Marine Environment

This investigation uncovers shocking evidence of how bad actors exploit regulatory weaknesses and legal loopholes in the global plastic waste trade, fuelling a thriving illegal market. The global plastic waste trade continues to pose significant environmental and health risks, and causes huge amounts of pollution of land, air and even soil.

The report presents numbers and figures of the 2024 Great Global Nurdle Hunt. Nurdles are plastic pellets produced from fossil fuels, recycled or biobased material. Each year, due to mismanagement across the entire supply chain and a lack of regulation, over 445,000 t of nurdles spill into the environment around the world, making them a major source of primary microplastic pollution.

Plastic Waste Poisons Indonesia's Food Chain reports on the high levels of dioxins being dumped into the environment and food networks as a result of plastic incineration — plastics which are being imported along with waste papers into Indonesia and other countries. Measured levels of dioxin in eggs rivals some of the worst polluted areas in human history.

This synthesis of data on toxic chemical ocean pollution, including hazardous pesticides, pharmaceuticals, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) like PCBs, plastics, microplastics, and heavy metals, exposes their sweeping impacts on marine and human life.

A new report from Alaska Community Action on Toxics and IPEN finds that chemicals, plastics, and climate change are interrelated and threaten Arctic Peoples and lands. These forces have combined to poison lands, waters, and traditional foods of Arctic Indigenous Peoples, with ongoing health effects that threaten their cultures and communities.

This executive summary combines IPEN's two new reports on the chemicals in plastic pellets that endanger human health and the environment — "Plastic pellets found on beaches all over the world contain toxic chemicals" and "Widespread chemical contamination of recycled plastic pellets globally", in which we investigated chemicals in pellets made from recycled waste plastics.

Almost all plastics contain toxic chemicals that are not removed during recycling but are carried over to the new products, and the recycling process can even generate new toxic chemicals such as dioxins. The increased recycling is intended to contribute to a so-called circular economy, but plastics containing toxic chemicals should not be recycled. Instead, they should be considered non-circular materials.

Plastic pellets, or nurdles, are used to make plastic products but are often lost during production, transportation, and storage. They can carry many different chemicals, both those intentionally added and pollutants that attach to the plastics in the environment. Some of these chemicals are especially concerning since they are known to have several negative effects on human health and the environment.