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New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

sustainableplastics.com

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Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#141

Post by joncrocks »

tuukkah wrote: post #103
konschubert wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help with ocean pollution at all, because plastic rubbish from Germany and other EU countries wouldn't end up in the ocean either.

Don't you think the payment incentivises people to return their bottles for reuse versus leaving them lying at parks etc.?

Yes, it might. I think the point the grandparent comment was making was that plastic rubbish in parks most likely will not end up in the oceans.

I think the most common sources are:

* Plastic netting * Plastics from countries without any/lacking waste infrastructure

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#142

Post by bhouston »

rthomas6 wrote: post #131
bhouston wrote: post #75

There are two macro population health trends that suggest we are somehow poisoning ourselves at a large scale. Most people do not relate the two, but I personally wouldn't be surprised if they have related causes. The first is the Flynn effect, which was rising IQ levels decade over decade, which halted and then reserved for most Western nations around 1990s/2000s and is now declining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…

Also the metabolic syndrome/obesity epidemic. 40% of US adults have obesity. By 2030 about half of US adults will, and in 29 states more than half of adults will be obese. We see obesity becoming increasingly normalized. People feel powerless to stop it and that we should just accept it. It feels to me like there is something besides diet changes happening to us. That's part of it, but I wonder if microplastics or so…

Obesity is caused in part by environmental toxins, probably to different extents in different people:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/19/environm...

https://www.webmd.com/obesity/what-to-know-obesogens

These so called "obesogens" just increase the propensity towards obesity and depending on exposure and your sensitivity to then, you can overcome them or not via exercise and dieting and other means.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#143

Post by trident5000 »

fingting wrote: post #68
trident5000 wrote: post #15

I bought a tub of BCAA powder from Ghost and was horrified after finding a large spidery plastic blob buried in there. I went to Burger King and looked inside the burger randomly which I never do and found plastic. Theres a microplastic issue but theres also a large plastic issue in food. Often times you do even notice when you eat it.

[flagged]

Very sure. I took my sweet time inspecting it and then just about puked before tossing that trash. Never ate there again. The burger was disgusting aside from the plastic as well which was the only reason I even inspected it in the first place.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#144

Post by fellowmartian »

NotGMan wrote: post #19
nonethewiser wrote: post #3

I looked for microplastic test services and it seems like they're all $500+. Wish it was something you could do at home. The local results are all that really matters. Would be interesting to compare bottled water vs. tap water/well water. I've heard bottled water tends to contain more.

Buy a water distiller. I've heard that the destillation coil must be from copper. The issue is that all commercial ones have steel, which can possible leach into the distilled water + it's not antibacterial.

Please, do not drink distilled water. You’re not going to die because you also get ions from food but it certainly doesn’t help.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#145

Post by superhumanuser »

bowsamic wrote: post #133
superhumanuser wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientists are wrong... a lot. The harm should be obvious to the layman IMHO in order to be legislated away. Otherwise, it should be left up to personal choice.

> The harm should be obvious to the layman IMHO in order to be legislated away. Otherwise, it should be left up to personal choice. I'm not sure if this is sarcasm but if it's not, this is really the peak of anti-intellectualism ideology, i.e., that if a thing is not immediately obvious without studying then we should remain ignorant of it. I don't think that kind of opinion is a good fit for this forum to be honest,…

> if a thing is not immediately obvious without studying then we should remain ignorant of it.

I'm not sure if you're willfully ignorant or just saw an opportunity to pass a pejorative and took it.

I didn't say we should "ignore it". I said we shouldn't allow scientists to exclusively decide what should or should not be legal.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#146

Post by JKCalhoun »

bhouston wrote: post #90
spicyusername wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

probably fairly easy to deal with. [citation needed]

My suggestion, which isn't rocket science: Ban plastic food containers for any type of long-term storage or anything that gets heated up (and different plastics have different microplastic shedding profiles, so ban the worst first) and also ban PFAS in anything that gets close to food. It will increase costs, but the alternative is we poison ourselves, so it is sort of needed. Phase it in so that industries have time…

It's almost as if it was the adoption of the microwave oven that signaled the roller coaster was beginning to race downhill.

God, I wish I could go back to non-plastic packaging. Natural peanut butter I can still find in glass, as I can for my jelly. But mayonnaise, ketchup and countless other items are in plastic-only containers.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#147

Post by constantly »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #123
bhouston wrote: post #75

There are two macro population health trends that suggest we are somehow poisoning ourselves at a large scale. Most people do not relate the two, but I personally wouldn't be surprised if they have related causes. The first is the Flynn effect, which was rising IQ levels decade over decade, which halted and then reserved for most Western nations around 1990s/2000s and is now declining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…

The Flynn effect reversal has a pretty simple (but unpopular) explanation that has nothing to do with microplastics.

Could you please share this simple explanation for those of us who aren’t as smart as you?

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#148

Post by HPsquared »

resonious wrote: post #88
reisse wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like we had a pretty good system years ago in requiring people to leave a deposit for bottles when purchasing beer or pop to incentivize return + reuse. On the other hand, this system incentivised using plastic bottles instead of glass, because of less hassle with returning. > Everything I've read about plastic recycling points to it being ineffective... There is one effective way to recycle plastic into e…

Japan incinerates trash for energy, and yet they typically require residents to separate plastics from "burnables". Maybe it'd be better (and easier) for everyone if we just started putting everything into the burnable pile.

Recyclable packaging tends to make for pretty good fuel.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#149

Post by smallerfish »

myshpa wrote: post #86
smallerfish wrote: post #73

> ‘water, seafood, consumer products (clothes, toothpaste, salt, sugar, honey, beer, anything stored in plastic bottles, plastic wrap, or cans/cartons lined with plastic), and via inhalation from textiles, synthetic rubber tires, and plastic covers’ How true is this? How do microplastics end up in honey, for example? And I thought plastic bottles/wrap etc were stable in the lifespan that they're used for food storage…

> is this really claiming that plastic starts to fall apart from the get-go Yes. Microplastics are everywhere. Everywhere on the planet we look, we find microplastics. Just ... everywhere. Beekeepers are using plastic worker brood foundations, for example. Honey is often stored in plastic buckets and bottles, somewhere in the production process/transport. And it's not just the honey. https://www.theguardian.com/envir…

> Microplastics are everywhere. Everywhere on the planet we look, we find microplastics. Just ... everywhere.

I appreciate the links, but that's not what I asked. I know microplastics are everywhere. Do you have studies showing that plastic begins to distintegrate immediately? What's the working lifetime for a plastic container before it begins to distintegrate and leach microplastics into what's stored in it?

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#150

Post by wendyshu »

literalAardvark wrote: post #9
m_a_g wrote: post #5

This is the third time this week I've seen a study related to microplastics. Should I be alarmed? If so, what can I even do? If I'm understanding these studies correctly, these microplastics are everywhere. In our bodies, in our water supplies, in our food. And we can't even get rid of them.

We can reduce the ingested quantity. That's about all.

Does most of the microplastic we ingest come from household plastics or from the environment?
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