Scientists find microplastics in blood for first time | Hacker News Reader

Scientists find microplastics in blood for first time

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190 pointssmusamashah119 comments

I'm constantly worried that despite the increased understanding we have relative to past generations, the increasing scope of our technological interventions means that global catastrophes seem more likely to occur relative to the past. [0]

Look at the convulsions we need to go through to address climate change politically, and realize that it is only one of maybe a thousand potential grave threats, each of which pits collective well-being against technological/monetary interests. Some may even struggle to be recognized as a threat (antibiotic overuse, microplastics).

It's a good time to be doomer.

[0] https://sacawa.net/documents/test.pdf

I think it would be fitting if microplastics manage to yank our chain before obviously-dangerous things like nukes or antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

There's a good chance they already are, but we just haven't made the connection, because who do we have as a control group? Nobody.

"which pits collective well-being against technological/monetary interests."

Yeah tech/money interests are part of it. I think the bigger part is lifestyle change. Most of the things that we would need to change have no better alternatives that can also support the current lifestyle. People are resistant to changing their personal actions.

Some of it is entirely unknown too. We can't switch to electric vehicles overnight, and EVs have environmental costs too. How do we solve that? And what does a world without plastics look like?

> EVs have environmental costs too. How do we solve that?

We incrementally get better at it. For one thing, it should be possible to power any mining, manufacturing or recycling process with electricity.

If we want tackle those, then we also have to look at trade policies. We've shipped most of the primary and secondary industries to developing nations, where these concerns are largely ignored. Some politicians talk a big environmental game, but they won't dare touch on this subject. It's a shell game.

Let’s not get defeatist and give up. Europe is implementing a carbon border adjustment, and the U.S. is discussing this as well. If implemented correctly this should reduce the financial incentive to offshore emissions and create one for other countries to reduce their own.

"and the U.S. is discussing this as well."

I haven't heard that. Do you have a link?

I can’t find the original article I read but here is one recent one:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/02/republica...

Paywall. Interesting. I guess it's recent enough that I hadn't heard about it (based on the sate in the url).

> I think the bigger part is lifestyle change

No amount of changing my lifestyle stops overfishing, pipeline leaks, or factory emissions.

> I'm constantly worried

That is itself the catastrophe.

The enlightenment was supposed to chase away the shadows. But as the radius of the light of science and technology expands so does the circumference of the darkness beyond.

We know more than ever how vulnerable we are. We know of many more horrible ways to die. We see ever more beautiful possible futures that may never be reached. It is the age old cost of knowledge since Eden. [1]

But take hope, the alternative is ignorance and total darkness. And there are worse things than monsters in the shadows. A greater concern is our own death-drive toward Thanatos - in that we _know_ what we are doing, throw caution to the wind, mock as naysayers and Cassandras anyone who points out the obvious trajectories into tragedy and blindly try to "push through" as if technology were a separate force in itself, rather than an extension of our being.

Humane technology (technological humanism) is the only antidote, but that requires putting people before profit, and saying that comes at a cost here. [2]

[1] I'm just channeling Mumford here

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30799567

Wonderful to see my own sentiment reflected here.

Let me add, that to embrace the darkness, instead of pushing it away, is where we will find answers. I wish more people could see how frenetic knowledge makes them. I found forgetting helps me the most.

And I agree with your [2].

What alternatives to Technological Humanism are not antidotes? It sounds like you consider the anxiety of the age a/the major problem (I agree), but is there really only one solution? It seems like there are other possibilities worth discussion.

> What alternatives to Technological Humanism are not antidotes?

Sorry I needed to re-read the post to think about your points.

There are alternatives but almost all are unpleasant. There is the "pharmaceutical society" of Huxley. Possibly humans can be molded into something resembling worker ants who will accept any degree of technological dominance and dependency without complaint if mentally modified. In some parts of the world where 1 in 3 people take a prescriptions such as Prozac we are probably some of the way there.

There is "ambient domination" of the kind of P.K Dick (Ubik), D. Potter's Cold Lazarus, or A. Niccol's GATTACA, where technological dominance has effectively disappeared, leaving a superficially pleasant and peaceful world, but its effects are soaked into a defeated "last man" culture of "post-humans".

Or there's endless Soviet style struggle, permanent technological war against invisible or virtual outside enemies, as in G. Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four. N. Klein's idea of "crisis capitalism" outlines one form of the general case - and if you allow the conspiracy theorists their way "plandemics" (yes they say that), and even climate change are a vehicles for such eternal paternalism.

