm going to do.

Plastic, plastic, plastic.

What are plastics?

Are they animal,

vegetable,

or mineral?

Plastic is by and large
a derivative of petrochemicals,

so it's not a coincidence

that many of the big plastics
companies in the world

are actually branch plants
of big oil companies.

We pump the oil out of the ground.

We crack that oil into
different types of chemicals.

Those chemicals are polymerized
so that those molecules

are connected to create
different types of plastic.

That whole process
creates its own pollution,

including climate-warming gases.

Those many types of plastics
are made into different products

that are shipped worldwide.

One of the things that's hard
to wrap your brain around,

when it comes to the plastics industry,

is how astronomically huge
the numbers are.

Over 1.5 billion plastic bottles

being bought
around the planet every day.

Two million plastic bags

are used every minute on Earth.

The end result of this
is about 400 million tons

of plastics that are created every year.

Almost half of all plastic produced

goes into single-use items.

Today, even the biggest oil companies
in the world are admitting

that we're going to be using
less oil in the years ahead.

And if you can't burn oil in cars,

if that market is disappearing

over the next few decades,
what will you do with that product?

Well, increasing
the plasticization of the human life

is where their oil is going to go.

Plastic companies are talking
about tripling plastic use

in production
over the next couple of decades.

So, it's a double whammy as a product

that is contributing
to the global warming problem,

and creating this
toxic exposure problem.

Some of the work that we're doing here,
at the University of Minnesota,

is urban air sampling.

We're finding particles
in our sampler with snow and rain.

Plastic is just everywhere,

and this is the evolution
of this discipline

is that we started off
looking at big things,

but now we've got these
teeny, teeny, tiny little flakes.

And we're trying to understand
how these materials flow

and then, yeah, where do
they eventually come to rest?

And if they do, how long?

I mean, you look at something
like a plastic bag,

the cereal bag,

and when you look really closely at it

under an electron microscope,

you can suddenly see
all these little particles

that are just about ready to shed.

That's a little bit
of the rolled-up adhesive.

Yeah. Imagine having that for breakfast.

- Hey!
- Hey. Good to meet you. Hi!

- It's so good to meet you, too.
- Yeah. At last.

- Yeah, come on in.
- Thank you so much.

I'm looking forward to finding out

what you actually
discovered in my home.

So, what we do is we take a sample

and we reduce the volume,

and then we stain it.

And that causes the
synthetic polymers to fluoresce.

So this is from your house dust.

Some of these are fluorescing.
They're pretty easy to...

- Spot.
- To spot, yeah. And, so...

those are very likely
synthetic polymers.

- And this is just a speck of dust.
- I know.

So, if this is from one speck...

- How much is in the house?
- I can't even begin to imagine

- how much is in the house.
- Right, right.

I'm fortunate that
I've been able to kind of test

some things just for fun.

- This is some dried mucus from...
- Wow!

the nose of a small person

that I happen to live with.
And...

- This is a... A booger.
- Yes. Yeah.

Look at this. Look at all that.
There's red threads in there,

that would definitely
not be a human hair.

There are so many
different kinds of contaminants

that are in consumer products.

We just assume that they've
all been completely tested

and that they're completely safe,
and we bring them into our homes,

and we just...
We live alongside them.

And we think that they're
doing us absolutely no harm,

when that isn't necessarily the case.

There's so little transparency.

- This is plastic.
- Yeah, it's a dollhouse.

We are conducting an experiment,

and the entire population is involved.

We can try and
kind of safeguard our home,

but it's a global commons issue.
It's everywhere.

You go out into the world,
and you're going to be exposed to it.

I've taken some samples of snow
that's fallen in my backyard,

and found tiny fragments
of plastic particles in it,

and when I came home,
I told my children

to not catch snowflakes.

It's hard to wrap your head around,
but virtually

every molecule of plastic ever created

still exists somewhere on Earth,

in some stage of degradation,

because this stuff never disappears.

It just goes from
being larger pieces of litter

to tinier and tinier particles
that become microscopic.

The definition is just,
a piece of plastic

less than five millimeters in size.

So, a pencil eraser
and smaller.

Somebody buys the bottle,

the bottle is used for a few minutes.

The bottle's discarded.

Once it's in the environment,
it is broken down by sunlight,

by the action of waves,
by the passing of time.

It starts to degrade
into these tiny particles

that are so light,

and they come down in the rain,
they accumulate in our food,

and we're absorbing them
into our own bodies.

One of the largest
sources of microplastics

into the environment
is mismanaged waste.

Aside from large items
breaking into smaller items,

one of the most common sources
is paint from buildings and boats,

tire dust from cars, bikes, planes.

As we wear clothing
that's increasingly plastic,

those fibers shed,

go down the drain,

wind up in the local lakes and rivers,

and those fibers are
a big source of microplastics as well.

There are estimates
that suggest that anywhere

from 10 to 20 million
metric tons of plastic

are leaving our land and going
out into the ocean each year.

Now, some of that will stay
on the surface,

and float, and travel quite far.

Some of it, as it breaks down
into smaller and smaller pieces,

can go up into the atmosphere
and travel globally that way.

Some of it will sink to the bottom.

It is eaten by almost
every level of the food chain,

and now we're starting to understand
that microbes colonize it,

and so, in and of itself
becomes this habitat.

So it's atmospheric currents,
global dust cycles,

the water cycle, the carbon cycle.

It's sort of becomes
part of these planetary cycles.

This part of the Mediterranean Sea
is the most polluted part

in terms of plastic pollution.

There could be many different sources,
but the first thing is...

dumping of the plastic waste
into the Mediterranean Sea.

This beach receives

between 30 to 35 kilograms of plastics

per day per kilometer.

