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.
What can be done to prevent microplastics?
I bet the bigger impact/microplastic culprit is the clothes themselves.
That’s a really good point. It’s unfortunate that polyester tends to be the go-to cheap option for clothes
I just hope we can swap them out for hemp ASAP… I really want to get to the point where hemp is only a few bucks more and an elimination of corn subsidies along with a virgin plastics tariff could go a long way
There’s so much clothing already made that, with the exception of underwear or socks, you could assemble a large and diverse wardrobe of good quality plant fiber clothes entirely from 2nd hand clothing bought for as cheap or cheaper than you’d find new polyester stuff. Thrift shops, Vinted, Ebay, Poshmark etc have tons of good stuff for cheaper than retail.
You can find cotton really cheaply as well! You just have to look a bit harder for it
I assume you mean the clear plastic around the pods that gets sticky when you touch it with wet hands. Relevant YouTube short with Hank Green https://youtube.com/shorts/mm997MpLNeA?si=ZdBiX7ZTjbpLQMLS TLDW: you don’t have to worry about this kind of plastic it is water soluble and turns into water and carbon dioxide when burned I believe.
Yes I am worried about microplastics in everyday things, for example drinking water from my tap. I am also worried about using plastics for anything food related that is heated up. As such i have removed all plastic containers in our kitchen that would be used near or with heat. Any containers remaining is only for cold foods and dry storage.
Hank Green makes me feel slightly better about the laundry/dish pods. I love that guy and he’s wicked smart
I still wouldn’t use them for dishwashers. They’re overpriced and usually are worse than a standard detergent https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04
Aren’t laundry and dishwasher pods basically gelatin? Which isn’t plastic, it’s made from animal collagen.
Edit: I have educated myself, and it’s PVA; which is essentially wood-glue. PVA is a biodegradable acetate which dissolves completely in water.
It seems that some are made of PVA. It is disputed how damaging PVA is in the water system. New York is considering a ban on it
I think that being informed can help dilute the worry. Here’s what I’ve learned:
Most microplastics found inside humans come from synthetic clothing followed by car tires. Theres a great Veritasium video on this. Plastic cookware is also a consideration.
Food & Cookware
Don’t buy dishwasher pods, they’re worse for the environment (plastic waste) and worse for your wallet than just a regular fluid container. Both fluid container and pod container are plastic so theres not much improvement to be had there.
My friend with a Chemical Engineering degree tells me that the plastics are stable chemically, and insufficient evidence exists to deem them harmful when left alone in cool temperatures. HOWEVER, unreacted precursor chemicals and thermosets are highly reactive, and new plastics come still coated with this. New car smell? Thats unreacted precursor, and it’s very harmful. Additionally, plastic cookware also gets hot, breaking it down slowly, and potentially making it harmful.
Avoid plastics and “non-stick” coatings in cookware.
Clothing
First thought is to avoid synthetic clothing, but theres a catch… Synthetic clothing is significantly better at blocking harmful UV light from the sun. For example, polyester & Nylon UPF is about 30-50+, whereas cotton is around 5. UPF = SPF generally. For this, I prefer wool (UPF ~40) or denim (UPF 1000+ off the chart). However, thats hot, so using some tight knit polyester shirts is a must in warm climates. Many shirts from retailers like REI have this stuff. So far, the ones I own have never shed noticeably, though that may change.
Why am I talking about sun protection? Remember, the goal is your health, not fearful avoidance of one harm that subjects you to another.
For all fabrics that aren’t expected to protect from the sun, natural fibers are preferred. Included is bedding, towels, bathrobe, pajamas, casual clothing, socks, etc.
Other thoughts
For all of this, my friend says that I probably don’t need to worry, and I have never seen convincing evidence that microplastics are harmful inside the body. Yet, I operate as if it were proven, because I don’t want to risk reading that I’ve been poisoning myself ten years from now.
Considering the overwhelming majority of microplastic in water comes from car tire dust probably nothing until transportation changes worldwide.
