Convenient non-plastic solutions need to be developed. After learning about micro plastics and forever chemicals, I started to get paranoid of this stuff. Started cooking at home more and started removing plastic from my daily life. After my wife got pregnant, I keep telling her to avoid plastic, but she doesn't seem to take it seriously. She purchased plastic food containers, I tell her don't microwave food in it, but she does it anyway because the container is "microwave safe". She also wants to carry her own lunch but glass containers are heavy and she doesn't want to carry that. I keep reminding her that she shouldn't use it, especially while pregnant, but she says that I'm stressing her out with that. She said she's open to using non-plastic stuff but it needs to be as convenient as the plastic products she's using now. It's difficult to find proper replacements for stuff like plastic wraps, or lightweight glass food / beverage containers.
It sounds like you and your wife have different values. I see a lot of people that share her opinion. It's hard for me to not be mad at them since their lack of care is what enables companies to act like this in the first place and not lose customers
Make it easier for her by taking on the chores of washing them and preparing them. If you're insisting she do something differently, ask her if there is anything you could do to make it easier for her to do it -- since this is clearly a more important change for you than for her (at this time).
It would be worth checking that the concentrations of microplastics used in this study are of a similar concentration to those found naturally. Otherwise the research is not very meaningful.
So this article was working with concentrations 10x larger on mice (usually worse ability to filter). Beyond that, they admitted that microplastics did not induce an effect which is most of the plastics found in the ocean, etc...
> After two months of daily ingestion of nanoplastics at the estimated human consumption dose, nanoplastic-exposed mice exhibited reduced cognition and short-term memory as assessed by standard neurological assessments such as the open-field test, novel object recognition assay, and the Morris water maze.
I'm a bit confused about whether it makes sense to feed the "estimated human consumption dose" of something to a mouse when a human weighs something like 2000 times as much.
It's still worthwhile to look at 10x and 100x concentrations since these things bioaccumulate. Whatever negative effects are happening at 1x should be studied as we crank that concentration up. Might be fine now, but in 100 years? We should probably have an idea how the harm/effects scale
I personally try to avoid canned drinks and foods to avoid metal poisoning. I typically buy two liter sodas in plastic bottles and avoid softer plastics. Styrofoam cups and other styrofoam food containers are awful. If you get hot food in a styrofoam go box, the box is often visibly marked by contact with hot food and you can smell it and taste it.
It's also potentially a reason to switch to an electric vehicle -- to avoid exposure to gas fumes while refueling your vehicle. (Or you can be "an extremist nutter" like me and give up your car entirely.)
There are a lot of interventions to avoid plastic and chemical exposure that greatly decrease your exposure with little effort (avoiding drinking from plastic water bottles) though there are others which seem productive but have marginal impact. Is there a website anywhere that gives a list of easy changes you can make in your life to avoid plastic exposure and with alternatives? I feel that the impact of environmental pollution in the world and tactics to avoid it is a big mirage of anxiety half-baked solutions.
Everyone is talking about food containers, what about textiles - we breathe in and swallow quite a lot of dust every day, mostly coming from them. Even if you're wearing pure cotton the others may not and the office carpets and furniture are all plastic, getting torn every day.
According to a report compiled by the EU, the largest group of primary sources consists of the small particles released from the washing waters of synthetic textiles, such as fleece clothing. Wear particles from tire and road materials are the second largest primary source. Together, these primary sources form 15–31% of the microplastics in the oceans, that is, less than one third.
Secondary sources include larger plastic items, such as bottles, bags and fishing nets that are ground into microplastics over time. These are estimated to form 69–81% of the sources of microplastics in the oceans, that is, at least two thirds.
The fleece loving hippies are killing us faster than the car fanatics are, but only just.
Food containers are also just..not the problem. No bulk plastic is. Even scraping the hell out of container isn't going to make particles in any quantity.
Microplastic in the environment comes from long term degradation of plastic when it washes into the ocean or waterways and breaks down from UV / radical exposure.
When I clean the lint out of my dryer, I can see a very faint cloud of particles.
Should I be worried about breathing those? I presume a portion of them are plastic from synthetic fibers. Should I be wearing a mask to load/unload the dryer?
> According to Chao Wang, an immunologist at Soochow University and coauthor of the study, feeding mice nanoplastics induced a greater overall immune response in their guts than feeding mice larger microplastics.
Treatments (in mice) are one thing but hazards (in mice) is a totally different thing. Most things that help a mouse don’t help us. Most things that harm a mouse do harm us.
Coca Cola is to plastic what oil is to Exxon, and what food is to Monsanto.
