[cucumber3732842]

The claim is that the industry is chomping at the bit to have microplastics declared some sort of problem or otherwise regulated or subject to artificial pressure so they can make money over-selling (or having people be forced to buy) solutions to a problem that's over-hyped.

The paper industry people are salivating over it too so they can sell paper bags and paper filter media and cardboard packaging, etc, etc.

Basically they see what the "green grift" people have going on and they want a copy for themselves.

[estearum]

This doesn't actually explain what the second line of the aforementioned comment has to do with the first.

If you're so certain the microplastic threat is overhyped, I would encourage you to publish a paper explaining and evidencing your rationale! As you mention, the ground is ripe for some controversy on this topic.

[vablings]

I am not a scientist; I would consider myself not informed enough to make a paper.

I have read many papers, I know about microplastics and my personal consensus is that they are not a big deal and the biggest sources of microplastics are from water contamination.

"The fact that like damn near ever regulated issue of the 20th century some big moneyed interests will leverage that concern to create a regulatory moat for themselves, drive business to themselves by force of law, etc, etc. The bone the public will be thrown will consist of making the regulated problem some trivial amount less worse for a little while before the Nt order consequences screw us harder than the original problem in a few decades."

This is a much more elegant way of wording prior to describe it.

If microplastics do turn out to be a big issue it's a public health thing and the government will be required to clean up the groundwater with extra filtration ect. Not something worth spending my time thinking about

[estearum]

Can you describe exactly how (by what mechanism) the government would be required to even figure out whether it's a big issue, much less remediate it, if everyone had the same attitude that you do?

Or are you just hoping that other people take up the issue in direct opposition to your own dismissiveness?

[vablings]

"Can you describe exactly how (by what mechanism) the government" They give funding to research, that research is published and a scientific consensus is established.

I don't expect everyone to have the same attitude as me, I am an engineer and work on my specific engineering problems that I am most educated and qualified to work on. I would not expect microplastic research scientist to start doing my job. That's the wonderful thing about this planet we live on, there are many different folks with many different skills, and everyone's lives are better for it.

I find your speech hereto be very reductive and confrontational for essentially no reason, and possibly because you skimmed over a phrase in my other comment "personal consensus"

[estearum]

Why on earth would they give funding to research if the people who pay for that research (you) actively think it's scam?

I'm not asking you to take up microplastic research, or even to form a specific opinion about it. I'm actually arguing the opposite: that if you are ignorant on the topic and disengaged with it, then you shouldn't insist that: 1) it's a fake issue and 2) surely if it is real, someone else will figure it out.

The insistence that it's not a problem has actual causal impact on whether we ever figure something out here. Knowledge doesn't just poof into existence. It must be funded, and as you identified this type of research is typically funded by you and me.

The government funds research that it believes is important to the public. You insist that it is not only unimportant, but an actual grift. And yet you simultaneously believe that the government can, should, and will fund research into this grift to ascertain whether it's a problem.

You are arguing that the government shouldn't fund research on this problem (it's a grift), but then assuming that you will get the benefits of them doing so anyway (they'll tell you if it's not a grift). In other words, you are de facto depending on other people to force the government to do the research, while you argue for the opposite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem

[vablings]

"Why on earth would they give funding to research if the people who pay for that research (you) actively think it's scam?"

First of all. I never specifically said that the research is a scam. I am fully onboard with real research into the topic to explore the effects on health

"You are arguing that the government shouldn't fund research on this problem (it's a grift)"

That is NOT what I said, I specifically believe the so called "health and wellness industry" is capitalizing on largely unfounded beliefs that microplastics are already proven to be hazardous (not true).

If it turns out that microplastics are actually a serious health hazard, that doesn't even mean that the health and wellness industry is right, they just got lucky on another grift. They operate thousands of grifts every year often selling things that are blatantly dangerous.

I am pro good research. I am anti unregulated bullshit quackery like the below videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJpo2JtErPs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l60T39qLq9Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnM94jqAubU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzw_grLzjw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orYwywPgGdQ