Babies are full of microplastics, new research shows
euronews.com
euronews.com
I would like to see how the average amount of microplastics differs in babies by race/class/location. Had to buy a non plastic baby toy for a friend recently and that was by no means cheap compared to the alternatives in the same aisle.
I worry babies who grow up in low income and low resourced homes. Not only might suffer from under nutrition as they grow older, but the as yet not fully understood developmental effects of microplastics in the system of a developing child.
Further studies are always a good thing in any case.
Is it? Is there any research showing this?
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=micr...
> The knowledge on the adverse effects on human health due to the consumption of marine organisms containing microplastics is very limited, difficult to assess and still controversial.
I'm not sure that really answers the question you responded to.
It doesn’t mean there isn’t any reason to look at the potential risks; on the contrary, the sooner we acknowledge the risks and take steps to mitigate them, the sooner we have pre-empted any possible health outcomes, independent of what exactly the cause and effect turns out to be.
That is, unless you really, really believe microplastics are somehow good for you.
> It doesn’t mean there isn’t any reason to look at the potential risks
Yes, that is what the careful wording actually implies. If you'd been more careful with your reading then you could've saved writing the first 2 paragraphs.
> That is, unless you really, really believe microplastics are somehow good for you.
You provided some evidence (that is a generous description) wrapped in some snark that didn't back up your claims. What I believe has nothing to do with that, and to intimate that my assessment is based on belief is absurd, I read the results you "provided" - believers don't tend to bother with facts that might contradict them.
Be more careful with your words in future, that'd be my advice.
This is excluding the middle.
Scientists aren't careful because that's some natural state of scientists that has no meaning in the real world. They're careful because drawing noncareful conclusions (or fallacious ones such as excluded middle) is just making stuff up.
(”Microplastic pollution, a threat to marine ecosystem and human health: a short review” by Shivika Sharma, Subhankar Chatterjee; Environmental Science and Pollution Research 24 (27), 21530-21547, 2017)
”In all biological systems, microplastic exposure may cause particle toxicity, with oxidative stress, inflammatory lesions and increased uptake or translocation. The inability of the immune system to remove synthetic particles may lead to chronic inflammation and increase risk of neoplasia. Furthermore, microplastics may release their constituents, adsorbed contaminants and pathogenic organisms.”
(”Environmental exposure to microplastics: An overview on possible human health effects” by Joana Correia Prata, João P da Costa, Isabel Lopes, Armando C Duarte, Teresa Rocha-Santos; Science of the Total Environment 702, 134455, 2020)
A man buys a pack of cigarettes at a corner store. The attendant hands him a packet, and on it says: "WARNING: smoking causes impotence and erectile dysfunction". The guy looks at it for a moment, and says "Sorry, can I have the ones with cancer instead?".
Their website on the topic (in German[0]) states the same thing: No evidence that they pose any health risk to humans, but further research is necessary for any conclusive statements.
[0]: https://www.bfr.bund.de/de/mikroplastik__fakten__forschung_u...
In small boys, having more foreign estrogens in their body than the expected amount [2] will affect deeply their entire development, happiness with their self-image, and life opportunities.
I invite you to take the extra step and understand that we all use computers made of plastic for hours and hours. Are we being feminized all the time?. The probable answer is yes, we are.
And this would promote A) accumulating more fat B) developing gradually a desire to change sex Wachowsky sisters style, that is crying loud: "environmental cause" when we have several men in the same place gradually changing gender.
But talking seriously about LGTB issues further that "we all must accept it without making us answers that could hurt the feelings of somebody" is a huge taboo.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/
[2] both sexes share female and male hormones, women have also a small amount of testosterone.
This is simply not true. There is a small set of softened plastics (BPA, DEHP & DBP) that are widely known to have some endocrine disruption consequences and these are being phased out for the most part, but 'most plastic products' are NOT endocrine disruptors. Please keep bullshit gay panic 'feminization' crap out of HN, it is just embarrassing.
So maybe the list of problematic plastics is wider that we though previously?. Have you anything to say about this? Or even better, can you disprove what the article claims?
You can choose to ignore it, is a popular response, but ignoring a problem will not made it disappear magically.
Sorry no source and I’m not remotelt a biologist.
It’s the naturalistic fallacy.
I'm acutely aware of this but even if you want to get rid of plastic from your life it is next to impossible. Tell me how you have done this please?
We're always told that the consumer has choice and power, but it just doesn't play out in reality. Imagine a dense city full of millions of people, they can't all just stop buying plastic goods, since there's not enough supply of non-plastic goods to support them all. It's got to change at the source, which is the manufacturers, and that won't change without regulation.
My gf works towards a 'zero-waste' household, but you'd have to cut back on a lot of products. It's not impossible, but it does require sacrifice. However, you will discover new things which will compensate for that.
