It's official.
  • erlend_sh@lemmy.world
    752·
    6 days ago

    Studies have identified some of the main sources of microplastics as:

    • plastic-coated fertilisers
    • plastic film used as mulch in agriculture

    WTF?

    • plastics recycling.

    Uuuuh…

  • Jack@lemmy.caEnglish
    64·
    6 days ago

    Biggest sources:

    • 7.6 Mt from macro plastics breaking down
    • 1.3 Mt from paint
    • 1.0 Mt from tyres

    10-40 Mt released into environment/year, and increasing.

      • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
        2·
        4 days ago

        You only think that way because the material for a tire is all in one place and easy to see.

        Paint on the other hand is effectively invisible when we ‘inventory’ a space mentally.

        So a tire in the middle of your living room seems like a lot of rubber but all the paint over every inch of the wall in the same room doesnt, even if the room is big enough for the paint to fill the volume of the tire.

        • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          6 days ago

          Also depends on where you’re measuring. They make up a ton of the plastics in stormwater runoff for example. Sometimes up to 95% from what I found. And that stormwater often ends up in our drinking water.

      • Wiz@midwest.socialEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        Still both from automobile infrastructure. /c/fuckcars bleeding into every Lemmy…

  • bassomitron@lemmy.worldEnglish
    512·
    6 days ago

    The UN’s Global Plastics Treaty is certainly a step in the right direction. I’m not sure what can actually be done about the problem, especially with how pervasive synthetic materials are throughout the world. And what is medicine supposed to do? Plastics revolutionized sanitation, particularly in the medical field. Very complicated issue to resolve.

    • Gerudo@lemm.ee
      445·
      6 days ago

      There are certain industries, like medical, that would probably be one of the last, if ever, to do away with plastic, simply due to the upsides. The only option we have as a species is to create a truly biodegradable, non-toxic, easily obtainable and cheap to produce alternative.

      Haha who am I kidding, we are fucked, plastic manufacturers go brrrrrrrrr.

          • Daemon Silverstein@thelemmy.clubEnglish
            1·
            4 days ago

            Yeah, for things that are supposed to endure, biodegradability is indeed problematic. However, using plastics for things such as wiring insulation would be still a potential source of microplastics even in a world where all plastic was abandoned in favor of fungi and paper packing materials. Ain’t no easy solution, unfortunately.

          • Resonosity@lemmy.world
            1·
            4 days ago

            Steel decays via rusting as its outer coating is sacrificed to corrosion. Civil features decay as erosion degrades it over time. Wooden power poles decay as their treatment degrades and fungi/insects attack them. Outdoor wiring decays if in direct sunlight due to any sunlight resistive coating degrading over time to UV radiation. Oil used as lubricant in motor vehicles and as insulating fluid in electrical equipment degrades over time due to thermal cycling, oxidation, and moisture.

            The point I’m making is that things degrade naturally. Plastic is no exception, although engineers have been able to make certain decisions with it such that constructions can last for decades.

            If we can make plastic by default biodegrade naturally, and at a much faster time scale than today’s oxo-degradable and biodegradable alternatives, then it still allows for scientists and engineers to select for plastics that have been specifically engineered for the application via coatings and whatnot, comparable to steel and wood.

            It’s possible to do so. We just need to flip the script and make biodegradation the norm and not the exception

      • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
        92·
        6 days ago

        Medical and electrical insulation. Two places where plastics are better than the alternatives.

    • Resonosity@lemmy.world
      1·
      4 days ago

      Plastics are also used extensively in the electricity sector as insulation for conductors, support structures, etc.

      We need our vendors of these products to start addressing this issue, and unfortunately I don’t think this is going to come from the consumer end. Maybe for alternative insulating liquids for transformers and whatnot like with Cargill FR3 or Shell MIDEL products, but clearly more needs to be done. Schneider Electric is a good example of a company leading the way

      • runeko@programming.dev
        101·
        6 days ago

        Now sit down and eat your plasti-corn. There are children in other countries that have to eat normal corn.

