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Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

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Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#21

Post by 1over137 »

briefcomment wrote: post #11
scottlocklin wrote: post #4

I don't like plastic in the air any more than anyone else does, but 1) stop wearing those stupid fucking polyester hoodies (and other artificial fibers; aka your socks, gym shirts and underpants) -that's where most of it comes from. I'm looking at you, SF hacker nerds. 2) Even assuming the entire population of the Western US breathed all that plastic waste in and it was permanently deposited in the lungs: 1000e3 kg/…

Praying for cotton and wool to become stylish. And I hope we get creative with natural fibers like linen, beech fiber, spider silk, et.

and hemp, one of the best fabrics for many reasons.

Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#22

Post by theplague42 »

briefcomment wrote: post #11
scottlocklin wrote: post #4

I don't like plastic in the air any more than anyone else does, but 1) stop wearing those stupid fucking polyester hoodies (and other artificial fibers; aka your socks, gym shirts and underpants) -that's where most of it comes from. I'm looking at you, SF hacker nerds. 2) Even assuming the entire population of the Western US breathed all that plastic waste in and it was permanently deposited in the lungs: 1000e3 kg/…

Praying for cotton and wool to become stylish. And I hope we get creative with natural fibers like linen, beech fiber, spider silk, et.

Cotton and wool are totally in style, not sure why they wouldn't be? I'm slowly eliminating polyesters from my wardrobe. If you like the feel, you can do rayon or other processed natural fibers.

Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#23

Post by eru »

briefcomment wrote: post #11
scottlocklin wrote: post #4

I don't like plastic in the air any more than anyone else does, but 1) stop wearing those stupid fucking polyester hoodies (and other artificial fibers; aka your socks, gym shirts and underpants) -that's where most of it comes from. I'm looking at you, SF hacker nerds. 2) Even assuming the entire population of the Western US breathed all that plastic waste in and it was permanently deposited in the lungs: 1000e3 kg/…

Praying for cotton and wool to become stylish. And I hope we get creative with natural fibers like linen, beech fiber, spider silk, et.

I thought cotton was pretty much the default fibre?

Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#24

Post by eru »

mr_toad wrote: post #19
minerjoe wrote: post #5

In some just universe, oil == pure evil. It's underground for a reason and poking a million painful needles into Mother Earth to suck it out and spew it into every biome is bound to have implications on our own health. As above, so below.

It’s underground because anaerobic decay of organic material with heat and pressure produces oil. Chemicals aren’t inherently good or evil. Some, like oxygen, we’ve evolved to live with, while some we haven’t had the chance. In millions of years something will probably evolve to eat all this plastic, just like it did with cellulose.

Oxygen originally killed off most of the biosphere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event

Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#25

Post by techntoke »

theplague42 wrote: post #22
briefcomment wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Praying for cotton and wool to become stylish. And I hope we get creative with natural fibers like linen, beech fiber, spider silk, et.

Cotton and wool are totally in style, not sure why they wouldn't be? I'm slowly eliminating polyesters from my wardrobe. If you like the feel, you can do rayon or other processed natural fibers.

Rayon is still incredibly toxic to produce because of the process.

Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#26

Post by techntoke »

eru wrote: post #23
briefcomment wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Praying for cotton and wool to become stylish. And I hope we get creative with natural fibers like linen, beech fiber, spider silk, et.

I thought cotton was pretty much the default fibre?

Nope, especially not the cheap Walmart clothes. Most fabrics are at least 60% polyester

Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#27

Post by Hnrobert42 »

scottlocklin wrote: post #7
faitswulff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10mg per year is potentially a much bigger problem due to biological magnification - i.e. everything below us in the food chain is exposed to the same 10mg per year, so we accumulate the sum of whatever our food sources have consumed.

You aren't absorbing 10g, 10mg or 1mg of plastic in your lungs every year. Most of it is falling on the ground and being turned into dirt. It's gross and people should do something about it, but it is a neurotic worry rather than a real problem. Most accounts (including this one) even have the temerity to try to link plastic bottles to it (which, also gross, are not a problem as far as plastic fibers in the environme…

It seems you have anger towards a group of people you have defined as bad. That seems to be clouding your judgement. For example, you somehow have convinced yourself that the use of metal water bottles is bad if used by synthetic fabric hoodie wearers in SF.

First, everyone wears synthetics, not just in SF.

Second, less plastic is less plastic.

Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#28

Post by chewz »

briefcomment wrote: post #11
scottlocklin wrote: post #4

I don't like plastic in the air any more than anyone else does, but 1) stop wearing those stupid fucking polyester hoodies (and other artificial fibers; aka your socks, gym shirts and underpants) -that's where most of it comes from. I'm looking at you, SF hacker nerds. 2) Even assuming the entire population of the Western US breathed all that plastic waste in and it was permanently deposited in the lungs: 1000e3 kg/…

Praying for cotton and wool to become stylish. And I hope we get creative with natural fibers like linen, beech fiber, spider silk, et.

One cotton t-shirt equals 2,700 liters of water—what one person drinks in two-and-a-half years. Google about Aral Sea.

Cotton farming is also responsible for 24 percent of insecticides and 11 percent of pesticides despite using about 3 percent of the world’s arable land.

https://www.wri.org/blog/2017/07/apparel-industrys-environme...

Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#29

Post by howlin »

faitswulff wrote: post #6
scottlocklin wrote: post #4

I don't like plastic in the air any more than anyone else does, but 1) stop wearing those stupid fucking polyester hoodies (and other artificial fibers; aka your socks, gym shirts and underpants) -that's where most of it comes from. I'm looking at you, SF hacker nerds. 2) Even assuming the entire population of the Western US breathed all that plastic waste in and it was permanently deposited in the lungs: 1000e3 kg/…

10mg per year is potentially a much bigger problem due to biological magnification - i.e. everything below us in the food chain is exposed to the same 10mg per year, so we accumulate the sum of whatever our food sources have consumed.

Which is a great reason to eat as low on the food chain as you can.

Re: Tons of microplastic rain onto western US

#30

Post by kortex »

techntoke wrote: post #25
theplague42 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cotton and wool are totally in style, not sure why they wouldn't be? I'm slowly eliminating polyesters from my wardrobe. If you like the feel, you can do rayon or other processed natural fibers.

Rayon is still incredibly toxic to produce because of the process.

How so? Carbon disulfide is rather nasty, but it's straightforward to recover most of it. TLV is 10 ppm, while the effluent air from Teepak is 100 ppm [0], meaning you could spend hours a day with just over a 10:1 dilution of the factory exhaust. And there are lots of efforts to get those emissions way lower.

If it means less microplastics, I'm all for it.

[0] https://www.osti.gov/biblio/5518183

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