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Microplastics in the human brain

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Microplastics in the human brain

#41

Post by bilbo0s »

dymk wrote: post #31
mythrwy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move away from big cities and high traffic areas in the meantime is my solution.

Hope you never have to drive to the grocery store

Not only that, but if you're close to a road at all, you'll intake the micro-plastics and nano-plastics.

So you really need to move away from roads. That's possible, but it's really hard to do in most developed nations. Just moving away from a city won't get you to where you need to be. Even when you get there, you have other issues. Like, food, energy, water/sewage treatment, etc.

I don't think people realize how difficult it would be to get away from this particular pollutant in our environment. I mean most of us don't own 500 acres in the Brazilian, Namibian, or Ghanaian countryside that we can retreat to. Even Brazil may be too far gone at this point to be honest. And Brazil is enormous. A lot of space. The number of tolerable nations that would have unaffected areas is decreasing fast. This really is a global problem.

ETA: Some remote parts of Canada and Alaska might fit the bill? Assuming you're not big on quality of life.

Re: Microplastics in the human brain

#43

Post by card_zero »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #37
roenxi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unmitigated potential risk The risk does seem fairly mitigated, most of us will make it through today fine. The only part of my brain I can account for now is the 1x credit card worth of plastic, all the other bits are a mystery. Death was inevitable before the microplastics, remains inevitable after the microplastics and things seem fine so far. We don't know much about the risks of anything. People regularly dous…

Shortening your period of observation so that the effects have not occurred yet does not mean it’s “mitigated”. And your philosophy of your own mortality is just as reductive, because humans have been trying to survive since time immemorial and do not actively work on their deaths unless in an unhealthy mental state.

Seems like a more important problem, then, the part where people inevitably die. I mean compared to having some plastic in their heads.

Re: Microplastics in the human brain

#44

Post by kijin »

hammock wrote: post #24
Kapura wrote: post #20

Remember that car tire degredation is a significant portion of microplastics in the environment. Investing in mass transit is as imperative as it was to move away from leaded gasoline.

And we need more lightweight cars , not heavier, since tire wear is proportional to vehicle weight to the fourth power. Ironically, CAFE regulations and EV incentives both did the opposite

> tire wear is proportional to vehicle weight to the fourth power.

Does this mean that a bus that weighs 10 times as much as a small car will produce 10000 times as much tire dust? If it does, I'm not sure if investing in buses will reduce tire dust at all. A bus can replace a lot of cars, but 10000 is a stretch. We need more trains.

Re: Microplastics in the human brain

#45

Post by ethagnawl »

hammock wrote: post #24
Kapura wrote: post #20

Remember that car tire degredation is a significant portion of microplastics in the environment. Investing in mass transit is as imperative as it was to move away from leaded gasoline.

And we need more lightweight cars , not heavier, since tire wear is proportional to vehicle weight to the fourth power. Ironically, CAFE regulations and EV incentives both did the opposite

I'm not sure why you're being down voted for suggesting a practical and fact based solution. The USA is, regrettably, not making a pivot towards public transportation anytime in the near future. So, lighter cars are one way to address this issue.

You didn't expound upon your point about the unintended consequences of CAFE standards but they're very real. Instead of making smaller and more efficient sedans per the guidelines, car makers opted start making all of their vehicles "light trucks" -- 80%+ of new vehicles are SUVs or bubbly looking "crossovers" -- which are not subject to the same demanding standards. Small sedans also cost less and would require ongoing R&D to continue to meet the CAFE standards. The end result, as this thread is interested, is heavier vehicles with bigger tires and more plastic in the environment and our brains.

Re: Microplastics in the human brain

#46

Post by mythrwy »

dymk wrote: post #31
mythrwy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move away from big cities and high traffic areas in the meantime is my solution.

Hope you never have to drive to the grocery store

I don't think you understand where I'm living.

"Microplastic Free", no, there is no such thing right now. But I'm very far from any major roads/interstates and hundreds of miles to any big city. I didn't move out here to avoid microplastics though, it just (maybe) turned out that way.

I'm actually not terribly afraid of microplastics at all, I just don't like urban environments.

Re: Microplastics in the human brain

#47

Post by JKCalhoun »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #39
Kapura wrote: post #20

Remember that car tire degredation is a significant portion of microplastics in the environment. Investing in mass transit is as imperative as it was to move away from leaded gasoline.

How did the amount of brain microplastic manage to double between 2016 and 2025? The amount of cars hasn't changed that much.

User hammock, in this thread, may have suggested an answer.

Re: Microplastics in the human brain

#48

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

roenxi wrote: post #17
shironandonon_ wrote: post #10

I like the analogy where other articles have said we have microplastics in our brain about the size of a credit card (which generally weigh between 4g and 10g) better. Saying a “spoon’s worth” seems to be downplaying the unmitigated potential risk. We have no idea what will happen as we (and all the other creatures on earth) keep storing more and more microplastics in our organs. Nobody is going to stop driving. Car…

> unmitigated potential risk The risk does seem fairly mitigated, most of us will make it through today fine. The only part of my brain I can account for now is the 1x credit card worth of plastic, all the other bits are a mystery. Death was inevitable before the microplastics, remains inevitable after the microplastics and things seem fine so far. We don't know much about the risks of anything. People regularly dous…

Would be nice if just once these sorts of things could have beneficial effects.

Re: Microplastics in the human brain

#49

Post by penjelly »

hammock wrote: post #24
Kapura wrote: post #20

Remember that car tire degredation is a significant portion of microplastics in the environment. Investing in mass transit is as imperative as it was to move away from leaded gasoline.

And we need more lightweight cars , not heavier, since tire wear is proportional to vehicle weight to the fourth power. Ironically, CAFE regulations and EV incentives both did the opposite

EV/hybrid only "zones" in Europe are crazy to me because the electric cars leech more tire carbon into the air anyway. Some regulation seems intelligent on the surface, but the devil is in the details.

Re: Microplastics in the human brain

#50

Post by upghost »

bhaney wrote: post #3

> not a spoonful, but the same weight as a plastic spoon oh

do we need a unit conversion for how many spoonfuls of plastic are in a plastic spoon?? seems like it might be important for this article.

Well article says a teaspoon has 7g mass, and just spitballin here but I'd say a plastic spoon has about 1g/cm^3 density. And there are 4.83cm^3 in a teaspoon. So I guess in fact there are 1.44 teaspoons of teaspoon in the brain. Or would that be 1.44 tsp^2...?

But I'm an American and I have at least 3 imperial teaspoons of microplastic in my brain or gosh darnit I'm 2 bald eagles short of a touch down. If you know what I'm sayin.[1]

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42958104

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