c/science · by Davriellelouna@lemmy.world · 1y

Plastics are a “grave, growing and under-recognised danger” to human and planetary health, a new expert review has warned

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/03/world-in-15tn-plastics-crisis-hitting-health-from-infancy-to-old-age-report-warns

195 points · 13 comments · view on lemmy.world

13 Comments

bassomitron@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 1y

and hits health at every stage from extraction to disposal

I know this part is likely referring to the plastic itself, but due to the headline summary, it sounds like a super industrial, dystopic way of describing human birth and death.

bitcrafter@programming.dev · 8 pts · 1y

Absolutely disgusting:

Being surrounded and yelled at about “misrepresenting reality” is not how serious United Nations-hosted negotiations are meant to proceed. But that is what happened to Prof Bethanie Carney Almroth during talks about a global treaty to slash plastic pollution in Ottawa, Canada. The employees of a large US chemicals company “formed a ring” around her, she says.

At another event in Ottawa, Carney Almroth was “harassed and intimidated” by a plastic packaging representative, who barged into the room and shouted that she was fearmongering and pushing misinformation. That meeting was an official event organised by the UN. “So I filed the harassment reports with the UN,” said Carney Almroth. “The guy had to apologise, and then he left the meeting. He was at the next meeting.”

ChuckTheMonkey@fedia.io · 8 pts · 1y (10 replies)

Wondering the negative effects will be as bad as leaded gasoline?

acosmichippo@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1y (2 replies)

if they were that bad we'd know by now.

edit: if you are downvoting you either don't know or have forgotten how obviously bad leaded gasoline was, even with 50 year old science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Toxicity

The hazards of TEL content are heightened due to the compound's volatility and high lipophilicity, enabling it to easily cross the blood–brain barrier.

Chronic exposure to TEL can cause long-term negative effects such as memory loss, delayed reflexes, neurological problems, insomnia, tremors, psychosis, loss of attention, and an overall decrease in IQ and cognitive function.[101]

Concerns over the toxicity of lead[103] eventually led to the ban on TEL in automobile gasoline in many countries. Some neurologists have speculated that the lead phaseout may have caused average IQ levels to rise by several points in the US (by reducing cumulative brain damage throughout the population, especially in the young). For the entire US population, during and after the TEL phaseout, the mean blood lead level dropped from 16 μg/dL in 1976 to only 3 μg/dL in 1991.[104] The U.S. Centers of Disease control previously labelled children with 10 μg/dL or more as having a "blood lead level of concern". In 2021, the level was lowered in accordance with the average lead level in the U.S. decreasing to 3.5 μg/dL or more as having a "blood lead level of concern".[105][106]

shalafi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

Agreed. This is hardly a new problem.

Plastics cause much harm to our ecosystems but I'm not sure microplastics are so bad. Plastic is a really broad term, makes it hard to talk about and I'm ignorant on much of the subject. But I understand that most microplastics are biologically inert?

Seems like everyone on lemmy jumps to the conclusion that microplastics are or will have drastic health effects. No, they're not comparable to lead or asbestos, or, as you said, we'd know, would already have a mountain of evidence.

Tehdastehdas@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1y

we'd know by now

Not necessarily. When intake rate finally exceeds human ability to remove plastic dust from the body, the accumulation begins.

Angry_Autist@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y (6 replies)

Possibly worse, we got rid of lead gasoline, there's no getting rid of plastics

I'm sure the rich will have a treatment for it before too long and the rest of us will just suck it up

Fun fact: it's not the plastics itself thats usually the problem, but rather the solvents and conditioning agents used to characterize the plastic during manufacture

Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1y (5 replies)

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Angry_Autist@lemmy.world · -14 pts · 1y (4 replies)

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LookBehindYouNowAndThen@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1y

Lemmy should be capitalized since it's a proper noun.

acosmichippo@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1y (1 reply)

well you sure are angry aren't you.

Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 1y

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secretlyaddictedtolinux3@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

As a lincuck who isn't secretly into horse fucking, I'd be lying if I said I refuse to get off my high horse.

aesthelete@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1y

Oh well, add it to the pile.

We're all forty plus years into the great atomization project and we no longer have any ability to tackle even minor systemic issues. There's no way in our current state we're removing plastic from even newly manufactured items.

Tarkcanis@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1y

The actual solution to the Fermi Paradox, artifical polymerization.

vane@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y

Will we extinct from plastic or not ? What is the chance we passed the point of no return ?