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Speaker 1: The history of plastic is intimately tied to the history

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Speaker 1: of the game of billiards. In the eighteen sixties, the

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Speaker 1: billiard's industry had a problem. The game was super popular,

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Speaker 1: but it was hard to keep up with the demand

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Speaker 1: for high end billiard balls because the material used to

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Speaker 1: make the balls was limited. The material was elephant tusks,

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Speaker 1: and it took about two tusks to make a complete

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Speaker 1: set of balls. A major billiard ball company offered a

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Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars reward for anyone who could come up

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Speaker 1: with a sturdy alternative. John Wesley Hyatt was inspired by

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Speaker 1: this call, and he came up with an alternative to

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Speaker 1: tusks that became the first industrial plastic. Now, the initial

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Speaker 1: prototypes had the downside that they were highly flammable, and

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Speaker 1: there were rumors that they would sometimes explode upon impact

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Speaker 1: during a game. Or maybe that's an upside because it

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Speaker 1: would make the game a lot more exciting. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: today plastics are ubiquitous. They're in our tires, our clothes,

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Speaker 1: they line our paper cups, they make disposable medical equipment

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Speaker 1: which helps protect us from transmissible diseases, and the microphone

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Speaker 1: in computer that I'm using to record this episode have

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Speaker 1: plastic in them too. It's kind of hard to imagine

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Speaker 1: life without plastic. We're probably all aware that plastic has

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Speaker 1: downsides too. We're not really good at disposing of it properly,

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Speaker 1: for example, And there's now garbage patches in the ocean,

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Speaker 1: which are spots where currents have aggregated the trash we've

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Speaker 1: released into the sea. And we've probably all seen images

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Speaker 1: of animals like turtles and birds that have died from

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Speaker 1: consuming or getting trapped by large pieces of plastic. And

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Speaker 1: those are the easy to see problems. In the last

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Speaker 1: decade or so, we've become more concerned with the plastics

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Speaker 1: that are harder to see, the micro and the nanoplastics.

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Speaker 1: These are bits of plastic less than five millimeters in length,

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Speaker 1: which is like about the length of an ant, and smaller,

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Speaker 1: much smaller. Some of these tiny plastics are made on

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Speaker 1: purpose for use in things like cosmetics, and some are

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Speaker 1: just the teeny tiny bits of bigger pieces of plastic

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Speaker 1: that have broken down over time. These tiny pieces of

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Speaker 1: plastic are now found around the globe. Even pristine environments

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Speaker 1: that rarely see people will see our plastics because super

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Speaker 1: small plastic pieces go airborne, and they move with air

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Speaker 1: currents around the world closer to home. We've found very

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Speaker 1: small pieces of plastic in human hearts, brains, testicles, and more.

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Speaker 1: It's even been found in baby maconium, which is a

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Speaker 1: baby's first poop, so it's working its way through a

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Speaker 1: fetuses as well. How worried should we be? This is

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Speaker 1: an episode of Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe, So you've

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Speaker 1: probably already guessed that the answer is, well, we don't

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Speaker 1: really know. We haven't been studying this for very long,

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Speaker 1: and as we'll discuss, it's a hard problem to study,

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Speaker 1: and it's not feasible or maybe even design mirable to

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Speaker 1: stop using plastics entirely. So what do we do about

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Speaker 1: microplastics if we decide we should be worried? Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's Plastic Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm a parent,

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Speaker 2: so I always think we should be worried.

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Speaker 1: Hello. I'm Kelly Wayne or Smith. I study parasites and space,

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Speaker 1: and I have severe anxiety, so I also always worry,

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Speaker 1: and actually being a parent made that a little bit worse.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, then my question for you is do

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Speaker 2: you think worrying helps? I mean, I know this is

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Speaker 2: like culture of worrying. Jewish mom send each other messages

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Speaker 2: like start worrying. Now you could probably like hire a

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Speaker 2: room full of Jewish mom somewhere, like worry on your behalf?

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Speaker 2: Have you know nine dollars an hour or ninety nine?

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Speaker 2: I don't know think that worrying helps. Does it make

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Speaker 2: us think deeply about all the possible issues? Does it

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Speaker 2: make us better scientists? What do you think?

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Speaker 1: I think?

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Speaker 2: What's the upside of worrying?

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Speaker 1: It depends. I think so. I think Zach doesn't worry enough.

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Speaker 1: And so there have been a couple of times where

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Speaker 1: I've felt like I've had to step in to get

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Speaker 1: the worrying level up to the right amount so that

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Speaker 1: we could take care of some problems that needed to

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Speaker 1: get taken care of.

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Speaker 2: Was that when your stove was on fire recently? For example?

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Speaker 1: Uh no, I I actually when I opened up the

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Speaker 1: stove and I looked inside and I saw the fire,

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Speaker 1: which was not my food, thank you very much, It

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Speaker 1: was something else. My first thought was I should call Zach,

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Speaker 1: and my second thought was what would he do? I

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Speaker 1: don't need to call Zach. And then it turned out

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Speaker 1: that Zach's brother had given me a fire extinguisher, So

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Speaker 1: who I needed was Zack's brother. Thank you, Marty, and

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Speaker 1: I pulled out the fire extinguisher. Everything was okay, I

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Speaker 1: need to change the heat element or whatever. But I

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Speaker 1: think you need to worry a little, but you need

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Speaker 1: to not overdo it. And I massively overdo it. Zach

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Speaker 1: underdoes it, and then I think we average are worrying

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Speaker 1: and we get the right amount of stuff done. But

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Speaker 1: what do you think, Well.

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Speaker 2: I have this friend who's a neuroscientist who thinks that

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Speaker 2: worrying is what makes us better scientists, because you like

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Speaker 2: wake up in the midlight you're like, wait a second,

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Speaker 2: what if this part of that paper is wrong? What

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Speaker 2: if blah blah blah blah blah, How would I know

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Speaker 2: for sure? And then you come up with another test

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Speaker 2: to verify that, And so it really helps make your

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Speaker 2: science bulletproof because you sort of put yourself in the

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Speaker 2: mind the reviewer and ask all the critical questions, and

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Speaker 2: you worry about being embarrassed in front of your colleagues

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Speaker 2: when your results are shown to be an artifact. So

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Speaker 2: I think that it is helpful in that sense, and

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Speaker 2: it also helps you prepare for eventualities. Like the reason

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Speaker 2: I buy insurance is because I worry about stuff, right,

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Speaker 2: But I agree that it can go too far. It

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Speaker 2: can be unproductive for sure. But you know, I think

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Speaker 2: on this podcast we aim for just the right level

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Speaker 2: of worrying. We aim to educate you enough to make

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Speaker 2: knowledgeable choices about your life.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yes, that's right, that's exactly right.

