WEBVTT - Life in the Plastic Palace 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.840 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.160 My name is Robert Lamb. My name is Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.919 how much plastic is in your life? Like? How much? 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.080 How many plastic things did you encounter, say just this morning, 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.960 just this morning? I didn't count, but I thought about it, 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:30.640 and I thought, well, if I were to just try 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.760 to live a plastic free existence, I would say that 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.479 about seventy of everything that I touched that was surrounding 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.199 me would just disappear, and I'd be left with like 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.880 a shell of my house and like, you know, maybe 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:50.559 one last item a glass you Yeah, yeah, I mean 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:52.560 I was. I was looking around myself, and it's pretty 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.200 startling because like even like now, since I'm using a kindle, 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:00.000 it's like I'm reading on plastic. I'm I'm certainly we're 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.680 doing all this research and writing on plastic for the 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:05.800 most part. Occasionally we have an actual book thrown in 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.160 there um or some printouts that came from a machine 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.039 that was made out of plastic, but they're plastic is 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.720 just all over my work life and then my my hobbies. 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.959 I'm like you know if I if I'm painting, at 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:20.840 least do these little migment miniatures that I paint were 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:22.160 made out of metal? But now it's cheaper to do 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.600 them out of high grade resins, So they're they're made 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:28.720 out of plastic. Um. The cats they're pooping into plastic boxes, 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.080 they're eating out of plastic. I'm eating out of plastic um. 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.000 Sometimes there are sometimes glass. I do use glass for 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.720 the food. But but still you go and you buy 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:41.880 plastic and everything, but you know, everything's like wrapped in 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:46.600 three different sulfane wrappers. You're not careful, and uh yeah, 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.040 it's just everywhere. I mean even your clothing. To write, 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.040 there are certain types of polyester um, and we think 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.160 of polyester is being like really seventies thing, but that 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:55.880 the fact of the matter is that there are types 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.320 of polyesters that are really lightweight that you wouldn't even 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.320 know um are in your clothing. That's plastic, plastic components 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.680 in otherwise metal looking objects. I mean, how much of 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:11.280 our our vehicles are filled with plastics? Earphones plastic, the 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.280 earbuds we stick inside of our bodies are made out 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.320 of plastic. Surgical implants of various kinds are made out 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.880 of it. We store everything in it, we we lie 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:22.239 down to sleep in it. If you have one of 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.040 those those cool race car beds. Um we have. We 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.880 have remade our world into a plastic line. We protect 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.919 ourselves with it. Teflon if you wuning teflon, that's plastic, 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.880 also used to store like many volatile substances like acids, 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.120 um as well. I mean, it's it's everywhere. And uh 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.880 and the really amazing part too for me, because you know, 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.080 we're stuff to blow your mind, so we really you know, 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.480 we want to focus on that that mind blowing aspect 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.360 of any topic we cover, and certainly plastics may not 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.720 sound that exciting, but think about it. It's something that 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:58.040 you know, you go back a couple of centuries and 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.880 uh and and there wasn't plastic everywhere. We were having 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:05.840 to depend on other materials. And now plastic completely envelops us, 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:10.079 completely surrounds us, and there's no turning back. It's a 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.919 huge innovation. Uh. There's a lot that is actually democratizing 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.920 about it. We'll talk about that later. Uh, but of 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.600 course there are some drawbacks to it, and it's sort 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.079 of one of those things that once you have this technology, 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:25.640 and you open Pandora's Box. It's not like you're gonna 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:27.600 go backwards and say, you know what, let's just start 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.679 putting milk into the glass and jukes again. Yeah, you 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.160 can start doing it on a you can try on 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:34.880 a local level. And certainly i'd look to hear from 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:39.480 anyone who has given up plastic completely, um because because 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:41.360 again that would be it's more of an effort than 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.240 you would think. And you're wearing moccasin's right now, right, Yeah, 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:48.080 even her shoewear would be affected. So I mean, it's 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.760 but certainly on a larger level, on a cultural level, 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.080 it's just impossible to go back these substances that we've 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:55.400 we've taken. It's like, like you said, it's like a 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.480 Pandora's box. It's like it's like a magical genie has 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.360 given us a gift, and then we just side we 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:02.440 might want to take it off, and we realize it's 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:07.560 fused with our skin and in some cases, all right, well, 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.560 let's talk about the ubiquity of plastic. In terms of 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.760 some statistics. It turns out that we make one and 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:17.680 fifteen million metric tons a year, the equivalent of the 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:21.600 weight of three hundred and forty seven Empire state buildings, 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.040 and ten per cent of that makes its way to 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.920 the sea. And