OVERVIEW
Background and Focus
The effects of microplastics on human health have been researched and explored for years, yet there are very few studies discussing the health effects of microplastic pollution in developing countries. Previous research thoroughly investigates microplastic pollution in water, air, and food, as well as health complications that may arise from them, but these studies seem to be conducted in already-developed, first world countries, such as the United States, or the UK. As many studies on microplastic pollution in developing countries had not yet been published, there resulted a lack of coverage on this subject. This project will utilize data from India and highlight the correlations between plastic pollution and three prominent health issues in order to establish a potential link between them. The findings can be used by health organizations to focus their resources on the issues highlighted by this study, and find more concrete evidence linking microplastic pollution to health issues, emphasizing the need to reduce global plastic pollution.
WHY INDIA?
Figure 1 shows the countries that contributed more than 5% towards global and mismanaged plastic waste in 2019. While the Philippines were responsible for over 36% of the world's plastic waste released into the ocean, their share of global mismanaged plastic waste was just over 6%. India was responsible for over 12% of plastic waste released into the ocean, but had the highest share of mismanaged plastic waste at 21%. More plastic was being littered and incorrectly disposed of in India, meaning that more people were exposed to plastics and microplastics.
Figure 1
HEALTH EFFECTS OF MICROPLASTICS
Numerous studies suggest different types of health issues caused by microplastics, but there have been very few studies establishing the consequences of microplastics. A study conducted in 2021 found that they have been proven to cause cell death, however, due to the scale of this project and the limited data available, potential links to breast cancer, lung cancer, and tuberculosis were the primary focus of this project, due to their redundancy in other research and relevance to this project.
GROUND POLLUTION AND TUBERCULOSIS
Plastic Waste Generated in TPA, 2019-2020 vs Tuberculosis Prevalence, 2020
The data in Figure 2 initially produced three states of interest: Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. This was due to the largest amount of plastic waste being generated there. Tuberculosis rates in those states were initially predicted to be the highest out of all of the states, but as seen in Figure 3, the TB rates in those states do not match the ones in the prediction. The states with the highest levels of plastic waste each have varying levels of tuberculosis prevalence, while Uttar Pradesh had the most TB cases in 2020. Thus, there does not seem to be a link between plastic pollution on the ground and tuberculosis occurrence.
Figure 2
Figure 3
GROUND POLLUTION AND CANCER
Plastic Waste Generated in TPA, 2019-2020 vs Cancer Cases, 2019-2020
The data in Figures 2 and 5 have many similarities compared to the previous observation. Maharashtra generated one of the highest amounts of plastic waste, and also had some of the most cancer cases in the country in the same time period, which is similarly seen in the states of interest and other southern and western states. The northeastern states, which produced some of the lowest amounts of plastic waste in the country, also saw fewer cancer cases than those which produced more waste. These similarities potentially indicate a link between cancer and mismanaged plastic waste on the ground.
Figure 2
Figure 4
AIR POLLUTION AND TUBERCULOSIS
India Air Pollution Levels, 1998-2019 vs Tuberculosis Prevalence, 2020
Almost all of India's air exceeds the WHO's standards for healthy air. Even the palest colored states on the map exceed WHO's standard of 10 µg/m3 for PM 2.5, which contains a significant amount of plastic . This means that almost all of India's population is exposed to unhealthy air, with many people being exposed to worse air than the rest. This puts most of the population at risk of respiratory problems, which, in the context of this project, are tuberculosis and lung cancer. Figure 6 and Figure 3 show strong correlations between air pollution and tuberculosis prevalence, because with such unhealthy air, it would not be uncommon for crowded populations to contract the disease. Worse air quality and higher populations could increase the risk of contracting the disease, while better air quality and smaller populations decrease the risk.
Figure 5
Figure 3
AIR POLLUTION AND CANCER
India Air Pollution Levels, 1998-2019 vs Cancer Cases, 2019-2020
Figure 6 and Figure 5 do not seem to show any correlation at first, however, due to the data of the northeastern states, there may be a connection between air pollution and cancer cases. The northeastern states have better air quality and lower amounts of cancer cases compared to the western and southern states, indicating that air quality may be a factor in the contraction of cancer. However, due to the limited amount of cancer data available, this correlation may be weak.
Figure 5
Figure 4
FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
Based on this research, it is plausible to conclude that there is a low chance of tuberculosis being caused by ground pollution, however, the chances of it being caused by air pollution are much higher. Cancer, on the other hand, might be caused by both ground and air pollution. The states for which the cancer data was available did not indicate the type of cancer for each individual case, however, lung and breast cancer was listed in the top 5 most prevalent cancers for each state, suggesting that plastic pollution has an impact on cancer rates.