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Speaker 2: And so you hear all about disgusting parasites you will

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Speaker 2: probably never get and don't have to worry about. But

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Speaker 2: now you know enough not to go swimming with snails

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Speaker 2: in Venezuela or whatever it was.

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Speaker 1: Well, and you know what questions to ask your doctor

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Speaker 1: when you go see here you go, Yeah, something like that.

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Speaker 1: That's our goal.

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Speaker 2: That comes from a person who has repeatedly gone to

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Speaker 2: the doctor convinced he had toe cancer.

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Speaker 1: Toe cancer in particular. Is there something weird about your

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Speaker 1: toes that that makes you think they're cancer?

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Speaker 2: Is No, I am just a hypochondriac and am capable

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Speaker 2: of convincing myself that's some weird thing. It's probably cancer

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Speaker 2: and a better of the doctor. And I'm the kind

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Speaker 2: of guy who shows up the doctor without a list.

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Speaker 2: Here's seven reasons why I'm dying. Let's go through them.

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Speaker 1: Ah.

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Speaker 2: And you know, a good doctor is the one that,

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Speaker 2: like knowledgeably but patiently walks you through the reasons why

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Speaker 2: you're not dying today.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 1: So I came. I came with my own list for

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Speaker 1: the same thing for the doctor. And after I went

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Speaker 1: through the list, the doctor said, can I ask you

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Speaker 1: some questions? Can I give you a survey for anxiety?

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Speaker 1: And we discovered Kelly doesn't have cancer. Kelly has severe anxiety.

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Speaker 1: So thank you to that doctor for listening to what

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Speaker 1: I wasn't saying.

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Speaker 2: And so today we're actually doing an episode about something

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Speaker 2: I've been wondering about whether we need to be worried about,

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Speaker 2: but I wasn't knowledgeable enough about it to know whether

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Speaker 2: worrying was justified or just my anxiety.

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Speaker 1: And you know what, it's nice to get clear answers,

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Speaker 1: but you're not getting that today. Daniel also, sorry, but at.

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Speaker 2: Least I'm going to be brought up to the forefront

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Speaker 2: of current.

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Speaker 1: Knowledge, right, that's right, that's right.

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Speaker 2: You will me so I won't have to be worried

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Speaker 2: that I don't know enough to worry. So there you go.

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Speaker 1: All right, there you go. Well, so let's start by

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Speaker 1: seeing what the general public thinks of this question, or

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Speaker 1: at least what the extraordinaries, who are probably not a

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Speaker 1: random subset of the general public. Let's see what our

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Speaker 1: extraordinaries think. So I asked, should we be worried about

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Speaker 1: microplastics or why not?

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Speaker 4: Probably not. I've seen articles that microplastics are everywhere and

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Speaker 4: they're going to ruin our health in the environment, but

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Speaker 4: I've never seen them give irrelevant context, such as what

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Speaker 4: the biological effects are. I'm open to learning more, but

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Speaker 4: in the meantime, I'm not too worried about it, and

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Speaker 4: I'll continue to worry instead about climate change and my

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Speaker 4: own diet.

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Speaker 5: I certainly believe that we should be worried about microplastics.

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Speaker 5: First of all, there is a coating of plastic around

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Speaker 5: the world so thick that anthropologists are considering naming our

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Speaker 5: current epoch of the plastic scene because it'll form a

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Speaker 5: permanent layer that doesn't even begin to show all the

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Speaker 5: potential harmful effects of the microplastics.

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Speaker 2: Our immune system simply has not evolved to remove plastics

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Speaker 2: from our bodies, and the more they accumulate, then the

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Speaker 2: more we can expect trouble.

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Speaker 3: Microplastics have been discovered all over the globe, I believe

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Speaker 3: in Antarctica. We don't know absolutely sure the link and

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Speaker 3: mechanism to problems, but it can't be good.

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Speaker 6: In about seventy five years, we went from there being

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Speaker 6: none to now being so pervasive that they can be

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Speaker 6: found in the deepest depths of the ocean and even

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Speaker 6: in our brains. I would love to know what these

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Speaker 6: materials can be doing to our health and the rest

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Speaker 6: of the ecosystem, so we can support policies that limit

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Speaker 6: its production and perhaps even help clean it up.

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Speaker 7: Yes, I do think we should be worried about microplastics.

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Speaker 7: We don't know how our bodies, animals, and the environment

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Speaker 7: are affected by these things, and we should investigate more.

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Speaker 2: All right, So a lot of people out there feel

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Speaker 2: like there might be something to worry about. At least,

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Speaker 2: it's somewhat alarming that there's plastics everywhere. We don't really

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Speaker 2: understand what they might do or how they might interfere

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Speaker 2: with the function of this incredibly complex Goldberg machine we

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Speaker 2: call our bodies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, And I thought it was interesting. One

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Speaker 1: of our listeners mentioned that to sometimes suggest we could

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Speaker 1: call this era the plastic scene, because if you geologically

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Speaker 1: dig through, you can see a layer where plastic has

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Speaker 1: essentially been accumulating as we've made it go like airborne

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Speaker 1: and all over the planet. And so I feel like,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you look at human impacts first, you'll

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Speaker 1: see like a layer that's a bit radioactive from all

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Speaker 1: of our nuclear tests, and then you'll see a plastic layer.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we've done a lot of beautiful things,

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Speaker 1: but I don't feel like geology is telling a beautiful story.

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Speaker 2: Wow, what a record we are leaving.

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Speaker 1: Huh, that's right, that's right. But we do a lot

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Speaker 1: of amazing things with plastics, right, And so one of

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Speaker 1: the things that kind of frustrated me when I was

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Speaker 1: you know, I tried to see how other people have

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Speaker 1: covered this topic, and there's a lot of people being like, oh, plastics,

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Speaker 1: they're horrible, and like, I get it. I get it.

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Speaker 1: I'm an ecologist. I worry about the environment. I worry

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Speaker 1: about the impacts on animals. I worry about the impacts

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Speaker 1: on us, But plastics really make our lives a lot better, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: I think you need to keep in mind the trade.

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Speaker 2: Offs here, give me a top five reasons why plastics

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Speaker 2: are good for humanity?