The CEO of coca cola and his team of scientist in 1978 are responsible for this.
Extremely intelligent but extremely unconscious.
They'd make their containers out of pickled baby faces, set up their factory next to a nuclear waste disposal site, and whip children who nod off during their 18 hour shifts if it saved one goddamn cent per bottle.
I use bottled water (plastic) a lot since I travel a lot. I am not sure the level of nano plastic in the water I drink. Is there any plausible research on any of the bottled water products on this?
Because humanity and capitalism's incentives are just wrong. Bottling companies like Coca Cola and Snapple have long switched to plastic bottles, and externalized the cost to the environment.
My recommendation would be to tax negative externalities and redistribute all of it as a UBI to the people of the country. Simple and effective, but apparently the governments have been moving way too slowly.
What's worse is that the governments perpetuate a lie to the public, making them think they can individually make a difference. In the case of plastic the lie was "recycling", when in fact the plastics were simply shipped to China, who dumped them in landfills and rivers.
But the government tells the individual that they can't have a plastic straw or bag. It's all there to distract the individuals from banding together and demanding the costs be imposed on the corporations which put out metric tons every day. I write more about this phenomenon here: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362
And it's not just the bottling companies. It's all the packaging. It's the clothes using synthetic fabrics like polyester, which generate microplastics flushed in every wash. And so on. Convenience is when you'd rather have a one-time-use spoon shipped from China, than wash and re-use a spoon. Your ancestors re-filled containers.
If we made it more costly for these companies, they'd long ago have researched biodegradable alternatives.
I've read that the majority of microplastics come from tire wear (national geographic quoted 28% of the total), and because there's no good alternative to wheel tires, it's unlikely we'll see a decrease of pollution here. So even if we found an alternative to bottles, plastic bags, clothing, etc, it still won't make a dent in pollution unless we convince the world to use a form of public transit that doesn't make use of plastic tires.
We could reduce human consumption of the particles if we only consumed lab-grown meat & hydroponically grown vegetables where the water is ultra-filtered before use.
"A problem is a challenge with a least one workable solution. A dilemma is challenge with multiple choices, all equally bad."
If we eliminated all PFAS chemicals today, society would collapse. What's the point of eliminating PFAS chemicals to improve life expectancy if the very act of doing so would cause a famine?
> But the government tells the individual that they can't have a plastic straw or bag
Policies exist to improve the situation, they just need to be fought for (against the bottling companies):
> According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), the average nationwide recycling rate for beverage containers is around 35%. By contrast, Oregon’s beverage container redemption rate is regularly in the 80-90% range
> My recommendation would be to tax negative externalities and redistribute all of it as a UBI to the people of the country. Simple and effective
Wouldn't you want to resolve the externalities with those funds instead of spending it, likely increasing consumer consumption and making the problem worse?
> If we made it more costly for these companies
Why wouldn't the costs flow to consumers? Firms recently seem to be able to set prices at what the market will bear.
[+] [-] neom|2 years ago|reply
Me when I was a kid in the 90s: mum is a f'ing idiot wtf is wrong with plastic this hippy shit is dumb
My mum 2020s: so plastic huh?
Me 2020s: ugh.
[+] [-] ne0flex|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tade0|2 years ago|reply
Baby products are often made from stuff which at least in theory should be less harmful, but I suppose it's only tested for a select group of hazards.
EDIT: forget the bamboo - not microwave safe. I ate some glue along with my dishes apparently.
EDIT2: Apparently wheat bran containers are microwave safe and since they're edible, they can't be lined with plastic. Not reusable of course.
Also I wouldn't put them on 100%, because low-water content stuff tends to burn in a microwave oven.
[+] [-] snapcaster|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yboris|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Karawebnetwork|2 years ago|reply
Beeswax food wraps work surprising well
[+] [-] rcme|2 years ago|reply
PFAS coated paper?
[+] [-] hinkley|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beambot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JR1427|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shaunregenbaum|2 years ago|reply
So this article was working with concentrations 10x larger on mice (usually worse ability to filter). Beyond that, they admitted that microplastics did not induce an effect which is most of the plastics found in the ocean, etc...
[+] [-] civilized|2 years ago|reply
> After two months of daily ingestion of nanoplastics at the estimated human consumption dose, nanoplastic-exposed mice exhibited reduced cognition and short-term memory as assessed by standard neurological assessments such as the open-field test, novel object recognition assay, and the Morris water maze.
I'm a bit confused about whether it makes sense to feed the "estimated human consumption dose" of something to a mouse when a human weighs something like 2000 times as much.
