The Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health

The goal of the Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health is to comprehensively examine and make visible the full range of plastics’ harms to human health and the earth’s environment across the entire plastic life cycle. This interdisciplinary Commission is comprised of scientists, healthcare workers, and policy analysts from around the world.

Plastics have conveyed great benefits to humanity, made our lives more convenient, and supported some of modern civilization’s most significant advances. It is now clear, however, that plastics are neither safe nor cheap. Current patterns of plastic production, use and disposal are wasteful, inefficient and far from circular. They are responsible for significant harms to human health, the economy, and the earth’s environment. These harms extend far beyond beach litter and microplastics. Many are invisible. Until now, the extent of these harms has not been systematically assessed, their magnitude not quantified, and their economic costs not counted.

In June 2022, in recognition of plastic’s growing dangers to human and planetary health, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted a resolution to ‘End Plastic Pollution’ (UNEA Resolution 5/14). In this resolution, nations from around the world agreed to work together over the next two years to negotiate the first ever legally binding international treaty on plastic. Negotiation of this treaty will involve the crafting of global obligations to measure and reduce plastics across plastic’s full lifecycle; developing national action plans and national and international cooperative measures; devising a financial mechanism to support implementation of the treaty; and knowledge-sharing mechanisms to strengthen the science-policy interface. To support this historic process, robust analyses of plastic’s health impacts and science-based solutions to protect human health are urgently needed.

To meet this challenge, the Minderoo – Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health undertook a comprehensive analysis of plastic’s health impacts across its life cycle, and developed forward-looking, science-based recommendations that will prevent plastic-related disease and save lives.