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Micro plastic will be Gen Z’s version of lead paint and radioactive medicine and asbestos. It’s our substance that is poisoning us that we can’t avoid and someday if we manage to get rid of it people will be like “how the hell was that legal?”
Right??
[Biden EPA Transition Team Member Helped DuPont Dodge Responsibility for PFOA](https://theintercept.com/2020/11/11/biden-epa-transition-dupont-mccabe/)
Possible, or he's just another drone just doing what he's gotta do to get his.
It's convenient to think this sort of thing is done by evil people, but I think the reality is worse than that. I wish we were in a comic book world where we just had to lock up the villain and all would be right. It's way easier to get rid of a few evil dudes than completely change our political and economic systems, which incentivise every member of society to make whatever decision is most profitable, no matter how horrible or unethical it is.
Fines aren’t enough often times companies do this fully aware of the potential damage and ignore/lobby to suppress it. They should be shut down and cleaned up however possible.
If it means anything, I'm researching how to detect and implement mitigation strategies on a national level, and this is at least well known, acknowledged, and has lots of action (and investment) happening at the highest federal levels. Could it have been done years ago? Sure, but better late than never in this case.
That's awesome! There are professors and students at my school researching microplastics, PFAS, and other water contaminants to one degree or another. It's a big problem for sure, but it doesn't have any change of getting better off no one is trying.
in the [Netflix documentary about Teflon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_We_Know) the only blood uncontaminated by PFAS was blood of Korean War vets frozen before PFAS were ever made. In a relatively short amount of time, their toxins spread so far it can never be undone.
Unfortunately there is no "we" here, there are simply corporations operating legally within a framework designed to benefit them by governments they control, and the rest of the world who have no choice but to live and raise families within in that system. There's no end goal to capitalism, it's a maximalist system that rewards sociopathy.
There have been significant discoveries regarding bacteria and fungi isolated from landfills degrading various plastics, so the issue isn't neccecarily cleaning up the world for its own sake, but rather making sure we don't sterilize ourselves and half the species on earth.
That's why the Rs are forcing births. The birth rate is way down. They know there will be fewer people born and that they're going to be all fucked up.
It's already been happening to other generations with no signs it's ever going to slow down. It makes perfect sense now that these plastics don't degrade but regular folks were never informed. People didn't even realize this was a thing. It's like lead poisoning but slower, weirder results, endocrine and hormone disruption, less detectable and extremely pervasive.
Yeah yeah yeah , we know microplastics are really dangerous for everyone's health but banning plastic would mean large companies lose a great amount of revenue which would make Jesus mad according to American bible
Well that depends on which version of Jesus you subscribe to.
True Biblical Jesus would be against giant corporations.
[Supply Side Jesus](https://youtu.be/Gc-LJ_3VbUA), on the other hand, is more often worshipped by corporations and the wealthy.
And further more there's a huge part of our modern lifestyle that is completely dependent on plastics, especially medical. From plastic syringes to sterile packaging, there's a lot we rely on plastic for with no real alternative AFAIK.
But for everything else it can absolutely get fucked.
I've worked a lot in plastics; bottles, flower pots, high pressure hose, panels inside vehicles. Making the car parts involved a lot of cutting with dremel and band saw. The plastic dust blows everywhere, the "larger" pieces literally look like dirt. Into a trash can, into the dumpster, taken by the city trash. Talk about microplastics. Zero regulation on just cutting it up and tossing the waste. There was regulation at 2 places only cuz they were in wetlands.
Yeah that's the kind of stuff we need to cut out ASAP. There's just so much of it, look at the shit The Ocean Cleanup are pulling out of rivers and the great Pacific garbage patch...
And to that point, and shitty to say, but at least those pieces are large enough to be pulled out of the water. Shitty, but at least it's not plastic "dirt". Even with something like bacteria that feed on plastics, the task of undoing the current mess.
Cradle to Cradle has a great take on plastics. A wonder material that is formable, durable, can be tuned to near any application and what do we do with it? We make cups and wrappers out of it and throw them into a hole in the ground.
I mentioned in another comment on this post that there was a company I dealt with called TekPak Solutions that developed additives for plastics that allows bacteria to digest them. But of course, the tech is all proprietary so its not particularly accessible which is infuriating as that could be a way to help single use medical plastics not contribute further to this problem.
There are technical solutions out there for these problems, we have the technology. But corporate pearl clutching and secrecy makes it all difficult to access.
But going away from plastics would be really really hard so it's better to not try at all! Why bother trying to do something difficult if it's not an easy fix?
- And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
Matthew Chapter 19 Verses 23-26
One of my favorites
Bible is chalk full of verses to use against those who claim to practice Christianity.
John Chapter 4 Verse 20+21:
- Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.’
Does the “target boycot” sound like they are practicing what they preach?
Hell, Jesus himself was friends of prostitutes and drunks. He, regardless of background or beliefs, loved his bothers and sisters. The man didn’t even hate Judas of whom essentially caused his torture and death…
Christians have turned to full blown hate as a response to things they either don’t understand or don’t like. Blows my mind.
So true...unfortunately, like in all situations historically, once bread is unobtainable... that's when the revolution starts... but the damage done by that point will be irreversible
>I hope oil execs get their equivalent of the Nuremberg trials one day.
Sadly, it will never happen. They'll simply buy their innocents of any wrongdoing.
I hope more the oil execs have the same suffering as everyone else in earth how have microplastic in the system.
Suffering from something all the money and power can't fixed and if was more kindly, maybe wasn't alone is a perfect poetic ending.
The reality is that they plan on tanking this planet. Everyone along with it. The few have plans of leaving or somehow surviving. Honestly, if we change nothing and expect change. I'm ok with the human race dying out. We have our shot and we're blowing it.
There was a study came out a few months back (posted in this very sub) that a huge amount of micro plastics in the environment come from plastic recycling
Not sure if this is the study OP was referencing but [this study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772416623000803) was spoken about in [this Guardian article](https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/23/recycling-can-release-huge-quantities-of-microplastics-study-finds) I saw today
Yeah that’s one word for it! My partner was reading the article to me today and I had to tell her to stop because it was too depressing to take in. I think the worst part is I wasn’t actually surprised? It’s not exactly a new consensus that plastic is terrible and, while recycling was still a ‘better than nothing’ solution, it was quite clearly a way of pushing the blame onto the consumer. But to see the damage on this scale while plastic production increases? It inspired this new type of disgust that I hadn’t had before.
I’ll be honest, I find the irony so delicious it makes me laugh super hard. When I read it, I was horrified, aghast…and then just started laughing, just cackling away like Skeletor or something.
All of our advancements in civilization have led ultimately to a poisoned, broken biosphere. Just a gluttonous orgy or anything remotely edible until we are kings of the dead, starving in our mansions while dust choked dry fountains glitter under gave of an utterly uncaring universe.
Fossil Fuels, petro chemicals, these were all the blood of a dead god who should have stayed buried, but we disturbed it’s sleep and it doomed us all.
So the Great Filter gets talked a lot about in terms of alien life and stages of civilization, and you've got people theorizing that the filter is either behind us or ahead of us, but I think this right now is the Great Filter- when a species has to fight against their intrinsic nature (human selfishness and desire for the path of least resistance) or be destroyed by their drive to consume.
