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I have my doubts that microplastic/nanoplastic exposure is something that the average person in industrialized countries can individually lifestyle-choice their
by 0xcde4c3db 3y ago
I have my doubts that microplastic/nanoplastic exposure is something that the average person in industrialized countries can individually lifestyle-choice their way out of. This is just one vector out of dozens (if not hundreds), most of which haven't been studied so closely. Plastic pollution is a systemic problem, and has been for decades.
- kristopolous 3y agoYou can reduce (or increase!) your exposure to it through individual action though.
- 0xcde4c3db 3y agoI'm sure there's some set of lifestyle choices that would lead to a measurable reduction, but whether that reduction matters practically is a different question.
- kristopolous 3y agook, but have people's individual habits on tobacco consumption reduced the non-smokers exposure to it? These things can make a difference in large enough numbers. It's not irrelevant at scale.
- dwaite 3y agoIf the scale winds up being that eliminating my microwave usage and throwing out plastic containers from my house entirely reduces my plastic consumption 1 %, then I wasted a whole bunch of time and money, and distracted myself from trying to find ways that _would_ reduce plastic consumption (say, filtration on municipal water - but who knows). Single source municipal recycling is typically a process of sorting and selling certain kinds of waste to other people, with little processing happening locally. This process is way more wasteful than people would like to think, with changing and opaque rules about what is acceptable and what will wind up just being thrown away. I'd give that as an example of a policy that promotes a certain amount of effort to make people FEEL like they are making a difference, vs actually making a significant difference.
- kristopolous 3y agoEvery journey begins with a first step. You don't have to do anything and there's no shame in that. Just don't disrespect the people who do.
- eviks 3y agoand that reduction may have 0 effect :(
- kristopolous 3y agoit's definitionally non-zero. control what you have control over.
- Hackbraten 3y agoThis so much. It’s a little like democratic elections. A single vote has negligible impact, but all those single votes combined? They have the power to make or break the future of a country. An individual decision not to use plastic is not unlike that.
- dwaite 3y agoThis implies that my use or not affects other people and not solely myself. Awaiting numbers as to how much plastics in the water which comes out of my tap is from washed microwaved plastics.
- eviks 3y agoThen change your definition to something useful. I care about impact on human health, so if you reduce (via personal choice) exposure by 1 out of 10, but 5 is enough to seriously impact you and anything above 5 but below 100 has no additional impact, then you've achieved 0
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago> anything above 5 but below 100 has no additional impact not sure where you got this part from, but your entire argument depends on it being true, and it isn't reminds me of the people who said facemasks and vaccines do nothing (meaning literally 0% effect) because they weren't 100% perfect virus force fields
- 3y ago
- aradox66 3y agoI think OPs argument is that tackling microplastic exposure through personal choices like microwave use, etc, may be unlikely to make a significant dent in overall microplastic consumption, if it's in all the food, all the water, the soil, the air, the bedsheets, the flooring, etc etc.
- tempest_ 3y agoBasically all food comes in plastic now a days. There are still people surprised to find out that the aluminum or steel can they get food out of is coated internally. This article is talking about heating plastic in a microwave which is something a lot of people do but I suspect fewer people have unloaded skids from the back of a tractor trailer in the summer. That stuff that is at room temp on the grocery store shelve has gone through a tone of heat cool cycles before it makes it to you.
- kristopolous 3y agosure, plastic coating is not what those consumers wanted but some goals take time to reach. Let's not dismiss people who are making sincere efforts. For instance, I've been using reusable shopping bags for 25 years and buy most of my food through farmers market, never touching plastic bags or packaging in the whole lifecycle. That's probably at least 10,000 fewer plastic bags. Sure there's some wasteful people that probably use that in a month, I see how people shop. This isn't a virtue contest - it's a lifestyle commitment just like deciding not to smoke for health reasons. At scale these things have impact. Also I'm not anti-plastic - I just don't like making a bunch of trash and appreciate higher quality materials.
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- b112 3y agoBedsheets indeed! After all, isn't polyester essentially a variant of plastic?
- 3y ago
- patmorgan23 3y agoWhat size/impact does personal choice have. Plastics are so prevelant is the impact 1% or 50%. If the former your choices don't really matter that much, the latter they might.
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- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoThis falls into the category of "the tiny bit of extra safety I may gain is not worth the huge amount of inconvenience that it causes." Even if I were to stop putting stuff in the microwave, that won't account for all the other foods I eat outside the home that may have had microwaving as part of their preparation process. I mean, I'll take a frozen package of ribs out of the freezer and microwave it for a minute so the surface softens enough for me to cut the plastic and peel it off before thawing or brining the meat. No, I think I'll just take my chances and not have yet one more thing to stress out about.
