Plastics, plastics everywhere.
WARNING:
DO NOT TAKE THIS DIARY AS
REASON TO GO WITH BOTTLED WATER.
Writ large,
tap is better than bottled.
Bottled water has even more plastics.
Having the opportunity to turn on the tap and have clean, drinkable water is core to a well-run, civilized society. “Drinkable”, regretfully, all too often means lead (think Flint) and other dangerous materials.
Courtesy of #WorldEnvironmentDay, a stark statement as to one set of dangerous materials in that tap water that few of us ever think about.
Contamination rate of drinking #water with microscopic plastic fiber:
-> USA: 94%
-> Beirut, Lebanon: 94%
-> New Delhi, India: 82%
-> Kampala, Uganda: 81%
-> Jakarta, Indonesia: 76%
-> Quito, Ecuador: 75%
-> Europe: 72%#WorldEnvironmentDay pic.twitter.com/VyXfrbdF6P— Assaad Razzouk (@AssaadRazzouk) June 5, 2018
Almost no one asks to have plastic or plastic-related chemicals in their body.
Hmmm … I don’t recall ever saying “please, oh please, put some plastics in me …” Did you?
No brand or manufacturer ever seeks permission to put them there.
Right, did the American Chemical Society send you a terms sheet for the rights to put plastics into your body? Me neither.
Fibers in tap water, then, are both a discovery and a marker — a visceral sign of how far plastic has penetrated human life and human anatomy. We can’t see the long-chain molecules of pollutants like polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, even if they do reside in more than 98 percent of the population. But when fibers are filtered in a laboratory and enlarged by a microscope, the contamination becomes real.
The first studies into the health effects of microscopic plastics on humans are only just now beginning; there’s no telling if or when governments might establish a “safe” threshold for plastic in water and food. Even farther away are studies of human exposure to nano-scale plastic particles, plastic measured in the millionths of a millimeter.
Humanity is changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere and of water, creating materials that — like plastics — go throughout ecosystems: absorbed by plants, insects, animals, humans. And, well, there is a lack of understanding as to the direct health impacts let alone multi-generational implications. And, the pollution keeps on coming.
Mr. McGuire was right, the future was “Plastics”.
McGuire was right in the mid-20th century. He might not be right for the 21st.
“We had a life before plastics. It was a good life.”
NOTEs:
- The graphic is from an ORB report. The material there (both written and video) is well worth a look.
- ORB has also looked at bottled water.
a single liter of bottled water can contain thousands of microplastic particles.
Exclusive tests on more than 250 bottles from 11 leading brands worldwide reveal widespread contamination with plastic debris including polypropylene, nylon, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
Plastic was identified in 93 percent of the samples.