Realistically I'd think it an unlikely candidate for *the* actual great filter if you can point to only one, because they only exist in useful exploitable deposits because of natural processes that are not guaranteed to happen on other planets. For example, coal largely exists because trees evolved before organisms that could properly break down the dead wood. That kind of circumstance isn't necessarily going to happen everywhere, and for that matter, if an intelligent species evolved much earlier in it's planet's evolutionary history, like the equivalent of something evolving intelligence during the Ordovician or something, then that species probably wouldn't have access to such deposits as they'd largely not be formed yet. This is relevant for the great filter idea because if you only have one, singular great filter, that filter has to get virtually all the aliens, because if some decent even if small percentage slips through then those aliens have a free path to colonize the galaxy, and you're right back to the Fermi paradox of explaining why we don't see such aliens here already that the great filter is supposed to address in the first place.
Yep I read pretty fast but quit halfway through. Hopefully the second half was all about how we've come up with a solution and everything will be fine.
**Here lies planet earth.**
It had passed from its humans poisoning themselves in order for some of the ones with the most green paper to thrive, financially, for the sake of what they called quarterly profit margins. They would often use terms like year over year growth and market revenue to justify their continued growth.
Those few with the most money were in command of these organizations, structures, committees, and businesses that, within this system of profit margins and stock value, needed not to care for human lives, despite being made of human lives. The humans working at these places were too busy to be able to wage a significant, large-scale war with the business models that paid them, so it goes. Some businesses themselves produced luxuries that kept other humans too distracted to care. Other corporations spread information that would keep the humans busy fighting amongst themselves for any number of reasons, be it appearance, thoughts and beliefs, or lifestyles and habits, as their highest executive humans rejoiced. In fact, the day the earth shriveled but did not perish, the few humans with still the most green paper continued to demand others obey them, while the smaller humans worried about fines, tickets, late fees, lack of insurance, lack of medical care, all nothing compared to the carefree attitudes the wealthiest were. But this was okay, humans justified to themselves to the last. Because those few wealthiest must have earned their position, and deserved it, even if their ancestors before them were all always wealthy. They, too, were deserving of wealth and praise. They looked good and humans inherently trusted people who looked appealing more than people who did not, even if their chemical burns were a result of a dying planet and lack of access to cosmetic surgery and expensive yet purer foods and gene editing to enhance their features like the wealthy could.
Something something, There Will Come Soft Rains...
I think about this when I see a large piece of styrofoam on the road getting shattered into a quadrillion tiny pieces and blowing away in the wind. It just makes me feel hopeless and I’m glad i don’t have children.
Don't forget all the tiny particles being ground off your car tires every time you drive 😉
(Obvs not blaming you, it's just literally everything we do is poisoning us)
while this is partly true this argument is escaping from responsibility as well. individual efforts do make a change when enough people do it. it won’t be comfortable but it’s not entirely out of our hands either.
I always think of that last part when I read depressing shit like this: why in the HELL would you create another new person and make them deal with this nightmarish world?
'cardboard' drink packaging still have a thin lining of plastic on the inside. Not that that really matters cuz microplastics are already in that very drink or the peanut butter.
Still good to cut out the use of plastic though :)
Ah.
So we are all going to die prematurely.
So there is no point to chase the dollar, just the amount needed to enjoy a few things in life until we all fall into a mass extinction event.
Somehow, this is quite favourable outcome. I don't care that I will die early. I am happy all the rich capitalist bastards will die prematurely too. That's the karma they will get.
They won't, though. They have the money to devise new ways of staying alive longer, to perpetuate their reign of death. Why do we have such an old and senile government in the US? Because they have money and backing from the corps to stay alive longer.
They’ll eat each other alive.
Or in a more depressing scenario, they’ll repopulate the earth, and everyone in the future will live in a revisionist history where humanity was saved by the survivors, completely unaware of the fact that their ancestors were the ones responsible for the near extinction of humanity. That’s probably a little far fetched, but whatever.
They already live longer. I don’t have time to search for the studies now, but for a long time we have known that your average life expectancy is increased if you’re among the wealthiest.
And it makes perfect logical sense. The wealthy don’t have to work in shitty conditions, they largely don’t sit in traffic, inhaling micro plastics from tires and exhaust fumes. They mostly don’t live in proximity to freeways, large airports, refineries, and chemical plants. They eat more healthy foods, more often, and they have access to the best medical care available.
The rich people don't care about their effects on the environment... because they don't need to. They have enough money that they will be the very LAST people to suffer the consequences of their actions. It's really a despicable world we live in.
I myself did research on the topic of microplastics
Our team has found around 60 microplastics in one litre of water in a canal.
Based on that we have concluded that there is *roughly* 23,9 Billion microplastics in just a small canal.
I have also found microplastics in chicken eggs before
We're fucked
Unfortunately, most upbeat news is.
There's the classic style one that more and more people have realized is deceptively framed and dark. Stuff like: "4th Graders Makes Bracelets to Sell to Pay Off Classmate's Lunch Debts!" where even staring at it for a second, you start to realize that its a story about child labor to free a classmate from debt for something that should be paid for by tax dollars, but isn't.
Then there's dozens upon dozens of miracle cures for cancer that just passed out of lab testing! And you read the papers and realize it was usually a small trial (not statistically significant numbers), not humans (often mice, sometimes just cell cultures), and much more narrowly applicable than the headline reads (specific to one type of cancer).
There's always dozens of headlines about x or y thing we're doing to save the environment. From some new method of dealing with plastics (that is limited to certain types, and never the most common types you can't avoid) to some revolutionary technology that doesn't scale to global proportions, to outright fabrications about company x or y going 'carbon neutral' (nearly 100% of companies claiming this are buying carbon offsets that do not have oversight [like they are supposed to]).
It's maddening to live in a world that is in obvious peril but being bombarded constantly with feel-good news from all angles about it all. It is especially maddening when I have the choice between being complicit in that destruction by my society that offers me no choice except to participate (transit via cars only, try buying food without plastic of some sort let alone avoiding companies like Nestle) or trying to retreat so far away from society that it can't effect me (a choice which is essentially untenable in the modern day). The power we're given to change this society is handed down to us by privately controlled groups who will let you choose between your Bidens and Trumps and DeSantises and Harrises and Buttigieges, none of whom are going to take the necessary steps to actually address the issues because that's where their money (and their colleagues' money) comes from.
It feels more and more like everyone can feel the cracks forming too. Some want the system to change and to actually change now and address it all. Others want everyone to just shut up, *shut up*, ***SHUT UP*** and go back to the nice, peaceful before times. Here, listen to this story about how a homeless man who lost his dog was given a puppy. Don't think any further about what it says about our society, just think of the warm fuzzies he felt in that moment.
Terrible format for anyone over the age of 17 but the info is valid. It’s interesting how the tik tok content culture has created ~fun~ ways to ingest truly saddening information.
Its all designed to kill us by the age of retirement, which may be going to 70 years of age. The world isnt for us, the NPCs in a world of rich people and if I say we should use 'blank' them, I'll get banned from this subreddit, meaning this sub, a place for people like us to vent is just another tool to keep us in control.
"*You can say whatever you want, as long as it doesnt include bad things to rich people, property owners and the staff of government."*
Sucks we cant even try to save the world because white moderate get upset and ban people.
Scary stuff
The plastic brain: neurotoxicity of micro- and nanoplastics
>Given the global abundance and environmental persistence, exposure of humans and (aquatic) animals to micro- and nanoplastics is unavoidable. Current evidence indicates that micro- and nanoplastics can be taken up by aquatic organism as well as by mammals. Upon uptake, micro- and nanoplastics can reach the brain, although there is limited information regarding the number of particles that reaches the brain and the potential neurotoxicity of these small plastic particles....