Those are just three off the top of my head. I'm not a sci-fi writer or "futurologist" (shudder), but I'm sure there's a dozen models for dystopias in which digital technology plays a major part, drugging, monitoring and propagandising humankind at behest of the few.

> It sounds like you consider the anxiety of the age a/the major problem (I agree)

Not so much, I think every age has had its deep anxieties, I grew up in the cold-war fever of the 80s when we did nuke drills at school and hid in the basement.

What is uniquely worrying about now is the wilful ignorance and acceptance. Anxiety is a symptom. What distinguishes anxiety from fear is that fear is about something, whereas anxiety is diffuse. People are choosing not to know about their world (retreat into amusement, comforting fake news etc), and celebrating their ignorance of technology as a form of magic. Despite doing that we still suffer the crippling effects of anomie, alienation, disconnection, and so on, but no longer have somethiing concrete to point to as the source. Under Marxism it was the Bourgeoisie, but today's "One Percet" don't cut it, being almost accidental villains/co-victims of invisible cybernetic currents.

> But is there really only one solution?

No certainly not. But I am foremost a scientist, and came late in life to social philosophy and psychology, so I favour answers that rely on human rationality and organisation (I realise that on HN there is huge cynicism toward that and lots of talk about how "dumb people are" and "what they really want is", and talk of "sheep following network effects". I think that kinda goes with an immature (pre-2013) entrepreneurial mindset.

Given an absence of hope for beneficent corporations or governments for me the only hope is a future in which people retake technology in some way. But exactly what that means is still something I am working out. Whoever solves that will not just improve the world, but get rich too. So far Gates. Zuckerberg et al have failed, because "scale" is something they put before purpose.

> there are other possibilities worth discussion.

Please check out digital vegan and humane technology as I'd love to talk about those other possibilities.

I would argue that doomer is a waste of time. Time to be a prepper and realign our relationship to the planet. We could go on and on about climate doom, etc, but the most productive thing we can do is expect change, not apocalypse, and adjust.

Lead by example. Everyone reading this can go full wind and solar. Can stop driving or drastically cut it down (move closer, use public transport, work remote, etc). We can all grow food in our backyards, or living room, we can all participate in local garden coops etc. We can all refuse to take part in wars, buying new cell phones every year, wearing synthetic fibers that lead to microplastics, etc.

If we, the ones who know and care dont take action today, by example, who will?

Que excuses in 1, 2, 3...

This is exactly what I’ll try to change in next 5 years. Have a sustainable baseline: my own food (or at least 50% of it, other 50% locally grown within ~10km) and energy independent (for heating and cooking), and treat everything else as a luxury that can perish any time now. I don’t want to give up my remote work, car and (occasional) luxury vacation, but would love to be able to sustain myself without it. Current life-style (apartment, frequent food orders, total dependency on the power grid) is a ticking time bomb (which might not go off in my lifetime) and feels like all-or-nothing gamble.

Regarding food: What you eat is significantly more important than where it comes from (there are a few exceptions). Not eating meat and dairy is the biggest impact you can have food-wise. Getting your potatoes from within 10km or 1000km doesn't really matter in regards to emissions. In fact, depending on where you live, locally grown food can have a bigger environmental impact than non-local food (due to artifical light, fertilizers, greenhouses, etc.)

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#whe...

I agree with most of your points.

Please research solar and wind before switching, though. Until we have solved the problem of energy storage, in many cases, solar and wind actually tend to increase pollution, because they both rely upon polluting raw materials for both themselves and their batteries and need backup power, which to this day means gas.

That is unless you find yourself with a good problem set in which e.g. you only need energy while the sun is out (AC in the summer, maybe, or perhaps warming up water for your early evening shower?) or while there is wind (no example from the top of my head, but I'm sure there are good ones).

Can you tell me more about why you are equating the mining of metals for solar/batteries with climate changing GHGs - eg why are they both equally as bad? I’m not disagreeing with you, I am genuinely curious to hear your perspective.

I do generally agree with you on your second point that it might not be the most productive action to take - for the time being it would probably be better for most people to focus on electrifying their homes paired with switching over to 100% clean energy (many utilities allow you to choose this option).

This argument is total oil company propaganda. Raw materials do not pollute. Their mining and manufacture does, but that again is because of oil consumption in an outdated manufacturing chain. Burning oil produces CO2. It is chemically impossible to avoid this. Manufacturing silicon and harvesting lithium do not produce CO2, and these processes can be cleaned up.

Concrete production requires CO2 from energy but also releases CO2 from the chemical processes. (Concrete is heavily used in wind energy production systems.)

