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Comment by afarah | Hacker News Reader

Leaving aside the environmental damage, which is obvious albeit somewhat sensationalized in this comment, how is said plastic actually harming human health today?

The article from Scientific America in the comment refers to the harm plastic can have in other animals in words such as "may", "might", "could". Has there been any study on how it is, now and actually, harming our health? Any measurements, case studies, or collective data from people suffering from any sort of disease related to plastic pollution?

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> words such as "may", "might", "could".

It's Earth, not a deployment you can rollback, we don't get to play that game.

We're talking hundreds or thousands of years before we'll know how bad we fucked up. Almost every life forms on the planet are linked one way or another, every changes has an impact.

Remember when DDT, asbestos and lead plumbing were harmless to humans ? Then they were classified as "could" be dangerous or "may" be harmful. Now they're straight up banned everywhere.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5918521/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4780651/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-huma...

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-dangerous-are-mic...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor

https://environmentjournal.online/articles/microplastic-poll...

>It's Earth, not deployment you can rollback, we don't get to play that game.

>We're talking hundreds or thousands of years before we'll know how bad we fucked up. Almost every life forms on the planet are linked one way or another, every changes has an impact.

>Remember when DDT, asbestos and lead plumbing were harmless to humans ? Then they were classified as "could" be dangerous or "may" be harmful. Now they're straight up banned everywhere.

This is exactly the kind of emotional appeals the GP is complaining about. There are tons of different substances you come into contact with on a day to day basis. Most of them will not be harmful in any reasonable quantity. If paper or cotton clothing was invented today the parchment and wool industries would be talking up how it's not proven to not be harmful. Yes, some plastics are probably bad even in small concentrations. Just from a common sense point of view it's highly unlikely that all plastics are bad in all concentrations. No you shouldn't ingest it intentionally. Yes, I'd like to see less plastics in the world. No I don't think it's going to be a massive future problem. If it really does turn out to be a serious problem we'll find a way to solve it. Remember when CFCs were going to deplete the ozone and give us all skin cancer?

I hate to be that guy but, did you read any of the links I provided ? It's not as if a weird hippie guy was predicting the end of the world. It's scientifically proven, measurable, it's right here, right now. And it's just the beginning of a very long process.

I read the first few and skimmed the rest. Yes plastics are a problem, the same way that smog in cities (mostly solved in developed nations) and CFCs were problems. None of them present an existential crisis to humanity. Sure we might spend a fraction of a percentage of global wealth dealing with the trade-offs of spewing plastic everywhere but we'll be fine in the long run.

> Sure we might spend a fraction of a percentage of global wealth dealing with the trade-offs of spewing plastic everywhere but we'll be fine in the long run.

If you look at each large scale environmental issue in isolation, sure, there's a chance that it will be mitigated down the line.

But at what cost in the mean time?

Because this stuff is hitting vital and fragile ecosystems now at scales unprecedented.

Might I remind you that we are well into a mass extinction that shows no signs of slowing down?

With regard to microplastics, it's only a matter of time before we microbes learn to digest them. Those little guys are gonna be everybodies' best friends.

Because of the likelihood that microbes will be learning to eat plastic pretty soon, I don't see microplastics as being quite as daunting of a problem, in isolation.

But I take issue with your casual attitude and prioritization of humanity over the larger ecologies that humanity evolved in and depends on.

We absolutely need to be alert about this and other ecologically issues collectively.

> the same way that smog in cities (mostly solved in developed nations) and CFCs were problems.

"were" ?

Unless you live in the country side it _is_ an immediate problem to your health and a time bomb for the planet.

https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/

> mostly solved in developed nations

That's exactly the type of thinking that will destroy us. It's always China, or Russia, or developing countries, or your neighbours, or the damn democrats/republicans. Nobody wants to take responsibility. Let's continue to act like 8 years old while our home is slowly burning.

I think their point was that technological advancements have 'solved' the problem of smog in the cities that have the legal and physical infrastructure (i.e. developed) to implement the solutions. They did not seem to be saying that pollution is someone else's fault.

I live it one of these cities. In California. Beautiful landscape. Fields and mountains and ocean. My car is always covered in filth from the air. As is my balcony. I often stand atop a mountain and look out over the thick, visible layer of smog that tops the city - a city that has made vast progress in the last 4 decades. That progress has gotten us from nearly inhabitable to simply disgusting and unhealthy. Where are these solutions, exactly?

I don't live in a city with a smog problem, and this is not my area of expertise. I was just clarifying what I thought @dsfyu404ed was saying, since it seemed to me that @lm28469 had taken it out of context and jumped to a nasty reply that wasn't really pertinent to what was being claimed.

You could argue that @dsfu404ed's reply was actually way "nastier", as nonchalant as their attitude was, in the sense that it downplays the effects of "nasty" pollution in general.

Not sure how to reply to you directly @welearndnothing, I think we reached max depth?

That's the way I took it as well. And it is true in some places. When I first moved to the Los Angeles area long ago it was quite smoggy. But look at it now http://aqicn.org/city/los-angeles/ (all green = aqi reading less than 50).

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952 -- CFCs are on the rise again.

First we have to wait for the science, then we have to wait for the establishment to deny the science, then we have to wait for the establishment to lobby against the science. In the post-truth, post-science zeitgeist, should we acquiesce to all these demands?

We got lucky with CFCs because there was a cheap alternative, so the industry didn't really push against it. We are seeing a very different outcome with climate change, and now we enter another very similar debate with microplastics.

> * If it really does turn out to be a serious problem we'll find a way to solve it.*

We can only dodge so many bullets, that is even if we can dodge the current bullet. If society can only solve problems after they become a tragedy, it just takes a slow building tragedy to end it.

