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.
What are you suggesting? That I stop peeling out of every parking lot and doing sick doughnuts!?
What I'm saying is that we need to figure out to make tires out of some unholy bamboo/cheese composite.
What if the roads were rubber and the tires were asphalt?
This was in a cartoon with the Flintstones once!
Or just go back to unvulcanized rubber
But the oil products! We gotta make the oil billionaires more billions!
10-4, rolling coal instead to impress potential sexual partners.
Maybe switching most of the transportation to steel tires on steel roads would help with this.
Rail is the dream
Yeah
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 mechanical properties and lifetime of PEX were reduced after exposure to chlorinated water. (6) Prompted by concerns about the effect of chlorine dioxide on the chemical integrity of pipe materials, the pressure, tensile strength, and oxidation induction time were evaluated at constant temperature to assess the damage to pipe samples after exposure to chlorine dioxide for one year. (7) Overall, pipe aging due to long-term disinfectant exposure could cause decreased antioxidant contents; increased crystallinity; chain rupture; hydroxyl, carbonyl, and/or vinyl group production; and visible cracks in pipe walls.
Can such an aging process lead to MP and/or NP leaching into the drinking water network? On the basis of aging mechanisms and material performance characteristics, we propose that MPs and/or NPs can be leached from aging pipes.
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.
Thanks for the information, I too am somewhat paranoid about plastics and chemicals leaching into my food/drink.
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.
0.5% of our brains being plastic is pretty shocking.
Agreed. Nevermind all the other places they've found plastic pollution in our bodies.
OK but what's the limit on that card
Mine was declined and won't come out of the ATM.
Now that you have told me something kinda useless tell me how much longer is my shlong due to mycroplastic 🤔😏
It's likely causing your erectile disfunction, even if it tripled it's size.
If your erection lasts longer then 4 hours... Nice.
I don't think this is true
Do you lack reading comprehension, or are you just in denial?
I gave the study a read. It's in preprint, it's yet to be peer reviewed and the method they used is atypical. Yeah I think disbelief is a pretty reasonable response since it's hard to imagine that much plastic wouldn't be making noticeable changes in behavior/physiology. But it's possible and the research seems rigorous
That's a pretty reasonable take 👍
What information did I present that was untrue? I guess technically there's more plastic in your brain than required to make a plastic credit card.
Here's additional supporting research.
From my understanding of the study they used an unverified method on a small part of the brain to get the amount of plastic in the entire brain. Which can be misleading because if you only look at the parts of the brain that are microplastics, the brain is 100% plastic. There hasn't been widespread replication of the results yet either nor has the paper been peer reviewed.
I'm sceptical especially with the microplastic doomer narrative going around. As far as I know the danger of microplastics on the human body is yet to be determined. But it's definitely alarming I just don't think it's responsible to be saying there's a credit card in your brain.
That first paragraph is fair enough.
I'd disagree that the microplastic doomer narrative is incorrect, the plastic in the brain is just the newest tidbit. It's already in our kldneys, testicles, placentas, blood, semen, livers and lungs. Even if this study is wrong (which I don't think it is, because its on trend with plastic contamination growth in the rest of our bodies) about how much plastic there is specifically in brains, there's still easily a credit cards worth in our bodies.
Microplastics are killing worms, it is contaminating soil, it is hurting crops, it is killing fish, and studied effects of plastic on other mammals are bad, to the point it seems pointless to confirm it hurts humans in specific ways before doing something about it.
“I'm a Barbie girl in a Barbie world”….
A plastic existence.
Don't give Elon Musk any more ideas please
The impacts and solutions of the Climate Crisis