20 replies to this topic

[Shortpoet-GTD]

"Microscopic plastic debris from washing clothes is accumulating in the marine environment and
could be entering the food chain, a study has warned.

Researchers traced the "microplastic" back to synthetic clothes, which released up to 1,900 tiny
fibres per garment every time they were washed.
Earlier research showed plastic smaller than 1mm were being eaten by animals and getting
into the food chain.
In order to identify how widespread the presence of microplastic was on shorelines, the team took samples from 18 beaches around the globe, including the UK, India and Singapore.

"We found that there was no sample from around the world that did not contain pieces of microplastic."

"When we looked at the different types of polymers we were finding, we were finding that
polyester,
acrylic
and polyamides (nylon)
were the major ones that we were finding."

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-16709045

Another great case for cotton-hopefully organic cotton.

[mariaandrea]

Well, just when you think the news is bad, it gets worse.

Now they need to do a study on the effects of these microplastics. Quickly. How much of a health threat are they to sea life and humans? And they need to widen the study to see how prevalent they are - biggest concentrations, etc. Of course, I'm being vague using the word "they" as so many of us usually do. "They" should take care of things... Still, I do hope "they" learn more.

Shortpoet-GTD, on 04 February 2012 - 04:30 AM, said:

Another great case for cotton-hopefully organic cotton.

And wool and linen, and even some leather.

[iebo]

Life is plastic, its fantastic. I never liked seafood anyways. But does this mean that micro-plastic is also in our water supply? Or do they have good filters for that sort of thing?

[zararina]

Another alarming news/fact about foods from the sea and the water itself.
And since that synthetic material is not that visible to the naked eye, people will have almost no way to detect it without gadget or further analysis of the food. There are so many reasons why we should really  get rid of plastic.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

iebo, on 04 February 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

Life is plastic, its fantastic.

Hope you are being facetious.

iebo, on 04 February 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

I never liked seafood anyways. But does this mean that micro-plastic is also in our water supply?
Or do they have good filters for that sort of thing?

Unless you're a vegan, you're eating polymers via fish meal fed to cattle, pigs and chickens.
http://news.mongabay...e_fishmeal.html

"Eighty percent of the forage fish caught are fed to animals. Ninety percent is processed into fishmeal and fish oil.
Of this, 46 percent was fed to farmed fish,
24 percent to pigs, and 22 percent to poultry (2002).
Six times the weight of forage fish is fed to pigs and poultry
alone than the entire seafood consumption of the U.S. market."
http://en.wikipedia....iki/Forage_fish

[hunysukle]

That's disturbing, but I'm not surprised. Everything is starting to become infused with synthetic crap that's ruining the planet. I don't understand why clothing manufacturer's can't use cotton.

[katdolores]

Think about how long this has been going on. For how many decades were people swimming in seas with their clothes on, and washing their clothes on fresh water? If these had great effects to human health, the effects would all be showing now, or many many years ago.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

katdolores, on 04 April 2012 - 01:04 AM, said:

Think about how long this has been going on. For how many decades were people swimming in seas with their clothes on, and washing their clothes on fresh water? If these had great effects to human health, the effects would all be showing now, or many many years ago.

Perhaps that's why there is an explosion of cancers world wide.

[4leafclover]

katdolores, on 04 April 2012 - 01:04 AM, said:

Think about how long this has been going on. For how many decades were people swimming in seas with their clothes on, and washing their clothes on fresh water? If these had great effects to human health, the effects would all be showing now, or many many years ago.

I agree with katdolores, if  this is something we should be really mindful about for our health, then how come even after so many years of having them around, no particular disease was founded to be caused by them. And if they are to enter the food chain and eventually we ingest them or other animals ingest, wouldn't they be broken by digestive enzymes down into its very basic element and come out of the body as by-products of digestion? It so vague for the report to say that microplastics will eventually enter the brain and circulation because we know for sure it wouldn't be easy. No matter how small it can be, since it is a foreign object, our body will always flush it out.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

4leafclover, on 04 April 2012 - 08:35 AM, said:

It so vague for the report to say that microplastics will eventually enter the brain and circulation because we know for sure it wouldn't be easy. No matter how small it can be, since it is a foreign object, our body will always flush it out.

Just like we flush out cancer, right?

[clewand550]

Wow!  Pretty scary and pretty sad.  I can't believe that it has gotten that far.  You never know what this is all doing to our bodies.  There seems to be so many more people that I know that have cancer than there ever was before.

[katdolores]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 04 April 2012 - 03:33 AM, said:

Perhaps that's why there is an explosion of cancers world wide.

Could be. Cancer's real cause has not been understood up until now. Changes in our food may be a reason.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

katdolores, on 04 April 2012 - 04:49 PM, said:

Could be. Cancer's real cause has not been understood up until now. Changes in our food may be a reason.

Exactly.
We cannot dismiss the effects of plastics/synthetics in our environment, which get into the food chain.

It's always amazed me that we treat our oceans like toilets, and yet keep fishing in that &^%$^ filled bowl. Ugh.

