Radium-226
Young women who painted glowing watch dials licked their brushes to a point, swallowed radium, and died of jaw and bone cancers.
Not a dot in the field: none of the six lists used on this page names it.
Planetary boundaries: novel entities
Chemicals and Materials
More than 350,000 chemicals and mixtures are registered for use around the world. In fifty years of studies, scientists have reported looking for about 20,000 of them in the environment.
We make far more than we can follow. What we do follow, we keep finding: in soil, rain, rivers, and in us.
The faint grains stand for the 350,000 registered chemicals and mixtures, in proportion (Wang et al. 2020). The 19,776 lit grains are as many as the substances studied as environmental pollutants in papers from 1978 to 2018 (Muir et al. 2023).
A boundary we cannot measure
Planetary boundaries mark the conditions that kept the Earth stable enough for civilisation. One of them covers novel entities: substances we have made or moved that nature never held in these forms or amounts. Plastics, pesticides, “forever chemicals”, metals dug from deep rock, radioactive fallout.
In 2022 scientists concluded that humanity has left the safe zone for this boundary, not because a threshold was measured, but because chemicals are being produced and released faster than anyone can assess and monitor them (Persson et al. 2022). Production has grown fifty-fold since 1950 and is projected to triple again by 2050 from 2010 levels. In the EU, the chemicals law REACH had still not assessed about 80% of the substances registered above one tonne a year after more than ten years.
In 2026, twenty researchers proposed a reboot: track how much we make, how much builds up, and what the mixtures do, and give the boundary a plainer name, “Chemicals and Materials” (Jahnke et al. 2026). This page follows that path.
One of nine, and the only one without a number
The Planetary Health Check 2026 finds seven of the nine boundaries crossed. Each wedge below is one measure; the further it reaches, the further past its limit. Novel entities is drawn as a band from the boundary to the edge, with no reading on it, because no one can yet say how far past the line we are.
It counts as crossed all the same. The measure is the share of synthetic chemicals released without adequate safety testing, and the boundary sits at zero. That share is far from zero (Persson et al. 2022; Planetary Health Check 2026).
Figure: Planetary Health Check 2026, Planetary Boundaries Science Lab, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (CC BY-NC 4.0), redrawn by GLOBAÏA. The full interactive figure.
What we can already count
Without a single measure, the Planetary Health Check follows the pressure along its path: how much we make, how much we use, how much escapes, and what it does. Each panel keeps its own units and starts at zero. Paler stretches are projections.
Data: Planetary Health Check 2026, Novel Entities data synthesis (Planetary Boundaries Science Lab, PIK), compiled from the sources under each panel.
What we know, and what we do not
The Planetary Health Check sets what is known beside what is not, at each step from a substance’s name to its effects on us.
-
What they are
Known
More than 350,000 chemicals and mixtures are registered for production and use around the world. [1]
Not known
Over 50,000 of them have identities kept confidential, and up to 70,000 more are described too vaguely to know what they are. [1]
-
Where they are found
Known
About 20,000 substances have been measured in the environment. The 500 most often reported take 64% of all the mentions. [2]
-
Who meets them
Known
Pesticides exceed safe levels along more than 13,000 km of rivers. At 25.7% of sites sampled in 258 rivers, at least one pharmaceutical is above a safe concentration, and at low flow the 40 most used antibiotics exceed protective thresholds along 6 million km of river. [3][4][5]
About 2.3 billion people may take in more pesticide than the acceptable intake. Between 0.9 and 1.4 billion live where toxic metals in soil raise health and ecological risks. [6][7]
Not known
For most chemicals, no one knows who is exposed or how much, least of all in low-income countries. [8]
-
What they do to living things
Known
