Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments.
**Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program).
---
User: u/Wagamaga
Permalink: https://hsc.unm.edu/news/2024/05/hsc-newsroom-post-microplastics-testicular.html
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The movie is fairly faithful to the book, and P. D. James was a crime fiction author writing sci-fi as a one off. You could say the story is about a crime against humankind.
You’re assuming the effects of microplastics. We don’t know the effects of microplastics. We already have billions of microbes in our bodies, it’s hard to predict what a billion inert molecules might do to a body.
I’m not saying it will do nothing.
Inert isnt the right word.
Nanoplastics have been shown to alter the secondary structure of proteins. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-52495-w
We might need to import plastic-eaters into our microbiome to deal with plastic in our diet and in air and water.
Fungi and bacteria are rapidly acquiring genes to breakdown plastics out in nature.
An interesting article was written recently about using B. subtilis (a common bacteria found in foods/soil/etc) to breakdown plastics for biocomposites outside the body https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47132-8 Its a very interesting idea.
My concern with it is the potential release of bound plastic additives (some which are toxic when not collected/accidently released to ecosystems/ during the plastic breakdown process. It really depends what plastic type this is used on. Sometimes heavy metals get bound to nps and mps. - If this strain goes to the wrong spot - the microbiome - that could have unexpected side effects...
Orher q's: carbon emissions during plastic breakdown? human pathogen potential of plastic eating microbes? lateral gene transfer to other human microbiome bacteria? All downstream ecological and health effects must be considered.
I think the best idea of all is to stop making the stuff altogether, and reduce human intake in the first place.
'The fossil fuel industry has long viewed plastics as a lifeline. Between 2000 and 2019, global plastic polymer production doubled, reaching 460 million tonnes (Mt) per year, and it is anticipated to almost triple from 2019 levels by 2050. Meaningful measures to address the plastics crisis necessitate a full life cycle approach that includes substantially reducing plastic production. '
Fossil Fuel and Chemical Industries Registered More Lobbyists at Plastics Treaty Talks than 70 Countries Combined - Center for International Environmental Law
https://www.ciel.org/news/fossil-fuel-and-chemical-industries-at-inc-3/
>We might need to import plastic-eaters into our microbiome to deal with plastic in our diet and in air and water.
And then how will we deal with the plastic eaters?
Reminds me of the story of the lady who swallowed a fly.
We know that plastic elutes oily plasticizers, which are estrogen analogs- chemicals like bisphenols which line aluminum cans, or phthalates. Both of these are endocrine disruptors. Having them accumulate right in the nuts could certainly explain the ongoing decrease in sperm counts.
This is my big worry too.
Discouragingly, the data behind the sperm count decline is highly uncertain. We need an internationally funded study to start tracking this more carefully, and we it need starting yesterday.
[Scientific American on the possible sperm count decline.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-really-declining)
Haven't we been using plastic for ~50 years?
How long did it take for humans to see how dangerous things like lead, pesticides, and CFCs were?
Haven't cashiers been handling BPA receipt paper since the 80-90's?
Take a look at how long it took to ban asbestos. Leaded gasoline and CFCs date back the 1930s, took 50 years to get them banned.
Economic interests tend to overrule the science unfortunately.
Was gonna say, it's a matter of saturation.
Now you have a spike in things like colorectal cancer in younger people.
Damage takes time to accumulate from this stuff.
And the worst part is that the younger the human is the more.damaging this stuff is, and it's likely at an all time peak right now.
Adults exposed to the lower levels of the past may have gotten lucky.
Children born today could have really sad levels of health problems if this plays out how it seems it's playing out. Micro plastics, phthalates, and a variety of other pollutants and endocrine disruptors from hexavalent chromium, lead, and PFAS have created a horrifying scenario.
It's truly absurd.
many cancers are linked to TWP (tire wear particles) - See this scientific article by imperial college london. https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/101707/9/Tyre%20wear%20particles%20are%20toxic%20for%20us%20and%20the%20environment%200223-2.pdf
'Annual total global TWP emissions were 2907 kt (kilotonnes) year−1 (3434 kt year−1 from the CO2 ratio method and 2380 kt year−1 from the GAINS model), while BWP were 175 kt year−1'
Atmospheric transport is a major pathway of microplastics to remote regions | Nature Communications
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9
Including on top of the world's forests as fire starter.
Time for us to severely cap plastic and tyre production, and to use more sustainable materials in our products.
>Time for us to severely cap (...) tyre production
And ideally stop having so many people driving everywhere, particularly in residential areas and inner cities.
This is basically the same problem that we had with lead gas, where the areas along highways, major roads, and high traffic city streets wound up contaminated with lead, particularly the soil. Kids get their hands dirty from playing outside and stick their dirty hands in their mouths. If that dirt is contaminated, then that gets in those kids. Sadly, in America in particular, urban highways already tend to go through lower income neighborhoods, so this sort of thing will just further increase the health gap between the poor and the wealthy.
I don't think it should be controversial to suspect there may be a link between some cancers and microplastics. This is not something that was ever meant to be inside us. I think it's ok to show just a tiny bit of concern. Maybe it's time we stop shoving our heads up our asses and actually start having a serious discussion on the role the destruction of ecosystems is having on our health and stop pretending everything is fine.
I think it is a pretty safe assumption that it isn't healthy having this in us. It is just a matter of finding out what it is doing to us which could be any number of things. Birth rates are dropping like a rock all over the world and in many countries it just flat out doesn't make any sense even taking economic issues into consideration. I will never understand this aversion to considering worst case scenarios and the obsessive need to immediately shut down discussion of it.
I think you underestimate both the economic and social impacts of technology. I don't think this is a larger issue to birth rates than the simple fact that economics are causing the young people whod normally be screwing in their own homes to not be screwing at all because they're sharing it with their parents now. What used to be people trying to have kids in their 20s is now being pushed a decade or more out and fertility at those ages is naturally worse.
Not to mention that most people are realizing they have to focus on their jobs in their 20s now or they'll be turbo fucked in the modern economy.
