The average brain weighs 1300-1400 grams. If 0.5% of that is plastic by weight, your brain contains 6.5 - 7 grams of plastic. The average plastic credit card weighs 5 grams.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/microplastics-brain-pollution-health
Jesus christ. I really thought that headline was exaggerated, but no, the brain samples they tested actually ended up being 0.5% plastic by weight. That’s seriously disturbing, I really would have thought the blood-brain barrier would do a better job of keeping plastics out.
For every kilometer you drive, your tires shed 1 trillion plastic particles. 78% of microplastics in the ocean are from tires.
Maybe switching most of the transportation to steel tires on steel roads would help with this.
Rail is the dream
Yeah
What are you suggesting? That I stop peeling out of every parking lot and doing sick doughnuts!?
10-4, rolling coal instead to impress potential sexual partners.
What I’m saying is that we need to figure out to make ties out of some unholy bamboo/cheese composite.
But the oil products! We gotta make the oil billionaires more billions!
Or just go back to unvulcanized rubber
Then it would be like 10x more particles…?
They wouldn’t be plastic and would be biodegradable, which is likely a step in the correct direction.
What if the roads were rubber and the tires were asphalt?
This was in a cartoon with the Flintstones once!
Neuroplasticity makes so much more sense to me now.
How does one become an anti plastic advocate? How do I target plastic specifically? Are some plastics better than others?
It comes from car tires, single-use plastics teflon pans, and plastic food containers. Plastic items that are meant to last a long time aren’t shedding as much.
So if you want to reduce your microplastic contributions, avoid driving, avoid single-use plastics, don’t buy non-stick pans, and use glass food containers.
There’s also carpeting, synthetic fibers from clothing, PVC and PEX piping for water supply, paint, etc. The one that gets me is the plastic Brita filter pitcher. This thing is supposed to clean my water.
It took us decades to get to this point and it’ll take us more time to back out of it. And we have to start somewhere.
Do PVC and PEX pipes/multiple use plastic containers (like the Brita pitcher) actually release microplastics? I’m aware of evidence that PEX pipes leach chemicals (also very bad), but I can’t find anything showing they increase microplastics.
Chlorinated water adversely affects PEX pipes. I don’t know that the amount of microplastics or nanoplastics has been quantified in a study yet.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b03673
The Brita pitcher comment is about my own growing paranoia about plastics that get scratched or cracked. I don’t know the conditions and time line under which this particular formulation of plastic keeps it from shedding MPs.
While you’re at it, make sure you’re reducing your energy usage so you can stop climate change. Don’t worry about Shell or ExxonMobil, I’m sure they’re doing their best. And if we keep politely letting them know that climate change makes us sad I’m sure they’ll give up their stranglehold on energy production so we can live happier, healthier lives! /S
In case it wasn’t clear, treating huge environmental problems isn’t a personal responsibility thing. We need legislation, and that isn’t going to happen without drastic action.
Ya just kinda scream into the void on the Internet while the plastic industry bribes… Er… Lobbies congress into not giving a shit.