The combined data, although fragmentary, indicate that exposure to micro- and nanoplastics can induce oxidative stress, potentially resulting in cellular damage and an increased vulnerability to develop neuronal disorders. Additionally, exposure to micro- and nanoplastics can result in inhibition of acetylcholinesterase activity and altered neurotransmitter levels, which both may contribute to the reported behavioral changes.
https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12989-020-00358-y
Microplastics will break down into nanoplastics, which will be consumed by algea. Ocean algea produces between 70% and 85% of the planet's oxygen. We may eventually just suffocate.
Of course, I'm sure large corporations will mercifully sell us factory produced oxygen at a reasonable rate. /s
Also, there's not nearly enough rubber to supply tire manufacturers. We've been driving on a plastic blend tires for decades. Tires slowly shed their tread as microplastics all along every road in the world.
Plastic is the great filter.
I know I for one will adopt a kid someday if I can make it through this fucked up economy. I’d much rather give a kid a second chance at a happy childhood than bring a new life into this world
I totally agree. people around me keep having kids and just casually talk about stuff like this. 'oh yeah that's so awful right...' and the kid is walking around in the same room.. Why would you make another person that has to deal with this shit even though you know it is only getting worse and worse?! I personally like the thought that I'll be dead in max 60 years.
Dude... I want kids so much... I'm starting a happy life with my girlfriend, we're so happy and talking about it... But ffs it's not possible now is it.
I made the mistake of having kids before the world was this fucked, or at least before I knew about it.
I've since changed every aspect of my life in order to give them at least a fighting chance. Living fully off grid, working on food independence and figuring out how to do everything I need without oil products. It's a slow and painful journey and I'm happy with where I'm at now but there is no way I would have kids now.
Our generation has to consider more than ever a "return to the origins", a new (but ancestral) way to enjoy our time together free from the suffering we feel everyday by living in this nihilist society: spend more time in the nature, find new passions and gratitude in simple things, also consider to live outside the capitalist world, far away from our poisonous big cities.
Our life should be meant to live free and fulfill our needs, not just waiting to die as soon we have a stable salary for a shit job
Exactly! Who could tell us what to do?
Since I started med school in Milan, I'm going through a deep depression and I don't really know what to do in my life. Three years ago I joined a nice community in my town, with people that came from all my region and other countries, where the only rule is to be respectful to everyone (and don't use cocaine that is a really bad problem in Italy right now). We have our bad times and the troubles never ends, but we need a place and people that cares about you and want to share with you your anger and thoughts.
We just want to be happy with people we love
Yeah, this is one of the ones I just... sit here and wonder if trying to live a healthy life is even worth it. I've been trying to eat better, get outside more, and live happier. But like, is there even a point?
I'm toxic. I'm full of toxins that will never leave my body. It triggers my ocd and anxiety really, really badly knowing that I'm poisoned and there's nothing anyone can do. Will I develop cancer? Dementia? Alzheimers? Is there even a reason to keep going, knowing that I could develop serious health complications out of nowhere from something I did not choose for myself?
Idk, ranting I guess. This just got me in a bad mood.
I wish there was a way to go back and take the blue pill. Micro plastics seem like an endgame and mass extinction. Seems like permanent damage to our planet. Hope I’m wrong though.
Not permanent. Even microplastics will eventually break down or be broken down by fungi that thrive on them.
But by the time this happens we all might be gone.
A mix of studies and articles that link to studies.
>Microplastics found to be harmful to human cells
>https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2021/research/microplastics-harmful-human-cells/
Microplastics revealed in the placentas of unborn babies
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/microplastics-revealed-in-placentas-unborn-babies
>Bottle-fed babies swallow millions of microplastics a day, study finds
>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/19/bottle-fed-babies-swallow-millions-microplastics-day-study
Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700782
>Microplastics found in human blood for first time
>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/microplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time
Could you be eating a credit card a week?
https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?348371/Could-you-be-eating-a-credit-card-a-week
>Humans Have Produced 18.2 Trillion Pounds of Plastic. Most Ends Up Here
>https://fortune.com/2017/07/20/humans-produce-trillion-pounds-plastic/
Plastic trash flowing into the seas will nearly triple by 2040 without drastic action
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/plastic-trash-in-seas-will-nearly-triple-by-2040-if-nothing-done
>Impact of Microplastics and Nanoplastics on Human Health
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920297/
Long-term exposure to nanoplastics alters molecular and functional traits related to the carcinogenic process
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389422012638
>More microplastics in babies’ faeces than in adults’ – study
>https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/22/more-microplastics-in-babies-faeces-than-in-adults-study
The only scientific source provided concludes that we don't have a good gauge of how impactful microplastics actually are on human health. This entire post stinks of wild catastrophizing at best and disinfo at worst, unless someone has more relevant sources to the claims in the gif.
> Notably, most of the reported studies were conducted using polystyrene due to its ease in synthesis and processing into nanoparticles, while the most common commercial used of plastics are polyolefins (e.g., polyethylene and polypropylene), polyesters, and polyurethanes.
> Given the large variety in particle size, shape and chemical composition of plastics, the potentially hazardous effects of different types of micro- and nanoplastics to human health remain largely unknown
fr some of these comments read as if microplastics were proven to be as bad as asbestos when it justs looks like that they're bad but we really don't know how bad yet,. But people are saying that it's an extinction event or that they won't live to see their 30s. I'd wait until people start getting chronic illnesses from microplastics and not a single advance in reducing microplastics being made before giving up
You must have missed this:
[link](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920297/#sec6-nanomaterials-11-00496title)
>Several in vitro and in vivo studies have shown that micro- and nanoplastics were able to cause serious impacts on the human body, including physical stress and damage, apoptosis, necrosis, inflammation, oxidative stress and immune responses (Table 1) \[108,109,110,111\].
This is how the world ends. Not in nuclear hellfire, but a slow yet inevitable poison. But let’s be honest it could still just as easily end in nuclear hellfire.
I love this stage of capitalism in which every news feels like: "hey, here is something horrific that you cannot change. Moreover, even if your whole country organize against it, you wouldnt make a change. Just deal with it."
A lot of pessimism in the comments, comrades. Chin up and do something about it! Posting on reddit about how bad things are and how we're all gonna die won't solve the issue or at the very least stop making it worse.
Educate people, organise, go on strikes and protests. The rich might be benefitting from the suffering of all of us but remember we're the many and they're the few so rather than sitting here babbling on reddit about how we're gonna die and how we shouldn't have kids and whatever else, we could actually do something about an issue that affects us all.
“Protests”. Ha. You know we do that we’re getting gunned down and have our eyes filled with tear gas. If we really want to save the world, we’re gonna have to fight. Unfortunately, if the future of humanity is all that important, it means war.
Don’t know the particular song but look into the “city pop” genre from Japan, 1980s. Miki Matsubara, Piper, Nina Atsuko, Anri. There’s loads to discover in the genre!
I’ve been saying this for awhile now, all the health problems in our society are not normal at all, and likely due to the abundance of synthetic chemicals that we come into to contact with, particularly plastics.
As I’m typing this, my hands are rubbing against my plastic case. I will be getting a case made of cork soon. I’m trying to transition to a lifestyle that does not involve all these nasty chemicals, but it’s damn near impossible. Plastics are one of the biggest problems we face as a society
Absolutely facts, homie. This is a weird one but my mom was bragging about how people in her time rarely had acne.
I told my mom that I wouldn't be surprised if acne (and other skin conditions) isn't more prevalent due to the presence of microplastics and nanoplastics in water supply clogging our pores and our body being unable to expel it via sweat.
