Boomers also have them, or do you think they intentionally target millennials?
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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My dad's car ran on 4 star right up until the mid 90s. I was exposed to plenty lead in my formative years as well as micro plastics.
The ol twofer
but at least people are born now without nuclear explosion isotopes
up until a few years ago every living being had them
so if we can stop lead from being blasted everywhere
and we can stop exploding nukes
maybe we can stop the plastic problem... but probably not for a few generations
and we can stop exploding nukes
We might be going backwards on this one
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What's replacing plastic. Good luck.
Hopefully renewable, compostable/biodegradable plastics.
It's the getting the old shit out of everything that will be the issue
What did plastic replace? Good chance we can go back, if we can convince some people the line doesn't need to go up. Good joke, everybody laughs...
Do you mean what ubiquitous toxin will be next?
Or do you mean how can we get by without plastic?
If it's the second one, the answer is easy, fucking aluminum. We've had the answer forever and it still works great. Glass too, good for many applications.
Now the actual problem isn't plastic bags or beverage containers though, it's clothing and tires. Most clothing is plastic these days and tiny plastic fibers break up into micro plastics and take to the air or end up in the sea. Car tires are also just plastic these days, not rubber (which is arguably better for the environment than leveling rainforests for rubber tree plantations, sigh...), the tires rub off on the road like a pencil eraser on sandpaper. This also ends up in the air and sea.
So anyway, replacing plastic beverage containers is a great step, a no brainer, but it also doesn't address the real problem at all. I hope that some day soon tires and clothes can start to be made with biodegradable "eco plastics", but if that doesn't turn out to be feasible, we'll be in some serious trouble. And once we have some real, feasible, affordable replacements, then we need to actually outlaw the use of older plastic tires, in every country on the planet, despite heavy lobbying against any new measures from vested interests... I can't even imagine how to make that happen. How did we do it with lead? Has every country outlawed lead in gas?
Even though leaded gasoline and leaded paint have been outlawed for decades in the US, it's still a big problem in poor communities. Lots of old houses still have lead paint. Lead abatement is expensive and many people may not even know it's something you need to do.
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Can someone tell me what microplastics do to the body? I’m almost too afraid to ask at this point.
IIRC the one thing we are sure of is that they don't break down, nor do they get out. So you better hope they don't do anything bad on top of that
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Don't forget the nanoplastics! These are even more hazardous!