Food security has been a hot topic in the past few years, as industrial activities and our unsustainable carbon-heavy lifestyles continue to increase exponentially. Global warming and climate change have caused extreme weather events, including more droughts, floods and natural disasters that wipe out crops and livestock. To add onto that, rapidly warming temperatures in water bodies have also caused the extinction of some marine species, algae blooms and fishkill. We now know the disastrous effects of microplastic ingestion on our health, but it is important to remember the wider issues that plastic pollution brings for us as a global community.
Food security
One of the more obvious ways in which microplastics can affect food security is that seafood filled with plastic bits render much of our fishermen’s catch inedible. Given how abundant microplastics are currently in our oceans and seas, it would be little surprise if almost all the fish caught were found to have some form of plastics in their systems. Some of the most commonly caught marine species (e.g. Yellowfin tuna, Atlantic cod and Alaskan pollock) and aquaculture species (e.g. various species of carp, the Whiteleg shrimp and Nile tilapia), make up much of the ‘commercially exploited species’[1] captured for human consumption. 2/3 of the most commonly cultivated aquaculture species and 4/5 of marine species were tested for the presence of microplastics, and the results were positive (Walkinshaw, Lindeque, Thompson, Tolhurst & Cole, 2020).
This is terrible news when we consider the ever-growing needs of the population for seafood, especially the more affluent who demand for more crabs, lobsters and other ‘luxury seafoods’. Seafood like salmon, tuna and trout serve as vital sources of alternative protein to chicken or other meats, and is highly consumed in places like Japan. Given that we need more seafood than ever to feed the expanding global population (Ritchie & Roser, 2019), it is already difficult enough to meet this demand without the added stress of a reduced stock. A shrinking supply of seafood, combined with a growing demand, threatens global food security. If this situation does not improve, it could be a very real possibility where our future generations can no longer enjoy seafood at all.
What is less obvious is the presence of microplastics on land, affecting our agricultural soils. As mentioned in a previous post, urban processes like car tyre degradation, laundry microfibres and industrial processes all contribute large amounts of microplastics into sewages, as well as directly into soils (Nizzetto, Futter & Langaas, 2016). In the same article, it is mentioned that sewage sludge being applied onto agricultural soils, and the absorption of groundwater containing microplastics are the two main ways in which microplastics are absorbed into crops that eventually reach our table as food.
Although the future seems bleak and hopeless with all these negative effects of microplastics on us and our environment, not all hope is lost. In the next few posts, we will look at some measure that have been taken by various stakeholders to solve this issue.
[1] Commercially exploited species: species where the amount of wild fish caught exceeds the rate at which fish can reproduce and replenish.
Bibliography:
Nizzetto, L., Futter, M., & Langaas, S. (2016) Are Agricultural Soils Dumps for Microplastics of Urban Origin? Environmental Science And Technology, 50(20), 10777–10779. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b04140
Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2019). Seafood Production. Retrieved 5 October 2020, from https://ourworldindata.org/seafood-production#citation
Walkinshaw, C., Lindeque, P., Thompson, R., Tolhurst, T., & Cole, M. (2020). Microplastics and seafood: lower trophic organisms at highest risk of contamination. Ecotoxicology And Environmental Safety, 190, 110066. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2019.110066