So you are agreeing with Yoric then? Doubling up in energy infrastructure increases mining and manufacturing, which then increases pollution. But then you say it's propaganda?

You seem to be using "pollute" as a synonym for "releasing CO2", while Yoric does not.

I think the two of you are talking past each other.

> Until we have solved the problem of energy storage

We have. Pumped hydro and batteries (iron flow is successfully being deployed commercially, but also lithium ion; Li-Ion prices continue to drop 6-12% per year.)

> because they both rely upon polluting raw materials for both themselves and their batteries and need backup power, which to this day means gas.

No.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/three-myths-about-renewable-e...

> To pick a much tougher case, the “dark doldrums” of European winters are often claimed to need many months of battery storage for an all-renewable electrical grid. Yet top German and Belgian grid operators find Europe would need only one to two weeks of renewably derived backup fuel, providing just 6 percent of winter output — not a huge challenge.

> The bottom line is simple. Electrical grids can deal with much larger fractions of renewable energy at zero or modest cost, and this has been known for quite a while. Some European countries with little or no hydropower already get about half to three-fourths of their electricity from renewables with grid reliability better than in the U.S. It is time to get past the myths.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/sep/26/myt...

> The essence of the wind sceptics' case is that a scaling up in wind power will have to be "backed up" by massive investment in gas-fired open cycle turbine (OCGT) plants, which are cheap to build but considerably less efficient than the combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plants which deliver the vast majority of the UK's gas-fired electricity supply.

> Their arguments are not borne out by current statistics, however. If the sceptics were right, the recent windy conditions would have seen considerable use of less-efficient OCGT as wind input to the grid ramped up and down. In actual fact, during the entire June-September period, OCGTs and equally dirty oil-fired stations produced less than one hundredth of one percent of all UK electricity. In total they operated for a grand total of just nine half hour periods in the first 19 days of the month – and these periods had nothing to do with changing windspeeds.

Further references:

https://usa.oceana.org/renewable-energy-myth-vs-fact/

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/37657.pdf

Stick to writing web browsers.

"Lead by example."

Yes. Can you tell me more about your set up and what you do to minimize your foot print and consumption?

I live in a minivan on $2600 per month and still manage to save money. But I still. feel like I am not doing enough. I would like to get rid of my van altogether one day and just have all my belongings in a modified push cart. Kinda of like this guy but without the goats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U54HRmglYEA

EDIT: I see that people might be thinking that I said this all sarcastically because of the down votes. But what I said is all true. That is how I live right now. And yes, I feel like I am not doing enough because I appreciate the calamity that our actions are causing.

I love that goat guy, he's such an inspiration. I know most people wouldn't want to live that way, and that's okay, but I can only imagine the satisfaction and fulfillment he must feel.

FWIW, we can build lifestyles that are ecologically harmonious and still have a high standard of living. One example (from the 1970's) is Village Homes in Davis CA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes It's nicer than most suburbs, and it grows food, collects rainwater, etc.

Here's a group that have a tried-and-true system for ecologically harmonious farming: http://growbiointensive.org/grow_main.html Their system uses about 5000 square feet per person, provides a nutritionally complete diet, and increases topsoil volume and fertility over time.

Here's a fellow with a complete manual for small-scale alcohol fuel production integrated into (Permaculture) organic farms. http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/node/277 You can grow your own carbon-neutral fuel, convert ICE cars and other engines to run on it, and stop using fossil fuel, w/o expensive and hard-to-dispose of batteries. Alcohol exhaust is non-toxic. You can make it out of almost anything with starch or sugar in it. (Old donut dough, bakery scraps, food waste, etc.) The atoms in the fuel come from air and water, so you are basically exporting stored sunlight from your farm and keeping all the nutrients and minerals and such. The leftovers from making alcohol can be fed to livestock (yeast, eh? It's protein. The leftovers are a better feed than the initial, uh, stuff!)

Not sure if you want to go where honest approach to this takes you.

To make as little impact as possible you should use as little resources as possible, so you should always choose cheapest, most artificial, mass produced versions of everything, including food, never travel, work as little as possible and only remotely. Basically be poor or at least act poor in every aspect of your life. Wear cheapest clothes and don't buy a new pair until they literally fall apart to the point that parts of you are sticking out that are illegal to stick out.

You might say that it's not a healthy way to live. That's even better, the sooner you die, the less resources you'll use. Don't breed of course.

If you are afraid you might have trouble sticking to your resolutions, then donate all of your wealth to something environmental and just move out of US into some poor country. It will do the bulk of your impact saving for you.

