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[-] guyrocket@kbin.social 76 points 1 year ago

I've been reading the wikipedia article, not through all of it yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics

Some highlights:
Bottled water has much higher microplastics content than tap water.

Coral can ingest microplastics

Waste water treatment plants filter out most (but not all) microbeads into sludge. Some places use that sludge as fertilizer for farms.

Microplastics are in stuff you would not guess. Paper coffee cups have a plastic liner. Clothes put off large amounts of microplastics when washed. Tires put off microplastics. Some exfoliants and other cosmetics contain microplastics as microbeads.

[-] _number8_@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

Deep layer ocean sediment surveys in China (2020) show the presence of plastics in deposition layers far older than the invention of plastics

wtfff

[-] flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 year ago

Maybe there's plastics stuck to the things we detect plastics with?

I should really give the scientist some credit, but I think this is a funnier outcome

[-] SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Or there was plastic stuck to the machines used to sample and it contaminated the area during sampling. Or there was plastic in the lab during testing. Though potentially those should have been ruled out by testing a blank sample and a control sample of just the 'empty' sampling equipment.

[-] roboticide@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I feel like there could be a few rational explanations to that, but I want someone smarter than me to tell me what exactly they could be...

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

If the sediment is <100% consolidated, then water could be carrying microplastics down through the layers, even through microscopic voids.

[-] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago

clothes

I'm guessing this is referring to synthetic fibers like acryllic and polyester?

[-] Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 year ago

AFAIK, those 'fleece' type materials are directly made from recycled PET (like water bottles).

[-] SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

So about those T-shirts and hoodies prodly saying they're made from 100% recycled plastic...

[-] guyrocket@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago
[-] SuperCub@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

"microfiber" is really terrible.

[-] Holzkohlen@feddit.de 12 points 1 year ago

Haha I drink filtered tap water. Wanna bet that the filter will put more microplastics into my drinking water?

[-] nul42@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago

They just found it in rain so there is no escape.

[-] MJBrune@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I have 5 gallon plastic jugs of water delivered, I wonder if that's worse or better water than my potentially lead water from my faucet.

this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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