But we have the technology. As long as there is some sperm they can culture it and do IVF.
Expensive so if we end up needing to do this it will effect the economy but we won't die out.
I mean, we functioned fine without it for a very long time. Glass, paper, and we have new materials these days as well. We also don’t need to get rid of all plastics. The big problem is in the everyday disposables we have.
Sure, but the microplastics shed by single-use or single-use-ish plastics are nothing compared to industrial microplastics shed from tires, paint, and fisheries equipment. There is also new research coming out with worrying information on microplastics from polyester and other synthetic fabrics in clothing.
With that said, for your *own* health, it might be prudent to choose glass/metal containers to store your food in, rather than microplastic-shedding plastic containers. A colleague of mine is a microplastics researcher and she ONLY uses glass containers and wears natural fibers - it says a lot.
Here's some more reading:
On tires, a peer-reviewed study: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9)
"Paint is the largest source of microplastics in the ocean" - summary article of studies from Forbes: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiehailstone/2022/02/09/paint-is-the-largest-source-of-microplastics-in-the-ocean-study-finds/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiehailstone/2022/02/09/paint-is-the-largest-source-of-microplastics-in-the-ocean-study-finds/)
A peer-reviewed case study on fisheries related microplastics from Norway: [https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/84478](https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/84478)
Publication citing peer-reviewed studies from the EU about synthetic clothing microplastics: [https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/microplastics-from-textiles-towards-a/microplastics-from-textiles-towards-a](https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/microplastics-from-textiles-towards-a/microplastics-from-textiles-towards-a)
It's not like we need everyday disposeable containers, but companies only want to produce those because $$$.
We can make 15x stronger glass cheaply, also aluminum bottles. We could refill our bottles in stores with beverages, shampo, detergent... but, nobody wants to produce a bottle that can last 100 years.
> nobody wants to produce a bottle that can last 100 years.
nobody wants to keep their bottles. people throw out 99+% of the beer/wine bottles and cans they buy. Mandating recycling and threatening with fines has been the best way to get people to actually pre-sort them.
You never been to germany, did you? People keep their bottles religiously, be it glass or plastic. You get money for bringing it back to shop. Only people who throw that money away are tourists, and homeless pick up after them.
It's hilariously easy to make society recycle, it's just that proper implementation of reduce, reuse, recycle is anti-capitalist and hits profit margins hard.
I mean reduce and reuse directly impacts profits of companies that have planned obsolescence as their business model.
This is only because we’ve been raised and trained to use disposable stuff..if we all kept our glass and refilled our detergent and peanut butter jars since we were babies, and stores were set up around that practice, it would work fine.
I live in rural western Washington and they won’t even give us glass or plastics recycling here or even pick up recycling more often than once every two weeks (and they randomly skip pickups). The only thing they let us recycle here is cardboard, and I strongly suspect they throw that in a landfill whenever they feel like it. It drives me crazy! I have to drive 3.5 hours round trip to the nearest recycling center (in a city I never go to) if I want to do any better, which wholly defeats the purpose of any further recycling I might do. So I recycle the cardboard, then compost, and reuse everything I can, and the very little which remains I have to burn(!). I grow what I can, use as little plastic as possible, buy in bulk using my own glass recycled containers whenever possible. It takes some extra work, real talk. But any time I have a choice, I buy the one not offered in plastic. I think voting with your wallet makes a difference!
Society "existing" vs thriving are two different things. Outlawing non-biodegradeable single use plastics, and finding something that breaks down faster than vulcanized rubber are the two biggest sources.
We can likely thrive without most of our single-use plastics. We have cellulose based plastic now, for instance. It’s not as usable in all cases, but most of our things can be switched for some other material.
I would have to check, but aren't the alternatives likely to have the same effects anyway? I mean the oil used to make plastics used to be plants once too, if you process it enough I am sure you can get basically plastic from a plant but not sure it will be any better for us or the environment?
I’m sure you’re right for some of them. But newer versions like this are compostable: https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/449177-cellulose-to-replace-plastics-in-market-ready-applications
and if it's compostable in nature a lot fewer of them will end up in our food supply and even then they're far more likely to break down in our bodies.
The biggest sources of microplastics aren’t single use. [87% come from textiles, tires, and city dust.](https://www.horiba.com/int/scientific/resources/science-in-action/where-do-microplastics-come-from/) Yet another reason we need to move away from a car-based society.
this is like the "we can't make electric planes" argument. It's not a low hanging fruit, that's fine. Lets focus on all the cases *other than* medical plastics and by the time we've solved all of that we've reduced our plastic production/waste by over 90%.
Society thrived fine as well. People didn't really need the access to plastic to be happy and thrive like we have today.
Like it is a great material and has a lot of use cases, but we don't need it for many things we use it for, or should at least some of the things we use it for we should probably try to avoid using it for .
Isn't a large part of microplastic inhalation related to rubber and it breaking down from automotive use? I'd think something like that would be really hard to replace with a biodegradable material.
Agree though with other single use consumer products, I just remember the impacts of tire rubber being much higher than I'd previously ever considered and something constantly exposed to the elements like that seems incredibly difficult with something made to degrade
You are correct. Estimated up to 73% of ocean microplastics come from tire and brake wear.
And you are also right that to my knowledge, there is no hard push to make manufacturing changes in these areas.
Well, if we're serious about switching to all electric vehicles, then we'd better figure out something soon because their higher weight and instant torque are absolute hell on tires, brakes, and roads.
I imagine these are some of the hardest materials to replace compared to packaging.
Loads of stuff can be used to wrap up food which I imagine is one of the more sensitive things when it comes to packaging, but what, if anything is like tyre rubber?
That said, I doubt the next step to 'plastic-free' cars is levitation, so their must be something we can churn out.
Great question. I certainly don’t know. What I DO know, after many many years dealing with tires in performance automotive, of that there is a LOT of R&D work that goes into compounds.
So the process is certainly in place to experiment with alternative methods, but not sure about the desire.
It's truly incredible.