Neonicotinoids were the pesticides most strongly tied to the fall of the western bumble bee, whose occupancy dropped 57% from 1998 to 2020. In the Netherlands, insect-eating birds declined 3.5% a year where imidacloprid passed 20 nanograms per litre of water. Pesticides and fertilisers lower the survival of amphibians. [9][10][11]
Not known
No one monitors, across the globe, the toxic pressure on living things. [8]
-
What they do to us
Known
Chronic pesticide exposure is consistently associated with cancer, neurological disorders and hormone disruption. In the United States, 17 of 34 cancers are rising in younger generations, which points to exposures early in life that are not yet identified. [12][13]
Not known
Global counts of disease and death exist for only a few well-studied chemicals. For lead alone, one estimate puts adult deaths from heart disease in 2019 at 5.5 million, six times the earlier global figure. [14]
Sources for these lines
- Wang Z. et al. 2020, Environ. Sci. Technol. 54(5):2575–2584
- Muir D.C.G. et al. 2023, Environ. Sci. Technol. 57(25):9119–9129
- Maggi F., Tang F.H.M., Tubiello F.N. 2023, Nature 620:1013–1017
- Wilkinson J.L. et al. 2022, PNAS 119:e2113947119
- Ehalt Macedo H. et al. 2025, PNAS Nexus 4:pgaf096
- Maggi F. et al. 2021, Sci. Total Environ. 801:149731
- Hou D. et al. 2025, Science 388(6744):316–321
- Planetary Health Check 2026, section 4.3 and Figure 16 (an assessment by the report’s authors; no study cited for this line)
- Janousek W.M. et al. 2023, PNAS 120:e2211223120
- Hallmann C.A. et al. 2014, Nature 511:341–343
- Baker N.J., Bancroft B.A., Garcia T.S. 2013, Sci. Total Environ. 449
- Shekhar C. et al. 2024, Toxicology Reports 13:101840
- Sung H. et al. 2024, Lancet Public Health 9:e583–e593
- Larsen B., Sánchez-Triana E. 2023, Lancet Planet. Health 7:e831–e840
After the Planetary Health Check 2026, section 4.3, Figure 16. Each line is reworded to what its paper says.
Meet them by what they are, or by what they do
Each dot is one of 18,588 substances named on six published lists: chemicals that harm the brain, cause cancer or harm fertility, persistent pollutants under global treaties, ozone destroyers, PFAS, and the chemicals used in plastics. Choose a group to read what is known, what is not, and where it turns up.
Loading substances…
Highlight
Notorious chemicals
A group’s area is proportional to the substances placed in it. Its count also includes members placed in an earlier group. Inside each group, the substances listed in the most household products sit nearest the centre. In time, each dot stands in the column of the year a regulator first listed it, so a column’s height is a count of substances; the rest stand apart, at the same area per dot. A ringed dot is a notorious substance, one with a public story told below; the ring marks fame, not danger.
Sources for the dots
- Grandjean P. 2013, Only One Chance: How Environmental Pollution Impairs Brain Development, Oxford University Press, appendix pp. 163–166 © Oxford University Press; list of names transcribed by hand
- OEHHA 2026, Proposition 65 List of Chemicals Known to the State of California to Cause Cancer or Reproductive Toxicity, list of 31 July 2026 State regulation (27 CCR 27001); no licence stated in the file
- Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, Secretariat, 'Listing of POPs' (chm.pops.int) and COP decisions SC-4/17, SC-9/12, SC-10/13, SC-12/9, SC-12/10, SC-12/12
- Ozone Secretariat (UNEP) 2020, Handbook for the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, 14th edition, Annexes A, B, C, E and F Treaty text, © UN Environment Programme
- Simon P. et al. 2026, POPE PFAS emission inventory v3.1, Zenodo, 20 April 2026 CC BY 4.0
- Wagner M., Monclús L., Arp H.P.H. et al. 2024, PlastChem database v1.01, Zenodo, 14 April 2025 CC BY-NC 4.0
- US EPA Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure 2025, CPDat v4.0 (Chemical and Products Database), figshare, released 9 April 2025 CC0 1.0
- Listing dates for “In time”: GLOBAÏA’s compilation of 936 first-listing dates from Proposition 65 list, Stockholm Convention, listing of POPs and Montreal Protocol Handbook (2020), read on 2026-10-22. Not used: EU REACH SVHC Candidate List (echa.europa.eu returned HTTP 403 on 2026-10-22).
