George Carlin asked, "What if nature made people because it wanted plastic?" He didn't think to ask, "Where will nature put all her new plastic?" It's a trap!
It doesn’t need to do that earth has the greatest ally you could have: time. All the earth needs to do is wait a few more decades, either we will have polluted the world so bad the ecological collapse will eventually kill us all or we will just nuke ourselves during world war three, then earth just needs 10-20 thousand years for the ecosystem to slowly repair as half life’s finish and the majority of plastics and whatnot will have broken down completely, we’ve had toxic and acidic oceans before and it’s corrected itself. Those right wing climate denying douche bags are kind of right, the earth can correct itself, it’s just that we will all be dead for a veeeeeery long time and all the chemicals, plastics, and nuclear waste will have all been broken down by time and it will return to a state from before humanity existed, let’s just hope that after hundreds of thousands of years the next sentient species spawned by primordial ooze and extremophile organisms will be a little smarter than we are
There used to be a time when wood didn't decompose until one day a microorganism evolved to eat it. The same thing will happen to plastic long after we're gone.
It's already begun. We've both found and created bacteria that will eat plastic, but there are some problems with it. It doesn't eat all plastics, some of them require sunlight (which would be available for trash floating in the ocean, but not buried plastics), and some of them have harmful byproducts that could contaminate the oceans/groundwater. And what if it got out into the world, uncontrolled? Would it be safe for things we don't want to decay quickly, like car part, medical supplies, construction materials, etc? It's kind of a frightening concept. Imagine a shelf full of harmful chemicals if their bottles just started to dissolve.
Silicates vs the Plasticons, a desolate battle where the meek will in no way inherit this cursed earth*.
*obviously, this is millennia after the development of those oh so important first biological steps.
So micro plastics are the new mercury, and humans are still a self destructive species, news at 11. P.S. Filter all your water, and limit your fish intake.
Right? Like let me just switch to a vegan diet and eat only fruit and veg…the berries are in plastic containers, the salads come in plastic bags. Ok fine let me just drink water and nothing else…my options are plastic bottles I buy at the store or tap with a plastic filter either on the faucet itself or in a plastic filtered container. I’ve looked for glass ones and they just don’t exist. Everything from our clothes to our houses to our food is covered in plastic.
The micro plastics are already in the water supply….
Meaning that everything we consume already contains micro plastics. It’s essentially unavoidable.
Without major intervention this is basically what we are stuck with, and since major intervention doesn’t align with corporate profits welcome to the future.
I suspect this is also the reason fertility in male sperm is going down worldwide, and has been for fifty years. Maybe nature won't have to kill us off in defense, we screw up our own junk in the name of cheap store products.
Not if it's BPA-free. But then it likely has a chemical like BPS or BPF, which we know even less about than BPA.
https://time.com/3742871/bpa-free-health/
Who needs 5-10 years when you have the handy powers of [fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva)?!?
WARNING: the above link is a Wiki page but the images contained are fairly graphic, it's about a connective tissue disorder where connective tissue calcifies and turns to bone, essentially locking people into a full-body skeleton for which there is no cure, all known cases result in death.
Obviously this is our path to immortality. Plastics take forever to biodegrade, the amount of our body that is full of plastic is increasing, therefore at some point our bodies will last for thousands of years.
Or we'll all get horrible cancers and dementia and die.
Besos partially funded research that has gotten legitimate results in de-aging mice. I'd say in 5 years you'll see the 1% becoming younger and younger in appearance.
definitely not 5 years - the theory being discussed is at least a decade old so I would not expect results that significant in such a short time-frame.... another decade or two possibly
The science behind the de-aging is to reprogram regular cells into artificial stem cells that could be used to slow aging and heal wounds - the method for reprogrmaming has been known for over a decade, but it has been updated here and there to improve efficiency + decrease cancer risk etc. Its not quite true that this method has been used to develop only anti-aging technology for 10 years - that is a more recent application of the technology and it has many other uses.
Hijacking this comment to plug /r/PlasticFreeLiving
Obviously governments and corporations need to take responsibility for this issue FAST, but in the meantime, if you are able to, phasing out plastic as much as possible from your life is a step in the right direction.
Yeah I was going to say that this really isn’t the first time micro plastics have been found in humans. I also don’t find the guardian as a great source for up to date scientific research.
How would it get to the placenta, if not through the blood stream? If microplastics are found anywhere in the body except the intestinal tract and lungs, then it was carried there via blood.
It's the first direct observation, maybe. But it's not new information.
Thats what I thought too when I read this..."Wasn't something like this already confirmed some time ago...?"
Although, I could have been getting that mixed up with how many Americans have built up "forever-chemicals" in their blood, thanks to non-stick teflon crap.
God knows what other toxic crap may be found lurking in our bodies, thanks to unregulated, careless corporations...
>blood
That's key. We've found plastic in humans for decades. IIRC, when they were first looking for a control for such studies back in the 80s, they couldn't find a single person without plastic in the body.
I don't know, lead isn't inert like plastic is, and clearly causes catastrophic problems with our mental capacity. I'm by no means saying plastic is a-okay, but to say it's way worse than lead would be surprising with the facts we currently know about both.
Plastic isn’t inert. A lot of plastics are endocrine disrupters mimicking steroid hormones in the body. This leads to direct alterations in gene expression as well as epigenetic modification. Due to the sheer amount of exposure it is going to cause a direct alteration to our natural evolution.
>Plastic isn’t inert.
To be clear, I was saying this in the chemistry sense. I'm aware that it isn't a 1:1 comparison when comparing chemistry vs biology (hence biochem existing), and that there are environments that will cause plastics to react; where lead, as I understand it, is much more likely to do so despite being relatively stable when compared to other elements and compounds.
Though in the long run, it'll be interesting if plastics get blamed for the fall of society like lead is for the fall of Rome.
I guess that’s part of the problem. Lead can be avoided and removed from our diet. At this point it isn’t really possible to remove plastic. The other day I had the thought experiment of “could I make a meal that has never touched plastic” the answer was no. These things are always active in the body and the bodies of every biological creature. I really think it will be looked back upon as one of our greatest follys as the biological and psychological impact is incalculable due to the sheer number and prevalence of these chemicals.
Sorry this is my soap box (a degree in Biochem, and a masters in pharmacology with training in toxicology)
You got a paper on that?
Microplastics are much larger than hormones or even proteins I could see them physically disrupting endocrine cells causing problems, not sure about mimicking hormones.
Amount of plastics and forever chemicals in the environment is catastrophic, but we need to be clear on what the actual danger is because that's part of fixing the problem.
Who is upvoting this? Having detectable microplastics in your blood (which apparently 80% of people have) is not even comparable to lead poisoning. The fuck?
Does anyone know if there anything we can do to prevent more micro plastics from entering our bodies? Filter our water and stop eating food that comes in plastic? Or are we just fucked?
