A new study in The Lancet Planetary Health warns that health harms from the plastics lifecycle could more than double by 2040 if current trends persist, driven by emissions from production, use, and disposal.

Improvements to waste collection and recycling alone would have little effect; substantial risk reduction requires a combination of strategies, including material substitution, reuse, and cutting production of non-essential plastics.

Limitations include reliance on modelling and data gaps, notably the exclusion of health effects during consumer use, certain chemicals, microplastics and nanoplastics, due to lack of data and transparency in plastic composition.

The study draws on inputs from multiple agencies.

Key authors include Megan Deeney of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Xiaoyu Yan of the University of Exeter, with collaboration from the University of Toulouse.

Funding was provided by IMMANA, and the research appears in the 2026 issue of The Lancet Planetary Health.

Even under optimistic waste-management scenarios, more disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) are expected to accrue, though totals are lower than in the baseline.

Experts call for improved waste management, better data, and updated models beyond the 2016 framework used in the analysis.

Additional health harms (less than 1%) relate to reduced water availability, ozone layer impacts, and increased ionising radiation.

The remaining health harms (less than 1%) concern water availability, ozone layer effects, and heightened ionising radiation.

Authors caution the estimate likely undercounts total health impacts by excluding other damage pathways and longer-term exposure routes.

Lead author Megan Deeney notes this is a significant underestimation and points to the bottle-life cycle as an illustrative example from oil/gas extraction to PET manufacture, distribution, use, and waste.