Plastic in the Human Food Chain: Adverse Effects and Preservation of Human Rights

Running head: SELF AND COMMUNITY
SELF AND COMMUNITY
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1SELF AND COMMUNITY
Plastic in the human food chain
The paper would argue on the topic of plastic in the human food chain and how human
rights and the dignity is preserved by the health care professionals in relation to public health.
Over a few decades human beings have dumped tons of plastics and garbage in to the oceans and
the other water bodies. This rampant dumping of the plastic garbage are causing soil as well as
water pollution (Li, Tse & Fok, 2016). One of the most devastating factor is that plastics takes
thousands of years to decay, due to which fishes and wildlife are becoming intoxicated and the
sources of the plastic toxins are entering the human food chain, threatening the health and the
wellbeing of the human (Rochman et al., 2013). Before focusing on the adverse effects of plastic
in human food chain, it is essential to understand how plastics enter the food chain of human
beings (Law & Thompson, 2014). The plastic micro-particles are being washed away in to the
sewage system from where they are ending up to the rivers and the oceans or in the agricultural
fields in the form of the fertilizers (Seltenrich, 2015). Once the micro-plastics are being
consumed by the aquatic animals, the chemicals and additives originally in the plastic along with
the absorbed pollutants can leach out and the get transferred in to the guts and the tissues (Law &
Thompson, 2014). Plastics can serve as vectors of toxic compounds and can be transferred from
the smallest creature like zooplankton at the base of the food chain, then in to the fish and
eventually to the creatures eating them and culminating in the creatures present at the top of the
food chain like the animals. Furthermore, once in the water harmful chemicals such as
monomers, vinyl chloride, phthalates can be leached in to the water. Again, since plastics are
largely solid and its structure is oily and greasy, it tends to attract hydrophobic pollutants and
toxins present in the water (Li, Tse & Fok, 2016)..