I like how we've gone from looking at the huge garbage patches in our oceans to the amount of microplastic in a drop of water. I don't see it as a material issue, you pick a material and with enough quantity it will pollute. It is a consumer society issue. But maybe it will be easier to change consumer society by dangling the microplastic threat effect so the actual cause can be treated - wait, the psychopaths in CEO positions would lose money then, never mind.
science
just science related topics. please contribute
note: clickbait sources/headlines aren't liked generally. I've posted crap sources and later deleted or edit to improve after complaints. whoops, sry
Rule 1) Be kind.
lemmy.world rules: https://mastodon.world/about
I don't screen everything, lrn2scroll
I 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
People having a laugh isn’t the problem.
There is a real problem with the thread format of social media however.
My proof is I can’t find the “in this discussion relevant” thread of masturbation jokes because time has moved on and so did the discussion. [Edit: your comment is only 1h old, so not sure whats up]
We need a much better way to organize our speech and discussions because a single scroll page sorted by time, or contextless votes ain’t doing it.
I actually noticed that some of my comments are reacted very different towards depending on the time of day, what side of planet earth is awake at the time.
There is an argument to be had that certain troll farms love to drown discussions in shitposts and maybe we should be more mindful of the patterns.
But to say we should crack down on any form of jokes, which are an important part of our human expression that goes too far, thats what i disliked about r/science
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…
Have you seen the process used in plastic recycling? The plastic is literally triturated into tiny bits before being heated up for the next stages.
Edit: why the downvotes? I'm just trying to give some context on why plastic recycling is a great source of microplastics
- 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.
It serves the same purpose as actual mulch, which is blocking out weeds
Yes, but mulch has the meaning of ground up wood, so I think most people would think it was ground up plastics.
Like, everywhere?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=plastic+film+used+as+mulch+in+agriculture
Maybe global warming will melt all the microplastics into one big macroplastic and that problem will be 100% solved.
Biggest sources:
- 7.6 Mt from macro plastics breaking down
- 1.3 Mt from paint
- 1.0 Mt from tyres
10-40 Mt released into environment/year, and increasing.
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.
There are certain industries, like medical, that would probably be one of the last, if ever, to do away with plastic, simply due to the upsides. The only option we have as a species is to create a truly biodegradable, non-toxic, easily obtainable and cheap to produce alternative.
Haha who am I kidding, we are fucked, plastic manufacturers go brrrrrrrrr.
a truly biodegradable, non-toxic, easily obtainable and cheap to produce alternative
A race to see what will kill the most of us first. The plastic or anthropogenic climate change.
Plastic will probably only make us infertile while climate change will kill us AND already stop us from reproducing (or do you feel a kid born today has a good perspective on it's future?).
Plastic-coated fertilisers?
Rally?
WTF do we need plastic-coated fertilisers for?
to grow plastic infused plants, of course
Now sit down and eat your plasti-corn. There are children in other countries that have to eat normal corn.
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…
There are many reasons we are screwed as a species. There's pretty much nothing I can do about it, unfortunately.
I'll go jerk off for a bit, maybe it'll be better by the time I m done
Not much is going to get better in 12 seconds.
It's my fourth time today, it's gonna be a bit...
Now you're speaking my language, come and shake my hand... actually, nevermind.
Rather than take a defeatist veiw from this line if thinking, it will do well for your mental health to first spend more time, energy and thoughts on things you can control. Not just things related to environmentalism, but broadly reduce energy, engagement and focus from the things you don't have significant control over and direct them to those things you do have control. It's good to get a broad picture and observe the world around you outside of your control in small doses, but it's easy to over indulge in an unfocused survey of problems in the world, especially on social media. (I include Lemmy communities in the social media category).
Furthermore, when you do engage with these problems, do so with more narrow focus and in more depth with an eye towards understanding the level of impact the problem has and what organizations or policy positions you can support to amplify your limited influence over the issues that causee the problem. In this way you can mitigate the feelings of helplessness and sense of there being many existential and imminent problems you need to contend with but cannot remedy. You can turn seemingly untouchable solutions into real possibilities without overwhelming your emotional capacity by working with others.
So what does it do? Cancer?
It’s making men infertile. theres even a shortage of viable sperm today around the world
Good chance it probably is, possibly increase chance for asthma, chance for heart attack, another is it probably makes us infertile probably a good thing depending how you think of it.
In regards to humans, progress is being made. In coming years, expect greater clarity about effects on our bodies such as:
- inflammation
- oxidative stress (an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants that damages cells)
- immune responses
- genotoxicity – damage to the genetic information in a cell that causes mutations, which can lead to cancer.
TL;DR yes, cancer. It also fucks with wildlife (blocking intestines, giving off poison)
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.