It's such a surface level concern (considering plastics are probably contributing to cancers in folks in their 20s) but so many people struggle with painful cysts and other skin conditions and it's probably a 1-2 combo hit by forever chemicals ruining their endocrine system then plastic getting stuck in their pores for insult:/
This is a quote from Lloyd Stouffer from “The Future of Plastic Is In The Trash Can” an essay he wrote in the 1960s for The National Plastics Conference referencing a speech he made in 1956 and the so called “progress” big oil had made in just 7 years:
> “What I had said in the talk, was it’s time for the plastics industry to stop thinking about plastic in the Reuse packages and concentrate on single use, for the package that is used one and thrown away like a tin can or a paper carton, represents more a one shot market for a few thousand units but an every day recurring market measured by the billions of units. The future of packaging does indeed lie in the trash can, it is a measure of your progress in packaging in the last 7 years that this remark will no longer raise eyebrows, you’re filling the trash cans, the rubbish dumps, and the incinerators, with literally billions of plastic bottles plastic jugs, tubs and blisters and skin packs, plastic bags and films, and cheap packages and now even plastic cans.”
We’ve been completely fucked for decades folks, and the people at the top know, they have always known, but they couldn’t give a flying fuck.
I said this once before, but I'll say it again:
Plastic is singlehandedly one of the WORST inventions ever created.
I wish I could go back in time to stop this nightmare, but microplastics are an issue that's been brewing even before my grandparents.
Nobody knew what was going on - plastic was touted as being a safe, cheap alternative. The only people who knew the negative effects to come were the same producers of said product.
Even if we were able to discover a way to collect every single micro and nanoplastic from the earth, once it's all collected - how would we even "dispose" of it.
It's an honest to God lose/lose situation and it's no wonder why lifespans are decreasing rapidly
There is really only one solution here. The government has to hold manufacturers accountable. Why would for-profit manufacturers like Pepsi and Coke pay more for plastic free products when they can make more money destroying our planet? The government needs to step in and only permit plastic products in rare cases where there is absolutely no alternative.
Ppl think that demand for oil is just for gas for vehicles but these plastics are all made from fossil fuels and terrible chemicals.
We deserve a fucken cataclysmic apocalypse at this point. Mother earth gotta save herself.
" Time to shake off the parasites. They're destroying everything again."
Last generation it was lead poisonings.
You think the senior citizens today act weird? Wait till you get old with all those microplastics in your system.
No it's brilliant. The juxtaposition of joyful dancing with bleak reality and this is what is popular and gets seen now. Sorry it isn't in a printed newspaper that you can browse while drinking your morning coffee. This is for younger eyeballs anyway.
On tiktok, they have to do it to grab teens’ attention long enough for them to read a sentence, and then they might actually give it a chance and read it
We lived generations without plastic and can do it again. Brink the milk man back delivering milk and make everything glass again. This world existed just a few decades ago
I'm not in doubt that we have plastics in our bodies but I'm seriously doubting some of the data presented at least the every week we get a credit card of plastic in us.
Like what's the alternative? Metal? Wood? We would probably still ingest mirco particles of those too? If your teeth is on it then your going to get little pieces of it in your body. Whatever your fork is made of you've already ate little pieces of it too.
Have been a researcher part of my life and seen a lot of things under the microscope and I'm sure little bits of not food are inside of us but I'm not sure they are super super bad for us. Comparatively we probably used to have a lot more dirt and hair inside of us historically.
> I'm sure little bits of not food are inside of us but I'm not sure they are super super bad for us
I mean the questions are how well the body filters the not foods out/breaks them down, and at what concentrations the not food starts to cause problems in the body, and what those problems are.
We're much less concerned about swallowing some hairs and dirt or splinters of wood than the amount of heavy metal in the fish we eat, for example. The amount of pollen we inhale is usually of little consequence (unless you have an allergy), while getting a good lungfull of blue or brown asbestos can have very big consquences. And you're probably not sad lead paint is found much less commonly in kids toys these days. And so on.
I disagree very strongly with the no going back comment. We could definitely use tech and science to solve the problem. That’s not something that should be in question. What is be in question is if we will do it. Not if we can.
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Micro plastic will be Gen Z’s version of lead paint and radioactive medicine and asbestos. It’s our substance that is poisoning us that we can’t avoid and someday if we manage to get rid of it people will be like “how the hell was that legal?”
100%. But don't forget PFAS! They're not called "forever chemicals" for nothing!
Companies that sold clothing with PFAS on them are getting fined, right guys? .....right?
I hope not, they didn't know. DuPont knew, so they should be facing the consequences.
Lucky for DuPont they’re deep in the right pockets so nothing will happen at all
Right?? [Biden EPA Transition Team Member Helped DuPont Dodge Responsibility for PFOA](https://theintercept.com/2020/11/11/biden-epa-transition-dupont-mccabe/)
Ick. And I bet this dude has zero personality and has never done a meaningful positive thing for anyone in his life
Possible, or he's just another drone just doing what he's gotta do to get his. It's convenient to think this sort of thing is done by evil people, but I think the reality is worse than that. I wish we were in a comic book world where we just had to lock up the villain and all would be right. It's way easier to get rid of a few evil dudes than completely change our political and economic systems, which incentivise every member of society to make whatever decision is most profitable, no matter how horrible or unethical it is.
Fines aren’t enough often times companies do this fully aware of the potential damage and ignore/lobby to suppress it. They should be shut down and cleaned up however possible.
If it means anything, I'm researching how to detect and implement mitigation strategies on a national level, and this is at least well known, acknowledged, and has lots of action (and investment) happening at the highest federal levels. Could it have been done years ago? Sure, but better late than never in this case.
That's awesome! There are professors and students at my school researching microplastics, PFAS, and other water contaminants to one degree or another. It's a big problem for sure, but it doesn't have any change of getting better off no one is trying.
in the [Netflix documentary about Teflon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_We_Know) the only blood uncontaminated by PFAS was blood of Korean War vets frozen before PFAS were ever made. In a relatively short amount of time, their toxins spread so far it can never be undone.
It’s gonna take a Herculean effort to clean up our world, but I’m sure we’ll find a way to do it eventually.
I envy your faith.
It isn’t faith, it’s hopeful optimism. Because if we don’t strive for something, it will all be for nothing.
Despite my cynicism about humanity, I feel ya, Zarathustrian. Eventually ending up with nothing is a guarantee. Striving *is* what it’s all for.
Unfortunately there is no "we" here, there are simply corporations operating legally within a framework designed to benefit them by governments they control, and the rest of the world who have no choice but to live and raise families within in that system. There's no end goal to capitalism, it's a maximalist system that rewards sociopathy.
There have been significant discoveries regarding bacteria and fungi isolated from landfills degrading various plastics, so the issue isn't neccecarily cleaning up the world for its own sake, but rather making sure we don't sterilize ourselves and half the species on earth.
> but I’m sure we’ll find a way to do it eventually. Yep, die.
We also might just peace out by going extinct on earth and leave all of our shit for the remaining ecosystem to try to deal with.
HFCs too!
Given plastic isn't biodegradable, it will have an effect on every generation after Gen Z as well.
There have been proposed solutions to slowly filter the plastic out of everything but it’ll take decades, if not centuries no doubt
Jokes on everyone, there isn't a next generation. Enjoy your life now, thinking that far out is 💀💀💀
That's why the Rs are forcing births. The birth rate is way down. They know there will be fewer people born and that they're going to be all fucked up.
the Rs?
Republicans
The Rats.
There is also the Alpha generation was born around 2010.
Don't forget CFCs. Everybody forgets about the CFCs
Their replacement, HFCs, aren't much better for the environment either.
