10 ms·
Apart from food packaging, one great way to easily ingest plastic is to use synthetic clothing. Just a basic rubbing of a synthetic sleeve on your nose causes t
by sktrdie 2y ago
Apart from food packaging, one great way to easily ingest plastic is to use synthetic clothing. Just a basic rubbing of a synthetic sleeve on your nose causes thousands of polyester particles to release in thin air, readily breathable.
Not just clothing, but also bedding is a huge issue. With pillows, mattresses and towels mostly made of synthetic fibers.
My usual instinct is: try rubbing the synthetic material; if it releases thousands of particles in thin air, stay away from it
- SoftTalker 2y agoThose fleece blankets and jackets too, they are made from recycled soda bottles.
- binarymax 2y agoIt’s frustrating how hard it is now to buy pure cotton or <gasp> wool, from a store. Even if it’s 3% synthetic it’s still not what I’m looking for.
- mandmandam 2y agoYep. Specifically, why are 100% cotton socks so ridiculously hard to find now? It used to be that they were a little more expensive - now you need to go online to find them. 'Fun' fact - the average brain has about 7 grams of microplastic [0] in it now, up 50% from 2016. At that rate... SEVEN FUCKING GRAMS. Guys this is beyond stupid. Even if plastic were totally inert, as I've heard people insist with certainty (where are they getting these ideas!), 7 grams of plastic in your brain is terrifying. 0 - https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/23/health/plastics-in-brain-wellness/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/23/health/plastics-in-brain-...
- layer8 2y ago> Even if plastic were totally inert […], 7 grams of plastic in your brain is terrifying. Why do you find that terrifying, if it’s inert? To the downvoters: This is a genuine question.
- brnt 2y agoThe simple answer is that it isn't supposed be there. The more interesting one is: how much would you say is too much? Would a kilo of microplastics towards the end of your life do it?
- layer8 2y agoWhen it has adverse effects (and no benefits), then of course it’s too much. But GP seemed to be saying they find it terrifying even assuming no adverse effects, which I found curious. A huge number of people have implements in their bodies (in their teeth, most often), and much more than seven grams of “foreign stuff” in their stomach and intestines all the time, so that by itself doesn’t seem anything to be terrified of.
- throwway120385 2y agoWould you be so blase if it were 7 grams of diesel exhaust or coal particulates instead?
- klipt 2y ago> In Italy, researchers followed 312 patients who had fatty deposits, or plaques, removed from their carotid artery. Almost six in 10 had microplastics, and these people fared worse than those who did not: Over the next 34 months, they were 2.1 times as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke, or die. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/microplastics-brain-pollution-health https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/...
- marmadukester39 2y agoit’s more the unknown effects. It’s not clear this stuff is actually inert.
- brnt 2y agoImplements that you put there are different from those you don't put there. That doesn't seem very complicated, does it?
- roncesvalles 2y ago>Specifically, why are 100% cotton socks so ridiculously hard to find now? My theory is that it's because of Amazon reviews. For most socks on Amazon, there will be at least one reviewer posting pictures of how their socks got holes after a few days of wearing. These reviewers are ridiculous and seem to have sandpaper for flooring, sweat corrosive acid, or deliberately wear down these socks just to post the review. I've bought many different socks from Amazon and none of them get holes even after years of wearing them. Anyway, I think that seems to have spooked socks manufacturers.
- Terr_ 2y agoI wonder if anyone's done a study for similar-but-natural compounds... Does lignin accumulate? Could we find a whole bunch of it in the brains of carpenters?
- buildbot 2y agoI hate how normalized this is. Breathing in a difficult to break down plastic dust is not something that seems healthy.
- potato3732842 2y agoNitpick: All else being equal you're generally safer being exposed to stable things that don't break down than unstable things that happily react with all sorts of things (and tend to meddle with the chemical processes required for life). If you get to choose between breathing tires and milk jugs pick the milk jugs every time.
