Address
Heidelberg University
Im Neuenheimer Feld 205, 4/325
69120 Heidelberg
Germany
Contact
Uliana Kachnova
uliana.kachnova@uni-heidelberg.de
Authors
Prof Philip J Landrigan MDa,h; Prof Sarah Dunlop PhDc,d; Marina Treskova PhDf,g; Hervé Raps MDh; Christos Symeonides MB ChBd,e; Jane Muncke PhDi; Margaret Spring JDj; Prof John Stegeman PhDᵏ; Prof Bethanie Carney Almroth PhDˡ; Prof Thomas C Chiles PhDᵃᵇ; Prof Maureen Cropper PhDm,n; Megan Deeney MSco; Lizzie Fuller BA LLBp; Prof Roland Geyer PhDq; Rachel Karasik MEMr; Tiza Mafira LLMs,t; Alexander Mangwiro ABu; Prof Denise Margaret Matias PhDv,w,x,y; Yannick Mulders PhDc,d; Yongjoon Park PhDz; Prof Joacim Rocklöv PhDf,g
a – Global Observatory on Planetary Health, Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
b – Department of Biology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
c – School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
d – Plastics and Human Health, Minderoo Foundation, Perth, WA, Australia
e – Centre for Community Child Health, Royal Children’s Hospital, Parkville, VIC, Australia
f – Heidelberg Institute of Global Health and Interdisciplinary Centre for Scientific Computing, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
g – Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
h – Biomedical Department, Centre Scientifique de Monaco, Monaco
i – Food Packaging Forum, Zurich, Switzerland
j – Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA, USA
k – Department of Biology, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA
l – Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
m – Department of Economics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
n – Resources for the Future, Washington DC, WA, USA
o – Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
p – Sheltering Earth, Byron Bay, NSW, Australia
q – Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
r – Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Oslo, Norway
s – Dietplastik Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia
t – PR3: the Global Alliance to Advance Reuse, USA
u – Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, UN Environment Program, Geneva, Switzerland
v – Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, Eberswalde, Germany
w – Non-Timber Forest Products, Exchange Programme Asia, Quezon City, Philippines
x – Manila Observatory, Quezon City, Philippines
y – Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
z – Department of Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA
aa – Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Division of Environmental Epidemiology and Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
ab – Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK
ac – Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
ad – Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Particles–Biology Interactions Laboratory, St. Gallen, Switzerland
ae – National Centre of Competence in Research Catalysis, Zürich, Switzerland
af – Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
* Co-chairs of the Lancet Countdown
Summary
Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognised danger to human and planetary health. Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding US$1·5 trillion annually. These impacts fall disproportionately upon low-income and at-risk populations. The principal driver of this crisis is accelerating growth in plastic production—from 2 megatonnes (Mt) in 1950, to 475 Mt in 2022 that is projected to be 1200 Mt by 2060. Plastic pollution has also worsened, and 8000 Mt of plastic waste now pollute the planet. Less than 10% of plastic is recycled. Yet, continued worsening of plastics’ harms is not inevitable. Similar to air pollution and lead, plastics’ harms can be mitigated cost-effectively by evidence-based, transparently tracked, effectively implemented, and adequately financed laws and policies. To address plastics’ harms globally, UN member states unanimously resolved in 2022 to develop a comprehensive, legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, namely the Global Plastics Treaty covering the full lifecycle of plastic. Coincident with the expected finalisation of this treaty, we are launching an independent, indicator-based global monitoring system: the Lancet Countdown on health and plastics. This Countdown will identify, track, and regularly report on a suite of geographically and temporally representative indicators that monitor progress toward reducing plastic exposures and mitigating plastics’ harms to human and planetary health.