3 ms·

Isn't any potential, as yet unknown, health risk vastly outweighed by the proven benefits in food safety and disease control?

manux 6y ago
From the known risks, yes, but the unknown risks seem to possibly include biodiversity collapse and other terrible things. I think we can remain cautious either way, keep using plastic for food where it is necessary and reduce other plastics elsewhere.
- leereeves 6y ago
  > the unknown risks seem to possibly include biodiversity collapse and other terrible things Can you expand on that? It's not the topic of the linked paper and DDG doesn't show much on a link between biodiversity collapse (a proven problem) and nanoplastics. And what other terrible things might they cause?
  - ezequiel-garzon 6y ago
    I believe this main comment thread, and GP in particular, is about plastics in general, and not limited to nanoplastics. Thus it involves (big) plastic ingestion and plastic islands blocking chunks of the ocean.
    - leereeves 6y ago
      Fair point. Then what's the link between plastics in general and biodiversity collapse and other terrible things?
      - ezequiel-garzon 6y ago
        That fact that animals end up with plastic in their digestive systems is quite uncontroversially a terrible thing, wouldn't you agree? I can't elaborate on the potential biodiversity collapse, as I didn't make that comment. Edit: Clearly I just gave the easiest example, not the most relevant one. A basic Google search points to [1], for instance, where you find observations such as If algae and plankton communities are threatened, the entire food web may change. Animals that feed on algae and plankton, such as fish and turtles, will have less food. If populations of those animals decrease, there will be less food for apex predators such as tuna, sharks, and whales. Eventually, seafood becomes less available and more expensive for people. These dangers are compounded by the fact that plastics both leach out and absorb harmful pollutants. As plastics break down through photodegradation, they leach out colorants and chemicals, such as bisphenol A (BPA), that have been linked to environmental and health problems. Conversely, plastics can also absorb pollutants, such as PCBs, from the seawater. These chemicals can then enter the food chain when consumed by marine life. So, I frankly haven't carefully looked into the prospects of "biodiversity collapse", but even that stark term sounds justified. Surely another terrible thing, in any event. [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacifi...
        gowld 6y ago
        Humans breed, torture, and kill billions of fish, birds, and mammals intentionally, every year. Given that, why should we care about accidentally killing a few on the side? Are you vegan?
carapace 6y ago
Not yet. You have to integrate over a period of time that includes the future, so it's impossible to tell (without a reliable oracle.)
istorical 6y ago
What if those benefits in food safety and disease control could be solved with less disastrous means in let's say a timeline of another 50 years, but the current dumping of microplastics into all soil and groundwater systems is near unfixable for thousands of years? the way I see it is it's much faster and easier to ruin something than to fix it.
AftHurrahWinch 6y ago
> Isn't any potential, as yet unknown, health risk vastly outweighed by the proven benefits It's irrational to assert that "unknown" risks are outweighed by known/"proven" benefits. By definition, the risks are unknown.
- theptip 6y ago
  Not quite; you can put an upper bound on the "badness" of unknown harms, because if it was bad enough, we'd have detected it already. For a reductio ad absurdum proof, imagine that microplastics kill you on contact. This would show up in the death statistics very quickly. So in practice we can say with confidence that the possible unknown harms don't include mortality effects above a certain level. There's definitely room for effects that we'd consider to be serious like "reduces male sperm counts by 50% over decades of exposure" or "increases cancer rates by 100%", but it's certainly possible (indeed, the correct and rational way of approaching this problem) to attempt to bound the upper limit of harm based on what we should be able to detect. Note, I'm not commenting on the object-level question of _whether_ the benefits outweigh the costs or whether this is known; I would like to see a citation for that as I've not seen such an analysis. I'm just addressing the meta-level question of if it's possible to know.
ip26 6y ago
Are there really that many tremendous public health benefits? Autoclaves, steel, cardboard, and wax paper did the job for decades.
- bluGill 6y ago
  At what cost. Autoclaves use a lot of energy. I don't know how they compare, but I doubt you do either.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

manux 6y ago

From the known risks, yes, but the unknown risks seem to possibly include biodiversity collapse and other terrible things. I think we can remain cautious either way, keep using plastic for food where it is necessary and reduce other plastics elsewhere.

