Microplastics: An Emerging Concern for Animal and Human Health

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I cannot claim to be the most environmentally aware person in my neighborhood. I drive a car that is way too fond of gas, and often leave the lights on when I shouldn’t. So maybe I can be excused for not having heard of microplastics until now.

Plastic, which is a petro-chemical product, is produced in prodigious quantities around the world and has been an important advancement in modern life. But all this plastic has created its own set of problems. One visible problem is the huge amount of plastic trash – containers, fishing nets, straws – that floats around on the surface of the oceans. Plastic products also shed or deconstruct to tiny, sometimes invisible, particles and fibers. The effects of these microplastics are poorly understood now, but they are sure to become a concern for animal and human health.

Since plastics were first widely used in the mid-20th century, roughly 9 billion tons of it have been produced, most of which has become trash. This trash doesn’t biodegrade. A November 26, 2018 article in the excellent magazine High Country News speculates that scientists in the distant future will come upon a brightly colored layer of plastic material deposited in our time. Some geologists today refer to the current period as the Plastocene, and even recognize a type of rock made from naturally fused plastic and sediment called plastiglomerate.

Microplastics are particles smaller than 5 millimeters in diameter. Some have broken down from larger objects like tires or plastic bags. Some have been intentionally manufactured. Concern about microbeads, tiny plastic scrubbers in toothpaste and exfoliant washes, led to a federal ban on them in personal care products beginning in 2017. But perhaps the greatest concern now is the tiny synthetic fibers shed by clothing.

Synthetic fibers are long, thin strands of plastic woven into threads, much like wool. It is estimated that 58% of today’s clothing is woven with them. The fleece that keeps us warm in the winter is full of synthetic fiber. Synthetic blankets, sweaters and shirts also. A researcher in Australia set up three washing machines with special filters that trapped the microfibers after washing fleece garments. He found that they shed up to 1900 tiny fibers each time they were washed. These are too small to be captured by typical washing machine filters or municipal sewage systems. They go directly into our open water.

We are beginning to realize how widely microplastics are being taken up by animals in the lower orders of the food chain, such as invertebrate sea creatures, worms and insects. Mosquito larvae are also capable of eating microplastics and then retaining the plastic as adults. Dragonfly and midges, which also begin life as underwater larvae, are similar. Larger fish and sea animals that predate on the lower level creatures are likely to take up microplastics into their gut. And birds that make meals of insects are equally likely to take up microplastics.

Studies between 1962 and 2012 have revealed that 59% of examined seabird species have ingested plastics. Albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters contain more plastic that other species, probably because they feed in the open ocean and mistake floating plastic for prey. Most of this comes from pecking or otherwise ingesting small pieces of bottle caps, plastic bags, balloons, buttons and plastic lighters.

In the case of birds and other animals, it is unclear whether the plastic transfers from the gut to other organs and muscles. It may simply be ground up and pass through undigested. It is clear, however, that mortality rates increase among the birds that ingest large amounts of plastic. This could be caused by obstruction in the digestive tract, or an inverse correlation between the amount of plastic ingested and the amount of body fat the bird produces.

There have been no proper studies of the effects on humans of plastic uptake by fish and birds. Even scientists who work in the area concede that we have more serious environmental problems like carbon dioxide emissions and coastal erosion that require attention immediately.

But you can expect more attention to be paid to microplastics in the future. One reason is that they often act as sponges for other organic pollutants such as dioxins and PCBs. The molecules of these notably harmful chemicals shelter in the water-free environment found between the long carbon chains that make up plastics. A Japanese study found that 3-millimeter-wide plastic resin pellets found in Tokyo Bay contained organic pollutants one million times their concentration in ordinary sea water.

So how can an environmentally retarded person such as my own personal self act appropriately when it comes to plastic? One thing I do is ask for paper bags at the Food Lion. The check-out people see me coming and immediately go on break. Too bad – they will just have to get used to it. I also try to buy products packaged without plastic, but this is near impossible. Recently I found a big jug of olive oil in a glass bottle and snagged it. The more people do this the sooner manufacturers will get the message. And I will start buying cotton and wool garments, avoiding space-age synthetics. No more Speedo swimsuits.

But aside from modifying individual behavior, what can be done? West Virginia counties and cities still have the freedom to pass ordinances prohibiting one-use plastic packaging like shopping bags and water bottles. Last year, our ultra-libertarian Senator Patricia Rucker led a group of like-minded legislators in an effort to prohibit municipalities from passing ordinances relating to packaging and similar sinister left-wing topics. This effort failed, but she is likely to try again this year. If our newly-found environmental consciousness in Jefferson County has continuing strength, perhaps we can prevail on our local governments to tackle the plastic issue promptly.

The Value of Increasing the Minimum Wage

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One obvious way to increase the value and attractiveness of working is to increase the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009 but Congress does not seem interested in increasing it. Individual states, however, can set a higher minimum wage. West Virginia’s minimum is now $8.75, having been increased in stages over several years. Many other states have done the same. Increasing the minimum wage puts more money in the pockets of low-income people who will spend it in the economy, reduces dependence on public benefits and costs taxpayers nothing. This is seriously good policy.