This might be accurate today, but it ignores our ability to make technological progress to make our current activities low or no impact.

Further, this line of thinking - that you need to sacrifice your lifestyle in order to save the planet - is IMO one of if not the major reason we haven’t made progress on addressing climate change to date. Plainly put, people tend to be short term selfish, even often at the expense of their own long term interests, and they tend to not want to change their behavior / habits.

We should instead focus on the technological progress that we need to make in order to be able to not only maintain our current lifestyles but possibly have them be better (eg a Tesla is a better car, a heat pump is more comfortable than a furnace, an induction stove boils water faster and has more precise control, etc). To be clear, most of this isn’t technological invention it’s implementation - a lot and a lot of implementation.

I don't think we can wait on technological magic bullet to deus ex machina save us from disaster.

Economy got us into this mess. Economy needs to get us out.

Climate change would be already solved if somebody figured out how the richest could earn more money when the energy is more expensive rather than when it is cheaper.

Billionaires would singlehandedly legislate all the necessary laws that would make energy as expensive as it really is to our planet. An our livestyles would change against our selfish preference. You wouldn't fly abroad for vacation if it costed more than your annual salary.

People in the developed world would need to be much poorer in relative terms to save the planet from global warming.

Tradeable right for emitting CO2 are great mechanism, because they let rich get richer by driving up the price of CO2 and the high price changes behaviors of energy consumers, producers and whole economy.

Agreed that we can’t wait. The large majority of the technology we need already exists, we just need to accelerate the adoption that would happen naturally.

A focus on this “punitive” side of things - that we need to pay for our transgressions through a dramatically reduced lifestyle - is just going to ensure that we drive straight off the cliff.

And yes, the economy is going to need to get us out of this. We need to make sure that the incentives are properly structured for the majority of the transformation to happen via the distributed market mechanisms vs being centrally planned.

Your classism is a big part of the problem.

What you describe is called asceticism, it has a long and storied history with significant contributions to the long-term cultural stability of humankind, and American culture basically just hasn’t been around long enough to develop it yet.

> ... with significant contributions to the long-term cultural stability of humankind

I don't think that's true. Leitmotif of history of humankind is the exploitation of available resources to the boundaries of reason and beyond.

And regarding excuses. Maybe we should be able to bring up the road blocks and not call them excuses?

Like this in regards to solar that just popped up on my radar today?

https://www.wral.com/rooftop-solar-rate-changes-could-cast-l...

" NC Capitol NC Capitol Rooftop solar rate changes could cast long shadow over industry, climate change Tags: solar, NC Utilities Commission, utility bills, NCCapitol, Duke Energy, house & home Posted March 25, 2022 6:22 p.m. EDT Updated March 26, 2022 8:41 a.m. EDT

By Laura Leslie, WRAL Capitol Bureau Chief

Raleigh homeowners Gary and Jane Smith are very concerned about climate change. They added a solar array in 2019 to help reduce their carbon footprint.

"There was a tax credit and a rebate from Duke, and it began to make financial sense to put the solar panels on," Gary Smith said.

The panels frequently make more energy than the Smiths need. Duke buys it back at full retail price. It’s called net metering.

But state law says that has to change by 2027.

"The worst case scenario that we could potentially walk into is a complete erosion of this concept called net metering," said Matt Abele with the NC Sustainable Energy Association (NCSEA). "Obviously, we would love to continue down the path of net metering as it currently exists here in North Carolina. But unfortunately, that's just not the reality of how it's playing out."

NCSEA is one of the groups that negotiated the deal with Duke Energy late last year. It will reduce what the utility pays for rooftop solar power during most daylight hours. And it will add a minimum bill for homeowners with solar panels."

So while we try to change individually, the corporations will see a chance to profit. Duke Energy had a 12% net profit margin with a gross profit of $4.4 Billion in December 2021.

I would say voicing your opinion that these utility companies should publicly owned would be a good start.

Full net metering is asking folks without solar to subsidize your "batteries", namely the power-grid.

Your power bill is more than just generation costs. It's also distribution AND providing power 24/7, which household solar (without storage) does NOT do.

Suppose that your power company charges $0.50/KwH at peak time. They pay less than $0.50/KwH to other power generators, so why should they pay that to someone with rooftop solar?

Note that solar actually doesn't line up with demand all that well. (Most panels are oriented for maximum power production, which peaks too early in the day.)

If net metering is available to me, I’d orient them for maximum energy (what you called power) production as well.

