How Microplastics Slowly Make Their Way Inside Us 

Have you heard about PFAS?

Just because we refuse to reuse glass bottles

There was a much larger experiment that was undertaken on our species over the past 4 years that will have an even greater impact on our health, me thinks.

It was mostly Coca-Cola wanting to eliminate bottling facilities and their related jobs to increase profit margin that they replaced their glass bottles with plastic ones.

Just think of other invisible things like PFAS out there, also out there. So many things are killing us slowly, the concerns seem not to be up there either.

It is NEVER avoidable but you can reduce its usage as much as possible.

I put my plastic in my recycling so that they can throw it away

It's not a personal problem. You alone change absolutely nothing. It is a systemic problem and requires systemic changes.

It is very avoidable. In 60😢-80s (both in the West and USSR packaging was made with GLASS and Metal. We CAN ban plastics. Allow: glass, metal, and biodegradable (

This reminds me of that animation that shows 535 private jets leaving Las Vegas after the Super Bowl. Yes, I'm so glad I'm drinking from a soggy paper straw to help the environment /s

They are becoming one with the plastic!! But really? Is it a special bag or is it like like a grocery bad because how does that not melt?

@@thecultofcagedna man same thing in Mexico, literally they put coke in a plastic bag like the kind you’d get from a convenience store. I couldn’t do that personally plus the Mexican glass sprite is elite

Philippines and countless other countries from the global south.

yes that is true. most people here are not aware of the dangers of doing that

I've been to Peru and I can confirm it's a thing there as well..

It your corrupt official that allow such a dumping and that these officials are elected by the very people that keep complaining about others.

That's not the sole reason. The people who live near bodies of water legitimately dump a ton of waste into them. I don't even have to look at the Pasig River. Even our local creeks are dumping grounds for a lot of people and they reek.

Not since the pandemic

Not true, misinformation. Most of the plastic comes from plastic dumped into rivers flowing out to sea. Just look at online images and it is obvious.

Before the plastic crisis it was raw sewage thrown into the ocean by the Philippines

Plant and biodegradable resin, glitter, and plastic and alternatives exist but many businesses refuse to switch to them.

@user-gu9yq5sj7c they have poor performance, only biodegrade in the conditions achievable in industrial compost facilities and those facilities don't want them because they only breakdown into particles of plastic not harmless molecules and gases.

Depends what you mean by "do anything". In my country there are plenty of products in the stores made from recycled plastic. Plastic bags, cleaning agent containers, spray bottles, cosmetics containers, clothes, watering cans, plant pots, etc. No it does not completely solve the issue but plastic being recycled is less plastic in the landfills, in landfills it will turn into microplastics and go into nature. Currently there are not many wide spread options for plastic. At least by recycling the plastic can be used multiple times before being discarded, either into landfills or being incinerated.

@@ninjal7588 it doesn't matter because it all degrades to micro plastics anyway. Plastic is not actually recyclable. You need to add new plastic into recycled plastic to make products. In addition things still wear down from use and turn into micro plastics especially clothes. In addition recycled plastic degrades faster because its polymer chains degrade every time you recycle it. This means that all plastic is destined to be micro plastics. The solution is to stop using plastic for 99% of applications where they are used now.

Exactly. Recycling is a scam created by the plastic companies, themselves. Plastic is not recyclable and, even when you separate it out, most of it ends up in the landfill.

@@mach16jWhich degrades into more microplastics: 1 bottle or 2 bottles? If you recycle 1 bottle, does that turn into more or less microplastics than 2 bottles?

​@mach16j - yes so much this

In some European supermarkets you can fill your empty shampoo bottle with a new shampoo, shower gel etc. Same, i am not sure, goes with cleaning liquids. And it's cheaper than buying new one.

Another option would be to have a lot of reusable containers labelled/tagged with a chip or QR code. You have the normal trash sorting, and then you have the tagged containers. You put the tagged containers into boxes, and a robot finds the label and sorts them at a central facility.

@@placeholdername0000 See, a better idea already. I'm sure the EU and world governments could implement something like this if they really wanted to clean the planet. however Even at this critical point in time, doing REAL important actions towards cleaning up our one and only house (Earth) is not a priority because it is ''too expensive'', let the newer generations deal with it.

