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Plastic Fibers Found In 83 Percent of World's Tap Water, Study Reveals (theguardian.com)
Robotron23 writes: Research published by Orb Media, a nonprofit journalism group, has revealed that microplastics have contaminated high proportions of drinking water and bottled water. Samples from the United States tested positive in 94% of instances, while Europe's contamination averages around 72%. Tests were undertaken at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, with lead researcher Dr. Anne Marie Mahon noting the risk of plastics carrying bacteria, and commenting: "In terms of fibers, the diameter is 10 microns across and it would be very unusual to find that level of filtration in our drinking water systems." As for the culprit, the report mentions the atmosphere as one obvious source, "with fibers shed by the everyday wear and tear of clothes and carpets." Another potential source is tumble dryers, "with almost 80% of U.S. households having dryers that usually vent to the open air." Overall, the investigation by Orb Media found that 83% of the samples were contaminated with plastic fibers.
I think it's trying to communicate... What should we ask it?
80% of households, not 80% of households with dryers.
Yep, they are poisoning them with the dangerous chemical compound dihydrogen monoxide!
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
No sir, I only drink Perrier.
First we had the story of fish eating plastic; and now there's this one about humans drinking plastic. Plus we've still got three more days for the climactic ending - I can't wait!
#DeleteChrome
Here's an article from 2011
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/10/laundry-lint-pollutes-worlds-oceans
Also from 2011
http://morgellonsdiseaseawareness.com/morgellons_photo_galleries/morgellons_fibers_in_water_supply
These fibers might actually explain Morgellon's Disease which is currently understood as a form of delusional parasitosis.
The second link says filtration and boiling don't work but reverse osmosis removes 95%.
If only bacteria could be engineered to eat this shit...
Directly looking at the website of the researchers indicates to me that this hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet. And the quality of the post is egregious: "83% of the samples were contaminated with plastic fibers" means practically nothing if we do not also get to know the size of the samples versus the amount and size of the fibers, and their composition.
The actual research, if and when published, could be very interesting. This grab for views --- not so much.
My home is fed by my own private well and the water gets filtered by a reverse osmosis filtration system. Certainly not foolproof, but plastic fibers are likely the least of your worries in the public water system. I'd be a lot more concerned about pharmaceuticals in the water supply....like anti-depressants.
Sounds like we (US especially) need to upgrade our water treatment facilities. Contact your representatives.
This is why I only drink my urine.
"We like to say 'enriched'."
That's not how (most) plastics work. You may be thinking of additives such as phthalates and bisphenols. In fact most premium bottled waters are filtered by reverse osmosis, which would actually deal with the particles the article discusses.
Actually, the article kind of implies we might get most of our plastic exposure via inhalation...
Plastic of all shapes and sizes is literally everywhere people go. Take a walk around your neighborhood sometime and just start picking up any random garbage you see. You'll be surprised just how much you pick up in just a few hundred square feet. Plastic pieces of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Bags. Lids. Shards. Parts of toys. Unidentified stuff...
The stranger part to me is that so many educated people don't care at all about the issue, even though it is just as important as climate change and other forms of toxic pollution due to the enormous amounts of it we're putting into the environment every day. Even here, there will be many comments along the lines of, "Yeah, yeah, plastic in the water is bad - but I'm more worried about X in the water."
Means nothing without mentioning concentrations. By the same logic 99% of water is also contaminated with uranium and cyanide.
The word that came to mind for me was "boring".
If that's how you feel I have some property in Chernobyl you might be interested in.
It does not matter if they found 4.9 microfiber of size below of 2.5 micrometer. The question is : does it have a significant impact on biological activity of human at those level, and is it below or above the legally set quantity ? That is the correct question. If the answer is no, then my own comment is "meh ?".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
In fact most premium bottled waters are filtered by reverse osmosis, which would actually deal with the particles the article discusses.
That is complete crap. Most bottled water comes straight from tap with a small minority actually going through additional filtration. RO is a comparatively slow and expensive process and does not scale well enough for mass purposes. I ought to know, I use RO to produce water for my multi-thousand litre marine fish tanks.
Something's up with that. I would suspect that 99.9995% of US dryers vent to open air.
Don't you have non venting driers in the US? They're substantially more expensive, but also much much more efficient.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Pripyat would have been the classier comeback.
Nope, we even have central vacuum cleaners that throw the air outside.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
I'll bet you ten bucks I can find a common brand of bottled water that explicitly says it uses reverse osmosis.
I'll bet you a hundred I can dispute your definition of "common".
Deal. Find me a single bottle that says it uses sisomso.
It was a pun!
Yeah, those fucking hippy liberal cultural marxist with their absurd desires to drink pure water! What a bunch of losers and whiners. Real men drink their water with as much contaminants as humanly possible, because real men are not pussies!
Unfortunately the tap water here in liberal leftist Finland is ruined by the same liberals, it's way too pure for my levels of masculinity, so I carry a bag of ground plastics with me that I can then mix into my drinking water. My co-workers were confused by this and asked what I was doing, I told them I'm making Finland great again!
