24 ms·
What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
- jtdev 4y ago
- dhosek 4y agoTwo simple things that you can do are to (a) don’t wash plastics in the dishwasher and (2) don’t microwave stuff in plastic containers. This last will require taking stuff out of the disposable container that many frozen meals come in to cook it. Some brands have a cardboard/waxpaper tray instead of a plastic one although there might be identical looking packaging that has different internals based on the store (I remember being surprised to discover that a frozen meal I bought at Whole Foods had the cardboard bowl while the same meal from a regular supermarket had a plastic bowl).
- mleonhard 4y agoThe cardboard bowl from Whole Foods is likely water-proofed with PFAS. People with PFAS in their blood tend to be overweight or underweight. The body eliminates PFAS very ver slowly. There was a recent study that showed that replacing a person's blood plasma was an effective way to remove PFAS. Keeping it out of the blood seems to be much harder.
- dhosek 4y agoI normally remove the bowl when I microwave just to be safe.
- titzer 4y agoLibertarian me, age 20, is screaming "I'm so glad we let the free market produce whatever they see fit, with little regulation!" Now me, age 42, has eaten an untold amount of everyone else's garbage and can now literally no longer avoid eating the chewed-up-and-spit-out refuse of our bad choices that now cannot be reversed.
- mrtweetyhack 4y ago
- NoblePublius 4y agoNeither this story nor the source for the credit card claim cite the formula for calculating this claim.
- Joyfield 4y agoThe numerous spiders you swallow in your sleep will take care of that.
- toto444 4y agoApparently it's a myth https://www.sleep.org/sleep-questions/debunking-sleep-myths-people-swallow-spiders-sleep/ https://www.sleep.org/sleep-questions/debunking-sleep-myths-...
- Jamie9912 4y agothat was the joke
- wccrawford 4y agoUnfortunately, not everyone knows it's a myth. Many people still believe it.
- andai 4y agoThis article was sponsored by Big Spider.
- dym_sh 4y ago..to take care of all the small spiders who wish to become big one day. no! there will be only one! BIG SPIDER
- alanek2007xD 4y agoIs it me or are the comments haha funny here, like reddit 2.0.
- user_7832 4y agoThe comments here are a bit funny. Much unlike most of reddit comments, which are the same jokes overdone till death.
- mckirk 4y agoA startup selling probiotics containing plastic-eating bacteria, anyone?
- moffkalast 4y agoAs long as you don't spill any and wake up tomorrow with all the plastic in your house eaten.
- yetihehe 4y ago1. Make plastic baby potties. 2. Sell baby food with "probiotic bacteria guarding babies internally against plastic pollution". 3. Profit.
- fsflover 4y agoWho cares about externalities of your business today? /s
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoInterestingly a friend of mine was discussing this with me yesterday and proposed that such a bacteria, if prolific, would be one of the more appealing causes of the end of modern civilization.
- ephbit 4y agoNot gonna happen. Why? Because AFAIK all life on earth uses water as a solvent. Unless your plastic is constantly/regularly exposed to water, bacteria will have almost no chance of catabolizing it.
- thejackgoode 4y agoI wonder how much evolution pressure you must exert onto a living thing for it to start consuming something as complex as plastic. And how many generations past time they are not in the lab anymore they figure out there’s simpler solutions to nutrition, especially in the gut.
- beeforpork 4y agoThis article conflates particles of any size, and often does not even mention sizes, e.g., '28 particles' in a serving of beer? That is imprecise (doesn't mention size) and wrong: probably way to little, as nano particles are used in filtering (clarifying) beer. The articles also doesn't really tell me how to avoid all that plastic. If 40 percent of human diet contains plastic, then there's hope, so which 60 percent do not contain plastic? This would be really helpful to check my own diet for surprises. E.g., I drink only craft beer and make my own ketchup, in order to avoid nano plastics -- but what elephant do I miss? The problem is really serious, so articles about this should take more care to be helpful.
- kingnothing 4y agoCarbonated beverage cans are lined with plastic. It should not be a surprise that microplastics are found in beer.
- joshspankit 4y agoPersonally, I think that in answer to the question of “how to avoid all that plastic?”, the article is leaning more towards “take action to stop the plastic from being produced and added to food in the first place”. While it makes the problem larger from an individual perspective, the alternative of simply trying to avoid it in our own foods would mean that our available foods shrink over time as plastics continue to seep in to more and more places.
