18 ms·
Microplastics found in the placentas of human fetuses
- tmd83 6y agoHow do you even reduce it without completely removing plastic from everyday use. Even a long term reusable thing will shade plastic from what it seems like. What happens with other materials that we use like metal, wood, glass, concrete do they shave off particles too or not?
- HPsquared 6y agoIt's all about the waste processing stream, I think. The problem is, nobody treats plastic waste as hazardous.
- neverartful 6y agoWell said, although labeling it as 'hazardous' can be tricky since we don't really understand some of the long-term effects yet.
- falcolas 6y agoThe results from California's prop 65 cancer labels should be kept in mind when trying to label broad classes of objects as hazardous. That is to say, it will be ignored.
- XorNot 6y agoIt's all about dust to dust product design. What is made of what is not clearly marked, not able to be collected as the necessary waste streams to enable proper disposal and recycling.
- abdullahkhalids 6y agoEverything shaves off particles in varying amounts. The question is whether those particles decay on their own, make their way into our food supplies, and how toxic are they. I don't know the quantitative answers to any of these. But I would hazard that wood decays fast; and glass and concrete particles are inert, very similar to soil and not very harmful in the amounts they make into our food supplies. Plastics on the other hand, don't decay, float in water (so easier to spread) and empirically make it into our food supplies. The fear is that they are carcinogenic and cause unwanted hormonal changes.
- amedvednikov 6y agoJust remove it completely. We somehow survived without it 60 years ago.
- umvi 6y agoYeah and 60 years ago we didn't have the robust food supply chain we have now. Plastic is a cheap way to package, transport, and store foods. Without it your options are... glass, metal, wood, ceramic, etc. So "get rid of all plastic" means "jack up the price of all food". This would put us in another situation where the cure is worse than the ill. X people die every year due to microplastics, but abolishing all plastic will probably push hundreds of millions into poverty.
- titzer 6y agoBut mah dollarzes! > but abolishing all plastic will probably push hundreds of millions into poverty. Citation needed. The very poorest people on Earth living subsistence farming and getting all their food from local sources. Plastic packaging is a way of extending the life of food so that supply chains can be lengthened and food can be sourced farther away: read: nice tomatoes in winter. Long supply chains increase industrialization of farming, push the quality of food down, and profits up. Plastic packaging is a western luxury that allows us to live in a smorgasborg of food oversupply uninterrupted by season. While western societies' main health problems stem from obesity, you argue about food packaging, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of plastic waste in the ocean is from one-time use plastics for goodies like Coke bottles, chip bags, candy bar wrappers, straws, etc.
- st1x7 6y agoEven this oversimplification is wrong. Back then we had a bit over a third of the current world population and a much worse standard of living across the globe. Progress is about making good tradeoffs, not about picking perfect solutions. Otherwise your logic could get rid of any innovation by ignoring its benefits and saying "it has some problems so let's get rid of it altogether, we somehow survived without it in the past".
- azornathogron 6y ago
- taneq 6y agoI imagine there’s sand/dust in most tissues to some degree.
- titzer 6y agoLet's start by banning single-use plastics. I know it sounds crazy, but tupperware is a thing. We had ways to distribute, dairy, meat, and all types of food before plastic. But even if we do make use of plastic in the future, we need to rethink how distribution happens instead of just slapping everything in its own plastic bag/box for its entire lifetime. It is entirely thinkable that you bring your own tupperware to the grocery store and fill it up, then bring it home. I've been doing this for years with takeout. People are just lazy and can't plan ahead.
- mekkkkkk 6y agoI agree on single use plastic, but I think paper/cellulose could be used to a much larger extent. People will never adapt to bringing their own containers for everything, but replacing single use plastic with single use (lightly treated) paper would go a long way and seems reasonable.
- amelius 6y agoShouldn't we have found microplastics in large land animals (e.g. meat) long before, and shouldn't that have raised the necessary questions? Or is this microplastics from cosmetics?
- londons_explore 6y agoThe method to find microplastics has only been commonly known for the last ~2 years. Before that these plastics went unnoticed.
- perfunctory 6y ago> All the particles analysed were plastics that had been dyed blue, red, orange or pink and may have originally come from packaging, paints or cosmetics and personal care products.
- taneq 6y agoLots of things had plastic micro-beads until recently, I believe (laundry detergents, exfoliating soaps/shampoos). It’s more that we’ve just started thinking of this as a bad thing and started looking for it, and now we’re finding it.
- EinwegPlastik 6y agoWe do. We raised the necessary questions. This is not the first news, this is just an additional water droplet on the full barrel. There were articles about microplastic in the rain, on mountains, dessert and on fields; Water supply and in waste water.
- feralimal 6y agoAs long as its human fetuses, rather than turtles' noses or albatrosses' stomachs, that fine? Right?
