One of the possible answers astrophysicists give for why we haven't seen more evidence of intelligent life in the universe, is that there are technological milestones that lead to doomsday scenarios. They're "great filters" that many advanced civilizations don't survive. The classic example is nuclear fission and the power it gives to destroy. I'm convinced that plastic is one of these filters.
I'd figure those plastics wreak havoc in the long term in an individual life but won't prevent people form reproducing and developing. It might be a serious setback but just a hurdle for humanity. Climate change, our nuclear arsenal, ... pose more urgent threats.
Curious why you've got two emojis in your username?
It's an ever aging reference to The Good Place
DEREK!
I'm enjoying a treat Derrick!
Pretty sure plastics save more.lives than they destroy. Modern medicine isn't nearly as effective without them.
Not necessarily the creation of plastic--I agree that it's very beneficial--but the management of plastic. As we're seeing now, plastic can be very destructive to life when it's used and disposed of irresponsibly. The filter in this case is being able to use plastic for its good without letting its harmful aspects get out of control.
I wouldn't necessarily be convinced of that. I'd put that in a similar category as climate change. It might catastrophically ravage the world, but I think humans would survive. It's not the same punctuated event as nuclear fission. If a crazy person got control of nukes early in, they could wreak havoc on the world. Initial blasts kill tons of people, radiation would likely not be fully understood and fallout changes the global landscape before humanity can realistically react. Contrast that with global warming and microplastics, we know (we as in humanity in the broader sense) these are issues. It might need to get to the catastrophic ravaging before enough people are convinced, but eventually it will happen. And the intervening time won't cause humans to go extinct. Sure billions might die, but not all.
This is our lead, isn't it?
Way worse. Lead was fairly fixable. This is a problem at such a scale it's hard to understand. And there's no end in sight to stop mass production of it. Just think of bottles. The number of plastic bottles thrown in the trash from one gas station...then think about all the gas stations. That isn't even the tip of the iceberg.
I literally avoid plastic as much as reasonably possible, but I still want to bury my head in the sand about the whole thing.
Lead was "fixable" for then-future generations, not for those already affected.
Even when you try to avoid it it piles up. I eat a ton of produce, avoiding frozen food trays and crap like that, but they still package the produce in plastic. Shipping in plastic. Plastic bags at the store even after you ask them not to. Cars and consumer goods half made of plastic. People bitch and moan about bans (probably especially petro industry thinktanks) but that's probably the best option at this point.
Plastics have a very real and important role. Things like protecting food from contamination, bacteria and fungi are pretty important and until we find an alternative for roles like that we will still need them. The real issue is our disposable society with one way waste streams and over packaging.
I wish. Plastic pollution will stay around for much longer and we still don't even know how to fix this mess. Meanwhile it's getting worse.
Remember this story when the idea of using waste plastic in roads is discussed again. Just last week some company was trying to peddle that awful idea.
We started mass production of plastic 90 years ago, and we're choking on it. We need to stop all plastic production.
The sheer amount of plastic that goes in the trash any time I take a trip to the grocery story is maddening. And I'm someone who is conscious about it and try to buy products with less plastic waste! Like, what is the point of all this? Is waxed paper not good enough?
I did read some argument that for certain foods, if they removed the plastic wrapping, the expiration would happen so much faster that food waste would increase by a lot. I honestly have no idea if waxed paper would work as well though.
I do agree that hopefully alternative solutions can be found in any case...
The problem is that many medical devices for the disabled and chronically ill are made of plastic. It's why the disability community protested the plastic straw ban, since many of them require to use them to consume anything.
I genuinely emphasize with the people that rely on plastic materials to get through life, it's tough in that situation. I think the solution for straws (since that's a more simple solution) would be either something reusable like metal staws or something compostable like agave straws. Medical applications should replace with compostable plastics like hemp. My point is that stopping cold turkey with petroleum based plastics would be better than trying to slowly phase it out. The plastics cartel will do anything to slow down the phase out
Implantable devices can't be compostable. Catheters and other things that will go inside your body cannot be compostable. That's not the easy solution you think it is.