I can recommend you give it a go though, maybe for just a month. You'll learn a lot, discover interesting new products and your local zero-waste shops and sharpen your overall awareness about everyday use of plastic.
That being said: average people work 8 hours a day, have a family, and other responsibilities. Stuff like this takes a considerable amount of time, money, and effort. Which is why I believe it should be dealt with top-down such as a recent addition of small plastic bottles to the container-deposit legislation.
I have a different minor example on how to add good weight to the problem: go outside with part of your family (or whole) and gather plastic on the streets. Kids like the fresh air, walk, and small tasks they get. It makes your neighborhood look less impoverished/more proper on top of that. Here in my city, they give the sticks to grab the plastic for free. And I wouldn't call it a progressive city (VVD). If you used the stick for one hour they got the investment back (7,50 EUR last time I checked).
Indeed, and by far most of the world doesn't even have any "local zero-waste shops"... in much of the developing world the amount of plastic waste the average consumer produces is still rising and nowhere near peaking, and the consumers there are still seeing this as a sign of their increasing prosperity rather than a fundamental problem.
- Stop eating fish and other marine animals, since fishing nets are the largest (or one of the largest) sources of plastic waste in the oceans.
- Stop buying food items in plastic bags, especially disposable bags.
- Stop buying beverages in plastic bottles and cups.
- Stop using cosmetics and other items packaged in plastic.
- Stop using credit/debit/other cards that are made of plastic.
- Stop using plastic straws.
- Stop buying all appliances, gadgets and electronic devices that have plastic in them and plastic in their batteries.
- Stop using vehicles that have plastic in them.
- Stop using plastic furniture.
We can't do all of these and live in the modern society, but there are people who practice "zero waste" and consider the plastic coming into their hands (directly and indirectly).
How can this have a significant impact in any way? Even one new credit card per year is a very small amount of plastic consumption. :) And funnily enough, in some countries, the alternative (cash) is also plastic.
> And now we have politics of be self interest and nationalism.
I see lots of kids with those in their mouths basically the whole waking day, but this is not the same for all children and some do not use them at all.
No. We need to help the working class become system -literate, and then demand systemic change together. This is not the 'individual choice' problem these call the actions make them out to be. We need to fully map and understand the undemocratic black box systems and their obfuscated rules that we live under.
Governments and firms could end plastic packaging/usage today, yet don't because of perverse incentives that send the same foods in the opposite direction which means food has to stay fresh for much longer while traveling much too far.
"Many urbanised people have lost touch with the sources of their food, and may not realize that the distance their food travels has been steadily increasing. In the US, the average pound of food now travels 1,500 miles before it reaches the dinner table, and the distance continues to grow.
Much of this transport is needless: every day, identical commodities pass in opposite directions, criss-crossing the globe. The ‘logic’ of the global economy leads the US and other nations to import hundreds of thousands of tons of staple foods each year, while simultaneously exporting roughly the same amount. In an era of dwindling fossil fuel reserves and rising CO2 emissions, this is both senseless and wasteful. But it is a trend that is accelerating as governments systematically promote a single, globalized food system."
- Helena Norberg Hodge [1]
A horrible example of this is when a country like Ethiopia, that's been neo-colonized by global north capitalists, exports rice and other foods while the Ethiopian working class people are starving and pushed into slums in cities (away from their land). [2]
The video by Annie Dillard called the Story of Stuff [3] is still a fantastic summary of this (as are her other videos).
[1] The Case for Local Food, https://www.localfutures.org/the-case-for-local-food/
[2] Dead Donkeys Fear No Hyenas, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isiYYVmvn2U
[3] The Story of Stuff, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
This sounds a little infantilising. If we want change, we need to make it, not just demand it. All the hashtags in the world contribute less to helping the situation than one Tesla engineer.
I've been foraging for non-plastic clothing and household goods. Preferably hemp, but am open minded towards bamboo, organic cotton, whatever.
Briefs, t-shirts, fleece pullovers, sweaters, fleece blankets, bed sheets, kitchen towels, etc.
Links, recommendations appreciated.
This means that the issue has been with us for at least a couple generations by now so one may conclude that if there were dire effects, we would have seen them by now.
Perhaps similar to the cellphones causing cancer debate, we inadvertently placed ourselves in a world wide lab experiment without giving it enough thought beforhand. But the upside is we can gather a lot of data now...
That's pretty big.
>But recent research suggests the smallest pieces are able to cross cell membranes and enter our circulation.
Probably not the 5 mm pieces...
It isn't clear from the article what they actually counted here.
I've lost all patience for articles like, where the clickbait hype-up is so blatantly obvious. I vote with my eyeballs and just don't read them.