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Microplastics are Everywhere, but Their Health Effects on Humans are Still Unclear:
Plastic pollution is getting under our skin. Literally. As plastics have become ubiquitous in modern society, so too has plastic pollution, including that of tiny plastic particles. These microplastics have been detected in the air, water and even in some foods, making their presence in our bodies essentially inevitable.
"We definitely know we're exposed, there's no doubt," says Chelsea Rochman, an ecologist at the University of Toronto in Canada, who studies human-made pollutants in fresh and saltwater environments. "We drink it, we breathe it, we eat it.
How pervasive is that plastic exposure, and is it bad for your health? Scientists don't yet know, but they have some working theories. Here's what we know so far about these tiny, pervasive plastic particles.
Once it enters the environment, the plastic we throw away breaks down in the sun, waves and wind into much smaller pieces. We also producetiny plastic fibers and particles when we wash clothes, drive our cars, wear down carpets and upholstered furniture and more. Microplastics are any smaller than a quarter inch, often defined as a millimeter or smaller; nanoplastics are even more miniscule, measuring less than 0.1 micrometers (a micrometer is 1,000 times smaller than a millimeter).
The biggest sources of human exposure to microplastics likely come fromairborne dust,drinking water (including treated tap water and bottled water) andseafood (shellfish in particular, because we eat the entire animal), Rochman says. Scientists have also detected microplastics in products as varied as sugar, honey, German beer and sea salt. Emerging research suggests humans are consuming more than 100,000 microplastic particles a year, according to Kieran Cox, a Ph.D candidate and Hakai Scholar at the University of Victoria, Canada.
"Microplastics are now considered an emerging food safety concern, but we really don't have all the answers yet," says Dave Love, a microbiologist at Johns Hopkins who studies aquaculture, fisheries and related environmental, health and social issues.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 13 2020, @10:09AM (8 children)
Assuming we survive, future generations may look upon us as reckless experimenters. We've introduced thousands of novel substances into the environment and ourselves, with only cursory testing, just a quick check of short term effects to make sure the new substances aren't so highly poisonous or toxic that people drop dead within the day upon exposure to tiny amounts. Too often, long term effects have been disparaged and dismissed. Even with well founded suspicions that a substance might be troublesome, motivated industries have deliberately sowed confusion and doubt in order to keep their business. It's as Big Tobacco said: "Doubt is our product".
A list, just off the top of my head:
Now when I smell something that has that classic eye-watering, chemical plastic/gasoline sort of odor, I get rid of it.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday January 13 2020, @11:35AM
Yeah, the smell of new Tesla arriving at space station https://www.wired.com/story/a-spacex-delivery-capsule-may-be-contaminating-the-iss/ [wired.com]
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Monday January 13 2020, @12:59PM
Mmmmh, I love the smell of Chinesium plastirubber polymers... every single day.
To be fair, we got rid of some of the craziest stuff like licking radium, most lead, thalidomide babies, etc. What we're left with are the harder to quantify toxins. Life expectancy has plateaued or only slightly declined, and that can be blamed on stuff like the opioid crisis. So enjoy the rest of your time as an experimental subject.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 13 2020, @01:22PM (5 children)
Will they, though? The average life expectancy has skyrocketed with all those substances relative to that of the ancient Romans who ate a purely organic diet.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @02:23PM (3 children)
If you leave out violent deaths and infants that would be aborted (and thus not count towards modern life expectancy stats) today, the life expectancy for the rich is pretty much the same as it has always been.
85: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Elder [wikipedia.org]
77: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus [wikipedia.org]
81: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato [wikipedia.org]
Etc. The real driving force is *fossil fuels*, ie cheap energy, which allows more and more people to live like the rich.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 13 2020, @04:34PM
Still, average life expectancy has gone way, way up, and that's a good thing, probably.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @05:35PM
I doubt those microplastics are going to be shortening human life expectancy by decades (we'd have noticed by now). So with 7+ billion on this planet, even if human life expectancy goes down a few years and fertility drops it might not actually be a big issue... Heck the lifespan drop can probably be offset by eating a bit less bacon and/or consuming less sugar.
What's likely to happen in the future is lots more organisms are going to adapt to to digest plastics. And we might end up having to treat outdoor/exposed plastics to prevent them from "rotting" or being eaten. analogous to the way we have to treat wood.
Stuff didn't adapt to digest wood or lignin overnight. Modern plastics haven't been around for that long and already stuff is starting to adapt to be able to eat it - first various fungi and more recently supposedly some maggots.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:26AM
Fossil fuels reduce air quality.
UNICEF Says 17 Million Babies Worldwide Breathe Air Pollution Six Times Worse Than Recommended Limit [soylentnews.org] (includes related articles)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @04:36PM
The Romans used lead acetate as a sweetener, resulting in various degrees of lead poisoning.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/sugar-of-lead-a-deadly-sweetener-89984487/ [smithsonianmag.com]