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What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

nautil.us

121–130 of 341 posts

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#121
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that because the "Consumables ingested" on the right side looks like Pac-Man eating the other two categories?

The pie chart on the left double counts everything. The total is represented as a slice in the pie chart.

I didn't think anything of it at first but that is indeed a strange design. Especially since the right part is a breakdown of one of the pieces.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#122

The actual study is here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942... The study presents three scenarios assuming different assumptions about the mass of plastic particles. In the worst case scenario, where I think the assumptions are bad, they estimate 5g of plastic per week. In the other two scenarios which used more complex but more realistic modelling they estimate 0.15 and 0.3g of plastic cons…

What’s worrying about this is that we’re about 50 years into an unexplained epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease that nobody has a clear explanation for, and is also affecting lab animals fed controlled diets. It would be fascinating if this was all correlated with a common environmental contaminant, and the increasing use of various plastics could line up well.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#123
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My concern is with all the infants. Being able to gawk out and stare at all the many faces you see, and how they respond to you has got to be foundational to your discovery of the world. If had to place a bet on a major "net negative" I'm going all in on this. I have one friend who absolutely swears that "covid babies" are a thing, and that you can spot them from across the room. I haven't yet figured out what that m…

I've got a covid baby, born June 2020. We're lucky enough that she was able to start school at 3 months old, and since then basically every adult she's interacted with (excluding us parents, but including grandparents) has been masked. These days her and her classmates are starting to wear their masks more often, but it's not fully required until she's 2. She seems well adjusted, social, super playful, and loves expl…

> We're lucky enough that she was able to start school at 3 months old

Lucky for who?

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#124
post #111

If we all are against usage of plastic, what stops us from eliminating it completely around us.

Probably most people don't have a strong opinion on eliminating plastic and even in that subgroup, few would be willing to pay the price (both in utility and literal price) to avoid plastic. In fact, if you're willing to go to a shop offering unpackaged goods, you can already eliminate a lot of plastic in your life.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#125

I saw a neat video which I cant find where a guy buys Himalayan salt, puts it under a microscope, and pulls out plastic. It's disturbing how plastic is in the salt and almost impossible to remove.

How, exactly, would plastic be appearing in rock salt that was laid down millions of years ago?

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#126
post #106
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a rather arbitrary trait to dismiss a researcher for. It is possible to be correct with flawed design choices.

Yes, you are of course right. One shouldn't dismiss good work because of some flaws. But anyway... this is a rather silly pie chart and I wonder how this was able to pass through multiple authors and peer-review.

Can ANYONE actually say what is wrong with it? I see no issue other than ascetically it could be better but it shows the data correctly.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#127
> You Eat a Credit’s Card Worth of Plastic Every Week

I'm pretty sure I don't. I'm not a subscriber (I can't read the article), but I take it that these plastics are so small we can't see them...

How do I even test this claim? Do I get my microscope and look at salt? Cos I have.. and I don't see fibres or anything.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#128
post #111

If we all are against usage of plastic, what stops us from eliminating it completely around us.

We aren't. We're against some of the predicted negative consequences of plastic waste, but we like plastic. It's cheap, and incredibly useful.

Plastic goods enable the world we live in. For example, it would be interesting to see a mouse, and keyboard, and monitor housing made out of bronze, or wood, or cast iron, but I bet they would be worse in pretty much every other way — heavier, harder to shape, and very expensive not only because of the cost of materials, but because they'd take so much more work to make.

When I look around at all the plastic stuff around me, I think that some of it is unnecessary, but much of it isn't. Some of the necessary stuff could be made out of other materials, but much of it couldn't. At least not very well, and not at a price many people could afford.

Better for us if we can figure out a way to effectively recycle plastic, and capture microplastic in the wild.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nice. >In these scenarios (0.15g and 0.3g) about 90% they estimate comes from salt. for a few years now we have switched to rock salt completely at home. it's like 20-40% more expensive and we have to use a hammer/grinder every month or so but we are doing that. by reducing say 90% of the microplastics, is that.. good?

What makes you think that’ll reduce it?

i am thinking, most of the salt consumed comes from sea salt that has those microplastics. if we use rocksalt, well that microplastics wont come from seasalt.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nice. >In these scenarios (0.15g and 0.3g) about 90% they estimate comes from salt. for a few years now we have switched to rock salt completely at home. it's like 20-40% more expensive and we have to use a hammer/grinder every month or so but we are doing that. by reducing say 90% of the microplastics, is that.. good?

What makes you think that’ll reduce it?

Sea salt made from current seawater would include microplastics from that water, but rock salt would not as it was formed before these plastics existed. On the other hand, various mines of rock salt may have all kinds of other mineral additions that may be harmful for human consumption, so most rock salt is used for e.g. deicing roads.
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