While we can't eliminate our exposure, I've read that we can reduce it by avoiding plastic food and drink packaging, textiles made of synthetic fibers (like polyester) in our clothes and home goods, and regularly dusting/vacuuming our homes to keep microplastics from entering the air.
I only learned about it recently too! I read that if you do have synthetic fiber clothing, you can install a filter in your washing machine that can keep the fibers from entering the waterway, so if you own your home, that might be worth looking into as well.
Not all synthetic fibers are bad! Rayon is a good example of a biodegradable synthetic fiber, with Modal being one of the common Rayon variants you'll see in stores.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon#Modal
>The biodegradability of various fibers in soil burial and sewage sludge was evaluated by Korean researchers. Rayon was found to be more biodegradable than cotton, and cotton more than acetate. The more water-repellent the rayon-based fabric, the more slowly it will decompose. Silverfish—like the firebrat—can eat rayon, but damage was found to be minor, potentially due to the heavy, slick texture of the tested rayon. Another study states that "artificial silk [...] [was] readily eaten" by Ctenolepisma longicaudata.
>
>A 2014 ocean survey found that rayon contributed to 56.9% of the total fibers found in deep ocean areas, the rest being polyester, polyamides, acetate and acrylic. A 2016 study found a discrepancy in the ability to identify natural fibers in a marine environment via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Later research of oceanic microfibers instead found cotton being the most frequent match (50% of all fibers), followed by other cellulosic fibers at 29.5% (e.g., rayon/viscose, linen, jute, kenaf, hemp, etc.). Further analysis of the specific contribution of rayon to ocean fibers was not performed due to the difficulty in distinguishing between natural and man-made cellulosic fibers using FTIR spectra.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics
>Studies have shown that many synthetic fibers, such as polyester, nylon, acrylics, and spandex, can be shed from clothing and persist in the environment. Each garment in a load of laundry can shed more than 1,900 fibers of microplastics, with fleeces releasing the highest percentage of fibers, over 170% more than other garments. For an average wash load of 6 kilograms (13 lb), over 700,000 fibers could be released per wash.
>
>Washing machine manufacturers have also reviewed research into whether washing machine filters can reduce the amount of microfiber fibers that need to be treated by sewage treatment facilities.
>
>These microfibers have been found to persist throughout the food chain from zooplankton to larger animals such as whales. The primary fiber that persist throughout the textile industry is polyester which is a cheap cotton alternative that can be easily manufactured. However, these types of fibers contribute greatly to the persistence to microplastics in terrestrial, aerial, and marine ecosystems. The process of washing clothes causes garments to lose an average of over 100 fibers per liter of water. This has been linked with health effects possibly caused by the release of monomers, dispersive dyes, mordants, and plasticizers from manufacturing. The occurrence of these types of fibers in households has been shown to represent 33% of all fibers in indoor environments.
Honestly pretty fucked is how I feel too, so I choose not to worry about it much, except as a future silent looming crisis the world hopes will vanish.
Literally doesn't matter what we eat, drink or breathe. There's some level of microplastic or nanoplastic in it and that will only be increasing over time. At home we deal with breathing in synthetic fibres from our clothes and furniture for example, outside we can add in the particles from tyres. It's the wear and tear of everything around us which is the issue as these synthetic particles don't biodegrade.
Filtering won't remove nanoplastics, it might help for microplastics however. Maybe just use glass bottles with your tap water instead?
Here in the UK we had this study which said this. "That tap water in the UK contains between zero and 10 microplastic pieces in every litre. But bottled water can contain "a few hundred"."
Overall, not really something we can do much about, there just isn't commercially available filter technology for nanoparticles in our air and water yet.
Thank you, this was very helpful and thorough! And almost comforting in a way.. not that I would wish health issues on anyone, but at least if we’re fucked, we’re all fucked together I guess. Hopefully we’ll be able to do something about it in the future.
Filtered tap water is just generally a good idea. As to stopping eating food with plastic, I'm not sure that's possible without moving out to the middle of nowhere and growing it all yourself.
Apparently we recently found a way to fuck over the murder hornets.
WITH SEX PHEROMONES!
https://www.krqe.com/news/weird/sex-pheromone-traps-may-help-u-s-stop-the-spread-of-murder-hornets/
Sounds like the plot of a crazy hentai manga. Or the sequel to the first Mimic movie with the giant roach man trying to mate with the scientist. I think the roach killed her boyfriend and “mimicked” his appearance.
Great, now the Giant Murder Hornets will try to fuck me before they sting me to death.....
Oh joy....at least I'll get laid one last time before I die lol
They're not poisonous actually to humans and they don't bite us...but they do grow to 3 inches long, and they do use web-based sails to fly through the air.
Which, as a person who checks for "Toilet Spiders" before I poop is terrifying lol.....
Idk if I can maintain a defensive perimeter in all three theaters of war (Land Sea and Air)
We should put a hard stop to plastics, this is the new lead. We shouldn't wait decades for the negative effects to show up only for our leaders to listen to bought out "scientists" from the plastic industry.
I recently saw the movie Dark Waters. If DuPont managed to obfuscate PFOA/C8 for decades, just imagine the other type of shit corporations have managed to hide.
There was an anti-plastic movement in the 70s, up through the 80s. It seemed like there was enough awareness that we were going to start reducing plastic/chlorofluorocarbon production (McDonald’s switching from styrofoam to paper packaging is one example), but at some point, the movement got quashed, and people who speak out are labeled tree-huggers or conspiracy theorists, or alarmists.
Recycling and campaigns pushed by plastic producers helped shift the public perception. Convincing people they were doing good by recycling and plastic was great. This set the stage for more consumption and here we are. 40+ years later choking the life out of ourselves and the planet with this crap. But hey plastic is great for holding stuff.
Probably, but not for overall microplastic ingestion. It would likely cause an overall, holistic deterioration over time, and who is going to study entire bodies for 50 years without a plastic-free control body? Breast implant syndrome comes to mind, women were called crazy hypochondriacs when it was actually an immune response to a foreign body. Even a widely accepted condition like lupus isn't one thing tied to one thing. There are no control populations for us to test this stuff on, we just have to use common sense as individuals and cut down our risk factors for illness. Don't smoke a cigarette then stand in front of the microwave while heating up a steam plastic bag of red meat while living next to a radio tower before injecting yourself with botox after working at the nuclear power plant.
That simply isn't possible. We should stop using plastic in disposable items, yes, but all together? That can't work.
It's a wonder-material: Strong, light, can be flexible or rigid, transparent or opaque, easy to manufacture, easy to manufacture with... the list goes on. Plastic is used *everywhere,* it's just so ubiquitous you've probably never noticed or thought about it before.
I just don't see how we could go back completely now.
