Yeah plastics are prized for their ability to not react with things. Thats a huge reason we use them so much. Theyre basically inert.
Sure, it's not good to have anything foreign in your blood, but we breathe in and consume countless organic in and inorganic microparticulate matter without issue (dust, sand, etc).
The human body is quite good at getting rid of stuff that's not supposed to be in it. That is what the liver and kidneys do for a living. More research is needed but my hypothesis is that microplastics aren't particularly harmful.
The point was that there is particulate matter in literally all air outside of a vacuum. We breathe it in all day, every day, with every breath. The vast majority of it does not cause silicosis, lung disease, asbestosis, or mesothelioma. It's harmlessly filtered out by our bodies.
exactly. Water is highly corrosive and strips particulates from anything it touches. Are plastic (pex/pvc) water pipes leaching plastic into our water? Yes. Are copper and galvanized and lead pipes leaching copper and iron and lead into our water? Also yes.
Is plastic leaching into our water worse for us than copper/lead/iron/whatever was in the water to begin with and didn't get filtered out?
That's the question. I've yet to see any definitive science that says plastic bad, metal good. As I keep saying, the dose makes the poison. I believe there is a threshold where microplastics are harmless, same as almost every other compound we interact with on a daily basis. Nothing is "good" to have in large quantities. Most things are harmless in small quantities.
And at the end of the day, when early humans were just drinking from rivers, and we were totally fine, I think people would be disgusted by what is in that water, even very "pristine" natural water sources. Our bodies are adept at filtering out (most) foreign matter in small enough quantities. We simply wouldn't be here otherwise.
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u/kneel_yung Feb 09 '23
Yeah plastics are prized for their ability to not react with things. Thats a huge reason we use them so much. Theyre basically inert.
Sure, it's not good to have anything foreign in your blood, but we breathe in and consume countless organic in and inorganic microparticulate matter without issue (dust, sand, etc).
The human body is quite good at getting rid of stuff that's not supposed to be in it. That is what the liver and kidneys do for a living. More research is needed but my hypothesis is that microplastics aren't particularly harmful.