- saberience 6y agoOk, we get it, microplastics are everywhere and have been for most of our lifetimes. Can someone explain why this is a bad thing or even IF it is a bad thing? As far as I can tell, humans have been dying from the same illnesses for the past 100-200-300 years, except we're living longer than ever and dying more from lifestyle illnesses now. Are we just assuming that eating microplastics is bad? Why not assume it's good? I mean, I haven't seen any evidence for either outcome and the stress and worry about eating them is probably worse for our health than the microplastics themselves. Edit: I'm not sure why downvoting this comment helps. I'm not saying microplastics are good or bad for human health, just that we get scary articles all the time telling us how they are everywhere, but no one saying anything yet about their harm (or harmlessness).
- perfunctory 6y ago> Why not assume it's good? Yeah, let's just assume that everything is good by default. "Before It Was Dangerous, Lead Was The Miracle Metal That We Loved" https://www.npr.org/2016/04/06/473268312/before-it-was-dangerous-lead-was-the-miracle-metal-that-we-loved?t=1608642388719 https://www.npr.org/2016/04/06/473268312/before-it-was-dange...
- _Microft 6y agoWe even x-rayed feet to see if shoes fit. The shoe industry of course rejected health concerns: "Representatives of the shoe retail industry denied claims of potential harm in newspaper articles and opinion pieces. They argued that the devices' use prevented harm to customers' feet that otherwise would have resulted from poorly-fitted shoes.", from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope
- mk89 6y agoMan, that's a brilliant idea! So sad it's dangerous...!
- inglor_cz 6y agoTBH if the rays only hit the feet (which wasn't the case with this machine, it was far from "tight" and radiation escaped in all directions), total health concern would be smaller. Hands and feet can tolerate bigger radiation doses than our internal organs. Muscle and bone is not that sensitive, most damage will be on skin. https://www.env.go.jp/en/chemi/rhm/basic-info/1st/03-02-07.html https://www.env.go.jp/en/chemi/rhm/basic-info/1st/03-02-07.h...
- OJFord 6y agoWhy is this headline different from the original, and with ~a mis~ an American spelling of a word The Guardian (UK) wouldn't, and indeed didn't in the subheading?
- 3stripe 6y agoI'd like to know why the title was changed too...
- xyst 6y agoShould just outright ban use of plastics, and have the companies producing these toxic products cleanup the oceans and drinkable water tables. The O&G industry has literally made billions of dollars for destroying the planet we share.
- sojournerc 6y agoI think you'd find that medical technology (as an example) would be severely hindered by banning all plastics. We should absolutely seek to reduce the impacts plastics have on the planet and our bodies, but outright bans are not the solution unless we want to regress technologically. These issues require nuance, not pronouncements.
- Technically 6y ago> These issues require nuance, not pronouncements. Ahh so electoralism is right out of the question then.
- titzer 6y agotrillions
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- missedthecue 6y agoTough luck for grandpa's pacemaker, I guess.
- vagab0nd 6y agoI had a crazy thought while reading the comments here. The strength of plastic is also its weakness. They are one and the same. People talk a lot about replacing/removing plastic use. What if instead of trying to get rid of its weakness, thus removing its benefit, we make it even stronger. More durable, less shed, more like metal. Thus less micropastics. Short term, this seems like a win without apparent downside. Long term, technology plus policy will eventually solve the recycling problem. Although I don't have anything technical to back it up. Just pointing out the direction of thinking.
- XorNot 6y agoThis is actually not a bad idea at all. Plastic at macroscopic scales is easier to clean out of water ways (since you can see it) and if we could design materials with a lower bound on granulation they'd just settle out as sediment rather then being able to enter organisms. It's not really clear how you'd do that though.
- titzer 6y agoUnfortunately policy tends to be corrupted by lobbyists. One thing I can assure you is that profiteers are gonna keep profiteering. If your plan in any way shape or form relies on people volunteering reducing their income, profits, or revenues, fat chance.
- vagab0nd 6y agoSure, agreed. But we need to do something. I'm arguing what that something should be. How we achieve that, or can it even be done is a different story.
- elchief 6y agoNanoplastics alter intestinal microbiome and threaten human health https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-12/uadb-nai122120.php https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-12/uadb-nai1221...
- vmchale 6y agoWe are the fish now.
- throwaway29303 6y agoThe Great Filter showing a tiny sliver of its feathers. It's already too late for humanity, I'm afraid. :-(
- agentultra 6y agoThe amount of plastic in use today, I feel, is unreasonable. It's so carelessly and thoughtlessly used in everything. The grocery store -- what happened to bringing your own containers, baskets, and bags? Every entertainment, convenience, appliance, and device we use: plastic. Want to buy a birthday card? Chances are it will come wrapped in plastic. We even wrap the plastic in plastic. I can't imagine a world where we don't depend on oil and plastics because we've come to a point where nobody can imagine living in a world where things aren't build to be disposable, convenient, and last practically forever. This article just continues the trend. The plastics don't simply disappear. Eventually we'll just be drowning in the stuff. It already inhibits plant growth in soils and plastic is in almost all the soil around the world. I won't be surprised if it also inhibits human growth.