Lucky you,with Trump and his awesome stance of 'fuck the environment' your tap water will likely become 'ugely better still. If you're really lucky you'll get a whole bunch of awesome and delicious additives á la Flint like lead. I'm so envious.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Wait, you did the pun? I thought I did the pun.
Plenty of people will read the article and will not drink tap water, but will buy even more bottled water.
I have tried to explain to my parents that the water they had from their tap was extremely good quality. Yet they still bought into marketing and fear and dragged bottled water from the store while they where in pain from arthritis and chemo.
When I saw the 'non profit' part, I start to wonder who funded the research.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Only a simpleton would take a story about plastic contamination and politicize it. Congratulations, you moron.
> Real men drink their water with as much contaminants as humanly possible, because real men are not pussies!
But they might *become* pussies because of that ;-)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
- http://agsci.psu.edu/aec/resea...
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
- https://www.naturodoc.com/libr...
I know, I know: real men don't "do" science. Science is for pussies!
Thank you for your post and for its fine double irony. Now tell me: Did you see this second level? Then I must bow in awe before you!
In fact most premium bottled waters are filtered by reverse osmosis,
What the fuck does this phrase mean, premium bottled waters? You're just setting up to move the goalposts later. The fact is that most bottled water is only carbon and mesh filtered.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I meant "most premium" in terms of the most commonly purchased branded waters, as opposed to generic grocery store gallon jugs. Coke (Dasani), Pepsi (Aquafina), and even Walmart (Great Value Purified) all explicitly say they are reverse osmosis filtered waters. Nestle is another big player, but they're a little ambiguous saying they use reverse osmosis "and/or" other methods.
Here's a chart about branded water sales. "Private label" means "grocery store brand":
https://www.statista.com/stati...
I encourage you to examine it in great detail and write a rebuttal. Maybe google some bottled water facts. Really dig in and tear my logic to shreds, I'm sure there's flaws aplenty to nitpick. Take your time, I'll read what you have to say and/or watch television.
One of the worst sources of plastic pollution is cosmetics and shower gels. Some companies put tiny plastic beads into them for texture/exfoliating. Some of the more responsible manufacturers have agreed to stop using them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Even here, there will be many comments along the lines of, "Yeah, yeah, plastic in the water is bad - but I'm more worried about X in the water."
I'd be more worried too if I found out there was Ecstasy in the water.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The short answer is that the statistics don't tell the story, not least because bottled water which doesn't cross state lines is exempt from oversight. That means that only in California do you even theoretically even have the right to know what's in most of the water that's on the shelf. Most bottled water is (as you say) produced by major beverage companies that have bottlers in every state. They can say whatever they want, nobody has the right to check up on them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'll bet you won't. RO is expensive and wasteful. You throw away as much water as you clean. Chemical treatment is how large volumes of water are treated.
What you will find on bottles of water are municipality and regional agreements with established treatment plans. You are drinking tap water from a different city in a plastic bottle most of the time.
The contamination source was a combination of the people who collected the water samples (not researchers, just people all around the world), the containers in which the water was stored and transported, and the research lab which was not up to standard at all.
Not coincidentally, common plastic additives are xenoestrogens. Yes, that's the reason your penis is probably smaller than Grandpa's.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Fucking academics who have never left a schoolground and gone to a construction site.
Plastic fibers are coming from the air.... as opposed to leaching off from those miles and miles of PVC conduit water has to run through before getting to your tap.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I bet most of the water we drink is contaminated by dust too! We should put environment protections in place against the dust epidemic!
We'll make great pets
Community well water here, but we have to treat it to remove natural arsenic.
Totally agree, it's so clean it's making the frogs gay.
They're not even specific as to where exactly they got the samples from. I need a PDF with a DOI number. Plastic found in plastic bottles?! NO..... Did they even test anyone's well water or or it just city drinking fountains? We don't know because they name people and only about a handful of numbers and no specifics but plenty of "We are all doomed." Maybe as a Linux user, I'm used to having source code, but I think I'd like to see the research paper for this.
Get a filter. A coarse + fine + reverse osmosis filter gets that micron size out.
Add a UV steriliser for $70 or so and that kills most if the living stuff.
I have well water with 100-140ppm of solids and my filter makes it 2ppm water.
It is a PITA though. Super slow even with dual osmosis cartridges it takes 2 minutes to fill a pitcher.
I have often said, all the accumulated crap is more of a threat to humanity than climate change. I started thinking about it reading about the effects of salt buildup in waterways due to winter road treatment
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
If by more efficient you mean they take twice as long to dry a load half the size.
You're the one claiming that you can identify a "common" brand of bottled water that uses RO. AC says you can't. Put up or GTFO. I don't think you can.
is it possible they used recycled plastic bottles to sample the water? 83% seems high.
In March I installed one of these undersink filters which is rated at 0.3 micron. That's a particularly good one unless you go with reverse osmosis. 0.3 micron will filter out bacteria, but not viruses. Obviously it will filter out these 10 micron plastic fibers too. So far the filter has lasted this long with no change. Even a more basic undersink filter will typically filter down to 5 microns.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Your "topic" is nothing but a bit of the current thread topic filled with 90% of ethnic slurs. Start by calling people what they are instead of using slurs and insults.
