How Microplastics Get into Our Food

Kitchen items—sponges, blenders, kettles—are abundant sources of microplastics that we all consume

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-microplastics-get-into-our-food/

#news #science #health #medicine #environment #plastic #microplastics

🎬 Am Sonntag (30.3., 18 Uhr) lädt der BUND #Bremen anlässlich des #ZeroWaste Tages zum sehr beeindruckenden Film #Plastic People im Kino 46 ein. Freue mich auf die Diskussion und Fragen danach !
#Plastik #Mikroplastik @awi

What a world. #Capitalism "externalizes" costs to the point where the costs are "externalized" into our own bodies.

#GreenSocialist #GreenParty #EcoSocialism #Socialist #Marxist #Revolution #Peace #Ecology #SocialJustice #Democracy #Education #DualPower #Election #Vote #Voting #Politics #Electoral #ElectoralReforms #Organizing #Organize #Reading #Discussion #Learning #Worker #Workers #Labor #WorkersRights #Union #Unions #LaborRights #UnionsRights #HumanRights #MicroPlastics #Plastic

2025:

- be kind(er)
- free palestine
- go vegan
- stop using AI (unless it's a matter of life or death)
- decolonise the world
- smash the fash
- reduce your plastic consumption with a fucking huge block of organic marseille soap that can be used to clean yourself & your abode
- don't be too hard on yourself

#freePalestine #AI #plastic #veganuary #marseille

The #plastic paradox: How plastics went from #elephant saviors to eco-villains

Do the benefits of plastics outweigh the costs?

January 23, 2024

"It was 1869, and something needed to be done.

"With the price of #ivory skyrocketing, billiard ball manufacturers were scrambling for an alternative. The prized material derived from #ElephantTusks was being used to craft such things as knife handles, piano keys, dice, dominoes, chessmen, and yes, billiard balls. Now, with elephants growing scarce from overhunting, the wonder material was becoming difficult to procure and unreasonably expensive. After all, one tusk would yield just four or five balls. Leading pool table manufacturer Phelan and Collender offered $10,000 ($225,000 today) to any inventor who could discover a replacement for ivory.

"Albany inventor John Wesley Hyatt answered the call, molding together camphor, nitrocellulose, and alcohol under extreme pressure. His concoction, called #celluloid, was one of the first synthetic plastics. While Hyatt’s creation proved an unwieldy material for billiard balls — insufficiently durable and mildly explosive when struck — it inspired others to formulate something better. A few decades later, American chemist Leo Baekeland came up with the petroleum-derived #Bakelite. It became the first commercially successful synthetic plastic, and very likely saved elephants from extinction.

"More than a century later, this story has morphed into an intriguing irony…With their creation, plastics probably saved countless species — both plants and animals — from extinction. Derived from byproducts of #FossilFuel production, which had previously gone unused, the invention of synthetic plastics meant that humans no longer had to pillage the living #NaturalWorld to produce various products for a technologically advancing global society. Fast-forward to today: Plastics are demonized for eroding the environment and endangering human health, prompting many to wonder if we’d be better off without them."

Read more / listen:
https://bigthink.com/the-present/plastics-costs-benefits-paradox/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

#Health #Plastic
#Toxic #ToxicChemicals #Environment #Microplastic #Pollution #Paradox

What Are #RepairCafes & How They Can Protect The Planet

January 26, 2022

"We live in a throwaway society, one which creates vast amounts of waste while using up valuable resources for mass manufacturing. This can lead many to start reducing their waste on an individual level, in particular moving away from #plastic, but did you know there are also vital community-run initiatives that can make a huge difference to our global waste problem?

"Alongside #LibrariesOfThings, which reduce consumption, there are also repair cafes, which help items last longer. Here’s why they’re vital to a sustainable future.

"What is a Repair Cafe?

"Repair cafes are free meeting places where people come together to fix things. Unofficial community repair groups have likely been around for a long time, but the model as we now know it was created by #MartinePostma. Postma organised the very first repair cafe in Amsterdam in October 2009, which was a resounding success. She then founded the Repair Cafe Foundation in 2011, a non-profit providing professional support to local groups wanting to start repair cafes. There are now over 2000 repair cafes in over 35 countries around the world.

"In a repair cafe you can usually find tools and materials needed to fix items such as electrics, clothes, bikes, furniture, and more. You can also find expert volunteers, with repair skills in different areas, to help you. Most repair cafes also teach essential mending skills such as sewing buttons, fixing zips, and wiring plugs, helping people learn something by watching and working with volunteers.

"Repair cafes focus on making things last, saving people money and helping the environment by reducing consumption, manufacture, and use of raw materials."

Read more:
https://ethicalunicorn.com/2022/01/26/what-are-repair-cafes-how-they-can-protect-the-planet/

#SolarPunkSunday #RightToRepairMovement
#HackerSpace #Repair #CircularEconomy #RightToRepair #ReduceReuseRepair

America has a $250 billion problem: Microplastics have invaded our bloodstreams and may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

https://fortune.com/well/article/microplastics-health-effects/ #plastic #press

International talks on curbing #plastic pollution fail to reach agreement - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/01/international-talks-on-curbing-plastic-pollution-fail-to-reach-agreement-busan appalling failure on key issue

Hope of breakthrough at international #plastic treaty talks after two-year deadlock - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/29/hope-of-breakthrough-international-plastic-treaty-talks-un-busan "‘Important shift’ made in global attempts to address plastic pollution though final treaty text yet to be agreed" hmmm,, we'll see

Plastics - we make, we use, we throw away, we forget

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/29/we-need-to-talk-about-plastic-five-everyday-items-choking-the-planet

#Environment #Plastic #Pollution

"Plastic pollution is changing entire Earth system, scientists find"

#Plastic #Plastics #Environment #Pollution

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/07/plastic-pollution-is-changing-entire-earth-system-scientists-find

#EPA Says It Plans to Withdraw Approval for Chevron’s Plastic-Based Fuels That Are Likely to Cause #Cancer
—

The decision comes after a ProPublica investigation revealed that the EPA had found that one of the fuels had a cancer risk more than 1 million times higher than the agency usually considers acceptable.

#News #Chevron #Plastic #Environment #Health #Government #Climate #Chemicals

https://propub.li/4dICeSd

Fears grow over rising number of #oil lobbyists at UN #plastic pollution talks - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/25/fears-grow-over-rising-number-of-oil-lobbyists-at-un-plastic-pollution-talks "Proposed global treaty to curb production represents challenge to producers of fossil fuels, from which most plastics are made" guarantees treaty will be a joke

This report shows how Big Oil and the plastics industry have deceptively promoted recycling as a solution to plastic waste management for more than 50 years, despite their long-standing knowledge that plastic recycling is not technically or economically viable at scale.

#Plastic
https://climateintegrity.org/plastics-fraud