I am sorry if I do not shed tears for companies that make billions in profit(!) while ice shelves are cleaving off the Antarctic.

https://twitter.com/StefLhermitte/status/1507397236849876992

These companies are concerned about losing profit, because shareholders. And they actively fight against solar whenever they can because one solar uses is a loss to them. And they use the propaganda you reiterate to believe their sad story.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/13/solar-power-...

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/12/20/fl...

It's not the power companies, it's the other customers of those power companies.

Why should they pay to time-shift your energy production?

> Duke Energy had a 12% net profit margin with a gross profit of $4.4 Billion in December 2021.

Having previously invested in Duke Energy (but not currently directly invested in them), that gross profit figure seemed dramatically wrong. Because it is.

For the quarter ending (not the month of) Dec 2021, Duke Energy had a gross revenue of $6.2B, with a cost of revenue of $3.6B, for a gross profit (for the quarter) of $2.7B (figures are correct but seem incorrect due to rounding).

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DUK/financials/

Gross profit isn't even a useful metric here. SpodGaju is just cherry picking a number that's high to make it sound outrageous. SpodGaju is ignoring all the infratructure (and related costs) needed for reliable electricity.

Gross profit is gross profit. It is not a number I am making up. They made 5% more profit then they did last year. Their gross profit, meaning money they have left after accounting for all expenses, was $18 billion for 2021.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DUK/duke-energy/gr...

Duke Energy annual gross profit for 2021 was $18.137B, a 4.49% increase from 2020.

https://wraltechwire.com/2022/02/10/duke-energy-ceo-q4-cappe...

"For the year, the company reported profit of $3.91 billion, or $4.94 per share. Revenue was reported as $25.1 billion."

Profit, that is money left over. Can you explain how stating a companies profit is cherry picking?

> Their gross profit, meaning money they have left after accounting for all expenses, was $18 billion for 2021.

That’s not at all what gross profit is, nor is their GP for 2021 that high.

In rough terms: Gross profit is revenue minus cost of revenue. Operating income is gross profit minus operating expenses. Pretax profit is OI minus financing and other costs and is much closer to “after all expenses (except taxes)”.

Further, their financial statements show their gross profit for 2021 to be $12.1B with a taxable income of $3.8B. (Both the yahoo link above and WSJ agree: https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/DUK/financials/annual... (For WSJ, take gross revenue and subtract COGS ex-D&A to get to GP))

In California, we have the NEM 3.0 fight https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/02/04/california-nem-3-0-de...

In other states (look up what happened in Nevada), rules have been changed that massively rebalance the economy in favor of not getting rooftop solar.

I agree with some of the other comments here about renewables sometimes causing harm through their production / lifecycle. Our best bet is the first “R”: Reduce.

By any chance do you live in California or US?

While I certainly agree that everything you've said about what an individual can do is true, I disagree that in the grand scheme of things that it will make any difference at global scale.

Telling people to change their lifestyle to fight climate change is the environmental equivalent of telling people to diet and exercise to lose weight. On one hand, it's obviously true, but on the other hand we have decades and decades of proof that requiring individual willpower to make societal-wide change is a failed proposition.

Large scale change is only possible with government and technological advancement, e.g. electric vehicle adoption is in some ways accelerating faster than expected, because as battery prices have come down, people have realized that electric vehicles are better in nearly every way. Better storage technologies are also making large-scale renewable energy sources more feasible.

So yes, it's a good idea to drive less and put solar panels on your roof, but let's not pretend that the requisite number of people will "follow your example" if it's too onerous for them to do so.

That all sounds accurate enough. I would say you won't get PV on everyone's roofs without some major subsidies and/or tax-breaks; or, I suppose, if natural gas prices increased enormously... But any or all of those could come about, without even a huge amount of political consensus, I would think. I was lucky enough to buy a new home that the builders had added solar to, so it was just part of the mortgage for me, but cost of retrofitting is still not negligible (even though the hardware is cheaper all the time, the labor isn't)

Renewables are already getting ready to climb the hockey stick of exponential deployment due to their cost, and EVs are not far behind. Better policy would of course speed the transition, but at this point at least, renewables are unstoppable. The faster the cost of power drops due to renewables, the more cost advantageous to electrify everything, further driving a fossil death spiral.

You say excuses but none of that individual things matter. Even if the people who read this and their friends take action, it will not matter.

Let's be realistic. Only 100 companies responsible for 71% global emissions.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...

My biggest concern is nuclear war. The death it would unleash would make the COVID pandemic seem like an afternoon picnic, and it would all happen in a frighteningly short period of time. 4pm war starts. 5pm most of the people you know are dead. This comes, far as I'm concerned, close to the end of the world, and shouldn't be impossible, yet it isn't by a long shot.

