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The level of chemical pollution that pervades the planet now threatens the stability of global ecosystems on which humanity depends, scientists say.
Plastics is a particularly big concern, they said, along with 350,000 synthetic chemicals, including pesticides, industrial compounds and antibiotics.
Plastic pollution is now found from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. The study concludes that chemical pollution has crossed a “planetary frontier”, the point at which man-made changes on Earth push it out of the sustainable environment of the last 10,000 years.
Chemical pollution threatens Earth’s systems by damaging the biological and physical processes that support life.
“There is ample evidence that things are going in the wrong direction at every turn,” said Professor Bethanie Carney Almroth at the University of Gothenburg.
Meanwhile there are growing calls for international action on chemicals and plastics, including the creation of a global scientific body on chemical pollution, similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The planetary limit of chemical pollution is the fifth of nine that scientists say have been exceeded, with others being global warming, wildlife destruction, biodiversity loss, and excessive pollution with nitrogen and phosphorus.
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