That's really high.

Global northern countries
also responsible for this pollution.

Those countries
have a clean environment,

exporting plastic waste

to countries like Turkey, Malaysia,

Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam.

We call it waste colonialism.

Here we can see
the microplastics

on this sieve.

Anything we produce

is contaminated with plastic.

We are living on the plastisphere.

We are producing our food
in the plasticulture way.

This is the starting point
of the entrance,

the involvement of plastic
inside the food chain.

So, as you see there, one layer,
just covered soil.

Under this sheet,
there is another plastic here.

This is for irrigation.

They use single-use pipe
as we see here.

You see, this is from last year,

shredded because of the tractor.

The idea is making harvesting...

time shorter.

The cost of removal is really high,

so that's why they are just leaving it
in the field, because no one cares.

There are no rules for this.
There is no legislation.

This is soil or plastic?
Plastisoil.

There is no way to clean this
microplastic from the environment.

The world does not deserve...

single-use application
because the world is not single-use.

We are producing poisonous food.

We are poisoning ourselves
with our hand.

Okay, so, I'm just
getting ready to go to Rochester,

because they want some samples

to test the microplastics in my body.

This...

is the shit
that I do for science, literally.

I sent fecal samples

to you guys to test for microplastics,

and with bated breath,

I've been sort of wondering
what the results were.

When we get a sample,

the first thing that we need to do
is add hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide
is going to eat away at the organics,

and leave the plastics.

So, once we get those off,
we get them onto filters

so that we can look at them
under an optical microscope,

to look for fragments,
and fibers, and foams.

So we take it from there,

and use an IR microscope
to positively identify,

what is the chemical makeup
of the compounds.

What we're looking
at is the optical microscope right now.

- So, you can see this grid.
- Right.

And so, this grid
is three millimeters in size.

So we get over here in the corner,
this blackish-bluish type of fiber.

A fiber as well, another one.

Come into here, and we can see this...
This very small fragment,

which we're talking about
in the order of tens of microns.

It came up with a very
clear fit to being polypropylene.

So, disposable masks.

Candy wrappers,

salad bags.

Polypropylene tends to be
the more crinkly stuff.

So, this fiber that we saw here,
it was cotton.

So we're seeing a number of cotton ones.

Come down here,
and this is being rayon,

a semisynthetic type of fiber.

Come down further here,
and we have polyester.

Synthetic clothing, any fleece.

It's pretty shocking because...

You know,
I'm still processing the fact

that this stuff is really in my body.

- Yeah.
- You know...

This came out, too, right, so there
may be some that was retained,

- That's stuck.
- that we're not measuring. Right.

Do you think
everybody has microplastics?

- Yes.
- Everybody.

- Yeah, no doubt.
- No doubt?

No doubt, because it's everywhere.

So, every single person is exposed.

Right now, I'm going in for a mammogram,

and also going in for an ultrasound.

There's quite a bit of cancer
in my family, unfortunately.

Three of my mom's sisters
have had cancer.

My dad's brother had cancer.

My dad is currently
getting tested for cancer,

and I get tested every year,
because I'm in the high-risk category.

I don't think I'm different
from very many people.

I remember growing up
and cancer was this big,

scary “C word,” and now,
just about everybody I know

has somebody with cancer
in their family.

We don't actually know
the exact causes.

It could be so many different things.
It could be the pollutants in the air,

it could be the meat
that people are eating.

It could be the plastics.

There are tens of thousands
of chemicals in commerce,

many of which
are used to make plastics.

And virtually none of these chemicals
have been tested for safety.

We don't really know how many
are present in a plastic item.

We don't know the types of chemicals
that are present in a plastic,

because that's proprietary
information for the business.

And so, these are all trade secrets

so that people don't get the
recipe from another competitor

for what's in their plastic.

That's what we're working on right now.
We're looking to see

if this particle ends up
in this part of the body,

and we know that it has
these kinds of chemicals with it,

how much of a dose will we get,

and what kind of impact
would that be

if we're continually dosing ourselves
with chemicals like that?

The study of toxicity
of microplastics is in its infancy,

but we're beginning to learn

that they are a transport mechanism

for getting...

bad chemicals into people.

A key part of this story
is the human endocrine system.

We have glands in us that make hormones.

And those hormones,
they guide the development

of virtually everything,

how many fingers we have,

is our brain wired properly,
can we reproduce?

There's an amplification process
that can make one molecule

have a signal
that's up to a hundred thousand,

if not a million times,
bigger than the original signal.

And that means that very small doses

can have really big effects.

Some chemicals in plastics
hack that signaling system.

So, there's any number of chemicals

that are deliberately put
in different types of plastic

that we know are disruptive
to our hormones.

Chemicals like phthalates, for instance,

which are very, very common in plastics.
They're a softener.

Phthalates will take a rigid material,
and they'll make it more flexible.

BPA is a very well-known
chemical now, still very common.

We know now there's a link

between these chemicals
and human disease

like breast cancer, prostate cancer.

We know that a lot
of these chemicals trigger obesity.

Another condition
that is now tied firmly

to chemicals leaching out
of plastics,

is infertility.

If you simply take the data that they
have gathered over sperm count

and how much it's declined,

and you just project it forward
into the future,

by 2045,

a lot of young adult males

will not be able to reproduce
the normal old-fashioned way.

But there's another twist to this,
which is: the plastics that are used

during the process
of artificial reproduction

interfere with artificial reproduction.

So, people should pay attention to this.

It's happening today.

He's beautiful.

He's truly beautiful.

He's got lots of hair.

The placenta has a fundamental function,

it is a temporary organ.

The organ is for the child,
not for the mother.

Thanks.