#DeleteFacebook
I'm pretty sure he means "computer users". I bet he's a smartphone addict.
#DeleteFacebook
All my stuff is cotton....what is considered "plastic" clothing that a dryer would vent dangerous lint out...?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Great Value Bottled Water
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
That stuff is lethal if you breath it. It kills hundreds of children every year, many times more than firearms! Only takes a few tablespoons to kill you! AND they sell it by the gallon in the grocery store in plastic bottles... This must stop.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Mine vents to the garage. House was built in '81. Seems like they should have known better by then. I'll admit it's sort of nice in the winter, but it's a terrible idea in the summer.
My upstairs bathroom fan vented to the attic, rather than out the roof. Again, I understand that was acceptable at the time, but it seems like a bad idea and we fixed that one.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
You do realise that nylon has been in use in clothing for 70 years or so? And that synthetic polyamide is only one of many synthetic fiber types?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Nylon isn't uncommon, lots of women's clothing has a mix to give it some stretch.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Reverse Osmosis Technology = get from tap.
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
Eh, I would have researched a little better if I wasn't responding to an obvious troll.
Surely natural arsenic is healthy because it's natural. You could grind up apricot kernels and add it to the water to restore the natural arsenic balance.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
"Most premium brands" is a subset of "most bottled water".
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Some of the more responsible manufacturers have agreed to stop using them.
So no one then.
Fortunately they'll all start soon as legislation will slowly force the issue.
Modern ones use the latent heat of condensation to warm incoming air, saving on electricity. They are about twice as efficient in power terms as a 'normal' dryer, although they do take longer to dry clothes.
-----
It's got vitamin C in it.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I'm just curious, what's the issue with ingesting plastics? They exist in the environment because they are very stable, what is the issue?
Sometimes I think folks get all crazy about "man made" == "Not Natural" == "Bad for you" assumptions. This isn't always true.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Distilled water, being essentially mineral-free, is very aggressive, in that it tends to dissolve substances with which it is in contact. Notably, carbon dioxide from the air is rapidly absorbed, making the water acidic and even more aggressive. Many metals are dissolved by distilled water.
Athletic wear gender neutral, many pants.
Cotton blend is pretty common really.
Yes, a lot of T-shirts and athletic clothes are a cotton/polyester blend. Don't forget about blankets, coats, gloves, socks, etc.
They've been banned in California fwiw.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Most bottled water is: not filtered at all
Fixed that for you.
Why would one filter Evian, Perrier, Contrex, Vichy etc?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Most bottled water in the US is simply bottled tap water.
They don't process it in any way beyond the way the water utility already has processed it.
SAD, extremely SAD that you don't know that.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
leeching minerals from your body
Talk to a chemist sometime.
Also, this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
lol
I don't know if plastic microfibres are somehow different than regular plastic, but considering that the water in plastic water bottles always tastes like plastic, I don't know how big a difference it makes. The taste isn't some homeopathic magic. I mean, if it tastes like plastic, that means you are drinking plastic.
Ok....I wasn't thinking of nylon as "plastic"...just didn't hit the brain right. When I think plastic, I think water bottle or even vinyl type stuff.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Modern ones use the latent heat of condensation to warm incoming air, saving on electricity. They are about twice as efficient in power terms as a 'normal' dryer, although they do take longer to dry clothes.
Which means the clothes tumble longer, which increases wear. It's easy to calculate kW-hr saved per year. Evaluating the cost of clothes wearing out slightly faster is a more difficult problem that most people won't be considering. Maybe it is worth it, maybe not.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Well, you certainly have heard of polyester clothing. That is exactly the same plastic that is used for water bottles, this is what makes bottle reclycling so practical.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Nope, we even have central vacuum cleaners that throw the air outside.
Just like Eltham Palace then?
http://www.english-heritage.or...
(search for vacuum)
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If by more efficient you mean
I mean "by using less electricity", which is a pretty common usage.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
In the US? Either lead or High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Is there something particularly insidious about plastic as a substance that makes it harmful?
We animals have evolved for millennia breathing/eating/drinking dust of all sorts of sizes.
The human body is not perfect, but nevertheless amazing in its ability to keep the good stuff, dispense with the bad stuff.
Is there something about plastic dust that hurts us more than other dust? Or is this just another family of particulates that happen to be out there now, where (for example) soot used to be?
-Styopa
When a city starts to fluoridate its water for dental heath, sometimes this means lowering the level of natural fluoride in the water. So much for the hippies' "industrial rat poison" theory.
As opposed to liberals, who buy water from fiji, shipped across the pacific, with an incredible carbon footprint and dubious purity. Sheesh.
Mahon said there were two principal concerns: very small plastic particles and the chemicals or pathogens that microplastics can harbour
Once they are in the nanometre range they can really penetrate a cell and that means they can penetrate organs, and that would be worrying
Couple other potential concerns listed as well. Articles do sometimes contain useful context.