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Considering how ubiquitous plastics are, they look rather harmless to me. We are wasting hundreds of millions of tons per year, we eat it, drink it, we have be

by GuB-42 3y ago

Considering how ubiquitous plastics are, they look rather harmless to me. We are wasting hundreds of millions of tons per year, we eat it, drink it, we have been doing that for decades and we are still discussing statistical signifiance. Sure, not completely harmless, but few things are. And considering the tremendous value plastics have brought to society, I'd say the downsides are comparatively small. What worries me more than human poisoning the article is about is the effect of microplastics on marine life, as it is less studied than people and there is some evidence that the physical (more than chemical) properties of plastic particle might be damaging. It doesn't mean there isn't something to be done. Proper waste management is the obvious one, and I don't mean anything fancy, I mean "do not empty you trash in nature" thing that is unfortunately much too common, especially in developing countries. Properly managed landfills would probably solve 90% of the plastics problems. Reducing disposable plastic is, I think, generally a good thing, but not before making sure the alternative is not worse, and of course making sure that "disposable plastic", is not "throw it in nature plastic". We should also research better plastics: make sure the durable ones are actually durable, and that the disposable ones degrade properly, also consider the petrochemical industry that backs it up and maybe switch to more sustainable sources.

rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
If you actually read the article before commenting: > The hazards of ingesting large pieces of plastic are pretty straightforward; they include choking and perforation of the intestinal tract. Animals that fill their guts with plastics eventually starve to death. The risks posed by microplastics are subtler, but not, Simon argues, any less serious. Plastics are made from by-products of oil and gas refining; many of the chemicals involved, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, are carcinogens. In addition to their main ingredients, plastics may contain any number of additives. Many of these—for example, polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs, which confer water resistance—are also suspected carcinogens. Many of the others have never been adequately tested. Honestly it’s not surprising that scientists are worried about the harmful effects of plastics to human health because the introduction of many substances non-native to the human body brings about some kind of long-term illness as a negative reaction. Just because you can’t detect it with your senses and within a short time frame doesn’t mean that a phenomenon is not happening. People could really do more with questioning their opinions more than just jumping straight into availing of their freedom of speech.
- GuB-42 3y ago
  I was actually reacting the the hyperbolic title "plastics are poisoning us". And while the article is more nuanced and rather well researched, the subtext essentially "ban plastics", and judging by most of the comments here, that's what most people took away. My argument is essentially that while it is perfectly normal and expected that researchers study the health risks associated with plastics, and that it is just as expected that we address the issues we discover, we have to make sure the solution is not worse than the problem. And since plastics are what I believe to be relatively harmless for the massive and careless use we make of them, I think it is an important consideration.
  - luxuryballs 3y ago
    How could even the most extreme of plastic bans be worse? I imagine not being able to cheat death here and there as the most significant loss, other than what, less convenience? The world wasn’t significantly worse without plastic.
- gene-h 3y ago
  >Plastics are made from by-products of oil and gas refining; many of the chemicals involved, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, are carcinogens. This is like arguing that table salt is dangerous because one of the chemicals involved, chlorine, is a chemical warfare agent. Despite the title of the article, they don't provide much evidence of plastic actually poisoning people outside of plastic recyclers and textile workers.
  - rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
    Chlorine is a basic chemical element and benzene and vinyl chloride are compounds. You made a counter-argument so devoid of intellectual rigor that your examples do not even compare. Also, what are you saying that there’s no evidence? Even if it’s not in the article (which is an opinion piece, not a scientific journal), then you should have had the diligence to look up the claims before taking a stance? Plenty of objective sources cited in their Wikipedia articles alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_chloride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_chloride
stef25 3y ago
There's microplastics which are now absolutely everywhere. Apparently we consume a credit card's worth of plastic per month. Nobody should feel ok about consuming a drink that's got a ground up credit card in it, yet that's what we're doing. In Asia especially it's crazy how plastic is often used - you go to a 7/11 to buy a cold drink, they put it in TWO flimsy plastic bags which you throw in the first trash can you come across. So the thing has a useful lifetime of under a minute. They also give you a plastic straw, wrapped in plastic which goes in the trash a few minutes later. All that stuff is produced in a dirty process and will linger in the environment for way too long.
- iso1631 3y ago
  > There's microplastics which are now absolutely everywhere. Apparently we consume a credit card's worth of plastic per month. Nobody should feel ok about consuming a drink that's got a ground up credit card in it, yet that's what we're doing. And what's the effect? We've been doing this for decades?
  - yadingus 3y ago
    I think you severely underestimate not only how long effects can take to show, but how long and complicated it can be to fund good long term scientific studies. There's this belief that if something has an effect, it'll just show up magically on the news after the minimum amount of time, without taking into account all the hurdles people have to go through to research. Even if you didn't have powerful companies with interests against the research being published, it would be complicated.
    - jcutrell 3y ago
      I think the point is that we don’t see the major spikes that the ubiquitousness of plastics combined with the alarm levels raised by headlines like this would theoretically produce. If plastics are indeed poisoning us, the hazard ratio seems to be small enough that it would require significant research to quantify. Compare to, say, the lung cancer skyrocket that happened in the 70s-90s from the 30-year smoking habits developed in the 40s-60s. With plastics, either the lag time for effects is really long, the effects themselves are so spread out that any meaningful bump for a single one is hard to identify, or we are reducing other causes of the same issues in lock step.
whyoh 3y ago
>we eat it, drink it, we have been doing that for decades ... Not at this rate. And we're probably still many years away from peak microplastics in our food and water.
mint2 3y ago
coincidentally we have a lot of diseases that have skyrocketed in the last 50 years. Yes Perhaps it’s not plastic itself but what plastic enables.
- topikk 3y ago
  As usual, its difficult to nail these attributions down for a long time. Look at arsenic-containing green wallpaper, leaded gasoline, asbestos, and CFCs. They were all "fine" and widely-used until it was obvious that they were terrible.
cubefox 3y ago
Maybe some type of microplastics / endocrine disruptor is responsible for increased cancer rates, increase in autism and ADHD, increase in gender dysphoria, increase in obesity etc. This is really hard to prove since we breathe and drink that stuff for many decades now. But it's not that we need plastics that urgently. Synthetic fibers in clothes, which generate microplastics household dust, could be largely replaced with cotton. Plastic food packaging could be replaced with a modern variant of cellophane. Car tires (which also generate major amounts of dust) could perhaps also be made to a higher percentage of biodegradable material. Of course all these alternatives aren't free, but maybe they are worth it.

