Twenty years of microplastics pollution research - what have we learned?


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Microplastics arise from multiple sources including tires, textiles, cosmetics, paint and the fragmentation of larger items. They are widely distributed throughout the natural environment with evidence of harm at multiple levels of biological organization.

They are pervasive in food and drink and have been detected throughout the human body, with emerging evidence of negative effects. Environmental contamination could double by 2040 and widescale harm has been predicted.

 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl2746

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Multi-billion $$$ invention idea for somebody:  Tiny robot that clears the plaque out of arteries and vacuums up micro-plastics from the bloodstream.

What's going to kill humanity first?  Too much synthetic stuff in our bodies or the plummeting fertility rate?

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The rate at which macroplastics fragment into microplastics is not known, nor is the extent to which microplastics potentially fragment into nanoplastics, nor are the timescales required for plastics to be mineralized. Greater understanding of these transformation rates would be invaluable to risk assessment ... however the rate of mineralization would appear to be miniscule compared to the rate at which plastics are accumulating in the environment. Hence, it has been suggested that, with the exception of material that has been incinerated, all of the conventional plastic ever made is still present on the planet in a form too large to be biodegraded (39).

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Interesting that the study basically says we dont know how fast the majority of plastic degrades but it doesnt matter because the rate of pollution vastly outpaces it.

To address this I believe it would require either an incredible amount of coordination between world powers to significantly reduce plastic use/production, or an incredible ability to eliminate plastic waste potentially via bacteria, fungus, incineration, or batch chemical processes. I don't think it will be healthy long term to reuse the material in its current form.

  On 19/09/2024 at 20:18, Astra.Xtreme said:

Multi-billion $$$ invention idea for somebody:  Tiny robot that clears the plaque out of arteries and vacuums up micro-plastics from the bloodstream.

What's going to kill humanity first?  Too much synthetic stuff in our bodies or the plummeting fertility rate?

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side note, i like the quote in your signature.

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