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Would you like some plastic with that?

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  • 12-06-2019 11:29am
    #1
    BeerWolf
    Registered Users Posts: 4,122 ✭✭✭


    People may be ingesting ‘credit card’s worth’ of plastic each week.

    Link

    Bon Appetit!


«1

Comments

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    #2
    Deebles McBeebles
    Registered Users Posts: 5,748 ✭✭✭Deebles McBeebles


    Ah for the days when all we had to worry about was eating spiders in our sleep. Simpler times.


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    #3
    ILoveYourVibes
    Registered Users Posts: 15,176 ✭✭✭✭ILoveYourVibes


    I have no idea what that means nor do i care.


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    #4
    Deebles McBeebles
    Registered Users Posts: 5,748 ✭✭✭Deebles McBeebles


    ILoveYourVibes wrote: »
    I have no idea what that means nor do i care.

    That's the plastic eating away at your insides.


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    #5
    kneemos
    Registered Users Posts: 20,409 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    We're all living longer though. Must be good for us.


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    #6
    ILoveYourVibes
    Registered Users Posts: 15,176 ✭✭✭✭ILoveYourVibes


    We're gonna die anyway.


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    #7
    Chris_Heilong
    Registered Users Posts: 4,973 ✭✭✭Chris_Heilong


    Any research/findings commissioned by an activist group can be taken with a grain of salt.


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    #8
    McMurphy
    Registered Users Posts: 13,365 ✭✭✭✭McMurphy


    My flexible and tasty friend.


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    #9
    GreeBo
    Registered Users Posts: 27,037 ✭✭✭✭GreeBo


    Chris_Heilong wrote: »
    Any research/findings commissioned by an activist group can be taken with a grain of salt plastic.

    FYP

    We are living longer because plastic doesnt break down like that crappy flesh stuff.


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    #10
    denismc
    Registered Users Posts: 1,399 ✭✭✭denismc


    That would explain where all my money is going!


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    #11
    Fiftyfilthy
    Registered Users Posts: 554 ✭✭✭Fiftyfilthy


    Who cares, almost all food we eat is detrimental to our health these days

    Even the moralistic, high horse healthy eaters are consuming very little to what they believe they are


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    #12
    Badly Drunk Boy
    Registered Users Posts: 6,457 ✭✭✭Badly Drunk Boy


    BeerWolf wrote: »
    People may be ingesting ‘credit card’s worth’ of plastic each week.
    So is the 'credit card' now the SI unit of plastic?


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    #13
    Harry Palmr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    Badly Drunk Boy wrote: »
    So is the 'credit card' now the SI unit of plastic?

    Just as "the size of Belgium" is the internationally recognised unit for rain forest depletion.


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    #14
    red petal
    Registered Users Posts: 132 ✭✭red petal


    My "credit card's worth" is zero. Phew!


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    #15
    Cina
    Registered Users Posts: 2,387 ✭✭✭Cina


    Fiftyfilthy wrote: »
    Who cares, almost all food we eat is detrimental to our health these days

    Even the moralistic, high horse healthy eaters are consuming very little to what they believe they are

    Hate to break it to you, but plastic isn't food.


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    #16
    Franz Von Peppercorn II
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,398 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn II


    Fiftyfilthy wrote: »
    Who cares, almost all food we eat is detrimental to our health these days

    Even the moralistic, high horse healthy eaters are consuming very little to what they believe they are

    That’s right. Even the salads are made of processed shrapnel . Greens, eggs the lot.


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    #17
    Franz Von Peppercorn II
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,398 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn II


    It’s probably affecting your masculinity.


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    #18
    Conchir
    Registered Users Posts: 959 ✭✭✭Conchir


    Plastic ingested by sea life (from plankton-size up to large fish) has been shown to have detrimental effects. These can include disruptions to the endocrine system, affecting the organisms' hormones. This has caused changes to fertility and feeding behaviour in some cases (one paper I read was on oysters: ingestion of micro-polystyrene caused a reduction in sperm count, egg size and occurrence, and feeding behaviour was changed. Another concerned medaka, a type of fish found in rice fields; after exposure to micro-polyethylene, estrogen receptors in females were reduced, affecting fertility).

    Research in the area is moving pretty fast, I won't be surprised if we see new findings on humans soon. We know humans are consuming plastic; the next finding of note would be plastic passing from the digestive system into the bloodstream, rather than simply passing through the body. After that, it may be a case like that of marine organisms, or it may have no adverse effects. My money would be on the former. Some common additives to plastic are already known to act as endocrine disruptors and carcinogens in humans, so if they have the potential to pass into the human body it may well have an effect.


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    #19
    coffee_cake
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 81,310 CMod ✭✭✭✭coffee_cake


    I was surprised when it said water was the highest culprit :(


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    #20
    Zorya
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,194 ✭✭✭Zorya


    Conchir wrote: »
    Plastic ingested by sea life (from plankton-size up to large fish) has been shown to have detrimental effects. These can include disruptions to the endocrine system, affecting the organisms' hormones. This has caused changes to fertility and feeding behaviour in some cases (one paper I read was on oysters: ingestion of micro-polystyrene caused a reduction in sperm count, egg size and occurrence, and feeding behaviour was changed. Another concerned medaka, a type of fish found in rice fields; after exposure to micro-polyethylene, estrogen receptors in females were reduced, affecting fertility).

    Research in the area is moving pretty fast, I won't be surprised if we see new findings on humans soon. We know humans are consuming plastic; the next finding of note would be plastic passing from the digestive system into the bloodstream, rather than simply passing through the body. After that, it may be a case like that of marine organisms, or it may have no adverse effects. My money would be on the former. Some common additives to plastic are already known to act as endocrine disruptors and carcinogens in humans, so if they have the potential to pass into the human body it may well have an effect.


