Global warming is rising and microplastics are being found in the water we drink and even now our national parks, they should be banned. Or at least enforce to chance to something degradable and not made by oil
I'm posting a reference to this study because it illustrates one way in which our transportation decisions impact our environment. As savvy information consumers, please weight this appropriately in relation to the overall body of evidence regarding microplastic pollution.
From the Introduction
>30 vol% of the microplastic particles that pollute rivers, lakes and oceans consist of tire wear, thus affecting aquatic wildlife
Discussion
>The average loss of tire material through abrasion was estimated at 20 mg km–1 for light-duty vehicles (LDV) and at 200 mg km–1 for HDV. In the past, it was postulated for tire-wear particles that equilibrium exists between their total emission into the environment and their chemical and biological degradation, and therefore, pollutant entry was classified as low. However, these assumptions are overruled by a continuously increasing traffic volume.
Hello, didn't know this until recently when I tried to work out why these popular fertiliser pellets weren't completely dissolving. Apparently they are just microplastic beads and are not biodegradable!
see under "how it works": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GTDGMHC/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza
and the reviews such as: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2ZS73L55EZ04R/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00GTDGMHC
Was reading this post about how microplastics are fast becoming an inescapable intrinsic part of us and it breaks my heart. My partner is a geoscientist who had a research project on microplastics in the great lakes and such sampling a small section was full of anguish.
The way we have turned plastic into this ubiquitous, omnipresent part of our ecosystems spells catastrophe that will directly affect us for generations, increasingly. And yet, our dependence on plastic, in such a short time, is so toxic that this all pervasive material is used for any and all noble efforts that we might have.
And no one's really going to stop this production. Everything is disgustingly filthy now. Everything disposable yet everlasting at the same time. Plastic represents our hubris perfectly, and we are doomed because there aren't enough large scale implementations of alternatives or methods to reduce existing plastic.
Every time scientist, individual or in teams, come up with a way to destroy plastic or mitigate it's impact, the news cycle gives them a single story here and there but like everything science, nobody really focuses on the science and we go back to the bullshit of our lives without any actual reform taking place.
Nobody's marching in the streets against plastic pollution on a daily because everybody's been made to feel guilty by participating in this capitalistic consumerist nightmare.
There are nearly no movies or shows made with sole coverage of the origins and impact of plastic and how rapidly it has changed the world for the worse, even on cosmetic levels like turning our fashion to trash, and deeper angles like plastic becoming this go to material for neo colonial corporations to extract cheapest labour with least production costs.
It's tiresome and it's overwhelming. To think that we have polluted the depths of oceans, cores of the planet, cells of microorganisms and outer space with utter garbage. This is the legacy of our insatiable progress.
This is our design.
They've been found in mice brains
https://newatlas.com/environment/microplastics-blood-brain-barrier/
it’s impossible to run away from plastic. It’s at the bottom of the ocean. it’s in space. it’s in our bodies.
No, I don't want to see your photo dump of shitty sunset pictures you shot on your cell phone last night. I'm sure the moment was moving for you, but I wasn't there, and don't care. Stop polluting my timeline with that crap. Everyone and their mother take pictures of sunsets. It's like the number one subject after pets and kids, which, BTW, I also don't care to see. For every human on earth, there are hundreds of bad photos of sunsets clogging up server space that would be better used for Bitcoin mining—and Bitcoin is stupid. I'm sure there are forgotten polaroids of sunsets next to the bagged poopsicles and dead yuppies on Everest.
I don't hate sunsets. Seeing a good one myself is a sublime joy. But photos almost never capture the range of subtle atmospheric phenomena that compose a good sunset. All we see are some badly framed parallelograms with smears of baby aspirin orange on a mopey bluish background with some moss and sticks poking up at the bottom. The only thing I feel after seeing one is stabby. Spare us.
Our immune system is very good at removing foreign things from our system, so how come plastics can linger in our bodies for this long?
