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Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

oceanconservancy.org

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Re: Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

#81

Post by epistasis »

ahazred8ta wrote: post #29
epistasis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop driving? Most microplastic in water come from tires. I've been trying to make small moves away from car infrastructure in my town and the response is, well, less than positive. We already tacitly accept that cars are one of the biggest causes of death. Reducing car infrastructure to reduce microplastics, where we don't even really know the harm, seems far far more challenging.

No. Most microplastic in water comes from washing machines. Synthetic fibers from clothes.

No.

> Seventy-eight percent of ocean microplastics are synthetic tire rubber, according to one estimate.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/tire-pollution-toxic-chemical...

> About 34% of the emitted coarse TWPs (tire wear particles) and 30% of the emitted coarse BWPs (brake wear particles) (100 kt yr−1 and 40 kt yr−1 respectively) were deposited in the World Ocean. These amounts are of similar magnitude as the total estimated direct and riverine transport of TWPs and fibres to the ocean (64 kt yr−1).

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9

Re: Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

#82

Post by haltist »

thereddaikon wrote: post #80
haltist wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are now born with plastic in their veins so we'll know soon enough what happens to these children based on their health outcomes.

We've had mass use plastic for decades. Baby boomers were likely born with plastic in their veins. I certainly was.

You have a blood sample analysis indicating that's the case?

Re: Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

#83

Post by thereddaikon »

ethanbond wrote: post #74
thereddaikon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What upper bounds? Well we know it isn't acutely toxic because people aren't just dropping dead inexplicably. And we know it isn't drastically raising cancer rates because, again those haven't inexplicably shot up.

> people aren't just dropping dead inexplicably Another pretty decent hypothesis of plastic contamination's effects is obesity (it's been seen both in vitro and in non-human animals). People absolutely are dropping dead en masse of obesity and related complications, and while obesity is proximally explainable (calories), the explanation of why people are consuming so many more calories is contested, at best. So I don…

IIRC there is some evidence of hormonal changes related to some volatiles associated with certain types of plastics. That might have something to do with it. But Obesity can also easily be explained by more mundane things like terrible diet and lifestyle and there's a huge body of evidence to show that if you change those, you lose weight.

>So I don't think we know enough to say confidently that people aren't just dropping dead inexplicably.

Well proving a negative is impossible. Further research into the potential health effects is needed. But at this stage I think worrying over every report that we found plastic in more and more places isn't cause for alarm until we actually know its dangerous.

Re: Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

#85

Post by haltist »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #76
QuarterReptile wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but birth rates are already pretty low, and, worse than failing to deal with the problem, some people think that is a good thing.

Falling birth rates _is_ a good thing and in my view its the only viable solution to global warming. Less people is less energy use and pollution.

[flagged]

Re: Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

#86

Post by psunavy03 »

ironmagma wrote: post #51
epistasis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop driving? Most microplastic in water come from tires. I've been trying to make small moves away from car infrastructure in my town and the response is, well, less than positive. We already tacitly accept that cars are one of the biggest causes of death. Reducing car infrastructure to reduce microplastics, where we don't even really know the harm, seems far far more challenging.

Stopping driving is only the beginning. Much more impactful would be to reduce the overall population's driving through legislation/taxation.

Ah, yes. Where adopting a fringe belief isn't enough, we need to force it on other people, too.

Re: Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

#87

Post by evrimoztamur »

bowmessage wrote: post #84

If, like me, your first question was "Which protein should I eat more of to avoid microplastics?", you can find the study's results graphed here: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S02697491230223...

The graph makes sense to me, processed (plant-based or factory-breaded) and shrimp seem to be the main ones. Buy fresh and you’ll be alright is what I read from this.

Re: Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

#88

Post by thereddaikon »

haltist wrote: post #82
thereddaikon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had mass use plastic for decades. Baby boomers were likely born with plastic in their veins. I certainly was.

You have a blood sample analysis indicating that's the case?

No but that's a silly standard. I can't go back in time and blood test my infant self. We have microplastics everywhere because of their widespread use. That's been occurring for a few generations now. There is no rational reason to think that we only accumulated them when we first noticed them. No the rational explanation is its been that way as long as we've been mass exposing ourselves to plastics which is right around the end of the second world war. And if car tires are as big of a contributor as some studies indicate then its been even longer because vulcanized rubber is a prewar invention.

Re: Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

#89

Post by broscillator »

jampekka wrote: post #53

Plastics, let alone microplastics, are a rather small problem that seem to get a lot of airspace. There are no established health effects of microplastics. There are magnitudes worse health problems in e.g. both under and overnutrition that cause a lot less panic and fuss. https://www.undp.org/kosovo/blog/microplastics-human-health-...

A lot of issues like you mention can be a big problem on the population level, but not in an individual level if you're conscious of what you eat. This doesn't seem to be the case with microplastics, they seem to be in everything.

You might call it panic to minimize it, and you'd be right to do so if we here were in charge of nutrition for a population; but I'm guessing most of us are in charge of our own nutrition and maybe a family's, so the information to deal with that is pretty valuable.

Re: Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

#90

Post by s1gnp0st »

jampekka wrote: post #53

Plastics, let alone microplastics, are a rather small problem that seem to get a lot of airspace. There are no established health effects of microplastics. There are magnitudes worse health problems in e.g. both under and overnutrition that cause a lot less panic and fuss. https://www.undp.org/kosovo/blog/microplastics-human-health-...

This is an outright lie. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35399297/
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