Generally speaking when it comes to health stuff, we know disappointingly little, and the stuff we do know is often from past mistakes (e.g. smoking). We don't have enough knowledge to say what the effects of something will be usually, so unless there are obvious correlations and an obvious control group (again think smoking) we might never really know.
What the FDA will do, with pesticides for example, is test an 1000x dose on a rat, and look for immediate effects. If they don't see immediate effects, then perhaps it doesn't do longterm damage to humans. It's not very convincing, but it historically things used to be much worse.
Yes. Plastic often in them self contain endocrine disrupting or even cancerous chemicals but also plastic when released in to water has proven to bind itself to different toxins.For anyone interested in this subject I can recommend the book Plastic - A toxic love story by Susan Freinkel.
The real question is what we do in the face of uncertainty.
I'll use two comparisons, one positive and one negative for fairness sake. Before we knew that there wasn't much COVID spread in schools, did it make sense to close them just based on the uncertainty involved? Here's an example from the other end: Before we knew for sure leaded gasoline was a bad idea, should it have been banned? The impact of all the lead, particularly on children, was incredibly damaging and had lifelong effects that continued after the science was in.
Obviously, you want to take action based on data. But before we've got enough information to know, what do you do? I'd imagine the risk analysis has something to do with the rate at which micro plastics are being introduced and how far we are from an answer.
It doesn't have to be all or nothing. For example, it could be that items that cause the most issues are taxed a bit more to slow the growth of this potential issue. (Not suggesting that specifically; I don't know enough to say if action should be weaker or more severe.)
I guess future will tell. An interesting thing from the book mentioned is that how toxic something is is not only about the amount we are exposed to, but also at what stage in life. Apparently premature babies have higher cancer rate later in life because they where exposed to these endocrine disruptors from intubation at such a sensitive period in their development.
I too wonder this.
Sure we're consuming it, but how much is retained? Aren't we passing much of it along undigested? Plastic is mostly inert, right? So even if we consume and retain it, what harm is there?
When you buy food-safe plastic (BPA/BPS-free plastic) it won't contain one of many bad ingredients, but microplastic comes from many sources of plastic, some which do contain BPA/BPS. BPA is known to harm the brain & prostate, BPS is known to cause hormone disruption. BPA is found in lining of aluminum cans, toys, & polycarbonate.
I don't know how much is retained, but the plastics have been found in the meat of cows & fish, so it's likely spread all throughout our bodies as well.
This is the real question. I get the sense saying "we're consuming plastics" causes concern because plastics are generally demonized and looked upon as "bad".
But we consume a lot of stuff unintentionally. Fine sand is blown around and deposited on food that we consume. But sand is "natural" so it's ok. But it's really just silicon dioxide mixed with other random minerals. Is that a problem? We know inhaling silicon dioxide is bad for you, but eating it? It is an approved food additive.
The term “plastics" contains a big bag of substances that have very different chemical structure and properties. We don't know what the long-term effects of many of these substances are. Stuff like Dioxins and friends are obviously bad, and still took a significant amount of time to root out. Plastics are everywhere now, so in case it turns out that more substances are bad, we are in deep shit.
Edit: regarding non-organics, it took a long time to realize that inhaling fine dust causes long-term health problems, and quite longer until dust filters became required and commonplace. We are still not done regarding fine dust emitted by traffic.
Agree that there are unknowns, but it's important to keep in mind that plastics have been used in medicine for quite some time. Devices for injection, inhalation, etc. Plastic are long-chain polymers which tend to be pretty non-reactive in the body, but you are correct additives/plasticizers can leech and be an issue.
I guess my point is - sure, maybe we'll find out one day that plastics are causing cancer, but we have a lot of data to suggest they don't at this point.
Generally speaking when it comes to health stuff, we know disappointingly little, and the stuff we do know is often from past mistakes (e.g. smoking). We don't have enough knowledge to say what the effects of something will be usually, so unless there are obvious correlations and an obvious control group (again think smoking) we might never really know.
What the FDA will do, with pesticides for example, is test an 1000x dose on a rat, and look for immediate effects. If they don't see immediate effects, then perhaps it doesn't do longterm damage to humans. It's not very convincing, but it historically things used to be much worse.