This is such an uninformed take. Plastics are literally everywhere in modern life. Not just the store bags or straws and lids, but objects in the home like appliances, buckles on backpacks, medical devices, items we launch into space. It's not been shown to meaningfully decrease life expectancy and we may find ways to remove it from our bodies. Cold turkey and you essentially have no infrastructure to replace what is made with plastics.
Please take a moment to think of everything in your life that is made of plastic, and then think of what could replace it.
Glass and Aluminum are the ultimate recyclables and yet we are still are based around them It's all about the profits for Corporations and the consumers that buy this trash.
Buy bar soap instead of body wash, etc.
You can replace most anything with wood or sheet metal. Not only that, but without subsidies to the fossil fuel industries, it would actually be cheaper to make many products we make out of plastic of wood or metal instead.
I wouldn't go so far as to say we need to ban plastics entirely. Expensive, long-lasting items like certain electronics (televisions, game consoles) are probably fine made of sturdy plastics (think the old stuff SNES's were made out of, not the brittle shit they make Xboxes out of today). And I'd have to guess there are certain electronic components that are best made of plastic and not likely to introduce any microplastics into people's systems.
What we need to cut down on are disposable plastics and plastics in food service. Styrofoam trays, plastic wrap, tupperware, plastic bottles, plastic grocery bags, plastic packaging, plastic dishes, plastic handles on silverware. All of these could be replaced with glass, metal, wood, or fabric and become more renewable/reusable/recyclable and less dangerous to people's health.
we need to at least make a plastic that is sustainable, biodegradable, and with a shorter lifespan depending on the applications. for example, a water bottle could be made to last 6 months or so depending on the size, while a keyboard could be made to last decades before starting to break down. this would be quite hard to achieve, but if we want to keep all the commodities given to us by plastic, while also keeping our health, we have to invest some money into research.
IIRC They've found a microbe recently that will eat plastic within a couple years. Could be wrong though.
Either way I agree. Wish we would just go back to glass.
So, i was feeling pretty apocalyptic about this too - until it learned that "micro plastics" include any synthetic fibers like polyester. i mean, of course our clothing lint will get everywhere
I don't know about you, but I don't feel like clothing lint is supposed to be in our hearts.
Do you think there should be cotton in our hearts too? Just because we wear something doesn't mean it should be inside our bodies too.
I have been trying to replace as many of my synthetic clothes and textiles with cotton (or other natural textiles) as possible...
Yeah sure why the fuck not. Toss it on the pile of everything thats fucking wrong.
Yep, while you may think that you have a heart of gold or perhaps stone, your heart may actually have microplastics in it. And in this case, life in plastic is not fantastic, regardless of what the Barbie song by Aqua says.
After all, “Please fill my body with pieces of plastic” is probably not what you often say.
Yes, they used freaking laser beams to detect the presence of microplastics
They also found something bloody awful: nine types of microplastics in patients’ blood samples
Even things that may not obviously seem to have plastic, like various types of clothes, can have lots o’ plastic in them
But all of this may just be the tip of the plasticberg.
In fact, you may be like a walking credit card with the amount of plastic that you already have in you.
The issue is important and the data is scary, but this article reads like the work of a ten-year-old class clown giving an oral report during a sugar high.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's microplastics in human everything at this point. How is this a revelation?
Because it was found for the first time. I didn't even need to read the article to answer your question.
I'll decompose into a pile of bones and a little mound of plastic dust.
Materialism in the hearts of men
Link to the paper: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c07179
The paper mentions controlling for accidental exposure during surgery, although it is also behind a paywall, so it's not possible to tell whether they might have been more exposed to plastic because of whatever heart issues required surgery in the first place, or whether it is something that might also be in healthy humans.
On a side note, why is this in !technology, anyhow? It doesn't seem all that tech-related, except maybe in terms of the plastic discussion.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
