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I am astonished every time I read the average plastic intake of an average person. I never noticed even the tiniest amount of plastic in my water or food. Can s

I am astonished every time I read the average plastic intake of an average person. I never noticed even the tiniest amount of plastic in my water or food. Can someone explain how plastics enter my body undetected by me?

foerbert 5y ago
The answer here is even in the article title. Microplastics. Nobody is talking about chunks of plastic you can see, or feel, directly.
- jiveturkey 5y ago
  Microplastics go up to 5mm, by definition. You can definitely see and feel that. And down to 1um! "They" mostly talk about marine life ingestion of microplastics, and both for humans and marine animals I find it very difficult to comprehend what sizes they really mean, given the very large range for the single term "microplastics".
  - tiagod 5y ago
    I would say most of it will be dust in the the air (coming from clothing and other textiles) and car tires.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ayemiller 5y ago
Microplastics include any fragment of plastic less than 5mm in length, and nanoplastics (less than 100nm) are much smaller than would be visibly noticeable.
Tildey 5y ago
You don't ever have that moment when you're drinking from a bottle and you realise you've bitten off the neck of the bottle? Microplastics are very small. Most likely to be in another thing you're eating (in an organ of an animal for example) than being visible in a sauce or something.
- infogulch 5y ago
  glug glug CRUNCH "whoops I ate the bottle again haha"
selcuka 5y ago
They are very small [1]. Also you are unlikely to notice, say, a plastic fiber in bread. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/people-eat-at-least-50000-plastic-particles-a-year-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/people-e...
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Plastic doesn't decay it just gets smaller.
maxerickson 5y ago
Looking at the study: https://d2ouvy59p0dg6k.cloudfront.net/downloads/plastic_ingestion_web_spreads.pdf https://d2ouvy59p0dg6k.cloudfront.net/downloads/plastic_inge... their overall estimate includes 10x the plastic from drinking water that I am likely to be getting from their statements about the water I drink. Drinking water is their #1 contributor. (I drink US tap water, so ~20 fibers a day, 140 fibers a week, based on that vs 1769 fibers a week based on their stated typical drinking water consumption. There's of course the potential that my water has less fibers than the US average, in which case my consumption of fibers from that source would be lower again.) So the link is scrubbing the soft language used in the study report "as much as" or "could be" and turning it into an unqualified average globally people ingest an average of 5g of plastic every week.
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
Think about how soft plastic is. How easily a plastic surface can be scratched. How easily it can be chafed. How quickly plastic goggles become opaque from use. How much synthetic lint forms in your belly button from clothes. Every time a plastic surface is scratched or chafed, or rubs against a rough surface, near invisible plastic dust particles break off and disperse into the environment. You breathe them into your lungs, they settle onto your food and drink and enter your stomach. Some of them get permanently wedged inside your body. Now imagine a big, unshapely sculpture the size of a chair appears inside your house and you can't get it out for some reason. Sure, your world doesn't end, but it takes up space. How many would have to accumulate until they really started hindering your daily routines? That's what your cells feel like. Most bubble gum is plastic for fuck's sake. People chew on plastic on a daily basis. (Good news is plastic-free chewing gum have appeared on the market.)
- notanzaiiswear 5y ago
  How much of it permanently gets wedged inside of people's bodies, though? It seems to me plastics are not the only non-digestible thing that enters people's bodies, so it seems likely that bodies have a way to deal with it.
  - bengale 5y ago
    Why would it seem likely that our bodies have a way to deal with a man made substance?
    - hinkley 5y ago
      A man-made substance whose qualities include a notable resistance to decay microbes.
    - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
      It's a tiny undigestible thing. There are other such things, for example stones.
  - michael1999 5y ago

foerbert 5y ago

The answer here is even in the article title. Microplastics. Nobody is talking about chunks of plastic you can see, or feel, directly.

jiveturkey 5y ago
Microplastics go up to 5mm, by definition. You can definitely see and feel that. And down to 1um! "They" mostly talk about marine life ingestion of microplastics, and both for humans and marine animals I find it very difficult to comprehend what sizes they really mean, given the very large range for the single term "microplastics".
- tiagod 5y ago
  I would say most of it will be dust in the the air (coming from clothing and other textiles) and car tires.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ayemiller 5y ago

Microplastics include any fragment of plastic less than 5mm in length, and nanoplastics (less than 100nm) are much smaller than would be visibly noticeable.

Tildey 5y ago

You don't ever have that moment when you're drinking from a bottle and you realise you've bitten off the neck of the bottle? Microplastics are very small. Most likely to be in another thing you're eating (in an organ of an animal for example) than being visible in a sauce or something.

infogulch 5y ago
glug glug CRUNCH "whoops I ate the bottle again haha"

selcuka 5y ago

They are very small [1]. Also you are unlikely to notice, say, a plastic fiber in bread. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/people-eat-at-least-50000-plastic-particles-a-year-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/people-e...

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Plastic doesn't decay it just gets smaller.

maxerickson 5y ago

Looking at the study: https://d2ouvy59p0dg6k.cloudfront.net/downloads/plastic_ingestion_web_spreads.pdf https://d2ouvy59p0dg6k.cloudfront.net/downloads/plastic_inge... their overall estimate includes 10x the plastic from drinking water that I am likely to be getting from their statements about the water I drink. Drinking water is their #1 contributor. (I drink US tap water, so ~20 fibers a day, 140 fibers a week, based on that vs 1769 fibers a week based on their stated typical drinking water consumption. There's of course the potential that my water has less fibers than the US average, in which case my consumption of fibers from that source would be lower again.) So the link is scrubbing the soft language used in the study report "as much as" or "could be" and turning it into an unqualified average globally people ingest an average of 5g of plastic every week.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago

Think about how soft plastic is. How easily a plastic surface can be scratched. How easily it can be chafed. How quickly plastic goggles become opaque from use. How much synthetic lint forms in your belly button from clothes. Every time a plastic surface is scratched or chafed, or rubs against a rough surface, near invisible plastic dust particles break off and disperse into the environment. You breathe them into your lungs, they settle onto your food and drink and enter your stomach. Some of them get permanently wedged inside your body. Now imagine a big, unshapely sculpture the size of a chair appears inside your house and you can't get it out for some reason. Sure, your world doesn't end, but it takes up space. How many would have to accumulate until they really started hindering your daily routines? That's what your cells feel like. Most bubble gum is plastic for fuck's sake. People chew on plastic on a daily basis. (Good news is plastic-free chewing gum have appeared on the market.)

notanzaiiswear 5y ago
How much of it permanently gets wedged inside of people's bodies, though? It seems to me plastics are not the only non-digestible thing that enters people's bodies, so it seems likely that bodies have a way to deal with it.
- bengale 5y ago
  Why would it seem likely that our bodies have a way to deal with a man made substance?
  - hinkley 5y ago
    A man-made substance whose qualities include a notable resistance to decay microbes.
  - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
    It's a tiny undigestible thing. There are other such things, for example stones.
- michael1999 5y ago