My second biggest concern is the rapid loss of natural habitats and the concomitant loss of biodiversity.

Haven't looked into what a nuclear war would look like, but would non-Nato, non-nuclear weapon holding counties be affected that fast? Suppose I lived in Niger, would most people I know be dead that fast? Would countries just hit any ally to the opposition immediately? I understand that the entire world will be affected and eventually the effects will be felt.

The current ability to produce so much food in the developed world using modern fertilizer and methods, despite their disadvantages, means the most common threat that challenged our ancestors (famine) is barely present in many countries where it was a continual threat since civilization developed. Only global warming and nuclear war pose a similar threat, and only the former is worse now than it has been in the past, even given present circumstance.

The taller they are the harder they fall. Our global society is so very tall.

The cacophony of voices lends itself well to doomerism. Wish there were more places one could hide from the self-absorption of our species.

Clothing is mostly plastic fibre nowadays. Upholstery fibres too. Walls are painted with acrylic paint. Flooring is often made of various plastics. I assume the dust in our homes that we breathe in contains relatively a lot of plastic. Containers for food are almost entirely plastic.

I’m interested in these sorts of studies on the topic.

> Clothing is mostly plastic fibre nowadays.

I think that's true primarily for athleisure. That being said, it's a very large segment of the market. I was recently in Banana Republic and it was quite hard to find a pair of pants one would want to wear outside of the house.

Some what related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU55auqDD28

"I think that's true primarily for athleisure."

It is not. Go into any Walmart (and I bring up Walmart because that is where most people shop who are just going about their daily lives) and try to find clothing with no petroleum based material in it.

And then try to look on Amazon. Most of the clothing sold there you cannot even find the material list for the product. It will say "cotton" but it is usually only the major material, not 100% cotton.

Here is a good example: https://www.amazon.com/Fruit-Loom-Cotton-100-Sleeve/dp/B001C...

100% cotton preshrunk jersey but...????? Ash is 98/2 cotton/poly Athletic Heather is 90/10 cotton/poly Black Heather, Neon Green, Neon Pink, Safety (Green, Orange) - 50/50 cotton/poly

And then it's Amazon, so you have shipping and every other climate destroying feature of that distribution system.

>clothing with no petroleum based material in it.

That's a far cry from the claim "Clothing is mostly plastic fibre". Having 5%-20% polyester is not the same as being "mostly plastic".

The person you're replying to said that clothing marketed as cotton is 5-20% polyester.

Which annoys me as well… yoga pants aren’t meant to be normal attire.

They should test the blood of, say, Amish people for comparison.

I can't find the quote now but that is actually one of the issues with PFAS studies. They couldn't find people they could use as a control group.

Literally everyone has it in their body, even in very remote regions.

Sure, why would we not? It is widely used in consumer products. We cook our food in Teflon.

But I'm very far from convinced that PFOA will turn out to be any health risk at all, at the levels the general population is exposed to.

Even for the mid-Ohio valley cohorts, where you have tens of thousands of people who had occupational exposure over decades at up to 1000x the dose any of us will receive, it has been very challenging to clearly demonstrate any adverse health effects.

In the end, we are talking about an extremely inert chemical substance. If it doesn't react with anything, it's hard to see how it should cause significant harm.

The EPA has put out a health advisory about PFOA and PFOS:

> EPA’s health advisories are based on the best available peer-reviewed studies of the effects of PFOA and PFOS on laboratory animals (rats and mice) and were also informed by epidemiological studies of human populations that have been exposed to perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). These studies indicate that exposure to PFOA and PFOS over certain levels may result in adverse health effects, including developmental effects to fetuses during pregnancy or to breastfed infants (e.g., low birth weight, accelerated puberty, skeletal variations), cancer (e.g., testicular, kidney), liver effects (e.g., tissue damage), immune effects (e.g., antibody production and immunity), thyroid effects and other effects (e.g., cholesterol changes).

https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking...

I’m no chemist but this seems like there’s at least a good bit of scientific evidence that supports the idea that some PFAS are dangerous.

I've been using ceramic based everything in my kitchen for a while. I honestly don't know anyone who uses those old nonstick teflon pots, pans, skillets anymore. Just ceramic coated and cast iron like me.

Most people don't realize that many waterproofing coatings in jackets, boots and even waterproof makeup have PFAS's.

Same goes for lubricants, from bicycle gears to door hinges to any manufactured good with moving parts.

