Zimbabwe's health department recently launched the COVID-19 vaccination work. Frontline medical staff from all over China and staff at high-risk places such as airports and ports became the first group of people to be vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine donated by China. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Sean Jusa)

International War Against the Epidemic

Plastics are the most common material in medical equipment. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, plastic medical products have played an irreplaceable role in the global fight against the epidemic. As the global epidemic continues, the demand for plastic products has increased significantly, while shutdowns and poor transportation have caused insufficient supply. The plastics urgently needed for epidemic prevention are facing a global shortage.

But at the same time, more and more studies have shown that plastic waste and the plastic particles decomposed by it are accumulating at an alarming rate in every corner of the world, and the bacteria that breed there may cause new health crises.

The proliferation of plastics has even formed a unique stratum on the surface of the earth, which has a long-term and significant impact on the global ecosystem, so that some studies regard the "plastic layer" as a new indicator for delineating the geological age of the earth.

Angel or devil, plastics that make people love and hate them put us in a dilemma.

Hospitals in crisis: plastic shortages may threaten virus testing

Martin Hirsch, head of the Paris Public Assistance Hospital in France, recently warned that medical institutions in the Ile-de-France region where Paris is located and in many parts of France are facing a new dilemma: a shortage of disposable plastic medical equipment, especially plastic products used for COVID-19 PCR testing. If the shortage cannot be improved, it may limit the scale of COVID-19 testing in France.

The shortage of plastic medical products in France is rooted in the decline in the supply of raw material polypropylene, and the shortage of polypropylene is global. Due to the ongoing epidemic, many large chemical plants around the world have been shut down. Regional climate disasters have also exacerbated the reduction in polypropylene production. For example, the recent cold wave that hit Texas, the United States, has caused the closure of many petrochemical plants, and it will take time to restart. These force majeures have made it difficult for raw material suppliers to deliver on schedule, and medical plastic consumables production lines have been forced to shut down.

At the same time, global demand for plastic products has exploded. First of all, there are sanitary plastic products. In addition to medical equipment for the detection and treatment of the new coronavirus, plastics are also widely used in vaccines and related logistics. In addition, the consumption of disposable plastic food packaging is also increasing sharply.

Limited supply and surging demand have caused price increases. Ron Marsh, chairman of the European Polymer Alliance, observed that "the price of polypropylene in Europe has risen by 25% since the beginning of December 2020."

Scholars warn: Plastics may trigger the next health crisis

From February 8 to 10, France held the annual meeting of the "Polymers and Oceans" research group. The group was jointly created by the French National Center for Scientific Research, the French Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea, and the National Health Security Agency. It brings together more than 60 relevant laboratories and 250 scientists from different backgrounds across France to jointly explore the impact of plastics on the marine environment and human health.

The research results discussed at the annual meeting are worrying. Ika Paul Pont, an ecotoxicologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, pointed out that the chemical toxicity of plastics in the ocean is twofold: on the one hand, plastic molecules repel water, and this hydrophobicity causes them to absorb pollutants in seawater like a sponge. Hydrocarbons, pesticides, metals and other pollutants are attached to plastics, and their content can be one million times higher than that of the surrounding water; on the other hand, the toxicity comes from the additives of plastic products themselves, including colorants, flame retardants, antioxidants, etc., which contain many endocrine disruptors, such as phthalates and bisphenol A.

According to statistics, no less than 10 million tons of plastic waste are dumped into the ocean every year. In the Mediterranean, where pollution is the most serious, there can be up to one million pieces of plastic waste per square kilometer. These toxic plastics are broken and decomposed in the ocean, forming ubiquitous microplastics. Whether it is plankton or large animals, the entire marine food chain inevitably ingests a large amount of plastic, which reduces the ability of marine organisms to absorb food, causes imbalance in their intestinal flora, and causes metabolic abnormalities.

What is more worrying is that the "plastic layer" throughout the ocean is forming a new ecosystem, where bacteria, viruses, micro-fungi, protozoa, microalgae, invertebrates, crustaceans and other organisms have settled on plastics of all sizes, forming so-called "biofilms" on their surfaces.

In 2016, two Dutch biologists found a large number of bacteria in the "plastic layer" of the ocean, including Vibrio bacteria, which are representatives of this family of bacteria that cause cholera. In 2019, researchers found highly drug-resistant bacteria in plastic waste collected near the Antarctic coast. This drug resistance is most likely because the plastics on which the bacteria depend absorb antibiotics in the water. Plastics exist in the environment much longer than biodegradable materials such as driftwood and can move over a larger space, which may become a breeding ground for super bacteria, causing a new health crisis.

EU rules: ban and taxation

The harm of plastics is gradually being known to the scientific community and the public, but the dependence on plastics is still difficult to reverse, and it is not easy to abandon them. The EU passed a bill in 2019, stipulating that from 2021, the use of disposable plastic products such as straws and tableware will be completely banned in EU countries. Due to the epidemic, major European countries prohibit restaurants from providing dine-in services and only allow take-out services. Reporters observed in France that although the ban has come into effect, the struggling catering industry still widely uses disposable plastic products in take-out services.

If a complete ban is somewhat idealistic, it is more realistic to encourage plastic recycling through taxation. The EU decided to implement a plastic tax from January this year. The goal of this regulation is to encourage EU member states to invest in plastic recycling infrastructure, otherwise the tax will be calculated according to the calculated weight of unrecycled packaging, and the member states will pay it to the EU at a price of 800 euros per ton. This year, the total plastic tax for the 27 EU member states is about 6 billion euros.

Statistics show that the EU produces about 26 million tons of plastic waste each year, of which less than 30% is recycled. The EU hopes to increase the funds urgently needed for economic recovery through plastic tax, and at the same time urge countries to increase plastic recycling as soon as possible to minimize the harm caused by plastic.

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