I’ve been more and more conscious about microplastics. I was not aware that the laundry and dishwasher pods are just plastic which then goes into the water system.
Fairly worried. I limit plastic but even limited it’s in a lot. I want to install a filter on my washing machine to help catch micro plastics from my clothes. I have a septic but I think it would still be helpful in adding yet another barrier before they filter into groundwater.
I’m a little more worried since they said that it will create blockages in your veins and arteries so you’re more likely to stroke the fuck out.
Everything sucks and there isn’t much to do about it on the individual scale and the push to put the moral onus on consumers is fucking bullshit. I’m 90% certain the recycling service I pay extra for just dumps it with my regular garbage.
I’ve been avoiding plasticware for food for about a decade, I drink from glasses or glass bottles, never use disposable utensils etc, but I wasn’t paying that much attention to fabric content until I had a baby. I was more concerned with the chemical leeching directly, but then I read more about how microplastics effect the endocrine system and how infants are especially vulnerable due to their size and how they chew on everything. That spurred me to only get plant based fabrics for the kiddo, mostly from 2nd hand shops. I think the only plastic stuff he wears is his snow gear and shoes. I know I can’t protect him forever, but I’ll do what I can where I can.
I don’t sit around thinking about microplastics. Microplastics are something to worry about when you are making purchases, but not something you can realistically worry about while living the rest of your life.
Most of your microplastics aren’t coming from your tide pods anyway. They actually come from plastic fibers in your clothing that get abraded in your washer and dryer.
What can you do about it? Try to use glass, metal and ceramic cookware. Avoid teflon cookware. Purchase clothing that has all natural fibers. Avoid facial scrubs that have micro beads, although those have been banned pretty much every in the US in the last decade.
At the end of the day, I worry about microplastics about as much as I worry about irradiated iodine from nuclear bomb tests.
First they came for our Lead based fuel Then they came for our Lead based paint They’re not touching Lead based ammo, because Lead based ammo isn’t killing people. People are killing people.
Unless everyone changes, there’s microplastic in your drinking water. The problem is so far along that even if we stopped all plastic products sale and manufacturing today, and actively worked to clean out all of the microplastic from the globe on an unprecedented level, we would still have microplastic issues by the time you die, even if you live longer than any human has ever lived before.
This isn’t “it’s hopeless and we shouldn’t bother”, it’s more “there’s more to do than can be done in anyone’s lifetime, so try not to make it any worse”.
It’s good that you’re aware and trying, you should keep doing that. Worrying about it all the time isn’t really helpful. Just try not to unnecessarily contribute to the problem.
It bothers me that people are worried about this and pfas but not nitrogen oxides or failures-to-deliver. It shows we worry about what we are told to worry about, rather than what maybe we should worry about.
Yes. I usually join several cleaning groups per year, cleaning thrash from nature. I also don’t buy cheap plastic clothing (basically stop caring about fashionable trends) and repair as much as possible. I think about packaging when buying stuff, which I btw also limit as much as possible. Our waste stream is extremely low, with 95% going into recycling and upcycling.
I live a comfortable modern life, these are minor adjustments everybody can and should be able to make.
Always keep in mind that apathy and fomo are part of capitalist consumer ideology.
I’m absolutely not in a financially privileged position, income wise. I’d say I’m in the bottom 30th percentile. Far less than median income.
My privilege is living in an affluent western country with affordable healthcare. And only if you’re outside of the western world could I understand having to make different choices.
And by the way… Shouldn’t especially affluent people be making these choices? Why the hell would we force homeless people to only buy linen. It’s the people who make the most who have the highest impact.
Yes. Capitalism’s victims far outnumber capitalism’s profiteers. At the same time, by spending less money in support of harmful capitalistic practices, it disincentivizes companies from selling them as much.
We can vote with our ballots and we can vote with our dollars. Between those moments, we can consume less, reuse more, and dispose of less.
So your solution is to do nothing and give in? Yet YOU are the one insulting the commenter you’re replying to? Lay off the superiority and fatalism, and maybe you will see a path to helping.
Will we solve all the world’s problems? Not even a little bit. But does that mean we shouldn’t even try? I would argue that we should absolutely do our best to mitigate any damage caused by anyone, because we all share the same earth. Of course I would also argue we should all abstain from insulting each other, so maybe my opinion doesn’t matter.
