"Your" behavior??? The second you try to put this on individuals, you lose the plot and it turns into another "personal carbon footprint" scam like what BP pulled in 2004[1]. The only way out of this is public policy and international cooperation.
I don't know what the most common sources of microplastic particles are, but the messaging needs to be such that people know we aren't getting rid of all plastics, just the stupid ones that are most responsible for potentially harming us. I think straws were banned because there was a video of a plastic straw stuck in sea turtle's nose, not because they're one of the top sources.
In micro and nano scale things can behave differently so it is quite hard to decide what to ban.
Plastic straws and caps attached to bottles - reason was that there are too many of them and people don’t behave properly and don't throw things in the trash and throw them on the ground where they are eaten by animals. At some British beach they counted >100 caps per 100 m (or something similar, it was a surprising number).
If historically worries that arose in mouse studies replicated with high reliability in humans, we would not wait for the results of human trials to apply what we learned for mice to humans on anything of importance.
It's not that we want to do humans trials. We do it because, apparently, it has been observed that it's unreasonable not to do it before applying something we observed in mice to humans.
nick238|3 months ago
I don't know what the most common sources of microplastic particles are, but the messaging needs to be such that people know we aren't getting rid of all plastics, just the stupid ones that are most responsible for potentially harming us. I think straws were banned because there was a video of a plastic straw stuck in sea turtle's nose, not because they're one of the top sources.
[1]: https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...
sixtyj|3 months ago
Plastic straws and caps attached to bottles - reason was that there are too many of them and people don’t behave properly and don't throw things in the trash and throw them on the ground where they are eaten by animals. At some British beach they counted >100 caps per 100 m (or something similar, it was a surprising number).
suncemoje|3 months ago
jstummbillig|3 months ago
It's not that we want to do humans trials. We do it because, apparently, it has been observed that it's unreasonable not to do it before applying something we observed in mice to humans.
onion2k|3 months ago
Change to what?
wombatpm|3 months ago