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
Microplastics will be the "boomers all have lead poisoning" of millennials
Submitted 1 month ago by pleasestopasking@reddthat.com to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
b3an@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Right? Haha 😂 Oh did we suddenly clean up the entire Earth from free roaming microplastics?
kSPvhmTOlwvMd7Y7E@lemmy.world 1 month ago
why the alpabet suddenly changes after Z? it should either be “omega & alpha” or “z & a”
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 month 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 1 month 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 1 month ago
Generation Omega sounds like some real dystopian plot
Fleur_@aussie.zone 1 month ago
Honestly I don’t think we’re socially responsible enough to end something like lead poisoning these days.
etherphon@midwest.social 1 month 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 1 month 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 1 month ago
Someone will call not wanting lead poisoning woke and that will be that.
Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 1 month 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 1 month 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
Aitolda@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If it was more in the zeitgeist, kids would be huffing it on tiktok.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 weeks 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…
RonnieB@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Nah, because every future generation will have it too.
wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Bold of you to think that the micro plastic is going to go away after one generation…
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 1 month ago
Who said that? Lead poisoning is still rampant in some communities.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 5 weeks 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 1 month ago
I mean most others will skip out on the toothpaste variant, but yeah, it’s out there like that kraftwerk song.
starlinguk@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The pipes in the US still contain plenty of lead. Also, Covid brain damage. Tons of it.
blujan@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
Most lead intoxication in boomers comes from leaded gasoline, lead in other presentations is less bio-available
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 month 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 1 month 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 5 weeks ago
At what point does it become macroplastic? kiloplastic for the Europeans.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Microplastics cause neurological damage and anti social violent behavior?
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 1 month 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 month 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 1 month ago
Plastic has been around for 80 years. Shouldn’t we know something by now
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 1 month 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 month 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 month 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 month ago
My non-professional guess is that they will eventually sterilize us by disrupting our sperm’s ability to function properly.
bear@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Maybe kids will need to be carefully sheltered from plastics until they are old enough to freeze their sperm.
makyo@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’ll end up blocking vital neurotransmitters leaving us zombified and giving us an insatiable craving for brains
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 1 month 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…
Iceman@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I wonder what our neurosises will be.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Depression, I would say. Same as how boomers are labeled as uncaring and sociopathic because of lead.
Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 1 month 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 1 month ago
The sociopath part, I think, is likely because they grew up in the easiest time in history.
conicalscientist@lemmy.world 1 month 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 1 month 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.
morto@piefed.social 1 month ago
Everyone has microplastics, even newborn babies, and we have no sign of decrease in its use.
Aitolda@lemmy.world 1 month ago
We must become one with the plastic. It’s the only way.
thegr8goldfish@startrek.website 1 month 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 month 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.
JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Based solely on your comment, I’m looking forward to watching a scene where Christian Bale goes around Wall Street collecting mugs in The Big Short 2: Polymer Boogaloo.
GraniteM@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Don’t forget about PFAS!
SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 1 month 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 month ago
Nobody said it would be.
the_trash_man@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Every generation alive has microplastics in them
SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
and probably will for at least a few generations unless we can do some major filtering of all mediums
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
And literally nothing came of it, this was whole thing is fear mongering and political theater.
KarlHungus42@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Luckily, for the younger generations, we’ll probably just get cancer instead of becoming massive malleable assholes
Wilco@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Boomers had/have microplastics and lead poisoning. This is not a conspiracy, it is just a fact.
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 1 month ago
Did someone say it was a conspiracy?
6stringringer@lemmy.zip 1 month 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 1 month 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 month ago
And the person responsible for both issues is the same dude Roy J. Plunkett
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
Freon too?! Some people really want to watch the world burn.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
and teflon. don’t forget about teflon.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 1 month 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 month ago
This one’s gonna last a few (the final few?) generations.
shplane@lemmy.world 1 month 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.
SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Boomers also have them, or do you think they intentionally target millennials?
Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 1 month 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 1 month ago
The ol twofer
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month 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 1 month ago
and we can stop exploding nukes
We might be going backwards on this one
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month 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 1 month 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.
psoul@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Can someone tell me microplastics do to the body? I’m almost to afraid to ask at this point.
Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month 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 5 weeks 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.
Kurious84@eviltoast.org 1 month ago
What’s replacing plastic. Good luck.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Nah, vaping will be the Gen z all have lead poisoning of Gen z.
Aetherion@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Don’t forget the nanoplastics! These are even more hazardous!
MITM0@lemmy.world 1 month ago
What’s next ? Latent radioactive dust ?
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Bah. I dont care about lead, microplastics or even covid.
Chernobyl and mad cow-disease are my jam.
reddig33@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Millennials? More like GenX. We’ve been eating out of microwaved tupperware since the sixties.
SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world 1 month ago
So have the millennials who were breast fed.
piecat@lemmy.world 1 month ago
And formula fed
idiomaddict@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The worst part: postpartum women have lower levels of microplastics than other adults.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It looks like the cumulative total of plastics produced by the 80’s was around 2-3 trillion tons, whereas now it’s probably more like 20-30T.
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