Microplastics detected in the marine air from Norway to the high Arctic
scienceswitch.com
scienceswitch.com
Although this article seems to be more about particles from wear and tear on tires and clothes, which I always felt was a separate issue from plastic packaging that ends up in sea. But maybe I'm wrong about that.
More directly and less, uh, platitudinally - we’ve found microbes capable of digesting and breaking down things we didn’t think were possible and we’re getting better at engineering/encouraging them to do so - I think there’s a legitimate possibility that we can actually solve this problem within our lifetimes.
It's actually kinda bad enough if they start breaking down plastics. We use plastics in a lot of places specifically because they're resistant to microbial breakdown. This includes electrical insulation, medical equipment, food containers, and so forth. A world where plastics start to rot at the pace of wood is a world in which we have big problems.
Unfortunately, the way we've gone about things it seems like an inevitability that a successful plastic-eating microbe would evolve. Plastics are goddamn everywhere, and they're chock full of yummy hydrocarbons. Any organism that specializes in this food source has very good prospects for thriving.
Plastics are a terrible food source for microbes. The two most common plastics polyethylene and polypropylene are just chains of C2H4 and C3H6 respectively. No nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, potassium, or any other elements necessary for life.
In a world full of carbon dioxide in the air and photosynthetic life forms, having access to yet another carbon and energy source isn’t much of an advantage except in extreme environments like hydrothermal vents.
EDIT: Also seawater: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_degradation_by_marine_...
Nature is also stepping up and bacteria is evolving in several places which eats plastic.
I agree that it is incredibly depressing once you realise how wide spread and poisonous to our environment the pollution is. As a society we need to find a way to bake the externalities into the price of every day items, else we will always suffer from the tragedy of the commons.
Until a few years back I was also unaware about microplastics in things like tires and clothes. Started buying clothes that are strictly cotton/linen/wool. I don't drive so that part is irrelevant.
Individuals is how it started, individuals is how it's gonna improve.
It's a much smaller problem of course, but we did solve it. We need to step up.
Daring individuals can change the world.
Now imagine all the other battles we started or lost already and aren't aware of at all
Your comment is on a completely different value ranking than my own. I’m over here thinking that this permanent pollution is an effing tragedy, and hoping we can prevent it from worsening further. I’m not even thinking about the possible consequences, which would only make the situation worse.
I surveyed the literature a year ago. Lots of 'microplastics exist!' but no 'microplastics cause harm'.
There's dust and sand everywhere too. Yes, plastic is artificial. Other than that label, is there any, any evidence it is an actual problem?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35835713/ https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.2c03453
Ideally someone would make “plastic” that biodegrades over 10 years into completely harmless substances.
Modern humans have walked the Earth for 300,000 years. We use plastics for 0.03% of our history and suddenly think we can't survive without them.
ಠ_ಠ
The societal need we have is to get rid of single use-plastic and frail plastic based textiles which are the two main contributors for this microplastic degradation into our water cycle and food (and all wildlife ecosystems).
Even purely from an engineering standpoint it is absolutely ridiculous to design a part that will last 450 years to then use it to carry soda around for 45 min.
Apart from single-use plastic usage in laboratory work and medical applications all other uses only have a purely economic benefit and should be banned (and the companies that transition should fork the costs). They have externalized the environmental cost of packaging for decades, a market correction is overdue.
The issue is not about getting ready of plastic. The ABS plastic part inside a mechanical assembly will likely do it's job for decades undisturbed. The issue really is banning single-use plastic.
Why make candy wrappers from material that lasts centuries when buried? Before plastics, a paper wrapper, or loose candy in a tin, did the job.
Use biodegradeable materials for such applications, and candy wrappers, cigarette packs etc will still wind up in the environment, but not stay there forever. Easy problem application-wise, big win for the environment.
So I live semi-rural and it's hard to fathom how much plastic comes off disintegrated blue tarpaulins. Occasionally I've tried to dispose of them if I find them abandoned, I have a technique now where I cover them with a thick polyester bag before disturbing them because oh my god, the amount of fiber that comes of them is absolutely disgusting.
They should be banned and anyone selling them receives heavy fines.
What's more annoying is they're often used for the most useless, superficial tasks, like covering machinery (very easy to build a small shed instead), covering firewood, covering a shed before it's knocked down etc. There are just other ways to achieve the same result, hell even using tin to cover things is pretty cheap and easy way to keep rain off wood.
One of my neighbor had one covering some firewood and it was absolutely insane how polluted our field was with the shredded pieces. I hated it so I removed it with his permission and excavated the top layer of soil and had it incinerated at a proper facility so it didnt end up in nearby waterways.
