Small steps. I replaced my mixing bowls with stainless steel, my food storage containers that take anything warm with glass, and my drinking cup with an SS one as well. At the very least, everything looks cooler now ;)

Yeah, I’m pessimistic about the huge shift we’d need to make, especially in America. But so much of that packaging is completely unnecessary. Glass jars instead of plastic tubs or bottles. If you visit some places in the UK, they don’t give you single use plastics in hotels and restaurants, though you can still buy that stuff in stores. Water is bottled in glass. Continental breakfast jams are in tiny glass jars. Some snack packages come in waxed paper bags, like what some tortilla chip brands are packaged in here in the US. Paperboard, cardboard, tins and foil. For toiletries, come countries have stores focused on sustainability where you bring your own reusable containers and they have dispensers for things like shampoo and liquid soap. Like a…soda fountain, but for cleaning products.

People are just so opposed to it here. Like aggressively opposed it it. Like eating yogurt in a glass jar instead of plastic is offensive to them. I don’t get it.

It’s actually not used everywhere: Cellophane is quite common as its permeable to water vapour but pretty much only that. Bio-sourced (cellulose) and compostable and you’re free to throw it in paper recycling as they’re used to fishing it out of the sludge (it’s what transparent letter windows are made of). And compostable here means in your own backyard, no industrial high-temperature composting needed.

Many plastics can’t readily be replaced but cellulose and lignin based stuff is at a stage where it can fill many many roles.

Also don’t forget metal, especially stainless steel. Glass if you want to look inside. All that will need regulation as currently producers are happily externalising costs.

Now if someone would produce stailness containers that are on the same performance and general engineering level as lock&lock.

What I heard is that we have such hard¹ water where I live (ancient city center), to protect against lead. No idea if that’s an urban legend or not.

¹17 dH, 3.036 mmol/l, 6.071 mval/l,21.303 °e

That’s true. I meant we stopped actively using them when building new houses. Though now that I think about it, even that is maybe not true everywhere. But at least it’s something you could change once you identify the problem. Microplastics have permeated everything, they can be found in the depths of the Mariana Trench. There is no getting rid of them (as far as we know).

In fact, the US government is giving out grants to states right now to help them remove lead pipes.

You know what also has it? Cheap silverware. You can literally rub it off with a terry cloth if you rub the utensil for like a minute straight… a friend of mine showed me one day. It leaves a shimmering powder on the cloth…

Never ever skimp out on silverware…

Most of the lead-filled silverware comes from China, too…

How scary…

Not exclusively plastic.

Interesting read, I guess testing on mice is all you can do the behavioral part. But the methods section doesn’t state any weaknesses, I know it’s nor required but you know.

At the end of the 3-week-long exposure, behavioral testing began. During the open-field test, mice were allowed to explore a low-lit chamber for 90 min with spontaneous movements monitored in the x-, y-, and z-directions. Several parameters to measure behavioral performance were recorded, including distance traveled, rearing activity, and duration in the center. Surprisingly, we found that acute exposure to PS-MPs induced an increase in distance traveled, which was more pronounced in older animals (Figure 3A–D). Similarly, both young and old PS-MP-exposed mice reared significantly more in the open-field, as compared to age-matched controls (Figure 3E–H). Young PS-MP-exposed mice did not spend more time in the center of the chamber overall (Figure 3J), but both low- and high-dose groups spent more time in the center when analyzed as a function of time (Figure 3I). Low- and medium-dose older animals also showed an increased duration in the center (Figure 3K,L).

You’re not wrong, but now that I’ve read this article I’m pretty sure I can feel the microplastics inflaming my brain.

Push your local politicians to take steps in the right direction.

Whatever it takes to get governments to listen.

Revenge of the dinosaur plankton

Zero chance humanity survives on Earth that long.

Doubt it, men will become impotent by then. Testosterone levels are already halved compared to only a few decades ago

Especially dihydrogenmonoxide!

There is no living creature and no source of water without microplastics in it. Newborns have it in their blood and ground water has concentrations of it.

Don’t reuse plastic that isn’t rated for repeated use

They can’t ban literally all plastic; it’s irreplaceable in some medical applications.

Fuckcars would like to have a word with you about that last thing

Most societies actually got around perfectly fine for most of history without driving. It’s really only in the past seventy years or so that urban planners brains collectively escaped their heads and started designing cities where it’s impossible to do anything without exploding some old dinosaur goo in a giant expensive death machine.

tire wear from vehicles, not sure what can be done about from a personal level

One more reason to wear a well-fitted respirator

I would fucking love to not drive. Just don’t take away my fitnesswear.

Let me think. Ah: We could actually solve two problems at once, microplastics and rolling resistance, by using steel wheels on steel streets. Make a street lane two beams of steel, that saves on material, and the wheels conical so that they follow those beams automatically, replacing the car’s differential. In case we need more grip we can spray sand, though as the street is now steel we can also use magnets for breaking. I should patent that!

Hmm, interesting regarding them coming from vehicles. As far as microplastics from clothing, does anyone know if they are absorbed through the skin? I would think they would only readily be absorded thought food and water intake, but I am just surmising.

No polyester is difficult 😭 do you know if there any other natural fibers somewhat comparable or breathable, for cycling etc.?

No driving is easy for me right now - my car has two wheels and I’m the engine 🚲🤪

Not driving isn’t an option in my area. Not if you want to be employed.

Its a 30 minute drive to the bus stop to get to work. Plus travel time along bus stops.

Its a 35 minute drive to the front door.

If its still half an hour to just get to the bus stop, what’s the point even, at a personal level?

Captain Planet told me in the 90s what was gonna happen. Corporations just took it as a play book to accelerate shit.

Natural fibers are often outside the price range of the average person. Until prices come down or wages go up, people will keep wearing polyester clothing.

For tires, I’m hopeful that technology will improve the composition of tires, or even make them out of a modified form of natural rubber, but switching most transport to rail seems like the superior option here.

Fuck you heathens. Only Shell is the one true Lord!!

more oil for the oil god. more coal for the coal throne.

Sacrifice humans to the sacred alter of Exxon

The oil must flow!

Always have been

Silicone is not actually plastic and definitely don’t break down into microplastics (if they break down at all). There’s varieties leeching suspicious stuff but for some applications the nice ones might actually be the solution of the future, say, for seals for glass jars and stuff. Rubber isn’t better just because it grows on trees, rubber tyres are one of the main sources of microplastics.

Many of them pay to put macroplastics in their boobs, so not very likely.