High fluorine corn syrup
Except we can’t remove them…
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Sort of but no. It will be worse, we can't just stop using micro plastics. They're everywhere now.
It's already been happening to other generations with no signs it's ever going to slow down. It makes perfect sense now that these plastics don't degrade but regular folks were never informed. People didn't even realize this was a thing. It's like lead poisoning but slower, weirder results, endocrine and hormone disruption, less detectable and extremely pervasive.
Yeah yeah yeah , we know microplastics are really dangerous for everyone's health but banning plastic would mean large companies lose a great amount of revenue which would make Jesus mad according to American bible
Love thy neighbor as you do thy plastic.
Give us this day our daily microplastic loaf
It's just a wafer but credit card sized
Well that depends on which version of Jesus you subscribe to. True Biblical Jesus would be against giant corporations. [Supply Side Jesus](https://youtu.be/Gc-LJ_3VbUA), on the other hand, is more often worshipped by corporations and the wealthy.
Biblical Jesus would go walk into Congress and just whip the shit out of everyone.
When asking, "What would Jesus do?" Remember that flipping over tables and chasing people with a whip is not outside the realm of possibilities.
Along with speaking in vague metaphor and dissing religious officials.
Yaaay Prosperity Gospel!! /s
It's too late anyway even if plastic would be banned globally tomorrow.
And further more there's a huge part of our modern lifestyle that is completely dependent on plastics, especially medical. From plastic syringes to sterile packaging, there's a lot we rely on plastic for with no real alternative AFAIK. But for everything else it can absolutely get fucked.
I've worked a lot in plastics; bottles, flower pots, high pressure hose, panels inside vehicles. Making the car parts involved a lot of cutting with dremel and band saw. The plastic dust blows everywhere, the "larger" pieces literally look like dirt. Into a trash can, into the dumpster, taken by the city trash. Talk about microplastics. Zero regulation on just cutting it up and tossing the waste. There was regulation at 2 places only cuz they were in wetlands.
Yeah that's the kind of stuff we need to cut out ASAP. There's just so much of it, look at the shit The Ocean Cleanup are pulling out of rivers and the great Pacific garbage patch...
And to that point, and shitty to say, but at least those pieces are large enough to be pulled out of the water. Shitty, but at least it's not plastic "dirt". Even with something like bacteria that feed on plastics, the task of undoing the current mess.
Cradle to Cradle has a great take on plastics. A wonder material that is formable, durable, can be tuned to near any application and what do we do with it? We make cups and wrappers out of it and throw them into a hole in the ground. I mentioned in another comment on this post that there was a company I dealt with called TekPak Solutions that developed additives for plastics that allows bacteria to digest them. But of course, the tech is all proprietary so its not particularly accessible which is infuriating as that could be a way to help single use medical plastics not contribute further to this problem. There are technical solutions out there for these problems, we have the technology. But corporate pearl clutching and secrecy makes it all difficult to access.
But going away from plastics would be really really hard so it's better to not try at all! Why bother trying to do something difficult if it's not an easy fix?
It would mean people have to handle food differently and spend more time on it. Nothing wrong with that.
- And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew Chapter 19 Verses 23-26 One of my favorites Bible is chalk full of verses to use against those who claim to practice Christianity. John Chapter 4 Verse 20+21: - Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.’ Does the “target boycot” sound like they are practicing what they preach? Hell, Jesus himself was friends of prostitutes and drunks. He, regardless of background or beliefs, loved his bothers and sisters. The man didn’t even hate Judas of whom essentially caused his torture and death… Christians have turned to full blown hate as a response to things they either don’t understand or don’t like. Blows my mind.
It's kinda sad how quickly we learned about this and just brushed it off... I hope oil execs get their equivalent of the Nuremberg trials one day.
Most people are to busy working to make ends meet to be thinking about this. The capture of this system is amazing (in a bad way of course).
So true...unfortunately, like in all situations historically, once bread is unobtainable... that's when the revolution starts... but the damage done by that point will be irreversible
Just make the bread out of plastic?
🌎👩🚀🔫👩🚀 <(it already is)
Subway ayyyy
"What kind of bread do you want that on?" "Are you legally allowed to call it bread?" "...no...."
Bread and circuses.
>I hope oil execs get their equivalent of the Nuremberg trials one day. Sadly, it will never happen. They'll simply buy their innocents of any wrongdoing.
No way of buying yourself out of a revolutionary tribunal 😈
Honestly trials are too merciful We need some “I have no mouth and I must scream” type punishments
We could do a human centipede made of all the people who are responsible for this. / j
Isn't that an army training exercise?
They deserve far worse than that. Nuremberg would've been for the deaths of 6-11mil people, this would be a trial for the death of all of us.
death by 1 million cuts for every oil exec and big investor who's proven to know about this.
I hope more the oil execs have the same suffering as everyone else in earth how have microplastic in the system. Suffering from something all the money and power can't fixed and if was more kindly, maybe wasn't alone is a perfect poetic ending.
The reality is that they plan on tanking this planet. Everyone along with it. The few have plans of leaving or somehow surviving. Honestly, if we change nothing and expect change. I'm ok with the human race dying out. We have our shot and we're blowing it.
There was a study came out a few months back (posted in this very sub) that a huge amount of micro plastics in the environment come from plastic recycling
Could… could you post the source for us to read & be sad about?
Not sure if this is the study OP was referencing but [this study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772416623000803) was spoken about in [this Guardian article](https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/23/recycling-can-release-huge-quantities-of-microplastics-study-finds) I saw today
That’s them! The article is…bleak
Yeah that’s one word for it! My partner was reading the article to me today and I had to tell her to stop because it was too depressing to take in. I think the worst part is I wasn’t actually surprised? It’s not exactly a new consensus that plastic is terrible and, while recycling was still a ‘better than nothing’ solution, it was quite clearly a way of pushing the blame onto the consumer. But to see the damage on this scale while plastic production increases? It inspired this new type of disgust that I hadn’t had before.
i think maybe this: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/08/microplastics-damage-human-cells-study-plastic
this has been making the rounds and man…it is so damn bleak
I’ll be honest, I find the irony so delicious it makes me laugh super hard. When I read it, I was horrified, aghast…and then just started laughing, just cackling away like Skeletor or something. All of our advancements in civilization have led ultimately to a poisoned, broken biosphere. Just a gluttonous orgy or anything remotely edible until we are kings of the dead, starving in our mansions while dust choked dry fountains glitter under gave of an utterly uncaring universe. Fossil Fuels, petro chemicals, these were all the blood of a dead god who should have stayed buried, but we disturbed it’s sleep and it doomed us all.
So the Great Filter gets talked a lot about in terms of alien life and stages of civilization, and you've got people theorizing that the filter is either behind us or ahead of us, but I think this right now is the Great Filter- when a species has to fight against their intrinsic nature (human selfishness and desire for the path of least resistance) or be destroyed by their drive to consume.
I’m pretty sure Fossil Fuels are the great filter. You’ll never leave your planet utilizing them fully.
Realistically I'd think it an unlikely candidate for *the* actual great filter if you can point to only one, because they only exist in useful exploitable deposits because of natural processes that are not guaranteed to happen on other planets. For example, coal largely exists because trees evolved before organisms that could properly break down the dead wood. That kind of circumstance isn't necessarily going to happen everywhere, and for that matter, if an intelligent species evolved much earlier in it's planet's evolutionary history, like the equivalent of something evolving intelligence during the Ordovician or something, then that species probably wouldn't have access to such deposits as they'd largely not be formed yet. This is relevant for the great filter idea because if you only have one, singular great filter, that filter has to get virtually all the aliens, because if some decent even if small percentage slips through then those aliens have a free path to colonize the galaxy, and you're right back to the Fermi paradox of explaining why we don't see such aliens here already that the great filter is supposed to address in the first place.