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, so we've got like all of the

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Speaker 1: disposable plastic medical equipment that helps make sure that we

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Speaker 1: don't transmit diseases to each other. That's pretty great. Most

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Speaker 1: of our clothes now, even clothes that are made of

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Speaker 1: natural fibers quote unquote, have some plasticky stuff in them.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I think making clothing more affordable and

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Speaker 1: making it so that everybody can afford to where things

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Speaker 1: that make them feel nice is huge and great. And

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Speaker 1: in general, I don't know that I'm going to go

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Speaker 1: for all five because I don't know that people really

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Speaker 1: care about Kelly's top five things. But in general, I

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Speaker 1: think there's a lot of things that are now within

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Speaker 1: the price range of the average American that wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: if we had to use quote unquote natural substances. And

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Speaker 1: natural substances aren't necessarily always better for the environment. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, we started this episode with the story about

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Speaker 1: wanting to find a different material to make billiard balls

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Speaker 1: out of because we were using elephant tusks. Oh no,

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Speaker 1: so everything's a trade off. You know, if we were

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Speaker 1: to get all of our products from nature. That would

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Speaker 1: be pretty damaging to the environment also, and so I

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Speaker 1: don't know, I'm Kelly. So the message here is it's complicated.

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Speaker 1: It depends you need to look at it from a

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Speaker 1: number of different angles.

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Speaker 2: Well, so tell me how long have we had plastic

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Speaker 2: I imagine it's something that came about in the space age,

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Speaker 2: like the sixties seventies, you know, Dow chemicals invented or something.

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Speaker 2: I'm pretty fuzzy on the history here. Educate me.

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Speaker 1: Well, So that billiard ball example, that was one of

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Speaker 1: the first examples of someone making a plastic y substance.

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Speaker 1: It was celluloid and it was a hard substance so

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Speaker 1: that you could bounce billiard balls off of each other

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Speaker 1: without having them like sort of dent and bend in

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Speaker 1: ways that would impact how they moved. They were slightly flammable,

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Speaker 1: which I mentioned in the introduction, and so if they

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Speaker 1: spang together sometimes they would set on fire, which would

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Speaker 1: actually make me watch a game of pool. And so,

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Speaker 1: but large scale production didn't really start until the nineteen fifties.

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Speaker 1: Around the nineteen fifties the nineteen sixties, like single use

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Speaker 1: you know, plastic spoons, single use plastic everything really became

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Speaker 1: fashionable as a way to make our lives easier, and

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Speaker 1: they were really they were much less expensive than a

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Speaker 1: bunch of the other stuff. And so since the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: the amount of plastic in our lives has been increasing

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Speaker 1: at a tremendous rate. And that's the big plastic stuff.

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Speaker 2: And so help me understand why, Like, if we knew

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Speaker 2: how to make this stuff for one hundred years, why

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Speaker 2: do we only really begin making it in large volume

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Speaker 2: in the fifties. Was this after like post World War

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Speaker 2: two industrialization or something else.

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Speaker 1: I didn't look too much into the history of plastics,

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Speaker 1: but my sense is that it did take a while

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Speaker 1: to figure out the chemical processes. And so, you know,

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Speaker 1: plastics as a category, like encompasses loads of different kinds

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Speaker 1: of plastics that are good for a lot of different purposes.

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Speaker 1: And so I think it took us a while to

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Speaker 1: figure out how to make different kinds of plastics, what

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Speaker 1: they're good for, how to industrially scale up so that

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Speaker 1: we could, you know, use them for lots of different stuff.

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Speaker 1: How do you make injection molds for this kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: I think all of that just took a while.

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Speaker 2: All right, And so we're talking about plastic spoons and

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Speaker 2: plastic medical equipment. I know Katrina uses it for her diabetes,

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Speaker 2: she has these tubes, et cetera. But nobody's manufact cturing microplastics.

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Speaker 2: What are microplastics exactly?

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Speaker 1: Well, people are manufacturing microplastics as I understand it, the

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Speaker 1: bulk of the plastics. So the bulk of the plastics is,

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Speaker 1: you know, you get a plastic bag, you get a

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Speaker 1: shirt with some plastic in it, and it ends up

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Speaker 1: either in a landfill or it ends up in the ocean,

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Speaker 1: and over time it breaks down. It could be because

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Speaker 1: UV radiation is breaking it down into pieces. It could

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Speaker 1: be because there are just fibers on your shirt that

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Speaker 1: go airboard and they end up on the floor in

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Speaker 1: your carpet in your home. So they come from big

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Speaker 1: plastic breaking down, but they do also come from purposefully

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Speaker 1: making small pieces of plastic. So for a while, it

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Speaker 1: was fashionable to have microbeads in like exfoliation stuff, so

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Speaker 1: like cosmetic stuff for like washing your face to help

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Speaker 1: like move dead skin cells off. We now have rules

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Speaker 1: in both the US and Europe against that kind of stuff,

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Speaker 1: but you can still end up with microplastics in I

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Speaker 1: think you can have them like in moisturizers. They almost

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Speaker 1: act like ball bearings, just making it so that things

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Speaker 1: go on a little bit smoother. But let's do some

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Speaker 1: definitions here. Microplastics are defined as things that are five

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Speaker 1: millimeters in size or less. That's true. Big, Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: is pretty big. That's like an ant, right, that's something

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Speaker 1: you could see. So anything five millimeters in size or

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Speaker 1: less is a microplastic. But we also have a category

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Speaker 1: called nanoplastics, and these are one micrometer in size or less,

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Speaker 1: So these are probably not something you're likely to see.

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Speaker 2: I hold on, microplastics are millimeter sized, nanoplastics are micrometer sized.

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Speaker 2: Why don't they line up the name with the size, Like,

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Speaker 2: why don't nanoplastics be nanometer and microplastics be micrometer? Wouldn't

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Speaker 2: that make sense?

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Speaker 1: That would make sense. And it's a bit ironic that

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Speaker 1: the physicist is complaining about naming. But I'm not gonna say.

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Speaker 2: You know what they say, Every accusation is a confession.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. I don't know who's to blame

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Speaker 1: for this naming system, but yes, you're right, it's not intuitive.

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Speaker 2: Pico plastics are one nanometer in size. That's all right.

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Speaker 2: So we have microplastics, which are actually kind of big nanoplastics,

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Speaker 2: which is super duper small. But how much of this

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Speaker 2: really is around?

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Speaker 1: First, I want to say, it's really hard to estimate.

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Speaker 1: And while I was reading, the more recent papers are

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Speaker 1: estimating more and more and more. And that's because we

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Speaker 1: have better and better techniques for identifying smaller and smaller

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Speaker 1: pieces of nanoplastic. So it's pretty easy, like by eye

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Speaker 1: to count how many pieces of plastic fibers that are

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Speaker 1: five millimeters long are in a water sample, for example,

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Speaker 1: but looking at objects that are one micrometer or less

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Speaker 1: is much harder. But there's an estimate that fifty one

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Speaker 1: trillion microplastic particles are floating in our ocean. Trillion, trillion, trillion,

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Speaker 1: I said, trillion, Yeah, oh my gosh. I read this

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Speaker 1: book called A Poison Like No Other by Matt Simon,

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Speaker 1: and it's all about microplastics. And he talks about how

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Speaker 1: microplastics have been found in invertebrates in the Marianna ste

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Speaker 1: Trench in the most remote mountainous regions you can go to,

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Speaker 1: and like this has just permeated our entire world. So

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Speaker 1: you know, when we drive down the road, we kick

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Speaker 1: plastics off of our tires. Some of those go airborne.