> This is exactly the kind of emotional appeals the GP is complaining about.

According to the book “Emotional Intelligence” rational thought and emotion are two sides of the same coin.

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sites/default/files/cstream...

> Remember when DDT, asbestos and lead plumbing were harmless to humans ? Then they were classified as "could" be dangerous or "may" be harmful. Now they're straight up banned everywhere.

DDT is banned for agricultural use, but is still permitted (and used) for vector control (ex: controlling mosquitos).

Asbestos is banned in many applications, but still has permitted uses in the US, although there's an open proposal to further restrict use [1]

I wasn't able to find any evidence of permitted use of new lead plumbing, however; so that one might be straight up banned.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/us-federal-bans-asbestos#notban...

I'm more concerned about runaway warming at the moment.

> Any measurements, case studies, or collective data from people suffering from any sort of disease related to plastic pollution?

Plasticizers are endocrine disruptors. Sperms counts have been decreasing world-wide for decades (if you're male, your sperm count is almost certainly significantly lower than your father's), and epidemiologists believe plastics in the environment are the cause.[0]

[0] https://www.gq.com/story/sperm-count-zero

Seems like that might solve the problem then. Lower fertility leading to decrease in population and less pollution. Only being slightly sarcastic.

Has there been any study on how it is, now and actually, harming our health? Any measurements, case studies, or collective data from people suffering from any sort of disease related to plastic pollution?

No.

Note that this does not mean they're safe. It means we don't know if they're safe, or the extent to which they're harmful if they're dangerous. It goes from "we got lucky, it's all going to be fine" to "literally everyone will die from the plastics equivalent of asbestosis in the near future". If that doesn't scare the living shit out of you then you've misunderstood the scale of the problem.

This is utterly bizarre. Do you literally believe no epidemiological study of the effects of plastics on human health has occurred?

Googling epidemiological study of the effects of plastics on human health is a decent place to start.

Asking about it here on hn is very definitely not.

Do you literally believe no epidemiological study of the effects of plastics on human health has occurred?

The question was about plastic pollution, and specifically the effect of micro plastic particulates on humans. I couldn't find anything after a cursory search, although to be honest I don't really know what terms I should be searching for.

But the environment is full of particulate matter. To fasten on this stuff as a special threat is, unreasonable? Sensationalist? Unscientific?

Personally I have only so much emotional energy to spend, and I spend it on real issues. Not made-up ones.

In all honesty, you're probably right to not waste (a lot of) energy worrying about it. The best you can do is not use many plastics and advocate for better policies to reduce, reuse, and recycle the plastics are out there, as well as cleanup programs for the huge problems like the macroplastics in the ocean currently.

As for "the environment is full of tons of stuff", microplastics are pretty new to the biosphere, so who knows what we should suspect? Personally I think microplastics are bad at all scales, and it'll just get worse. They weaken individuals, species, and whole ecosystems right as we're delivering them a big punch in the gut with habitat destruction, overfishing, and climate change. Are they what's going to kill the world? Nah, maybe only #4 on the list. Only!

If we treat microplastics as a symptom of business-as-usual, then they are a marker, and we can think of them as the canary in the coal mine. Entropically, we dug up a bunch of dead stuff and either burned it into the air or refined it into plastic, which we are now mixing into the biosphere at all scales. What other effluents are we dispersing that will have unwanted effects?

Structurally, we concentrate exotic materials and then disperse them. Nothing like that has ever happened at global scale to life before. The economic changes to achieve a system that doesn't make this its default trend are almost unthinkable. That's what I see as the real #4 (or whatever) on the list.

No, maybe #220, if they're on the list at all. An nth-order effect.

It is by no means unreasonable or unscientific to suspect whether plastics in your stool, the air and water around is a special threat. Animal studies have shown cause for concern. Sensationalist? Perhaps.

I've used this information to try to eke out my single use plastic use. (Use of single use plastic? single plastic use?)

Here's a study:http://www.fao.org/3/a-i7677e.pdf

The cause for concern?

"Adverse effects of microplastics ingestion have only been observed in aquatic organisms under laboratory conditions, usually at very high exposure concentrations that exceed present environmental concentrations by several orders of magnitude"

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Weirdly, as a scientist by training, I am quite unscientific when it comes to these kinds of things. Nature is exquisitely subtle and it can be really hard to "measure" these things when you may not even know what to measure for.

That said, I know full well that physiological chemistry can be sensitive with reaped to down isotopic distributions due to competing kinetic pathways, even though isotopes are supposed to "behave the same". Meanwhile, we're just about realizing that gut fauna can influence a bunch of stuff that ought to be "orthogonal".

So when it comes to wide scale exposure to things like this I typically keep an open mind because biology is crazy complex and most our models are woefully simplistic.

In any case global spread of microplastics can't really be good...

Whoops s/"can be sensitive with reaped to"/"can be sensitive"

Microplastics have a large surface area, and that gets covered with other pollutants.

Animals eat the plastic (which can pass through them without much harm, or can get lodged in their guts causing harm to that animal). When the animal has eaten the plastic they're also eating the other contaminents, and these get taken up b y the animal and anything that eats the animal.

I think the point is that we might not know the dangers, but regardless of if they are dangerous, they are here. So figuring out the danger is just a matter of telling us how screwed we are, when we usually want to find ways to prevent a possible disaster in advance.

It is a bit fatalistic. We still have to care about things not getting worse and all degrees of severity matter.

Allergies, asthma and autoimmune disease rates are skyrocketing and it's not at all clear as to why.

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