TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Microplastics: A Vicious Menace to Life

Group: 06 – Grouping Unit: 06

Student name & ID: 1. Nguyễn Hồng Thiên Nhi - 02000785
2. Lại Thị Huyền Trang - 02000833
Course: Writing 4 (001153)
Lecturer: Lê Thị Bảo Ngân

Submission date: May 27, 2022

Order Full Name & ID ASSESSMENT RESULT

 Peer TOTAL TOTAL
Oral Part Report
Review RESULT RESULT
(20%) (70%)
(10%) (In numbers) (In words)

1 Nguyễn Hồng Thiên Nhi

02000785

2 Lại Thị Huyền Trang

02000833

Examiner 1’s signature & full name Examiner 2’s signature & full name
 “Just because you cannot see something, does not mean it is not there,” stated the
famous micro-sculptor Willard Wigan. The said statement is equally correct when
referring to microplastics - fragments of plastics that are just millimeters in length which
are produced when plastics disintegrate in water sources, whose repercussions are often
overlooked due to their diminutive size. In fact, along with the production of
microplastics comes great consequences such as damaging effects on the marine
ecosystem and possible long-term effects on human health.
The marine species and marine food chain are adversely affected by microplastics
which are considered as a global threat. They can have a toxic influence on fish and
aquatic species, including reducing food intake, delaying growth, causing oxidative
damage and abnormal behaviors. Microplastics have small particle sizes; therefore, they
are easily eaten by marine life. When microplastics are taken into the body of marine life,
they will accumulate in the digestive tract and block it, resulting in satiety, declining in
feeding capacity and energy reserves in their body. Moreover, after aquatic species
consume a large quality of microplastics, it can cause oxidative damage, abnormal
behaviors, immunity toxicity, reproductive toxicity and genetic damage, which
contributes considerable effects to the growth and health of marine life. Li et al. (2021)
indicated that “Fish is an important group in the marine ecosystem, it plays a key role in
the process of material circulation, energy flow and information transmission, and its
health level can be directly related to the stability of the structure and function of the
marine ecosystem”. When the growth and health of aquatic species are reduced, it can
make the marine food chain system unsteady. When marine life, especially fish
containing microplastics are eaten, those tiny plastic fragments in their body do not
disappear. It will be transferred into other species that prey on them and continue to cause
damages. The lower aquatic species' health level is, the more massive the food chain
systems are impacted.
The quantity of plastics discharged into the ocean has increased dramatically,
along with the global population growth and the increasing demand for plastic products.

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Imbler (2022) stated that tens of millions of tons of plastic flow into Earth’s oceans
annually, and Scientists have found 10,000 times more microplastics on the seafloor than
in polluted surface waters of the oceans. This statistic shows the incredible amount of
microplastics that exist in the oceans and how serious the issue is. Plastic is a prevalent
material that is widely used around the world due to ease of manufacturing, low cost, and
good water resistance quality; However, Plastics have stable chemical properties and can
exist for hundreds of years or longer. Numerous plastic products discarded in the ocean
are not completely decomposed, and formed microplastics. Consequently, the incredible
amount of microplastics desperately damage marine ecosystems, and can drive the marine
habitat to the verge of disastrous habitat for living. The influence of microplastics on the
aquatic species and marine food chain has become more and more significant.
The second problem regarding microplastics is their potential deleterious effects on
human health. The first negative impact is that when those plastic fragments enter the
body, they bring harmful chemicals along with them and prevail the chance for illnesses
to appear, “Some of these chemicals are considered endocrine disruptors—chemicals that
interfere with normal hormone function, even contributing to weight gain. Flame
retardants may interfere with brain development in fetuses and children” (Royte, 2018).
Secondly, plastic particles are believed to be carcinogenic which means they can cause
cancer. One explanation for this is phthalates (equally known as DEHP) – a chemical
usually found in plastic that acts like a binding agent and helps plastic to be more flexible
(Westervelt, 2015) – can leach from the plastic and adhere to the body while carrying
carcinogenic properties “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has
determined that DEHP is a probable human carcinogen” (ATSDR, 2022); therefore, if
plastics hypothetically stay in the body for an extended period of time due to unconscious
consumption of microplastics, there is a certain chance that the human body will prone to
have cancer.
Though renowned organizations such as The Ocean Cleanup, WHO and Plastic
Soup Foundation have spoken about how microplastics affect negatively to human health,
there are still certain skepticisms regarding this issue as there only have been
confirmations about these plastic fragments’ harms on animals, and there will be more
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time needed for human to have an unequivocal conclusion about microplastics’ effects on
human health. However, it is an undeniable fact that what damages animals’ health
and the ecosystem will equally bring harm to humanity. For instance, a group of scientists
put 32 rats in groups then left them exposed to a certain amount of microplastics and as a
consequence, their hearts appeared to have structure damage, cell death in the muscular
layer of the heart and rapid collagen growing also in the heart areas   (Li et al., 2020), and
conversations have sparked when people also found out about the similarity between rat’s
heart and human’s hearts “Mice and rats have a four-chamber heart that consists of
ventricles and atria and is therefore similar to the human heart” (Papadimitriou et al.,
2008). Thus, this indicates that human’s hearts may experience the same problems that
rats had when exposed to a certain amount of microplastics. Though more data need to be
researched for human to confirm whether microplastics cause direct health degradations
or not; however, laid foundations, studies and research about them have shown that it is
not unnecessary to have serious concern about those tiny marine debris as they are found
everywhere, even in such abnormal places like human’s placenta of unborn babies
(Carrington, 2020) and blood (Carrington, 2022); and it is only a matter of time before
their fatal consequences are officially proven to be existed.
Microplastics have been adversely affecting aquatic species, the marine food chain,
and human health, including damaging marine life’s health and organ functions, and
marine habitat and causing serious illnesses for humans. Even though the impacts of
microplastics are extremely massive and can be considered a global problem, solutions to
prevent the influence have not been found. The governments need to figure out a way to
solve the problem before the situation is uncontrollable and cannot be recovered. A
demand for immediate priority and a strong action plan to minimize the microplastics
pollution in the aquatic environment are indispensable.

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Word Count: 1070

References
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). (2022).

Toxicological Profile for Di(2-Ethylhexyl)Phthalate (DEHP).

https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx

?faqid=377&toxid=65  

Carrington, D. (2020, December 22). Microplastics Revealed in The

Placentas of Unborn Babies. The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/micr

oplastics-revealed-in-placentas-unborn-babies 

Carrington, D. (2022, March 24). Microplastics Found in Human Blood

for The First Time. The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/mic

roplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time

Imbler, S. (2022, April 3). In the ocean, it's snowing microplastics.

nytimes.com.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/science/ocean-plastic-

animals.html

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Li, Y., Sun, Y., Li, J., Tang, R., Miu, J., & Ma, X. (2021). Research on

the influence of microplastics on marine fife.

iopscience.iop.org.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-

1315/631/1/012006  

Li, Z., Zhu, S., Liu, Q., Wei, J., Jin, Y., Wang, X., & Zhang, L. (2020).

Polystyrene microplastics cause cardiac fibrosis by activating

Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway and promoting

cardiomyocyte apoptosis in rats. Environmental Pollution,

265. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.115025

Royte, E. (2018, June). Planet or Plastic? National Geographic.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/plastic

-planet-health-pollution-waste-microplastics

Westervelt, A. (2015, February 10). Phthalates Are Everywhere, And

The Health Risks Are Worrying. How Bad Are They Really?

The Guardian.