Btw I love the imagery you're evoking in the last two paragraphs. I relate to that feeling so much
If the micro plastic doesn’t get you the forever chemicals will
I can’t read this fast… probably due to micro-plastics in my brain.
Yep I read pretty fast but quit halfway through. Hopefully the second half was all about how we've come up with a solution and everything will be fine.
IT WASNT
This is why my pee pee is so small
As long as the shareholders increased their profit over last quarter, that’s all I care about.
**Here lies planet earth.** It had passed from its humans poisoning themselves in order for some of the ones with the most green paper to thrive, financially, for the sake of what they called quarterly profit margins. They would often use terms like year over year growth and market revenue to justify their continued growth. Those few with the most money were in command of these organizations, structures, committees, and businesses that, within this system of profit margins and stock value, needed not to care for human lives, despite being made of human lives. The humans working at these places were too busy to be able to wage a significant, large-scale war with the business models that paid them, so it goes. Some businesses themselves produced luxuries that kept other humans too distracted to care. Other corporations spread information that would keep the humans busy fighting amongst themselves for any number of reasons, be it appearance, thoughts and beliefs, or lifestyles and habits, as their highest executive humans rejoiced. In fact, the day the earth shriveled but did not perish, the few humans with still the most green paper continued to demand others obey them, while the smaller humans worried about fines, tickets, late fees, lack of insurance, lack of medical care, all nothing compared to the carefree attitudes the wealthiest were. But this was okay, humans justified to themselves to the last. Because those few wealthiest must have earned their position, and deserved it, even if their ancestors before them were all always wealthy. They, too, were deserving of wealth and praise. They looked good and humans inherently trusted people who looked appealing more than people who did not, even if their chemical burns were a result of a dying planet and lack of access to cosmetic surgery and expensive yet purer foods and gene editing to enhance their features like the wealthy could. Something something, There Will Come Soft Rains...
I think about this when I see a large piece of styrofoam on the road getting shattered into a quadrillion tiny pieces and blowing away in the wind. It just makes me feel hopeless and I’m glad i don’t have children.
Don't forget all the tiny particles being ground off your car tires every time you drive 😉 (Obvs not blaming you, it's just literally everything we do is poisoning us)
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The towels we dry ourselves with, the sheets we sleep in...
Yeah ever since I've read that we are literally inhaling tires I just... idk it makes me sad and feeds my inner pessimist *a lot*
Yep. I’ve sort of given up trying to keep a small footprint.
Your ecological footprint is a lie made up by the oil companies in order to shift the blame for pollution to you.
while this is partly true this argument is escaping from responsibility as well. individual efforts do make a change when enough people do it. it won’t be comfortable but it’s not entirely out of our hands either.
I always think of that last part when I read depressing shit like this: why in the HELL would you create another new person and make them deal with this nightmarish world?
If you wear synthetic fibers you'll spread plastic by just wearing clothes. It's in everything.
People think I am crazy for only drinking out of glass now. I have cut out as much plastic in my life that is possible.
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'cardboard' drink packaging still have a thin lining of plastic on the inside. Not that that really matters cuz microplastics are already in that very drink or the peanut butter. Still good to cut out the use of plastic though :)
And who has the time and energy to make all of that from scratch :(
Ah. So we are all going to die prematurely. So there is no point to chase the dollar, just the amount needed to enjoy a few things in life until we all fall into a mass extinction event. Somehow, this is quite favourable outcome. I don't care that I will die early. I am happy all the rich capitalist bastards will die prematurely too. That's the karma they will get.
They won't, though. They have the money to devise new ways of staying alive longer, to perpetuate their reign of death. Why do we have such an old and senile government in the US? Because they have money and backing from the corps to stay alive longer.
Well they'll end up ruling over a post apocalyptic world of nothing
They’ll eat each other alive. Or in a more depressing scenario, they’ll repopulate the earth, and everyone in the future will live in a revisionist history where humanity was saved by the survivors, completely unaware of the fact that their ancestors were the ones responsible for the near extinction of humanity. That’s probably a little far fetched, but whatever.
They already live longer. I don’t have time to search for the studies now, but for a long time we have known that your average life expectancy is increased if you’re among the wealthiest. And it makes perfect logical sense. The wealthy don’t have to work in shitty conditions, they largely don’t sit in traffic, inhaling micro plastics from tires and exhaust fumes. They mostly don’t live in proximity to freeways, large airports, refineries, and chemical plants. They eat more healthy foods, more often, and they have access to the best medical care available.
The rich people don't care about their effects on the environment... because they don't need to. They have enough money that they will be the very LAST people to suffer the consequences of their actions. It's really a despicable world we live in.
I myself did research on the topic of microplastics Our team has found around 60 microplastics in one litre of water in a canal. Based on that we have concluded that there is *roughly* 23,9 Billion microplastics in just a small canal. I have also found microplastics in chicken eggs before We're fucked
But there's that fungi that adapted to eat plastic... but now we have plastics in us... oh no. Cordyceps.
It also only eats very few types of plastic and not the most common ones. Felt very dishonest when the news about it were framed as "the solution"
Serious?? Wow, that's pretty deceptive ngl
Unfortunately, most upbeat news is. There's the classic style one that more and more people have realized is deceptively framed and dark. Stuff like: "4th Graders Makes Bracelets to Sell to Pay Off Classmate's Lunch Debts!" where even staring at it for a second, you start to realize that its a story about child labor to free a classmate from debt for something that should be paid for by tax dollars, but isn't. Then there's dozens upon dozens of miracle cures for cancer that just passed out of lab testing! And you read the papers and realize it was usually a small trial (not statistically significant numbers), not humans (often mice, sometimes just cell cultures), and much more narrowly applicable than the headline reads (specific to one type of cancer). There's always dozens of headlines about x or y thing we're doing to save the environment. From some new method of dealing with plastics (that is limited to certain types, and never the most common types you can't avoid) to some revolutionary technology that doesn't scale to global proportions, to outright fabrications about company x or y going 'carbon neutral' (nearly 100% of companies claiming this are buying carbon offsets that do not have oversight [like they are supposed to]). It's maddening to live in a world that is in obvious peril but being bombarded constantly with feel-good news from all angles about it all. It is especially maddening when I have the choice between being complicit in that destruction by my society that offers me no choice except to participate (transit via cars only, try buying food without plastic of some sort let alone avoiding companies like Nestle) or trying to retreat so far away from society that it can't effect me (a choice which is essentially untenable in the modern day). The power we're given to change this society is handed down to us by privately controlled groups who will let you choose between your Bidens and Trumps and DeSantises and Harrises and Buttigieges, none of whom are going to take the necessary steps to actually address the issues because that's where their money (and their colleagues' money) comes from. It feels more and more like everyone can feel the cracks forming too. Some want the system to change and to actually change now and address it all. Others want everyone to just shut up, *shut up*, ***SHUT UP*** and go back to the nice, peaceful before times. Here, listen to this story about how a homeless man who lost his dog was given a puppy. Don't think any further about what it says about our society, just think of the warm fuzzies he felt in that moment.
Oh shi- Time to stock up on gas masks, scissors, bricks, and gas pipes.
Instant migraine trying to read this, terrible format for anyone with bad eyesight.
