Hacker News Reader

Comment by ahevia | Hacker News Reader

I’m aware that consumption of microplastics is a huge problem. (Hey HN reader. Get rid of plastic from your life. Doing future you a favor.) But the sample size cited was just six babies from New York. Seems a bit too small for such a conclusive headline (maybe I missed another study the article cites)

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.

View on HN

I suppose it’s one of those “effect size” cases where a small sample is ok. Finding one child with micro plastics in it ought to be alarming, finding 6 is already a strong signal.

Further studies are always a good thing in any case.

> Hey HN reader. Get rid of plastic from your life. Doing future you a favor.

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

I completely agree with you. My comment was made in regards of removing plastics for your health. Not a comment on capitalism or equating individual action to system reform.

> We need to help the working class become system -literate, and then demand systemic change together

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’m aware that consumption of microplastics is a huge problem.

Is it? Is there any research showing this?

There is. Let me show you this neat search engine for such things.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=micr...

2 of the first 3 results had the word "potential" in the preview. I had to follow the link to see what was in the other one, it had these:

> 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.

That’s just careful wording. Scientists are wary of making hard statements, unless they have absolute proof, which in this case requires massive epidemiological studies over many decades.

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.

I'm fully aware of careful wording. I'm also aware that to presume some meaning other than what the wording explicitly states as if that is the most likely possibility is not careful. Not only that, to infer something stronger and then imply that it is the actual meaning of that careful wording is simply an assumption not merited by the facts.

> 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.

> That is, unless you really, really believe microplastics are somehow good for you.

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.

I couldn't find anything on reduced life expectancy.

I think increased incidence of cancer, hormone disruption and general inflammation count, no?

Please cite your sources for these claims. No one is claiming it is good thing, but when you start to spray FUD around you run the risk of having a few of your wilder claims (cancer, really?) shown to be complete bullshit and then no one cares about any other claims you might make.

”The potential hazardous effects on humans by alternate ingestion of microparticles can cause alteration in chromosomes which lead to infertility, obesity, and cancer”

(”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)

"Might", "possible", "may", "potential" all seem to be the most damning terms applied to this issue in those papers. Lots of suggestions, no proof. Given the ubiquity that the original research is suggesting the effects should be obvious and pervasive, particularly in animals with shorter lifecycles. At this point I am going to assume that if this is the best you have the answer to the question is 'no, there is no evidence but we are still looking' and that the rest of your grand claims are equally suspect.

I have this same argument every time someone brings up microplastics and I ask them if thats a bad thing or something we should worry about. They send me articles for days trying to prove me wrong and every single one just says it "might" as if they are the first ones to come up with an untested hypothesis.

It seems to be a major endocrine disruptor.

Could you cite a study that shows this? I can find lots of hand-waving about microplastics possibly acting as carriers for such substances, but nothing that indicates these substances themselves can be directly linked to this particular problem.

What does this mean for mere mortals?

For men, lower testosterone levels and lower sperm count.[1]

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

Heh, that's a killer. I saw this joke a while back:

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?".

From a presentation last year by a researcher that works on the toxicity of nanoplastics at The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, I recall that they so far haven't found evidence of the toxicity of nano- and microplastics even if you would assume high exposure scenarios (e.g. having a diet consisting of only plastic-laden oysters), but that further research needs to be undertaken.

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...

Adding microplastics to food on purpose would be illegal in the EU because there have been no extensive studies about the safety of microplastics as a food ingredient. So I don’t feel as if we should get used to microplastics inf food - and in out bodies - by accident.

Is a problem because most plastic products release substances that mimic sexual hormones and in particular femenine hormones [1].

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.

> Is a problem because most plastic products release substances that mimic sexual hormones

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.

Is a published scientific article. Claiming that many plastics advertised as safe were found releasing endocrine disruptors under a different test and different circumstances.

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.

I read somewhere in a newspaper article that it is now know to seriously affect aquatic life. Different environment but maybe not a good indication?

Sorry no source and I’m not remotelt a biologist.

It's incredible how acceptable seems the idea to ingest all kind of unusual stuff just because "if there's no research against it then it's fine". We animals didn't evolve as a species by ingesting plastics, also not by inhaling smokes, so unless you live in the Marvel universe you should assume that anything unnatural you take in will harm you sooner or later.

And yet many things are completely unnatural and are beneficial to us as well… this argument of “unusual stuff” doesn’t really hold.

It’s the naturalistic fallacy.

> (Hey HN reader. Get rid of plastic from your life. Doing future you a favor.)

- 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).

> - Stop using credit/debit/other cards that are made of plastic.

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.

There are huge sources of waste plastic, credit cards are not one of them. Just shopping at a supermarket once I generate more plastic waste than all my credit cards in a year. This would be the last thing I'd consider to lower the plastic waste issue and ironically its one that has already solved itself by NFC based payments.

visited the sea of Japan for the first time in a while, and went to a beach not usually used, the other day. The whole place above the high tide live was covered in broken up polystyrene. All through the grass. Impossible to clean up. And if you did it would just keep on floating in. I can stop eating fish. I could even try to support a national political movement to get the Japanese fishing industry to clean up their act.. but what about Korea and China and Russia. We can stop this and live in a modern society, but it requires leadership and cooperation. And now we have politics of be self interest and nationalism.

  > And now we have politics of be self interest and nationalism.

our economic systems that encourage competition above cooperation arent helping the situation... but i dont think anyone has a viable idea how to change that... maybe some broad trade agreements such as through tpp? idk, seems bleak...

So stop living basically. Why don't we just make plastics that are safe and dissolve in our bodies? Probably not that hard to do.

Probably is actually quite hard. Plastics have specific mechanical properties to do their job, some of which go directly against breakdown (don’t want that soft drink to leak out or lose all its co2). Then plastics like dissolvable sutures which we do allow to dissolve in the body still produce by products which can impair healing. So even breakdown products can be harmful. Therefore, I suspect such a thing would be quite tricky.

Interesting. It might be true -- I don't know enough yet to comment on it. If that is the case, it's kind of unfortunate.

I'd add, "advocate for electoral reform" to the list. It's hard to get systemic change under first-past-the-post.

> Hey HN reader. Get rid of plastic from your life.

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.

> Hey HN reader. Get rid of plastic from your life. Doing future you a favor.

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?

While "technically" possible to get rid of it all I'm sure, I think if you get caught up on perfection you'll give up. Just reduce it as best you can and move on with your life.

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.

Bea Johnson's book Zero Waste Home (and talks) is the go to on how to start.

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.

I don't want to downplay such efforts; all good to you being ahead of the curve.

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).

> Stuff like this takes a considerable amount of time, money, and effort.

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.

I wondered how much dummy/pacifier use factors into this.

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.

They're made of silicone/rubber/... and as far as I know never of plastic. However, the top part sometimes can be plastic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com