@@MegaGasek Yeah, imagine a future where most towns have a local train station, allowing semi trailers to be delivered to the factories and shops with only a last mile truck. And they carry reusable containers for a lot of things, some made of glass or steel, some of reusable and low/non toxic plastics. Industry powered mostly by electricity, with the waste heat being used to heat homes. The electricity being made with either renewables or advanced nuclear (fusion or fission with advanced waste management to reduce the radiotoxicity to a level comparable to what exists in the rocks already). Add to that the new advances in biotechnology that will allow us to ferment foods to increase yield and we have a very sustainable system.

i've been fantasising about this very idea for decades too. We need universal bottling plants as close to endpoint as possible to save the cost of transporting all that glass back and forth and then have companies truck in their products in liquid storage trucks similar to fuel or cement trucks. This saves everyone a lot of money and completely eliminates the need for plastics for certain products but coca cola long proved that the shape of a bottle is an important marketing tool hence why something like this has never happened.

There are already organisms that eat plastic. I think it's PFAS we'll need to worry about more. It's cancer causing and causes infertility.

The other solution is stop consuming everything under the sun. Example, upgrade your phone every 2-4+ years rather than every year.

I heard average humans in the US eat about a credit card amount of plastic every week or 2... not sure how accurate that is.

Critters that eat plastic could actually make the situation worse because they would then excrete micro-plastics.

@@FLPhotoCatcher I'm referring more to microbes or fungi, something that can "decompose" plastics the same way that wood and other hardy plant fibers are attacked. The Carboniferous period was defined by the build-up of lignins (the durable organic polymers in wood and woody plant material) which were produced in vast quantities by plants, and were a sort of "plastic" of their time. When plants evolved the ability to make lignins (which gave them a huge competitive edge against other plants, allowing them to thrive and out-compete many other plants), there were no microbes or fungi that could decompose the material. So, you you had vast quantities of what was essentially just wood that just built accumulated and accumulated, collected in vast masses on land and in the oceans. The vast majority of fossil fuel deposits that exist today are literally just these buried masses of plant material, meaning that, in a way, our modern plastic problem is just an extension of that original *natural* environmental crisis, as plastics almost always made from petroleum products, i.e., the remains of those wood deposits. Until a variety of plastic-eaters arise to fill that ecological niche, we may have to deal with a similar build-up of material.

My man, put down the plastic credit card and get you a gourmet metal card. It's pricey but better for your health.

Cream cheese on that credit card! It's delicious!

Some biodegradable plastics just have biodegradable bits between the plastic so it actually releases microplastics as the biodegradable part breaks down. Essentially, not all biodegradable plastics are the same. Terrible ambiguity.

BS

This is know to cause cancer in the state of CA. Well luckily they got 100 replacements line up. Not safe, but also not proven unsafe

The plastic is clogging your organs

@@natashanonnattive4818 Total BS

That's the case with most of these things, they change molecules around a bit, call it something else and suddenly it's "X-free"

They're already artificially developing bacteria to digest microplastics. What I'm worried about, is if the bacteria will eventually start eating the plastics in crucial things that we use, like phones.

I think that you are missing key points: 1) As A.S. mentionned, there are technologies under development to degrade plastics with the usage of bacterias, but it doesn't mean that microplastics can't hurt every member of the food chain along the way. 2) I'd like to know where you saw that "most plastic degrades in 50-100 years". To my knowledge, it is not true and "degradation" depends on your definition. For example, the "biodegradable plastics" are controversional and many claim that they are false advertising. 3) Indeed, we are surrounded by bio-accumulating chemicals (ex: aluminum, mercury, plastic, fine dust,...) and they certainly have different impact on ourselves and our specie. The fact that we can survive in environments where they are present prove in no way that they aren't harmful to us. We have yet to discover all the impacts of microplastics on our health, but many scientists study that matter and raise the alarm about the lack of regulation around their usage. Microplastics already show adverse effects on the health of our specie. I think that a Harvard researcher named Carole Hooven studies the impact on our reproductive system. Another researcher named Andrew Hubermann also talked about that on his podcast and there are certainly many more scientists looking into that. All in all, if you want to go with the FDA approach that "If we don't know what it does, than it must be safe." (Yes, I may be exagerating a bit.), then go ahead, but keep in mind that the most dangerous thing is: "Ignoring that you don't know something".

