We're Eating Plastics From Our Own Dirty Laundry (vice.com)

Every time you wash your fleece jacket or other synthetic clothing, microscopic synthetic fibres are released and end up in our food supply and drinking water. From a report: These microfibres are so small -- visible only under a microscope -- that they bypass municipal filtration systems and are consumed by fish and other marine life. A team of women from Waterloo, Ontario is looking to solve that problem. They've designed something that looks a lot like a dryer sheet for your laundry machine. You'd be able to drop this reusable sheet, called PolyGone, into the laundry machine with your dirty clothes. It attracts and traps the microfibres so they can be recycled. They presented their work at the annual AquaHacking conference at the University of Waterloo on Wednesday. "With these fibres entering our food system and ending up on our plates, we are essentially eating polluted laundry," said co-founder Lauren Smith at the conference. The event saw five teams, including hers, compete for tens of thousands of dollars and entry into several local incubators and accelerator centres. Smith has a Masters degree in sustainability management from UW, specializing in water.

Comments

So... is there a problem?

[michiganbob]

Are these microscopic fibers detrimental? The article doesn't mention any health risks, just that they are ending up in the water supply. I would like to know what it is we're panicking about.

Re:So... is there a problem?

[mysidia]

My suspicion is they're benign and that this is a well-known phenomena, or rare, but it upsets people concerned about the idea of "un-natural" or "synthetic" things making their way in their food source.

Otherwise: Wouldn't this discovery have been its own article and study LONG before someone was working on developing a product?

Maybe the findings about microfibers are specifically being printed to create demand for a product.

Also; it's not a very practical product..... sure you may FILTER your own laundry, with a dryer sheet, but what about the tens or hundreds of other people living in your city who still use their washing machines, and still drain washwater into the sewers that will still be consumed by the fishes?

You're not going to be able to force everyone to buy dryer sheets to mitigate this sort of problem.
So if it infact is one, then the Textile industry is in for an upset, or perhaps the municipalities will need new tech to filter Potable water and destroy plastic fibres during sewage treatment..

Re:So... is there a problem?

[bluefoxlucid]

Assuming this is important and the product works, then they can have a post-filtering stage at the sewage treatment plant where the clean water discharge first goes through a giant, turbulant vat stirring up many sheets of this stuff. That would be an extremely-fine-particle filter.

When a centralized design doesn't work, distribute. When a distributed design doesn't work, centralize. When both are practical and functional, take a layered approach.

Re:So... is there a problem?

[drago177]

My suspicion is they're benign and that this is a well-known phenomena, or rare, but it upsets people concerned about the idea of "un-natural" or "synthetic" things making their way in their food source.

Actually it seems this has been an area of study for a few years now:

http://system.suny.edu/system-...
Microplastics affect different aspects of the environment. They can affect fish, birds and other wildlife who may ingest the plastics, causing internal blockage, dehydration and death in these species.

Microplastics can also transport other pollutants. They absorb pollutants already in the water, such as DDT, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). When ingested by wildlife or humans (either directly or indirectly), these plastics contain high concentrations of these dangerous toxins which can become even more concentrated and dangerous as they bioaccumulate in the food chain.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
Public health impact of plastics: An overview
2011 Sep-Dec

I guess microplastic fibers are different than microplastic beads, and maybe definitive, specific studies haven't been published yet. But, logic would say they probably have the same ill effects. I do agree I'd wait for the studies before passing laws. But nothing wrong with have a product ready to solve the problem.

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[Captain Splendid]

Your digestive system does, though.

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[mysidia]

Sounds like they just pass straight through the digestive system to waste, just like other numerous toxins and junk components of things you eat that don't have nutritive value.

Is there evidence that any of these residual plastic bits that get through the water filters are actually harmful?

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[Scarletdown]

This comes across as yet another scare article with the dual purpose of keeping the masses terrified of the world around them and to hopefully sell this new product that is coming out.

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[MightyMartian]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Kick 'em when they're up...

[Zephyn]

To think that Don Henley was right all this time...

"You don't really need to find out what's going on.
You don't really want to know just how far it's gone.
Just leave well enough alone. Eat your dirty laundry"

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[PPH]

Unless it's going to leech a chemical that mimics hormones,

I think that's the major concern here. Plasticizers mimicking estrogen, etc. Either we eat them directly and suffer the consequences. Or fish eat them and they interfere with their growth/reproduction cycles and we get fewer fish. Or gay fish.