- pc86 4y ago> the article is leaning more towards “take action to stop the plastic from being produced and added to food in the first place” Which is kind of nonsense unless someone happens to be CEO of Molson Coors or something. It seems obvious that if you want to avoid ingesting plastic, the clearest path to that is to know what foods are less likely to contain plastic in the first place.
- refurb 4y agoMicro plastics are mostly fibers shed from fabric. So stop buying synthetic or semi-synthetic clothing and only buy cotton or other organic materials.
- barbegal 4y agoThe actual study is here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389420319944?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942... The study presents three scenarios assuming different assumptions about the mass of plastic particles. In the worst case scenario, where I think the assumptions are bad, they estimate 5g of plastic per week. In the other two scenarios which used more complex but more realistic modelling they estimate 0.15 and 0.3g of plastic consumed per week so only a credit card sized amount per year. In these scenarios (0.15g and 0.3g) about 90% they estimate comes from salt.
- hammock 4y agoWhy is there so much in salt?
- Enginerrrd 4y agoLikely because it is derived from seawater which is swimming in tiny plastic particles.
- mrguyorama 4y agoMy understanding that a significant amount of salt that is not advertised as "Sea Salt" is still mined out of the ground.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- maxerickson 4y agoYeah, If I remember right it is pretty much that if you can't see plastic in the water you drink the assumptions that the credit card/week is based on are wrong.
- tomthe 4y agoI can't take anyone seriously who publishes a pie-chart like this: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0304389420319944-gr3_lrg.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S03043894203199...
- tommek4077 4y agoHow much glass do I consume? Or is glass, dust, whatever - any different from plastics?
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoPlenty, same with pollen; the difference is that glass / silica is pretty inert, whereas microplastics release chemicals that according to some research mimic that of hormones. It's one theory behind humans' fertility declining - not just that they have less children, but they produce less sperm and the like.
- MauranKilom 4y agoWell, SiO2 is pretty different from plastic, chemically speaking. And I would expect that we inhale several grams of fine sand dust per week too. In other words, the amount of "glass" entering your body because you drank a beer is probably irrelevant compared to e.g. Sahara dust (if you're in Europe) in the air around you.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoYes and silicate is an environmental component that's well understood and our bodies have adapted to it because sand has been a thing forever. And glass is chemically inert.
- BenoitEssiambre 4y agoDust or soil has thousands of components, metals, bacteria, fungi, molds, organic matter, feces etc. It can give you farmer's lung and other illnesses. Plastic is comparatively inert. Weird that there is not environmental movement to reduce soil from the environment.
- ciphol 4y agoWe evolved to survive breathing in soil.
- 4y ago
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
- Karawebnetwork 4y agoWe had at least one such situation here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/masks-early-pulmonary-toxicity-quebec-schools-daycares-1.5966387 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/masks-early-pulmonar... https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/recalled-masks-were-worn-by-thousands-of-quebec-kids-feds-say-import-rule-wasn-t-followed-1.5388068 https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/recalled-masks-were-worn-by-thou... "coated in a substance called graphene oxide that’s linked to lung disease and is now banned in Canada, at least temporarily."
- mkr-hn 4y agoIt seems like one of the countries where masking while sick and during flu/cold season is common would have some studies on this.
- saalweachter 4y agoYou'd notice it in professional populations, I'd wager. I also assume it would be a confounding factor in any study that involved masks, if it was a significant effect. "Weird, the group that breathed in asbestos for 20 years without wearing a mask had 90% more lung cancer than the masked group, but 20% less XYZ. Does asbestos exposure prevent XYZ?"
- mauvehaus 4y agoDental hygienists might be another group that could be studied, and hopefully one with fewer confounding factors. As an added bonus they're usually (in the Before Times) wearing surgical masks as opposed to a [K]N-95, which is anecdotally a lot more reflective of what the general population is wearing (if they're wearing anything at all). Edited to add: As an added, added bonus, dental hygienist skews heavily female, whereas construction and remediation skews heavily male. Female populations also wouldn't have the confounding factor of facial hair, which interferes with the seal of a respirator. Full disclosure: I type all this while I'm wearing a half-face respirator with P-100 cartridges on it because I'm doing a bunch of sanding today. I also have a goatee. Read into that what you will.