- mschuster91 2y ago> All else being equal you're generally safer being exposed to stable things that don't break down than unstable things that happily react with all sorts of things Unless the other thing is asbestos or generally any kind of mineral/anorganic material - pneumoconiosis [1] is nasty in all its variants. There is no mechanism at all for your body to break down or expel anorganic contaminants in your lungs. > If you get to choose between breathing tires and milk jugs pick the milk jugs every time. Well, plastic, glass or metal, no matter what the jugs are made of, they'll hurt your lungs just like the tire dust will. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumoconiosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumoconiosis
- potato3732842 2y ago>Unless the other thing is asbestos or generally any kind of mineral/anorganic material - pneumoconiosis [1] is nasty in all its variants. There is no mechanism at all for your body to break down or expel anorganic contaminants in your lungs. Yup. I was thinking of heading off comments like yours by mentioning silicosis or lead poisoning but didn't want to clutter up a simple clarification. Anyway, still mostly safer than "happy to react with things" compounds which is why people like you get to make comments about it here and now vs it simply being a thing everyone has accepted is not good to breath for hundreds of years (like certain wood dusts)
- 2y ago
- ericmcer 2y agoClothing industry has somehow gotten by unscathed during all the environmental awareness that has spread in the past 20 years. I am pretty sure clothes are the #1 cause of the microplastics that have inundated the ocean and our water supply. We have been heavily pushed to drive less, recycle more, and use less water, but I have not seen messaging about not buying new clothes you don't need.
- schiffern 2y agoThe problem isn't really "buying new clothes," since most of the microplastics are released in the laundry. Sewage treatment plants aren't designed to remove them, so they get released with the discharge water. It can also clog up septic leachfields. They do make purpose-built products to filter microplastic lint from laundry[1][2], but a more hacker approach is to just search for "pool filter." I wish they made comparable products for the dryer. [1] https://www.filtrol.net/ https://www.filtrol.net/ [2] https://planetcare.org/ https://planetcare.org/
- onlypassingthru 2y ago> I wish they made comparable products for the dryer. Isn't that just the lint filter? Every dryer I've seen has one.
- kyleee 2y agoThose are probably not fine enough (in terms of filtration) and retrofit may be difficult if it restricts airflow.
- haccount 2y agoThere's an entire big and celebrated business sector that spends every working hour taking intact plastic products and grinds then into fine shreds, a process likely to contribute more than a fair share to microplastic dissemination. Maybe worth investigating, a good candidate for more microplastic release than the clothing industry. Name of that business sector? Plastics recycling.
- zw7 2y agoI think about this every time I clean out the dryer lint filter and a plume of lint dust comes off of it. I try to avoid breathing it in but it’s likely some is making it into my airways.
- faitswulff 2y agoSince getting used to them during Covid, I've continued wearing masks for situations just like this.
- hedgehog 2y agoI manage that by using a vacuum to clean my lint filter but folding seems to release a lot of dust so I do that next to an air filter.
- cruffle_duffle 2y agolol I’m sure those masks aren’t full of microplastics themselves. People were wearing them entire shifts and worse we jammed them on kids. I’m sure those cheap shitty masks were absolutely full of wholesome healthy microplastic.
- mike_ivanov 2y agoBesides containing microplastics, the dryer lint is also radioactive https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35990858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35990858
- jerlam 2y agoThe lint is also the residue from your clothes being worn away. If you can, consider not using the dryer at all, especially for synthetic clothing which air dry quickly compared to cotton.