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Speaker 1: They take air currents, you know, to the ocean or

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Speaker 1: across the ocean. Anywhere you go and sample, there's a

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Speaker 1: really good chance that you are going to find a microplastic.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I should at a caveat. I do

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Speaker 1: feel like that book over sells what we know about

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Speaker 1: the risks a bit. But if you are looking to

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Speaker 1: be scared and you're looking to understand where all the

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Speaker 1: microplastics are and how much of them are out there,

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Speaker 1: that book is encyclopedic in its laying out of where

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Speaker 1: we find these things and how they might be hurting us.

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Speaker 2: I'm still having my mind blown by the number. Fifty

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Speaker 2: one trillion. Yeah, more microplastics than there are stars in

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Speaker 2: the galaxy. Like if Elon Musk wanted to buy all

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Speaker 2: the microplastics for a penny each, he couldn't afford it.

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Speaker 2: It's just hard to grapple with that number.

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Speaker 1: It is, and again you should consider that number to

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Speaker 1: have huge error bars. But for example, like there was

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Speaker 1: a study looking at how many pieces of microplastics are

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Speaker 1: in a bottle of water, and you you know, you

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Speaker 1: think when you get a bottle of water, you're getting

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Speaker 1: something that's nice and clean. Some bottles of water had

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Speaker 1: essentially no pieces of plastic in a liter of water.

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Speaker 1: Others had up to ten thousand particles of plastic in

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Speaker 1: a liter of water.

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Speaker 2: Oh boy, they should list on the ingredients including ten

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Speaker 2: thousand part plastic.

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Speaker 1: That's right, well, and a lot of it probably depends

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Speaker 1: on like, you know, how were those water bottles stored.

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Speaker 1: Did they get like left out in the sun for

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Speaker 1: a few hours, because that breaks it down. Now plastics

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Speaker 1: are starting to come out, and part of why the

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Speaker 1: numbers get so big when you're talking about how many

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Speaker 1: pieces of microplastics are in the environment is that they

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Speaker 1: don't break down really well. So a big plastic bag

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Speaker 1: will break down into much smaller component parts, but after

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Speaker 1: that they don't break down the way something biological would.

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Speaker 1: So when you've got biological stuff out there, you have

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Speaker 1: decomposers that go and they eat it and they turn

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Speaker 1: it into other stuff. There are some plastic war is

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Speaker 1: that we're discovering, some like bacteria that can break down plastic,

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Speaker 1: but in general, plastic is a thing that wasn't really

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Speaker 1: in our environment in super high quantities in the past,

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Speaker 1: so evolution doesn't necessarily have a way to break it down.

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Speaker 1: Nature doesn't really have a way to break it down,

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Speaker 1: and so they tend to accumulate and they break down

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Speaker 1: to like some point where they're very small, and then

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Speaker 1: often they appear to stop breaking down and then they

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Speaker 1: just accumulate in these small sizes.

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Speaker 2: So that's the thing I'm trying to wrap my head

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Speaker 2: around is that plastic feels really stable, and you know,

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Speaker 2: if you have a coke bottle, you expect it's still

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Speaker 2: going to be there in one hundred years or a

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Speaker 2: thousand years or whatever. So why do they break down

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Speaker 2: at all? Like why do macroplastics turn into microplastics and

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Speaker 2: then stop breaking down. I would expect they're either stable

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Speaker 2: and a coke bottle is going to be here in

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Speaker 2: a million years, or it's going to break down into

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Speaker 2: like you know, atoplastics or whatever. The smallest fundamental bit

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Speaker 2: of plastic is why do they sort of stop breaking

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Speaker 2: down at the microplastic level.

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Speaker 1: Well, I feel like that's a chemistry question, So I'm

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Speaker 1: a little angry, but I'm kidding, But I think what's

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Speaker 1: happening is that, like, you know, if you've got and

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Speaker 1: I am joking, but you've got like a big piece

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Speaker 1: of plastic.

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Speaker 2: I just like how you said, I'm angry, but you

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Speaker 2: said it with a smile.

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Speaker 1: I'm hard to read too, so so you know, So

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Speaker 1: imagine you've got like a plastic bag floating on the

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Speaker 1: surface of the ocean. It's getting hit by UV radiation

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Speaker 1: and that's starting to like break some of the bonds

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Speaker 1: and break it into small parts. Those tiny pieces eventually

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Speaker 1: get so small that they sort of break away from

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Speaker 1: the rest of the bag and they start to sink.

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Speaker 1: And as they sink, they sort of end up out

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Speaker 1: of the reach of UV radiation, and they end up

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Speaker 1: in the sediment, or they can end up in the soil,

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Speaker 1: or they end up in the gut of something else.

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Speaker 1: And in some cases they probably do keep breaking down.

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Speaker 1: Like it's possible that our stomach acid breaks them down

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Speaker 1: a little bit. But I think in general plastics, part

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Speaker 1: of why they're so useful is because they are sturdy,

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Speaker 1: and it takes a lot to break them down. And

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Speaker 1: so maybe in a million years, of five millimeter fiber

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Speaker 1: plastic piece will disintegrate into its like atomic pieces. But

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Speaker 1: it's going to take a while.

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Speaker 2: I see. I'm always amazed at the power of UV radiation.

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Speaker 2: You know, in my house, if you burn something on

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Speaker 2: a pan so you can't scrub it clean, you just

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Speaker 2: put it outside for like a week, oh and the

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Speaker 2: sun will break it up. It's amazing what UV radiation

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Speaker 2: will do. Thank you, Southern California.

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Speaker 1: Wait, wait, what is your Okay, what does your backyard

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Speaker 1: look like? And how many animals have you attracted by

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Speaker 1: doing that? Because I live in a place where animals

434
00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:30,119
Speaker 1: want to be and they'd be licking those plates and

435
00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:30,800
Speaker 1: it would be gross.

436
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:33,560
Speaker 2: That's fine, that's helpful. You know, some squirrel wants to

437
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:36,600
Speaker 2: use their you know, long teeth on that thing scrape

438
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:38,640
Speaker 2: some of that burnt oatmeal off the pan, like, please

439
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:39,480
Speaker 2: help us out.

440
00:21:39,280 --> 00:21:43,880
Speaker 1: Man, all right, all right, some rabbit raccoon wants to Okay.

441
00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:46,120
Speaker 2: All right, So we have plastics everywhere? How long has

442
00:21:46,119 --> 00:21:48,760
Speaker 2: this sort of been something we've known about, Like plastics

443
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:51,720
Speaker 2: came about in large quantities like fifty seventy years ago.

