There are an estimated 350,000 different types of manufactured chemicals on the global market including plastics, pesticides, industrial chemicals, chemicals in consumer products, antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals. Plastic production alone is estimated to have increased by 79 per cent between 2000 and 2015.

These are all wholly novel entities, created by human activities with largely unknown effects on the Earth system. Significant volumes of these novel entities enter the environment each year. 

A team including researchers from Stockholm and Gothenburg Universities have now assessed the impact that the cocktail of synthetic chemicals and other “novel entities” flooding the environment have on the stability of the Earth’s systems.

“There has been a 50-fold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950. This is projected to triple again by 2050,” said study co-author Patricia Villarubia-Gómez.

“The pace that societies are producing and releasing...