Each group’s facts, and each notorious story, cite their own sources in the panel that opens beside the field. Every source on the page is listed under .
Notorious chemicals: the ones we know by name
A few substances left the lists and entered the news: a poisoned bay, a river that caught the cameras, a court case, a film. Each was thought harmless or worth the risk. Each became a story when the harm showed up somewhere people could see it.
A timeline of 52 stories, one row per kind of substance. Use the arrow keys to move through them in date order.
Radioactive 3
Metals 6
Medicines 5
Pesticides 14
Industrial 19
PFAS 5
Tetraethyl lead
For almost a century lead was added to petrol to stop engine knock, and people breathed it in until the last country stopped selling it in 2021.
Diethylene glycol (DEG)
A sweet-tasting industrial solvent keeps turning up in children's medicines. It killed over 100 people in the US in 1937 and 66 children in The Gambia in 2022.
Hexavalent chromium
A gas utility's anti-corrosion chemical seeped into the groundwater of a small desert town, and the legal fight that followed became the film Erin Brockovich.
Hexachlorobenzene (HCB)
In Turkey in the 1950s, people who ate seed wheat treated with HCB developed a blistering disease, and many breastfed babies died.
Methylmercury
Methylmercury from a chemical factory poisoned fishing families around Minamata Bay, giving its name to a disease and, in 2013, to a global treaty.
Strontium-90
Parents in St Louis mailed in more than 320,000 baby teeth, and the fallout found in them fed into the debate that led to the 1963 ban on atmospheric nuclear tests.
Not a dot in the field: none of the six lists used on this page names it.
Thalidomide
A sleeping pill given to pregnant women for morning sickness caused severe limb and organ defects in more than 10,000 children.
DDT
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring made DDT the symbol of a pesticide that travels up food chains and silences birdsong.
Asbestos
Asbestos went into buildings, ships and insulation for most of the twentieth century before its fibres were shown to cause mesothelioma and lung cancer decades after exposure.
Cadmium
Cadmium from a zinc mine got into rice paddies along a Japanese river and caused itai-itai, the 'it hurts, it hurts' disease of brittle bones.
PCBs
PCBs filled transformers for decades, poisoned nearly 2,000 people in Japan through rice oil, and still threaten the world's killer whales.
Diethylstilbestrol (DES)
A hormone given to millions of pregnant women to prevent miscarriage turned out to cause a rare vaginal cancer in their daughters 20 years later.
Vinyl chloride
The gas behind PVC plastic gave factory workers a rare liver cancer. In 2023 a train carrying it was burned off in a small Ohio town.
Chlordecone
It poisoned the workers who made it in Virginia, closed the James River, and still contaminates the soil and people of the French Antilles.
TCDD (dioxin)
Dioxin is the poison behind Agent Orange, the Seveso cloud and the poisoning of Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko.
Benzene
Benzene is the classic proof that a common solvent can cause leukaemia, first shown in factory workers.
DBCP
Workers who made DBCP in California, and later thousands of plantation workers abroad, were found to have few or no sperm.
Trichloroethylene
TCE in drinking water is behind the Woburn leukaemia case told in 'A Civil Action' and the poisoned taps at the Camp Lejeune Marine base.
Tributyltin (TBT)
Boat paint containing TBT wrecked France's Arcachon oyster beds and made female dog-whelks grow male organs.
Methyl isocyanate (MIC)
A leak of toxic gas from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal killed thousands of people in their sleep, the worst industrial chemical disaster on record.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
CFCs from fridges and spray cans tore a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, and the world agreed to ban them.
Caesium-137 and iodine-131
The Chernobyl explosion spread radioactive iodine and caesium across Europe, and children who drank contaminated milk later developed thyroid cancer by the thousands.