444
00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:54,399
Speaker 2: Was it very soon after that that we discovered that

445
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:55,240
Speaker 2: they were everywhere?

446
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:58,080
Speaker 1: I mean, I think when plastics started to go mainstream.

447
00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:01,960
Speaker 1: It was, you know, easy to say plastics rolling down

448
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:03,760
Speaker 1: the street on a windy day or something like. I

449
00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:08,159
Speaker 1: think we've been aware of macroplastics as as a problem

450
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:10,280
Speaker 1: for a long time. We're not very good at disposing

451
00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:12,720
Speaker 1: of them. They tend to end up in the oceans,

452
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,440
Speaker 1: they tend to end up in animals. So we've known

453
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:17,119
Speaker 1: that's been a problem for a while. And it probably

454
00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:20,000
Speaker 1: didn't surprise anyone when we first started talking about the

455
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,760
Speaker 1: fact that it breaks down into tiny pieces. But the

456
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:25,800
Speaker 1: first time of tension was really brought to this issue

457
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:29,119
Speaker 1: was when a marine ecologist named Richard Thompson wrote a

458
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:33,120
Speaker 1: paper about how he was collecting samples of sediment from

459
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 1: beaches and estuaries and the subtitle zone in the United Kingdom,

460
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:40,480
Speaker 1: and he found microplastics in all of those places. And

461
00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:43,200
Speaker 1: he looked at plankton samples, so these are like tiny

462
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:45,520
Speaker 1: little samples from the water column. And he looked at

463
00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 1: samples from the nineteen sixties and then at various dates

464
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 1: getting closer to the present, and he found microplastics back

465
00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:54,400
Speaker 1: from the nineteen sixties. But he also found that they

466
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:57,400
Speaker 1: were increasing over time and that even you could find

467
00:22:57,440 --> 00:22:59,679
Speaker 1: them inside of the bodies of little invertebrates that live

468
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 1: in the world, and so he noted that we don't

469
00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:05,600
Speaker 1: know the environmental consequences of having this stuff in the water,

470
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:08,119
Speaker 1: but it's in the water. This problem is getting worse,

471
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 1: but it still took about a decade before people started

472
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,680
Speaker 1: really digging in and particularly thinking about the impacts on

473
00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: human health.

474
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 2: I love this example of digging through past samples collected

475
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:24,119
Speaker 2: for completely separate reasons and finding evidence or answers to

476
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 2: a question you have later on. This is why you

477
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 2: should always keep all of your samples and all of

478
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 2: your notes, because who knows how it's going to be

479
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 2: useful later. This is incredible. I love that.

480
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 1: This is why museums are so important, because they do

481
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 1: they keep those samples for you, and they're in a

482
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:41,639
Speaker 1: location where anybody can request them. So somebody, and you know, Peru,

483
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,359
Speaker 1: can think of a question that requires American water samples

484
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: from the nineteen sixties or something, and if a museum

485
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 1: has them, they can get those data. So anyway, yay

486
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: for archiving, material behavior.

487
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:55,640
Speaker 2: Record keeping exactly all right. So it sort of came

488
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 2: to the fore in the early two thousands, and then

489
00:23:58,000 --> 00:23:59,879
Speaker 2: has the field sort of exploded in research.

490
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, the last ten to fifteen years, we've become a

491
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 1: lot more interested in what it's doing in freshwater systems,

492
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 1: what it's doing in oceans, what it's doing in our bodies.

493
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 1: And let's take a break, and when we get back

494
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 1: from the break, we'll start digging into that stuff. All right,

495
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 1: So we have already established that microplastics are like everywhere,

496
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 1: they're kind of unavoidable, and so let's start digging into

497
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:42,639
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not we need to worry about that.

498
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 1: So one thing that you maybe need to worry about

499
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 1: a little bit is that they bioaccumulate. So you might

500
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: have heard this word from you know, Rachel Carson's book

501
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 1: Silent Spring about DDT and how as you move up

502
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: the food chain you get more and more concentrated levels

503
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 1: of the chemicals. And so an example for microplastics is

504
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: that there was a study looking at the soil in

505
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 1: Mexico and they found that microplastics were a bit less

506
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: than one particle typically in each gram, But if you

507
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 1: pulled an earthworm out per gram of earthworm, you would

508
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: find almost fifteen particles. So the earthworms were going through

509
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:27,120
Speaker 1: the soil and as they would ingest a piece of microplastic,

510
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,640
Speaker 1: it was like staying in them. And then they looked

511
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 1: at chickens that were eating the earthworms, and there were

512
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty particles per gram of chicken feces

513
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 1: because you know, chickens were eating those. And so as

514
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:40,719
Speaker 1: you go up the food chain for the same like mass,

515
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: you're finding more and more of these particles.

516
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 2: So why do the earthworms accumulate them? Is it because

517
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 2: they get filtered out of the soil and they stay

518
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 2: in the earthworms Like there's something inside the earthworm that's

519
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 2: like accumulating these things.

520
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 1: So if you were to take a snapshot of what's

521
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: inside of that earthworm, over like a year of an

522
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:00,360
Speaker 1: earthworm's life, and I don't know how long earth works live,

523
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 1: it might not be a year, but like there might

524
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: be a lot of particles that they ingested but they

525
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:09,240
Speaker 1: pooped out. But because they're going through so much soil,

526
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:11,920
Speaker 1: if you take a snapshot, they might have about fifteen

527
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: particles per gram of earthworm because they're just moving through

528
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: tons of soil and just sort of accumulating it as

529
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 1: they go.

530
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:21,120
Speaker 2: But in order to accumulate it, they have to eat

531
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:25,360
Speaker 2: more than they poop, so they preferentially don't poop out microplastics, right,

532
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 2: Otherwise they would have the same density as the soil.

533
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 2: Like if you just pass a tube through the soil,

534
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 2: it's going to have exactly the same density as the

535
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,640
Speaker 2: soil unless there's some filter in there that's like accumulating

536
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 2: the microplastics or preferentially not pooping them out.

537
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 3: Right.

538
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: Yep, Yeah, that's a great point. You're right, they're accumulating them.

539
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: They might poop some of them out, but in general

540
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: they tend to be accumulating them.

541
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,159
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting, And so then the chickens eat those and

542
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 2: then it gets more concentrated, and eventually when you're eating chicken,

543
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:54,400
Speaker 2: it's like half plastic.

