Not sure it matters since there's plastic in all the food and drinking water anyway.
There's no way to avoid ingesting plastic any more. You could maybe reduce it a bit, that's all.
There's no way to avoid ingesting plastic any more. You could maybe reduce it a bit, that's all.
Unless you're saying we understand the specific threshold for plastic and the risk of reaching that threshold can be reasonably extrapolated from typical levels of exposure, I think we're getting at different points.
To me, this is a problem that needs broad solutions and some of those solutions are available immediately and some require broader changes, i.e. there are some things I can control and some things I can't.
Living your life in a way that is conscious of these risks and minimizes them when possible makes the avoidance of plastic an ongoing concern, and increases awareness of the issue in public consciousness.
I don't see how broader changes are possible without growing awareness, and often the best place to start is in one's own life.
If you were to examine the decision in a vacuum and discard all downstream effects, I think it's rational not to invest effort if it won't make a difference.
But I think this overly constrains the possible effects of making the changes that we can, and underestimates the value of instilling ideas in public consciousness.
But yes, my intuition says that whatever you might eliminate by not storing food in plastic and other types of avoidance is just gonna be a tiny drop in the constant dose of plastic you're getting from everything you ingest.
The microplastics problem is a pollution problem. When you're done with any given plastic thing you throw it out. Some tiny percentage gets recycled, sure but for the most part nearly all plastics get trashed.
The trashed plastic breaks down into microplastics slowly over time and those microplastics are very mobile and easily wash or blow away if they're exposed to sun. This means they end up in rivers, lakes, streams, and large bodies of water (e.g. the ocean). From there they diffuse and get inadvertently eaten by sea creatures which are then eaten by larger sea creatures and ultimately end up concentrating inside the larger species that we eat.
It's not just the fish though; it ends up in our water supplies which are used to wash our other foods and ourselves. Basically, microplastics are currently so pervasive in our water supplies that every product made for human consumption that exists has microplastics in it.
The solution isn't to do away with plastics entirely it's to use different kinds of plastics that don't become long-lived microplastics. For example, polylactic acid (PLA). It's not suitable for all purposes but it's perfectly fine for something like a frozen food container or even the thin plastic film that seals it up.
The only reason we're not using such plastics (in the places where they can be used) is they're not as cheap as the bad stuff. We need regulations that require single-use products use plastics that don't break down into long-lived microplastics.