The answer isn't so much to get plastics out of the environment as it is to get these specific components out of the plastics. You will probably absorb far more weird chemicals from your food packaging then from particles that you consume from the environment.

Synthetic Sheep?

[TechyImmigrant]

> your fleece jacket or other synthetic clothing,

Fleece's come from sheep.

Re:Synthetic Sheep?

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Fleece's come from sheep.

Traditionally, yes. Here's a more modern type, likely the one TFA is referring to:

"Polar fleece is used in jackets, hats, sweaters, sweatpants, cloth nappies, gym clothes, hoodies, blankets, and high-performance outdoor clothing. It can be made partially from recycled plastic bottles and is very light, soft, and easy to wash."

Re:Synthetic Sheep?

[TeknoHog]

Fleas come from stray dogs. FTFY.

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[bluefoxlucid]

Small particles can lodge in your intestinal vaginations and such, whereas large things will pass through. A lot of weird stuff happens when things change size and shape. For example: L-Methamphetamine causes vasoconstriction and acts as a nasal decongestant; D-Methamphatemaine tilts a Methyl group toward the other side of the molecule, and so ends up binding to NET and DAT, entering the DAT and forcing dopamine out of the vacuole and into your brain, revving up your serotonin system, and generally screwing your brain all up. The 2,4-methyldioxy version (bind essentially H2CO2 to the phenyl ring) activates kappa-opioid receptors, makes you hallucinate, and excites your serotonin system to toxicity.

These aren't chemical reactions; these chemicals fit into the receptors by their shape, and stop affecting you when an enzyme alters their chemical structure to make them no longer fit. They don't change chemical structure to apply their effects, but rather they physically interact with neurons.

Come up from molecular-scale stuff and you get titanium oxide. Inhale a pea-size chunk and cough it out, no big deal (assuming you can cough the little rock out of your lung). Grind it up into a powder, you can rub it across your skin--no big deal. Grind it down to a nanometer-wide particle and it enters the cells, where it absorbs ultra-violet radiation and re-radiates the energy inside the cell, causing DNA damage.

Consider swallowing a penny versus a stranded copper wire ... or a pin.

"team of women"

[DaHat]

Not researchers, or scientists, or even interested persons... But simply 'women'. Are we to assume then that their primary qualification is their gender? (Yes I would have the same beef if it had been written as 'a team of men')

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[Cyberax]

Plastics are not particularly healthy for multiple reasons. For example, they are good at adsorbing heavy metals and other contaminants and slowly releasing them. Or they can get accumulate inside cells, causing mutations (more cancer risk).

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[ShanghaiBill]

Eating much more food than a body needs causes obesity.

Of course eating too much causes obesity, but dismissing a serious problem with an vacuous inanity isn't constructive.

What causes people to eat too much? More importantly, what has caused the problem to TRIPLE? Why did the problem become much much worse over the last 35 years?

Every proposed cause is either something that already existed 35 years ago (soda, sedentary lifestyle), or isn't actually correlated with obesity (fructose).

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[ShanghaiBill]

Computers, video games, cable TV, internet, etc.

Yet obesity has gone up most among poor people who are least likely to be able to afford these things. Obesity has gone up the most among African-American females, the demographic least likely to own a computer or play video games. Obesity has gone up as much in Mexico as it has in America, yet all of these things you listed are less common there.

The Dryer Is The Wrong Place to Address This

[crunchygranola]

They need a solution for municipal water systems so all the plastic from everybody gets trapped in one place.

Re: okay we get it, we eat plastic

[ShanghaiBill]

Its cheap calories in the form of junk food.

Junk food is not a new phenomena. There was plenty of it 35 years ago.

Good food has gotten so expensive

Food has gone down in price over the last 35 years, and basic staples are less expensive than junk food. Oatmeal is way cheaper than potato chips. Carrots are cheaper than pretzels. Tap water is more affordable than soda.

There are a lot of dumb explanations for the obesity epidemic, but the argument that people "had to get fat" out of economic necessity is the most ridiculous.

Here's a better question

[rsilvergun]

why can some people eat anything they damn well please while I'm at the gym 4 days a week and eating 2000 calories a day and still 30 lbs over weight. Answer: Gut Bacteria. How do we know? Poop transplants. Seriously. They found out when they did one from an overweight person to a skinny girl and the skinny girl got fat without changing her diet.

Lots and lots of the stuff we blame on poor moral character is turning out to be physiological. I'm wondering if this will change our society's outlook on life?