544
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, not necessarily half plastic, but there's a fair bit

545
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:00,159
Speaker 1: of plastic in there. But one thing that's important in

546
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 1: mind is that not all plastic matters the same from

547
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: a standpoint of ingesting it. So you can get plastics

548
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: in your body either by inhaling it because a lot

549
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: of it goes airborne, or by ingesting it, and our

550
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,159
Speaker 1: bodies will defecate and urinate out a lot of the

551
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: plastics that we consume, and if you breathe it in

552
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:25,159
Speaker 1: are what is it called our mucociliary elevator or something

553
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 1: basically like we will like hawk it up. And actually

554
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,399
Speaker 1: maybe Matt wants to remove that sound effect.

555
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:33,919
Speaker 2: I don't think no, I think you should keep that.

556
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 2: And I just wish that the audience could see the

557
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:40,200
Speaker 2: face you made.

558
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: I was pretty expressive there. But so you know, you

559
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:45,120
Speaker 1: cough it up and then you can spit it out

560
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: or swallow it and then it'll end up in your

561
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 1: feces and anyway, all very gross. But our body has

562
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 1: ways of getting rid of a lot of this stuff.

563
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 1: But if you've got nanoplastics that are small enough, they

564
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: can pass across our alveoli, which is a point in

565
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: our lungs where our lungs are sort of in facing

566
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: with our blood, and they can get into our bloodstream,

567
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 1: or sometimes they can move across our gut into the

568
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: rest of the body. So very small pieces can end

569
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: up in other parts of the body where they're not

570
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: going to get removed, or they're much less likely to

571
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:12,880
Speaker 1: get removed.

572
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 2: And I've heard it said that we eat like a

573
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 2: credit cards worth or a bottle cap worth of plastics

574
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 2: every year or every week or whatever. Is that true,

575
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 2: or is that people overworrying.

576
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 1: There was a study that came up with that figure

577
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 1: and that went like global, just like microplastics, it ended

578
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: up everywhere. But there was another study that looked at

579
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 1: the numbers a little more critically and they ended up

580
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 1: deciding something like you would require twenty three thousand years

581
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: or something like that to acquire the amount of plastic

582
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: that that paper was estimating. And so that I think

583
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: what most of us have heard about plastic getting in

584
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: our body is pretty overblown. But that said, they have

585
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: found plastic in human brains. So this was they did autopsies,

586
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: so somebody had already paid away and they looked through

587
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: the brain to look for plastics and they found it.

588
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: Plastics have been found in plaques in our arteries, so

589
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: when your arteries are getting clogged, there's some little pieces

590
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: of plastic in there.

591
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 2: Two.

592
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 1: It has been found in testicles, kidneys, livers, like anywhere

593
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: you can imagine, maybe not wanting plastic to be, plastic

594
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: is there. And we found plastic in maconium. Daniel, do

595
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: you remember, I mean I probably said it wrong, let's

596
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: just be clear, but do you remember what maconium is?

597
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 1: This is a word I only needed to know the

598
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: definition of once or twice in my life.

599
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 2: Oh, it sounds familiar. It sounds like mucus. Is it

600
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 2: something gross inside the body?

601
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: It's your baby's first poop?

602
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 2: Oh, of course, yes, of course, mconium. I remember that.

603
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 2: Now it's weird looking.

604
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yes, it's weird looking, and it has plastic

605
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: in it, and so that means it's probably microplastics or nanoplastics.

606
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: Probably nanoplastics are passing from mom to the fetus, and

607
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: the fetus is already, you know, defecating them out pretty soon.

608
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 1: So we start our life with these microplastics with us.

609
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 2: And we talked recently about water filtration systems and these

610
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 2: amazing processes that clean up our water. Are microplastics too

611
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 2: small to be filtered out?

612
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 1: No?

613
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 3: Not so.

614
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: About ninety five percent of the microplastics that go into

615
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: the wastewater treatment plant are removed through the various processes.

616
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:26,320
Speaker 1: There's a lot of microfibers that go to wastewater treatment

617
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: plants because a bunch of the wastewater that goes to

618
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: those treatment plants is from when we wash our laundry

619
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: or from like our shampoos and body washes. And stuff,

620
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: and our clothes every time we wash them are shedding

621
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: loads of microplastics, and so lots of stuff gets to

622
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: the wastewater treatment plants. About ninety five percent of it

623
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: gets removed. Sometimes the sludge that gets collected at some

624
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: of these plants will get used for other purposes, like

625
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: as a fertilizer, and in that case the microplastics could

626
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: get back into the environment. But if they're just put

627
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: in a landfill, they're probably going to be fine. But

628
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: a lot of them do still get through these wastewater

629
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: treatment plants, and there were some data from twenty fourteen

630
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: to twenty sixteen that estimated that something like eight to

631
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: thirteen billion pieces of microbeads were being released from treatment

632
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: plants into freshwater systems every day. And we're trying to

633
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: use fewer microbeads, but there's still a bunch of these

634
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: getting into our freshwater systems. But they also get into

635
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: freshwater systems or our oceans through other routes. For example,

636
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: a huge source of plastic is our tires, and so

637
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: when we drive, we're wearing some of the plastic off

638
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: of those tires, and that ends up either in the

639
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: air or sometimes it ends up on the side of

640
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: the road, and then the next time it rains, it

641
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: takes those little pieces of plastic into our rivers and

642
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: our lakes, and then in some cases it brings it

643
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 1: to our oceans. And so yeah, those are some major

644
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 1: sources of plastic into our aquatic systems.

645
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 2: And so it's everywhere, and we found in our bodies,

646
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 2: including our brains and all the other important bits. Why

647
00:31:57,440 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 2: is this an issue or is it an issue or

648
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 2: why might it be an issue for our health?

649
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're not super clear on it. First all,

650
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: I want to say that we've done some experiments on fish,

651
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:10,719
Speaker 1: and the fish seem to get kind of messed up.

652
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: So fish end up, you know, they eat the little

653
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: invertebrates that eat the microplastics, and then they accumulate it

654
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: in their own body. And we found that microplastics can

655
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: mess with things like how the fish move, It can

656
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 1: damage their intestines. I think in some cases we found

657
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: that it reduces their growth, and it seems to reduce

658
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: their growth because it essentially like takes up space in

659
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 1: their gut and they like feel like they've eaten, but

660
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: they haven't eaten anything that's nutritious and so you know,

661
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: they lose weight and that can impact their reproduction and

662
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So we know that there are some

663
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: examples where it's been a problem in fish, but fish

664
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: are swimming in this environment with loads of microplastics, so

665
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: that might not tell us what we need to know

666
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: about people. So here are some of the top issues

667
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 1: that we worry about for microplastics. One of the main

668
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 1: issues that we worry about is that these microplastics tend

669
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: to to attract and stick to other stuff in the environment. So,

670
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: for example, they stick to heavy metals PCBs, which are

671
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: polychlorinated by phenols and some other kinds of toxic material,

672
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: and they get what's called sorbed by the plastic.