- ip26 3y agoA quick warm water bath serves a similar purpose while often giving me better results.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoIt was just an example, but since you mentioned it, that perfectly points out what I meant about convenience. I can stick a package of meat in the microwave and hit a couple buttons and then go do something else instead of running water for a few seconds until it heats up, possibly having to fill the sink or a bowl and put the meat in. All of which takes more time and effort for basically the same result.
- ip26 3y agoI find it more convenient to use water because I have to watch the thawing meat in the microwave like a hawk; it’s very easy to cook the edges on accident. The center also stays more frozen. To each their own.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoAgain, I'm not thawing meat!!! I'm making it easier to remove from the packaging.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
- yyyk 3y agoYou (the average person) can't choose your way out or really be safe - but you can at least avoid doing the equivalent of putting your head in the lion’s mouth. At least most of the time. It's not that difficult to use non-plastic kitchenware, or learning to not put plastic in a microwave (or come to think of it: any cooking) at least 99% of the time.
- ibejoeb 3y agoThe article suggests that heating certain plastics to the softening point significantly increases the amount of plastic shed into the food. Despite being only one vector, it could be a very high magnitude. So if you were to make any choice about it, this would be a good candidate, if the claim is true.
- scottLobster 3y agoWhy so binary? Are you one of those people who, during wildfire smoke, goes outside and smokes cigars because "well the air's already smokey so what's an extra cigar?". Yeah, and now you're breathing in wildfire smoke in addition to that cigar, that doesn't make it better. I intentionally use stainless steel cookware, a stainless steel thermos (although there's plastic in the cap/spout), and glass containers for meal prep/food storage. I use this stuff on a daily basis, so any bio-accumulation will add up. Just because I can't 100% lifestyle-choice my way out of microplastics contamination doesn't mean I can't 20 or 40% lifestyle-choice my way out, and it's 99% as convenient.
- uoaei 3y agoI think I've said it on this site before in similar context, but: A good friend of mine who used to do hazardous waste disposal said the industry developed a winning mantra: mitigation, not elimination. Or to put it in more familiar terms, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
- SCSIfloppy 3y agoYou can significantly reduce it easily. Don't heat things in plastic, don't buy hot food or beverages served in plastic or "bamboo / paper," stop using K-cups, etc.
- dwaite 3y agoReduced what percentage? What is the health impact of that percentage? What are other sources and do they have a higher percentage/health impact?
- SCSIfloppy 3y agoWith something that's poison, reducing your intake just a bit is probably the best thing you can do. We know about vapor and outgassing and how temperature affects this. You don't need "sources" just a basic high school level understanding of chemistry to understand these things. I don't need a source to tell me water boils. There are reams of information out there about how age affects plastics, and how. It's all based on basic chemistry.
- magarnicle 3y agoWhat about clothes?
- dqv 3y ago>can individually lifestyle-choice their way out of >Plastic pollution is a systemic problem, and has been for decades. Sorry, this gets uncritically repeated so much that it's bordering on propaganda. Like it's just doing free work for oil companies at this point. This kind of stuff is exactly what I'd say as someone working for an oil company's social media team after realizing that individual choice is not something that happens in a vacuum. Corporate propaganda on the personal-carbon-footprint issue backfired - they thought they would be able to demoralize people, but it slowly grew into a movement that continues to grow. It's honestly kind of funny they thought people wouldn't attach their morality to decisions about environmental destruction. "individual lifestyle choices don't cause systemic change" is a bastardization of the original concept. And it's actually doing the original intent of corporations - to demoralize people about seeking an oilless future. The original concept was that one should not feel guilty if they can't make an individual lifestyle choice because something is preventing them from doing so. It was never meant to demoralize people from using their own moral compass to decide not to participate in certain behaviors. I don't get why "I want to use less petroleum-derived products and eventually none at all" is exempt from spreading through the social network as a worthwhile idea when literally everything else does. Again, people aren't individually responsible for the systemic results of their choices, but their individual choices do create signals that result in systemic change. Our choices don't operate in a vacuum, our peers, friends, and family all look at what we do; their peers, friends, and family do the same.
- pessimizer 3y agoThis objection is obviously rote, and is entirely misplaced. Not microwaving plastic isn't a moral failure, it's a safety hazard due to the plastic falling apart. But if everything you consume is full of microplastics, then worrying about these microplastics is likely a waste of time. Saying that the environment is so full of microplastics that conscious efforts to avoid them will be a waste of time is the opposite of excusing companies for filling the environment with microplastics. It's saying that the only thing that will be effective is to attack the sources rather than lifestyling your way out of it. You've confused health for morality, then gone on to give a lecture about it.
- 3y ago
- ashildr 3y agoI quit smoking about 20 years ago though I’m living in the city next to a major road. I don’t see your point. I cook at least 50% of my warm meals myself and I learned to prepare meals in advance and to freeze or sterilize them. Not so much to save money but because I prefer good food with known ingredients. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to reduce my intake of microplastics by further phasing out the plastic containers I usually use and use relatively cheap glass containers.