Tiny sand and stones are also everywhere. So what's the deal?
They're not plastic.
Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
251–260 of 318 posts
Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's irrelevant. It's still the fat that causes type 2 diabetes. That doesn't mean keto can't work because it clearly can as long as it doesn't lead to overconsumption of fat. Also there are different kinds of carbs. As long as you keep to whole-food carbs, you practically can't eat too many (except for a few kinds like nuts and seeds and avocados) because you will be full long before it's too much. It's a differen…
> fredsir Stop downvoting people you simply disagree with.
I haven't been downvoting anybody. I don't even have a downvote button.
Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
#253Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
#254Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
#255Re: microfibers making it into water systems: This is a con to synthetic fibers that I hadn't been considering before. Recently I learned that cotton has a pretty high environmental footprint (land use, highest pesticide use of any crop, high water consumption) [1], and thus started moving some of my clothing purchases toward polyester-blends (trades the cons of cotton for petrochemical and energy use). Does anyone h…
Wool is a great material to consider as well.
I want to believe that materials like wool are the answer, but I fear they're not. Raising animals is carbon intensive, and all those sheep need somewhere to graze. If people switched to wool clothing on a big scale, it would probably lead to mass deforestation.
Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
So we shouldn't try? Political games are all there is.
>Political games are all there is. That's not true. A better world is possible, but not if we restrict ourselves to shortminded solutions like taxes and electoral politics. This is a systemic flaw, you can't work inside of the system to try to solve it.
So you have it all worked out then? What do you propose?
Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simple. Raise the tax to a point that glass bottles, perhaps with deposit-return schemes, or cotton clothing is cheaper for the consumer than the synthetic equivalents. Consumers will buy far more of the now cheaper and more sustainable products and producers who continue using plastic will declare profit warnings and some will become insolvent. Isn't that's how it's supposed to work? Governments survived losing inco…
There are externalities to the switch to glass. For example, what about the extra carbon emissions from the extra diesel burn by the trucks shipping the ingredients for the glass to the glass factory, the raw glass to the bottling plants, and the bottled beverages to the supermarkets? The extra weight of glass over plastic is significant. It's not an easy problem to solve. Hopefully truly compostable plastics will co…
Or maybe truly reusable plastics could work? Some of the plastic bottles used for beverages seem remarkably strong for their weight.
Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
#258As an individual who wants to make the biggest impact on this issue, what are my options? I am a UX/UI designer and I wonder what I could do to help rid the world of microplastics. I was thinking off the top of my head: 1. Write a letter to every company that uses exorbitant amount plastic in it's product or packaging (tons of them here in Japan) and try to make them aware of the issue (appeal through emotions - thei…
Before I saw your edit I thought starting an "Executive spam list", say on GitHub, would be a great idea. I see you started a Japanese one, maybe this could/should be expanded to globally or at least add pages for more countries?
Good luck!
Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
#259Relevant paper from Nature published last year: _The presence of microplastics in commercial salts from different countries_.
Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you strongly suspect this?
Well for one, bacteria already exists that eats plastic: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 It's not too far fetched to assume this already-existent bacteria could continue to exist and possibly mutate into something more efficient or proliferate to encompass the entire ocean.
We should genetically engineer this new breed of bacteria and seed the oceans. What could go wrong?