Bah. I dont care about lead, microplastics or even covid.
Chernobyl and mad cow-disease are my jam.
Microplastics will be the "boomers all have lead poisoning" of millennials
Submitted 8 months ago by pleasestopasking@reddthat.com to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 8 months ago
the_trash_man@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Every generation alive has microplastics in them
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 8 months ago
And literally nothing came of it, this was whole thing is fear mongering and political theater.
SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world 8 months ago
and probably will for at least a few generations unless we can do some major filtering of all mediums
psoul@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Can someone tell me microplastics do to the body? I’m almost to afraid to ask at this point.
maximumbird@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Veritasium has a video about it on YouTube.
It’s very informative and may just give you the fix you’re looking for
Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
IIRC the one thing we are sure of is that they don’t break down, nor do they get out. So you better hope they don’t do anything bad on top of that
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Probably do the same thing most of the junk humans dump into the environment. Reduce average lifespan, cause diseases and reduced fertility.
Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
That’s the neat thing: nobody can. It’s incredibly hard to devise a study that can show anything about it. There is no way to get a human without microplastics in them to get a control group, and by this point as far as I know there is no plausible theory to get a specific study.
Everyone kinda suspects that it can’t be good for you, simultaneously there is zero actual evidence that something is ever happening. We don’t know, and that’s very frustrating.Blackmist@feddit.uk 8 months ago
It seems like they’d be fairly inert. Although that’s certainly no guarantee that they’re not really bad for you. Much like inert gas, the danger could well be them replacing or getting in the way of something else.
Aetherion@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Don’t forget the nanoplastics! These are even more hazardous!
Wilco@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Boomers had/have microplastics and lead poisoning. This is not a conspiracy, it is just a fact.
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 8 months ago
Did someone say it was a conspiracy?
SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Boomers also have them, or do you think they intentionally target millennials?
Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 months ago
Except that microplastics have been a major proboematic thing since the 50’s, we just didn’t know it yet back then.
bollybing@lemmynsfw.com 8 months ago
The amount of it in our environment has been ever increasing though. There’s more of it in the oceans, the soil, the rivers, the plants. The whole food chain and ecosystems are contaminated more than ever before.
Patches@ttrpg.network 8 months ago
At what point does it become macroplastic? kiloplastic for the Europeans.
Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
My dad’s car ran on 4 star right up until the mid 90s. I was exposed to plenty lead in my formative years as well as micro plastics.
OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The ol twofer
KarlHungus42@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Luckily, for the younger generations, we’ll probably just get cancer instead of becoming massive malleable assholes
morto@piefed.social 8 months ago
Everyone has microplastics, even newborn babies, and we have no sign of decrease in its use.
Aitolda@lemmy.world 8 months ago
We must become one with the plastic. It’s the only way.
wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Bold of you to think that the micro plastic is going to go away after one generation…
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 8 months ago
Who said that? Lead poisoning is still rampant in some communities.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think the question is, why are you bringing up millennials when the issue of microplastics did not start with them, nor will it end with them.
dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I mean most others will skip out on the toothpaste variant, but yeah, it’s out there like that kraftwerk song.
GraniteM@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Don’t forget about PFAS!
starlinguk@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The pipes in the US still contain plenty of lead. Also, Covid brain damage. Tons of it.
blujan@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
Most lead intoxication in boomers comes from leaded gasoline, lead in other presentations is less bio-available
Iceman@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I wonder what our neurosises will be.
conicalscientist@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think it’s more physiological. Since microplastics are ingested maybe it’s related to the rise in oral and rectal cancers.
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 8 months ago
Yeah, but the nanoplastics get past the BBB (Blood Brain Barrier), what’s it, a plastic spoon in every human brain? Enough for some psych effects I guess. Oh, there’s 27 million tonnes of nanoplastics spread across just the top layer of the temperate to subtropical North Atlantic
Shit’s pervasive and in your brain.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Depression, I would say. Same as how boomers are labeled as uncaring and sociopathic because of lead.
Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The depression is a natural byproduct of civilization. We’re not supposed to sit in concrete boxes and do meaningless tasks for survival. It makes us sad.
P00ptart@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The sociopath part, I think, is likely because they grew up in the easiest time in history.
6stringringer@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Once at a Phish show, I consumed a rather copious amount of 🍄’s while hanging w/ mah friends beforehand. For some reason I couldn’t get the image of Plastic Man (Comic cartoon on Saturday mornings in the early 80’s) Out of my head. Every fucking song from that show I processed through the Plastic Man perspective. I was done with that memory before my brain would allow me to forget it. It was a loooonnnggg show b/c 🍄’s.
bier@feddit.nl 8 months ago
I once ate shrooms and went to a club (late 90s in the Netherlands, psytrance). The party experience was complete gone for me, it was just like watching a nature show, where I heard a David Attenborough narator talk about how the female of the species was using various color pigments on her face to attract the male. While the males where using dance moves to show strength and virility.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Nah, vaping will be the Gen z all have lead poisoning of Gen z.
Krudler@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Cannabis.
It’s basically mental health disorders in herbal form.
Public opinion is finally starting to shift from its a panacea to it’s a drug, in the face of decriminalization throughout areas of North America.
I smoke weed so don’t start the bullshit with me.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 8 months ago
anti science denialism
Wouldn’t anti science denialism just be science avocation? 😆
dickalan@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Go yell at the clouds some more old man, but in this case, those would be vape clouds so you better get out quickly because they disappear like mad
Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
What makes you say that? I’m not saying vaping is healthy but there’s no source to say that they’re poisoning anyone…unless you mean disposables.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 8 months ago
They’re starting to get into the science of it, and it ain’t looking good. Yes, disposables are a big part of the problem.