    Yesh, it's sad. Plastic was one of the very worst things ever invented. I cannot believe sometimes how much plastic there is in the world. How much utter crap made out of plastic we buy. How much everything is wrapped in it. The always differing shapes and complex pre-moulded forms it has taken on even to enclose a stupid memory stick which in its turn is made of plastic. Ugh. And then all the things that do not look like plastic but really are - fake materials in clothing or furnishings that are essentially plastics. And it is saturated in chemicals. We are fcuked. Okay, I'm going to go on a little walk now to cheer mysef up in a non-plastic woods. Bah. :(


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    #21
    Harry Palmr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    Another reason to grow your own water.


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    #22
    kowloon
    Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    Sometimes I have to eat my cards to stop me buying crap from Amazon.
    Harry Palmr wrote: »
    Just as "the size of Belgium" is the internationally recognised unit for rain forest depletion.

    How many football fields is there in a Belgium?


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    #23
    Conchir
    Registered Users Posts: 959 ✭✭✭Conchir


    Zorya wrote: »
    Yesh, it's sad. Plastic was one of the very worst things ever invented. I cannot believe sometimes how much plastic there is in the world. How much utter crap made out of plastic we buy. How much everything is wrapped in it. The always differing shapes and complex pre-moulded forms it has taken on even to enclose a stupid memory stick which in its turn is made of plastic. Ugh. And then all the things that do not look like plastic but really are - fake materials in clothing or furnishings that are essentially plastics. And it is saturated in chemicals. We are fcuked. Okay, I'm going to go on a little walk now to cheer mysef up in a non-plastic woods. Bah. :(

    Unfortunately though, it's a very complex issue. Plastic has really made the modern, globalised world we live in. Things like transport and trade rely heavily on plastic; without it, planes, cars and trucks would be much heavier, requiring more fuel to run. Plastic has also done wonders for food safety, though it has gone completely off the scale in the West with plastic packaging. Plastic is also used in medicine.

    It comes down to a number of things, from consumer choices to waste and water management, and to plastic alternatives. No single approach will solve it. One thing you see often is that we should just move to biodegradable plastic; that ignores the fact that biodegradable often only means something in an industrial composter built specifically for that; discarding biodegradable plastic in the sea or a field will do nothing. Management of plastic after its use is probably more important an issue than moving to biodegradable.

    That's before you get into the fact that plastics are products of the fossil fuel industry; I think it's something like 6-8% of global oil production goes towards plastic.


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    #24
    Harry Palmr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    Maybe Graphene can come to our rescue. There is plenty of discussion about it as a replacement.


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    #25
    Zorya
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,194 ✭✭✭Zorya


    Conchir wrote: »
    Unfortunately though, it's a very complex issue. Plastic has really made the modern, globalised world we live in. Things like transport and trade rely heavily on plastic; without it, planes, cars and trucks would be much heavier, requiring more fuel to run. Plastic has also done wonders for food safety, though it has gone completely off the scale in the West with plastic packaging. Plastic is also used in medicine.

    It comes down to a number of things, from consumer choices to waste and water management, and to plastic alternatives. No single approach will solve it. One thing you see often is that we should just move to biodegradable plastic; that ignores the fact that biodegradable often only means something in an industrial composter built specifically for that; discarding biodegradable plastic in the sea or a field will do nothing. Management of plastic after its use is probably more important an issue than moving to biodegradable.

    That's before you get into the fact that plastics are products of the fossil fuel industry; I think it's something like 6-8% of global oil production goes towards plastic.


    Yeah, I know it's complex, though I did not know as detailed as that - and I also think there is no going back. Another Pandora's Box we humans opened that cannot be closed. Even substitutes will be man made efforts most likely and in a few decades we will discover we are somehow coated in that too.
    But aside from all the necessary things like transport, medical devices etc., there is just so much unnecessary stuff. Waffle makers, constantly updated coffee making machines, another plastic gizmo for the baby, 4 triply plastic wrapped pears that never ripen anyway. We have got to stop buying this crap. Meh. My cheering woodland walk was way too short, because I am quite sick at the moment. Bah again. Shakes fists weakly at omnipresent plastic. :pac:


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    #26
    biko
    Registered Users Posts: 81,223 ✭✭✭✭biko


    It's good there is so much recent attention on this plastic stuff.
    We really need to get to cleaning up all that crap asap.
    By "we" I mean to make the nations that pollute the seas to do it, with our help of course.


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    #27
    kowloon
    Registered Users Posts: 13,288 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    biko wrote: »
    It's good there is so much recent attention on this plastic stuff.

    You just know a whole bunch of people have already, or will dismiss the recent attention as the next hyped up climate nonsense by do-gooder leftists. Hopefully the fact that they can show actual pictures of plastic waste rather than studies and other and scientific nonsense it'll be harder to dismiss.


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    #28
    IAMAMORON
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    This thread needs to be moved to the politics café before it starts getting nasty.


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    #29
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users Posts: 13,754 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    I really wish they wouldn't sell plastic bottles of coke etc around schools. The kids in Dublin seem to buy them constantly and just f*ck them around the place. You shouldn't be allowed sell them anywhere near schools because of this, never mind how unhealthy they are.


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    #30
    adox
    Registered Users Posts: 19,017 ✭✭✭✭adox


    Something something credit crunch.


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    #31
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users Posts: 13,754 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    biko wrote: »
    By "we" I mean to make the nations that pollute the seas to do it, with our help of course.

    So pretty much every nation on the planet to some extent?


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