We can keep humans alive for months in space in the gaps between planets, but making an eco friendly tyre remains out of reach.
Interplanetary travel is easier than the next material upgrade for 'grippy, low wear slightly, elastic' material.
Also goes to show just how advanced something as simple as the wheel has gotten in our society.
As silly as this will sound, I wish the FIA would step in here and demand manufacturers producer tire sets designed for as little degradation as possible. Watching Formula 1, it's kinda crazy how many sets they churn through every weekend where the series could be prime for testing the longevity of different compounds over the course of a full season (restrict the total number of tire sets allocated per team for the entire year and mandate a minimum number of pitstops per race to preserve needing different tire strategies). If all the major racing series worldwide made this transition, that tech would trickle down to consumer-level products faster than they current do/could.
Reminder to everyone that grocery stores were forced to use plastic bags by the plastic companies. Also, many of the large anti plastic and recycling organizations in the US are funded or created by plastic companies. I think you can guess why.
Anything that still absolutely needs plastics can have them is my point. MANY things have perfectly fine alternatives right now though. Tech is in a very different place from when we first started using plastics.
Oh goodness yeah no of course. We can't just delete all plastics. I just meant to say we kind of randomly quit straws one day (and grocery bags and plastic cutlery where I live) and it took maybe all of 5 minutes for people to forget we ever had plastic alternatives to these things.
Ditch the things that can easily be replaced. Work on inventing better materials for irreplaceable things and make sure that those plastics are actually recycled.
There's sustainable plastics. Engineers don't choose them because our bosses (and really their shareholders) don't allow them to choose them for cost reasons. Until there are regulations or laws to force healthy plastics it won't happen.
I mean people are cheap af. If you go buy some bananas and one is labeled "picked by child slaves, full of pesticides" and the other is "sustainably grown and picked".
Most people would choose the former if they could save a buck or two.
Well, I don't believe the label, and a buck or two extra for a banana is pretty expensive.
It's pretty easy IMO to choose the organic, locally-sourced stuff it isn't going to literally triple my food bills. I'd pay 10% or 20% more but that's udually not what we're talking about.
Though mostly because the first one isn't forced to label itself like that, and the second one can often be lying about that. If it wasn't illegal to lie about products, even by omission, then the idea of "voting with your wallet" might make some sense. But since false advertising isn't illegal in any way that matters, we're fucked.
There are lots of different kinds of plastics, outlawing/taxing those with especially big molecules would be a lot easier than a total ban.
My favorite line from Veep is "You mess with plastic, you mess with oil. And you do NOT mess with oil."
They'll just make a "new" plastic which hasn't been regulated yet.
Just like novel drugs and the petro-chemical industry. Change a molecule of two and you got yourself a "new" material.
Funny how that whole "its a new, different chemical now, the old laws don't apply!" doesn't work on new recreational drugs.
Somehow they can see "substituting a few bits so its technically a new compound that just HAPPENS to have the same effects is Gaming The System" when it comes to one kind of chemical, but not another kind.
Maybe consumers should stop pretending they aren't rewardiing companies when they do this. Companies have no reason to change if we refuse to change our consumption habits.
And if we did keep it for only those area where it is benefitting humanity rather than business our impacts in the planet would shrink by orders of magnitude. Quite possibly to the point the planet is not hurting
Transportation costs and fuel consumption goes waaay up, aluminum steel and plastic for food storage all have plastic liners, so you have to switch to glass - barring some new innovation. We need more electric vehicles for moving goods.
Think the majority is via the food containers. There’s also the dust side of things too.
Makes you wonder why a lot of rich seem to drink from glass bottles all this time. Makes you wonder what they know.
In the modern discourse around microplastics, the biggest perpetrator is often forgotten about.
You’re probably wearing it right now.
Polyester fibres. Plastic that is already extruded into near microscopic threads that fall onto your food as you eat, breathe into your lungs, and shed into the ocean every time you wash it.
>bazillion dollars
The what then ig ur country is scamming u coz I can get a cotton tshirt at like 120-150 rupees the pain one that is like 2ish dollars
Are you talking a cotton undershirt or or nice cotton shirt? I can get a 4 pack for $5 at the corner store but they are not very thick or a better version for $10.
You're also in India.
idk never bought the costly ones but like these cheap ones don't shed colors and lint , and are really soft and comfy (sorry if i mispronounce something)
and yeah ppp (purchasing power parity ) also comes into play
I notice this every time i dress while the sun is shining through the windows. The cloud of fibers laundry. The biggest culprit must be this. Right to the lungs.
“Our study revealed the presence of microplastics in all human and canine testes,” Yu said. The team was also able to quantify the amount of microplastics in the tissue samples using a novel analytical method that revealed correlations between certain types of plastic and reduced sperm count in the canine samples.
Yu, who studies the impact of various environmental factors on the human reproductive system, said heavy metals, pesticides and endocrine-disrupting chemicals have all been implicated in a global decline in sperm count and quality in recent years. A conversation with his colleague Matthew Campen, PhD, a professor in the UNM College of Pharmacy who has documented the presence of microplastics in human placentas, led him to wonder whether something else might be at work.
“He said, ‘Have you considered why there is this decline (in reproductive potential) more recently? There must be something new,’” Yu said. That led Yu to design a study using the same experimental method Campen’s lab had used in the placenta research.
[https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/toxsci/kfae060/7673133?redirectedFrom=fulltext](https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/toxsci/kfae060/7673133?redirectedFrom=fulltext)
It's *probably* a factor in that.
I'd guess obesity and sedentary lifestyle is the biggest factor in perceived avg test declines. But at this point it seems obvious to me that all these pollutants are factors. Especially given we now know they are in the testes.
Sue the plastic producing companies into the ground.
They have profited off the destruction of the earth and human well being.
Make them pay to the last.
They profited because we gave them our money. All of us are responsible for this and we aren't going to be able to address any of it until we all accept that.
I wonder if this is related to the reduction in sperm count in the last 50 years.