We found women who gave us
their placenta,

In these four placentas,
we found 12 plastic pieces.

Some of these plastic particles
were particles of polypropylene.

So we wondered,
“if we found plastic in the placenta,

maybe we could find plastic
in breast milk?”

34 mothers participated in our study,

we found plastic in 26 samples

Okay, we found plastic in the placenta.

But where, precisely?

We found out plastic
was inside the cells.

The cell, the fundamental part of life,

is made of tiny structures.

We found out that when a microplastic

is inside these structures,
it destroys them.

It is sad if this happens
when a baby is forming

because plastic will alter
the way DNA is expressed.

Plastic itself is not a problem.
It's an extraordinary useful material.

We can do incredible things
with plastic.

Heart prosthesis, hip prosthesis.

We couldn't live on this planet,
without plastic.

The problem is how we use plastic,

how we use this wonderful resource?

We exploit it in stupid ways,
like making

plastic bottles for soda or water.

If we see the world as a place...

full of resources
we can exploit for profit,

we don't feel wonder anymore,

we don't see the beauty of this world.

We, too, become part of the technology.

And we are useful as far
as we can do something

within the economic paradigm.

We must change the way
we see the world.

That is, when Coca-Cola,

who produce
trillions of dollars in profit,

and are aware of the damage they cause,
they know the truth,

they destroy our world to enrich a few,

so we must revolt.

The main goal of our studies
is rebellion, revolt.

I'm a physician.

I work in the emergency
department in the hospital.

Today, I'm exactly 36 weeks.

This is our first child.

I don't know if it's
because of the hormones, but...

sometimes I have periods
where I would like, think,

"Is this the world where
I want to bring up my child?”

And everything
seems bad and bad for you.

And the choices that you are making.

Yes, it's sometimes a bit difficult.

I'm a frequently plastic user.

Like, I have my little plastic
water bottle. It's handy.

But when I was really paying attention,

I was like,
"We use a lot of plastic."

So what kind of effects that could have

on the developing of the child?

- So good to meet you. At last!
- You, too. Welcome to Holland.

Thank you.

So you've got to tell me, how does a...

How does a pediatrician
start studying microplastics?

As pediatricians, we are used to
treating illnesses in children,

but we are also trained
to prevent illness,

because prevention
is always better than...

- Thank you.
- Better than cure.

- Right.
- And... And about 25 years ago,

we started doing research
on dioxins, for instance, that...

That are formed with
the incineration of plastics.

And dioxins can have
an effect on, basically,

development of all sorts
of organ systems in your body,

whether it be your brain,
your teeth, your lungs.

We took a step further and we said,

"Hey, what about the plastics
that are being used,

especially the
hormone-disrupting chemicals?"

What we've seen in the last
one to two generations

is a major increase
in the number of breast cancers,

prostate cancers, testicular cancers,

even thyroid cancers.

So, what we've been seeing
is the correlation

between the use of these,

and the production of the plastics,

and the increase in the cancers.

What concerns me is that a child

is not only being exposed like we are,

but a fetus is developing
at a far greater rate.

And not only the organs,
but all the tissue.

It's all developing.
The consequences are far greater

because you've been born
with a problem.

These babies are being born
pre-polluted, in a sense.

Yes, we are a product
of our environment.

Hi.

- Welcome.
- Thank you.

- It's good to see you again.
- Good to see you.

I think it's very important
to realize that

you can't do anything about the fact
that there are plastics in your body.

That's the society we live in.

Yeah. It's very difficult because
I don't even know where to start.

Yeah. You do the best you can
to live healthily,

to nurture your baby.

And more than that, you can't do.

And I think the next question
is probably,

what are the effects
of that on the health

and development of the child,
or the fetus and the child?

Yes, yeah.

And I think that's
a very pertinent question also,

and it's a question
we don't have an answer to yet,

and we'll probably
only get to know that in 10,

20, 30 years further,

when these children grow up.

- Good morning.
- Good morning.

That's, unfortunately, the history
of chemical exposures in people.

It's always reactive.

A lot of these effects,
we'll only see many years later.

Boys that are born today will only know

if they have fertility problems
when they start to have kids.

Are we willing to risk a generation

to see if it's there or not?

I think that's playing with fire.

Right now, the system is designed

to let the experiment play out...

on people,

and only once the signal becomes
so big that you can't ignore it,

do they begin to ask questions.
That's wrong.

We need to ask questions
before something

becomes so valuable
to the chemical industry

that they'll do anything
they can to defend it,

and they will do
close to anything to defend

one of their billion-dollar products.

At the nylon trade fair,

you can be sure
there is something to suit all tastes.

On show for the first time at the fair

are nylon carpets and rugs.

Make the word nylon plural,

and even the dumbest of blondes
will know what you mean.

What we do know of people
that work in an environment

with high levels of nylon,

like people working
in a nylon factory...

30 percent of these people
have problems with their lungs.

So that's why we took this model
of living mini-lungs.

And when you put these cells,
lung cells into a culture dish,

we could see what would happen

if there were microplastics present.

Yeah, that's the control.

We take the cells that line

the airways, epithelial cells.
We take these from a human.

- Wow.
- Nice. Quite big ones.

- Yeah, they're huge.
- Yeah.

Okay. So,

these big bubbles, those are
structures that we call airways.

So these are pretty.
There's no other word for it.

They're just nice.

And these are actually alive, right?

It's not a piece of tissue that you cut
and then put under a microscope.

These... These are still living.
They're still...

Well, they're not...
They don't have a heart,

and they're not...
There's not a beating heart,

but they're cells.
They're trying to...

To form a structure.

But we also have nylon 6.6 particles.

Wow. It looks really different.

There is absolutely nothing here.