- donthellbanme 4y agoI was thinking about this tonight on my walk. I've been noticing some funny looks at my mask wearing. I usually walk with my mask on. I have done this way before Covid. I used to wear it for allergies. My allergies just felt better when I wore a mask. Tonight I could smell burn't tires on my walk. A older guy happened to be doing a burn out in his Tesla. Yea--I know, not the typical burnout guy. A few Japanese beers might have something to do with the stunt. I left, and thought about why I like to wear a mask. We have so much pollution in the air, it just seems prudent? I'm not even that worried about Covid right now. (I do believe we consume way to much plastic, and other chemicals (Dawn Dish soap has 13 chemicals. Why? It cleans well. I am not a great dishwasher though.) So if you see a "jerk" wearing a mask on Sir Francis Drake look away. I know it bothers some folks.
- swayvil 4y agoMask-wearing is like foot-binding and leeching. Pathological and perverse, perhaps. But also totally cool and in agreement with the experts. It's a window into our psychology. Anthropologists of the future will reap much research papers.
- GabrielMtn 4y agoDo you have any evidence of these claims or is this just more reactionary politicizing of masks?
- swayvil 4y agoExperts agree that there is such a thing as anthropologists.
- danShumway 4y ago> Pathological and perverse, perhaps. But also totally cool and in agreement with the experts. Um... "perverse"? I have a lot less patience for these takes than I used to because at least early on in the pandemic people could convincingly claim that wearing a mask was "cool". There was at least truth to the idea that you would be shamed for not wearing a mask. But that's not the situation anymore -- GP wrote a comment about how they're getting a lot of weird looks in public for wearing a mask to help with pollution. If the response to that is, "what's up with this mask fad?", then I'm not sure you understand how fads or popularity work. Anecdotally, even in a majority Democrat area the majority of people I see in just about every single social situation are not wearing masks, even in enclosed environments and at offices. The majority of retail workers I see don't wear masks. There are maybe 3-6 people total that I've seen in my entire church that wear a mask. And it's not exclusive to Republicans, most Democrats I know are not wearing masks -- to the point where people are far more likely to give funny looks or scowl at others for having one on. As far as I can tell people wearing masks in public are pretty squarely the minority at this point, but the rhetoric against masking never really got updated since the early pandemic so people are still pretending like if they go to an average grocery store without a mask everyone there will judge them over it. GP wears a mask to help with allergies and reduce road pollution -- this is pretty reasonable and would have been reasonable pre-pandemic. I don't understand why anyone would care about someone else making that decision in the first place, let alone why they would care so much that they'd call GP a pervert over it. :)
- dwighttk 4y agoBut my credit card is titanium
- GekkePrutser 4y agoStartup idea: flavoured credit cards!
- macinjosh 4y agoNah, I have Apple Card so mine is titanium.
- 0atman 4y ago
- jacquesm 4y agoThere is this 'caps lock' key on your keyboard, please press it, once.
- karaterobot 4y agoWhat you're yelling about is true: fishing nets, car tires, and carpets are the major sources of microplastics, rather than plastic bags and drinking straws, but you wouldn't know that based on the public discourse. I suppose the reason we focus on the wrong sources is that most people can't brag to their friends about switching their commercial fishing fleet away from plastic gillnets. Most of us don't even have commercial fishing fleets. But, we can buy a metal drinking straw and be seen using it, demonstrating virtuous behavior in a conspicuous way.
- AstralStorm 4y agoThe plastics themselves are only part of the story - they are relatively inert. However chemicals used to plasticize them and prevent fire are not, and some of them are already banned, but we have insufficient days on the replacements used. (Phenolics such as Bisphenol A - have hormonal effects causing direct cancer risk. And other effects too.)
- usrn 4y agoI think it depends on the plastic. "Plastic" just refers to a mechanical property that a lot of different polymers have.
- CyanBird 4y agoAlso, note that while bisphemol A is largely banned from certain food-contact plastics, it has been replaced with other "plasticising" chemicals which are largely "the same" such as bisphemol E, F, S, or AF For the interested https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol Also note n2, variations of vinyl or pvc plastic makes strong use of bisphemols for flexibility, pvc is being used to replace ageing copper or lead piping across the world, it is also largely unexplored the degree to which there is legislation regarding the sourcing and chemical composition of said water pipes over most of the world (as in, if there is a new international hotel building being built in, let's say brazil, what type of water pipe will the construction company use? You honestly think they would use copper everywhere and pay a 5x premium on it, or just use some random pvc pipe embedded on the walls? And then, if it proves to be that the pvc had bisphemol X on it, how would you even fix it? Rip it all up? We are talking of literal concrete bricks. Or just hide it from the public? )
- formerly_proven 4y ago> pvc is being used to replace ageing copper or lead piping across the world PVC for water pipes seems to be a relatively US-only thing as far as I can tell. I don't think it's legal in the EU, for example; plastic piping here is PE-HD.