This is correct, but there are really 2 main sources, tire dust and synthetic fabrics (polyester).
The rubber tree is endangered so I wouldn’t recommend switching away from synthetic rubbers for tires, not without another replacement. But we have a lot of alternatives to polyester, we could start moving away from that material. It just takes the will to do it.
Not much I can realistically do about them. Consumption on my level has no measurable effect. So, no. I’m going to die of a bowel explosion in a couple decades anyways, according to the cards. If there’s plastic, so be it.
Don’t microwave your food in plastic containers. Pretty easy way to cut a chunk of microplastics from your diet.
Also evidently Ziplock is one of the only brands of plastic storage bags that don’t contain pfas.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/14/plastic-sandwich-bags-pfas-chemicals
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 that dangerous 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.
I mean, every person who has died from cigarette related lung conditions might disagree that we’ve evolved past it. That’s just survivor bias.
But also, micro plastics can get past the blood brain barrier and as far as we know, there’s no way for our bodies to clean them out. Nano plastics are also getting imedded in lung tissue. We don’t know yet the repressions of this but I avoid buying plastic any time there is an alternative. Yes, it’s unavailable that we consume it, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to bring it into my house.
These days plastic products are sold at huge profit. It blows my mind to see a polyester shirt and a cotton shirt selling for the same price when the polyester probably cost a couple cents to produce.
My siblings and I often marvel that we survived growing up in the 1950s and 60s. DDT, leaded petrol, lead paint, asbestos fake snow, most adults smoking like chimneys, coal fires… My brother recently got through a type of leukaemia linked to the glue he used to make model planes.
On the other hand, plastic was rare back then. Containers were metal, glass, wood, ceramic. Shopping was carried in string bags or wicker baskets. The butcher wrapped meat in paper, lined with a sheet of waxed paper if it was bleeding. When plastic arrived big style it was cool, convenient, modern. In the 70s everyone had Tupperware - argh, those parties…
This was all in New Zealand btw, something of a conservative backwater. The Australian time zone joke ran: “If it’s 7pm in Sydney, it’s 1956 in Auckland.”
Yeah it’s a bit of a buzzword, there’s no real evidence yet that it’s a problem and a few areas we’d expect to see them already - plastic factory workers and similar seem to be no less healthy than counterparts in other industries for example.
It feels bad hearing micro plastic is found on ocean floors but really it’s just going to vanish under a layer of other creatures trash like shells and bones or the dirt drifting in the currents until it finally settles. We need to look after the planet but it’s worth remembering she’s a tough old egg.
Go to any VA hospital. Some people can live through being shot. Some people can live a full life with their legs blown off. Ask them about the “unevolved” people who couldn’t handle loving with a bullet hole in their body.
Go to a rehab facility and ask people what it’s like when most of their cells find a way to keep living.
Go to a graveyard and ask how many people didn’t survive lung disease or smoking related cancer.
At some point in your life you realize that you can’t worry about things you don’t have control about
I’m happier to live in an age of micro plastics than lead and asbestos and extreme smog.
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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
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.
There are already plastic eating bacteria
So at least there’s that
There are, but it’s more of a question of how quickly they could go global and counteract the microplastics.
Yes. Almost half of all microplastic particles are fibers from synthetic clothing. So I avoid buying clothes that are not made with natural materials. I also avoid single use plaatics as much as I can and recycle as much as I can.
I keep hearing random statistics about sources of microplastics and have no idea what to believe at this point. Just yesterday I saw something saying that 78% of microplastics come from tires.
That’s why this is such an issue, that’s 128% microplastic, just between those two things!
Well tires and textiles are the two main culprits.
Same. I reduce usage when I can. If not, then I try to at least reuse it (such as a plastic bag). Last resort is to recycle.
Unfortunately, plastic recycling seems to largely be a scam (in that it doesn’t actually get recycled)
Yeah, very little plastic actually gets recycled but its better than none of it.
