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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

I'm confused. Nobody talks about any measurable harm these beads are doing. The ocean is full of sand already. What's the impetus?

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"Often buoyant, the beads can soak up toxins like a sponge. And since they resemble the size of fish eggs, environmentalists fear the micro-plastics are making their way into the food chain via fish, birds and mammals."

Edit: unlike sand.

That sounds like speculation. Again, I wonder if any actual measurements were done by anybody, ever.

Er, lots of people talk about the measurable harm. Start here and google a bit for even more :

http://beatthemicrobead.org/en/science

Sure, I see there vague alarmist statements of what COULD be. With honest appraisals of the risks like "the full extent and consequences is hard to quantify" and "In theory, ingested POPs could remain on the surface of ingested microplastics and could be egested" but no numbers or attempt at measurement.

I just mean to suggest that the alarm is premature.

Maybe we are reading a different page, there are some papers showing what IS, not what COULD be :

> it was shown that over 663 different species were negatively impacted by marine debris with approximately 11% of reported cases specifically related to the ingestion of microplastics

> Increased oceanic microplastic debris enhances oviposition in an endemic pelagic insect

And so on. The rest aren't "vague alarmist statements", but sensible evidence based predictions. They may or may not turn out to be premature, but given that :

- the absense of microbeads isn't a serious issue for humanity or even quality of life

- there are known alternatives (listed in the article)

- if the predictions turn out to be true, it will be too late to do anything about it then as they can't be cleaned up

it seems sensible to take precautionary measures now.

You are confused: you've confused sand and plastic. Two totally different things.

I meant to suggest that plastic particles in the environment fill a similar niche to sand particles, as far as being indigestible and already being dealt with by marine life.

Sand isn't plastic...

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