Arsenic in groundwater
Millions of tube wells dug to save Bangladeshis from dirty surface water turned out to tap arsenic-laden groundwater. WHO's journal called it the largest poisoning of a population in history.
PBDE flame retardants
Flame retardants added to sofas and electronics turned up in breast milk, rising fast for decades.
PFOS
It was the stain-proof chemistry in the original Scotchgard. 3M pulled it in 2000, after it turned up in blood and wildlife around the world.
PFOA
A Teflon ingredient got into the drinking water of tens of thousands of people around one DuPont plant. The court-ordered study that followed linked it to six diseases.
Atrazine
A 2002 study linked atrazine, the weedkiller of US cornfields, to hermaphrodite frogs. The EU stopped approving it in 2004.
Diclofenac (veterinary use)
A common painkiller given to cattle wiped out most of South Asia's vultures within a decade.
Not a dot in the field: none of the six lists used on this page names it.
Paraquat
It has no proven antidote, bans on it have been followed by fewer suicides in Asia, and thousands of US farmers have sued over Parkinson's disease.
Not a dot in the field: none of the six lists used on this page names it.
Bisphenol A
BPA made baby bottles hard and clear until worries that it mimics oestrogen pushed it out of bottles and, in Europe, out of food contact materials.
Formaldehyde
Families housed in government trailers after Hurricane Katrina breathed formaldehyde given off inside their new homes.
Lindane
Once sold as a farm insecticide and a children's lice shampoo, lindane left millions of tonnes of toxic waste behind.
DEHP and phthalates
Phthalates make vinyl soft. In 2011 a scandal in Taiwan showed DEHP being illegally added to clouding agents for sports drinks and other foods.
Endosulfan
Two decades of aerial spraying over cashew plantations in Kerala left villages counting sick and disabled children, and the case helped push a global ban in 2011.
Lead in paint and water pipes
When Flint switched its water source in 2014 without corrosion control, lead leached from old pipes and the share of young children with high blood lead doubled.
Glyphosate
It is the world's most used weedkiller, and the fight over whether it causes cancer has run through regulators, journals and courtrooms.
GenX
Sold as the replacement for PFOA, it was found in 2016 in the river that supplies Wilmington's tap water, downstream of a Chemours plant.
Triclosan
Triclosan made soaps 'antibacterial' until the US FDA found makers could not show it worked better than plain soap and water.
Fipronil
In 2017 eggs were recalled across Europe after fipronil, banned for use on food animals, was found to have been used in chicken barns.
Ethylene oxide
The gas that sterilises half of US medical devices drew national attention when a suburban Chicago plant was found raising neighbours' cancer risk.
Neonicotinoids
They are the insecticides blamed for harming bees, and in 2018 the EU banned the three main ones from fields.
Chlorothalonil
Europe banned a common crop fungicide in 2019, and Switzerland then found its breakdown products in the groundwater under much of the country's farmland.
Methylene chloride
Its fumes killed people stripping bathtubs and furniture in closed rooms, and in 2019 the US banned it from the paint strippers sold to the public.
NDMA
A probable carcinogen turned up inside heartburn and blood pressure pills, and in 2020 regulators pulled ranitidine, one of the best known drugs on the shelf, off the market.
6PPD-quinone
A chemical washed off car tyres explained why coho salmon kept dying within hours of entering Seattle's urban creeks after rain.
Not a dot in the field: none of the six lists used on this page names it.
Titanium dioxide (E171)
The white colour in sweets, icing and chewing gum was declared no longer safe as a food additive in 2021, because damage to DNA could not be ruled out.
PFAS in rain (the whole family)
In 2022 scientists showed that rain almost anywhere on Earth carries more of some forever chemicals than US advice then allowed in drinking water.
Aspartame
The sweetener in diet sodas was classed as possibly causing cancer in July 2023, on the same day experts said the usual daily limit was still safe.
Not a dot in the field: none of the six lists used on this page names it.
Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA)
The smallest PFAS falls with the rain. Car air conditioning gas and some pesticides break down into it, and no ordinary water treatment can take it out.