I think the issue is that people feel empowered to use plastic because they think it ultimately will be recycled.
NPR has done various reporting on this, but essentially the players in the plastic industry have long known that plastic recycling did not work but they actively promoted it (knowing that it would increase plastic usage)
The producers should also be made to collect their waste, or pay for the waste produced so it will be processed properly.
Which they would undoubtedly let the customer pay for when buying their clothes
Yes, so the prices should reflect their actual cost. More natural products would then be cheaper.
Refuse, reuse, recycle is exactly the mantra you’ve unwittingly mentioned. We should be refusing things where possible, it does need legislation to prevent the production of harmful materials in the first place though.
I found a source that supports your “almost half” number for microplastics contribution from synthetic clothing.
The source is a little lacking in that they don’t have real numbers for synthetic textile contribution to microplastics, just the overall contribution of textiles to micropolution, but they do talk about the relationships between the two.
What can be done to prevent microplastics?
You mean, apart from dismantling capitalism?
Yes, something realistic that can be actually done.
Then the answer is a definite absolutely nothing.
You don’t need to fix the entire problem to help mitigate it.
Mitigate it how, genius?
One obvious way would be to limit the amount of plastic you purchase, use, and dispose of.
So your solution is to place the burden of mitigating our ecological disasters on capitalism’s victims?
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.
All I’ve ever heard about microplastics is that everyone is filled with them and that they are everywhere.
What I haven’t heard is why that is a concern. Is it going to affect my health in the long run? When? How much do I have to have consumed for it be an issue?
Even if we identify those issues, can it be removed? Will it make a difference?
For such a ‘everyone is now worried about this’ type problem, I never once heard why they’re concerned. I suppose I could look it up, but I’m surprised that all of the discussion is about the issue existing, but not why it’s an issue to begin with.
The reality is that we do not know what the long term effects are. But nonetheless, without knowing what the consequences are, we managed to contaminate most of the planet including our food and water supply with them. Thats what is worrying because there are many cases where we did something similar with disastrous consequences.
A recent study indicated they appear to contribute to strokes and heart attacks.
Exactly my take. “Plastic” is a huge word covering thousands of compounds. I’m no chemist, but all the plastics I deal with day to day are inert, which is much of the reason we use them.
I’m absolutely in favor of reducing single use plastics, but there’s so much plastic in so many things that I can’t imagine existing without it. People are rather unreasonably of the “plastic bad” mindset without considering what the alternatives could be.
Not everything can be glass or wood/wood-like substances. Metal has its own environmental concerns. What else is there?
That some of those billions of profits were invested into finding better solutions.
Plastic at the microscopic level, if they aren’t doing anything chemically interesting, really ought to function about like “rock, but light”. Most organisms don’t run into trouble because there are tiny bits of rock in the world, so I would expect tiny bits of plastic not to be a huge problem. Which is sort of backed up by how we have noticed microplastics everywhere and we haven’t seen huge problems resulting from it (most people are still alive, most children still develop to adulthood, etc.).
But it’s entirely possible that some of these plastics are not chemically inert, and that they emit chemicals that do exciting and unwanted things in people’s bodies. If we can’t keep our plastics from becoming microplastics, we probably need to discontinue the manufacture of non-implantable plastics, since all the plastics will end up in someone’s body at some point.
And it’s also possible that the microplastics physically do do something interestingly bad. I think there was a recent study to this effect on heart disease. But at this point, that’s the question we need to be asking. How many or what kind of microplastics does it take to give a ferret epilepsy? Not “are there microplastics in my all brands of peanut butter?”
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Nothing can be done to prevent it, it’s already in every fresh water source.
How worried?
Super fucking worried, but there are also so many other things to be worried about rn that I just accept the fact that I will likely die from some form of forever chemical cancer.
Between climate change, civil unrest, and the possibility of WW3, I’m not sure if I or anyone else is going to live long enough for it to be an issue. When all the immediate civilization-collapsing problems are solved, I’ll worry about microplastics in earnest.