[+] [-] habitmelon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nologic01|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zug_zug|2 years ago|reply
It's obviously not possible to give a mouse a smaller dose of microplastics over 30 years and measure the cognitive effects.
This is all to say -- your prior shouldn't be "this thing that was never supposed to go into the body is safe until proven otherwise"
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|2 years ago|reply
It's also potentially a reason to switch to an electric vehicle -- to avoid exposure to gas fumes while refueling your vehicle. (Or you can be "an extremist nutter" like me and give up your car entirely.)
[+] [-] lm28469|2 years ago|reply
If you drink that plastic is the least of your problems
> It's also potentially a reason to switch to an electric vehicle -- to avoid exposure to gas fumes while refueling your vehicle.
Car interiors are off-gassing nasty shit all the time, especially when they sit in the sun
[+] [-] quickthrowman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] civilized|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] McSwag|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] atleastoptimal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ulnarkressty|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hinkley|2 years ago|reply
https://www.nokiantyres.com/company/sustainability/environme...
[+] [-] XorNot|2 years ago|reply
Microplastic in the environment comes from long term degradation of plastic when it washes into the ocean or waterways and breaks down from UV / radical exposure.
[+] [-] cwkoss|2 years ago|reply
Should I be worried about breathing those? I presume a portion of them are plastic from synthetic fibers. Should I be wearing a mask to load/unload the dryer?
[+] [-] positr0n|2 years ago|reply
https://dynomight.net/humidifiers/
That being said I have no idea if it's worth wearing a mask.
Edit: this joke comment that struck a nerve haha https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34428710
[+] [-] can16358p|2 years ago|reply
Use a mask or try not to breathe it as much as possible.
[+] [-] hinkley|2 years ago|reply
I haven't convinced the rest of the family of this however, so I'm just doing what I can.
[+] [-] culopatin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taneq|2 years ago|reply
Still interesting, but yes, this is in mice.
[+] [-] AbrahamParangi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reset2023|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] titzer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Reptur|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silexia|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tikkun|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jxramos|2 years ago|reply
What is this said estimated human consumption dose anyways?
[+] [-] FrustratedMonky|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kleer001|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bettercallsalad|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|2 years ago|reply
1. https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/04/11/how-much-plastic-d...
2. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/micropla...
3. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/15/winds-ca...
Because humanity and capitalism's incentives are just wrong. Bottling companies like Coca Cola and Snapple have long switched to plastic bottles, and externalized the cost to the environment.
My recommendation would be to tax negative externalities and redistribute all of it as a UBI to the people of the country. Simple and effective, but apparently the governments have been moving way too slowly.
What's worse is that the governments perpetuate a lie to the public, making them think they can individually make a difference. In the case of plastic the lie was "recycling", when in fact the plastics were simply shipped to China, who dumped them in landfills and rivers.
But the government tells the individual that they can't have a plastic straw or bag. It's all there to distract the individuals from banding together and demanding the costs be imposed on the corporations which put out metric tons every day. I write more about this phenomenon here: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362
And it's not just the bottling companies. It's all the packaging. It's the clothes using synthetic fabrics like polyester, which generate microplastics flushed in every wash. And so on. Convenience is when you'd rather have a one-time-use spoon shipped from China, than wash and re-use a spoon. Your ancestors re-filled containers.
If we made it more costly for these companies, they'd long ago have researched biodegradable alternatives.
[+] [-] veemjeem|2 years ago|reply
We could reduce human consumption of the particles if we only consumed lab-grown meat & hydroponically grown vegetables where the water is ultra-filtered before use.
[+] [-] deelowe|2 years ago|reply
"A problem is a challenge with a least one workable solution. A dilemma is challenge with multiple choices, all equally bad."
If we eliminated all PFAS chemicals today, society would collapse. What's the point of eliminating PFAS chemicals to improve life expectancy if the very act of doing so would cause a famine?
[+] [-] conradev|2 years ago|reply
Policies exist to improve the situation, they just need to be fought for (against the bottling companies):
> According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), the average nationwide recycling rate for beverage containers is around 35%. By contrast, Oregon’s beverage container redemption rate is regularly in the 80-90% range
https://obrc.com/results/how-bottle-bills-compare/
Plastic in a landfill is actually fine, even if wasteful, as long as the landfill is properly built.
[+] [-] willcipriano|2 years ago|reply
Wouldn't you want to resolve the externalities with those funds instead of spending it, likely increasing consumer consumption and making the problem worse?
> If we made it more costly for these companies
Why wouldn't the costs flow to consumers? Firms recently seem to be able to set prices at what the market will bear.
[+] [-] brianbreslin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EMCymatics|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|2 years ago|reply