No. That’s their solution. They want to “fix” the problem without upsetting the feelings of those who caused the problem - that makes any “solution” they come up with automatically a part of the problem.
Blaming plastic pollution on the working class and pretending it is their responsibility to “recycle” away the catastrophe capitalism has created has literally been the parasite’s PR strategy long before most people here on Lemmy was even born.
Get this… more of the same will not solve anything.
No, my friend. You are upset and directing your anger in the wrong direction. Their solution was simply saying you can help mitigate the problem. Not that we can fix the problem without upsetting someone’s feelings. Nobody blamed the working class. Again, you are directing your anger unreasonably at those who should be your allies. You want to lay blame, but you isolate yourself from those who appear to be agreeing with you. Seems that commenter just meant that even if you can’t completely fix it, you can do a little bit. If you can do a little bit, then why wouldn’t you?
Because it won’t fix everything is not a reason to not do all that you can. You can only control yourself, so you may as well try your best.
you are directing your anger unreasonably at those who should be your allies.
No, I am directing my anger at liberals whose ideology serves no other function other than to maintain the status and power of the class of parasites that caused the problem. Liberals are most definitely not allies.
You don’t know the political affiliations of either of the people you’re insulting. I’m not going to bother replying to you, as you seem to have lost all sense of good faith.
If you cannot have a discussion without devolving into insults and inflammatory statements, you are not someone I would want as a friend, ally, or even acquaintance honestly. I suggest you seek some means of centering yourself emotionally, as I genuinely think it could be of benefit.
I hope that you have the day you deserve, and in the future can enjoy calm and rational discourse.
I would highly recommend getting a UV flashlight with a 365nm wavelength. That wavelength makes leaded glass easy to identify and glow blue. I got one and lead is still very much prevalent in a large amount of drinking glasses that I shine it on.
China still doesn’t really have restrictions on lead and brass plumbing fixtures in America still had 8% lead as recent as 2014
It won’t be fixed without a revolution so worried isn’t the right word. Resigned to the neoliberal order about to crumble into its natural progression.
Nothing can be done to prevent microplastics. They’re already out there.
The problem will solve itself via microbiology. Organisms will evolve that eat plastic and then it’ll be “over” (by which I mean there will be a constant, but not increasing, amount of microplastics in the environment).
In the meantime, our health will suffer and hopefully our medical technology will expand to handle the negative outcomes.
Our civilization relies too heavily on plastic. And that’s not a bad thing. It has its drawbacks, but plastic is also super useful as a material and it’s part of what we are.
We aren’t just Homo sapiens any more. We’re Homo sapiens cybogified. Giving up plastic means giving up what we are. Going back is an illusion that we create for children so they can have an environment that mimics our environment of evolutionary adaptedness. In the real world, the world that an adult by definition engages with, change is a constant.
We have filled the world with plastic and there’s no way in our power to get rid of it. But nature has a way. Life has a way to handle it, and it will.
It takes a very long time for evolution to adapt to changing environments. We’ve littered the planet with microplastics in less than a century. I’m not sure it can adapt that quickly.
It could give rise to organisms with mechanisms already in place to deal with them. Unfortunately, the organisms with no such traits aren’t going to magically mutate. Good news for the organisms that can process micro plastics, less predation.
If people do start dieing en masse, though, and modern science has to quickly adapt we might see some major advancements in bio technology. Biggest thing being, lifting some of the taboos around gene manipulation.
Please take everything I say with a grain of salt. I tend to fantastical thinking.
I do my best to minimize micro plastics but also try not to worry about things I can’t control. That cat is already out of the bag, micro plastics are inescapable. The silver lining this study show that they aren’t and its relatively easy for the body to get rid of them over the course of a month. While obviously its hard to say about long term toxicity it seems that life is at least generally resilient to it.
If I may add one personal anecdote. My parents were born in the 60s and 70s. They chain smoked cigarettes for many decades before their health finally caught up with them. Yet somehow they resisted the numerous toxins and carcinogens and tar they exposed themselves too every moment of the day. Maybe they are just really lucky but also maybe living things that got this far in the evolutionary tree already have expetience in biologically adapting to survive. Our cells aren’t such easy pushovers to die over any and every little changes in the environment or new chemical players introducing themselves in the game of life.
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