leereeves 6y ago
> the unknown risks seem to possibly include biodiversity collapse and other terrible things Can you expand on that? It's not the topic of the linked paper and DDG doesn't show much on a link between biodiversity collapse (a proven problem) and nanoplastics. And what other terrible things might they cause?
- ezequiel-garzon 6y ago
  I believe this main comment thread, and GP in particular, is about plastics in general, and not limited to nanoplastics. Thus it involves (big) plastic ingestion and plastic islands blocking chunks of the ocean.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    Fair point. Then what's the link between plastics in general and biodiversity collapse and other terrible things?
    - ezequiel-garzon 6y ago
      That fact that animals end up with plastic in their digestive systems is quite uncontroversially a terrible thing, wouldn't you agree? I can't elaborate on the potential biodiversity collapse, as I didn't make that comment. Edit: Clearly I just gave the easiest example, not the most relevant one. A basic Google search points to [1], for instance, where you find observations such as If algae and plankton communities are threatened, the entire food web may change. Animals that feed on algae and plankton, such as fish and turtles, will have less food. If populations of those animals decrease, there will be less food for apex predators such as tuna, sharks, and whales. Eventually, seafood becomes less available and more expensive for people. These dangers are compounded by the fact that plastics both leach out and absorb harmful pollutants. As plastics break down through photodegradation, they leach out colorants and chemicals, such as bisphenol A (BPA), that have been linked to environmental and health problems. Conversely, plastics can also absorb pollutants, such as PCBs, from the seawater. These chemicals can then enter the food chain when consumed by marine life. So, I frankly haven't carefully looked into the prospects of "biodiversity collapse", but even that stark term sounds justified. Surely another terrible thing, in any event. [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacifi...
      - gowld 6y ago
        Humans breed, torture, and kill billions of fish, birds, and mammals intentionally, every year. Given that, why should we care about accidentally killing a few on the side? Are you vegan?

carapace 6y ago

Not yet. You have to integrate over a period of time that includes the future, so it's impossible to tell (without a reliable oracle.)

istorical 6y ago

What if those benefits in food safety and disease control could be solved with less disastrous means in let's say a timeline of another 50 years, but the current dumping of microplastics into all soil and groundwater systems is near unfixable for thousands of years? the way I see it is it's much faster and easier to ruin something than to fix it.

AftHurrahWinch 6y ago

> Isn't any potential, as yet unknown, health risk vastly outweighed by the proven benefits It's irrational to assert that "unknown" risks are outweighed by known/"proven" benefits. By definition, the risks are unknown.

theptip 6y ago
Not quite; you can put an upper bound on the "badness" of unknown harms, because if it was bad enough, we'd have detected it already. For a reductio ad absurdum proof, imagine that microplastics kill you on contact. This would show up in the death statistics very quickly. So in practice we can say with confidence that the possible unknown harms don't include mortality effects above a certain level. There's definitely room for effects that we'd consider to be serious like "reduces male sperm counts by 50% over decades of exposure" or "increases cancer rates by 100%", but it's certainly possible (indeed, the correct and rational way of approaching this problem) to attempt to bound the upper limit of harm based on what we should be able to detect. Note, I'm not commenting on the object-level question of _whether_ the benefits outweigh the costs or whether this is known; I would like to see a citation for that as I've not seen such an analysis. I'm just addressing the meta-level question of if it's possible to know.

ip26 6y ago

Are there really that many tremendous public health benefits? Autoclaves, steel, cardboard, and wax paper did the job for decades.

bluGill 6y ago
At what cost. Autoclaves use a lot of energy. I don't know how they compare, but I doubt you do either.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]