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

nautil.us

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

#151

Post by sydthrowaway »

danShumway wrote: post #97

In a slightly different direction than consumption, if you're worried about inhaling plastic particles: I haven't personally gotten the equipment to do actual measurements yet, but I keep pet rats and they have pretty fragile respiratory systems, and anecdotally when I put together a Corsi Rosenthal Box[0] and stuck it next to their cage their allergies/sneezing pretty much entirely vanished. I still need to get air…

Alternatively, whats a highly rated budget air purifier that handles VOCs too ?

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

#152

Post by refurb »

joshspankit wrote: post #44
beeforpork wrote: post #8

This article conflates particles of any size, and often does not even mention sizes, e.g., '28 particles' in a serving of beer? That is imprecise (doesn't mention size) and wrong: probably way to little, as nano particles are used in filtering (clarifying) beer. The articles also doesn't really tell me how to avoid all that plastic. If 40 percent of human diet contains plastic, then there's hope, so which 60 percent…

Personally, I think that in answer to the question of “how to avoid all that plastic?”, the article is leaning more towards “take action to stop the plastic from being produced and added to food in the first place”. While it makes the problem larger from an individual perspective, the alternative of simply trying to avoid it in our own foods would mean that our available foods shrink over time as plastics continue to…

Micro plastics are mostly fibers shed from fabric. So stop buying synthetic or semi-synthetic clothing and only buy cotton or other organic materials.

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

#153

Post by refurb »

Robotbeat wrote: post #81
andai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen memes showing a news headline "doctors baffled by microplastic in human lungs", juxtaposed with an unrelated headline that mentions face masks are made of the same plastic.

The form matters. The plastic in masks is not inhalable, and in all likelihood wearing a mask reduces inhaled plastics like it reduces inhaling of any other solid.

Micro plastics mostly come from synthetic fibers, like the fabric in masks.

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

#154

Post by refurb »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #45
MauranKilom wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, SiO2 is pretty different from plastic, chemically speaking. And I would expect that we inhale several grams of fine sand dust per week too. In other words, the amount of "glass" entering your body because you drank a beer is probably irrelevant compared to e.g. Sahara dust (if you're in Europe) in the air around you.

Yes and silicate is an environmental component that's well understood and our bodies have adapted to it because sand has been a thing forever. And glass is chemically inert.

Silicon dioxide (sand) causes silicosis if inhaled. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the risk.

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

#155

Post by kbelder »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #149
barbegal wrote: post #11

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…

Eating a credit card full of plastic per year sounds totally natural. Nothing to worry about!

I'm sure we eat that much silica powder.. what makes a granule of plastic worse? I'm not discounting the potential problem of microplastics, but I'm not seeing a clear description of what it actually does to a person. Embed and raise cancer risk?

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

#156

Post by thrwy_918 »

barbegal wrote: post #11

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…

>In these scenarios (0.15g and 0.3g) about 90% they estimate comes from salt.

I know nothing about anything, but could salt be heat-treated to burn off plastic?

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

Robotbeat wrote: post #108
toss1 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article specified that all masks tested other than KN95 masks produced more microplastics than they filtered out (it didn't mention if they tested surgical masks). This is not a bad result, since if you want to filter out viruses to protect the wearer (vs minimize general transmission), the N95/KN95 masks are the only ones worth wearing. Quality matters, all items in a category are not the same.

Oh, agreed, there. KN-95 masks are the only types I’ve been using for over a year, so I just kind of assumed that. Many cloth masks do very little so I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually make it worse.

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by danShumway »

sydthrowaway wrote: post #151
danShumway wrote: post #97

In a slightly different direction than consumption, if you're worried about inhaling plastic particles: I haven't personally gotten the equipment to do actual measurements yet, but I keep pet rats and they have pretty fragile respiratory systems, and anecdotally when I put together a Corsi Rosenthal Box[0] and stuck it next to their cage their allergies/sneezing pretty much entirely vanished. I still need to get air…

Alternatively, whats a highly rated budget air purifier that handles VOCs too ?

I haven't done a ton of research into VOCs, but my understanding is that most purifiers targeting them use activated charcoal filters?

Those filters are pretty cheap, you can tape them to a Corsi-Rosenthal Box without adding much cost at all. If there's something more complicated going on then maybe that wouldn't be effective, but in general air filtration is just a combination of how much air your filter is moving and what the surface area of the filter is. In theory (I haven't confirmed) tying your own activated filters to a box fan will probably be pretty effective.

A big reason why the Corsi-Rosenthal Box works so well is because there's not a lot of innovation or complexity in how good purifiers work. You just want a lot of air to go through a good filter with a sizeable surface area, so it's hard to compete with a 20 inch fan tied to 4 good filters. But again, take that with a grain of salt, maybe VOC purifiers are doing something more complicated that I'm not aware of.

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

#159

Post by ehnto »

TomSwirly wrote: post #125
post_break wrote: post #75

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?

My assumption is that because salt is mined and stored in open air, plastic particles from the ocean's non-trivial cache of microplastics being brought up into the atmosphere by evaporation and weather, and from ashes/plastics from trash incineration are potentially finding their way onto the piles.

If water is used during the processing of the salts it could be that as well.

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

#160

Post by hammock »

barbegal wrote: post #11

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…

Why is there so much in salt?
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