wdym back to glass? i don't think using glass instead of plastic is "going back". Glass-Bottles, Glass Tupperware, etc. are a thing right now

​@@silasgotsch4458 I think what he means is that the majority of plastic waste that ends up in the ocean is the disposable plastic drinking bottle like the ones used in soft drinks like Coca-Cola, and if we go back to bottles like the bear and wine companies we could reduce the waste created , but plastic bottles and carry bags are so death cheap no producers or consumer care about the environmental repercussions

Glass needs way more energy to produce/recycle while we have limited energy and high energy costs

​@@thetaomega7816Glass can be cleaned and used again... Anyway we do not need tons of useless, unhealthy, sweets from factory and other BS food which takes most of the place in shops and is packed in a plastic.

@@thetaomega7816 But glass containers can be re-used 95% of the time as-is.

This comment needs more attention.

Ooor it has very little effect on our health at all. Let's not overstate it.

Nah…sugar and wheat.

We don't know if it is or isn't. As far as statistics goes, sugar is probably the #1 killer in all developed countries. It's hidden in every damn food you can imagine.

​@@michaelwoodby5261studies on mice has shown that it has caused infertility among mice. Best case scenario, the saturation of it needed to do thar to humans is so high that it would only affects us decades down the line.

Exactly. That ocean pollution is hiding an obvious lie. The West uses the plastics and then dumps them on nations unable to fight back.

Exactly

so true

Interesting

my brother in christ, that's not tiktok , that's freaking capitalism.

@@LoneWanderer905 unrestrained capitalism leads to environmental destruction.

Yep, and shit like temu where people just buy shit they don’t need that doesn’t last cause it’s cheap. Useless junk contributing to the issue

Good news for anyone operating a 3D printer in the house, accidentally overheating plastic in their printer, breathing plastic fire fumes or working in plastics extrusion/recycling.

That is false

It is somewhat true. On the whole, only PET plastics #1 are recyclable on the whole. #2 HDPE is too but most recycling centers don’t accept it. And with both of these, you can recycle it only once if at all. So you only get one more use out of it. Not to mention you wouldn’t want something that held detergent to be made into a takeout container…so the recycled plastics can only be used for certain repurposes. Plus to recycle plastics, you have to melt them down which releases highly toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Highly recommend watching Frontline’s Plastic Wars documentary.

Almost all plastics end up in an incinerator. The little that does get recycled is more expensive AND lower quality than virgin plastic, so manufacturers dont like it, other than mixing it with virgin plastic, for virtue signaling to say "we are using recycled plastic"@@rayukk

@@rayukk PET for example can't be 100℅ recicled, he turns into something different like clothes that can't be recicled. Being reciclable doesnt mean it will have the same characteristics forever like metal or glass.

​@@rayukkHow so?

Any use of plastic, even if it is recycled is pretty destructive. Even high quality plastics can only be recycled once or twice before they become unusable. We absolutely have to get away from using plastic as much as feasibly possible

Irrelevant. You missed the part where we inhale more than we consume. It's everywhere. Also, recycling doesn't stop consumption. As long as things come into contact with plastic, you're eating it.

Watermelon propaganda has nothing to do with health, its a freaking cult designed for green washing.

"equiring bottles to have a connector piece on their plastic caps " oh so thats why....i though its just a production defect and i was removing it anyway because its really annoying to use with a cap lol

that would be optimal of course. just wanted to state that it (plastic use) is indeed a widespread topic, at least here. Active discussions are held and progress (in some way or another, although not enough as of now in my opinion) is being made.

You could also look into air cleaning plants. Snake plant, English ivy, and dracnea are prominent species which in a NASA funded experiment not only produce oxygen but also reduce volatile organic compounds such as benzene and other hydrocarbons.

