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…
- plastic film used as mulch in agriculture
Wtf. Where and why?!
It’s the black plastic bag material that people used to cover their soil and poke holes through for their crops.
I never thought it was called plastic mulch though.
Or plastic greenhouses
Like, everywhere?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=plastic+film+used+as+mulch+in+agriculture
deleted by creator
Plastic was never meant to be recycled.
Yep
Other great source of plastics are synthetic fabrics. It releases a lot of micro particles in the water during washing and drying cycles.
A race to see what will kill the most of us first. The plastic or anthropogenic climate change.
Don’t forget Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)!
Over 80% of microolastic production coming from macro plastic breakdown feels pretty bleak.
Plastics industry: “See?! We told you plastic decomposes and doesn’t just stay in landfills forever. Happy now?”
I am not happy now.
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.
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
The article was very well written. Unfortunately, 90% of the people I’d forward it to would be TLDR…
The 7000 papers were really well written. Unfortunately, 90% of the people I’d forward them to would be article…
Plastic-coated fertilisers?
Rally?
WTF do we need plastic-coated fertilisers for?
to grow plastic infused plants, of course
Yummm, fruity pebbles
for anyone working with acrylic paint, this stuff is plastic so it’s best not to just chuck it down your sink.
There is a way to filter the plastics https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2023/09/28/acrylic-painting-rinse-water-microplastics/
Trying out the golden crash system (though you can just buy buckets and elements yourself to do it cheaper) and it got some very good results.
Out of curiosotiy where would something like 3D printing be placed?
While a problem yes, miniscule compared to industrial waste
I think they meant personally, not global.
well, dont huff your prints or put them in your mouth or other body orifices. Pretty simple
PLA I think just breaks down into lactic acid eventually, but the ABS probably isnt so good
It only breaks down under industrial environments. It’s not as “biodegradable” as claimed. I use PETG because I can recycle it with normal plastics recycling.
It breaks down in high heat, high water environments, aka thermophilic composting. This makes it ideal for agricultural and food waste. You’re right though it doesn’t recycle well.
Thanks this makese.feel.better about pla printing
Not significantly contributing to the global problem, but you might inhale some. Don’t sand your prints for sure.
Or wear a respirator while you sand…
Pretty bad, especially with people sanding down productions and stuff.
Can’t we just inject ourselves with plastic eating bacteria or something?
We just need to turn up the UV lights voltage and melt the plastic out. Is that something we could look into?
We are the plastic eating bacteria.
If we knew of bacteria that cleanly ate plastic, we probably wouldn’t be riddled with micro plastics 😉
And yet doctors insist I’m not getting enough fiber!
Obligatory: The Planet is Fine - George Carlin
Peertube - https://kolektiva.media/w/37198b73-f7f9-4036-aa30-bb2da4763eda
googletube - Kmo8sh77G6YI fucking hate lemmy now, you are just reddit with a sense of undeserved elitism.
This is a serious as fuck problem and all that anyone replies with are jokes and shitposts.
This is fucking /c/science, not /c/sciencememes
But none of you care especially the mods, so I’m just blocking every one of you.
edit: There’s an entire subthread here that is nothing but masturbation jokes, which of course the mods ignore.
Fuck lemmy and its shitstain mod team same as the reddit mods but with worse hygiene. At least on reddit they keep /r/science clean
scrolling in the comment section of this news article, i’ve only seen people either being concerner/shocked, and some sarcastically talking about recycling or something. Nothing about masturbation.
And if your criticism of lemmy is that it’s being reddit with elitism, then why try to gatekeep the way people are going to react to an article on c/science? Are we all supposed to have degrees in chemistry or biology before making a comment?
Believe it or not people take heavy news a million different ways and react differently. People ending up making a masturbation joke after discussing microplastics in testicles (i assume this is what happened) harm nothing and no one.
I’ve already blocked them so I can’t link though I reported it too so maybe some mod woke their lazy ass up and deleted it as they should have.
Doors over there. Feel free to leave.