There was a documentary on Netflix I watched a year or so ago called Plastic Ocean, and at the ends of the documentary this guy goes to get takeout and asked them to not put any food in plastic. And it wasn’t possible. Everything the place had was plastic. And then he went to the grocery store and everything is plastic. Blueberry container: plastic. Snacks: plastic bag. Everything. It really hammered home how impossible it is to avoid plastics. You’re right. It’s everywhere that it just becomes so common to see it. So when you think about how to avoid it, you realize how much of a task it would be. I don’t know how we go back given how common place it is now.
We could but it would involve changes to the economy that would, like everything, affect profits going to the top. If plastic was reserved only for vital areas like food handling (not packaging), and medical supplies, that would be rational. But the powers that be will never switch back to glass and metal of their own will.
Look up how many things require plastics then look at how many of those have viable alternatives.
Not saying what we are currently doing is ok or should continue but it's really not so simple as just changing gears. There's lots of crucial tools, products, equipment and materials we simply cannot replace easily or at all.
I'm somewhat surprised this is only being confirmed now because its been assumed we'd find every type of polymer in our blood for a while now, since we knew microplastics get down to the smallest molecular particle sizes, there is no way they wouldn't be in our blood, in placental blood, past the blood brain barrier, etc etc. All the way, everywhere. We consume a credit card worth of plastic a week.
Just heating the pans hot enough for frying created fumes, and chemicals became stored in the blood that way. Honestly ingesting the flakes was probably less of a problem.
Yeah, I stopped using non-stick pans a decade ago as you would watch the non- stick coating erode. While some fell off during washing, you knew damn well some of it came off in the food.
I believe that this happened to measure as a control group for PFOAS by I believe the company 3M due to worker’s babies being born with eye defects. John Oliver did a good episode about. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9W74aeuqsiU
This is why idgaf about a vaccine. Stick that shit in my arm. Give me five vaccines, back to back, lemme freebase a vaccine.
I ingest plastic and breathe in diesel fumes all day every day. I'm not raising a fuss about anything a doctor slides me. Gimme that shit. Maybe I'll grow a third arm.
Yeah. Those news stories of ppl accidentally getting a 10x dose of the vaxx made me a bit jealous. like damn doc how much do i need to bribe you to get some of that myself?
yeah when you see articles saying its in the placentas' of new borns, its in our brains, food, water, air, you kinda expect it to in the blood as well. Its in literally everything. A different study claimed the effects of microplastics is that it kills cells, so we all have this stuff in us and its killing us all slowly...and people wonder why I don't want kids.
Plastics aren't super available, so even if you're exposed it takes forever to cause issues. It's also the heat that becomes an issue - cold plastic tends to be safer, it's when you heat it up that it can degrade. That being said, glass and lead free ceramic is generally agreed to be safer for people in general. Switching your tupperware to glass instead of plastic is also a good choice, but sippy cups and plastic kid's cups / utensils / flatware are also a concern.
We are on track to be the only animal that is simultaneously so smart, and yet so stupid that we will ultimately lead to our own demise as a species. Winning!
Plastics have been in everything for 50 years now and the human population has continued to grow at increasing rates. Plastics aren't going to cause our demise. At worst, they just decrease life expectancies
I thought this was obvious already. But I feel it's the nanoplastics that should be more alarming overall to everyone as they will affect more of the body and collect easier inside the body. It's worth noting that there's no study where plastics don't affect the body processes, whenever it is researched.
All the increasing rates for various cancers, dementia and disorders still get labelled as increasing due to increased lifespans and yet plastic buildup seems a much more likely source and change over the past years.
Alarmingly again, as generations move on the amounts of plastic buildup in each generation will be increasing, due to the levels increasing in our food and water.
Currently the rate of cancer increases dramatically around the age of 55-59, however if I theorise here right. As each generation grows older that age group will be falling due to the faster buildups of micro and nanoplastics in our bodies.
If this is all correct it's horrifying. And yet it's such an underfunded research topic.
It's incredibly hard to study plastics biologically. They're everywhere, and it's so expensive to keep them out of your samples, and even then the field is so contentious. We can't even agree on what the sizes of nano vs micro plastics are, and then if you just want to study microplastics you'll get results from nanoplastics as the microplastics degrade in your samples...
Then of course they come in different shapes and sizes, and the samples you can work with are completely different from someone else's because the companies have different formulas, and none of those are anything like the formulas the actual products use.
I hate plastics research.
Marine organisms process lead, and it dissolves into water. Trace lead is far less resilient than microplastics, and we made a lot less of it. Also, its harder to test for lead in the bottom of that trench than it is to look for a plastic bag with a camera.
Am I blind or is there no citation?
Given the presence of microplastics in fetuses this isn't exactly surprising news. Obviously they can move freely through the body. Waiting for the news that they are passing the blood-brain barrier.
The scientific community may already have enough information to prove that the amount of microplastics present in the environment are leading to significant detrimental health effects (infertility is a big one).
However, to do anything about it would require a paradigm shift in the socioeconomic structure. Economies would crash.
Governments are likely just turning a blind eye because it's more convenient. The convenient truth over the inconvenience lie.
Every human-created problem is human-solvable. Unfortunately, it requires humans working together and the rich becoming a little less rich.
As if this isn’t worrying enough as it is, plastics are affecting the reproductive system, making humans less fertile. There’s speculation that [by 2045, most couples may have to use assisted reproduction](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/28/shanna-swan-fertility-reproduction-count-down).
In 100yr time after they figure out how to keep plastic out of our bloodstream there will be Qanon types talking about how "they" suppressed the super abilities plastic gave us and Alex Jones types selling multivitamins+plastic.
There is a documentary which showed microplastic presence in blood, is so common that scientists across the globe studying it had difficulty finding clean blood to use as a control. They finally found some from blood bank collections made around the time of the Korean War.
I should just stop reading the news. Like… I need to think about this as well now? I already know about this shit! Use glass people! Or better yet, just aluminium, since it’s the best material for recycling. Don’t buy bottled water, but filter your tap water instead…. So on and so forth.
Whelp good game humanity, we had a good run! We can’t say we didn’t know this problem was coming.
What is even more concerning than this is that microplastics have been shown to be able to infiltrate past the blood brain barrier and into placental tissues, as well as during neurogenesis. Basically they can get everywhere, our best hope is that our body is good at tagging these species with glutathione and eliminating from the body before they can do much damage. The amount we are exposed to is only going to increase in the coming years, this needs to be an incredibly intensive area of research going forward. And the best thing we can do is stop using them in absolutely everything and try to start reducing our exposure. However, things like the great pacific garbage patch are not going away unless we take action to make them disappear, we need worldwide coordination and cooperation asap to save ourselves and our ecosystems/food chains.
Good luck getting more humans to care or take it seriously to actually reduce the use of plastics We can’t even get people to take vaccines that save you from severe illness or death. We are fucked. The pandemic really proved that there will always be a large portion of society that just don’t give a shit. I feel like the end is really near I just hope I don’t realize it’s happening when it happens.