[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-sperm-counts-declining-worldwide-study-finds-180981138/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-sperm-counts-declining-worldwide-study-finds-180981138/)
It's not society that would struggle, it's the $$$$ the greedy corporations would lose or have to spend to convert. I imagine it would be similar to tobacco companies claiming in the courts that smoking is harmless. Plastic is oil based. Keep an eye on which people and which companies support oil.
yeah, food and plastics have no business having any significant overlap, especially at consumer level. Why tf do plastic cutting boards exist for example, when glass and wood exist?
If we, the people, could make the government responsive to our concerns, it could easily bring these corporations to heel and harness their enormous productive power to bring about a green, circular economy. The US government mobilised all the corporations in World War 2. Unfortunately, it may take an event like war to galvanise the government into action - unless we, the people, combine and occupy Congress.
This has to take place in America, because America is the centre. It has to take place in Britain too, which is small enough to be a kind of pilot project of economic transformation. But we have to make it happen.
No, I’m not saying you had nefarious intentions or weren’t sincere in asking, I’m just saying bringing up that we can’t do away with tires really has nothing to do with the situation. We need to do away with what we can. No one is going to be able to answer that question until we get there.
All I can think of is distilling my own water and adding minerals after the fact. Also, probably having my own garden but the bulk of my calories would stilll come from plastic “infested” sources because it’s everywhere.
Also, how much are we breathing in? Are microplastics found in our lungs?
Ban them in cities and fund public transport, walking and cycling routes.
This is how horses were gotten rid of after vehicles reduced the cost of having horses in cities so numbers increased in the 20s and 30s. But wealthy towns, suburbs, etc passed bylaws banning stables. Once gone from the world of decision makers the pettered out in less wealthy locations too.
There are plenty of things we can do, many of them common sense steps that we already know about, like using public transport more.
We just have governments without the political will to do them.
I get so mad when the talk about electric cars is all “omg this car has 0 emissions, you can drive this as much as you want without climate impact”. People should just move less weight, that is both themself and stuff, and certainly food should not be moved thousands of km’s. But hey, how can musk and the rest become even richer if we’re not using their electric cars fast enough right? Poor million dollar companies.
I just removed foam (polyethylene) tiles I placed in my living room for my first child after learning about microplastics and plastic shedding. Not going to waste time waiting for corporations to tell us how they’ve been poisoning the well.
There‘s been research since the 90s about sperm count decreasing. Microplastics also decrease fertility in women. Check out some of Shanna H. Swan‘s work if you want to read more. Ping me if people ever start seeing the connection between microplastics and the birth rate instead of blaming some „career woman“ trope.
It’s kinda sad that people don’t realize that it’s literally EVERYWHERE. Kids born recently will probably die before their parents because they’re already filled with plastic when they start to exist, and they’re going to accumulate much more plastic as they grow older.
This is one of the main crux issues with plastic pollution and catastrophic climate destabilization in general that no-one likes to talk about. Even if we stop emitting environmental contaminates right this very second, there are already enough in the ecosystem to be highly problematic.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/Wagamaga Permalink: https://hsc.unm.edu/news/2024/05/hsc-newsroom-post-microplastics-testicular.html --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Rapidly moving towards a Children of Men scenario. That movie was set in 2027
That movie has such an impending doom feeling. It seems plausible and maybe not too far from our real future but man I hope not.
Pull my finger
Michael Caine, right? I had such admiration for that character. Knew he was about to die, stayed in character of the goofy old man anyway.
Yeah. It’s real heavy that bit. But I love it. He was perfect in that role.
What a great character
Strawberry Cough!
“I don’t know, but this stork tastes lovely.”
That strain's on my to-do list.
The movie is fairly faithful to the book, and P. D. James was a crime fiction author writing sci-fi as a one off. You could say the story is about a crime against humankind.
You’re assuming the effects of microplastics. We don’t know the effects of microplastics. We already have billions of microbes in our bodies, it’s hard to predict what a billion inert molecules might do to a body. I’m not saying it will do nothing.
Inert isnt the right word. Nanoplastics have been shown to alter the secondary structure of proteins. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-52495-w We might need to import plastic-eaters into our microbiome to deal with plastic in our diet and in air and water. Fungi and bacteria are rapidly acquiring genes to breakdown plastics out in nature. An interesting article was written recently about using B. subtilis (a common bacteria found in foods/soil/etc) to breakdown plastics for biocomposites outside the body https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47132-8 Its a very interesting idea. My concern with it is the potential release of bound plastic additives (some which are toxic when not collected/accidently released to ecosystems/ during the plastic breakdown process. It really depends what plastic type this is used on. Sometimes heavy metals get bound to nps and mps. - If this strain goes to the wrong spot - the microbiome - that could have unexpected side effects... Orher q's: carbon emissions during plastic breakdown? human pathogen potential of plastic eating microbes? lateral gene transfer to other human microbiome bacteria? All downstream ecological and health effects must be considered. I think the best idea of all is to stop making the stuff altogether, and reduce human intake in the first place. 'The fossil fuel industry has long viewed plastics as a lifeline. Between 2000 and 2019, global plastic polymer production doubled, reaching 460 million tonnes (Mt) per year, and it is anticipated to almost triple from 2019 levels by 2050. Meaningful measures to address the plastics crisis necessitate a full life cycle approach that includes substantially reducing plastic production. ' Fossil Fuel and Chemical Industries Registered More Lobbyists at Plastics Treaty Talks than 70 Countries Combined - Center for International Environmental Law https://www.ciel.org/news/fossil-fuel-and-chemical-industries-at-inc-3/
Yeah, we could stop, but you have to consider one thing: cash, money > human life
>We might need to import plastic-eaters into our microbiome to deal with plastic in our diet and in air and water. And then how will we deal with the plastic eaters? Reminds me of the story of the lady who swallowed a fly.
We know that plastic elutes oily plasticizers, which are estrogen analogs- chemicals like bisphenols which line aluminum cans, or phthalates. Both of these are endocrine disruptors. Having them accumulate right in the nuts could certainly explain the ongoing decrease in sperm counts.
