Boomers had/have microplastics and lead poisoning. This is not a conspiracy, it is just a fact.
Microplastics will be the "boomers all have lead poisoning" of millennials
Submitted 1 day ago by pleasestopasking@reddthat.com to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
Wilco@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 6 hours ago
Did someone say it was a conspiracy?
Kolanaki@pawb.social 11 hours ago
Except that microplastics have been a major proboematic thing since the 50’s, we just didn’t know it yet back then.
reddig33@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Millennials? More like GenX. We’ve been eating out of microwaved tupperware since the sixties.
SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
So have the millennials who were breast fed.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
The worst part: postpartum women have lower levels of microplastics than other adults.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 1 day 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 6 hours ago
Right? Haha 😂 Oh did we suddenly clean up the entire Earth from free roaming microplastics?
kSPvhmTOlwvMd7Y7E@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
why the alpabet suddenly changes after Z? it should either be “omega & alpha” or “z & a”
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 18 hours 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.
Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com 20 hours 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.
bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
Generation Omega sounds like some real dystopian plot
starlinguk@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
The pipes in the US still contain plenty of lead. Also, Covid brain damage. Tons of it.
blujan@sopuli.xyz 14 hours ago
Most lead intoxication in boomers comes from leaded gasoline, lead in other presentations is less bio-available
Fleur_@aussie.zone 1 day ago
Honestly I don’t think we’re socially responsible enough to end something like lead poisoning these days.
etherphon@midwest.social 21 hours ago
Imagine trying to stop the hole in the ozone today. We’d have people spraying CFCs in the air just to spite the effort.
MrMcGasion@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
As someone just old enough to remember, we did have that with CFCs. Might not have been super mainstream, and nobody who would have done it out of spite really had the disposable income to actually do it.
I grew up in a Fundamentalist Christian “cult” and I remember the adults around me “joking” about it all the time. I remember a Missionary to northern Canada visiting our church (in rural America) to try to raise support talking about the temperatures and joking that it’s so cold that he wanted to stand outside with an aerosol can in each hand to try to bring on some global warming, and that getting a laugh from the congregation. You might think that maybe it was a “harmless” joke that maybe as a child I didn’t pick up on the sarcasm, but there were absolutely adults there who fully believed that there was nothing humans could do to damage the earth, because God takes care of it. “And how dare the government and these evolutionists try to tell us how to live.”
Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml 23 hours ago
Someone will call not wanting lead poisoning woke and that will be that.
Aitolda@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
If it was more in the zeitgeist, kids would be huffing it on tiktok.
Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 15 hours 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 11 hours 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
RonnieB@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Nah, because every future generation will have it too.
morto@piefed.social 14 hours ago
Everyone has microplastics, even newborn babies, and we have no sign of decrease in its use.
Aitolda@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
We must become one with the plastic. It’s the only way.
KarlHungus42@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Luckily, for the younger generations, we’ll probably just get cancer instead of becoming massive malleable assholes
SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Boomers also have them, or do you think they intentionally target millennials?
Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 11 hours 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 10 hours ago
The ol twofer
Iceman@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
I wonder what our neurosises will be.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Depression, I would say. Same as how boomers are labeled as uncaring and sociopathic because of lead.
Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 11 hours 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 11 hours ago
The sociopath part, I think, is likely because they grew up in the easiest time in history.
conicalscientist@lemmy.world 18 hours 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 17 hours 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.
GraniteM@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Don’t forget about PFAS!
roofuskit@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Microplastics cause neurological damage and anti social violent behavior?
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 1 day ago
We don’t know about the longer term consequences yet, just like we didn’t about lead.
Not saying it’s a definite but I wouldn’t be surprised.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 1 day ago
No, people knew lead was poisonous even back near Roman days. Though just like how humans constantly do stupid things for some benefit, they kept using it as a sweetener for ages.
Also mercury in relation to, “as mad as a hatter”. It’s just mercury was very good for the job.
chunes@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Plastic has been around for 80 years. Shouldn’t we know something by now
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
We are just beginning to understand how much the chemical Imbalances that lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders originate in the digestive tract and how microplastics from food may disrupt the processing of these chemicals.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
I don’t think the impacts of microplastics are quite as catastrophic, they can’t be or we would already know.
Which isn’t to say they aren’t bad just damn lead is realllly bad.
piecat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The concentration of them is rising exponentially, that’s the part that terrifies me.
It’s possible we just haven’t crossed a threshold yet.
Carvex@lemmy.world 1 day ago
My non-professional guess is that they will eventually sterilize us by disrupting our sperm’s ability to function properly.
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 17 hours ago
'Twould be sweet irony and a blessing for the earth.
Although the best method for removing it I’ve found is donating plasma (PFAs down 30% in 6 months of regular donation, the hope is nanoplastics are also removed…) so it might be the poors (in USA) and generous that get to have kids, so that’s nice…
bear@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Maybe kids will need to be carefully sheltered from plastics until they are old enough to freeze their sperm.
makyo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’ll end up blocking vital neurotransmitters leaving us zombified and giving us an insatiable craving for brains
thegr8goldfish@startrek.website 1 day 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.
count_dongulus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’ve run across at least three separate articles now of researchers from across the world discovering plastic eating bacteria in the wild. Short plastic. Its days are numbered.
SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 1 day 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.
ech@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Nobody said it would be.
6stringringer@lemmy.zip 23 hours 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 17 hours 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.
lordnikon@lemmy.world 1 day ago
And the person responsible for both issues is the same dude Roy J. Plunkett
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 23 hours ago
Freon too?! Some people really want to watch the world burn.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
and teflon. don’t forget about teflon.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 1 day 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
ruuster13@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
This one’s gonna last a few (the final few?) generations.
shplane@lemmy.world 1 day 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.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day 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 15 hours ago
and we can stop exploding nukes
We might be going backwards on this one
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 14 hours 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 23 hours 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 1 day ago
What’s replacing plastic. Good luck.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
What kind of generational hazard would you like to have growing up, kids? :D
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 17 hours 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…
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 16 hours 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 15 hours 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.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Hopefully renewable, compostable/biodegradable plastics.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Nah, vaping will be the Gen z all have lead poisoning of Gen z.
Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml 23 hours 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 13 hours 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 1 day ago
What’s next ? Latent radioactive dust ?
wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Bold of you to think that the micro plastic is going to go away after one generation…
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 11 hours ago
Who said that? Lead poisoning is still rampant in some communities.
dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
I mean most others will skip out on the toothpaste variant, but yeah, it’s out there like that kraftwerk song.