Microplastics are increasingly discovered in our bodies and food supplies.
They are defined as fragments of plastic smaller than about 5 mm in size of a pencil eraser. However, it can also be much smaller, such as the size of the virus particles and the strands of DNA.
Petrochemicals, the building blocks of plastic, are produced from oil and gas. The business is a small but beneficial area of the fossil fuel industry, and promoting the use of plastics is seen as a threat to the oil and gas industry.
“The most vulnerable thing in the industry is human exposure to microplastics,” said Richard Wills, president of the Climate Integrity Center. “They’ll have to say that it’s okay to be exposed to microplastics every day, from birth to death. That’s great. You should eat more of it. That’s fine. And I don’t think they can win that argument.”
Scientific research on microplastics has skyrocketed over the past few years. The National Library of Medicine’s PubMed database reported that the level of published scientific research related to the search term “microplastics” has almost doubled between 2021 and 2024.
One study published in Nature Medicine in February found that the average human brain averaged about 7 grams of plastic in 2024, which is about 50% more plastic than the brains studied since 2016. Scientists involved in the study told us that these samples came from the frontal cortex.
“If you think people are measuring and understanding these types of nanoplastics, and measuring our food, our water, our air, when they’re in, I’m not seeing evidence that it’s happening on a meaningful scale,” said Andrew West, a researcher at Duke University and one of the study’s co-authors.
Microplastics have been discovered by scientists in fish muscle tissue, and even in the fibers of fruits and vegetables.
“Advanced surveillance technology has allowed us to detect very small amounts of substances, such as microplastics,” said Kimberly Wise White, vice president of regulation and science science at the American Chemistry Council, the plastics industry association. “But finding something at a very low level doesn’t mean it’s harmful. Plastics offers proven benefits in healthcare, food safety, transportation and technology.
The industrial giant has invested heavily in chemical production as oil demand has declined due to electrification in China and India, tariffs in the US and slowing economic growth. The International Energy Agency said, for example, that adoption of electric vehicles had driven away more than 1 million barrels of oil per day in 2024, and is expected to increase to 5 million barrels by 2030.
The outlook for 2024 is BP He said the decline in the use of petroleum in transportation is offset by the use of petroleum for petrochemical production. Chemical applications include a variety of products such as detergents and paints, but polyethylene plastics are a major part of the chemical business.
“Major oil and gas companies play a key role in the plastic supply chain, and there is a set of many other companies. [on] said Kenneth Gillingham, professor of energy and environmental economics at Yale University.
In the United States, approximately 1.5% of natural gas is converted to chemicals used to make plastics and other consumer products, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison University.
Saudi Arabico, the world’s largest oil company, is also increasing its activities in this space. In 2020, I bought a 70% stake in Petrochemicals Company Sabic. Though the fourth quarter 2024 results were lower than expected, Sabic won nearly $35 billion from Petrochemicals last year.
“We, as a society, it’s definitely better to have plastic than we don’t have plastic, but we’re facing the consequences of having those plastics,” Gillingham said.
Watch the video to learn more about how microplastics have become a major problem for big oils.
