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The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

gizmodo.com

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Re: The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

#11

Post by tyho »

anthropodie wrote: post #9

How did we fail to forsee the effects of plastic before unleashing it on humanity and the world? Is there some org or body that would prevent such thing from happening in future with other material? If we have not learn anything from this we are doomed to repeat it.

We have done a better job with radioactive materials and CFC's than with plastics generally. Plastics suffer from their harms being very difficult to identify, they are still argued about today, no such uncertainty for radioactive materials or CFC's, their harms were (relatively) quickly identified.

Re: The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

#12

Post by pixl97 »

anthropodie wrote: post #9

How did we fail to forsee the effects of plastic before unleashing it on humanity and the world? Is there some org or body that would prevent such thing from happening in future with other material? If we have not learn anything from this we are doomed to repeat it.

>How did we fail to forsee the effects of leaded gasoline....

Humanity is mostly reactive. Once people are harmed then we launch a decade long fight against massive corporations who gaslight us as to how safe their product is and spend millions in delaying court battles and faking positive public opinion.

Re: The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

#13

Post by CalRobert »

jasondc wrote: post #5

Try buying food that isn't stored in plastics, worse yet, the supply chain before you get the food probably uses plastics between the various components. Seems like such a hard problem to solve.

Plastic is used intensively to make the food too. This is a sea of plastic in Spain used for growing. https://vertical-farming.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/alme...

Plastic stops weeds, stops birds, is the skin of greenhouses - every step of growing seems to involve another damn square kilometer of plastic. A lot of it just degrades in to microplastics in the soil, too.

(My wife and I did a market-garden type smallholding for a while and it's damn near impossible to get away from plastic)

Re: The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

#14

Post by legitster »

I'm curious - has there been a place yet that hasn't found microplastics yet? Some of the places I have now read about seem so unlikely (archeological dig, deep bore holes, returning spacecraft) that I am now thinking of other plausible alternatives:

- some "microplastics" are naturally occurring phenomenon

- cannot run a test without the sample being compromised

- like the presence of carbon-14 in the atmosphere after the first atom bomb, it ubiquitous enough that there is no point testing for its presence

Re: The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

#15

Post by legitster »

anthropodie wrote: post #9

How did we fail to forsee the effects of plastic before unleashing it on humanity and the world? Is there some org or body that would prevent such thing from happening in future with other material? If we have not learn anything from this we are doomed to repeat it.

This, except for the invention of agriculture.

Re: The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

#17

Post by legitster »

jasondc wrote: post #5

Try buying food that isn't stored in plastics, worse yet, the supply chain before you get the food probably uses plastics between the various components. Seems like such a hard problem to solve.

Honestly though - what's the point? It seems that everything is contaminated whether or not it ever touched plastic in its lifetime.

Re: The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

#18

Post by legitster »

CalRobert wrote: post #13
jasondc wrote: post #5

Try buying food that isn't stored in plastics, worse yet, the supply chain before you get the food probably uses plastics between the various components. Seems like such a hard problem to solve.

Plastic is used intensively to make the food too. This is a sea of plastic in Spain used for growing. https://vertical-farming.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/alme... Plastic stops weeds, stops birds, is the skin of greenhouses - every step of growing seems to involve another damn square kilometer of plastic. A lot of it just degrades in to microplastics in the soil, too. (My wife and I did a market-garden type smallh…

One of the ironies is that organic agriculture has increased plastics use dramatically in farming.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/06/07/729783773/or...

Re: The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

#19

Post by legitster »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #16

The very ubiquity of microplastics coupled with the lack of definitive harm is pretty strongly suggestive that they are pretty innocuous as far as chemicals go.

Something that doesn't get talked about very much - the exponential improvement in scientific equipment in the last few decades has vastly improved our ability to detect incredibly trace elements.

Re: The Most Disturbing Places We've Found Microplastics So Far

#20

Post by Dig1t »

franckl wrote: post #6
spacephysics wrote: post #3

Is there food safe plastics that don’t leach microplastics? My RO filter uses plastic tubing, I imagine within the filters themselves there’s plastic

Fyi you can get a stainless steel under sink RO system for less than 200usd on amazon, no plastic piping either.

Mind dropping a link? I'm searching and not finding anything without plastic tubing.
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