So, what is dramatic to me is that...

there are no pretty structures.
There's nothing.

There are no bubbles. They're all gone.

All this gray moss
that you see are nylon particles.

So, the chemical that is
leaching out of nylon 6.6,

it causes this total
lack of growth of mini-lungs.

That's a process that our lungs
are really good at, is like,

when they get hurt,
they repair themselves.

And if you have a lot of these
fibers in your lungs,

you cannot repair.

I'm particularly worried about carpets,

because they cover a big surface, right?

And we walk on them all the time.

So it means that all these fibers

keep being released by it.

Just imagine lying on a carpet,

being close to these fibers
and breathing them in.

Would you consider microplastics
a form of air pollution?

Yes, definitely. They don't degrade.

So, because we keep
on using more and more and more,

and it keeps on
getting into an environment,

it means it's accumulating.

But, in 50 years,
if we keep up this plastic use,

and we don't do anything about it,

we might then
be reaching critical levels.

Plastics made possible
the material world

that we live in now.

They are the bones, the skin,
the connective tissue.

With the arrival of synthetic plastics,

we suddenly were able
to sort of transcend...

what nature has been giving us
for thousands of years.

This compregnated slab is strong enough

to bear the weight of a four-ton
elephant, believe it or not.

And we transcended
that basic problem

that natural resources
have limited supplies.

One of the ones that was a major
cause of concern was ivory.

In this London warehouse

where tusks have been coming in
since the days of Charles II,

the latest consignments are cut up

for the first stage
of their transformation

into ivory-backed brushes,
mirrors, and combs.

Ivory was used for all sorts of things,

for buttons, for decorative items,

piano keys,

and for billiards.

John Wesley Hyatt, an amateur inventor,

came up with this material
he called celluloid.

It was malleable, it was moldable,

it was mass producible.

It kind of leveled
the playing field for consumption.

The next big move was Bakelite,

the first real synthetic molecule,

and it's a great electrical insulator.

It was the early 20th Century,
and all across the country,

people are laying down electrical wire,
and they need insulation for that wire.

And Bakelite becomes
this very successful plastic.

It goes into industrial uses.
It goes into consumer products.

Because it was machinable,
because it was mass-producible,

you could use it to make
all sorts of cool, curvy shapes.

It was a machine-age plastic,

automobile-age plastic.

In the '20s and '30s,

you had the rise
of the petrochemical industry.

Petroleum companies
and chemical companies

were aligning

and wanting to figure out
something to do

with the waste products
of processing of their products.

That became the groundwork
for the modern plastics industry,

and the invention of most of the
big plastics that we know today.

Companies like Dow or Mobil or DuPont

had teams of industrial chemists

who were just noodling
around with chemicals,

trying to figure out
cool stuff that they could do.

Coming up with materials

for which there was no immediate
need or demand.

Except for nylons,

which people had been
looking for, for a long time.

People had wanted a substitute
for silk stockings

because they were expensive,
and they didn't last very long.

It was indeed lucky for us

that the men of plastics
had labored so long and well,

for suddenly we found ourselves at war.

Come World War II,

the military turns
to that nascent industry.

Faced with a critical metal shortage,

and unprecedented
production demands,

armament manufacturers

immediately turned to plastics
for assistance.

And the kingdom of plastics

responded with remarkable
speed and ingenuity.

Now, instead of nylons,

they turn all their production
over to making parachutes.

Acrylic was being used
to make bomb turrets.

So, during the war, plastics production

rose on the order of 3 to 400 percent.

The war ends.
You have an industry that has vastly

ramped up production capacity,

and you have a consuming public

that is suddenly flush with money.

There's a lot of money
being pumped into the economy.

Bring these two trends together,
and one of the results

is you just get this explosion
of plastic stuff.

The first place that plastics
go are into durable goods.

They go into shoes, textiles.

Garments, seen and unseen,
from head to toe,

a synthetic symphony
from DuPont's magic pile of coal.

Suddenly we have fabrics
that don't need to be ironed or washed,

with all these crazy names:
Dacron, Orlon.

Appliances.

They go into things like vinyl records.

They go into Naugahyde furniture, cars.

And then in the late '40s, early '50s,

the plastics industry starts to realize

there's only so many cars
they're going to build.

There's only so many kitchen counters
they're going to put in.

So they start looking for new markets.

And one logical, potentially
infinite growth opportunity,

is in disposables.

It was a very conscious strategy.

The editor of Modern Plastics Magazine

told plastics executives,

"Your future is in the garbage can."

So you get all of this
packaging that's being developed

because the industry is getting
better at processing this stuff,

and getting better
at figuring out how to make it.

And from that point on,
the plastics industry growth

is just a straight upward curve.

It is nonstop ascension.

At a certain point,
you start to get single-use versions

of what had long been durable products.

It was a hard sell at first.

We haven't had the luxury of being able
to throw away a lot of stuff.

When the first coffee
vending machines came out,

people actually tended to reuse
the plastic cups.

So they had to be taught
that there is virtue

and convenience in throwing away.

Life Magazine ran this article,
“Throwaway Living,”

and to illustrate it,
they had this family who have thrown

all of these disposable
things up in the air.

And Life calculated at the time
that if this wasn't throwaway,

that it would've taken the wife,
because of course it was the wife,

40 hours to clean all this stuff,

but, thanks to plastic,

and throwaway stuff,
she didn't have to do it.

What Life ran was the picture
of all the stuff in the air.

You don't see it all raining
down onto the ground

and creating this mess
that is kind of a metaphor

for the mess
that we're dealing with today.

Well, I come from four
generations of fisher-people.

My great-grandfather, my grandfather,

my dad, my brothers.