Chlorpyrifos
A farm insecticide tied to lower IQ in children exposed before birth, chlorpyrifos became a global persistent organic pollutant in 2025.
FD&C Red No. 3 (erythrosine)
Banned from US lipstick in 1990 because it caused tumours in rats, the same red dye stayed in American sweets until the FDA revoked it in January 2025.
In your home
“There is only one chance to develop a brain,” writes the physician Philippe Grandjean. His list of 213 industrial chemicals known to harm the human nervous system is a place to start asking where these substances meet daily life. Most were identified from adults exposed at work; by 2014, only eleven had been confirmed to harm the developing brain, because almost none had been tested for it (Grandjean & Landrigan 2014).
The rooms below are the product categories in the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Chemical and Products Database: ingredients compiled from labels and safety sheets of about 150,000 household products. Choose a list, then a room.
Hover a room to read what EPA files there. Choose one for its substances.
Every room, every list
The share of the products EPA documents in each room that list at least one substance from each list. A disc’s area is the share. Choose a cell to open that room and list above.
What this shows, and what it does not. A product listing an ingredient tells you the substance is there, not how much, how much reaches you, or whether that amount does harm. Some entries are whole families, such as aluminium compounds, whose members differ widely in how readily they enter the body. The database is centred on the United States and on products whose makers publish safety sheets, so every share on this page is of EPA’s sample, not of what is on the market. What the counts do show is how ordinary the contact is, and how much of it has never been studied for its effects on a developing brain.
Sources for this section
- US EPA Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure 2025, CPDat v4.0 (Chemical and Products Database), figshare, released 9 April 2025 CC0 1.0
- Handa S., Isaacs K.K., Wall J.T. et al., Phillips K.A. 2025, Scientific Data 12:950 CC BY 4.0 (US Government work)
- Grandjean P. 2013, Only One Chance: How Environmental Pollution Impairs Brain Development, Oxford University Press, appendix pp. 163–166 © Oxford University Press; list of names transcribed by hand
- Grandjean P., Landrigan P.J. 2014, Lancet Neurology 13(3):330–338
- OEHHA 2026, Proposition 65 List of Chemicals Known to the State of California to Cause Cancer or Reproductive Toxicity, list of 31 July 2026 State regulation (27 CCR 27001); no licence stated in the file
- Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, Secretariat, 'Listing of POPs' (chm.pops.int) and COP decisions SC-4/17, SC-9/12, SC-10/13, SC-12/9, SC-12/10, SC-12/12
- Simon P. et al. 2026, POPE PFAS emission inventory v3.1, Zenodo, 20 April 2026 CC BY 4.0
- Wagner M., Monclús L., Arp H.P.H. et al. 2024, PlastChem database v1.01, Zenodo, 14 April 2025 CC BY-NC 4.0
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/1328 of 16 May 2024 amending Annex XVII to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (REACH) as regards octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) and dodecamethylcyclohexasiloxane (D6), OJ L, 17.5.2024 (replaces entry 70) read 2026-10-22
- 21 CFR 310.545(a)(27)(iii)-(iv) and (d)(41), eCFR current to 2026-10-14; FDA Consumer Update 'Skip the Antibacterial Soap; Use Plain Soap and Water' (content current as of 12/12/2024) read 2026-10-22
- Assembly Bill No. 2771 (Friedman), Chapter 804, Statutes of 2022, adding Health and Safety Code sections 108981.5 and 108982 read 2026-10-22
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Frequently Asked Questions on Benzene Contamination in Drugs (content current as of 03/12/2025) read 2026-10-22
- Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (REACH) Annex XVII entry 18a, as set out in Commission Regulation (EC) No 552/2009; Regulation (EU) 2017/852 on mercury, Article 5 and Annex II Part A entry 9 read 2026-10-22
- Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 of 16 December 2008 on food additives, Article 24 and Annex V read 2026-10-22