Just about anything in modern industry will have, by now, already contaminated you with PFAS.

Or Ötzi.

I’m sorry, but where is it mostly plastic? Sure I can buy a completely polyester T-shirt, but that doesn’t mean it’s mostly plastic.

And for the record, in the EU, it lists the contents of shell/lining differently for things like coats. If you’re buying anything with elastic it’s obvious where the 5% of non-natural materials are, even if it’s not broken out separately.

Plastic containers are also increasingly non-existent here. Vegeware has been used here for years for takeout, and most people use glass containers at home.

Ironically a company just started that sells reusable plastic containers to restaurants and you pay a €1 deposit on each one, which you can then return to some collection point just like your recycling. Seems stupid to me, given the climate impact of producing the plastic (and the inevitable amount of waste involved) and then transporting it to a collection point, but whatever.

When I was growing up, everything was glass: glass bottles for tablets, etc. Then plastic took over. Every village/town in the third world is littered with so much plastic without proper disposal--ending up in local creeks, subsequently in oceans in the rainy season.

How do we know the plastics didn't come from the method they took the sample? Whenever I have given a blood sample, plastic tubing was used.

what? They draw blood with needles and use little glass thingies to hold it. They aren't going to draw a liter of blood to check it for plastic, they just need a small sample. There might be some plastic involved somewhere but they aren't stupid enough to not control that. I mean there scientists. If you thought of it they thought of that and a dozen more things to be careful about.

I was wrong sorry. I was thinking of a different medical experience with lots of tubes I had, and donating blood. I guess I havent done just a tube & glass thingy

Unfortunately the vampires draw 3 or 4 test tubes of it every year from me for my annual checkup. At least my doctor is thorough with the tests :)

If you have so little experience, why would you assume that scientists, who likely do blood work for a living, did not think of this, but you, with that one time you donated blood, would?

I asked a question and then apologized. What more do you expect? Dont make this site an unwelcoming place

This study found infant bodies are exposed to more microplastics per kilo of body weight than adults (NY): https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.1c00559.

But wasn't MPs detected in human placenta before? [1]

> In total, 12 microplastic fragments (ranging from 5 to 10 μm in size), with spheric or irregular shape were found in 4 placentas (5 in the fetal side, 4 in the maternal side and 3 in the chorioamniotic membranes); all microplastics particles were characterized in terms of morphology and chemical composition. All of them were pigmented; three were identified as stained polypropylene a thermoplastic polymer, while for the other nine it was possible to identify only the pigments, which were all used for man-made coatings, paints, adhesives, plasters, finger paints, polymers and cosmetics and personal care products.

[1]: https://files.catbox.moe/023yyt.pdf

>"This is proof that we have plastics in our body—and we shouldn't,"

Why shouldn’t we?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34185251/

> Whilst definitive evidence linking microplastic consumption to human health is currently lacking, results from correlative studies in people exposed to high concentrations of microplastics, model animal and cell culture experiments, suggest that effects of microplastics could include provoking immune and stress responses and inducing reproductive and developmental toxicity. Further research is required to explore the potential implications of this recent contaminant in our environment in more rigorous clinical studies.

We need more studies but the current signs are not good.

Surprises me that the NIH isn't doing more to investigate this. Maybe it will turn out that they're basically inert and won't do much but that's not something I want to cross my finger and hope about.

Plastic is an oil (by)product and the oil industry is one of the top three lobbies in the US. We cannot count on public institutions to seriously address this issue.

Toothpaste blows my mind. It’s literally plastic in some baking soda type substance. Extra whitening? Larger plastic.

Is that the case of powder toothpaste, too?

Source on this? I heard they banned microbeads in toothpaste, does this remove all plastics or is there more?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cwN983PnJoA

Maybe not true anymore.

Source? Wikipedia has pages on the various ingredients, which are a lot more complex than I realized, but I’m not seeing plastics…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toothpaste

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cwN983PnJoA

Perhaps this is dated now according to other comments.

no it's not, it's fluoride and some soapy binders like SLS and ceramics or baking soda for whitening/cleaning. I suppose some of the tube might break off and form these microplastics, however I don't know too many people swallowing their toothpaste leftovers. It's a bad idea as you shouldn't ingest that much fluoride, which is much more highly concentrated than fluroide in water. If you're talking about microbeads then those were outlawed in toothpaste/cosmetics/etc in 2016, which went in effect in 2017.