- nosianu 2y agoTry shaking out a piece of clothing in full sunlight. It helps you see the millions of future dust particles that will come off your clothing. Over the years I found that of all the dust in my home the vast majority comes from my clothing. I deduced that because the collected dust looks the same as what I find in the dryer, and it feels like cotton too (my by far most warn kind of fiber). That means rooms are full of tiny particles from your clothes, if I assume that my home is not an anomaly (and why should it be). Direct sunlight really helps to see how much dust there is all around us, and how with every little movement we create more. That does not even show the particles too small to be seen. The difference is gigantic - without that sunlight you don't see any dust and think the air is clean. I'm not too concerned, since humanity must have dealt with this for a long time. Particles from fire especially, and there are lots coming from even the tiniest flame. My main worry would be chemicals we add to clothes, but given that by now we ingest plastic pretty much all the time, with every meal, with every breath, we just have to wait and see. I don't see a way to end this long-running experiment.
- mschuster91 2y ago> Not just clothing, but also bedding is a huge issue. With pillows, mattresses and towels mostly made of synthetic fibers. Preach. I vacuum my bedsheets every day because my cats are insane shedders and I'd otherwise get breaded with cat fur, but the vacuum is full with so much what is clearly not cat fur...
- 29athrowaway 2y agoAnd plastic shower liners.
- afh1 2y agoHum, almost all of my t-shirts are 100% cotton, or at least that's what the label says. I use mostly the same clothes from 15 years ago so maybe synthetic is more common nowadays? I think the only t-shirts I own that are not 100% cotton are those I've got for free on things like marathons and hackathons. Does it contain phthalate? I have no idea, there is no label saying what they are made of. Probably polyester. Does it have phthalates in any meaningful concentration? This review says basically that "it varies a lot" and "needs further study". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1382668924000978 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138266892...
- brookside 2y agoI recall the cotton tees of my youth being stiff and terrible-feeling.
- DontchaKnowit 2y ago100% cotton can be waaay comfier than poly blends. Just depends on the weave/wash
- SoftTalker 2y agoDid your mother (or whomever did the laundry) dry them on a clothesline? Air-dried clothes will be a bit more stiff than tumble-dried.
- noisy_boy 2y agoWhen I was younger, it was common to add starch to make the cotton easier to iron etc - that would definitely make it stiff. Thankfully we don't do that anymore. Comfortwise, Cotton beats practically any other fabric + it gets softer the longer you use it so in a way it actually incentivizes reuse.
- resoluteteeth 2y agoInterestingly Table 4 in that link shows "Plain weave cotton" and "polyster" having similar levels of phthalates. I don't think phtalates are needed as plasticizers in polyster, so I guess they are coming from the dyes or something else used to treat the fabrics, meaning that the choice of cotton or polyster may not matter for phthalates specifically?
- brnt 2y agoI often wonder about carpet or seats and couches. Also made of all manner of synthetic fabrics. Even besides the effects of living in the same space flame retardants slowly gas off over the decades, we rarely deep clean any of this, so when we sit down a cloud of craps wafts up into our lungs. I prefer noncarpets, but hard seating of course not.
- Tade0 2y agoMy mattress cover is like that, as it's made from polyester. When I pull it from the dryer it produces an invisible, but irritating cloud of particles. All that while most of the shavings accumulate in the lint collector, so it could have been even worse.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> a basic rubbing of a synthetic sleeve on your nose causes thousands of polyester particles to release in thin air, readily breathable Source?
- sktrdie 2y agohttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200309221340.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200309221340.h...
- hammock 2y agoAre there phthalates in polyester clothing?
- nikolay 2y agoFor at least 10 years now, I only by 100% cotton or cotton-linen blend, or 100% wool - nothing else! Yet, there's so many sources of microplastics that can't be eliminated, unfortunately!
- _w1tm 2y ago> My usual instinct is: try rubbing the synthetic material; if it releases thousands of particles in thin air, stay away from it How thin should the air be and how do you measure the particles?
- kazinator 2y agoJust look at the lint filter of a dryer after just one load.
- botanical 2y agoSome of my polyester t-shirts have lasted more than 10 years without any loss in colour or quality, it's a damn shame they cause microplastics since it's probably better that people don't buy clothing every month if clothes lasted longer.