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Finally some good news.
> That’s not to say that there is no microplastics pollution, the U-M researchers are quick to say. > > “We may be overestimating microplastics, but there should be none. There’s still a lot out there, and that’s the problem,”
Called it! > To be honest, after reading some of these microplastics papers I'm starting to suspect most of them are bullshit. Plastics are everywhere in a modern lab and rarely do these papers have proper controls, which I suspect would show that there is a baseline level of microplastic contamination in labs that is unavoidable. Petri dishes, pipettes, microplates, EVERYTHING is plastic, packaged in plastic, and cl…
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Carl Sagan was right all along. Always question science, never trust these so called experts, do your own assessment, research and thinking. This must be another global climate change scam.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is true that there is not currently conclusive proof that micro plastics are a significant risk to human health. However, this is the same line the tobacco industry used for decades even though they knew different.
Is there any specific evidence that they are a risk to human health? I mean, I get the instinct that foreign-entity can't exactly be good for me , but the same instinct applied to GMOs, and as far as I know organic foods have never yielded any sort of statistically visible health impacts. Plastics earn their keep in general by being non-reactive and 'durable', so it's not entirely shocking if they can pass through (o…
I have seen zero evidence that they are bad in very small quantities, but the dose can make the poison and they are out there in increasingly alarming quantities.
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I'm still not aware of any reason to worry about micro plastics. As far as I know they seem harmless?
The problem isn't just the plastics themselves. Plastics are chemical "sponges" that will soak up pollutants over time from the environment (brominated fire retardants, bisphenols, PBCs, pesticides, phthalates, heavy metals, etc) and deliver them in a concentrated dose into the body. Even if plastics of all sizes are 100% biologically inert, they're still a Trojan Horse for other toxins. https://www.sciencedirect.com…
I highly doubt that. Soil, skin and pollen are usually the big ones. Hairs depending one how you count dust, but eliminating hair like fibres would also eliminate most of the sources of plastic, unless you allow really large particle sizes.
[edit] Checking research. The highest claim I found was 39% of fibres (in household dust, Japan). but that seemed to be per particle not by volume.
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I think any time a new material starts to meaningfully accumulate in our bodies, our food sources, our oceans, etc, we should at least go with caution. The default stance should be caution, not fearlessness.
>fearlessness More like flippancy, even hubris. The approach you advocate is essentially the EU's precautionary principle . [1] [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/the-preca...
Called it! > To be honest, after reading some of these microplastics papers I'm starting to suspect most of them are bullshit. Plastics are everywhere in a modern lab and rarely do these papers have proper controls, which I suspect would show that there is a baseline level of microplastic contamination in labs that is unavoidable. Petri dishes, pipettes, microplates, EVERYTHING is plastic, packaged in plastic, and cl…