A race to see what will kill the most of us first. The plastic or anthropogenic climate change.
Plastic-coated fertilisers?
Rally?
WTF do we need plastic-coated fertilisers for?
to grow plastic infused plants, of course
Yummm, fruity pebbles
And yet doctors insist I’m not getting enough fiber!
Studies have identified some of the main sources of microplastics as:
- plastic-coated fertilisers
- plastic film used as mulch in agriculture
WTF?
- plastics recycling.
Uuuuh…
- plastic film used as mulch in agriculture
Wtf. Where and why?!
It’s the black plastic bag material that people used to cover their soil and poke holes through for their crops.
I never thought it was called plastic mulch though.
It serves the same purpose as actual mulch, which is blocking out weeds
Or plastic greenhouses
Like, everywhere?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=plastic+film+used+as+mulch+in+agriculture
Yep
The UN’s Global Plastics Treaty is certainly a step in the right direction. I’m not sure what can actually be done about the problem, especially with how pervasive synthetic materials are throughout the world. And what is medicine supposed to do? Plastics revolutionized sanitation, particularly in the medical field. Very complicated issue to resolve.
There are certain industries, like medical, that would probably be one of the last, if ever, to do away with plastic, simply due to the upsides. The only option we have as a species is to create a truly biodegradable, non-toxic, easily obtainable and cheap to produce alternative.
Haha who am I kidding, we are fucked, plastic manufacturers go brrrrrrrrr.
a truly biodegradable, non-toxic, easily obtainable and cheap to produce alternative
Out of curiosotiy where would something like 3D printing be placed?
Not significantly contributing to the global problem, but you might inhale some. Don’t sand your prints for sure.
While a problem yes, miniscule compared to industrial waste
I think they meant personally, not global.
PLA I think just breaks down into lactic acid eventually, but the ABS probably isnt so good
Thanks this makese.feel.better about pla printing
Pretty bad, especially with people sanding down productions and stuff.
Maybe global warming will melt all the microplastics into one big macroplastic and that problem will be 100% solved.
Do our testicles all melt together?
Or several trillion very small problems.
We’re all trillionaires! 🎉
Found the crab 🦀
DiamondPlastic Hands 🙌 Tothemoonoceanour bodies! 🚀
Biggest sources:
- 7.6 Mt from macro plastics breaking down
- 1.3 Mt from paint
- 1.0 Mt from tyres
10-40 Mt released into environment/year, and increasing.
I’m kinda surprised that more comes from paint than tires.
I think it depends on measure, if im not mistaken, by weight arohnd 50% of microplastics are tire dust.
Also depends on where you’re measuring. They make up a ton of the plastics in stormwater runoff for example. Sometimes up to 95% from what I found. And that stormwater often ends up in our drinking water.
Over 80% of microolastic production coming from macro plastic breakdown feels pretty bleak.
Plastics industry: “See?! We told you plastic decomposes and doesn’t just stay in landfills forever. Happy now?”
I am not happy now.
The article was very well written. Unfortunately, 90% of the people I’d forward it to would be TLDR…
The 7000 papers were really well written. Unfortunately, 90% of the people I’d forward them to would be article…
There are many reasons we are screwed as a species. There’s pretty much nothing I can do about it, unfortunately.
Rather than take a defeatist veiw from this line if thinking, it will do well for your mental health to first spend more time, energy and thoughts on things you can control. Not just things related to environmentalism, but broadly reduce energy, engagement and focus from the things you don’t have significant control over and direct them to those things you do have control. It’s good to get a broad picture and observe the world around you outside of your control in small doses, but it’s easy to over indulge in an unfocused survey of problems in the world, especially on social media. (I include Lemmy communities in the social media category).
Furthermore, when you do engage with these problems, do so with more narrow focus and in more depth with an eye towards understanding the level of impact the problem has and what organizations or policy positions you can support to amplify your limited influence over the issues that causee the problem. In this way you can mitigate the feelings of helplessness and sense of there being many existential and imminent problems you need to contend with but cannot remedy. You can turn seemingly untouchable solutions into real possibilities without overwhelming your emotional capacity by working with others.
I’ll go jerk off for a bit, maybe it’ll be better by the time I m done
And if you use your imagination, it’s more eco-friendly.
Come to think of it, unless you’re doing something that requires fewer calories, other activities would likely have a bigger carbon footprint.
brb, taking a break from the internet to help the environment.
take your time with it. make that shit special.
Not much is going to get better in 12 seconds.
It’s my fourth time today, it’s gonna be a bit…
Now you’re speaking my language, come and shake my hand… actually, nevermind.