- jxramos 6y agoThis title is wonky, shouldn't it be "the placentas of pregnant women"? Fetuses by definition cannot have placentas but are in placentas.
- frenchy 6y agoYou might be confusing the placenta with the amniotic sac. The placenta is ultimately the part of the embryo that embeds itself in the uterus and triggers the mother's pregnancy. It connects to the fetus via the umbilical cord. In practice people don't think of them belonging to the fetus though, and the title "Microplastics found in human placentas" would have been clearer.
- brd 6y agoThe US in particular has taken the pursuit of convenience to extremes and the abuse of plastics is one of the clearest examples of that. Most packaging should be glass, paper, or metal. Fewer things should be so disposable. One thing I wish we could find a solution to is our oil subsidy problem. I get that the US gov wants to subsidize oil for the sake of national security but those subsidies have all sorts of crazy unintended consequences. One of those consequences was that oil found a way to make itself the primary component of packaging.
- karakot 6y agoI wonder, how much of that I get everytime I brush my teeth.
- hinkley 6y agoIn my first house, I inherited a push broom the previous owner left in the shed. I was well on a road to organic gardening by that point, and one day while sweeping, I had picked up the broom and noticed that the bristles were abraded. The plastic bristles. Well fuck. There's only one place all that plastic is going and that's into my yard. So I popped off the head and dumped it in the trash (the handle had not committed any crimes, and they are reusable, which can save a bunch of space). There are several natural fibers that are about as tough as plastic, but they're exotic so I couldn't tell you how long the carbon footprint is, but at least I have less plastic in my yard. The dryer vent, however, is an unsolved problem.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoThis community has resources to learn about environmentally friendly alternatives to everyday products. e.g.: less packaging/no packaging. http://reddit.com/r/zerowaste http://reddit.com/r/zerowaste Make sure to check out their wiki too.
- rednerrus 6y agoWe should be packaging as much as we can in reusable glass container.
- hyko 6y agoPlastics have been in common use for well over a century. So where are the people made ill from microplastics, and what are they suffering from? You want particles in the human body? I can find you particles. The question of disease significance requires much more than finding particles. Telling mothers they have given birth to god damn cyborg babies because you found particles of plastic in the placenta is either hopelessly naive, or ruthlessly exploitative of people’s fundamental fears on the basis of no evidence.
- travis51 6y agoStudies have shown that high levels of micro plastics can cause neurotoxicity in fish [1] which I'm surprised no one else is mentioning. It seems that nano plastics might even be more concerning seeing that they can pass the blood brain barrier [2]. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166445X17303776#:~:text=The%20increase%20of%20brain%20LPO,microplastics%20cause%20neurotoxicity%20in%20D.&text=The%20inhibition%20of%20brain%20AChE,62%20%E2%88%92%2074%25%2C%20Fig https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166445X1.... [2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170925104730.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170925104730.h...
- bamboozled 6y agoI read the article but it's unclear if the type of stuff that invades the body, especially the placenta are nano-plastics? I mean what type of products would we need to stop using if we wanted to actually take this issue, I find it hard to believe that "all" plastic" use would be bad by default, I'm sure some uses must be much worse than others. It does mention in the article that this plastic is likely from cosmetics, which I cannot believe there are plastic in cosmetics, wow. Thinking thing from things like tyre dust, cosmetics etc.
- carlmr 6y agoI mean if you manage to recycle or burn the plastic I'm assuming you don't get many nanoparticles into the environment. But if plastic ends up in rivers and oceans it's going to slowly fall apart and release particles. Tires always release particles when used. The problem is how do you replace these? And how many that could be recycled or burned aren't? A lot of packaging plastic doesn't end up in the right place, so the only way to get a significant reduction here is to get rid of any non-essential use. And we should start where there is the most plastic used. Both of these together point to single use plastics in food packaging. You don't need to package vegetables and fruit in plastic. Recycled paper bags do just fine. It's an easy reduction.
- nikolay 6y agoIt's now tough to buy affordable cotton underwear and t-shirts. Acrylic fibers are literally everywhere in our house dust, and end up in our lungs. They also end up in oceans from the washers. So, I think one easy step is to remove plastics from our clothing! Always check the fibers of your clothing and go for the real thing. Wool, linen, and cotton - I try not to buy any garment made of something else. I'm not really sure about bamboo fibers and how they are made, so I pick the traditional fabrics, which can wrong you!