Microplastics: What did the plastics industry know and when did they know it?

In June 1973 during a hearing on the Watergate scandal erupting around President Richard Nixon, Sen. Howard Baker, a Republican from Tennessee, uttered the most famous words of his entire career: "What did the president know and when did he know it?" It turned out that Nixon knew a lot early on, and that led to his resignation from the presidency a little more than a year later.

Since then, a form of that question has become central in investigations of many high-profile scandals including public health calamities such as those related to leaded gasoline, chlorofluorocarbons, asbestos and tobacco. Regarding the emerging public health calamity surrounding microplastics, we now have an answer to that compound question courtesy of the Los Angeles Times which gives us the precise date and location: the New York Academy Of Sciences Meeting in New York City held on May 10 and 11 in 1974.

At that conference, the plastics industry learned about the dangers of microplastics to human and animal health from Gerhard Volkheimer, a German scientist presenting at the conference, who "showed that tiny bits of swallowed plastic PVC [polyvinyl chloride] could slip through the intestinal lining of animals and travel through the blood and lymph to the brain, liver and other internal body parts," according to the Times. We know that many of the attendees at the conference were from industry because afterwords they wrote memos to their colleagues—now public thanks to the Times—memos bearing a distinct tone of alarm.

1974—Keep that year in your mind as we examine a similar question for other public health calamities.

Two public health disasters I mentioned above, leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons, are linked by the scientist who invented the substances behind them, chemist Thomas Midgley Jr. It's worth mentioning that Midgley received prestigious awards from both academic and industry groups for these inventions and ultimately was elected president of the American Chemical Association.

Midgley worked for General Motors starting in 1916 which was looking for a way to end engine knocking that reduced performance and damaged engines. Midgley came up with the idea of adding a form of lead called tetraethyllead to gasoline. It was already known that adding ethanol to gasoline would solve the problem of engine knocking (as we do today). But it wasn't possible to patent ethanol so the profit potential was nil. Tetraethyllead, however, was patentable and became a huge money-maker. That's why the company was loathe to abandon it even when workers in plants making the the chemical began dying of lead poisoning and experiencing other symptoms such as hallucinations and insanity if they didn't die. This was in the early 1920s. So, the industry knew right at the beginning that lead in gasoline was dangerous, but chose to ignore it.

It was 50 years before the U.S. Congress banned lead in gasoline and the ban still does not apply to aviation fuel.

Midgley's other damaging invention, chlorofluorocarbons, came into widespread use as a refrigerant in the 1930s and later in air-conditioners under the brand name Freon. It was also used as a propellant in spray cans because it is nontoxic and nonflammable. Like leaded gasoline, it took about 50 years before the Montreal Protocol effectively phased out the use of chlorofluorocarbons worldwide. Why the phase-out? It turns out that one of the properties that made chlorofluorocarbons ideal for refrigerators and air-conditioners—its extraordinary resistance to breakdown—made it destructive to the Earth's ozone layer which it was depleting at an alarming rate. (For those who don't know, the ozone layer protects the Earth's surface from ultraviolet and other radiation harmful and even fatal to living organisms.)

Of course, Midgley appears to have never asked the question: What happens to chlorofluorocarbons when they escape? That's the question asked by the scientist F. Sherwood Rowland in 1974 that saved the ozone layer from destruction.

Returning to the plastics industry, we should expect based on the historical record that it will take at least 50 years from the time microplastics were known to be a health hazard (1974) before human society does anything serious about it. By that measure, we are already overdue for some action. Of course, the industry, as it always does, is trying to invert the burden of proof, putting it on the public to somehow prove that microplastics are dangerous to human health, when it should be the industry's burden to prove that they are safe.

We already have enough evidence to show harm despite the industry dragging its feet. It's understandable why the industry and even the public may be reluctant to act. But there was an age before plastics. Glass, wood, metal and even stone proved both durable and a safe (if you don't count cuts from broken glass). The alternative is to ignore the ever growing tide of plastic that is invading our bodies, the bodies of animals and even plants and see what this uncontrolled worldwide experiment does to us and our biosphere.

Kurt Cobb is a freelance writer and communications consultant who writes frequently about energy and environment. His work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Resilience, Common Dreams, Naked Capitalism, Le Monde Diplomatique, Oilprice.com, OilVoice, TalkMarkets, Investing.com, Business Insider and many other places. He is the author of an oil-themed novel entitled Prelude and has a widely followed blog called Resource Insights. He can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.