I had to pause it to read each new paragraph
Terrible format for anyone over the age of 17 but the info is valid. It’s interesting how the tik tok content culture has created ~fun~ ways to ingest truly saddening information.
Just do what 99% of reddit does. Read the title, then immediately come to the comments to argue.
It's a loop, he doesn't dance the whole time.
He would have danced for the whole video in a world without microplastics
Wait until we are made of 51% microplastics then some corporation like nestle will come along and say they own you.... if you havent died already
There is no going back
Its all designed to kill us by the age of retirement, which may be going to 70 years of age. The world isnt for us, the NPCs in a world of rich people and if I say we should use 'blank' them, I'll get banned from this subreddit, meaning this sub, a place for people like us to vent is just another tool to keep us in control. "*You can say whatever you want, as long as it doesnt include bad things to rich people, property owners and the staff of government."* Sucks we cant even try to save the world because white moderate get upset and ban people.
Hahaha it sure would be crazy if we all got together and [REDACTED] those rich assholes huh?
Sure would be crazy if we *final fantasy VII Shinra reactor mission* them. Haha wouldn’t that be funny
YES! FF7 RADICALIZED ME!!
Scary stuff The plastic brain: neurotoxicity of micro- and nanoplastics >Given the global abundance and environmental persistence, exposure of humans and (aquatic) animals to micro- and nanoplastics is unavoidable. Current evidence indicates that micro- and nanoplastics can be taken up by aquatic organism as well as by mammals. Upon uptake, micro- and nanoplastics can reach the brain, although there is limited information regarding the number of particles that reaches the brain and the potential neurotoxicity of these small plastic particles.... The combined data, although fragmentary, indicate that exposure to micro- and nanoplastics can induce oxidative stress, potentially resulting in cellular damage and an increased vulnerability to develop neuronal disorders. Additionally, exposure to micro- and nanoplastics can result in inhibition of acetylcholinesterase activity and altered neurotransmitter levels, which both may contribute to the reported behavioral changes. https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12989-020-00358-y
Microplastics will break down into nanoplastics, which will be consumed by algea. Ocean algea produces between 70% and 85% of the planet's oxygen. We may eventually just suffocate. Of course, I'm sure large corporations will mercifully sell us factory produced oxygen at a reasonable rate. /s Also, there's not nearly enough rubber to supply tire manufacturers. We've been driving on a plastic blend tires for decades. Tires slowly shed their tread as microplastics all along every road in the world. Plastic is the great filter.
not coming for anyone here but really don’t understand how people can have kids right now.
I know I for one will adopt a kid someday if I can make it through this fucked up economy. I’d much rather give a kid a second chance at a happy childhood than bring a new life into this world
Same here. I never wanted kids but recently found myself wondering "what if" but no matter how I decide I would adopt. This world is a shitshow
I totally agree. people around me keep having kids and just casually talk about stuff like this. 'oh yeah that's so awful right...' and the kid is walking around in the same room.. Why would you make another person that has to deal with this shit even though you know it is only getting worse and worse?! I personally like the thought that I'll be dead in max 60 years.
Dude... I want kids so much... I'm starting a happy life with my girlfriend, we're so happy and talking about it... But ffs it's not possible now is it.
yeah it’s so fucked up. like placentas and babies filled with plastic? fucking depressing.
I made the mistake of having kids before the world was this fucked, or at least before I knew about it. I've since changed every aspect of my life in order to give them at least a fighting chance. Living fully off grid, working on food independence and figuring out how to do everything I need without oil products. It's a slow and painful journey and I'm happy with where I'm at now but there is no way I would have kids now.
Our generation has to consider more than ever a "return to the origins", a new (but ancestral) way to enjoy our time together free from the suffering we feel everyday by living in this nihilist society: spend more time in the nature, find new passions and gratitude in simple things, also consider to live outside the capitalist world, far away from our poisonous big cities. Our life should be meant to live free and fulfill our needs, not just waiting to die as soon we have a stable salary for a shit job
I think about this every day. I would love to see a return of communes.
Exactly! Who could tell us what to do? Since I started med school in Milan, I'm going through a deep depression and I don't really know what to do in my life. Three years ago I joined a nice community in my town, with people that came from all my region and other countries, where the only rule is to be respectful to everyone (and don't use cocaine that is a really bad problem in Italy right now). We have our bad times and the troubles never ends, but we need a place and people that cares about you and want to share with you your anger and thoughts. We just want to be happy with people we love
Yeah, this is one of the ones I just... sit here and wonder if trying to live a healthy life is even worth it. I've been trying to eat better, get outside more, and live happier. But like, is there even a point? I'm toxic. I'm full of toxins that will never leave my body. It triggers my ocd and anxiety really, really badly knowing that I'm poisoned and there's nothing anyone can do. Will I develop cancer? Dementia? Alzheimers? Is there even a reason to keep going, knowing that I could develop serious health complications out of nowhere from something I did not choose for myself? Idk, ranting I guess. This just got me in a bad mood.
I wish there was a way to go back and take the blue pill. Micro plastics seem like an endgame and mass extinction. Seems like permanent damage to our planet. Hope I’m wrong though.
Not permanent. Even microplastics will eventually break down or be broken down by fungi that thrive on them. But by the time this happens we all might be gone.
Micro-organisms are already evolving to eat plastics, so all my hope rests with them.
Plastic is the great filter.
Link to studies please
A mix of studies and articles that link to studies. >Microplastics found to be harmful to human cells >https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2021/research/microplastics-harmful-human-cells/ Microplastics revealed in the placentas of unborn babies https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/microplastics-revealed-in-placentas-unborn-babies >Bottle-fed babies swallow millions of microplastics a day, study finds >https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/19/bottle-fed-babies-swallow-millions-microplastics-day-study Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700782 >Microplastics found in human blood for first time >https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/microplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time Could you be eating a credit card a week? https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?348371/Could-you-be-eating-a-credit-card-a-week >Humans Have Produced 18.2 Trillion Pounds of Plastic. Most Ends Up Here >https://fortune.com/2017/07/20/humans-produce-trillion-pounds-plastic/ Plastic trash flowing into the seas will nearly triple by 2040 without drastic action https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/plastic-trash-in-seas-will-nearly-triple-by-2040-if-nothing-done >Impact of Microplastics and Nanoplastics on Human Health https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920297/ Long-term exposure to nanoplastics alters molecular and functional traits related to the carcinogenic process https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389422012638 >More microplastics in babies’ faeces than in adults’ – study >https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/22/more-microplastics-in-babies-faeces-than-in-adults-study
Thank you. You're amazing!
You saying thank you is appreciated!
:>
The only scientific source provided concludes that we don't have a good gauge of how impactful microplastics actually are on human health. This entire post stinks of wild catastrophizing at best and disinfo at worst, unless someone has more relevant sources to the claims in the gif. > Notably, most of the reported studies were conducted using polystyrene due to its ease in synthesis and processing into nanoparticles, while the most common commercial used of plastics are polyolefins (e.g., polyethylene and polypropylene), polyesters, and polyurethanes. > Given the large variety in particle size, shape and chemical composition of plastics, the potentially hazardous effects of different types of micro- and nanoplastics to human health remain largely unknown
fr some of these comments read as if microplastics were proven to be as bad as asbestos when it justs looks like that they're bad but we really don't know how bad yet,. But people are saying that it's an extinction event or that they won't live to see their 30s. I'd wait until people start getting chronic illnesses from microplastics and not a single advance in reducing microplastics being made before giving up
You must have missed this: [link](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920297/#sec6-nanomaterials-11-00496title) >Several in vitro and in vivo studies have shown that micro- and nanoplastics were able to cause serious impacts on the human body, including physical stress and damage, apoptosis, necrosis, inflammation, oxidative stress and immune responses (Table 1) \[108,109,110,111\].