673
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 2: Absorbed, not absorbed, just sorbed.

674
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: I think it's sorbed.

675
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 2: Is that what the kids are saying these days?

676
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: Wow, that's what the science kids are saying these days.

677
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: Very generous to call us kids. But so they pick

678
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: up these toxic compounds and then when they get into

679
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: your body, they could release those toxic compounds. And so

680
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:42,239
Speaker 1: while a piece of plastic on its own might not

681
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: cause a problem, if it's bringing, for example, mercury into

682
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 1: your body and then depositing the mercury. The mercury could

683
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: be the problem. Does that make sense?

684
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely it does.

685
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 3: Yeah.

686
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: Other things that tend to stick to these fibers include bacteria,

687
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: and there's some concern that the way bacteria aggregate, they

688
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: form like biofilms where maybe they could be sharing like

689
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: antibiotic resistant genes or something. This sounded a little bit

690
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:09,439
Speaker 1: more speculative from what I could tell. But bacteria stick

691
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: to them, and so do viruses, and so these pieces

692
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: of plastic could be ways that bacteria and virus make

693
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: it into your body.

694
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 2: So basically they're dirty, they're not just weird and artificial

695
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:20,760
Speaker 2: and everywhere they're dirty.

696
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 1: They are. But this also contributes to why they're so

697
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 1: hard to study, right, because whether or not plastic is

698
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: bad for you is going to depend on what the

699
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 1: plastics saw before it went to you. So like the

700
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: same kind of plastic and an environment with no mercury

701
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 1: might do nothing, but the same kind of plastic in

702
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:40,359
Speaker 1: an environment where it can pick up mercury and then

703
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: get to you could cause a lot of trouble.

704
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:45,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And these things must be easier to study

705
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,760
Speaker 2: in the lab. And then that doesn't really answer questions

706
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 2: about what happens in reality where most of us live.

707
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 1: Amen, Yes, it gets super complicated. So then another thing

708
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 1: that makes it all complicated is that added to the

709
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: plastic are chemicals that help you, for example, make plastic

710
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: that are soft and are like easier to move. So

711
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,399
Speaker 1: for example, if you think of your water bottles, that's

712
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 1: you can squeeze those, it bends a little bit. But

713
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: then there's other chemicals that make plastics stiffer and harder.

714
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 1: So for example, if you have a Nalgene bottle, when

715
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 1: you squeeze that, it doesn't have much give. And so

716
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,240
Speaker 1: these chemicals that we add to the plastic can also

717
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: cause problems in addition to the plastic. So for example,

718
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: there's a class of chemicals called thalates. What it's pH thh.

719
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 2: What pH that's not allowed?

720
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,360
Speaker 1: No, not in the English language. It shouldn't be. But

721
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna thallates. I'm just gonna call I'm

722
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: gonna pretend to the p is silent. The pH is silent.

723
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: And these tend to be used to soften plastics, and

724
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: they're pretty common in our bodies. So there was a

725
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 1: survey done in eight to ten out of the baby's

726
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 1: surveyed had thollates in their body, and nearly all of

727
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: the adults that were surveyed it had them too. And

728
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: this chemical is associated with reduced sperm count and motility.

729
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 2: No, I know, I don't like that. That's not good.

730
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 1: No, But the results here are mixed. So like, if

731
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,359
Speaker 1: you were making a million sperm and now you make

732
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: nine hundred and fifty thousand sperm, should you care? And

733
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: the answer is, maybe.

734
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 2: Those are fifty thousand of my boys we're talking about here.

735
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: You weren't gonna make use of all those boys anyway, Daniel.

736
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: So there was a study that was looking at like

737
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: people who had various amounts of exposure to this stuff

738
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,840
Speaker 1: and how long it took for them and their partner

739
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: to get pregnant or you know, for the woman to

740
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: get pregnant. Yeah, And it looked like there wasn't necessarily

741
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:45,800
Speaker 1: an association between exposure to a certain kind of thallate

742
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,280
Speaker 1: and how long it took to get your partner pregnant.

743
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: And so the point is, maybe sperm counts are lower,

744
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 1: but that doesn't necessarily result in infertility issues all the time.

745
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,959
Speaker 2: All right, But sperm counts I think are dropping anyway, right,

746
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 2: and we've been talking about how there's fertility issues already,

747
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:06,880
Speaker 2: so anything that pushes sperm counts lower is definitely not

748
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 2: going to be good for fertility, right. I think you're

749
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 2: arguing that this is a small effect, but still a

750
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:15,800
Speaker 2: small effect on average can have some measurable impact on

751
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:16,879
Speaker 2: the number of babies.

752
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: Born, right, Yes, And there are some communities who would

753
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,760
Speaker 1: argue that a big part of the decline infertility could

754
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:26,319
Speaker 1: be because of things like plastic related chemicals in our

755
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: water or whatever are being ingested with the food that

756
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: we eat, and so yeah, it could play a role,

757
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: and it could play a role in aggregate. Maybe it's

758
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: just playing a small role in that overall trend. There's

759
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: some work done in lab animals like mice that do

760
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: find definitely quantifiable impacts from exposure to thalites on the mice.

761
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: And so the question is if a mouse has infertility,

762
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: does that mean that a human's going to have infertility?

763
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 1: We don't necessarily know, And often animals in the lab

764
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:58,399
Speaker 1: are exposed to much higher concentrations of the chemicals than

765
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: we are exposed to on a day to day basis,

766
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 1: for example, and so it's hard to know how to

767
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 1: tie those things together. But there is some risk that

768
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: these chemicals are having some impacts on fertility related issues.

769
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 1: But we don't really know how much we should be

770
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: worried about this happening for humans yet.

771
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 2: All right, So, Kelly's given us two reasons to worry

772
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:21,320
Speaker 2: so far. They can trap stuff, they can be toxic chemicals.

773
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 2: When we come back from the break, we're going to

774
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 2: hear about more reasons to worry, including Daniel's number one

775
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:49,960
Speaker 2: reason to worry about microplastics. Oh okay, we're back and

776
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 2: we're talking about all those little bits of plastic that

777
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 2: are everywhere in the earth and in you right now

778
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 2: swimming through your body? Are hundreds thousands? How many bits

779
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 2: of micropack are in each of our listeners?

780
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: Kelly, Oh I that would be very hard to quantify.

781
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how many pieces are in each

782
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: of us.

783
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 2: We want numbers. I want an individual list of numbers

784
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 2: for each listener.

785
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 1: Okay, well, give me a lot more money. And also

786
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 1: there's going to need to be a lot of slaughter

787
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: because to get those numbers usually requires an autopsy. So

788
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: let's just say we probably all have at least a

789
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: microplastic piece in us, and that's probably quite an underestimate.