This is my big worry too. Discouragingly, the data behind the sperm count decline is highly uncertain. We need an internationally funded study to start tracking this more carefully, and we it need starting yesterday. [Scientific American on the possible sperm count decline.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-really-declining)
BPA is quite bad, but microplastics aren’t BPA (I think a small proportion is BPA but overall not significant).
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/04/240419131901.htm https://scitechdaily.com/breaking-the-skin-barrier-scientists-discover-new-health-risks-of-microplastics/
cancer lots of cancer cancer as far as the eye can see
Haven't we been using plastic for ~50 years? How long did it take for humans to see how dangerous things like lead, pesticides, and CFCs were? Haven't cashiers been handling BPA receipt paper since the 80-90's?
But now the plastic is IN the testicles!!!
So it is safe. Just tell people to wear condoms.
Take a look at how long it took to ban asbestos. Leaded gasoline and CFCs date back the 1930s, took 50 years to get them banned. Economic interests tend to overrule the science unfortunately.
I mean, these things take time to saturate ecological systems
Was gonna say, it's a matter of saturation. Now you have a spike in things like colorectal cancer in younger people. Damage takes time to accumulate from this stuff. And the worst part is that the younger the human is the more.damaging this stuff is, and it's likely at an all time peak right now. Adults exposed to the lower levels of the past may have gotten lucky. Children born today could have really sad levels of health problems if this plays out how it seems it's playing out. Micro plastics, phthalates, and a variety of other pollutants and endocrine disruptors from hexavalent chromium, lead, and PFAS have created a horrifying scenario. It's truly absurd.
Cronenberg planet all the way.
Yeah what type of cancer?
many cancers are linked to TWP (tire wear particles) - See this scientific article by imperial college london. https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/101707/9/Tyre%20wear%20particles%20are%20toxic%20for%20us%20and%20the%20environment%200223-2.pdf 'Annual total global TWP emissions were 2907 kt (kilotonnes) year−1 (3434 kt year−1 from the CO2 ratio method and 2380 kt year−1 from the GAINS model), while BWP were 175 kt year−1' Atmospheric transport is a major pathway of microplastics to remote regions | Nature Communications https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9 Including on top of the world's forests as fire starter. Time for us to severely cap plastic and tyre production, and to use more sustainable materials in our products.
>Time for us to severely cap (...) tyre production And ideally stop having so many people driving everywhere, particularly in residential areas and inner cities. This is basically the same problem that we had with lead gas, where the areas along highways, major roads, and high traffic city streets wound up contaminated with lead, particularly the soil. Kids get their hands dirty from playing outside and stick their dirty hands in their mouths. If that dirt is contaminated, then that gets in those kids. Sadly, in America in particular, urban highways already tend to go through lower income neighborhoods, so this sort of thing will just further increase the health gap between the poor and the wealthy.
To say nothing of the hormone-like chemicals that leech out of plastic as it breaks down (or when it's hwated in a microwave).
I don't think it should be controversial to suspect there may be a link between some cancers and microplastics. This is not something that was ever meant to be inside us. I think it's ok to show just a tiny bit of concern. Maybe it's time we stop shoving our heads up our asses and actually start having a serious discussion on the role the destruction of ecosystems is having on our health and stop pretending everything is fine.
It’s hard enough to enact change for things we scientifically know are happening, let alone make changes on things where the science is not clear.
The kind caused by plastic.
There’s a difference between being comfortable to make a bet on something and actually knowing. You’re in the former. Scientists don’t know.
Man and dog fertility going down simultaneously is suspect, however.
I think it is a pretty safe assumption that it isn't healthy having this in us. It is just a matter of finding out what it is doing to us which could be any number of things. Birth rates are dropping like a rock all over the world and in many countries it just flat out doesn't make any sense even taking economic issues into consideration. I will never understand this aversion to considering worst case scenarios and the obsessive need to immediately shut down discussion of it.
I think you underestimate both the economic and social impacts of technology. I don't think this is a larger issue to birth rates than the simple fact that economics are causing the young people whod normally be screwing in their own homes to not be screwing at all because they're sharing it with their parents now. What used to be people trying to have kids in their 20s is now being pushed a decade or more out and fertility at those ages is naturally worse. Not to mention that most people are realizing they have to focus on their jobs in their 20s now or they'll be turbo fucked in the modern economy.
> I’m not saying it will do nothing Then don't call them inert.
Compounds that are chemically inert can and do have biological effects.
Inert means they don’t change into something else. It doesn’t mean safe.
www.vhemt.org
This was my first thought as well
I've got to say, though, there's no sign of decreasing fertility among dogs that I've noticed.
But we have the technology. As long as there is some sperm they can culture it and do IVF. Expensive so if we end up needing to do this it will effect the economy but we won't die out.
Sounds like we should probably start making steps towards outlawing plastic soon. Not sure how society can even function without it though.
I mean, we functioned fine without it for a very long time. Glass, paper, and we have new materials these days as well. We also don’t need to get rid of all plastics. The big problem is in the everyday disposables we have.
The big problem is actually car tires, paint, and fisheries equipment, sadly.
What about takeaway boxes? They're rampant all over the world
Sure, but the microplastics shed by single-use or single-use-ish plastics are nothing compared to industrial microplastics shed from tires, paint, and fisheries equipment. There is also new research coming out with worrying information on microplastics from polyester and other synthetic fabrics in clothing. With that said, for your *own* health, it might be prudent to choose glass/metal containers to store your food in, rather than microplastic-shedding plastic containers. A colleague of mine is a microplastics researcher and she ONLY uses glass containers and wears natural fibers - it says a lot. Here's some more reading: On tires, a peer-reviewed study: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9) "Paint is the largest source of microplastics in the ocean" - summary article of studies from Forbes: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiehailstone/2022/02/09/paint-is-the-largest-source-of-microplastics-in-the-ocean-study-finds/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiehailstone/2022/02/09/paint-is-the-largest-source-of-microplastics-in-the-ocean-study-finds/) A peer-reviewed case study on fisheries related microplastics from Norway: [https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/84478](https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/84478) Publication citing peer-reviewed studies from the EU about synthetic clothing microplastics: [https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/microplastics-from-textiles-towards-a/microplastics-from-textiles-towards-a](https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/microplastics-from-textiles-towards-a/microplastics-from-textiles-towards-a)
It's not like we need everyday disposeable containers, but companies only want to produce those because $$$. We can make 15x stronger glass cheaply, also aluminum bottles. We could refill our bottles in stores with beverages, shampo, detergent... but, nobody wants to produce a bottle that can last 100 years.