what gets to the sea has been 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.119 tossed off by ships and oil rigs, and the rest 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:35.240 comes from floods and sewage. Yeah. Yeah. And then of 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:39.400 course that plastic winds up wrapped around sea animals or 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.760 or in their bellies more off the not or just 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:48.240 floating in giant heaps on the surface and the beaches. Yeah, 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.279 and which is nothing is more depressing, by the way 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.719 than walking down a stretch of beach and looking out 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.320 at the horizon and just taking in the wonder of 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.880 nature and then stepping on a lighter or you know, 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.840 six pack ring. It really is depressing. Um. And then 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.920 we Americans produced two hundred and forty pounds of plastic 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.680 per person per year, so that's a little statistic for you. 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:14.240 And four hundred billion plastic bags are discarded worldwide every year. 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.480 That's another thing to keep in mind. Little plastic bags 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.440 get to the grocery store. But again, if you travel back, uh, 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:22.160 you know, a couple of centuries, you're not going to 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:26.960 find this situation. You're not gonna find plastics everywhere. Um. 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.080 One of the more fascinating um little stories of the 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.599 genesis of plastic um comes to comes to us from 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.760 an article called Plastic Fantastic by A. Jennifer Kahn for 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:43.239 Mother Jones Um. And in this article she she mentions 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:47.719 how in the eighteen fifties you had this, uh, this 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.680 major manufacturer of Billard's equipment. You know pool. You know 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.120 you're shooting pool. You're you have these pool balls and 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.400 you have to everyone know foot pool is. But but 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.640 to to play pool, you have to have these these objects. Right. Well, 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:02.760 in the old days you had to make the Billard 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.560 balls out of ivory, okay, and you can only get 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.159 like eight balls out of a single large Asian elephant tusk. 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.120 And while these used to their elephants everywhere they were, 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.960 they were easier to come by. But by this point, uh, 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.560 they were hunted to near extinction um for their ivory. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:24.960 So I mean more importantly that that is the whole extinction, 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.920 near extinction of the Asian elephant. There. That's certainly a 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.080 the more pressing concern. But for the purposes of this story, 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:34.880 where are they going to get more Billard balls? They're like, well, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.240 that sucks with the elephants. But man's got to play 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.880 play billards, and billards is our business. Ladies got to 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:45.560 wear a corset another thing. So they need a material 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:49.080 to replace ivory. So manufacturer Michael Pellan offered a ten 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.359 thousand dollar reward to anyone who could create an artificial 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.000 material that mimicked ivory. So it needs to be pliable, 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.800 it needs to be durable and um. And this was 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.200 the the actual quote is that if any inventive genius 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.240 would discover a substitute for ivory, possess possessing those qualities 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.800 which make it valuable to the billard player, he would 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:12.520 make a handsome fortune for himself and earn Austin's serious gratitude. 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.760 And so New York chemist John Wesley Hyatt steps up 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:21.680 and uh, and he creates this compound called celloid. Hi. Who, 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:27.280 I'll have it right here, Yeah, go for it. And 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:31.720 so he brings these selloid balls to Michael Pellan, presumably 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.000 collects the reward, and we have billards to this day 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.720 and a few elephants. And this is the first sort 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.360 of tinkering that we see with materials to try to 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.960 replicate other sort of items like ivory. And then you 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.120 have Charles Goodyear who uses volcanization to process natural rubber. 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.320 Now he discovered this in blimps and begin hunting them 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.400 for their plastic, right blimp? No, No, I have that 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.160 that wrong. Yeah, the blimp started hunting him. No, I 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.680 was thinking like the like the Goodyear blimp is a 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.400 natural creature that is hunted for sport and for its 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.840 precious plastics. Yeah, but that's not the case. No, it's not. 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.080 It's not. But that is one of the reasons why 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.000 you rarely see them in the air anymore, right, because 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.080 I've been hunted down pretty pretty much. But um, but 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.120 he did use this volcanization process for Nepal rubber, and 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.760 this actually paved the way for something called thermo setting, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.480 which melts materials and allows them to be molded into 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.200 a solid shape. And you get about six or seven 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.400 different people who are tinkering with this process. But it's 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.319 not until nineteen o seven when Leo Hendrick Bakeland improved 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.760 phennel formaldehyde reaction techniques and invented the first fully synthetic 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:42.199 resin to become commercially successful and trade named it bake Light, 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.520 which you may ring a bell for people, doesn't ring 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.040 a bell like that, you're standing out the old timey 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.880 phones um like with a rotary dial. That's like a 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.400 big white product. Oh, let's see, I think bakel I 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.720 hear bake light. I just think easy bake ovens. Plastic. Yeah, 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.360 but fast forwards one and you begin