Last 15 years saw as much plastics being manufactured as all the years before it.
And we are not yet even at peak plastic use, it is still increasing.
Nope: https://www.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived...
We've done so much damage, it has to stop...
Even back then the demand far surpassed sustainable extraxtion levels, and human population has since grown by almost an order of magnitude.
There is nothing trivial in these problems.
Do you want to go back to that age? Can you imagine the popularity of going back to such austerity?
If not, we probably need a replacement.
Ridiculously dramatic.
The main source of microplastics is single-use plastic in packaging and plastic textile both of which could be dramatically reduced and in many cases outright banned.
The main barrier is not technological, the main barrier is purely economical, no company would want to foot that bill and no regulatory has the courage to enforce it.
Also mid 19th century is poor example because the modernity was extremely unevenly distributed. Sure, upper class Londoner might have lived very modern life, but that is hardly representative of the era in general
Everything about them from the emissions they produce during manufacturing, the wasted space for parking, through to the tire dust, the noise, even electric cars are noisy enough, I'm currently living near a main road which is concrete and it's just insane how disruptive one car can be to our sleep.
I don't think self-driving cars will improve much, lost of the problems are still going to exist, traffic, noise, reduced walk ability, lost of space for roads and parking...
I will admit we own a car, but I really, really think before I turn the ignition. 9/10 I can use my bike and get some exercise or order online and just wait a day or two for something to arrive.
The truck probably creates the same or more tire dust than your car.
Now, if you had someone delivering your goods on foot or bicycle ...
Doesn’t that sound good ?
If you do your weekly grocery shopping online and you have it delivered at your home, it may save a few cars worth off the road.
If you order five different small (readily available locally) items on Amazon and each of them is delivered to you by a different courier not so much.
It is not set in stone but it is very prevalent in our societies nowadays.
Basically, oil companies are being allowed to wreck havoc on the planet and our health, for the sake of maintaining their profits. The problem is the clock is ticking, and one can keep their head in the sand and pretend to ignore the danger for only so long, before inevitable reality happens.
If anything, we are starting to cross the threshold age of "plastics are everywhere" that I'd definitely expect some population-level effects starting to manifest in earnest.
Every year moves the microplastic scare towards the same slot that Electromagnetic hypersensitivity occupies in my mind. (Mind you that I'm not conflating the two yet, but every year we go without microplastic catastrophe moves the needle slowly into that direction.)
> Some recent studies have found an association between mobile phone use and certain kinds of brain and salivary gland tumors. Lennart Hardell and other authors of a 2009 meta-analysis of 11 studies from peer-reviewed journals concluded that cell phone usage for at least ten years "approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same ('ipsilateral') side of the head as that preferred for cell phone use".
Incidentally, this item was just here yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37160651
It seems to me that is a losing strategy. Personally being environmentally concious is a way to keep back to the guilt, but not to change anything.
> It got be gov that could put an end to this madness
Right, which is why if enough people cared, and were willing to throw down their lives for the issue, we would have a generation of politically adept professionals. Yet, we are still waiting.
Nearly nothing, in other words... not that it matters anyway, because it's all practically inert. Perhaps they will serve as evidence to future historians of an era of progress before radical misguided environmentalism took over and plunged civilisation into another dark age.
To think environmentalism will cause it. I mean if it happens, environmentalism will be a small factor.
Of all the things to cause global dark age, cmon. You’re reaching.
As a rule of thumb, a tenth of empirically demonstrable toxicity. That's a good basis for thresholds, both legal and medicinal.
May I remind you of the toxological properties of e.g. polyethylene, the world's most widely-used plastic:
If those are a "serious threat", then I wonder what they think of petroleum jelly... which is basically the same structure with much shorter chains, and is even more reactive!
How much chemistry knowledge some of these fearmongers have is highly dubious.
And just adding fluorine to something does NOT make it a PFAS! PFAS is a very specific chemical, not everything with chlorine or fluorine is a PFAS.
Additionally they are very very rare (only used where the chemical can't be contained in simpler plastics), and are not really where your attention should be on the hazards of plastics.
which concentration is that?
EDIT: Should have searched. https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/what-is-cancer...
It checks out that a single unchecked self-reproducing cell could rapidly create a lot of them. I just thought there'd be control mechanisms to cause other cells to attack them.
But it is realistic apparently! Welp!
This is such an over-the-top strawman, it doesn't even warrant a serious response.
Microplastics are literally everywhere in the city, making it hard to gauge outside a clean room.