What Can We Do About Microplastics?

What Can We Do About Microplastics?

Producer Potts  0:16  

Are we just full of plastic? Can you give us the real tea on microplastics? 

Dr. Sarah  0:34  

Okay, let’s define what microplastics are. So microplastics are plastic that is micro sized, which is very, very small. It’s actually technically defined as particles of plastic, less than five millimeters in diameter, but like all the way to microscopic, like less than a micron. So all the way to I need a microscope to see how small this bit of plastic is. And microplastics are ubiquitously polluting our environment. They’re just They’re everywhere. They’re, they’re in our water they’re in. They’re in the ocean. They’re, they’re in the soil, they’re everywhere, and they are in our bodies, and up until a month ago. And this new study, I would have been able to say, but we have no studies whatsoever showing that there is like a negative health impact from our current level of exposure to microplastics. This is a pollution problem that needs to be solved. Right now you don’t need to worry. But this is like something that could become a problem. There was a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month that showed, so they were looking at people with microplastics in, I believe, like their arterial plaque. So like, in the like, you think clogged arteries. So like the gunk that clogs your arteries, they were looking at people who had microplastics in that gunk, versus people who didn’t. And the people who did had a much higher risk of bad cardiovascular disease, like cardiovascular having a stroke or heart attack or death from any cause over the next it was like a really short period, like three years or something if I remember correctly, like it was a fairly short follow up time. It was a fairly small study, bigger studies are needed. It is not right. It’s epidemiology. It doesn’t establish a causal link. So there’s not a because the microplastics did this thing that caused this thing. So like, causality is not established, just one study. It’s not like we don’t want to be alarmist about one study. But it is the beginning I think of what will probably over the next decade be a growing body of scientific literature showing that higher levels of exposure do increase risk of some health problems. So I think there that makes it more of an imperative to find solutions to plastic pollution, not just my like microplastic pollution comes from plastic pollution, more or less and right. Only 9% of plastic is recycled, even though hypothetically, most likely a lot of it is recyclable.

Dr. Sarah  3:31  

And a lot of it makes its way into the environment, not just you know, landfills. So yeah, I think this is a moment where we as humans need to think about the convenience that microplastics afford us and or that plastics afford us and what we could use instead of those plastics, that helps protect the environment and stops putting microplastics into it. All that being said, you did not ask this question. But I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna, I’m gonna go there

Producer Potts  4:05  

and like, do have a follow up question. Okay,

Dr. Sarah  4:07  

let’s see if your follow up question is where my brain is. So like,

Producer Potts  4:11  

as an individual consumer, and putting all the plastic in the recycling to the side, right? Because I think it’s a larger conversation. I think it depends on where you live, like there’s a lot for someone who could go down the rabbit hole to figure out where their plastic is going when they’re recycling, like putting all that aside, when we come back to the topic of food and nutrients. Like where is our biggest source of microplastics that we know from the scientific literature so that we can at least try to reduce our exposure without falling down a rabbit hole of fear and avoiding everything because everything has microplastics right. So where do we start from that perspective?

Dr. Sarah  4:57  

So our brains were going in the same place. Hi. So I think there’s this fear. I mean, there’s so many myths about seafood safety, right, like fish and shellfish just can’t catch a break. It’s as soon as you bust one myth about seafood safety, there’s like another one that comes along. I think people just want to be afraid of seafood. And I’m not. I’m not entirely sure. Like, what’s what is like the underlying fear of red meat? I guess, I guess. So. Just to lay out a whole new let’s just conspiracy theory there. It’s, there’s something about maybe it’s because they’re not cuddly, I don’t know what it is. But people love to hate seafood. So there’s a lot of myths about seafood safety. And then the most recent one is microplastics, because there was a study, a survey type study, I can’t remember published last year sometime that like showed that there was microplastics in like all of the fish samples that they like had, so it was fish from lakes as well as from the ocean. But if you actually do the math, it’s a fraction of the level of exposure of water. So our biggest source of microplastics is actually bottled water. That’s, that’s, the top tap water is a fraction of bottled water and fish is a fraction of tap water. I actually have the numbers in my book, if you give me a second, I’ll look them up. Yeah, that would be great. So the most pessimistic estimates of microplastic exposure from seafood consumption are about 5400 particles per year from seafood. Compared to 458,000 particles per year if you drink mainly tap water, and three and a half million microplastic particles per year if you drink mainly bottled water. Wow. So a huge difference in how much we’re getting exposed to from seafood. So not something to worry about seafood. Obviously, we still want to fix the microplastic pollution problem. But seafood is a such a health promoting food, we we don’t want to be afraid of it, we want to consume more

Producer Potts  7:14  

of it. What about water filtration? Is that an option? Is there anything else? Or do we not have the technology to do that yet? With the filtration systems? We have? This is a tangent question, you know the answer to

Dr. Sarah  7:28  

I mean, the thing with water filtration is the different technologies can remove different size particles. So like a simple activated carbon filter, like a Britta type, like a water filter, is going to remove big particles and not small particles, something like reverse osmosis is going to nearly purify the water completely, right? So it’s going to remove almost all of those, I would imagine it can remove things down to a micron, because if you think of the filter steps, it should be able to remove even that size of microplastic particle. So you know, certainly a, you know, higher quality water filter would remove the majority of the microplastics. From tap water. The bigger thing is, and this actually helps with the plastics pollution problem, because if we’re getting it from plastic water bottles, and only 9% of plastic water bottles are being recycled, it’s probably not 9%, right? It’s 9% for all plastics, and probably plastic water bottles are higher than that and bringing up the outright like I would imagine probably have a higher likelihood of getting recycled than the average plastic container. But set, let’s say a quarter of them. Like let’s say they’re like, way higher than the average for plastic. Let’s say a quarter of them are being recycled. That means three quarters are not so drinking water is exposing you to microplastics while also increasing the amount of plastic pollution right in the environment, the amount of plastics in landfill fills so you know, getting a reusable water bottle and filling it from water at home or you know, lots of places now we’ll have water filters where you can fill up a reusable water bottle. Yeah, that kind of that that helps by

Producer Potts  9:19  

the wayside, right? And if we can afford it, you know, some fancy water filtration until the planet gets on board with fixing this problem because it’s a huge problem.

Dr. Sarah  9:30  

And the non fancy one will still take out some of the particles Right? They’ll still say that it’s good to know particles. So like okay, not non fancy and more affordable is still a good better

Producer Potts  9:40  

than just the tap water. Yeah, that’s so interesting. Thank you so much for clearing that up at the beginning of the conversation. I freaked out a little bit. Now towards the end. I feel better. I felt like I had some action steps. I know what I can do. So that’s really great.