A single recycled plastic pellet can contain more than 80 different chemicals, according to a new study released on Monday. Additionally, recycled polyethylene plastic can release chemicals into water, which might affect lipid metabolism and hormone systems.

Recycling is suggested as one of the answers to the plastic pollution disaster, which has reached global proportions and is endangering human and environmental health.

According to experts from the Universities of Gothenburg and Leipzig, dangerous chemicals might randomly find their way into recycled items since plastics include thousands of chemical additives and other potentially poisonous elements that are hardly ever disclosed.

In a recent study that was published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, scientists purchased recycled polyethylene plastic pellets from around the globe and allowed them to soak in water for 48 hours.

The larvae of zebrafish were then left in the water for five days. According to the experimental findings, the larvae exhibit elevated expression of genes linked to lipid metabolism, adipogenesis, and endocrine control.

These brief exposure and leaching periods are just one more sign of the dangers plastic chemicals offer to living things. According to the effects we evaluated, these exposures may alter the fishes’ physiology and overall health, says Azora Konig Kardgar, main author and ecotoxicology researcher at the University of Gothenburg.

Prior studies have demonstrated that exposure to harmful compounds found in plastics can have comparable effects on people, such as obesity and risks to reproductive health.

Certain chemicals that are used as plastic additives and substances that contaminate plastics have been shown to disrupt hormones, which may have an effect on fertility, child development, and the development of certain malignancies as well as metabolic disorders like diabetes and obesity.

This is the primary barrier to the concept of plastic recycling. We can never be completely certain of the chemicals that will be used in a recycled plastic product. Additionally, there is a considerable chance that chemical mixing events will take place, making the recycled plastic poisonous, according to Bethanie Carney Almroth, the project’s primary investigator and a professor at the University of Gothenburg.

International representatives are getting ready to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, in August for what is expected to be the last meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee under the United Nations Environmental Program to negotiate a Global Plastics Treaty.