I am busy and don’t have time to research all of the ways corporations have poisoned us.
What are some good rules on how to avoid microplastics?
Eat local foods? Avoid processed foods? Walk/bike? Use dry soaps? Don’t use any take away containers? Avoid walking near busy roads? Use cotton/wool for all clothing?
It’s too late to avoid them. Microplastics are being found literally everywhere on the planet.
Short term: grow your own food.
long term: politicsI’ve found bits of plastic trash in almost all of the potting soil I’ve bought. I’m at the point where I think a heavily filtered hydroponic setup is one of the only ways to really minimize microplastics.
Hydroponics are done with plastic components. I’ve never heard of hydroponics done with glass.
The micro plastics are in the soil. If you live urban or suburban, your soil is likely more contaminated with micro plastics than food grown on a rural farm.
You can’t buy and optionally clean a bag of dirt?
The plastic particles are small enough to enter the cells of your body. No filter can let dirt through and block micro plastics.
Maybe stop thinking in absolutes and see if blocking 99% makes a difference? You gotta be smarter than to think in black and white
I don’t think you understand how small the particles are. You can’t filter micro plastics out of soil because the micro plastics are the same size as the soil particles. Take a bucket of sand and dye half red. How are you going to filter it?
There are methods to destroy micro plastics like raising the temp. But that will kill the bacteria in the soil making it sterile.
They’re there in varying sizes. We’re not looking for perfection. We’re looking for ‘good enough’. And if the place you live is so polluted that you can’t even grab some dirt out of your yard without poisoning your plants… I think you have to get out of there
I don’t think you understand the physics of the problem. Have you played connect 4, the game with the checkers that you drop down a slot?
Imagine the black checkers are dirt particles and the red checkers are microplastic. The game set with the slots is the filter the particles drop through. Play a game and then open the slider at the bottom to dump the checkers. Do the red checkers stay in the game set while only the black fall out? Of course not, because they are the same size.
There is no possibile way to filter the plastic because it is the same size as the dirt in all its different sizes. There are large and small dirt particles. There are large and small micro plastics. If you remove 1% of the microplastic you remove 1% of the dirt, so the remaining dirt is just as contaminated. You didn’t filter it, you only removed an equal amount of dirt and plastic.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215016121003095
Considering it’s also in the water, probably not, no.
Next to none in my water :p
This is a “parts per million” sort of thing.
Think of it like PFAS or some other harmful chemical (which, you know, it basically is): the layperson would be categorically unable to get a meaningful measurement from a glass of water, but it can still fuck you (and everyone else) up real bad in the long run.
There’s next to none in all water, when measured by volume.
But things concentrate, so the 0.00005% adds up over time.
A quick google finds me an article going into the measurements taken with the tap water here: it’s so little it’s in the range of a measuring error for none at all.
I’d have to pour 350 cups of water to find even one particle, if I’m unlucky
Do you not understand what the prefix “micro” means?
Which has to do with buying a bag of dirt?
The micro plastic is in the dirt. Most commenters here think microplastic means a bit of plastic that broke off packaging.
Microplastic are plastic pieces that you need a strong microscope to see. They can be as small as bacteria.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215016121003095
How does that stop me from shopping around to find clean dirt?
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You are going to pay hundreds per bag to send it for testing?
Why don’t you tell me how you think you’re gonna clean literally microscopic plastic fragments out of said dirt?
I think I’ll call around to find some that have dirt with little plastic. I said optional for a reason
Let me put it another way:
Microplastics are so small that they are found in rainwater - as in, they’re found in water collected precipitation in a pristine vessel. They’re literally everywhere, in every part of our ecosystem and food chain at this point. There is unfortunately no escaping them.
I’m going to take a different approach than most of the other comments here: you can’t. Microplastics are in the air and a large chunk of it comes from car tire residue. You’re breathing it, likely right now. Research is still in the early phases and we just don’t know how bad it is yet, both from the proliferation and the impact side of things.
Source is Breaking the Plastic Wave and Overview on the occurrence of microplastics in air.
you don’t. you can try to mitigate it by using less plastic yourself, buying local foods, whatever, but it won’t make much of an impact.
the less bad news is that plastic, by its own properties, is chemically relatively inert, so they’re really not that harmful. they’re still bad, mind you, just not all that hyped up to be.
PFAS are extremely inert, yet they wreak all kinds of havoc in the bodies of humans and animals.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances
Scientists thought, as you say, that them being chemically inert means they wont be dangerous to living creatures. Sadly they were proven wrong on that.
Die
On Mars.
In the past
…ures of plastic waste
Move to a different planet? I think this cat is out of the bag, they are everywhere now, it’s the lead of the current generation.
The steps you listed seem like reasonable action anyway, but there simply isn’t anything you can do to avoid them here.
They’re in he air, the water, the food, your brain, apparently. Your reproductive fluids…there’s literally no escape. We signed this pact with satan when capitalism determined that profit is the only thing that matters.
The first step we could take? Bringing the exploitative and murderous system of capitalism to its knees. So we can promptly shoot it in the back of the head. Then, maaaybe our children’s children’s children would have an option to avoid microplastics.
That’s the neat part, you can’t
😂
Dude they literally pervade the vast majority of the planet’s ecosystem at this point. That ship sailed a long, long time ago.
Sadly, I don’t think any of us, at least in the U.S. can avoid it and we’ve already been infiltrated by it, possibly even our offspring (due to microplastic found alongside sperm in testes), have been conceived with microplastics flowing in their systems.
For other health related concerns regarding food/ingredients
Short answer: very simple
Avoid plastic
You buy bottled water?
That has Microplastics.
You buy or store food in plastic?
Microplastics…
Use plastic straws?
Welp, Microplastics
Etc…
Basically it’s difficult to avoid it since we use plastic almost everywhere daily, but not impossible.
Microplastics have also been found in our drinking water. So maybe stop drinking water altogether.
I can confirm that if you stop drinking water, in 72 hours or so you won’t have to worry about microplastics.
I’ve heard that anyone who’s drank water has died anyways.
https://www.aamc.org/news/microplastics-are-inside-us-all-what-does-mean-our-health
My take-aways from this article:
There’s no good study on microplastics in humans.
They’ve tested “pristine” plastic on mice and it’s pretty bad.
The plastics we’re exposed to are loaded with chemicals and toxins.She carries a stainless-steel water bottle and avoids plastic water bottles. She doesn’t microwave food in plastic containers and only uses glass, wood, or metal kitchen items, including mixing bowls, spoons, cutting boards, and food storage containers.
takes her shoes off to avoid tracking in dust from the outside and uses a HEPA filter to capture particles from the air.
Great point. Tires are one of the leading products polluting our environment and lungs.
This article also links to The Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at UCSF which offers a guide for minimizing exposure to bad stuff. https://prhe.ucsf.edu/toxic-matters
Here’s a relevant NYT Article - How to Minimize Your Exposure to Microplastics
Clothing and textiles from natural fibres. No rubber tires as they are major shedders of micro plastics.
Where are you supposed to get tires not made of rubber?
Tires are made of vulcanized “rubber” which is actually an oil product.
Rubber tires would be fine as rubber is a natural material but they would expensive and not as durable
Under your tire
Drive less would best the recommendation. Though I feel this doesn’t directly help yourself so much as everyone.
I read an article not that long ago that stated that they’re in men’s testicles and women’s ovaries. In other words, they have become a part of your physical body and will become a part of the bodies of the next generation (likely several generations). They’re unavoidable.