- NY DEC, Household Cleansing, Cosmetic, and Personal Care Products Dioxane Limits (ECL Article 35; 6 NYCRR Subpart 352-1) read 2026-10-22
- US EPA, Learn About the Safer Choice Label read 2026-10-22
- Regulation (EU) 2019/1021, Article 3(1); PFOA added to Annex I by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/784 read 2026-10-22
- Directive 2011/65/EU (RoHS), Article 4(1) and Annex II read 2026-10-22
- 15 U.S.C. 1278a(a)(2) (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, section 101); 16 CFR 1303.1 read 2026-10-22
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/2462, REACH Annex XVII entry 79 read 2026-10-22
- 16 CFR 1500.14(b)(8), Labeling of Hazardous Art Materials Act (ASTM D-4236) read 2026-10-22
- 21 CFR 109.16, Ornamental and decorative ceramicware read 2026-10-22
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Controlling Fleas and Ticks on Your Pet (last updated June 10, 2026) read 2026-10-22
- Commission Regulation (EU) No 276/2010, REACH Annex XVII entry 59 (dichloromethane) read 2026-10-22
- Directive 2004/42/EC (Decopaint), Articles 3 and 4, Annex II read 2026-10-22
- 16 CFR 1303.1, Ban of lead-containing paint (CPSC, eCFR current) read 2026-10-22
- California Air Resources Board, ATCM for Automotive Maintenance and Repair Activities (17 CCR 93111) read 2026-10-22
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/18 (non-renewal of chlorpyrifos) read 2026-10-22
- UN depositary notification C.N.672.2025.TREATIES-XXVII.15, Stockholm Convention, amendments to Annex A (decision SC-12/9) read 2026-10-22
- Montreal Protocol, Article 2E (1,1,1-trichloroethane), Ozone Secretariat read 2026-10-22
- US EPA, Storing Pesticides Safely read 2026-10-22
In the soil, in the air
Toxic metals in soil
From 796,084 soil samples, researchers modelled the probability that soil exceeds thresholds for human health and ecosystems for seven metals. Between 14% and 17% of the world’s cropland exceeds safe agricultural limits for at least one, cadmium most often, and 0.9 to 1.4 billion people live in areas of heightened risk. The thresholds count metals from natural geology as well as from pollution, and Africa is thinly sampled (Hou et al. 2025).
01 probability that soil exceeds the threshold
PFAS released to the air, 1951–2020
A global inventory of the PFAS, the “forever chemicals”, gives emissions to the air for 22 of the 23 compounds it covers: about 6,200 tonnes in 2020 alone (between about 700 and 9,000), and about 140,000 tonnes since 1951 (our sums of its published data). After 2000 the source shifted from North America, Europe and Japan to Asia, and as PFOA was phased out, related compounds such as GenX took its place (Simon et al. 2026). PFOA is the only compound whose emissions fall for a time in this inventory, and they rise again after 2008 as production moves to Asia.
Where it went: cumulative emissions to air, 1951–2020
0.001 t100 t tonnes per half-degree cell, logarithmic. Emitted, not what remains
Plastic, from rivers to the sea
Rivers carry plastic waste to the sea. Meijer and colleagues modelled how much leaves the mouths of rivers and streams around the world. About 32,000 of them carry some to the sea, about a million tonnes a year in all (for 2015), and about 1,650 rivers carry 80% of it. Many are small rivers running through cities, and the largest single source in their model is the Pasig, which crosses Manila (Meijer et al. 2021).
On the map, every river releases tracers in proportion to its share, and the tracers ride the surface currents of 2024 (Copernicus Marine). Under them, the colour of the sea is the plastic floating in its top five metres, as modelled by Kaandorp and colleagues, who fitted a model of ocean transport to about 22,000 measurements at sea, on beaches and in the deep ocean (Kaandorp et al. 2023).
Colours
lessmore plastic floating in the top 5 m, modelled, logarithmic
Sources: river emissions, Meijer et al. 2021, data from
figshare (CC BY 4.0); plastic at the surface,
Kaandorp et al. 2023, model output from the
Utrecht University Yoda repository (CC BY 4.0); surface currents, GLORYS12V1
2024 weekly means, generated using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service information
(doi:10.48670/moi-00021); relief, NOAA ETOPO 2022.
