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How avoid microplasics?

I am busy and don’t have time to research all of the ways corporations have poisoned us.

What are some good rules on how to avoid microplastics?

Eat local foods? Avoid processed foods? Walk/bike? Use dry soaps? Don’t use any take away containers? Avoid walking near busy roads? Use cotton/wool for all clothing?

Canuck ,

The two most common sources of microplastics that enter your body are from the vessels you eat/drink from, and from particles in the air from things like clothes, carpets, furniture, linens.

How to avoid? Use stainless steel, aluminum, copper, (or other metals), ceramic, or glass storage vessels for things like water (including your Brita) for warming things in the microwave, or for storing food, and reduce buying things in plastic if you plan on keeping them there for awhile (eg glass ketchup bottle). Replace any plastic water pipes in your wall with good ol copper. My main water vessels are all stainless steel.

For particulate, consider air filtration, buy clothes/furniture/carpets made from natural animal/ sources like cotton, wool, bamboo, avoiding plastics like polyester. That includes your scrubbing utensil for dishes. Your carpets are probably made with some sort of plastic, so if it’s too much to do hardwood, or replace with a natural fibre, the Dyson vacuums are good at getting out loose microplastics.

Be warned, one time I almost bought a stainless steel cup from a reputable retailer, and upon further investigation it was just plastic with a steel coating… Yep, made in Communist China…

Boomkop3 ,

Short term: grow your own food. long term: politics

Blue_Morpho ,

The micro plastics are in the soil. If you live urban or suburban, your soil is likely more contaminated with micro plastics than food grown on a rural farm.

Boomkop3 ,

You can’t buy and optionally clean a bag of dirt?

metaStatic ,

Can't wait for the Water World future, these bags of dirt are gonna be worth a fortune.

Boomkop3 ,

Now that’s something to stockpile then

Perhapsjustsniffit ,

Clothing and textiles from natural fibres. No rubber tires as they are major shredders of micro plastics.

venusaur ,
@venusaur@lemmy.world avatar

Where are you supposed to get tires not made of rubber?

sunzu2 ,

Tires are made of vulcanized "rubber" which is actually an oil product.

Rubber tires would be fine as rubber is a natural material but they would expensive and not as durable

kitnaht ,

They do still contain a good portion of rubber; the natural type farmed from trees.

nichtburningturtle ,
@nichtburningturtle@feddit.org avatar

Under your tire

Habahnow ,

Drive less would best the recommendation. Though I feel this doesn’t directly help yourself so much as everyone.

metaStatic ,

well then fuck that then, I only care about myself ...

evasive_chimpanzee ,

Trains use steel wheels (unless the government is in the pocket of Big Rubber, like the Michelin trains in Paris)

match ,
@match@pawb.social avatar

https://pawb.social/pictrs/image/1e6cf4a6-a50a-42a8-87da-8d57dc00bc5d.jpeg

communism ,
@communism@lemmy.ml avatar

You can’t completely avoid them, but avoiding plastic food/drink containers is an easy thing to do. Good for the environment too, not just your health.

Shdwdrgn ,

I sure do miss glass bottles.

SsxChaos ,
@SsxChaos@lemmy.ml avatar

Short answer: very simple

Avoid plastic

You buy bottled water?

That has Microplastics.

You buy or store food in plastic?

Microplastics…

Use plastic straws?

Welp, Microplastics

Etc…

Basically it’s difficult to avoid it since we use plastic almost everywhere daily, but not impossible.

Azzu ,

Microplastics have also been found in our drinking water. So maybe stop drinking water altogether.

nondescripthandle ,

I can confirm that if you stop drinking water, in 72 hours or so you won’t have to worry about microplastics.

kitnaht ,

I’ve heard that anyone who’s drank water has died anyways.

metaStatic ,

Ban Hydrogen Dioxide

LaGG_3 ,
@LaGG_3@hexbear.net avatar

Basically it’s difficult to avoid it since we use plastic almost everywhere daily, but not impossible.

Car tires and brake pads produce micro plastics in our water system. It’s probably impossible on an individual basis to completely avoid them.

Blue_Morpho ,

All the plastic objects you listed are the long term cause of micro plastics. You don’t get micro plastics from the plastic wrap on food or plastic straws. Micro plastics come from the straws thrown away that slowly break down into micro plastics over decades.

So avoid plastic to help the environment, but that won’t change your micro plastics injested right now. It’s in the food itself.

Carrolade ,

This.

Avoiding plastic in your day to day might prevent leeching, which is nice, but you’ll still encounter it in the natural environment.