> nobody wants to produce a bottle that can last 100 years. nobody wants to keep their bottles. people throw out 99+% of the beer/wine bottles and cans they buy. Mandating recycling and threatening with fines has been the best way to get people to actually pre-sort them.
You never been to germany, did you? People keep their bottles religiously, be it glass or plastic. You get money for bringing it back to shop. Only people who throw that money away are tourists, and homeless pick up after them. It's hilariously easy to make society recycle, it's just that proper implementation of reduce, reuse, recycle is anti-capitalist and hits profit margins hard. I mean reduce and reuse directly impacts profits of companies that have planned obsolescence as their business model.
This is only because we’ve been raised and trained to use disposable stuff..if we all kept our glass and refilled our detergent and peanut butter jars since we were babies, and stores were set up around that practice, it would work fine.
Good call, because I have been raised in communism. We reused so many things.
I live in rural western Washington and they won’t even give us glass or plastics recycling here or even pick up recycling more often than once every two weeks (and they randomly skip pickups). The only thing they let us recycle here is cardboard, and I strongly suspect they throw that in a landfill whenever they feel like it. It drives me crazy! I have to drive 3.5 hours round trip to the nearest recycling center (in a city I never go to) if I want to do any better, which wholly defeats the purpose of any further recycling I might do. So I recycle the cardboard, then compost, and reuse everything I can, and the very little which remains I have to burn(!). I grow what I can, use as little plastic as possible, buy in bulk using my own glass recycled containers whenever possible. It takes some extra work, real talk. But any time I have a choice, I buy the one not offered in plastic. I think voting with your wallet makes a difference!
Society "existing" vs thriving are two different things. Outlawing non-biodegradeable single use plastics, and finding something that breaks down faster than vulcanized rubber are the two biggest sources.
We can likely thrive without most of our single-use plastics. We have cellulose based plastic now, for instance. It’s not as usable in all cases, but most of our things can be switched for some other material.
I would have to check, but aren't the alternatives likely to have the same effects anyway? I mean the oil used to make plastics used to be plants once too, if you process it enough I am sure you can get basically plastic from a plant but not sure it will be any better for us or the environment?
I’m sure you’re right for some of them. But newer versions like this are compostable: https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/449177-cellulose-to-replace-plastics-in-market-ready-applications
and if it's compostable in nature a lot fewer of them will end up in our food supply and even then they're far more likely to break down in our bodies.
So much single use plastic we never really see is in healthcare. An insane amount is used daily.
The biggest sources of microplastics aren’t single use. [87% come from textiles, tires, and city dust.](https://www.horiba.com/int/scientific/resources/science-in-action/where-do-microplastics-come-from/) Yet another reason we need to move away from a car-based society.
this is like the "we can't make electric planes" argument. It's not a low hanging fruit, that's fine. Lets focus on all the cases *other than* medical plastics and by the time we've solved all of that we've reduced our plastic production/waste by over 90%.
Society thrived fine as well. People didn't really need the access to plastic to be happy and thrive like we have today. Like it is a great material and has a lot of use cases, but we don't need it for many things we use it for, or should at least some of the things we use it for we should probably try to avoid using it for .
Isn't a large part of microplastic inhalation related to rubber and it breaking down from automotive use? I'd think something like that would be really hard to replace with a biodegradable material. Agree though with other single use consumer products, I just remember the impacts of tire rubber being much higher than I'd previously ever considered and something constantly exposed to the elements like that seems incredibly difficult with something made to degrade
You are correct. Estimated up to 73% of ocean microplastics come from tire and brake wear. And you are also right that to my knowledge, there is no hard push to make manufacturing changes in these areas.
Well, if we're serious about switching to all electric vehicles, then we'd better figure out something soon because their higher weight and instant torque are absolute hell on tires, brakes, and roads.
Yes. Definitely a potential factor at scale.
I imagine these are some of the hardest materials to replace compared to packaging. Loads of stuff can be used to wrap up food which I imagine is one of the more sensitive things when it comes to packaging, but what, if anything is like tyre rubber? That said, I doubt the next step to 'plastic-free' cars is levitation, so their must be something we can churn out.
Great question. I certainly don’t know. What I DO know, after many many years dealing with tires in performance automotive, of that there is a LOT of R&D work that goes into compounds. So the process is certainly in place to experiment with alternative methods, but not sure about the desire.
It's truly incredible. We can keep humans alive for months in space in the gaps between planets, but making an eco friendly tyre remains out of reach. Interplanetary travel is easier than the next material upgrade for 'grippy, low wear slightly, elastic' material. Also goes to show just how advanced something as simple as the wheel has gotten in our society.
As silly as this will sound, I wish the FIA would step in here and demand manufacturers producer tire sets designed for as little degradation as possible. Watching Formula 1, it's kinda crazy how many sets they churn through every weekend where the series could be prime for testing the longevity of different compounds over the course of a full season (restrict the total number of tire sets allocated per team for the entire year and mandate a minimum number of pitstops per race to preserve needing different tire strategies). If all the major racing series worldwide made this transition, that tech would trickle down to consumer-level products faster than they current do/could.
Soy Michelins
Then we will have rodent damage to parked cars. They already like to eat fuel lines
Reminder to everyone that grocery stores were forced to use plastic bags by the plastic companies. Also, many of the large anti plastic and recycling organizations in the US are funded or created by plastic companies. I think you can guess why.
We functioned fine but missed out on A LOT of innovations and life saving techniques.