Each river mouth is moved to the nearest sea cell of the currents grid (median 19 km); the 140 mouths with
no ocean within 300 km, on the Caspian, are left out.
A tracer stands for a river's share, not for tonnes. Tracers do not wash ashore, sink or feel the
wind, so they reach the open ocean far more easily than real plastic does; much of what rivers carry
sinks or beaches near the coast. River emissions are Meijer's estimate for 2015, the currents are
weekly averages for 2024, smoothed over about 40 km, and that year repeats for as long as the
tracers drift.
Two estimates that do not agree
Kaandorp’s model follows only plastics that float. To match what is measured at sea, it needs just 57,000 to 69,000 tonnes of them a year from rivers, less than a tenth of Meijer’s estimate for all plastics. It keeps Meijer’s map of which rivers carry the most and scales the whole map down, which is why the tracers here follow Meijer’s shares. Of the floating plastic that enters the sea each year, about 500,000 tonnes, it puts 45 to 48% down to fishing, 39 to 42% to coastlines and 12 to 13% to rivers. Near the coasts, much of it washes ashore or sinks. What reaches the subtropical gyres, where little beaches or sinks, lasts for years: in their model, if no new plastic entered the sea from 2025, only a tenth of the mass would be gone two years later (Kaandorp et al. 2023).
What has worked
Each of these began with a substance thought harmless or worth the risk. Each turned when evidence of harm met a collective decision, a law, a ban or a treaty, rather than being left to individual shoppers.
- 1972
DDT cancelled in the US
Remaining crop uses ended. The bald eagle, which had collapsed, left the list of endangered and threatened species in 2007.
US EPA, 'DDT Regulatory History: A Brief Survey (to 1975)'; US Department of the Interior and Fish and Wildlife Service, news release 'Bald Eagle Soars Off Endangered Species List', 28 June 2007
- 1987
The Montreal Protocol
The ozone layer is on track to recover to 1980 values around 2040 for most of the world, 2045 over the Arctic and 2066 over the Antarctic.
WMO/UNEP/NOAA/NASA/EC 2022, Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2022 (GAW Report No. 278)
- 1999–2019
Less PFOS in American blood
Where the oldest PFAS were phased out, blood levels of PFOS fell by more than 85% and of PFOA by more than 70%.
CDC/ATSDR, 'PFAS Facts and Statistics' (page dated Nov 2024)
- 2001
The Stockholm Convention
Twelve persistent pollutants, including PCBs, dioxins and DDT, at the start. It now covers 37 chemicals or groups.
- 2006
Vultures in India
After veterinary diclofenac was banned, the decline of the white-rumped vulture slowed and may have reversed.
- 2008
Tributyltin off ship hulls
The antifouling convention banned the paint that had turned female dog-whelks male.
- 2008–11
Sri Lanka’s pesticide bans
After the most toxic pesticides were banned, pesticide suicides fell by half by 2015.
Knipe D.W. et al. 2017, PLoS ONE 12(3):e0172893 (correction e0176750)
- 2021
The end of leaded petrol
In July 2021 service stations in Algeria, the last country to sell it, stopped. The UN Secretary-General said ending it will prevent more than one million premature deaths a year.
UN News (2021). Highly toxic leaded petrol now eliminated from world's roads, 30 August 2021.
- 2023
A Global Framework on Chemicals
Adopted in Bonn: 5 strategic objectives and 28 targets for a planet free of harm from chemicals and waste.
- 2025
Chlorpyrifos listed for elimination
One of the eleven chemicals confirmed to harm the developing brain, now under the Stockholm Convention.