to see that 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.920 there are more and more products that are using plastic, 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.600 particularly when the US military begins to replace some metal 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.880 parts of plastic ones. And we're talking about anywhere anything 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.480 from like bugles to actual combs, because before that, combs 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:16.920 were made out of rubber, and before rubber, they were 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.880 made out of ivory. Actually, and people are creating a 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.440 lot of these by accident too, or just they're they're 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:27.560 tinkering with existing formulas. N thirties British researchers um more 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:32.480 or less accidentally in the created polyethylene um. So I'm 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:34.360 and you see see a lot of that. Like if 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:36.400 you look at the list of plastics, there's a long 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:41.880 list of various very important plastics, each one with with 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.520 certain terroistic characteristics that make it ideal for certain purposes. 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.240 So let's go a little bit into the basics of 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.960 how it's made. Plastics are made from oil, and oil 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.200 is a carbon rich raw material and plastics are large 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:01.360 carbon containing compounds. Uh. Plastics are polymers, large molecules made 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.120 of repeating units of smaller molecules, and these smaller molecules 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:09.480 are called monomers, and these are chemically bound together. And 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:11.960 a polymer is like a chain in which each link 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:14.560 is a monomer, So think of it that way. Um, 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.520 All plastic is made of carbon, and man made plastic 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.480 uses carbon derived from oil, while biopolymers, which we'll talk about, 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.439 or bioplastics use carbon derived from natural materials. Now, one 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.960 thing to keep in mind about the about the plastics 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:34.120 made from petroleum and and fossil fuel components. They're not 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.680 huge consumers of those, uh, five of the five percent 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.680 of the energy and uh. And originally, like some of 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.640 the earlier plastics were made from coal tar, which is 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:48.840 a waste product from from coking coal for incineration. So 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.520 um so so. And that was another thing to keep 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.040 in mind about why plastic exploded all over the place. 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.560 It wasn't. It wasn't because someone said, hey, here's a 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.400 really expensive means of creating something that doesn't work very well, 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.440 let's replace glass and stuff with it. And no, it 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.600 was super useful in in in various areas. But also 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:10.520 it was cheap to produce. You could produce more or 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.000 less as a byproduct of other activities. Yeah, it wasn't 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.200 basically like captains of industry stepping back and from the factories, 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.240 they're saying, hey, what's that what's that steam or that smoke, 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.800 and can we somehow harness it into something else? So 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:27.480 as you say, it is a byproduct types of plastic 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:33.319 polystream which you probably know is styrofoam, uh, polyvinyl chloride PVC, 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.199 like in pipes um you often see that, and plumbing 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:41.600 and poly vinyl led down chloride thram wrap. UM. You 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.080 mentioned kevlar. There's dacron, which is a coating on pianos 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:50.400 and guitars. Polyesters on pianos. Yeah, I know. See again, 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.679 your your piano would advantage. I would have thought that, hey, 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.040 the piano, that's a high grade item made well, even 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.839 the keys, you're not making those from ivory these days, right, right, 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:00.880 So your piano would vantage too if you were trying 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.200 to get rid of all plastic around you. Uh teflon 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.880 polar fleeced again, that's the type of lightweight polyester and 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:13.760 um in thermoset or thermosetic plastics like polyurethane um, and 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:18.160 that isn't everything from garden houses, two shoes, and truck seats. 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.080 It's everywhere, all right. So there's just a quick intro 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.360 into our plastic palace that we've built for ourselves, and 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:27.280 we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.480 we're going to discuss some of the ramifications of living 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:37.960 in that plastic cow All right, we're back. So, yeah, 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:42.000 we've created this enormous plastic world for ourselves. It's great. 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.800 It's made out of everything from PVC to to kevlar. 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:48.760 It's durable when we need we needed to be durable. 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.400 It's resistant to acids when we needed to be resistant 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:53.679 to acids. It's bendable when we want it to be 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.880 to be bendable. I mean, it's it's it's it's really 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.440 killing it. Really. It is one of those things that's 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.360 a material that is truly innovative, that you can put 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.240 your imagination into and make anything out of it. The problem, 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:09.480 of course, is that some plastics don't even break down 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:13.320 for about a thousand years. So obviously a lot of 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.680 the junk that we're creating, and I say junk in 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.360 in terms of like bags and things that we tend 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.400 to throw away or we think that we're recycling and 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:22.719 it's just going to be it's a one to one 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.320 proposition where this bottle will be recycled again into another 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:30.360 bottle is not necessarily the case. Yeah. And also when 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.559 you're dealing with a thousand year period for it to 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:37.080 break down, um, then you're then then it's not just 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.560 a matter of oh, the snack cake was in plastic 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:41.400 and now that plastics around for a thousand years. It's 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:44.680 also like I bought this stool at the furniture store. 