- devoutsalsa 4y agoWhen I die, just throw me in the recycle bin.
- asdffdsa 4y agoYour body has too much plastic; off to the landfill you go!
- blastonico 4y agoYesterday I shit an American Express
- post_break 4y agoI saw a neat video which I cant find where a guy buys Himalayan salt, puts it under a microscope, and pulls out plastic. It's disturbing how plastic is in the salt and almost impossible to remove.
- TomSwirly 4y agoHow, exactly, would plastic be appearing in rock salt that was laid down millions of years ago?
- adamsmith143 4y agoIt's not as if they are bottling it right at the source, presumably it goes through an industrial process to clean the stuff and get it into containers.
- pixl97 4y agoI would assume it's being added in the supply chain unintentionally on its way to you. You would think that the Himalayas would be presitine, but because of no solid waste systems plastics trash builds up very fast in the environment.
- ehnto 4y agoMy assumption is that because salt is mined and stored in open air, plastic particles from the ocean's non-trivial cache of microplastics being brought up into the atmosphere by evaporation and weather, and from ashes/plastics from trash incineration are potentially finding their way onto the piles. If water is used during the processing of the salts it could be that as well.
- PKop 4y agoFrom the processing that puts it into a package that people can buy, among possible other sources of contamination (ocean water itself).
- Robotbeat 4y agoI actually suspect the plastics are not a big health problem. The exception is inhalation. Inhaling basically anything solid is bad for you. Silicate, dust, smoke, fine plastic particles, flour, pollen, it’s probably all bad for you. https://oem.bmj.com/content/61/2/157 https://oem.bmj.com/content/61/2/157
- danShumway 4y agoIn a slightly different direction than consumption, if you're worried about inhaling plastic particles: I haven't personally gotten the equipment to do actual measurements yet, but I keep pet rats and they have pretty fragile respiratory systems, and anecdotally when I put together a Corsi Rosenthal Box[0] and stuck it next to their cage their allergies/sneezing pretty much entirely vanished. I still need to get air quality measuring equipment and more objectively confirm that it's working, but the research I have read suggests that spending ~$100 to put together a DYI box with good MERV13 filters or higher will solidly outperform the majority of commercial consumer-grade air purifiers out there. And subjectively, I do notice a difference in air quality, although that could be a placebo effect. Regular vacuuming will also help a lot with dust and micro-particles, but that's a lot more work than just plugging in a box fan. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsi%E2%80%93Rosenthal_Box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsi%E2%80%93Rosenthal_Box
- x3iv130f 4y agoConsumer grade filters have nicer fans that let them push move more air with less noise. I have multiple in my house and it's amazing how quiet they are.
- danShumway 4y agoNot to doubt you, but have you actually measured that they're moving the same amount of air? Circulation-to-noise ratio is something that pretty much every fan manufacturer cares about; I'm a little bit skeptical that there's an innovation here that wouldn't be applied to consumer-grade fans in general; or that you wouldn't be able to find a good box fan outside of the entry-level Walmart offerings that doesn't offer the same quality for a cheaper price. The "vornado" fans seem to get recommended a lot in this area, but I don't know if they're actually moving more air or just directing it better. Anecdotally I did look into a few fan options from purifiers that claimed to be silently moving the air, and was pretty disappointed with the specs on what I was seeing. The conclusion I drew was that increasing the size of the unit and the intake area was the best way to allow for reduced fan speed/noise/power-consumption. But it is completely possible that there's something I missed; again I haven't done my own testing.