Purifier is probably made out of plastic

Longer lasting and reusable items would also reduce production and the waste and energy from that. We can use green energy. Glass is safer in the environment. There's plant plastic too. Plastic is a scam cause it has a limit on how many times it can be recycled. The giant amounts of plastic and trash is more then workers can sort and recycle. People and children shouldn't be forced to do that drudgery either.

Share this video to your friends, families, posts on your social media platforms, on your local online newspaper, suggest this while in conversations with people you meet, cashiers, online conversations like here on RU-vid videos' COMMENTS sections.

pthalates will be the next big story.

pepsi in a can can be because beverages cans have a layer of plastic inside.

Yeah, simple. Do you have time to waste and enjoy paying more for stuff? Did you forget that the plastic and fossil fuel revolution improved efficiency and life style by orders of magnitude? Plastics and fossil fuels allowed us to move from a pre-industrial population carrying capacity of 1-2 billion to 8 billion people. You do know that a 12 pack of soda won't be that much lighter even when empty, right? As a delivery driver, would you want to spend an extra 5-10+ minutes in your busy day loading empty jars and bottles on EACH delivery stop? You want your ketchup, mayo, mustard and everything else sold in glass? Do you also want to return all those glass bottles and jars back to the bottle return center?

Yes

@@joefish4466 Firstly, it would actually be cheaper, since the containers would be reused. Second do you think delivery drivers unload a truck by hand, have you ever heard of a forklift? Third, stop being lazy, people are all worried about global warming, but they are not willing to change their lifestyle, they prefer to create a worse world for their children than using public transport or a bicycle, they buy a scam that is an electric car, and think they are better than everyone else, you'll have to go back to the grocery store anyway , is it a lot of work to bring the containers back?

@@joefish4466yeah okay Koch bro

​@@visekual6248 Containers need to be cleaned to be reused, and each container having something different inside results in different cleaning processes with different chemicals. The containers are heavier than plastic and requires more hydrocarbon fuel usage to make and ship to and from any one location due to their weight. I could go on and on but YT probably won't allow it.

The whole BPA thing is a lot of propaganda. That all came about around 20 years ago. Eastman chemical was coming out with a plastic to compete with polycarbonate that was more similar to PET which pop bottles are made out of. They commissioned a university to come up with a study saying polycarbonate had harmful BPA in it. The reality is that is not true because those reactions are so controlled that essentially all of the monomers are polymerized in the reaction. The media picked up the story though, made it a buzz word to scare people, and Eastman sold a crapload of their new Tritan resin to replace PC applications. You have to look really closely into whose agenda is being served anymore when you hear a story in the news. It usually comes down to figure out who is profiting from scaring you.

so true

Yeah, but we were actually able to link both of those directly to health risks long before they received bans. What does plastic actually do? We don't really know. It's all "potential" and "more research needed."

@@Shotblur plastic releases toxic chemicals at every stage of their life cycle that are harmful to human health (eg bpa, pfoa, pthalates, parabens, etc)

@Shotblur The time between recognizing the potential risk and banning them was very long, with vast amounts of money used to obfuscate and delay. Even an English king knew tobacco was bad and treid taxing and banning it (but money won.)

mfs whomst drink from plastic gallon jugs crack me up. Like a steel water bottle is $30 bro who are you.

Sounds simple. Are you also willing to pay more for everything or go back to the days of bottle returns? Like the guy said, there are alternatives like PHA plastics, if you like paying more for it. So are you willing to pay more just because microplastics exist? As it stands, microplastics HAVE NOT been proven to be a MAJOR health risk. Links are being made with these contaminants in regard to fertility, premature births and a few cancers, but nothing serious as the health risks associated with smoking. Acting without evidence is not unlike burning people as witches.

Glass is infinitely recyclable; however, no one is recycling it anymore because it’s not cost effective at the moment. We’re running out of the sand we use to make glass. It also costs more to ship glass, with more waste from broken glass. Aluminum is also infinitely recyclable, but there’s concerns over Alzheimer’s. Not a simple solution

​@@joefish4466it's not as bad as smoking so let's pollute. Nice take lmao

Much of the modern world is dependent on this miracle material. We need to focus on plastic alternatives and cleanup, not going back to the age of glassware.