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.600 It's made out of plastic, and I'm getting a lot 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.600 of use out of it. But then if you could 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.680 end up throwing it away in ten years, uh, fifty years, 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:54.800 if it's thrown away at the end of your life, 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.480 if it maybe the last two generations, it's still potentially 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:02.480 winding up his junk somewhere and continuing to just exist. Yeah. 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:04.959 And even if you were to recycle it, um, you're 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.920 essentially re melting like say bags and recasting the plastic. 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.840 And according to the United States e p A, manufacturing 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.360 new plastic from recycled plastic requires two thirds of the 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:21.400 energy used in virgin plastic manufacturing UM. And another problem 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.640 is that the polymer chains break during the process, resulting 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.480 in a lesser product. So again it's not apples to 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:31.160 Apple's process and it can only be recycled so many times. Also, 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.040 I wanted to mention that a two thousand and eleven 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.560 North Carolina State University UM study published in the Journal 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:43.360 of Environmental Science and Technology found that a biodegradable plastic 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.680 called pH BO emits more methane than food waste or 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.320 newspaper in landfills, and because it decreate degrades much faster, 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.280 the newspaper will emit that methane in a matter of 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.440 years rather than decades. So it's also a question of 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:00.520 making stuff that that can break down in a way 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:05.000 that UM is sustainable for us. Yeah, because you know 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.520 want situation where you're solving one problem, then you're creating 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.000 another that that tends to be with why these things ago? Yeah, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.720 And then compounding that problem is that the EP estimates 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.800 that two thirds of landfills do not have methane collection capabilities. 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:19.880 So not only are you creating more methane, but you 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.680 don't have ways to collect it and to make sure 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.400 it doesn't go into the atmosphere. Of course, the big 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:26.520 thing that I'm sure it has come to a number 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.520 of people's mind already is is b p A. That's 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:31.840 a big deal these days. I mean, if you're buying something, 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.960 the plastic item to put food in or drink out 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.960 off you, you're probably looking to make sure that it's 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.680 b p A free well. And b p A is 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:45.120 something that is short for bicenol a, and it is 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:49.640 an estrogenic chemical, and those types of chemicals are chemicals 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.640 that are body's mistake for the natural hormones and the 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.800 estrogen family, leading to concerns that it can have harmful 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.920 effects um adverse fact effects excuse me, on fetal and 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:05.120 infant brain development, as well as an increased tendency towards obesity. Okay, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:09.200 so this is really ties into our our fears and 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.280 and legitimate concerns about about the obesity epidemics, particularly in 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.000 the United States. The idea that we're eating horrible food 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:18.680 that's making us fat, and we're also eating it out 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.160 of out of out of these uh, these plastics that 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.320 are essentially giving our body what it thinks is estrogen 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:29.280 and contributing to that obesity right, and and this is 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.360 not a black and white issue at all. In fact, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.560 if you think about it, um the plastics have been 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.880 in use or wide use for about fifty years, so 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.360 we don't have all the data yet, but we obviously 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.400 has been We've been collecting them, are collecting that data, 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:45.200 and there's a lot of information is coming out that 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.840 uh could play into some fearmongering. So we don't want 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:50.680 to necessarily do that, but we want to try to 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.400 hit some points and get a clearer picture if we can. 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.040 We will not come away from this discussion saying whether 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.240 or not plastic is harmful for us definitively into what 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.760 extent um, but we can at least sort of touch 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:04.280 on it. There's a two thousand and eleven study by 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.359 Paul Terry and jenkin Chen at the University of Tennessee, 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:13.120 and the studies called most plastic products released estrogenic chemicals 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:18.240 and UM parnables. Blogger and chemist Christine Lepisto actually talked 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:20.480 about this and when of her blog posts, she said 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.520 the study found that over seventy of plastics leached leached 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:29.640 estrogenic chemicals UM in a wide range of plastic products 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.680 right off the shelf, both with or without package contents, 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.120 and then she said that when the plastics were stressed 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:39.560 by simulations of typical real world situations like dishwashing or 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:45.800 microwaving or exposure to sunlight, that percentage actually increased of 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:49.280 the plastics tested. So, in other words, all plastics may 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:54.200 leach chemicals that mimic estrogen and UH to a pretty 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.520 large extent here. So we're gonna throw a little bit 0:17:57.520 --> 0:17:59.679 more stats and studies at you just so that you 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:01.720 guys can