MITM0@lemmy.world 8 months ago
What’s next ? Latent radioactive dust ?
Lemminary@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Probably volcanic ash lungs from all the volcanoes in the world erupting all at once due to climate change.
bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Yeah and also for Gen X, Gen Z, Gen Alpha. We all still alive and everybody gets microplastic in their balls and brains. Its for all ages
b3an@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Right? Haha 😂 Oh did we suddenly clean up the entire Earth from free roaming microplastics?
kSPvhmTOlwvMd7Y7E@lemmy.world 8 months ago
why the alpabet suddenly changes after Z? it should either be “omega & alpha” or “z & a”
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Same reason we started with X, millennials actually got a name, and then went back to Z. Somebody with a head full of lead came up with it.
bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Generation Omega sounds like some real dystopian plot
Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com 8 months ago
They’re just place holders until the generation gets a shared culture to refer to. Millennials saw the millennium. Boomers were products of the baby boom but they also saw their economy boom. Gen X are missing, their letter was fitting.
My prediction is one of them will become gen algorithm, as they never knew a time when their media wasn’t decided for them. Maybe, gen android, few of them know how to use a file system after Chromebooks became ubiquitous. Or they’ll be the second greatest generation due to ww3. This stuff is entirely unpredictable.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
but at least people are born now without nuclear explosion isotopes
up until a few years ago every living being had them
so if we can stop lead from being blasted everywhere
and we can stop exploding nukes
maybe we can stop the plastic problem… but probably not for a few generations
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 8 months ago
and we can stop exploding nukes
We might be going backwards on this one
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
it’s chest beating by the worst and desperate
if a nuke is exploded above ground again, the nation that sent it will be history
it’s a bullshit game of chicken but nobody is going to do it.
6stringringer@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
If it is a small amount that make the cut (in relative contrast to all current members of humanity) If a fraction make it, that would be giant W for humankind. The diversity would be enormous and incredibly resilient & unbelievably healthy.
Kurious84@eviltoast.org 8 months ago
What’s replacing plastic. Good luck.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Do you mean what ubiquitous fixing will be next?
Or do you mean how can we get by without plastic?
If it’s the second one, the answer is easy, fucking aluminum. We’ve had the answer forever and it still works great. Glass too, good for many applications.
Now the actual problem isn’t beverage containers though, it’s clothing and tires. Most clothing is plastic these days and tiny plastic fibers break up into micro plastics and take to the air or end up in the sea. Car tires are basically just plastic these days, not rubber (which is arguably better for the environment than leveling rainforest for rubber tree plantations, sigh…), the tires rub off on the road like a pencil eraser on sandpaper. This also ends up in the air and sea.
So anyway replacing plastic beverage containers is a great step, a no brainer. But it also doesn’t address the real problem at all. I hope that tires and clothes can start to be made with biodegradable green plastics, but if that doesn’t turn out to be feasible, we’ll be in some serious trouble. And once we have some real, feasible, affordable replacements, then we need to actually outlaw the use of plastic tires, in every country on the planet… I can’t even imagine how to make that happen. How did we do it with lead? Has every country outlawed lead in gas?
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 8 months ago
Even though leaded gasoline and leaded paint have been outlawed for decades in the US, it’s still a big problem in poor communities. Lots of old houses still have lead paint. Lead abatement is expensive and many people may not even know it’s something you need to do.
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 8 months ago
What did plastic replace? Good chance we can go back, if we can convince some people the line doesn’t need to go up. Good joke, everybody laughs…
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Hopefully renewable, compostable/biodegradable plastics.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 8 months ago
What kind of generational hazard would you like to have growing up, kids? :D
Fleur_@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Honestly I don’t think we’re socially responsible enough to end something like lead poisoning these days.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 8 months ago
You’d have people saying they like the lead and deliberately putting more of it in. Pussy-ass liberals trying to take their god given lead away…
Aitolda@lemmy.world 8 months ago
If it was more in the zeitgeist, kids would be huffing it on tiktok.
Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 8 months ago
There’s actually a lot of work going into documenting and replacing lead service lines in the US. EPA required every state to make sure every waterworks submitted an inventory by last October, with grant money through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to pay for it.
visikde@lemmings.world 8 months ago
Is plastic really better? PVC, ABS,polyethylene and the rest get brittle after some time depending on conditions. All the degradation byproducts are in the water
thegr8goldfish@startrek.website 8 months ago
I’m crazy. Mark My Words. In 20 years, we’ll have so many microbes capable of consuming plastic people will be bitching about their packages not being able to effectively protect their goods from spoiling. The goldfish has spoken.
lordnikon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
And the person responsible for both issues is the same dude Roy J. Plunkett
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Pffft! … at least microplastics take decades or a lifetime of accumulation to affect your body, mind and health
Social media rots your brain and mental capacity in a matter of years or months
SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
OP, you are in for a seriously rough time if you think containing micro plastics is as simple as removing lead from gasoline and paint.
ruuster13@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
This one’s gonna last a few (the final few?) generations.
shplane@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Eliminating lead products has been a lot more feasible than the impossible task of eliminating microplastics. They are in everything. So unfortunately Gen Z and onward will suffer with us millennials.
reddig33@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Millennials? More like GenX. We’ve been eating out of microwaved tupperware since the sixties.
qyron@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
I still licked lead pain in the craddle, ate too many food preservatives and artificial colorants, ate too much red meat, too much fat, got micro plastics poisoning…
And all I have to tell is bad breath, flatulence that could strip paint off the walls and a stupid sense of humour.