And now that we have these elements in waters closer to home; streams, lakes and rivers, along with
flushed pharmaceuticals, chemicals-and on and on, it's no wonder our bodies are dying from the
onslaught.
(Although I could have posted this in the Autism thread too-because kids cannot fight off toxins
as easily as adults.)
Stick with natural fibers as often as we can, and help reduce this pollution is all we can do for now.
Cotton, hemp.

[katdolores]

4leafclover, on 04 April 2012 - 08:35 AM, said:

And if they are to enter the food chain and eventually we ingest them or other animals ingest, wouldn't they be broken by digestive enzymes down into its very basic element and come out of the body as by-products of digestion?  

I think these things are made up of complex molecules that cannot be broken down by certain animals such as humans. And since it is a MICRO kind of thing, cells may be larger than them, and can absorb them inside. I don't know what happens from there, but who knows what happens with this kind of disturbance in the cellular environment?

[Shortpoet-GTD]

katdolores, on 04 April 2012 - 04:57 PM, said:

I don't know what happens from there, but who knows what happens with this kind of disturbance in the cellular environment?

Not poking fun but
"a disturbance in the force" comes to mind.
Actually, it's quite true.
We sure have shattered the circle of life-the web of life.

[dconklin]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 04 April 2012 - 03:33 AM, said:

Perhaps that's why there is an explosion of cancers world wide.

This is shocking news, but I think there are many factors to cancer.  This may very well be one factor, but we have things like radon that causes it too.  Growing up they found that most of the homes up on our road had high levels of radon in the basements.  There were many people who ended up having cancer who lived there.

These numbers are scary, I am not trying to justify anything.  I try to buy more cotton then other stuff, but there are times that I have purchased other clothes.  I never really thought about it getting into water.  It makes sense, I just never thought about it.

[katdolores]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 04 April 2012 - 05:01 PM, said:

"a disturbance in the force" comes to mind.

I had to LOL at that.. :) Anyway, it's just life. Humans are the most unpredictable animals, therefore we are the ones who are really capable of destroying earth.

[Pat]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 04 April 2012 - 04:56 PM, said:

Exactly.
We cannot dismiss the effects of plastics/synthetics in our environment, which get into the food chain.

It's always amazed me that we treat our oceans like toilets, and yet keep fishing in that &^%$^ filled bowl. Ugh.

And now that we have these elements in waters closer to home; streams, lakes and rivers, along with
flushed pharmaceuticals, chemicals-and on and on, it's no wonder our bodies are dying from the
onslaught.
(Although I could have posted this in the Autism thread too-because kids cannot fight off toxins
as easily as adults.)
Stick with natural fibers as often as we can, and help reduce this pollution is all we can do for now.
Cotton, hemp.

All of this is very disturbing.  We are slowly mutating ourselves so that we can survive with all of the damage we are doing to our natural environment.  When do we as a world wake up and say enough.  Soon I hope.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

"What we're actually seeing in the ocean is this kind of chowder of plastic; these tiny particles that are the size of plankton,"
he says.
"It's plastic that has been weathered and broken down by the elements into these little bits, and it's getting into the food chain."

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes says it's estimated that the weight of plastic finding its way
into the sea each year is equivalent to the weight of 40 aircraft carriers.

Fish then eat the bits of corroded plastic, confusing it for plankton."
NPR article here.

Tuna, shrimp, etc. This may explain why so many dolphins are stranding themselves on beaches too.
When elephants are ill, for instance, they will separate themselves from the herd and go off alone to die.
Dolphins may be doing the same thing.

We think we don't eat dolphins, but is that really true? Do we really know what's inside those tuna cans?
And what about all the other sea creatures that we don't eat, but feed on each other-and on up through
the food chain? We do eat salmon, cod, mackerel, etc.

How do we get more people to recycle plastics?

[dconklin]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 29 April 2012 - 10:55 AM, said:

"What we're actually seeing in the ocean is this kind of chowder of plastic; these tiny particles that are the size of plankton,"
he says.
"It's plastic that has been weathered and broken down by the elements into these little bits, and it's getting into the food chain."

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes says it's estimated that the weight of plastic finding its way
into the sea each year is equivalent to the weight of 40 aircraft carriers.

Fish then eat the bits of corroded plastic, confusing it for plankton."
NPR article here.

Tuna, shrimp, etc. This may explain why so many dolphins are stranding themselves on beaches too.
When elephants are ill, for instance, they will separate themselves from the herd and go off alone to die.
Dolphins may be doing the same thing.

We think we don't eat dolphins, but is that really true? Do we really know what's inside those tuna cans?
And what about all the other sea creatures that we don't eat, but feed on each other-and on up through
the food chain? We do eat salmon, cod, mackerel, etc.

How do we get more people to recycle plastics?

I can imagine if it is in the water that many fish will eat it.  Figure in the sea, shrimp eat off the bottom and I am sure things eat shrimp.  Fish eat it and tuna eat small fish, so do sharks.  We eat tuna and macko shark.  Most of the shrimp and fish I buy are farm raised so hopefully that helps here, but it is not cool that it is happening.