Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

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life adapts to plastic

The article only reports number of microplastics without reporting mass. This is particularly difficult to interpret when fibers are responsible for so much of the total:

Notably, across all samples, nearly half (44%) of the identified microplastics were fibers, which is consistent with other studies suggesting that fibers are the most prevalent form of microplastic in the environment.

Are 4 fibers of 50 micron length 4 times more dangerous than one 200 micron long fiber? There's no discussion of it in the article, but reporting microplastics by number of countable particles carries that implication.

Stop driving? Most microplastic in water come from tires.

I've been trying to make small moves away from car infrastructure in my town and the response is, well, less than positive.

We already tacitly accept that cars are one of the biggest causes of death. Reducing car infrastructure to reduce microplastics, where we don't even really know the harm, seems far far more challenging.

I think the idea we have this highly dense energy source pervasively available across the earth in all biomes with an exposed surface area that is unfathomable, life will adapt to consume that source of carbon rich energy. I suspect we may be bringing the end of the age of plastics rapidly.