[asow92]

Microplastics are the "lead/asbestos poisoning" of our generation, and the problem is actually far more dire than either of the former. Someday, we will look back on how we could have ever allowed microplastics into our lives with shock and awe.

[shawnz]

I think this is really underselling the danger of lead and asbestos. They were known to be dangerous basically since their commercial introduction and there are undeniable large scale negative health trends which are clearly attributable to both, unlike with microplastics

[asow92]

The negative effects of lead and asbestos are known and abatement is ongoing. There are grants being administered today to aid in their continued abatement.

The negative known effects of microplastics are emerging. The public are not as aware of the extent to which they are exposed to microplastics daily. We don't actually know the full extent of the damage being done yet, but what we do know so far is that microplastics affect neurological development, fertility, and are known endocrine-disrupters. It will take time to see the full effects of microplastics in our environment, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

[unglaublich]

Why do we allow burning gigantic storages of carbohydrate fuels while we know full well that the planet's livability suffers from climate change?

Why do we allow fueling our energy plants and automobiles with fossil fuels that causes air pollution responsible for 1/5 deaths world wide? [0]

Why do we allow one-time use plastics and synthetic tire rubbers while knowing it causes irreversible microplastics pollution of land and sea?

... looking at you, fossil fuel lobbyists.

[0]: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/news/fossil-fuel-air-p...

[nayuki]

> burning gigantic storages of carbohydrate fuels

Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons - they're made up of carbon and hydrogen (and very little oxygen). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocarbon

Carbohydrate is C + H + oxygen, and generally refers to biological molecules derived from glucose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate

[testfoobar]

The underlying cause of climate change, air pollution and waterways full of plastic waste is the Tragedy of the Commons.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/climate-ch...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

[unglaublich]

Yep. We should have forced mining and oil companies to pay opportunity costs to our future self whenever they extract finite resources from the planet.

[no_moms_no_hugs]

The challenge is that those costs were not understood when these extractive heavy industries were stood up, and large parts of our legal and governance systems were set up to ensure that those industries could exist, presumably to enrich all of us (e.g., the mineral rights system). By the time the costs were understood, the owners of those industries had accrued enough capital from their operation to actively fight off challenges to them for decades.

The tragedy is obvious, but I think it's an important example as we move forward with other dramatic and potentially disastrous technological changes. What happens if we discover conclusively in 15 years that observing recommendation-algorithm driven social media for more than an hour a day causes dementia? Would we move quickly to ban it, or would we endure a protracted fight with Meta, TikTok et. al. about our "right to scroll" while the damages accrue?

[testfoobar]

Embedded in the tragedy of the commons is a Nash equilibrium where it is in the interest of individual parties to not cooperate - where cooperation would be mutually beneficial.

So, at country scale, implementing a carbon tax on any set of countries immediately reduces their competitiveness against tax-free countries. Over time, this difference will lead to wide divergences in outcomes.

[lispisok]

Are you not guilty for all the times you filled up your petrol powered car spewed all that carbon and air pollution into the air?

[devmor]

It's kind of interesting how we, as carbon based lifeforms, have been spewing carbon products into every part of our environment en-mass and they all seem to have negative influences on our well being.

[pcrh]

I've yet to see any evidence that microplastics are toxic. Plastics are generally inert, and by the time they have broken down into microscopic pieces, most plasticizers have already been leached from the particles.

Microplastics are an ugly witness to pollution, but are likely not themselves very harmful.

[Tagbert]

The base monomers and polymers of PET may not themselves be toxic, but there are plasticizer chemicals added to them to adjust the characteristics that can have biological impacts. Additionally, once the PET starts to break into microplastics, it can attract and accumulate other chemicals that are actually toxic.

Other plastics can be directly toxic, such as styrenes.

[permo-w]

it's fascinating to see in real time. you would think it would be Semmelweiss-esque - a lone discredited voice - but it's not. everyone seems to be fully aware of the problem and its likely dangers ... and yet the problem is as bad as ever

[HideousKojima]

The reason is simple: despite their many problems, plastics are a modern day miracle material. The alternatives I see proposed may match or beat it on one or two factors, but not everything.

A viable general replacement for plastic needs to beat plastic on price, weight, durability, sanitation, strength, and so much more.

[convolvatron]

or we could be willing to trade off some of these factors in order not to befoul our home

[bee_rider]

It is sort of weird because people around the world are staving, while we have tons of food waste in the west. So there is in some sense a crisis and plastics are a tool that could be used to help solve it.

But we don’t, instead we peel oranges and then sell them in plastic containers at the grocery store.

If we were talking about making hard trade-offs between preservation required to save lives and reducing pollution that would be one thing. Instead we use it to enable greater waste.

[yakubin]

> But we don’t, instead we peel oranges and then sell them in plastic containers at the grocery store.

Someone is selling peeled oranges? O.o

How long until they sell peeled apples?

[bee_rider]

Maybe not anymore, but Wholefoods gave it a try, there was a bit of mockery. In general I think the idea that our food is over-processed and over-packaged is not a new complaint, haha.

[HideousKojima]

Ok, you first. And don't be shocked when people (especially the lower classes) get upset when your efforts to ban plastics lead to meat and produce spoiling much faster and/or costing much more, or lead to shipping costs on common goods increasing significantly, etc.

[asow92]

Have you seen that there is an allowed amount of plastic mixed into animal feed? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/15/legal-pl...

This is about more than sanitary wrapping.

[permo-w]

the issue here isn't the wrapping on vital foods. no one is asking for that to be banned. or no one should be anyway. the issue is the wrapping on literally everything else

[blooalien]

^^^ So very much this! ^^^ It's a shame I cannot upvote this more than once.

[slt2021]

who is going to pay for that?