Plastic chemicals linked to $249 billion in US health care costs in just one year, study finds

By contributing to the development of chronic disease and death, a group of hormone-disruptive plastic chemicals is costing the US health care system billions — over $249 billion in 2018 alone, a new study found.

“The real contribution of this work is helping the public understand how much of the human health threat of endocrine-disrupting chemicals is due to plastics,” said lead author Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics and population health at NYU Langone Health in New York City.

“We’re talking about cancer. We’re talking about brain damage in young children. We’re talking about obesity and diabetes, heart disease and early deaths in adults,” Trasande said. “Right now, the United States is not considering the costs to its own population of industries which continue to produce and consume plastic in the US.”

While estimates of the health costs of plastics have been done in the past, the new study provides a “a better understanding of both potential exposure routes but also potential targets for solutions,” said researcher Bethanie Carney Almroth, professor of ecotoxicology and environmental science at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.