​@@joefish4466actually I am willing to pay more for it. The $0.10 that you pay for the refund is far lower than the actual cost to society to recycle it and clean up after. I truly think they should be charging closer to $0.50 per bottle. Maybe even a dollar. This is what people do in other countries. Every single bottle eventually comes back, and the ones that don't at least the government is getting some money for it to help clean them up.

I think the planet would go on just fine if I got sick, actually.

Rich people with airfilters laughing at this 😂

Most filter media is made of non-woven plastic fibers. They catch microplastics, release some and probably release a whole bunch of nanoplastics that pass through body barriers even more easily. They’re still a benefit, but there’s no simple solution other than reducing plastic use as much as possible.

There was another comment of a guy saying he has air filters in every room in his house. Rich people will just do that. They won't be affected

Politicians and CEO´s lying? _Colour me surprised._

...long time ago...

That's one of the many good reasons to believe sustainability is nothing more than a contrived cult.

Obbious .. like luckystrike is taosted

Wow, nobel prize statement

God doesn't exist tho

Gotta go some time. Not worth worrying about.

​@MasterBlaster3545 No one is worrying obviously but maybe they should. It's our lack of care that led to our destruction of our planet. Once we kill it then what happens to our future kids and world. Greed and selfishness should prove our need of God now more than ever!

They have nonplastic biosegradable tomato plastic now

my bad typo.. biodegradable tomato plastic now for rows

I hope you're aware of the controversies surrounding the neutrality of Mr. Harris, so consider consuming his content with the necessary heap of salt.

Life expectancy is increasing around the world. Microplastics are harmful, but place them in the wider context of increasing lifespans, improvements in medicine, and it all of the sudden seems less gloomy.

We're in the recognition stage with this problem. We can't ignore it or expect to just manage the end stage problems it causes. We need to move towards the reduction of exposure stage and not just ignore it. @@VictorKing144

@@XmarkedSpot I'm not aware. What's wrong with his content?

Top it off with a Kurzgesagt existential crisis.

or make some replacement that does that while being cheap, that is usually what happens, that was even the initial reason for the usage of plastic.

These products must be cheap in the first place because wealth has become concentrated to a few people, and everyone else has been robbed. Therefore, everyone else can only afford very cheaply made goods.

did he tell you to stope using plastic tooth brushes?

@@t.c.2776 hahahaha no! But he hit all of the points in Cold Fusions video here and said he had read it in one of the dental journals. He was talking about not drinking sodas but then discussed drinking water out of a plastic bottle wasn’t good for me either. Lolol I will have to remind him about the toothbrushes next time and see what he says!

Smart dentists know much of their time is spent getting into people's heads

Coldfusion makes his own music, basically edits classic dnb instrumentals... description

coldFusionMusic (in description) he does his own, some based on original classics he adds or remixes

Definitely Zero 7 at 2:43 mark. 👌🏻

@@dertythegrower Not really. For sure he has *some* but I'd say majority is other stuff. I've caught music from artists I listen to in his videos a few times.

Since the industrial revolution mean age expectancy is rising. So there is that 💟🌌☮️

Thanks for your comment, this advice I’ll follow 🙏

@@floydb9100 ....well, we can try new things😊but I have 8+ yrs with this distilling and before that I lived where well or spring water was on the property...I've had health benefits and bad symptoms vanish...the old p.r. about distilled water was missleading. Countertop units are for like 1-200.00. whose buying them? Guess who, people who don't buy plastic nestle robbers water that does absorb it's container essence. Glass is clean💎

You can buy body wash with sand in it.

If 99.7% of everything in your life has plastic in it, do you really think your body wash is a problem? then USE BAR SOAP... and get rid of your plastic tooth brush... 😉

No they put it in THEIR body wash which you then chose to buy. Which country do you live in anyway? Plastic exfoliating particles in face wash and body wash has been banned in the EU and the UK for several years.

​@@Totalinternalreflection Lucky you. Good going UK. Spread that thinking to other countries.

Then buy a different brand. Or do all of them have plastic particles where you live?

Plastic pollution is different from CO2/gas pollution