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, Secretariat, 'Listing of POPs' (chm.pops.int) and COP decisions SC-4/17, SC-9/12, SC-10/13, SC-12/9, SC-12/10, SC-12/12; Grandjean P., Landrigan P.J. 2014, Lancet Neurology 13(3):330–338
The open questions are collective ones: whether the EU adopts its proposed restriction on about 10,000 PFAS (ECHA), whether plastics treaty negotiations, which failed to agree a text in August 2025, produce one (UNEP), and whether the boundary itself gets indicators that can show us turning back.
This page exists to build awareness of what the substances we make do to living things and to the societies that depend on them. We have made every figure and claim as exact as we could, from the sources listed below, and we welcome comments and corrections through our contact page.
Sources and method
The dots
Each dot is an entry on one of six lists: Grandjean’s appendix of 213 chemicals known to harm the human nervous system (Only One Chance, Oxford University Press 2013, pp. 163–166); California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive harm (OEHHA, 31 July 2026); the chemicals listed under the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants; substances controlled under the Montreal Protocol; the 22 PFAS in the POPE emission inventory (Simon et al. 2026); and the PlastChem database of chemicals in plastics (Wagner et al. 2024, v1.01, CC BY-NC 4.0). Entries are merged by CAS number. Group membership follows written rules, shown with each group, never our judgement of a substance.
“What they do” records only what these lists say. PlastChem endpoints count when PlastChem scores them hazardous or very hazardous. “No hazard data” means PlastChem found none and no other list names the substance; “assessed, not flagged” means data exist but none reaches PlastChem’s hazardous level. Neither is a finding of safety. IARC classifications are cited in the text but not used to place dots.
The home
Household presence comes from the US EPA Chemical and Products Database v4.0 (Scientific Data 2025, CC0), restricted to consumer formulations and articles in nine groups of product categories. Workplace, laboratory, raw-material and unclassified products are left out. A substance is matched by CAS number; Grandjean’s family entries (such as “lead and lead compounds”) are matched by name, with the matched compounds shown for each. The database records what labels and safety sheets list. It does not record amounts in most cases, and it is not a sample of the market.
The maps
Soil: Hou et al. 2025, predicted exceedance probabilities for human-health and ecological thresholds (Dryad), averaged into 0.1° cells; percentages in the text are the paper’s own. PFAS: POPE v3.1 (CC BY 4.0), emissions to air only, because in this version the water field repeats the air field for 20 of 22 compounds. The map shows cumulative emissions above 0.001 tonnes per half-degree cell; some of what was emitted has since moved or transformed. Plastic at sea: Meijer et al. 2021 midpoint river emissions (for 2015) as release shares, each mouth moved to the nearest sea cell of the currents grid; Kaandorp et al. 2023 modelled plastic mass in the top 5 m, on a logarithmic scale as a relative map; GLORYS12V1 surface currents for 2024 as weekly means on a grid of about 0.35°. Particles follow those currents with nothing else acting on them.
All sources
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- CAS (American Chemical Society), CAS REGISTRY web page, reviewed 2025-06-20 not peer reviewed
- CDC/ATSDR, 'PFAS Facts and Statistics' (page dated Nov 2024) not peer reviewed
- Commission Implementing Regulations (EU) 2018/783, 2018/784, 2018/785 not peer reviewed
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/3190 on bisphenol A and other bisphenols in food contact materials not peer reviewed
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- IARC Monographs Volume 107: Polychlorinated Biphenyls and Polybrominated Biphenyls (meeting 2013, published 2016) not peer reviewed
- IMO, International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems on Ships (AFS), adopted 5 Oct 2001, in force 17 Sep 2008 not peer reviewed
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- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information 2022, ETOPO 2022 15 Arc-Second Global Relief Model not peer reviewed
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- OEHHA 2026, Proposition 65 List of Chemicals Known to the State of California to Cause Cancer or Reproductive Toxicity, list of 31 July 2026
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- US EPA, 'DDT Regulatory History: A Brief Survey (to 1975)' not peer reviewed
- US EPA, 'Proposed PFOA and PFOS Compliance Extension Rule' (page updated 8 Oct 2026) not peer reviewed
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