And your whole life
is centered around the boats,

and the fish houses, and the water.

I have a strong connection to the water.

Water is alive.

It's real. And it's like family.

The chemical plants
started coming in around late 1940s,

and now there are
ten chemical plants, nylon plants,

fertilizer plants,

and they all dump, on the average,

five million gallons
of toxic waste a day.

Formosa Plastics manufactures
plastic pellets and powder.

And for 27 years,

Formosa has discharged
right into this body of water.

Corporations do not have a conscience.

Their bottom line is production.
Production at all costs.

Formosa never reported
a single violation.

These are production plastics.

They're probably polyethylene,
polypropylene pellets.

So, this is what has been out here,

and is embedded up on this bank.
The fish, they're in their guts.

The oystermen,
when they're shucking oysters,

they find them inside the oyster shell.

Every bit of this is illegal.

And that started in 1989.

I was 40 years old.
I was running a fish house.

Formosa, they had managed
to start discharging

without a permit.
And up in the bay,

there was some sort of mutation
going on with black drum.

The whole side of the drum
was rotting out,

and their intestines were showing it.

When you're at the fish house,
and you have fishermen who come

and want to get ice, and they said,

"The alligators are rolling.
They're at the surface,

and they're just rolling in the water."

And then you have shrimpers
who bring you shrimp,

and it looks like they've
been stuffed with cotton.

And then you start to see
where they can't even go out

and make a living anymore.

So, all their boats are tied up,

and then the fish houses,
they shut down.

They destroyed the community here.

The community is no longer.

You talk to any shrimper and it's like,

"My kid is not going to do this."

And all you have are
closed areas or shut down bays.

"Don't eat the crabs, don't eat
the shrimp, don't eat the fish."

I work for the end of plastic,
the age of plastic.

That's what I work for.

We came out here every day

for two-and-a-half years,

and we got 2,500 samples

of illegal discharges,

and we took them to court.

We eventually settled
for 50 million dollars,

and we put it into

every environmental project
in this community.

We put every penny back
into the community to help them.

Some people have cynically
referred to this as Cancer Alley,

the greatest concentration
of chemical plants

in the Western Hemisphere.

It also has the greatest
concentration of cancer deaths

in the nation.

And obviously the question
of an association

has naturally been raised.

This is polyvinyl chloride,

a synthetic resinous material

converted from vinyl chloride gas,

and it's the basis for thousands
of plastic products,

from food wrappers,
to phonograph records.

During the manufacturing process,
when the gas is being synthesized

and the resin is being formed,
exposure can present a serious risk.

Back in '81 you were doing the...

I was doing maintenance work,
building the plant.

Dale started
when the plant first started,

back in 1981.

And so, he was exposed since day one.

And that was vinyl chloride,
and all that EDC...

Vinyl chloride, ethylene chloride.

I started getting boils on my neck...

From here... You know, from here down.

I couldn't feel the bottom of my feet.

I would grab my leg
so hard that I left bruises on myself.

I mean, it just...

I'd scream with pain,

and at one point,
I lost my legs completely,

and I drug myself around with my elbows

probably for about a month,
month and a half.

Yeah.

After they did all the testing,

the doctor came out,
and she started naming off chemicals.

And she said, "Do you know
these chemicals, Dale?"

I said, "Yeah."

I said, "I recognize every one
of them that you're speaking of.”

There were five of them.

And she said,
"Well, they're in your body."

And I asked the doctor, I said,

"How come I can't remember
my child growing up?”

You know, I've lost it.

And...

She said, "Well, apparently,

that's when you got hit
with high doses of benzene."

That's what the doctor told me.

What Formosa did to me is unspeakable.

It's...

They made my life a living hell
for me and my family.

When you're on disability,
you don't make money.

And health-wise,
you don't mean anything.

They hire young people

that don't know any better.

Very little education.

And then when they run
into major problems,

everybody scrambles, you know.

Hello!

- Do you want to just take some for us?
- For sure.

- Cardigan off.
- Okay.

- Okay. So you're here to take my blood?
- Yeah.

I'm not a fainter,
so you don't need to worry.

Good. Good to know.

We're taking a smaller sample

than you'd normally give
at a blood donation,

and then,
that will allow us to have a look,

and see what actually
is in your blood sample

in terms of particles, shapes,
sizes, that kind of thing.

Can I get the right angle?

Are you okay just holding
the green bit for me?

- Sure.
- Just so that doesn't move. Thank you.

We have 20 healthy donors.

It is a blind study.

We have completed nearly
all of the 20 donors.

So, the next step is, it will
undergo an enzyme digest,

so it's breaking down a lot
of the biological material

that you would find in there.
Then they go on, actually,

for a very long incubation
at temperature

to help further reduce
any of the material

in there that's not plastic.

And then once that's complete,
we can filter it,

and then we can see
what's actually in there

that's remaining.

We're then able to place it
in this spectroscopy equipment,

and there's a laser that's
going to go through the sample,

and a spectra produced.

And Cat here has a sample of blood

from one of the healthy donors
that we have.

This entire white object,

that's the nylon,
that's the microplastic.

So that is nylon
in human blood, most likely from,

I'm guessing, clothes or carpet
or something like that...?

Textiles of some kind, probably.

So, what kind of polymers
are you seeing right now?

The nylon that
we've seen today, polystyrene,

polyethylene,

- polypropylene,
- Yeah.

polyethylene terephthalate,

and then, quite a lot
of additives as well.

So we have been finding some
chemicals such as phthalates.

This entire thing here,
all of this brown,

- Okay.
- is the phthalate.

So for example, the non-stick

- that's added to your frying pans.
- You found that as well?

Yeah, PTFE, the forever chemical. PFAS.