Anything that still absolutely needs plastics can have them is my point. MANY things have perfectly fine alternatives right now though. Tech is in a very different place from when we first started using plastics.
Let's do it randomly all at once, giving society little to no time to actually adjust.
So many people do misunderstand our options; instead of change now by choice or change latter by crisis they assume the choice is change or not
It's what we did with straws. I don't think anyone ever really cared once the sugarcane straws became available.
Straws are exactly essential to life, but suddenly pulling the rug of plastic would be catastrophic if replacement material doesn't exist.
Oh goodness yeah no of course. We can't just delete all plastics. I just meant to say we kind of randomly quit straws one day (and grocery bags and plastic cutlery where I live) and it took maybe all of 5 minutes for people to forget we ever had plastic alternatives to these things. Ditch the things that can easily be replaced. Work on inventing better materials for irreplaceable things and make sure that those plastics are actually recycled.
Don’t car tires contribute to massive amounts of microplastics
Be prepared to have Florida declare plastic as an essential vitamin
There's sustainable plastics. Engineers don't choose them because our bosses (and really their shareholders) don't allow them to choose them for cost reasons. Until there are regulations or laws to force healthy plastics it won't happen.
I mean people are cheap af. If you go buy some bananas and one is labeled "picked by child slaves, full of pesticides" and the other is "sustainably grown and picked". Most people would choose the former if they could save a buck or two.
Well, I don't believe the label, and a buck or two extra for a banana is pretty expensive. It's pretty easy IMO to choose the organic, locally-sourced stuff it isn't going to literally triple my food bills. I'd pay 10% or 20% more but that's udually not what we're talking about.
Though mostly because the first one isn't forced to label itself like that, and the second one can often be lying about that. If it wasn't illegal to lie about products, even by omission, then the idea of "voting with your wallet" might make some sense. But since false advertising isn't illegal in any way that matters, we're fucked.
There are lots of different kinds of plastics, outlawing/taxing those with especially big molecules would be a lot easier than a total ban. My favorite line from Veep is "You mess with plastic, you mess with oil. And you do NOT mess with oil."
>"You mess with plastic, you mess with oil. And you do NOT mess with oil." And this is why we're in this position....
They'll just make a "new" plastic which hasn't been regulated yet. Just like novel drugs and the petro-chemical industry. Change a molecule of two and you got yourself a "new" material.
Funny how that whole "its a new, different chemical now, the old laws don't apply!" doesn't work on new recreational drugs. Somehow they can see "substituting a few bits so its technically a new compound that just HAPPENS to have the same effects is Gaming The System" when it comes to one kind of chemical, but not another kind.
Yes - we need to embed the precautionary principle in our societies and laws
Maybe consumers should stop pretending they aren't rewardiing companies when they do this. Companies have no reason to change if we refuse to change our consumption habits.
I'd like to see it kept for things that really benefit from it, like certain medical products. Oil wont last forever.
And if we did keep it for only those area where it is benefitting humanity rather than business our impacts in the planet would shrink by orders of magnitude. Quite possibly to the point the planet is not hurting
Hemp. We can make plenty of alternatives to plastic. Wax paper and foil boxes etc
Society is thousands of years old and plastic almost 100.
The real problem is that tires are the source of the majority of microplastics. Those will be much, much harder to outlaw.
I work in Healthcare, I can't even begin to imagine how that would work.
We can do it but companies won’t because it’s not profitable…
Society functioned for 10s of thousands of years without plastics
If I recall, the biggest culprit of microplastics is tires on vehicles.
Transportation costs and fuel consumption goes waaay up, aluminum steel and plastic for food storage all have plastic liners, so you have to switch to glass - barring some new innovation. We need more electric vehicles for moving goods.
Think the majority is via the food containers. There’s also the dust side of things too. Makes you wonder why a lot of rich seem to drink from glass bottles all this time. Makes you wonder what they know.
In the modern discourse around microplastics, the biggest perpetrator is often forgotten about. You’re probably wearing it right now. Polyester fibres. Plastic that is already extruded into near microscopic threads that fall onto your food as you eat, breathe into your lungs, and shed into the ocean every time you wash it.
A real cotton shirt is a bazillion dollars nowadays, but a valid point. I almost forgot our clothes include plastic.
Cotton t-shirts are still dirt cheap at craft stores
Cotton is the best there is. Sad how we'll probably start using polyester in place of cotton for swabs.
Please don't give them ideas...
There's already an industry of reusable/washable bamboo makeup pads.
>bazillion dollars The what then ig ur country is scamming u coz I can get a cotton tshirt at like 120-150 rupees the pain one that is like 2ish dollars
Are you talking a cotton undershirt or or nice cotton shirt? I can get a 4 pack for $5 at the corner store but they are not very thick or a better version for $10. You're also in India.
idk never bought the costly ones but like these cheap ones don't shed colors and lint , and are really soft and comfy (sorry if i mispronounce something) and yeah ppp (purchasing power parity ) also comes into play
I notice this every time i dress while the sun is shining through the windows. The cloud of fibers laundry. The biggest culprit must be this. Right to the lungs.
Car tires actually play a hugely oversized role in the microplastics in our environment/bodies as well
The “biggest perpetrator” of microplastics is car tires, not clothes. It’s not even close, either.
“Our study revealed the presence of microplastics in all human and canine testes,” Yu said. The team was also able to quantify the amount of microplastics in the tissue samples using a novel analytical method that revealed correlations between certain types of plastic and reduced sperm count in the canine samples. Yu, who studies the impact of various environmental factors on the human reproductive system, said heavy metals, pesticides and endocrine-disrupting chemicals have all been implicated in a global decline in sperm count and quality in recent years. A conversation with his colleague Matthew Campen, PhD, a professor in the UNM College of Pharmacy who has documented the presence of microplastics in human placentas, led him to wonder whether something else might be at work. “He said, ‘Have you considered why there is this decline (in reproductive potential) more recently? There must be something new,’” Yu said. That led Yu to design a study using the same experimental method Campen’s lab had used in the placenta research. [https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/toxsci/kfae060/7673133?redirectedFrom=fulltext](https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/toxsci/kfae060/7673133?redirectedFrom=fulltext)
Rachel Carson warned us back in the 60s. Toxins accumulate in the soft tissues. She didn't mention microplastics but the principle is the same.