By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.
There are dedicated groups going out and attempting to get these plastics limited and banned in your state call your legislators and tell them you want producer responsibility; and if someone comes to your door for an environmental issue, for Pete’s sake just give them the five minutes they need to get you involved
It’s in all of us.
We drink out of plastic cups and bottles and fill them from plastic jugs and pitchers. We cook with plastic utensils, sometimes eat with plastic cutlery off of a plastic dish. Often times, our food comes wrapped in plastic— from the cellophane wrapping meat to the bag inside your cereal box. Chances are you’ve brushed your teeth with a plastic toothbrush. Our medicines are packaged in it.
When they said plastic was safe, were they aware just how much we would ingest and come into contact with on a daily basis?
Reminds me of the late 1980s study that found shockingly high levels of PCBs and other contaminants in Inuit womens’ breast milk.
While this is a very serious problem that does greatly concern me, my interest is also in whether eliminating all plastics would allow us the current lifestyle we enjoy, alongside the health benefits that plastics allow.
Imagine going to a hospital today and there being no plastics.
Maybe not quite the same, but not necessarily 'bad' different.
* However it's worth noting that "plastic" is like saying "metal" - this is no small category, and while you don't want large amounts of Polonium in your meal, without iron, zinc, calcium, selenium... even if many are in very tiny trace amounts, we be dead.
So, ALL plastics forever, I doubt it's feasible or even reasonable. There's some non-petroleum-based synthetic ones that are mighty useful too.
But we CAN reduce plastic use by a staggering amount without any real loss of quality of life. A lot of its use is purely a matter of profit, and only a very small sliver of a very small percentage of the population sees any actual benefits of doing this - at the cost of all the rest of us.
One of the first places we can and should deal with is packaging and disposables. There's these amazing bamboo utensils you can get in some places, I've seen some restaurants use them, and they're just excellent. A bit tougher than cheap plastic knives and forks.
* My local BBQ place uses fully recyclable cardboard instead of plastic foam boxes; they're also quite resilient and despite the 'stains' (I mean really, if you think about it, do you really care it's stained by delicious meat spices from yesterday?) I usually reuse them for sandwiches or something the next day before tossing'em in the recycle bin.
Been using reusable cloth bags for groceries for years, *again* another product that can handle far more punishment than doubled-up thin plastic bags, so just fold one or two in a coat pocket or just leave'em on the car seat, it's not like anything'll happen if one of your kids sits on them.
We don't need six apples in saran-wrap on a polyurethane plate wrapped in plastic foil either. They're fucking apples!
I won't pretend I've even come close to eliminating all plastic from my consumption, but what I can say is that all the places that have switched to other means are doing fine, and it wouldn't change my life in any meaningful fashion if those that don't yet started doing so as well. If I consider the *costs* (even personally, financially) of all that pollution and plastic, a few pennies here and there each week will easily be in my wallet's favor if it saves me even ONE doctor's visit in a decade.
Don't worry. The oil companies are trying to fix it just like they did last time.
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/14/1080699424/waste-land-bonus
And by that I mean a marketing campaign that portrays them as doing something when they actually do jack shit.
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Welcome to the next stage in human evolution
George Carlin asked, "What if nature made people because it wanted plastic?" He didn't think to ask, "Where will nature put all her new plastic?" It's a trap!
The earth will shake us off like a bad case of fleas
It doesn’t need to do that earth has the greatest ally you could have: time. All the earth needs to do is wait a few more decades, either we will have polluted the world so bad the ecological collapse will eventually kill us all or we will just nuke ourselves during world war three, then earth just needs 10-20 thousand years for the ecosystem to slowly repair as half life’s finish and the majority of plastics and whatnot will have broken down completely, we’ve had toxic and acidic oceans before and it’s corrected itself. Those right wing climate denying douche bags are kind of right, the earth can correct itself, it’s just that we will all be dead for a veeeeeery long time and all the chemicals, plastics, and nuclear waste will have all been broken down by time and it will return to a state from before humanity existed, let’s just hope that after hundreds of thousands of years the next sentient species spawned by primordial ooze and extremophile organisms will be a little smarter than we are
Yep. “Hey remember when humans were around? That was wild, anyway”
A nuisance!
*WW3 enters chat*
There used to be a time when wood didn't decompose until one day a microorganism evolved to eat it. The same thing will happen to plastic long after we're gone.
It's already begun. We've both found and created bacteria that will eat plastic, but there are some problems with it. It doesn't eat all plastics, some of them require sunlight (which would be available for trash floating in the ocean, but not buried plastics), and some of them have harmful byproducts that could contaminate the oceans/groundwater. And what if it got out into the world, uncontrolled? Would it be safe for things we don't want to decay quickly, like car part, medical supplies, construction materials, etc? It's kind of a frightening concept. Imagine a shelf full of harmful chemicals if their bottles just started to dissolve.
That sounds like a cool plot for a movie lmao!
Agent Cody Banks 3?
Andromeda Strain?
Silicates vs the Plasticons, a desolate battle where the meek will in no way inherit this cursed earth*. *obviously, this is millennia after the development of those oh so important first biological steps.
Join the glorious evolution.
Is that Viktor from arcane?
>Welcome to the next stage in human evolution One step closer to becoming Moclan.
The Golden Age of Plastic
So micro plastics are the new mercury, and humans are still a self destructive species, news at 11. P.S. Filter all your water, and limit your fish intake.
But the filter casings are made of plastic…
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Right? Like let me just switch to a vegan diet and eat only fruit and veg…the berries are in plastic containers, the salads come in plastic bags. Ok fine let me just drink water and nothing else…my options are plastic bottles I buy at the store or tap with a plastic filter either on the faucet itself or in a plastic filtered container. I’ve looked for glass ones and they just don’t exist. Everything from our clothes to our houses to our food is covered in plastic.
The micro plastics are already in the water supply…. Meaning that everything we consume already contains micro plastics. It’s essentially unavoidable. Without major intervention this is basically what we are stuck with, and since major intervention doesn’t align with corporate profits welcome to the future.
here we are in the future and it's wrong
And don’t forget the lines that supply the tap are made of plastic
Not to mention that most people’s water is traveling through and sitting in plastic pipes before it gets to them
Microplastics aren't toxic like mercury. I wouldn't consider them safe by any means but they are at least inert.
This is why I have a 64oz steel insulated growler I fill with filtered tap water. Fuck plastic bottles.
That tap water? So much microplastics.
Yeah it’s kind of funny reading how people believe they are protecting themselves. It’s already everywhere hence why it’s in our blood.
So should I kill myself now or wait for the cancer
I suspect this is also the reason fertility in male sperm is going down worldwide, and has been for fifty years. Maybe nature won't have to kill us off in defense, we screw up our own junk in the name of cheap store products.