    • NostraDavid@programming.dev
      4·
      5 days ago

      Controlled Release Fertilizers (CRF) are coated with a tiny layer of polymer which allow to release nutrients in a very timely and targeted way to various crops (trees, flowers, some cash crops) and used in closed environments such as potting plants or greenhouses.

      So it has its use. Guess we’ll need to find an alternative to using polymers now (among a ton of other work).

  • Regna@lemmy.world
    292·
    6 days ago

    The article was very well written. Unfortunately, 90% of the people I’d forward it to would be TLDR…

    • brrt@sh.itjust.works
      245·
      6 days ago

      The 7000 papers were really well written. Unfortunately, 90% of the people I’d forward them to would be article…

  • Bob@feddit.nl
    101·
    5 days ago

    I find little shards of plastic in the vegetables from the supplier at work quite often. Sometimes I plate a dish and spot a bit of blue where it shouldn’t be.

  • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
    3·
    4 days ago

    I like how we’ve gone from looking at the huge garbage patches in our oceans to the amount of microplastic in a drop of water. I don’t see it as a material issue, you pick a material and with enough quantity it will pollute. It is a consumer society issue. But maybe it will be easier to change consumer society by dangling the microplastic threat effect so the actual cause can be treated - wait, the psychopaths in CEO positions would lose money then, never mind.

  • Egg_Egg@lemm.ee
    215·
    6 days ago

    There are many reasons we are screwed as a species. There’s pretty much nothing I can do about it, unfortunately.

      • Egg_Egg@lemm.ee
        9·
        6 days ago

        Now you’re speaking my language, come and shake my hand… actually, nevermind.

      • pemptago@lemmy.mlEnglish
        4·
        6 days ago

        And if you use your imagination, it’s more eco-friendly.

        Come to think of it, unless you’re doing something that requires fewer calories, other activities would likely have a bigger carbon footprint.

        brb, taking a break from the internet to help the environment.

    • ericjmorey@lemmy.worldEnglish
      152·
      6 days ago

      Rather than take a defeatist veiw from this line if thinking, it will do well for your mental health to first spend more time, energy and thoughts on things you can control. Not just things related to environmentalism, but broadly reduce energy, engagement and focus from the things you don’t have significant control over and direct them to those things you do have control. It’s good to get a broad picture and observe the world around you outside of your control in small doses, but it’s easy to over indulge in an unfocused survey of problems in the world, especially on social media. (I include Lemmy communities in the social media category).

      Furthermore, when you do engage with these problems, do so with more narrow focus and in more depth with an eye towards understanding the level of impact the problem has and what organizations or policy positions you can support to amplify your limited influence over the issues that causee the problem. In this way you can mitigate the feelings of helplessness and sense of there being many existential and imminent problems you need to contend with but cannot remedy. You can turn seemingly untouchable solutions into real possibilities without overwhelming your emotional capacity by working with others.

      • Egg_Egg@lemm.ee
        2·
        6 days ago

        I appreciate this, it’s really good advice and what I try to do, but I can always be better.

        At the moment I volunteer for a food bank that focuses on redistributing surplus food stocks from businesses instead of having them go to the bin. This is because I abhor waste.

        I also volunteer for the Scouts because it upsets me to see young people glued to screens all the time, never leaving their home, and not knowing what the real world and real social situations are. Also, I missed out on a lot of these things as a child because I shied away from them and nobody encouraged me. I enjoyed hiking with my older brother and my uncle, but the premise of joining the Scouts was never even given to me as an option.

        It’s amazing to see kids say “what’s this plant, what’s that tree, what is that mushroom, can I eat that berry?” and sometimes being able to answer them, or at least tell them how they can find themselves an answer. “Take a picture of it, do some research, tell me what you find out next week”

        • ericjmorey@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          I want to thank you for your reply. Hearing about someone like you and your attempt to improve your community and the world I the ways you can is so uplifting!

          People are social (even the introverts) and the return on in person, deep social interaction is another reason it’s important to fight the allure of convenience of online media being ones primary and most influencial social interaction. I love that you’re doing it!