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Can someone tell me what microplastics do to the body? I’m almost too afraid to ask at this point.
That's the neat thing: nobody can. It's incredibly hard to devise a study that can show anything about it. There is no way to get a human without microplastics in them to get a control group, and by this point as far as I know there is no plausible theory to get a specific study.
Everyone kinda suspects that it can't be good for you, simultaneously there is zero actual evidence that something is ever happening. We don't know, and that's very frustrating.
It seems like they'd be fairly inert. Although that's certainly no guarantee that they're not really bad for you. Much like inert gas, the danger could well be them replacing or getting in the way of something else.
Veritasium has a video about it on YouTube.
It’s very informative and may just give you the fix you’re looking for
IIRC the one thing we are sure of is that they don't break down, nor do they get out. So you better hope they don't do anything bad on top of that
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Except that microplastics have been a major problematic thing since basically plastic become a popular thing, we just didn't know it yet back then. It's not like millenials invented plastic or popularized its use.
The amount of it in our environment has been ever increasing though. There's more of it in the oceans, the soil, the rivers, the plants. The whole food chain and ecosystems are contaminated more than ever before.
At what point does it become macroplastic? kiloplastic for the Europeans.
Bold of you to think that the microplastic is going to go away after one generation...
Who said that? Lead poisoning is still rampant in some communities.
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Don't forget the nanoplastics! These are even more hazardous!
Boomers had/have microplastics and lead poisoning. This is not a conspiracy, it is just a fact.
Did someone say it was a conspiracy?
Yeah and also for Gen X, Gen Z, Gen Alpha. We all still alive and everybody gets microplastic in their balls and brains. Its for all ages
Right? Haha 😂 Oh did we suddenly clean up the entire Earth from free roaming microplastics?
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Millennials? More like GenX. We’ve been eating out of microwaved tupperware since the sixties.
It looks like the cumulative total of plastics produced by the 80's was around 2-3 ~~trillion~~ billion tons, whereas now it's probably more like 20-30B.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/global-plastics-production.png
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Honestly I don't think we're socially responsible enough to end something like lead poisoning these days.
Imagine trying to stop the hole in the ozone today. We'd have people spraying CFCs in the air just to spite the effort.
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for the past few months ive started to think we're like a couple years away from putting lead back in the gasoline
Trump deregulating gas and paint to put lead back in both would be so unsurprising it won't even garner a reaction from me.
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You'd have people saying they like the lead and deliberately putting more of it in. Pussy-ass liberals trying to take their god given lead away...
Someone will call not wanting lead poisoning woke and that will be that.
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Nah, because every future generation will have it too.
My dad's car ran on 4 star right up until the mid 90s. I was exposed to plenty lead in my formative years as well as micro plastics.
The ol twofer
Microplastics cause neurological damage and anti social violent behavior?
We don't know about the longer term consequences yet, just like we didn't about lead.
Not saying it's a definite but I wouldn't be surprised.
No, people knew lead was poisonous even back near Roman days. Though just like how humans constantly do stupid things for some benefit, they kept using it as a sweetener for ages.
Also mercury in relation to, "as mad as a hatter". It's just mercury was very good for the job.
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I'm crazy. Mark My Words. In 20 years, we'll have so many microbes capable of consuming plastic people will be bitching about their packages not being able to effectively protect their goods from spoiling. The goldfish has spoken.
I've run across at least three separate articles now of researchers from across the world discovering plastic eating bacteria in the wild. Short plastic. Its days are numbered.
Based solely on your comment, I'm looking forward to watching a scene where Christian Bale goes around Wall Street collecting mugs in The Big Short 2: Polymer Boogaloo.
Once at a Phish show, I consumed a rather copious amount of 🍄’s while hanging w/ mah friends beforehand. For some reason I couldn’t get the image of Plastic Man (Comic cartoon on Saturday mornings in the early 80’s) Out of my head. Every fucking song from that show I processed through the Plastic Man perspective. I was done with that memory before my brain would allow me to forget it. It was a loooonnnggg show b/c 🍄’s.
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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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