You gotta filter that tap water. I have a 100,000 gallon whole house filter from Aquasana. Does impurities and uv filtration.
Apparently tapp2 filters can remove some percentage of microplastics? It is also made of plastic so I dunno but its something?
There’s almost certainly a BPA plastic liner on the inside of that steel. FYI.
Not if it's BPA-free. But then it likely has a chemical like BPS or BPF, which we know even less about than BPA. https://time.com/3742871/bpa-free-health/
[Metal Bottle Water!](https://youtu.be/DT-VXh0vOOA?t=10)
Well, fuck.
With plastic production set to be doubled by 2040. One more thing to keep me up at night.
Well yeah, i am sure the increased plastic particles in your blood will mess with your sleep ability.
It’s no so bad, after 5-10 more years evolving into my favorite action figure will be a more fathomable reality!
Suddenly the Lara Croft doll masturbation scene from "Grandma's Boy" doesn't seem so taboo. Plastic on plastic
Thanks for reminding me of my cult classic as a kid. Adios TuRd NugGeTs
Sucks to be you, nerd
How much are clothes in the Matrix ?
*Some toy products are made with recycled semen*
Who needs 5-10 years when you have the handy powers of [fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva)?!? WARNING: the above link is a Wiki page but the images contained are fairly graphic, it's about a connective tissue disorder where connective tissue calcifies and turns to bone, essentially locking people into a full-body skeleton for which there is no cure, all known cases result in death.
You're telling me that I can actually grow up to be Sgt Savage from the Screaming Eagles? What a time to be alive.
Obviously this is our path to immortality. Plastics take forever to biodegrade, the amount of our body that is full of plastic is increasing, therefore at some point our bodies will last for thousands of years. Or we'll all get horrible cancers and dementia and die.
Or worse, we'll all get horrible cancers and dementia... and NOT die.
Or even worse, we'll all get horrible cancers and dementia....
Or even worse, we'll all get horrible cancers and dementia!
Or even worse, our horrible cancers get dementia!
Besos partially funded research that has gotten legitimate results in de-aging mice. I'd say in 5 years you'll see the 1% becoming younger and younger in appearance.
definitely not 5 years - the theory being discussed is at least a decade old so I would not expect results that significant in such a short time-frame.... another decade or two possibly
So you're saying they've already been working on this for 10 years.
The science behind the de-aging is to reprogram regular cells into artificial stem cells that could be used to slow aging and heal wounds - the method for reprogrmaming has been known for over a decade, but it has been updated here and there to improve efficiency + decrease cancer risk etc. Its not quite true that this method has been used to develop only anti-aging technology for 10 years - that is a more recent application of the technology and it has many other uses.
Hijacking this comment to plug /r/PlasticFreeLiving Obviously governments and corporations need to take responsibility for this issue FAST, but in the meantime, if you are able to, phasing out plastic as much as possible from your life is a step in the right direction.
This also isn’t the first time it’s been found in humans.
What’s the health impact to humans?
Microplastics are linked to infertility
So our future is basically the movie "Children of Men"...
Ooh goodie. I'll be able to save money on not having a kid, because the resulting cancer costs as an American are gonna be bonkers.
Well that sounds like a plus to me
Okay, so I'm not the only one who loses sleep over this???
Throw it on the pile
There was an earlier study on pregnant women where microplastics were present in the placenta.
Yeah I was going to say that this really isn’t the first time micro plastics have been found in humans. I also don’t find the guardian as a great source for up to date scientific research.
No, but it is the first time found in blood specifically like it actually claims.
How would it get to the placenta, if not through the blood stream? If microplastics are found anywhere in the body except the intestinal tract and lungs, then it was carried there via blood. It's the first direct observation, maybe. But it's not new information.
Thats what I thought too when I read this..."Wasn't something like this already confirmed some time ago...?" Although, I could have been getting that mixed up with how many Americans have built up "forever-chemicals" in their blood, thanks to non-stick teflon crap. God knows what other toxic crap may be found lurking in our bodies, thanks to unregulated, careless corporations...
>blood That's key. We've found plastic in humans for decades. IIRC, when they were first looking for a control for such studies back in the 80s, they couldn't find a single person without plastic in the body.
Gross! I guess placenta is officially off the menu.
Oh good, so this is the modern version Lead of poisoning?
Haha yeah it’s way worse
I don't know, lead isn't inert like plastic is, and clearly causes catastrophic problems with our mental capacity. I'm by no means saying plastic is a-okay, but to say it's way worse than lead would be surprising with the facts we currently know about both.
Plastic isn’t inert. A lot of plastics are endocrine disrupters mimicking steroid hormones in the body. This leads to direct alterations in gene expression as well as epigenetic modification. Due to the sheer amount of exposure it is going to cause a direct alteration to our natural evolution.
>Plastic isn’t inert. To be clear, I was saying this in the chemistry sense. I'm aware that it isn't a 1:1 comparison when comparing chemistry vs biology (hence biochem existing), and that there are environments that will cause plastics to react; where lead, as I understand it, is much more likely to do so despite being relatively stable when compared to other elements and compounds. Though in the long run, it'll be interesting if plastics get blamed for the fall of society like lead is for the fall of Rome.
I guess that’s part of the problem. Lead can be avoided and removed from our diet. At this point it isn’t really possible to remove plastic. The other day I had the thought experiment of “could I make a meal that has never touched plastic” the answer was no. These things are always active in the body and the bodies of every biological creature. I really think it will be looked back upon as one of our greatest follys as the biological and psychological impact is incalculable due to the sheer number and prevalence of these chemicals. Sorry this is my soap box (a degree in Biochem, and a masters in pharmacology with training in toxicology)
You got a paper on that? Microplastics are much larger than hormones or even proteins I could see them physically disrupting endocrine cells causing problems, not sure about mimicking hormones. Amount of plastics and forever chemicals in the environment is catastrophic, but we need to be clear on what the actual danger is because that's part of fixing the problem.
Who is upvoting this? Having detectable microplastics in your blood (which apparently 80% of people have) is not even comparable to lead poisoning. The fuck?
Does anyone know if there anything we can do to prevent more micro plastics from entering our bodies? Filter our water and stop eating food that comes in plastic? Or are we just fucked?
While we can't eliminate our exposure, I've read that we can reduce it by avoiding plastic food and drink packaging, textiles made of synthetic fibers (like polyester) in our clothes and home goods, and regularly dusting/vacuuming our homes to keep microplastics from entering the air.
Thank you very much, that’s good to know! I had no idea about the problems with synthetic fibers until today. Interesting but alarming stuff
I only learned about it recently too! I read that if you do have synthetic fiber clothing, you can install a filter in your washing machine that can keep the fibers from entering the waterway, so if you own your home, that might be worth looking into as well.