- twofornone 4y ago>bisphenol A mimics the hormone estrogen and can lead to damage in sperm development.19 Further research has shown that microplastics, and not just those with bisphenol A, can cause damage to the testes and lead to the production of deformed sperm cells that have a harder time reaching eggs. I'd more interested in hearing what microdosing xenestrogens on a large scale does to our collective psychology. I think this is an extremely important but understudied effect. Much like birth control, which is known to influence decision making and behavior, and probably affects collective behaviors like vote outcomes and such. I have a haunch that a number of modern western ills are influenced by or rooted in the psychological influence of BC hormones. We know [0] that fertile women have different preferences in men, different risk tolerance, and different social behavior (increased mate seeking)...imagine what dosing tens of millions of women does to a country's politics? Now imagine dosing the entire population with chemicals that mimic estrogen... 0. https://magazine.tcu.edu/fall-2020/hormonal-birth-control-brain/ https://magazine.tcu.edu/fall-2020/hormonal-birth-control-br...
- JohnWhigham 4y agoRead Dr. Shanna Swan's new book, it's all about this. Very scary shit
- alexsundance 4y agoObviously prevention is better than treatment, but my suggestion for men would be to get tested to check their hormone levels and do Enclomiphene to address their deficiency https://www.maximustribe.com/science https://www.maximustribe.com/science
- stuckinhell 4y agoIt could explain the rise of trans women too. It's honestly quite frightening to think we are unknowingly modifying ourselves at such a scale.
- unix_fan 4y agoI have to question that claim. Poor countries eat plastic two, yet we don’t see the same cultural phenomenon‘s here.
- zerop 4y agoIf we all are against usage of plastic, what stops us from eliminating it completely around us.
- Sebb767 4y agoProbably most people don't have a strong opinion on eliminating plastic and even in that subgroup, few would be willing to pay the price (both in utility and literal price) to avoid plastic. In fact, if you're willing to go to a shop offering unpackaged goods, you can already eliminate a lot of plastic in your life.
- karaterobot 4y agoWe aren't. We're against some of the predicted negative consequences of plastic waste, but we like plastic. It's cheap, and incredibly useful. Plastic goods enable the world we live in. For example, it would be interesting to see a mouse, and keyboard, and monitor housing made out of bronze, or wood, or cast iron, but I bet they would be worse in pretty much every other way — heavier, harder to shape, and very expensive not only because of the cost of materials, but because they'd take so much more work to make. When I look around at all the plastic stuff around me, I think that some of it is unnecessary, but much of it isn't. Some of the necessary stuff could be made out of other materials, but much of it couldn't. At least not very well, and not at a price many people could afford. Better for us if we can figure out a way to effectively recycle plastic, and capture microplastic in the wild.
- TheRealNGenius 4y agoI just want to clarify that the "we" in parent post does not include me personally, and I was not consulted on this matter prior by parent commenter. Thank you all for coming to my ted talk.
- pixl97 4y ago#1 on the list would be the coca cola corporation. They fight anything that would reduce plastic waste viciously. #2 on the list is everybody else. Once you start looking at what is made out of plastics you'll realise the modern world is completely dependant on it. The use of plastics on food and medical devices dramatically reduces bacterial contaminantes saving millions of people a year from sickness. It's used on structural components of all kinds of device to reduce weight, thereby decreasing energy usage. It is a very difficult problem to solve.
- verisimi 4y ago> You Eat a Credit’s Card Worth of Plastic Every Week I'm pretty sure I don't. I'm not a subscriber (I can't read the article), but I take it that these plastics are so small we can't see them... How do I even test this claim? Do I get my microscope and look at salt? Cos I have.. and I don't see fibres or anything.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- PhoenixDavidson 4y agoRelevant: https://www.gq.com/story/how-testosterone-therapies-are-transforming-aging https://www.gq.com/story/how-testosterone-therapies-are-tran... "While Devgon was wondering what was wrong, he started reading about the increasingly prominent theory that toxins in pesticides and plastics are throwing off men’s endocrine systems—and he started to wonder about his own testosterone levels." Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31435864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31435864
- throw8383833jj 4y ago>> When it comes to eating microplastics, scientists have documented plastic particles in about 40 percent of the human diet, including beer, honey, salt, and seafood I was surprised about the honey. Geezz. Anyways, i've got about 35 fruit trees, and 90 berry bushes in the backyard and I plan to eat primarily from that as soon as they generate enough food..
- glenneroo 4y agoAFAIK that probably won't help you much as rain also contains plastic particles, which is also why all bodies of water tested (so far), even underground, contain plastic.
- throw8383833jj 4y agowe don't get rain 10 months of the year. Irrigate from city water. do the fruit contain plastic?