There are toothpastes that contain plastic microbeads [1][2] and an FDA ban (for < 5mm size beads) came in effect only in 2015. Some toothpastes also have polyethele "specks" to provide color [3],

[1]: https://www.colgate.com/en-us/oral-health/brushing-and-floss...

[2]: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/05 /microbeads-exfoliators-plastic-face-scrub-toothpaste/

[3]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gum-balls/

What blows my mind is that most chewing gum has plastic in it.

There's more. The gum base of chewing gum is made on the same exact machines as car tires. Once or twice a year the factory will shut down tiremaking, clean the line and do a huge run of gum base. Then they will resume tiremaking.

Source: someone who works at a major candy manufacturer

Why only now? Were the subjects covid vaccinated?

Doesn't mRNA vaccines contain polymers? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-021-01001-3

I think that is a relevant question now for many scientific studies now since a large part of the population has been vaccinated in some places and age groups

Direct reference, only a small vaccine reference https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...

Considering we’ve been implanting plastic parts (joints, heart valves, Central lines) and using plastic IV lines, syringes, IV bags, etc, all of which need to go through safety trials, I’m not too concerned that there is some massive unseen safety risk here.

If it wasn’t plastics it would likely be glass. And there are millions of acre of fine powdered glass all over the world that we breath in (sand).

I hope you're not breathing it in with any measureable amount. That can cause silicosis.

Ever go to the beach? You’re breathing in sand.

The dose makes the poison.

That's why I said measurable. The type of sand at the beach generally has a composition that doesn't pose a risk because there isn't enough of the fine particles to be inhaled. There's no measurable amount as it's too low. If it were measurable, that would be a problem as silicosis damage is cumulative (mall doses over a lifetime).

It is perfectly measurable. When you are approaching this with the precision that folks looking for micro-plastics do to get published.

I believe there are orders of magnitude between something like that being measurable and causing any symptoms that would make it worth considering from medical point of view.

Sources?

There's nothing specific about it being plastic. Detection methods are the same.

https://academic.oup.com/intqhc/article/33/2/mzab091/6295061

"Any glass participles smaller than 20 µm were marked by the examiner as ‘sandy particles’ and not precisely measured."

People don't research that subject a lot because it's known that small 'sandy particles' in the body are not causing problems. But that doesn't mean they are immeasurable.

So nothing about particles on the beach, silicosis, and your claim that we inhale them at a measurable rate?

Yes. Because finding 'sandy particles' in the body is common and expected to the point that nobody cares about them if you don't have any symptoms.

What “symptoms” did people have from plastics in their blood?

None. But they might have some because it's a new thing, therefore it's interestiing and fashionable to research that.

Nobody expects any symptoms from the substance humans are in contact with since our species came to be.

It's not a problem to find random garbage in our bodies. It is there because we came to be from dirt, metaphorically speaking. It's just that not all garbage is worth a grant.

Again, source? I don't believe silica based dust is common to breath in at any measurable amount on a beach. If it's really common, then you'd have sources. The prior source was dealing with glass contamination of ampules. You can follow these comments back for context.

Repeatedly stating that something is common, does not make it so.

Again, same source I already gave.

This source mentiones if something is smaller than some arbitraty limit there's no sense counting it because it's probably just sand not something that came from the glass ampule. Therefore small sand is common enough that it would skew their result to be something nonsensical.

You need to read between the lines because apparently nobody researched how much sand average person has in their bodies because it's not interesting.

Why don't you show me research supporing your claim that body doesn't contain sand particles in amounts at least comparable to amounts of microplastics detected?

"Why don't you show me research supporing your claim that body doesn't contain sand particles in amounts at least comparable to amounts of microplastics detected?"

Because that's not what is being discussed. What is being discussed is breathing in sand, that beach sand can cause silicosis, etc.

> What is being discussed is breathing in sand, that beach sand can cause silicosis, etc.

Who's telling that it can't?

My point was that amount of sand in your body that doesn't cause silicosis yet is not immesurable or undetectable.

You are fully expected to have some sand in your body all the time. Just at levels way too low to cause any symptoms.

And probably it's exactly the same with microplastics.

It’s just…obvious. I got sand in my mouth at the beach the other day… you get dirt in your mouth when you go hiking, etc.

That hope that is true. All of this plastic might just be inert and not cause any damage. Who knows how long have people been having microplastics in their bloodstream. Decades? It is just that no one tested for it.

The “better detection” excuse is always there. The major source of microplastics is probably clothes dryers according to one recent study. That means you can associate its risk to probably clothes dryers, microfiber cloths, and plastics in clothing. Adoption of those is going to have accelerated dramatically in the last 30 years or so.

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