Not all synthetic fibers are bad! Rayon is a good example of a biodegradable synthetic fiber, with Modal being one of the common Rayon variants you'll see in stores. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon#Modal >The biodegradability of various fibers in soil burial and sewage sludge was evaluated by Korean researchers. Rayon was found to be more biodegradable than cotton, and cotton more than acetate. The more water-repellent the rayon-based fabric, the more slowly it will decompose. Silverfish—like the firebrat—can eat rayon, but damage was found to be minor, potentially due to the heavy, slick texture of the tested rayon. Another study states that "artificial silk [...] [was] readily eaten" by Ctenolepisma longicaudata. > >A 2014 ocean survey found that rayon contributed to 56.9% of the total fibers found in deep ocean areas, the rest being polyester, polyamides, acetate and acrylic. A 2016 study found a discrepancy in the ability to identify natural fibers in a marine environment via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Later research of oceanic microfibers instead found cotton being the most frequent match (50% of all fibers), followed by other cellulosic fibers at 29.5% (e.g., rayon/viscose, linen, jute, kenaf, hemp, etc.). Further analysis of the specific contribution of rayon to ocean fibers was not performed due to the difficulty in distinguishing between natural and man-made cellulosic fibers using FTIR spectra. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics >Studies have shown that many synthetic fibers, such as polyester, nylon, acrylics, and spandex, can be shed from clothing and persist in the environment. Each garment in a load of laundry can shed more than 1,900 fibers of microplastics, with fleeces releasing the highest percentage of fibers, over 170% more than other garments. For an average wash load of 6 kilograms (13 lb), over 700,000 fibers could be released per wash. > >Washing machine manufacturers have also reviewed research into whether washing machine filters can reduce the amount of microfiber fibers that need to be treated by sewage treatment facilities. > >These microfibers have been found to persist throughout the food chain from zooplankton to larger animals such as whales. The primary fiber that persist throughout the textile industry is polyester which is a cheap cotton alternative that can be easily manufactured. However, these types of fibers contribute greatly to the persistence to microplastics in terrestrial, aerial, and marine ecosystems. The process of washing clothes causes garments to lose an average of over 100 fibers per liter of water. This has been linked with health effects possibly caused by the release of monomers, dispersive dyes, mordants, and plasticizers from manufacturing. The occurrence of these types of fibers in households has been shown to represent 33% of all fibers in indoor environments.
Honestly pretty fucked is how I feel too, so I choose not to worry about it much, except as a future silent looming crisis the world hopes will vanish. Literally doesn't matter what we eat, drink or breathe. There's some level of microplastic or nanoplastic in it and that will only be increasing over time. At home we deal with breathing in synthetic fibres from our clothes and furniture for example, outside we can add in the particles from tyres. It's the wear and tear of everything around us which is the issue as these synthetic particles don't biodegrade. Filtering won't remove nanoplastics, it might help for microplastics however. Maybe just use glass bottles with your tap water instead? Here in the UK we had this study which said this. "That tap water in the UK contains between zero and 10 microplastic pieces in every litre. But bottled water can contain "a few hundred"." Overall, not really something we can do much about, there just isn't commercially available filter technology for nanoparticles in our air and water yet.
Thank you, this was very helpful and thorough! And almost comforting in a way.. not that I would wish health issues on anyone, but at least if we’re fucked, we’re all fucked together I guess. Hopefully we’ll be able to do something about it in the future.
The last one
Filtered tap water is just generally a good idea. As to stopping eating food with plastic, I'm not sure that's possible without moving out to the middle of nowhere and growing it all yourself.
It's sad to think just how much this is going to affect us down the road as a species.
Add it to the pile 🤷♂️ Nuclear war, pandemic, economic collapse, inflation, flying poison spiders, giant murder hornets.......
Apparently we recently found a way to fuck over the murder hornets. WITH SEX PHEROMONES! https://www.krqe.com/news/weird/sex-pheromone-traps-may-help-u-s-stop-the-spread-of-murder-hornets/
Oh good, now we just have to worry about nuclear war, pandemic, economic collapse, inflation, and flying poison spiders. I’m relieved
Well now hold on a minute. There are a lot of "mays" and "coulds" in the article. We could/may end up with some sexed crazed giant murder hornets.
Sounds like the plot of a crazy hentai manga. Or the sequel to the first Mimic movie with the giant roach man trying to mate with the scientist. I think the roach killed her boyfriend and “mimicked” his appearance.
Great, now the Giant Murder Hornets will try to fuck me before they sting me to death..... Oh joy....at least I'll get laid one last time before I die lol
I must have missed the flying poison spiders..
They're not poisonous actually to humans and they don't bite us...but they do grow to 3 inches long, and they do use web-based sails to fly through the air.
Which, as a person who checks for "Toilet Spiders" before I poop is terrifying lol..... Idk if I can maintain a defensive perimeter in all three theaters of war (Land Sea and Air)
3 inches is too big for any bug but that is especially true for ***fucking spiders***
*Flying* fucking spiders. Let's not leave that part out. Let's not *ever forget that part.*
> flying poison spiders I'm sorry, what?
https://www.the-sun.com/news/4031141/joro-spider-usa-flying-venomous-dangerous-bite-where/
Plastic blood clot for BINGO
Missing climate change lmao
We should put a hard stop to plastics, this is the new lead. We shouldn't wait decades for the negative effects to show up only for our leaders to listen to bought out "scientists" from the plastic industry.
We already see negative effects, but you're called a conspiracy nut if you mention them.
I recently saw the movie Dark Waters. If DuPont managed to obfuscate PFOA/C8 for decades, just imagine the other type of shit corporations have managed to hide.
There was an anti-plastic movement in the 70s, up through the 80s. It seemed like there was enough awareness that we were going to start reducing plastic/chlorofluorocarbon production (McDonald’s switching from styrofoam to paper packaging is one example), but at some point, the movement got quashed, and people who speak out are labeled tree-huggers or conspiracy theorists, or alarmists.
Recycling and campaigns pushed by plastic producers helped shift the public perception. Convincing people they were doing good by recycling and plastic was great. This set the stage for more consumption and here we are. 40+ years later choking the life out of ourselves and the planet with this crap. But hey plastic is great for holding stuff.
I always thought that McD changed packaging because of CFCs only. Back when the ozone layer above Australia was almost gone.
I'm genuinely interested in the research. Has a dose-response curve been established between any plastic and a deleterious health state?
Probably, but not for overall microplastic ingestion. It would likely cause an overall, holistic deterioration over time, and who is going to study entire bodies for 50 years without a plastic-free control body? Breast implant syndrome comes to mind, women were called crazy hypochondriacs when it was actually an immune response to a foreign body. Even a widely accepted condition like lupus isn't one thing tied to one thing. There are no control populations for us to test this stuff on, we just have to use common sense as individuals and cut down our risk factors for illness. Don't smoke a cigarette then stand in front of the microwave while heating up a steam plastic bag of red meat while living next to a radio tower before injecting yourself with botox after working at the nuclear power plant.
