** He found that samples from those individuals had over 50 times the amount of broken-down plastic particles in their carotid arteries than those of a non-stroke patient. Even people who had not suffered a stroke but had plaque were living with 16 times more plastic in their arteries, according to Down to Earth.**
Seems it’s really hard to eat clean these days.
Plastics have been very helpful and have made life easier in many ways. But this is an example of where cheap and convenience had a long-term cost to it that so easily could get worse, unfortunately. Moving away from plastic will be costly. But what is the cost of not even trying?
@bjurasz …
Speaking as a polymer chemist…
People use the word “plastic” to describe polymeric materials that have a broad range of properties, many of which can’t be found in nature.
Some polymers were invented as substitutes for natural materials so it would be possible (though expensive) to eliminate nylon, dacron and maybe even polyester in garments and substitute silk, cotton, linen and wool. It might even be possible to substitute glass for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) used in billions of water and soda bottles though it would be both expensive and hard to handle. (Have you ever tried to break a PET soda bottle with a hammer?) Or glass for polycarbonate or polysulfone. (Both are used in many high-impact applications.) Or glue based on animal hooves for epoxy resins.
But there are many applications that are simply impossible to substitute with natural, biodegradable materials.
Probably the greatest impact would be realized by substituting natural materials (e.g. paper) for polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene in packaging – single-use throwaway applications with massive pollution of the environment. Would the free market accept the higher cost and lower functionality?
Personally, I hate throwing away perfectly functional packaging and recycle it, sometimes for years. For example, I hate throwing away the large liquid laundry detergent canisters that have a valve. I mix solid Miracle-Gro into a solution and use these to dispense the liquid. But I admit to being a little nuts and besides there are only so many containers that can be repurposed.
Wendy
I am doubtful, as the reason for doing so rests on the ability to understand the future harm that doing nothing will cause. We can feel the impact it would have today by making a change - less convenience and more cost. We cannot feel for years the negative impact of doing nothing.
We have that very same dilemma today with climate change. Look at how many people complain about the cost of moving to renewable energy. That cost we feel today. However, it’s the cost in the future, of dealing with a broken climate, that will be far greater but won’t be felt or paid for until the future.
I’m going to suspect the cost of dealing with the future health and quality of life issues of continued plastic use will dwarf the cost of moving away from plastic, but no one will want to do it. And it’s the same reason why we will complain about the cost of renewable energy and yet ignore the future cost of a broken climate.
I bet we find that plastic has killed as many people as tetraethyl lead.
Thomas Midgley Jr. - Wikipedia.
intercst
Sorry if I sound like a broken record, but I will again tell my story of my efforts to reduce–not eliminate–single use plastics as much as possible. In many cases it is actually easier, cheaper, and more convenient to use non-disposable plastic alternatives. I use powered laundry, dish, and hand soap and bar shampoo and conditioner. I use wool dryer balls instead of dryer sheets, and toothpaste tablets instead of tubed toothpaste. I love sparking water and drink a lot of it. So I installed a filtered, water carbonator under the sink and I get chilled, carbonated water out of the tap instead of buying it or using a Soda Stream (enormous overall savings in money and convenience). Buying bottled water is out of the question.
The sum total of my efforts compared to the scale of the problem is very to close to, if not actually, zero. But it is not hard to do, and it is scalable. Most people can cut back their consumption of single-use plastics pretty dramatically with very little, if any, additional effort.
Eliminating single-use plastics is almost impossible, so I don’t try. I just get the easy, big wins, and that’s good enough for now.
Dear Andy,
Polyester. It breaks apart in the wash. We are eating everything we wear that was polyester.
A plastic bottle in the landfill is far less of a problem.
We need to outlaw polyester.
Re: micro plastics.
We had a recent posting that most microplastics actually come from tire wear. I don’t see an easy solution to that problem. Are 200,000 mile tires possible? Made from what? Something that degrades with time?
I doubt that polyesters are a problem. Ester linkages degrade with time. Yes we should be using paper and starch wherever practical. Recall that the word plastic means can be molded. Remember plaster and paper mache fit that definition. We should do more with those materials. Commercial interests promote petrochemical plastics. We should use biodegradable natural materials where we can.
Re: Powdered laundry detergent
The active surfactant content of powdered laundry detergent is 2 or 3%. After phosphates were banned most is now soda ash used to adjust pH.
Soda ash plus hard water makes lime soap deposits. Polyacrylates are included to delay precipitation which causes white deposits on your dark colors especially when soaked.
You would be much better off to use liquid detergents. They avoid the soda ash problem.
Yes, they use plastic bottles. Eastman Chemical has plants to recycle them.