kind of get an idea of what's going 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.359 on here. UM. B p A and rat studies. There 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:07.679 are a ton of them, UM that are pointed on 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:12.800 to all sorts of problematic scenarios. One of them is 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.720 a two thousand intense study of pregnant rats that were 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.920 dosed with either one point two or two point for 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:23.040 microgram grams per kilogram per day of b p A, 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.040 and the b p A was actually fed to them 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.600 in the form of sessame oil, and those doses are 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:33.560 well under the dose of fifty kgs the established amount 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:35.399 by the e p A is being safe for human 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.879 consumption or exposure. And they found that the male children 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.480 of those rats fed the bp A lowers fertility in adulthood, 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:46.000 and that the effect they persist for at least three generations. 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.640 So what you're seeing here is um in a fact 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.359 that can carry through generation to generations. So if you 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.840 extrapolate that with a human, you could say, okay, so 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.760 if someone were to be exposed to be p A, 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.439 that at child's grandchildren, even though they were raised in 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:07.120 a psyche pure environment, their genes actually maybe a bit 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.960 distorted or changed because of that exposure to b p A. 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.200 Because if that's the extrapolation, we're taking this the data 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.280 from rats and trying to figure out how it affects 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:20.280 us um that, then this is really interesting. At two 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.720 thousand and ninth study of rats looking at endocrine disruption 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.920 found that when pregnant rats were fed b p A 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:32.359 and another group were fed oral contraceptives that have estrogen 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.520 eminem uh, it was actually the contraceptives that caused genital 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:41.080 mut mutation and reduced fertility and female offspring, while the 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.840 female b p A offspring rats were unaffected. Okay, so 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.560 this is mudding the waters a bit um, I don't 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.440 know what to be afraid of now, Well, right, um, 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.440 you know we're not obviously going to start feeding all, 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:57.960 you know, each other oral contraceptives. But they were trying 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:00.760 to use a control there, So estrogen being in oral 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.560 contraceptives was the control to see, you know, what was 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.879 going to fuss with the system. More turns out it 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:13.000 was the contraceptives. So then two thousand eleven Forbes magazine, 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:17.240 there's a article very interesting that says, majestically scientific federal 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.040 study on b p A has stunning finding. So why 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:22.359 is the media ignoring it? Yeah, it's a great article. 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:24.359 And the and in the article they quote just in 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.239 Tea Garden um it was part of that study, and uh, 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.960 Tea Garden says, in a nutshell, we can now say, 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:34.240 for the adult human population exposed to even very high 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.800 dietary levels, blood concentrations of the bioactive form of b 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.600 p A throughout the day are below our ability to 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.639 detect them, and orders of magnitude lower than those causing 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.560 effects and rodents exposed to be p A. So what 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:48.280 they had done in a twenty four hour period they 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:52.439 had actually taken human volunteers and fed them foods that 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:54.600 were you know, exupposed to be p A out of 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:56.440 can so on and so forth. So it was very 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.760 intentional exposure to b p A. And then that was 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.000 interesting to say that those those b p A levels 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.960 just weren't detected and it was very different from what 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.560 was happening with the rats. So it's telling us a 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.520 different story. Oftentimes, we will, you know, look to animals 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.080 to try to give us some sort of sense of, um, 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:19.320 you know, what sort of chemicals or environmental conditions could 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.160 possibly affect us as well. But the jury is just 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:25.920 still out on whether or not or to what extent 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:32.320 b p A affects us. That being said, certainly, you 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:34.000 start reading all this stuff and and I know, for 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.800 my own part, I think, well, I'm just gonna steer 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:39.720 clear of the b p A stuff when possible, just 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.080 to be on the safe side, right Sure, which makes sense, 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.400 and it's good that they took it out of baby bottles, 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.399 and because certainly that those are developmental times that you 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.040 wouldn't want any exposure, you'd want less exposure. Um. But 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:54.480 where we really see the canary in the coal line 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:57.080 again is with the animals. And we see this in 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.719 a very concrete way because a canary in the coal 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.440 mine sometimes has plastic inside the canary and the belly 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.680 of the Canary. Yeah. According to Mother Jones, uh, in 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.680 an article called Where Plastic Goes to Kill Each year, 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:16.520 undegraded plastic chokes to death some one hundred thousand whales, dolphins, seals, manatees, 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.160 plus an unknown number of sea turtles and about two 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.520 million birds. Yeah. I mean, and uh we we sall 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.800 some some articles too where they provide photographic evidence of 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:29.000 what this looks like like all the plastic pieces that 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:31.960