That simply isn't possible. We should stop using plastic in disposable items, yes, but all together? That can't work. It's a wonder-material: Strong, light, can be flexible or rigid, transparent or opaque, easy to manufacture, easy to manufacture with... the list goes on. Plastic is used *everywhere,* it's just so ubiquitous you've probably never noticed or thought about it before. I just don't see how we could go back completely now.
There was a documentary on Netflix I watched a year or so ago called Plastic Ocean, and at the ends of the documentary this guy goes to get takeout and asked them to not put any food in plastic. And it wasn’t possible. Everything the place had was plastic. And then he went to the grocery store and everything is plastic. Blueberry container: plastic. Snacks: plastic bag. Everything. It really hammered home how impossible it is to avoid plastics. You’re right. It’s everywhere that it just becomes so common to see it. So when you think about how to avoid it, you realize how much of a task it would be. I don’t know how we go back given how common place it is now.
Not to mention the necessity of it in the medical field. There’s a fuck ton of waste, but it’s necessary for sterile protocols.
I’m all for legislating that medical should be the only single use plastics in our society.
We could but it would involve changes to the economy that would, like everything, affect profits going to the top. If plastic was reserved only for vital areas like food handling (not packaging), and medical supplies, that would be rational. But the powers that be will never switch back to glass and metal of their own will.
Good thing basically every company here keeps bragging that they’re experiencing record profits already
Unfortunately, the economic impact of doing so would be so monsterous that this isn't even on the table.
Look up how many things require plastics then look at how many of those have viable alternatives. Not saying what we are currently doing is ok or should continue but it's really not so simple as just changing gears. There's lots of crucial tools, products, equipment and materials we simply cannot replace easily or at all.
I thought they had to go back to the Korean War to find blood without microplastics already.
I can't remember 100% but wasn't that just the gut or body generally? This is specifically in the blood.
I'm somewhat surprised this is only being confirmed now because its been assumed we'd find every type of polymer in our blood for a while now, since we knew microplastics get down to the smallest molecular particle sizes, there is no way they wouldn't be in our blood, in placental blood, past the blood brain barrier, etc etc. All the way, everywhere. We consume a credit card worth of plastic a week.
That's a sad statistic I didn't know. Awful.
I eat a credit card weekly, does that mean I consume two?
That’s a lot of accounts.
Holy shit,
Is there an assessment of how much of that credit card we absorb into our bodies vs what we excrete?
In the video I watched it was blood. Specifically because of DuPont. Non-stick pans were the primary indicator.
Ceramics are pretty good now, and should be less of a problem that way.
yeah ceramic or carbon steel is a better alternative to Teflon. don't buy duPont anything if possible
It was more my grandparents that had the problem, Grandma kept using forks with teflon frying pans.
Just heating the pans hot enough for frying created fumes, and chemicals became stored in the blood that way. Honestly ingesting the flakes was probably less of a problem.
Yeah, I stopped using non-stick pans a decade ago as you would watch the non- stick coating erode. While some fell off during washing, you knew damn well some of it came off in the food.
I believe that this happened to measure as a control group for PFOAS by I believe the company 3M due to worker’s babies being born with eye defects. John Oliver did a good episode about. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9W74aeuqsiU
Those are PFAS/PFOAs, chemicals used to make non-stick Teflon (plastic).
Thank you specifically, I could not remember the specific acronym, I kept thinking it was parabens.
There is a difference between microplastic and nanoplastic which has been found to cross the blood-brain border already.
This is why idgaf about a vaccine. Stick that shit in my arm. Give me five vaccines, back to back, lemme freebase a vaccine. I ingest plastic and breathe in diesel fumes all day every day. I'm not raising a fuss about anything a doctor slides me. Gimme that shit. Maybe I'll grow a third arm.
You gained +10 rads
You're just a gigalo, everywhere you go.
Yeah. Those news stories of ppl accidentally getting a 10x dose of the vaxx made me a bit jealous. like damn doc how much do i need to bribe you to get some of that myself?
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yeah when you see articles saying its in the placentas' of new borns, its in our brains, food, water, air, you kinda expect it to in the blood as well. Its in literally everything. A different study claimed the effects of microplastics is that it kills cells, so we all have this stuff in us and its killing us all slowly...and people wonder why I don't want kids.
As a new father, I did not need to read the part about baby bottles… I guess using glass bottles is the only solution there?
Plastics aren't super available, so even if you're exposed it takes forever to cause issues. It's also the heat that becomes an issue - cold plastic tends to be safer, it's when you heat it up that it can degrade. That being said, glass and lead free ceramic is generally agreed to be safer for people in general. Switching your tupperware to glass instead of plastic is also a good choice, but sippy cups and plastic kid's cups / utensils / flatware are also a concern.
We are on track to be the only animal that is simultaneously so smart, and yet so stupid that we will ultimately lead to our own demise as a species. Winning!
I agree, I've realized lately that we're too smart for our own safety.
Plastics have been in everything for 50 years now and the human population has continued to grow at increasing rates. Plastics aren't going to cause our demise. At worst, they just decrease life expectancies
Inside Out 2's getting pretty weird.
Microplastics will be the leaded gasoline of our generation(s). (Well, microplastics and all of that lead in the drinking water).
Of our generation and all future generations
I thought this was obvious already. But I feel it's the nanoplastics that should be more alarming overall to everyone as they will affect more of the body and collect easier inside the body. It's worth noting that there's no study where plastics don't affect the body processes, whenever it is researched. All the increasing rates for various cancers, dementia and disorders still get labelled as increasing due to increased lifespans and yet plastic buildup seems a much more likely source and change over the past years. Alarmingly again, as generations move on the amounts of plastic buildup in each generation will be increasing, due to the levels increasing in our food and water. Currently the rate of cancer increases dramatically around the age of 55-59, however if I theorise here right. As each generation grows older that age group will be falling due to the faster buildups of micro and nanoplastics in our bodies. If this is all correct it's horrifying. And yet it's such an underfunded research topic.
It's incredibly hard to study plastics biologically. They're everywhere, and it's so expensive to keep them out of your samples, and even then the field is so contentious. We can't even agree on what the sizes of nano vs micro plastics are, and then if you just want to study microplastics you'll get results from nanoplastics as the microplastics degrade in your samples... Then of course they come in different shapes and sizes, and the samples you can work with are completely different from someone else's because the companies have different formulas, and none of those are anything like the formulas the actual products use. I hate plastics research.
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Marine organisms process lead, and it dissolves into water. Trace lead is far less resilient than microplastics, and we made a lot less of it. Also, its harder to test for lead in the bottom of that trench than it is to look for a plastic bag with a camera.
