Is there a viable way to actually avoid microplastics?
I've read regular blood donations can reduce microplastics at least somewhat, and that's a good thing to do anyway
Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
51–60 of 74 posts
Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that they have always been around suggest that there is no change to us as a result of their introduction. Plastics, however, have not always been around...
The question is are microplastics doing anything different in this case. The study shows that microplastics may block. It doesn't show that micro-natural-substances may not also block. I'd like to see more actual science, and less fear mongering.
I’d argue that’s just shifting the burden of proof. I’d like corporations to prove that something isn’t dangerous before they put it in the food I eat.
Besides, if other microparticles are dangerous, I’d rather not have even more of those, especially ones that haven’t been through thousands of years of human evolution.
Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
#53i wouldn’t be surprised if many insults to human health are not relevant in population that exercises vigorously 5 times a week and have good body composition.
for the average american maybe we are looking for straws that break camels backs that are on the edge of breaking anyways
Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try to wipe your mind and walk in a supermarket as if you've never been in one, nothing makes sense whatsoever. Same for roads in the cities, endless streams of 2000kg+ hunk of steel, plastic and glass, 95% of them transport about 80kg of human, 95% of the time they're just parked taking space for no reason. Most things we designed are just so fucking inefficient and borderline insane, humans are very adaptable and i…
>Most things we designed are just so fucking inefficient and borderline insane, Are they though? We're quite good (and dare I say it: 'efficient') at feeding, housing and transporting huge populations. Almost all the inefficiencies you mentioned are preference and/or comfort based. Society is not separated from laws of physics and economics. Everything is balanced against the cost of those services - when/if costs go…
> The human part of car ownership is freedom.
I'm sure the car marketing department agrees with you. Unfortunately, the reality for most people is not about freedom, it's about necessity. A car is simply the only way to get around; there are no other options. Freedom can't exist without choice. If you actually observe daily car users you'll find they are angry and frustrated. I find these daily frustrations occupy a vastly disproportionate space in their heads as well. How many times have you heard about the asshole on the road today? Or how bad the traffic was? These are signs that things aren't right, but people just can't see a way around it. If you realised something you were eating was unpleasant you'd just stop eating it, but people aren't able to stop driving.
You're clinging to the past where maybe the top 10% of society could own a car. Those people had freedom. Nowadays those people have private jets.
Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the era of extreme inefficiency and waste. We are local min/max machines and need government to direct us to the global min/max but it doesn’t do that.
That's because the at best, the government can be a penalty condition in the objective function, and recently it's effect has been almost completely eclipsed by the near term gains. I believe what we'd need is education. The more educated the masses are, the more likely it is that they vote for governments that have the long term interests in mind, and the more likely it is that the government itself will then preven…
> I believe what we'd need is education.
> The more educated the masses are, the more likely it is that they vote for governments that have the long term interests in mind
Consider: Globally, the masses are more and better educated than at any other point in history. More people than ever have a higher-level education, and people have access to more information than ever before, more easily than ever before, and for free! There has never been a better time to be a thinking human, we're surrounded by knowledge and education.
If that's still not enough, it might be worth considering that maybe it's not an education thing. Maybe it really is just human nature to think short term, and not some bad government maximization route. Consider how that short-term thinking shows up everywhere: In people's diets, in people's elected governments, in people's finances, and so on.
Maybe it's not something we can just wish away with education. Maybe it's just... humans being human.
You can -dictate- long-term thinking and long-term policies. But from a democratic perspective, the candidate that promises short-term wins will obviously beat the candidate that says "endure now for long-term gain".
Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty much impossible to completely avoid microplastics. They're literally raining down on us at this stage. But it's parts per millions to consider. I remember seeing a video about how all gortex and basically all waterproof great releases microplastics into the environment and then the rain basically carries it everywhere. If I find it ill post it.
This https://youtu.be/-ht7nOaIkpI?si=avIcOa76alLdbAqo ?
That's exactly the one, was a big eye opener to me at least.
Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
do you want to increase your risk of having a stroke (which is what the study suggests is happening with microplastics), or keep that risk level where it is? put another way: would you go out and smoke cigarettes and expect no additional harm, because you are already exposed to environmental pollutants?
My question was about mechanics of microplastics being different than other materials such as wood or other inorganics.
how is that relevant to the discussion of the introduction of plastics? wood is not a new material; we are not discussing a rationale for questioning the manufacture of wood.
Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Devils advocate here: food has been packaged in plastics for decades and plastic containers have been around longer than that. If plastics were as damaging as you claim, wouldn’t we have already seen this in the epidemiology?
That’a fair point and I might be overpanicking. I could argue that it might be happening and we just don’t know about it, but from what I gathered, yes strokes are on the rise, but experts seem to believe it’s related to blood pressure. Although there probably weren’t as much microplastics when the last generation was born ; it’s now ubiquitous to the point of being found in the blood of fetuses. If gen Z and Alpha d…
> If gen Z and Alpha don’t die from aneurysms at 45, then yeah, I guess we could assume it isn’t dangerous.
I think this is still overly alarmist. Plastic production basically started really ramping up in the 1950s in industrialized nations-- thats 75 years ago.
Yes, you can argue that exposure might have increased significantly since (+ bioaccumulation etc.), but excess mortality should've been roughly proportional, and I'd argue that it's implausible for "plastic lethality" to stay hidden for so long (I fully agree that it's not pretty that the stuff is everywhere nowadays, but I think "next generation is all gonna die from this before they get 50" is just not reasonable to assume, and we arguably cause much bigger problems for the next generations already anyway).
> I’m just tired of this kind of things : conglomerates are putting X everywhere, and then we have to prove that X is indeed dangerous, when they should be the ones proving that it isn’t.
I think this is a luxury problem-- you might be very willing to forego all remotely risky innovations/technologies now-- but you are rich compared to a person 75 years ago (and we reaped lots of benefits from that risk already!).
De-risking everything might look attractive in hindsight, but it is unclear what you would have lost to such a policy: Possibly a big chunk of modern material science, electronics, communication technology, ...
It is easy to downplay all that today, and pretend we never really wanted smartphones anyway, but I'm skeptical that the average person a hundred years ago would have seen this in the same way.
Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
The RO filtration membrane is also made of plastic. I haven’t found a way to avoid microplastics even though I have my own well and have an RO system.
You're correct, your RO system should reduce the amount of microplastics significantly though, to a point that makes your water much safer than most common options.
Maybe? You’re literally forcing water under high pressure across a plastic membrane, to me it feels like that would add a tremendous amount of microplastics to the water. I don’t know what the answer is though since I can’t seem to find any real studies around this.
Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty much impossible to completely avoid microplastics. They're literally raining down on us at this stage. But it's parts per millions to consider. I remember seeing a video about how all gortex and basically all waterproof great releases microplastics into the environment and then the rain basically carries it everywhere. If I find it ill post it.
Tires as well. People think in terms of food packaging, and they certainly should. But the danger is actually everywhere in our modern life. The cars, the homes, the clothes, the food, the phones, the computers, the blankets, the sheets, the carpet, and so on and so forth.
It's a good point. As much of a miracle as rubbers and plastics have been.. There is a downside. A revolutionary innovation/invention would be some kind of passive cleaning system..