Sperm counts in the US have dropped 50% in 40 years, many, many couples are now having trouble conceiving. The major culprit is thought to be microparticles of plastic in everything, some of which mimics estrogen.
Do you see our society reducing our use of plastics, ever? If plastics are responsible for even 1/4 of the reduction in male fertility, we might already be doomed. We are so much more saturated with the stuff now than we were even 10 years ago that even if we stopped making any more today, it could still be too late already.
The rate of decline in fertility is already unsustainable. Reportedly the success rate of IVF is still increasing due to advances in technology. And the number of fertility clinics is skyrocketing. When either of those trends inevitably cease, that will be the watershed moment for our species.
When clinics start closing, in spite of increasing demand, due to lack of qualified staff to maintain infrastructure, and/or the success rates realized by those clinics start to fall because they have less and less viable reproductive material to work with, then the last vestiges of hope will be gone, our best effort will be spent.
But the sad thing is I can virtually guarantee, they will find a way to keep making things out of plastic beyond that point. And when we lose the infrastructure to do that, will plastic contamination be inescapable? Is it inescapable now? If so we are already on our way gone.
If not, reproduction will become the full-time job of everyone young that remains. Boys will have to start breeding as soon as they reach puberty, and girls as soon as they can safely bear a child. And the rest will have to spend their days reducing the plastic intake of those who still might be able to make babies, and tending to the children of the breeders.
Will there be anything at all left to eat that isn’t permeated with plastic? A hunk of plastic-free soil in which to grow plants? A meat producing animal that hasn’t bio-accumulated too much of it? If so it won’t be easy to come by. In fact it may be the last limiting factor to dictate the continuation of our species.