The Benefits

Raising the minimum wage not only benefits those whose wages were below the new minimum, it benefits most all workers in the economy. Let’s take the example of a hypothetical gas station and convenience store operation open 24 hours, similar to Sheetz. Suppose that before an increase in the minimum wage the store employs a total of four stock clerks paid at the federal minimum of $7.25 to stock shelves and clean up. The store also employs five cashiers at $8.50, two assistant managers at $10 and one manager on salary.

Now suppose that state raises the minimum to $9. Obviously, the stock clerks who were receiving the previous minimum wage will get an hourly raise of $1.75. In addition, the cashiers’ prior wage would be below the new minimum so they will also receive at least a $.50 raise.  But, more likely, the employer will want to maintain the spread between the wages of the stock clerks and the cashiers so the latter will receive an even bigger bump – let’s say to $10.25.

Now the assistant managers will also have to receive a bump to keep them better compensated than the cashiers. The salaried manager will have to be paid more than the new total compensation of the assistant managers, which would include higher hourly pay plus overtime, so even salaried employees might benefit. In this way an increased minimum wage ripples through the employee ranks and the larger economy.

Raising the minimum wage thus puts more money into the pockets of low and middle income workers who will actually spend the money rather than save it. The more money in circulation, the greater the wealth-creating effect. This wealth creation is also “revenue-neutral” for governments since the increase in wages is not paid for with tax money. In fact, an increase in the minimum wage creates more taxable income for governments and fewer government costs in the form of Medicaid, food stamps and other forms of public assistance.

A 2016 report by the Economic Policy Institute concluded that an increase in the federal minimum wage would “unambiguously” decrease government spending on public assistance:

Among workers in the bottom three wage deciles, every $1 increase in hourly wages reduces the likelihood of receiving means-tested public assistance by 3.1 percentage points. This means that the number of workers receiving public assistance could be reduced by 1 million people with a wage increase of just $1.17 an hour, on average, among the lowest-paid 30 percent of workers.

The Costs

Business groups are the typical opponents of increasing the minimum wage. The reason, of course, is that wages are a significant component of the cost of operating a business, particularly restaurants. But businesses constantly have to deal with increasing costs of all kinds, including labor costs. Successful businesses develop strategies for dealing with these increasing costs.

Rarely will a business go under because of a rise in the minimum wage and if one does it was probably not a viable, long-term business anyway. And an increase in the minimum wage applies to all employers so there is no one who will have a competitive advantage, unless it is one that operates more efficiently.

Perhaps in recognition that their business reasons for opposing a higher minimum wage are a bit selfish and unconvincing, opponents argue that the workers themselves will suffer from an increase in the minimum wage. According to this argument, if employers are required to pay employees more they will hire fewer employees or will give existing employees fewer work hours.

But this has never made sense to me. Assuming the employer has a constant level of work, employees paid at the minimum, whatever that is, will still be the least expensive way of doing that work. Hiring fewer employees at the bottom would simply mean that existing workers will get more hours, not fewer.

Opponents are fond of pointing to one-off studies that show employment loss as a result of increasing the minimum wage. A study after the recent Seattle wage increase did find some employment loss among the lowest-skilled portion of the workforce. There the minimum wage was raised from $9.47 to $13 in two years. But usually employment loss is found only when there is a large increase in the minimum wage like this. 

Meta-studies allow us to put these one-off studies into perspective. Meta-studies use a set of well-defined statistical techniques to pool the results of a large number of separate studies. A comprehensive meta-study in 2013 revealed that there is no statistically significant employment effect created by moderate increases in the minimum wage. In the last decade, influential studies using restaurant industry data in many U.S. counties and regions have concluded that minimum wage increases have “strong earnings effects and no employment effects.”

This conclusion has an explanation, or rather several explanations. The natural impulse of employers to hire fewer or fire more expensive employees is balanced by several “adjustment channels.” Some of these involve reducing other employment costs, such as reducing work hours, non-wage benefits or training costs. While the empirical evidence is not conclusive, it suggests that employers don’t adjust by cutting hours or other forms of compensation. If an employer has a steady volume of output it must generate, cutting hours is not an option – unnecessary hours would have been cut before. 

Another adjustment channel is simply to increase prices to pass along to consumers the added costs of new wage levels. While some of this does happen, employers do not substantially pass on to consumers the higher costs of employment. Studies have shown that a 10% increase in the minimum wage will result in between a .4% and .7% increase in prices. 

An increase in the minimum wage does not result in the termination of existing employees because the cost of recruiting, hiring and training even low-wage workers is so high that employers would rather retain even higher paid current employees. And a worker who is paid more is less likely voluntarily to leave a job. A 2012 study found “striking evidence” that separations and turnover rates for teens and restaurant workers fall substantially following a minimum wage increase.

Some argue that increasing the minimum wage will hasten the replacement of workers by technology. For many types of work automation is inevitable. This is no argument to underpay workers in the meantime.

Congress does not seem in any shape to increase the federal minimum wage, although the new Democratic majority in the House may take a run at it. Instead, the progress is being made in the states. In early November 2018, voters in two red states approved ballot initiatives raising the minimum wage – to $11 in Arkansas and $12 in Missouri. Perhaps the West Virginia Legislature will see the wisdom of making a similar change. Doing so will cost taxpayers nothing and the benefits to working people and the economy are clear.