3 ms·

Why is that bad? Actual question - I'm a programmer, not a doctor (biologist :-))

• undersuit 7y ago
  The Gizmondo article provides two links to the observed effects of plastic in the ecosystem in the paragraph where it's mentioned that the animal life feeding near the Plasticrust maybe be consuming said plastic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/plastic-planet-health-pollution-waste-microplastics/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/plastic-... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-humans-a-microplastic-invasion-may-be-taking-a-toll/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-huma...
  • TomMarius 7y ago
    Hmm now I'm confused. The articles you sent are about microplastics in fishes, I thought the comment I replied to was about microbes which should (I really don't know though) break the plastic down...? Edit: Now I see that I have misread the comment and confused molluscs for microbes.
• scrumper 7y ago
  Toxins and other foreign non-food things (heavy metals, plastics, etc.) tend to get quite highly concentrated as you go up a food chain. So a little tiny dose of e.g. mercury absorbed by, say, some krill that are then eaten by fish, who are in turn eaten by bigger fish, that are finally caught by fishermen, can result in quite high concentrations by the time we humans eat it. Same with plastics consumed by these molluscs - they feed things which feed things which feed things which feed us, and we end up taking in really quite a lot of plastic as a result.