by GuB-42 3y ago

rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago

If you actually read the article before commenting: > The hazards of ingesting large pieces of plastic are pretty straightforward; they include choking and perforation of the intestinal tract. Animals that fill their guts with plastics eventually starve to death. The risks posed by microplastics are subtler, but not, Simon argues, any less serious. Plastics are made from by-products of oil and gas refining; many of the chemicals involved, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, are carcinogens. In addition to their main ingredients, plastics may contain any number of additives. Many of these—for example, polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs, which confer water resistance—are also suspected carcinogens. Many of the others have never been adequately tested. Honestly it’s not surprising that scientists are worried about the harmful effects of plastics to human health because the introduction of many substances non-native to the human body brings about some kind of long-term illness as a negative reaction. Just because you can’t detect it with your senses and within a short time frame doesn’t mean that a phenomenon is not happening. People could really do more with questioning their opinions more than just jumping straight into availing of their freedom of speech.

GuB-42 3y ago
I was actually reacting the the hyperbolic title "plastics are poisoning us". And while the article is more nuanced and rather well researched, the subtext essentially "ban plastics", and judging by most of the comments here, that's what most people took away. My argument is essentially that while it is perfectly normal and expected that researchers study the health risks associated with plastics, and that it is just as expected that we address the issues we discover, we have to make sure the solution is not worse than the problem. And since plastics are what I believe to be relatively harmless for the massive and careless use we make of them, I think it is an important consideration.
- luxuryballs 3y ago
  How could even the most extreme of plastic bans be worse? I imagine not being able to cheat death here and there as the most significant loss, other than what, less convenience? The world wasn’t significantly worse without plastic.
gene-h 3y ago
>Plastics are made from by-products of oil and gas refining; many of the chemicals involved, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, are carcinogens. This is like arguing that table salt is dangerous because one of the chemicals involved, chlorine, is a chemical warfare agent. Despite the title of the article, they don't provide much evidence of plastic actually poisoning people outside of plastic recyclers and textile workers.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
  Chlorine is a basic chemical element and benzene and vinyl chloride are compounds. You made a counter-argument so devoid of intellectual rigor that your examples do not even compare. Also, what are you saying that there’s no evidence? Even if it’s not in the article (which is an opinion piece, not a scientific journal), then you should have had the diligence to look up the claims before taking a stance? Plenty of objective sources cited in their Wikipedia articles alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_chloride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_chloride

stef25 3y ago

There's microplastics which are now absolutely everywhere. Apparently we consume a credit card's worth of plastic per month. Nobody should feel ok about consuming a drink that's got a ground up credit card in it, yet that's what we're doing. In Asia especially it's crazy how plastic is often used - you go to a 7/11 to buy a cold drink, they put it in TWO flimsy plastic bags which you throw in the first trash can you come across. So the thing has a useful lifetime of under a minute. They also give you a plastic straw, wrapped in plastic which goes in the trash a few minutes later. All that stuff is produced in a dirty process and will linger in the environment for way too long.

iso1631 3y ago
> There's microplastics which are now absolutely everywhere. Apparently we consume a credit card's worth of plastic per month. Nobody should feel ok about consuming a drink that's got a ground up credit card in it, yet that's what we're doing. And what's the effect? We've been doing this for decades?
- yadingus 3y ago
  I think you severely underestimate not only how long effects can take to show, but how long and complicated it can be to fund good long term scientific studies. There's this belief that if something has an effect, it'll just show up magically on the news after the minimum amount of time, without taking into account all the hurdles people have to go through to research. Even if you didn't have powerful companies with interests against the research being published, it would be complicated.
  - jcutrell 3y ago
    I think the point is that we don’t see the major spikes that the ubiquitousness of plastics combined with the alarm levels raised by headlines like this would theoretically produce. If plastics are indeed poisoning us, the hazard ratio seems to be small enough that it would require significant research to quantify. Compare to, say, the lung cancer skyrocket that happened in the 70s-90s from the 30-year smoking habits developed in the 40s-60s. With plastics, either the lag time for effects is really long, the effects themselves are so spread out that any meaningful bump for a single one is hard to identify, or we are reducing other causes of the same issues in lock step.

whyoh 3y ago

>we eat it, drink it, we have been doing that for decades ... Not at this rate. And we're probably still many years away from peak microplastics in our food and water.

mint2 3y ago

coincidentally we have a lot of diseases that have skyrocketed in the last 50 years. Yes Perhaps it’s not plastic itself but what plastic enables.

topikk 3y ago
As usual, its difficult to nail these attributions down for a long time. Look at arsenic-containing green wallpaper, leaded gasoline, asbestos, and CFCs. They were all "fine" and widely-used until it was obvious that they were terrible.

cubefox 3y ago

Maybe some type of microplastics / endocrine disruptor is responsible for increased cancer rates, increase in autism and ADHD, increase in gender dysphoria, increase in obesity etc. This is really hard to prove since we breathe and drink that stuff for many decades now. But it's not that we need plastics that urgently. Synthetic fibers in clothes, which generate microplastics household dust, could be largely replaced with cotton. Plastic food packaging could be replaced with a modern variant of cellophane. Car tires (which also generate major amounts of dust) could perhaps also be made to a higher percentage of biodegradable material. Of course all these alternatives aren't free, but maybe they are worth it.