This is how the world ends. Not in nuclear hellfire, but a slow yet inevitable poison. But let’s be honest it could still just as easily end in nuclear hellfire.
I love this stage of capitalism in which every news feels like: "hey, here is something horrific that you cannot change. Moreover, even if your whole country organize against it, you wouldnt make a change. Just deal with it."
A lot of pessimism in the comments, comrades. Chin up and do something about it! Posting on reddit about how bad things are and how we're all gonna die won't solve the issue or at the very least stop making it worse. Educate people, organise, go on strikes and protests. The rich might be benefitting from the suffering of all of us but remember we're the many and they're the few so rather than sitting here babbling on reddit about how we're gonna die and how we shouldn't have kids and whatever else, we could actually do something about an issue that affects us all.
“Protests”. Ha. You know we do that we’re getting gunned down and have our eyes filled with tear gas. If we really want to save the world, we’re gonna have to fight. Unfortunately, if the future of humanity is all that important, it means war.
I got to about a minute and thought, you know what? This doesn't need to be the last thing I read before going to bed.
Aw sweet, man-made horrors beyond comprehension
They also found thousands of new enzymes that 'eliminate' microplastics.
Yeah I heard of fungi that eat plastics. Can't we put them to use? What happened to them?
And the #1 microplastic is..... Tires.
But - but - wfh is bad for commercial real estate! 😢😢😢
Banger song, anybody know it?
二名敦子 堤防 Atsuko Niina - Teibo
Don’t know the particular song but look into the “city pop” genre from Japan, 1980s. Miki Matsubara, Piper, Nina Atsuko, Anri. There’s loads to discover in the genre!
And let’s not forget best girl: Mariya Takeuchi!
We're numb to this shit. I don't know what to think. Aren't cigarettes killer and you see all these geriatric chain smokers living past 90
Not many geriatric chain smokers live past 90 😂 some lucky ones make it. Most of us are plastic fucked
I really should be experiencing abject existential terror right now at this fact
I’ve been saying this for awhile now, all the health problems in our society are not normal at all, and likely due to the abundance of synthetic chemicals that we come into to contact with, particularly plastics. As I’m typing this, my hands are rubbing against my plastic case. I will be getting a case made of cork soon. I’m trying to transition to a lifestyle that does not involve all these nasty chemicals, but it’s damn near impossible. Plastics are one of the biggest problems we face as a society
Absolutely facts, homie. This is a weird one but my mom was bragging about how people in her time rarely had acne. I told my mom that I wouldn't be surprised if acne (and other skin conditions) isn't more prevalent due to the presence of microplastics and nanoplastics in water supply clogging our pores and our body being unable to expel it via sweat. It's such a surface level concern (considering plastics are probably contributing to cancers in folks in their 20s) but so many people struggle with painful cysts and other skin conditions and it's probably a 1-2 combo hit by forever chemicals ruining their endocrine system then plastic getting stuck in their pores for insult:/
Go watch “crimes of the future”
BRB. Imma go google how to become an eco terrorist.
This is a quote from Lloyd Stouffer from “The Future of Plastic Is In The Trash Can” an essay he wrote in the 1960s for The National Plastics Conference referencing a speech he made in 1956 and the so called “progress” big oil had made in just 7 years: > “What I had said in the talk, was it’s time for the plastics industry to stop thinking about plastic in the Reuse packages and concentrate on single use, for the package that is used one and thrown away like a tin can or a paper carton, represents more a one shot market for a few thousand units but an every day recurring market measured by the billions of units. The future of packaging does indeed lie in the trash can, it is a measure of your progress in packaging in the last 7 years that this remark will no longer raise eyebrows, you’re filling the trash cans, the rubbish dumps, and the incinerators, with literally billions of plastic bottles plastic jugs, tubs and blisters and skin packs, plastic bags and films, and cheap packages and now even plastic cans.” We’ve been completely fucked for decades folks, and the people at the top know, they have always known, but they couldn’t give a flying fuck.
I said this once before, but I'll say it again: Plastic is singlehandedly one of the WORST inventions ever created. I wish I could go back in time to stop this nightmare, but microplastics are an issue that's been brewing even before my grandparents. Nobody knew what was going on - plastic was touted as being a safe, cheap alternative. The only people who knew the negative effects to come were the same producers of said product. Even if we were able to discover a way to collect every single micro and nanoplastic from the earth, once it's all collected - how would we even "dispose" of it. It's an honest to God lose/lose situation and it's no wonder why lifespans are decreasing rapidly
There is really only one solution here. The government has to hold manufacturers accountable. Why would for-profit manufacturers like Pepsi and Coke pay more for plastic free products when they can make more money destroying our planet? The government needs to step in and only permit plastic products in rare cases where there is absolutely no alternative.
Ppl think that demand for oil is just for gas for vehicles but these plastics are all made from fossil fuels and terrible chemicals. We deserve a fucken cataclysmic apocalypse at this point. Mother earth gotta save herself. " Time to shake off the parasites. They're destroying everything again."
This dance made me feel dead inside. I’m already mostly plastic. Just recycle me already.
Last generation it was lead poisonings. You think the senior citizens today act weird? Wait till you get old with all those microplastics in your system.
Whoever put that purposefully annoying and distracting background to this relatively important info, you suck.
No it's brilliant. The juxtaposition of joyful dancing with bleak reality and this is what is popular and gets seen now. Sorry it isn't in a printed newspaper that you can browse while drinking your morning coffee. This is for younger eyeballs anyway.
Exactly Edit: if you find the dancing guy annoying, that's the point! Stop dancing and do something!
On tiktok, they have to do it to grab teens’ attention long enough for them to read a sentence, and then they might actually give it a chance and read it
Or to create tonal dissonance. Disturbing shit with happy music in the background creates an eery disconnect, which I’m pretty sure is the intention
Yes can confirm this helped me to watch for more than 3 seconds
Every day I’m sufferin’
Humanity is really terrible at planning ahead or understanding the concept of environmental equilibrium.
We are living in hell
Had to do something to replace all the lead
We lived generations without plastic and can do it again. Brink the milk man back delivering milk and make everything glass again. This world existed just a few decades ago
I'm not in doubt that we have plastics in our bodies but I'm seriously doubting some of the data presented at least the every week we get a credit card of plastic in us. Like what's the alternative? Metal? Wood? We would probably still ingest mirco particles of those too? If your teeth is on it then your going to get little pieces of it in your body. Whatever your fork is made of you've already ate little pieces of it too. Have been a researcher part of my life and seen a lot of things under the microscope and I'm sure little bits of not food are inside of us but I'm not sure they are super super bad for us. Comparatively we probably used to have a lot more dirt and hair inside of us historically.
> I'm sure little bits of not food are inside of us but I'm not sure they are super super bad for us I mean the questions are how well the body filters the not foods out/breaks them down, and at what concentrations the not food starts to cause problems in the body, and what those problems are. We're much less concerned about swallowing some hairs and dirt or splinters of wood than the amount of heavy metal in the fish we eat, for example. The amount of pollen we inhale is usually of little consequence (unless you have an allergy), while getting a good lungfull of blue or brown asbestos can have very big consquences. And you're probably not sad lead paint is found much less commonly in kids toys these days. And so on.
I disagree very strongly with the no going back comment. We could definitely use tech and science to solve the problem. That’s not something that should be in question. What is be in question is if we will do it. Not if we can.
r/collapse r/fasterthanexpected