In a recent study published by The Lancet Planetary Health, researchers examined the health costs of pollutants released by plastics across their full lifecycle and emphasized the need for international policy that reduces plastic production.

In short:

• Every stage of the plastic lifecycle contributes to human health threats including global warming, air pollution, cancer, and disease, with primary plastic production and plastic burning causing the greatest harm.
• The authors estimated that continuing with the current pace of plastic production would result in an additional 83 million disability-adjusted life-years (a measurement of healthy years of life lost to disability or disease) between 2016 and 2040.
• Out of all interventions modeled, restricting the primary production of plastic was the most effective way to reduce health impacts, and was substantially more effective than improving waste management and recycling alone.

Key quote:

“Efforts to address plastics pollution through waste management alone overlook or understate health risks related to climate change, air pollution, and chemical toxicity, perpetuating adverse consequences for health.”

Why this matters:

There are an estimated 57 million tons of plastic pollution generated globally each year. The UN Global Plastics Treaty — which aims to tackle the plastic crisis on an international scale — has approached a critical juncture, with a sixth round of negotiations ending without consensus last year. So far, the process has been severely hampered by some member states’ (including the U.S.) attempts to narrow the treaty’s scope to focus primarily on waste management, and exclude considerations of human health or limits on future plastic production. Scientists have emphasized how the treaty could be a meaningful tool for reducing plastic pollution and protecting human health, as long as it includes solutions that address the full lifecycle of plastics and require ambitious reductions on the production of new plastics.

Related EHN coverage:

• Scientists call for accountability on reducing plastics’ harms: “Plastics cause death from from infancy to old age”
• “A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”: Independent scientists advocate for an effective Global Plastics Treaty
• How do we address 57 million tons of plastic pollution? Turn off the tap

More resources: The Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty is an international network of independent scientific and technical experts created to ensure the Plastics Treaty is based in accurate and up-to-date science. Their website includes fact sheets, policy briefs and other resources on the environmental and health effects of plastics.

Deeney, M. et al. (2026). Global health burdens of plastics: a lifecycle assessment model from 2016 to 2040. The Lancet Planetary Health

Hundreds of bases are contaminated with PFAS, which are linked to low birth weight and other risks. Politicians from both parties are demanding explanations.

© Nina Riggio for The New York Times

Hundreds of bases are contaminated with PFAS, which are linked to low birth weight and other risks. Politicians from both parties are demanding explanations.

The state is a major importer of fracking wastewater, which gets pumped underground but doesn’t always stay there. The city of Marietta is fighting back.

© Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

The state is a major importer of fracking wastewater, which gets pumped underground but doesn’t always stay there. The city of Marietta is fighting back.

Over the past year or so, a puzzling idea has taken hold among billionaires ranging from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos: that instead of trying to force data centers on communities that don’t want them down on Earth, it would be much easier just to launch them into space.

The economics and logistics of the scheme, many experts have pointed out, are absolutely absurd. And even beyond those practical concerns, if corporations actually did somehow manage to fill the planet’s orbit with the facilities, scientists are now warning that the environmental cost would be devastating.

A new petition organized by the group EarthJustice, first reported by the Guardian, is warning of “catastrophic” consequences for the planet if the billionaire-backed dream ever came to pass. The 29-page petition calls on the US Federal Communications Commission to investigate current orbital data center licensing requests as potentially in violation of “federal law,” joining the chorus of experts warning that it’s a horrible idea for just about everybody.

“The FCC is currently considering multiple requests for licensing extraordinary numbers of satellite-based data centers to be placed into low-earth orbit over the next decade,” the petition begins. “The proponents of these proposals describe their plans in grandiose, civilization-changing terms. But these same proponents have refused to embrace any inquiry into the impacts of their self claimed epochal technology on the environment, science, economy, or other values. This is not just poor planning and a missed opportunity: it violates federal law.”

The filing does double duty. On top of formally petitioning the FCC to prepare an environmental assessment, it’s also a “petition to deny,” which is a legal mechanism that requires the petitioner to back up their claims with verified facts. That requirement turns the document into a de facto review article — with 113 footnote citations, it’s easily one of the most detailed public accounts yet of what orbital data centers could actually cost the planet.

“The operation of more than a million data center satellites threatens potentially catastrophic forms and quantities of atmospheric pollution, risking damage to the climate, to the ozone layer, to human health, and to the chemistry of the stratosphere itself,” the petition reads.

In particular, the petition warns that giving free rein to tech billionaires to clutter our skies with experimental data centers would accelerate our contamination of the stratosphere, which is currently facing an unprecedented rise in heavy metals, noxious gasses, and carbon particles thanks to record satellite launches.

Satellite companies run by tech and aerospace tycoons are already facing scrutiny for their lack of transparency around this type of pollution, a situation the petition warns would make significantly worse. As the petition authors write, they are “concerned that no [company] has yet provided more than a token acknowledgment of environmental risks.”

“Moreover,” the authors continue, “no [company] has provided satisfactory detail to explain how it will mitigate the cumulative environmental harms flowing from the foreseeable operation of more than a million satellites [emphasis in original], orbiting our planet, colliding and disintegrating and plummeting back to Earth.”

More on data centers: Climate Activists Pelt Microsoft Data Center With Balloons Full of Acid

The post The Type of Orbital Data Centers That Billionaires Want to Launch Into Space Would Wreak Ecological Catastrophe, Scientists Warn appeared first on Futurism.

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