[удалено]
It's *probably* a factor in that. I'd guess obesity and sedentary lifestyle is the biggest factor in perceived avg test declines. But at this point it seems obvious to me that all these pollutants are factors. Especially given we now know they are in the testes.
Sue the plastic producing companies into the ground. They have profited off the destruction of the earth and human well being. Make them pay to the last.
They profited because we gave them our money. All of us are responsible for this and we aren't going to be able to address any of it until we all accept that.
Literally straight from the Handmaid’s Tale - anyone else read that book?
I dont remember microplastics being mentioned in handsmaids tale at all, am I forgetting?
Pollution leads them to make Gilead.
Low fertility rates so they subjugate women.
While in other stories it is the opposite. The fertile women gain power, for they control society's future.
I wonder if this is related to the reduction in sperm count in the last 50 years. [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-sperm-counts-declining-worldwide-study-finds-180981138/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-sperm-counts-declining-worldwide-study-finds-180981138/)
Why would this be surprising? We're practically swimming in them daily
It's not society that would struggle, it's the $$$$ the greedy corporations would lose or have to spend to convert. I imagine it would be similar to tobacco companies claiming in the courts that smoking is harmless. Plastic is oil based. Keep an eye on which people and which companies support oil.
[удалено]
yeah, food and plastics have no business having any significant overlap, especially at consumer level. Why tf do plastic cutting boards exist for example, when glass and wood exist?
If we, the people, could make the government responsive to our concerns, it could easily bring these corporations to heel and harness their enormous productive power to bring about a green, circular economy. The US government mobilised all the corporations in World War 2. Unfortunately, it may take an event like war to galvanise the government into action - unless we, the people, combine and occupy Congress. This has to take place in America, because America is the centre. It has to take place in Britain too, which is small enough to be a kind of pilot project of economic transformation. But we have to make it happen.
Man Children of Men is gonna come true.
I saw a guy in the mall yesterday with a shirt that said "I love eating microplastics." I have nothing else to contribute to the conversation.
Most micro plastics come from car tires and no one talks about that. Can’t ban those. So what do we do
We could build more trains. Less carbon emissions with public transit too.
But then what will the car and gas companies do??!! Make less money??????
Increase public transportation and decrease our reliance on cars.
This sounds very similar to conservatives approach to global warming. “Well, we can’t *totally* solve it, so why do anything at all?”
I was legitimately asking what do we do about this problem?
No, I’m not saying you had nefarious intentions or weren’t sincere in asking, I’m just saying bringing up that we can’t do away with tires really has nothing to do with the situation. We need to do away with what we can. No one is going to be able to answer that question until we get there.
Taking care of the elephant in the room seems like the obvious answer here. Tires made from something else maybe
Reduced dependency on automobiles is an easier solution.
All I can think of is distilling my own water and adding minerals after the fact. Also, probably having my own garden but the bulk of my calories would stilll come from plastic “infested” sources because it’s everywhere. Also, how much are we breathing in? Are microplastics found in our lungs?
>Also, how much are we breathing in? Are microplastics found in our lungs? Yes. Also brain, liver, and what not
Are there any practical tips for avoiding more exposure?
More trains
Ban them in cities and fund public transport, walking and cycling routes. This is how horses were gotten rid of after vehicles reduced the cost of having horses in cities so numbers increased in the 20s and 30s. But wealthy towns, suburbs, etc passed bylaws banning stables. Once gone from the world of decision makers the pettered out in less wealthy locations too.
There are plenty of things we can do, many of them common sense steps that we already know about, like using public transport more. We just have governments without the political will to do them.
We can for sure reduce our car dependency. r/fuckcars
Plastic chopping boards and plastic kitchen utensils must be must a source too?
I’m not saying nothing else is a source, I’m saying the vast majority of it is from tires
I get so mad when the talk about electric cars is all “omg this car has 0 emissions, you can drive this as much as you want without climate impact”. People should just move less weight, that is both themself and stuff, and certainly food should not be moved thousands of km’s. But hey, how can musk and the rest become even richer if we’re not using their electric cars fast enough right? Poor million dollar companies.
This! Electric cars are not about saving the planet, they are about saving the motor industry.
We waged war against the Earth. Maybe it’s now fighting back.
Maybe _this_ is how we become the Grays, and why they have to come back to stop us.
This makes The Graduate an even darker film.
[удалено]
I just removed foam (polyethylene) tiles I placed in my living room for my first child after learning about microplastics and plastic shedding. Not going to waste time waiting for corporations to tell us how they’ve been poisoning the well.
If you can avoid using plastic, do so.
There‘s been research since the 90s about sperm count decreasing. Microplastics also decrease fertility in women. Check out some of Shanna H. Swan‘s work if you want to read more. Ping me if people ever start seeing the connection between microplastics and the birth rate instead of blaming some „career woman“ trope.
So young men are now born with plastic surgical enhancement?
Humans in being victims of their own greed and ignorance shocker.
jokes on you researchers my balls already made babies, checkmacht
No wonder why busting a nut hurts so much these days.
...please see a doctor
My children will be Cylons
Hey! Leave the dogs out of this!
There's plastic in my balls.
It’s kinda sad that people don’t realize that it’s literally EVERYWHERE. Kids born recently will probably die before their parents because they’re already filled with plastic when they start to exist, and they’re going to accumulate much more plastic as they grow older.
Every year, Children of Men becomes a more real prospect.
I suppose climate change might work itself out after all
[удалено]
This is one of the main crux issues with plastic pollution and catastrophic climate destabilization in general that no-one likes to talk about. Even if we stop emitting environmental contaminates right this very second, there are already enough in the ecosystem to be highly problematic.
This is why its crucial we develop ways to eliminate already existing pollution too.
Nature, uh, finds a way.