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Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

the-scientist.com

281–290 of 339 posts

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#281
post #30

Sorry people, but you can't stop it: 1. https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/04/11/how-much-plastic-d... 2. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/micropla... 3. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/15/winds-ca... Because humanity and capitalism's incentives are just wrong. Bottling companies like Coca Cola and Snapple have long switched to plastic bottles, and externalized the cost to the env…

> But the government tells the individual that they can't have a plastic straw or bag Policies exist to improve the situation, they just need to be fought for (against the bottling companies): > According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), the average nationwide recycling rate for beverage containers is around 35%. By contrast, Oregon’s beverage container redemption rate is regularly in the 80-90% range http…

Plastic in landfill has the quality of being oil that won't be burned.

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#282

Convenient non-plastic solutions need to be developed. After learning about micro plastics and forever chemicals, I started to get paranoid of this stuff. Started cooking at home more and started removing plastic from my daily life. After my wife got pregnant, I keep telling her to avoid plastic, but she doesn't seem to take it seriously. She purchased plastic food containers, I tell her don't microwave food in it, b…

They're not a lot lighter, but there are glass containers that have a silicone mesh over the outside, which in theory gives you better survivability.

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#283
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did offer to do that but the main problem is she doesn't want to carry the items and it can be heavy for her with all the tools she carries (she's a piano technician). Really only solution would be finding lightweight alternatives, but haven't had luck with that.

Metal? Lighter and less prone to breaking than glass. Also less inert maybe, but probably better than plastic.

No way to microwave sadly :/

Hard problem to solve. I wonder what the best effort-per-payoff is in this scenario. Perhaps cutting out plastic water bottles would be 90% of the benefit, and the plastic containers for food is 10% of the benefit but tremendously more effort -- I don't know (never did research on this).

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#284
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the risk is small enough, it seems rational to ignore it.

The more we learn, the less reasonable it seems to dismiss the risk as small enough to ignore.

When the risk is significant but there's no viable solution, it's also reasonable to ignore it. There's no way to fix the microplastic problem at the individual level so the best thing to do is to ignore it. Actively avoiding plastics will only cause hardships without any significant results in exposure.

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#285
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canned food and beverage cans are lined with epoxy or plastic.

This is what you ingest when you drink/eat food from a can: https://youtu.be/pGZyT9vGraw?t=135

When I was young and poor I used to use a spatula to get the last 20 calories out of the can. Now I plop out whatever comes out and then rinse the remainder down the drain before dropping it into recycling. I figure some large fraction of the leachate stays near the lining (unless you shake vigorously, or the contents are highly liquid at room temperature)

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tap water contains about 1.67–2.08 ug/ml of nanoplastics on the larger side ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139... ) So this article was working with concentrations 10x larger on mice (usually worse ability to filter). Beyond that, they admitted that microplastics did not induce an effect which is most of the plastics found in the ocean, etc...

"1.67–2.08 ug/ml" is incorrect. Your link states "1.67–2.08 ug/L". In other words, the paper is about the effects of nanoplastic concentrations which are 10,000x greater than in tap water.

Many nasty chemicals are attracted to plastic particles. As bad as the plastics are, they may be carrying something nastier.

Get some nice PCBs stuck to plastic particles and they may not trip contamination sensors, but get deposited in your body where the PCBs become mobile again and end up in your system.

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#287
post #203

When I clean the lint out of my dryer, I can see a very faint cloud of particles. Should I be worried about breathing those? I presume a portion of them are plastic from synthetic fibers. Should I be wearing a mask to load/unload the dryer?

Almost all of the synthetic clothes that I personally own are drip dry. I garden, and I know where the dryer vent comes out.

I haven't convinced the rest of the family of this however, so I'm just doing what I can.

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#288

Convenient non-plastic solutions need to be developed. After learning about micro plastics and forever chemicals, I started to get paranoid of this stuff. Started cooking at home more and started removing plastic from my daily life. After my wife got pregnant, I keep telling her to avoid plastic, but she doesn't seem to take it seriously. She purchased plastic food containers, I tell her don't microwave food in it, b…

I hate to make this worse for you, but apparently (that's what I read at least) water pipes are also lined with BPA.

Baby products are often made from stuff which at least in theory should be less harmful, but I suppose it's only tested for a select group of hazards.

EDIT: forget the bamboo - not microwave safe. I ate some glue along with my dishes apparently.

EDIT2: Apparently wheat bran containers are microwave safe and since they're edible, they can't be lined with plastic. Not reusable of course.

Also I wouldn't put them on 100%, because low-water content stuff tends to burn in a microwave oven.

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've got sets of Indian brass, Korean steel, and Japanese lacquered wood food containers that we use in addition to ceramics and glass. The glass chips, and once it does we tend to avoid using it for food. Because all of these things last or compound over a lifetime, it's only expensive to be healthful if you wait.

What is with putting superfluous place names in front of things? Are you trying to sound fancy? You have steel and wood food containers.

This reminds me of a scene from the Simpsons [1]:

Homer: Hmm. I wonder why he's so eager to go to the garage?

Moe: The "garage"? Hey fellas, the "garage"! Well, ooh la di da, Mr. French Man.

Homer: Well what do you call it?

Moe: A car hole!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5t9w98afJo

Re: Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N95 masks can be made from plastics, however to my knowledge there are not any masks on the market made of nanoplastic particles. Just as air filters are not polluting the air with massive clouds of nanoparticles your face mask is not filling your lungs with them.

no - but disposed of masks decompose via UV and mechanical means to particulates and get into the food hierarchy.

'disposed of' masks don't decompose via UV. Littered masks do, but littering is a lack of disposal.
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