Plastic Causes $1.5 Trillion in Annual Health Damages? Controversy Arises Over Authoritative Journal's Claim

A recent article published in a leading British medical journal has sparked controversy. The study, published on August 3 in The Lancet, claims: “Plastic poses a lifelong threat to health from infancy to old age, leading to disease and death, with health-related economic losses exceeding $1.5 trillion annually.”

The article completely ignores all the positive contributions of plastics in the field of healthcare. Even just considering the plastic products used daily by medical staff, the list is endless: syringes for injections, blood and body fluid sample collection bottles, and so on. In hospital settings, plastic items such as intravenous infusion bags and sterile surgical drapes are simply indispensable.

The advancement of human health is largely attributed to the contributions of engineers.

To truly understand the positive impact of plastics on global health (and their future potential), one cannot be limited to a physician’s perspective—especially not the narrow view that “medicine is the sole pillar of health.”

Looking back over the past 200 years, the greatest leap in human health has stemmed from improvements in sanitation: safe drinking water, food security, and the development of solid and liquid waste management systems. The Industrial Revolution drove populations to gather in cities, and these advancements not only curbed the spread of large-scale infectious diseases but also directly extended human life expectancy.

Engineers (especially civil engineers) are key players in improving drinking water and sanitation conditions. Although plastic was not present in early solutions, this material is now deeply integrated into related systems and has become a crucial part of the operation of modern sanitation systems.

Without plastic, food safety would be out of the question.

In the field of food safety, the role of plastic is becoming increasingly important: the plastic lining of steel cans ensures the sealing and safety of the container and the food; the packaging of most shelf-stable foods contains plastic components to prevent contamination; and the plastic wrapping of meat products avoids cross-contamination during shopping. It can be said that without plastic, daily diets could potentially pose hidden health risks.

Beverage safety also depends on plastic. Although single-use plastic bottles are widely criticized, their role in ensuring the safety of drinking water is taken for granted—just as people take the safety of tap water for granted. Even in some areas (such as São Paulo), where tap water has an unusual taste during certain seasons, very few people worry about getting sick because of it.

What about bacterial contamination?

The aforementioned authoritative journal suggests that compared to waterborne bacteria, people should be more concerned about microplastics in water. This viewpoint clearly takes clean water sources for granted, which is precisely a cognitive fallacy that warrants caution.

Medicine is undoubtedly crucial to health, but it is rooted in the foundation built by engineers — safe food, water, and air, in which plastics play a key role. The rational use of plastics should be regarded as a contributor to health rather than a "villain" that harms it.