And so, what are you finding on average?

In every sample, we found microplastics.

- Every...
- It ranges from maybe one or two, to...

like, 11, 12, 13.
So, that's quite a lot.

11 microplastics
in a quarter of the sample,

and you're only taking 10 milliliters.

That's a lot.
That's a pretty big plastic burden.

I guess it's inevitable these days.

Microplastics as a contaminant type

are very different
to other types of contaminants.

There's not just the physical
side of their presence,

which is one issue,
and there's potential

to trigger
inflammation-type responses.

There's also the chemical
and the leachate issue, as well.

Both the plastics and the
additives can be genotoxic,

so, for example,
they can change the DNA.

They can be epigenetic,
causing higher vulnerability

to cancer development later in life

or even the next generation.

But in general,
the particle toxicity can...

Causes inflammatory...
Low-grade inflammatory responses.

In fact, we know
that chronic inflammation

is one of the biggest killers,

because it's a prelude
to other...

No, to many...
To many chronic diseases.

It's worrying. It's alarming,
because if it's in the blood,

that means it can be transported

to any other organ or tissue.

From your bone marrow, to your brain.

You would think that as we know this,
that we would start...

making less plastic, but no.

Plastic's production continues to rise.

Part of that is the advent of fracking.

This technology
that has suddenly released

all of this natural gas.

There's an oversupply,

and that incentivizes
making more plastic.

That is an ethane...
It's a steam cracker plant for taking

natural gas feedstock,
and turning it into plastic pellets

that they ship overseas
to make plastic.

I think they fired up in 2022,

and it's the biggest one
in the world as of right now.

It's ExxonMobil,
and a company called SABIC,

which is a Saudi-owned company.

It's a mile from our high school.
It's a half mile from my house.

Three nights ago, it shook
so bad that you'd feel it in the house,

and pictures on the wall were vibrating.

At certain times of the night
when they're in full production,

you can come out here
and read the newspaper.

They've got ground flares.

Those just roar like crazy.

It's phenomenal as a lay person
to read what their...

What their permitting was,

the tons,
thousands of tons of pollution

that they're going to let
into the air every year.

Cancer is a real deal,
and a lot of these things

that they're releasing
are known carcinogens.

One of the products that they release
in small amounts, is benzene.

The World Health Organization

determined the safe level
of benzene is zero.

I have grandchildren,
my grandson has asthma.

“Show us how good a neighbor
you're going to be.

Put some fence-line monitoring."
"No, no, we're not required to do that."

So, we put an air monitor
in our backyard.

Of course, it's got a solar panel
that keeps a battery in here charged.

There are some sensors
in the bottom here

that pick up the fine
particulate matter.

We have to have some arrows
in our quiver,

because otherwise, you...
You can't just say,

"Well, I smelled something,"
and they'll be,

"Well, what did you smell?"
"Well, I don't know."

So, this at least analyzes it,
and holds their feet

to the fire at some level.

I love capitalism,

because obviously,
we all have to have money.

But I think there should be a balance.

People say, "Well, it's growth.
It's growth, it's growth."

Growth is not always a good thing.

There's a lot of things
that grow that aren't good.

You know, mildew, cancer tumors.

I use plastic.

You can't help but use plastic,

but do we really need more?

Trash is not a pretty subject,
so most of us prefer

not to look at it or even think about it

after we've produced
our individual share.

Ask most people how to get rid of it,

and they'll have an easy answer.
Throw it away.

In the '70s,

there starts to be a concern
that landfills are filling up,

and that plastic
is a significant contributor

to that problem.

There's also growing awareness

that plastic is getting out
into the environment.

One material
we can't do much with is plastic.

It doesn't recycle easily.

In landfill, plastic bottles
remain intact for decades,

contributing unwanted bulk
to the layers

of the Earth garbage sandwich.

Plastic litter is a deadly
insult to the landscape,

since it does not disintegrate.

And so, legislators
are introducing bills

to try to ban certain kinds
of plastic packaging

like the Styrofoam clamshells
that used to be used for fast food.

And in response, the plastic industry
starts pushing the idea of recycling.

They're just one of several companies

joining America's recycling craze.

Some, it seems, to improve their image.

They also helped create the famous

“chasing arrows”
logo that you will now see

on the bottom of all sorts
of plastic packaging

that identifies it as one
of seven types of plastic.

And that leads people to believe
that this thing is recyclable.

Although, in fact, most plastic is not.

You know, less than 10 percent
of plastic worldwide

ever gets recycled.

Most of it either ends up in landfill

or it ends up out in the environment.

The plastics industry
used communication tools

to make us think it worked.

They were brainwashing us into thinking

that recycling was sufficient,
and they knew it.

They knew it wasn't enough to work.

The costs of the types of solutions

that they're proposing
are too expensive to do at scale.

There's too much plastic.

It is predicated on constant growth.

It is endlessly adaptable.
Whatever our current needs are,

you will find
a plastic solution to that.

Plastic is like
the embodiment of capitalism.

Remember The Graduate.
"Plastic."

I just want to say one word to you.

Just one word.

Yes, sir.

- Are you listening?
- Yes, sir, I am.

Plastics.

Exactly how do you mean?

There's a great future in plastics.

Plastic changed a lot
of the ways that we live.

It has enabled all sorts
of fast industries.

Fast food,

fast building,

fast fashion.

It gets widely used
because it's cheap.

It's allowed a kind of material
abundance, health, cleanliness

that is unprecedented.

But it also is a sort of proxy

for what is the worst aspects
of a capitalist system,

where you can buy, and consume,
and have no regard

for the consequences
of what you're buying.

You can discard something,

and not think about
the consequences of where it goes.