The problem is the plastics never really chemically break down. They do undergo mechanical weathering though, so it all breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces over time. Eventually these particles are microscopic, and make their way into everywhere and everything it seems, from soil to rainwater to your breakfast cereal and your testicles.

You can probably filter it out of your water, I imagine reverse osmosis is likely effective since plastic molecules are somewhat chonky. A HEPA filter should get at least the larger particles out of the air. I don’t know how effective it’d be with smaller particles, sometimes called nanoplastics. Avoiding synthetic fabrics probably would help somewhat, but I haven’t read anything about this.

You can’t get it out of your food though, we don’t know enough yet about reliable ways we could keep plants from taking it up through their root systems. From plants it gets into the food chain, and much like mercury with fish, it’ll likely end up concentrating in animals, like us. You could potentially grow your own food via aquaponics using filtered water and maybe keep it plastic-free, but this is a real reach here. And you’re basically vegan now and have to literally grow all your own food.

Note, I’m largely speculating regarding methods.

Some reading material, this first one is about plant uptake:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8618759/

Water filtration:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10054062/

nobleshift ,
@nobleshift@lemmy.world avatar

Seal yourself in a sterile cement tube with nothing but filtered air.

Of course you’ll have to have all the microplastics removed from your body 1st, including your GOD DAMN BALLS and BRAIN.

Good luck and God Speed.

jewbacca117 ,

Hunt your own food and wear the skins, but even animals have traces of microplastics now so might as well grow naked. traces of microplastics in soil, so that will transfer to any home grown food, so eating is out. you could try distilling your own water but that’s the only sustenance you will have. After a few weeks of not eating you should be dead and that is the only true way to be free of microplastics.

Rolando ,

you should be dead and that is the only true way to be free of microplastics.

The microplastics will seep into your corpse.

tiefling ,

That’s the neat part, you don’t!

Coasting0942 ,

Read a material science book. Then think about exposure anytime you see plastic.

Barx ,

The main ways you’re exposed to microplastics is through ingestion and breathing it in.

To limit ingestion, yes the main thing to do is to avoid food and drink that comes in plastic containers. Reducing your consumption of processed foods will help with this. Eating mostly produce is a simpler way to approach this. Even though produce may often be transported in plastic, if you wash it before consumption you’ll have done pretty well. Ideally you would also have a reverse osmosis filter at home, as your water probably has microplastics as well (but less than bottled water!).

To limit breathing it in, yes avoid frequent exposure to busy roads. They are often full of tire dust that is getting kicked up. This is cumulative, though. Walking by a busy street once is no big deal. Walking along one twice a day may add up.

Overall, however, to address microplastics we will have to control the production of plastics and the use of plastics in the first place. For example, there would be a lot less tire dust if we used more rail to get around. And there would be less need for bottled water if water fountains were ubiquitous and so were standardized stainless steel water bottles. In addition, we could use biodegradable plastics for more packaging so that they don’t accumulate in bodies or the environment.

But this last point, despite being the only real solution, will literally require the overthrow of capitalism. I’m for this and am happy to talk about it more, but it is a lot.

kindenough ,

"Plastic came out of the Earth; the Earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the Earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place: it wanted plastic for itself, didn’t know how to make it, needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question: “Why are we here?” Plastic, assholes!"

George Carlin.

Hydra_Fk ,

Carlin the King.

oxjox ,
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

aamc.org/…/microplastics-are-inside-us-all-what-d…

My take-aways from this article:
There’s no good study on microplastics in humans.
They’ve tested “pristine” plastic on mice and it’s pretty bad.
The plastics we’re exposed to are loaded with chemicals and toxins.

She carries a stainless-steel water bottle and avoids plastic water bottles. She doesn’t microwave food in plastic containers and only uses glass, wood, or metal kitchen items, including mixing bowls, spoons, cutting boards, and food storage containers.

takes her shoes off to avoid tracking in dust from the outside and uses a HEPA filter to capture particles from the air.

Great point. Tires are one of the leading products polluting our environment and lungs.

This article also links to The Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at UCSF which offers a guide for minimizing exposure to bad stuff. prhe.ucsf.edu/toxic-matters

Here’s a relevant NYT Article - How to Minimize Your Exposure to Microplastics

alilbee ,

I’m going to take a different approach than most of the other comments here: you can’t. Microplastics are in the air and a large chunk of it comes from car tire residue. You’re breathing it, likely right now. Research is still in the early phases and we just don’t know how bad it is yet, both from the proliferation and the impact side of things.

Source is Breaking the Plastic Wave and Overview on the occurrence of microplastics in air.

SpaceNoodle ,

It’s too late to avoid them. Microplastics are being found literally everywhere on the planet.

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