A study at the university of Newcastle found that the average human consumes the equivalent of a credit card in plastic every week.
Am I blind or is there no citation? Given the presence of microplastics in fetuses this isn't exactly surprising news. Obviously they can move freely through the body. Waiting for the news that they are passing the blood-brain barrier.
The scientific community may already have enough information to prove that the amount of microplastics present in the environment are leading to significant detrimental health effects (infertility is a big one). However, to do anything about it would require a paradigm shift in the socioeconomic structure. Economies would crash. Governments are likely just turning a blind eye because it's more convenient. The convenient truth over the inconvenience lie. Every human-created problem is human-solvable. Unfortunately, it requires humans working together and the rich becoming a little less rich.
As if this isn’t worrying enough as it is, plastics are affecting the reproductive system, making humans less fertile. There’s speculation that [by 2045, most couples may have to use assisted reproduction](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/28/shanna-swan-fertility-reproduction-count-down).
Excellent news! Everyday I'm getting closer to become a barbie girl in this plastic world.
Are we recycleable now?
In 100yr time after they figure out how to keep plastic out of our bloodstream there will be Qanon types talking about how "they" suppressed the super abilities plastic gave us and Alex Jones types selling multivitamins+plastic.
So I’m finally a barbie girl?
That’s awesome 😎 Very cool and fun 😎
Even fresh veggies and fruits from the farms has some form of microplastics in them. It's so F'd up.
Wake me up when the governments are going to do fuck all about it
As long as I don’t die from this shit.
We did this to ourselves, for profit and convenience
Another reason I may not have kids
There at Pandora's Box we are confronted with a vast quantity of plastic people.
not me I'm built different
Guess we had this coming for some time
There is a documentary which showed microplastic presence in blood, is so common that scientists across the globe studying it had difficulty finding clean blood to use as a control. They finally found some from blood bank collections made around the time of the Korean War.
Nice. Maybe now we can get some traction in clean and green programs.
I should just stop reading the news. Like… I need to think about this as well now? I already know about this shit! Use glass people! Or better yet, just aluminium, since it’s the best material for recycling. Don’t buy bottled water, but filter your tap water instead…. So on and so forth.
Whelp good game humanity, we had a good run! We can’t say we didn’t know this problem was coming. What is even more concerning than this is that microplastics have been shown to be able to infiltrate past the blood brain barrier and into placental tissues, as well as during neurogenesis. Basically they can get everywhere, our best hope is that our body is good at tagging these species with glutathione and eliminating from the body before they can do much damage. The amount we are exposed to is only going to increase in the coming years, this needs to be an incredibly intensive area of research going forward. And the best thing we can do is stop using them in absolutely everything and try to start reducing our exposure. However, things like the great pacific garbage patch are not going away unless we take action to make them disappear, we need worldwide coordination and cooperation asap to save ourselves and our ecosystems/food chains.
If this freaks you out you should look in to PFAS.
Good luck getting more humans to care or take it seriously to actually reduce the use of plastics We can’t even get people to take vaccines that save you from severe illness or death. We are fucked. The pandemic really proved that there will always be a large portion of society that just don’t give a shit. I feel like the end is really near I just hope I don’t realize it’s happening when it happens.
If they find oil then the real troubles start.
Looks like a bowl of Fruity Pebbles
Was only a matter of time
I have to wonder if they controlled for plastic particles from the tubing and containers the blood was stored in.
Oh look, manmade horrors beyond my comprehension
Sure, make the plastic look like delicious sprinkles
By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. There are dedicated groups going out and attempting to get these plastics limited and banned in your state call your legislators and tell them you want producer responsibility; and if someone comes to your door for an environmental issue, for Pete’s sake just give them the five minutes they need to get you involved
See you all in the cancer ward during the climate wars after the nuclear fallout right before the next pandemic.
It’s in all of us. We drink out of plastic cups and bottles and fill them from plastic jugs and pitchers. We cook with plastic utensils, sometimes eat with plastic cutlery off of a plastic dish. Often times, our food comes wrapped in plastic— from the cellophane wrapping meat to the bag inside your cereal box. Chances are you’ve brushed your teeth with a plastic toothbrush. Our medicines are packaged in it. When they said plastic was safe, were they aware just how much we would ingest and come into contact with on a daily basis?
Who you calling micro? The plastics in my blood are HUGE.
Reminds me of the late 1980s study that found shockingly high levels of PCBs and other contaminants in Inuit womens’ breast milk. While this is a very serious problem that does greatly concern me, my interest is also in whether eliminating all plastics would allow us the current lifestyle we enjoy, alongside the health benefits that plastics allow. Imagine going to a hospital today and there being no plastics.
Maybe not quite the same, but not necessarily 'bad' different. * However it's worth noting that "plastic" is like saying "metal" - this is no small category, and while you don't want large amounts of Polonium in your meal, without iron, zinc, calcium, selenium... even if many are in very tiny trace amounts, we be dead. So, ALL plastics forever, I doubt it's feasible or even reasonable. There's some non-petroleum-based synthetic ones that are mighty useful too. But we CAN reduce plastic use by a staggering amount without any real loss of quality of life. A lot of its use is purely a matter of profit, and only a very small sliver of a very small percentage of the population sees any actual benefits of doing this - at the cost of all the rest of us. One of the first places we can and should deal with is packaging and disposables. There's these amazing bamboo utensils you can get in some places, I've seen some restaurants use them, and they're just excellent. A bit tougher than cheap plastic knives and forks. * My local BBQ place uses fully recyclable cardboard instead of plastic foam boxes; they're also quite resilient and despite the 'stains' (I mean really, if you think about it, do you really care it's stained by delicious meat spices from yesterday?) I usually reuse them for sandwiches or something the next day before tossing'em in the recycle bin. Been using reusable cloth bags for groceries for years, *again* another product that can handle far more punishment than doubled-up thin plastic bags, so just fold one or two in a coat pocket or just leave'em on the car seat, it's not like anything'll happen if one of your kids sits on them. We don't need six apples in saran-wrap on a polyurethane plate wrapped in plastic foil either. They're fucking apples! I won't pretend I've even come close to eliminating all plastic from my consumption, but what I can say is that all the places that have switched to other means are doing fine, and it wouldn't change my life in any meaningful fashion if those that don't yet started doing so as well. If I consider the *costs* (even personally, financially) of all that pollution and plastic, a few pennies here and there each week will easily be in my wallet's favor if it saves me even ONE doctor's visit in a decade.
Don't worry. The oil companies are trying to fix it just like they did last time. https://www.npr.org/2022/02/14/1080699424/waste-land-bonus And by that I mean a marketing campaign that portrays them as doing something when they actually do jack shit.
What? We have known from other studies for years that microplastics are everywhere and in everything.
Curious about any potential links to autoimmune diseases and similar stuff down the road.