If it ends up at a waste dump
with people picking through,

trying to sort out usable bits.

We don't have to think about that.

This community is one of the
low income communities in Manila City,

and there are lots of plastics

because that's the only thing
that people can buy.

- Hello.
- Hello.

Every little thing.

So everything here comes
in little packages, right?

Yes. They need to break it down
in small amounts

because that's the amount that people
can actually buy. And with the...

- Because it's cheaper, right?
- It's cheaper, yes.

If it's in small amount.
So you'll see here,

usually you can buy this one
in large, in bulk,

but then they would have
to put it in small packets.

And it's always sad whenever
people just put it like,

“It's the consumer's fault.”

Where, in fact,
they're just actually victims

of what is happening
at the global scale,

at the national scale.

It's a very difficult situation
for the country

because we don't have the capacity

and we have limited
recycling facilities.

We can't even manage the waste

that we're already
generating in the country,

so we can't really accommodate waste

coming from other countries.

Even if Palawan is a perfect paradise

compared to more populated
cities like Manila,

there are areas where
plastics would be everywhere.

What kind of plastics
are you finding in this area?

They're usually the single-use plastics,

the ones that are easy to use
and then just throw away after.

- And then they break down in the sun.
- Yes.

And that's why we're trying to
look at, how much plastics

are in here on the water's surface.

- And let's see what we got from the net.
- Okay.

Well, I've never gone fishing
for microplastics.

- Okay. I've got this.
- I'm going to get a glass jar.

- There you go.
- Okay.

What we do with the water sample is,
we send it to a lab.

- Okay.
- And then,

we try to identify what types of plastic

or if they are really plastics,

but based on their characteristics,

they're floating, they're translucent.

Visually,
those are what you expect to see

if microplastics get
concentrated in this net.

- That's so brutal.
- Yeah. These are the ones that

the fish eat, too.

These are mussels that we bought
from the local market site.

There's plastic.

It looks like a shedding
of polyethylene bag.

When you digest
the tissue of this mussel,

you see microplastics float out,
and you see the blue fragment there?

- My goodness.
- That's plastic.

So the average mussel
contains how much microplastic?

Roughly about one to three pieces,

particles of microplastics.

And we've been seeing that

shellfish that ingest microplastics,

they have reduced growth rates,
so they don't grow big,

and then, they also don't settle
that nicely in the settlement areas.

There's only one health.

There's only one health.

It's not only the health of us, people,

the health of the animals,
of the environment, the plants.

And that means
that if one of these components

is affected by microplastics,

like in this case, the ocean,

it has also an effect
on the health of humans.

Today, we will remove the anterior part

of the frontal lobe,
including the tumor.

That's the only way to increase
the survival rate.

So...

Here is a lesion,

and these parts are the brain tissue,

which still has
a normal blood-brain barrier.

The blood-brain barrier
is a kind of evolutionary barrier,

which is protecting the brain
and our neurons

from any kind of substance,

which is already in the blood

because neurons
should work under very...

ideal conditions.

If those conditions are disrupted,

then basically the neurons stop working.

If we find microplastics in the brain,

then there are a lot of other questions.

Does the microplastic cause
the neuroinflammation?

Does the microplastic cause
any effect on the neurons,

which disrupts
their working capabilities?

If microplastics
are accumulating in the brain tissue,

at some point they should cause
some kind of

neurodegenerative disease

like Alzheimer's or dementia.

We already have a couple of samples
from last week.

We will get those samples to Sedat.

- Hi, Ziya. How are you?
- At long last.

- Good to finally meet you.
- Yeah, yeah. Good to see you.

So, if you find
microplastics in the brain,

are you going to be scared?

Yes. Because...

if microplastics can
transfer from blood to brain,

it means it can transfer
from everywhere to everywhere.

So there is no barrier.
There is no limitation for plastic.

Is there the potential
of it staying in the brain?

Yeah. There is no other way, you know.
It will accumulate there,

because it is the endpoint
of the human body.

There is no other place to go.

The brain is kind of
a pure environment, you know.

The plastics are not native
for the brain.

So, it will definitely...

make some change in the brain.

We lost our connection with nature.

So we are living in a synthetic world,

made from... Mostly made
from plastic, made from oil and gas.

The current situation
with those amounts of plastic

that we generate as a waste
and as a pollutant,

makes us Homo plasticus.

It's not a Homo sapiens anymore.

This is normal brain tissue. So...

it's like a space.

Nothing, just some nebula.

Yeah. Look.

- You see?
- What is that?

- Do you see the shape?
- Yeah. Yeah.

It's red, right?

- It's reddish. Yeah. Reddish purple.
- Yeah. Here.

So we can take the spectrum.

So it went rectangular,

and then it means it's really focused.

Okay, here we go.

Okay.

Look, this is the first spectrum.

So is that plastic?

Most probably.
We should take more...

- Samples, more scans?
- More scans, yeah, to be sure.

Because I will continue
to investigate after you...

- Yeah, after I leave.
- Yeah.

Are you surprised
by what we just found already?

Yeah, because it's not something...

- That should be there.
- Yeah.

Shouldn't be there.

You know, it's a bit tragic.

You are transferring
microplastics, plastics,

nanoplastics, and chemicals
to your unborn generation.

Sedat, good to see you again.

Yeah, good to see you. How are you?

I'm good, thank you.
So it's been a little while.

I just kind of wanted
to get an update from you.

What have you found?

Yeah, but there are
some good and bad news.

It's good for...
In a scientific manner,

but in the reality,
it's not really good news.

In the tumor-brain-tissue
that we analyzed,

we found six particles.
Two of them are blue pigments,

and those pigments
are used for production of plastics,

specifically, PVC plastics.

So, those pigments
are kind of additives.

Because plastics
have many chemicals inside,

it's like a chemical cocktail.

One of the elements
of this cocktail is pigment.

It's really scary,
but it's not surprising.

We're made of the world around us.

Everybody knows
that we're made of stardust.

I think the strange thing
is that we're starting to be made up of

a little bit
of microplastic dust as well.

We can't divorce plastic.

It's too knit into every aspect,
every pore of modern life.

That's a kind of addiction.

That's a kind of unhealthy dependence.

That's a toxic relationship.

And so, I think the question now is,

how do we manage and reset
the terms of this relationship?

Right now,
there's nothing legally binding

at any level, not national,

not regional, not international
that requires producers

to actually disclose how much
plastic is being produced.

They don't offer
any kind of transparency.

We don't know
if these materials are safe.

We don't know
how many of them there are.

We don't know where
they're being traded.

So, countries all around the world,

but led by Rwanda and Peru,

initiated this discussion to say
we need something that addresses

the full life cycle
of plastics from production

all the way through
to design, use, and end of life,

and also leakage
into the environment.

Rwanda, with beating plastic pollution,
has come a long way.

Plastic pollution was heading
to a very bad situation,

and the government of Rwanda

decided they were going to do away
with plastic carry bags in 2004.

By 2008,

we had our very first law
against polythene bags.

We saw a tremendous change.

We saw cleanliness all of a sudden,

we saw clogging of water channels

stopping because plastics
naturally clog the waterways.

But we also saw
development of businesses

that brought to the market alternatives

to plastic carry bags.

So the dependence was broken slowly,

gradually, but consistently.

But other single-use plastic items

now showed up on the market.

Plastic straws,
disposable cups, plates, cutlery.

And changing the market
to alternatives of plastics

with such a small population
is not possible.

You need some critical
mass of countries

that are banning the use
of single-use plastics

to attract research,
to attract the industry.

This is when Rwanda thought
it was necessary to engage

with other countries
to discuss this at a global arena.

Plastic production has far
surpassed sustainable levels.

The quantities
being produced today,

and projected in the future,
are simply unmanageable.

The language we are using here
is "restrain" and "reduce"

the primary polymers.

And this is not an easy job,
but we have to rise to the task.

There's a lot of questions
that need to be answered

in order to inform solutions,

which include different
practices by industry.

Also, cleanup and policies to reduce
or change our plastics economy.

The Experimental Lakes Area Project

is how we really,
really hope to answer that.

This is the first of its kind
microplastic experiment,

and it's a massive project.
We decided to use plastic

that was similar
to consumer product fragments.

They are among
the most common things we see

in really heavily urbanized areas.

So it's polyethylene,
this is polystyrene,

and this is PET
or polyethylene terephthalate.

This is what they use
to make water bottles.

This is what they use
to make a SOLO cup.

And then this is actually what
they use to make a kayak.

So we wet it, we release it underwater.

Yes, we got plastic.

And the purpose for that is,
it's meant to be in the lake,

not flying up into the air.

We'll do the addition for three years,

and we'll continue to follow it
as long as we have to.

And so, I hope that
by doing this research,

we can inform some of those solutions

to actually remediate it,

or to monitor it, or to prevent it
from getting into our water.

We started this process 15 years ago

and we became the first
plastic-free community

for North America.

We started with a water bottle,

and this little unit,
which has 5,500 fills of water.

And we translate that into

5,500 water bottles
that weren't purchased.

It's been so encouraging
for us to see the buy-in

by the citizens
and the local businesses.

Well, 90 percent of them have committed
to doing their very best

to becoming plastics-free.

These people are on board, too.

You can see our sticker
on the window, there.

Plastic-free business. Yeah.

And what we were able to do,

is to convince 142 community groups,

not politicians, community groups,

to get out there and do what we did.

It's happening, and it's a groundswell.

Today we're going to go to Hansen's.
And we've done this event in the past.

We're going to bring in these
reusable produce bags here.

Last spring we handed out over 300 bags,
so that was really good.

We're just handing out
some free, reusable,

- produce bags, if you're interested.
- Awesome. Yeah, for sure.

- Would you like to take one?
- Thank you.

So they're to use
instead of the single-use plastic bags

- currently in the produce department.
- Right on.

I'll give you the medium one, there.

- Thank you very much. It's awesome.
- No worries. Have a good day.

We're starting
to get people to understand

that it's a responsibility now.

This isn't just an idea.

This isn't just something
that we can be doing.

It's something
that we should be doing.

So, you're one
of the establishments here

- that has gone plastic-free.
- Yes, we are.

It was difficult to get supply.

It was costly, but over the years
it's gotten better and better.

A lot more variety,
and different items we can use.

And we're at about 90 percent
plastic free,

which, for a takeout place,
is pretty good.

There you go.
Brussel sprouts tacos.

- Thank you so much.
- Enjoy.

- Plastic-free tacos. My favorite kind.
- Plastic-free tacos.

We need to turn off the tap.

I think we need to dramatically reduce

the amount
of virgin plastic that gets produced.

We need to redesign hazardous chemicals

in ways that reduce their toxicity.

We know enough now to do that.

Knowledge is power,

and having literacy
or understanding of an issue

allows us to act upon it.

We didn't get here overnight.
We got here kind of one piece at a time,

and we can sort of turn back
the clock, one piece at a time.

We know that our society
can solve pollution problems.

Our grandparents
were exposed to pollutants

that don't exist anymore

because the human health
effects became clear.

Those chemicals were then banned,

and the population
was healthier as a result.

We know what the problem is.
It's not rocket science.

So we need to get on
with solving that problem

in the same way the previous generations

solved their pollution problems.