790
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 2: All right, but it sounds like if you really want

791
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:28,280
Speaker 2: to know, and you're willing to volunteer for an autopsy,

792
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 2: Kelly will give you a solid answer. Nope, that's a no. Okay,

793
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 2: that's a nope. Do not ship your body to Kelly

794
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 2: to get an answer to this question, turns out nope,

795
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 2: All right, nope.

796
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 1: Oh so you said you were going to tell us

797
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 1: your number one fear from microplastics, So go ahead, let's

798
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 1: hear that.

799
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, my number one reason to worry about microplastics

800
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 2: is we don't understand the body. It's a big, complicated system,

801
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 2: and there's lots of things that we do to it

802
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 2: all the time that we don't understand how it works.

803
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 2: Like I think thailan All still not fully understood. Why

804
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 2: does thilan All work, or why do all these sechoactive

805
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 2: medications work, And so there's just a lack of a

806
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 2: mechanistic understanding of how this is how the body works.

807
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:08,879
Speaker 2: It seems to me like you just throw a bunch

808
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 2: of plastic in there. You can't predict what's going to happen,

809
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 2: and so many weird and terrible things are happening to

810
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 2: people all the time, it's hard to know like how

811
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,840
Speaker 2: much of this is due to eating plastic or not

812
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,720
Speaker 2: eating plastic. And so to me, the number one concern

813
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 2: is something we can't predict because the system is too complicated.

814
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: And I think that is absolutely spot on. Yeah, I

815
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 1: totally agree with you. And one point that I want

816
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,320
Speaker 1: to go back to really quick. We were talking about

817
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: thalates and there are possible impacts on the human body.

818
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:38,359
Speaker 1: I want to be clear that we do know that

819
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,760
Speaker 1: at very high doses, at high exposure, these things definitely

820
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: are bad. So the question isn't thalates good or bad?

821
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: The question is thalates at very low concentrations are they

822
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: bad enough that we want to give up all of

823
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 1: the benefits we get by having thalates. And there's another

824
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 1: chemical that we have the same discs, and that chemical

825
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 1: is bis phenol a, And just like with thalites, we

826
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 1: don't totally understand whether we need to be worried about

827
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:08,839
Speaker 1: it and how much we need to be worried about it.

828
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 1: But we know that this finyl a acts like estrogen

829
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 1: in the body. So in some cases it mimics estrogen,

830
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 1: making your body think there's more estrogen, and in other

831
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 1: cases it will like bind to receptor where estrogen should

832
00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: be and now estrogen can't get to it, and so

833
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: your body should be getting a message from estrogen and

834
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 1: that message isn't going through.

835
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,720
Speaker 2: And so this is a great example. People are like, BPA,

836
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 2: what could it do? It's probably fine. O turns out

837
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 2: maybe it's not fine.

838
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:36,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there was a study that found that about

839
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 1: ninety three percent of people have BPA in their urine,

840
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 1: so just about all of us are exposed to it.

841
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:43,800
Speaker 1: And for all of these chemicals, you might be most

842
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:46,760
Speaker 1: worried if a fetus or a baby is being exposed

843
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 1: when like tons of development stuff is happening. And so

844
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 1: there were rules saying like, hey, look we need a

845
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:55,840
Speaker 1: lot less bysfhinyl a in things like baby bodels because

846
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,919
Speaker 1: we're worried about what tinkering with estrogen could do. There's

847
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 1: some evidence that it's associated with increased blood pressure, type

848
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: two diabetes, cardiovascular disease. Long down the road, it also

849
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,800
Speaker 1: can impact the brain and the prostate gland of feces

850
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: and stuff. Lots of reasons to worry.

851
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 2: You said prostate gland of feces, but I think you

852
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 2: mean fetuses.

853
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:17,840
Speaker 1: I did I feces.

854
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 2: You just got poop on the brain. I get it.

855
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: No I do, I do. Sorry, the brain and prostate

856
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: gland of fetuses not feces. Anyway, lots of reasons to worry.

857
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 1: So we tried to cut down on the use of

858
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: byspinyl a. But the problem is that this chemical is

859
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: really helpful for making plastics stiffer and harder, and so

860
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:43,240
Speaker 1: we've replaced bisphinyla with something that has a very similar

861
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: shape because we want that same shape so that we

862
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 1: still get our nice hard plastics. So we've replaced it with,

863
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 1: for example, bisphinyl s, and we think that actually, maybe

864
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: this other thing does a lot of the same stuff

865
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,439
Speaker 1: to our body that bisphinyla does. So when you see

866
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 1: a bottle that says doesn't contain BP, that doesn't mean

867
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 1: that it doesn't contain a very similar bisfunyl thing. So yeah,

868
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 1: it's hard to replace these things while still keeping the plastics.

869
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: We love doing the things that we love them to do.

870
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 2: I love those indications on food that make you feel like, oh,

871
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:19,480
Speaker 2: it's healthy, Like when you look at jolly ranchers and

872
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:21,759
Speaker 2: they say fat free and you're like, yeah, that's because

873
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:25,040
Speaker 2: it's one hundred percent sugar. That's right, that's right, doesn't

874
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 2: make it a health food.

875
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 1: I like things that are like cholesterol free. I'm like, well, yeah,

876
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 1: because it it couldn't have cholesterol in it, because we

877
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 1: know where cholesterol comes from. And it's like, no rat

878
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:38,280
Speaker 1: feces in this. It's like, well, it shouldn't have rat feces,

879
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 1: and what does that imply about the other material?

880
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:44,359
Speaker 2: Anyway, It's but I do appreciate the nuance here that

881
00:43:44,600 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 2: you could say, let's just get rid of all of it.

882
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 2: But you're right that plastics have improved our lives and

883
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 2: there's positivity there. And it sounds like we're being, you know,

884
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 2: shills for big microplastics, as ironic as that name is,

885
00:43:57,200 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 2: but it's true that, you know, you wouldn't want to

886
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 2: just get rid of plastics even if there is a

887
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:04,919
Speaker 2: cost to human health, because it also saves lives. Right,

888
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:08,240
Speaker 2: having these medical supplies et cetera, et cetera does save lives.

889
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 2: And so really the question, as always, is a nuanced one.

890
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 2: It's like, does it do more harm than good?

891
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,320
Speaker 1: Yeah? And so let's dig in for a second into

892
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 1: all the reasons why it's hard to really understand why

893
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 1: this stuff is bad for people. So one we talked

894
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 1: about how you can cough, sneeze, poop, or pee a

895
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff out. So just because you're exposed

896
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 1: to something like bisfinil A doesn't mean that your body

897
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: isn't going to excrete it before it causes any damage

898
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: or break it down before it causes any damage. But

899
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:39,840
Speaker 1: maybe it is causing damage, and so we need to

900
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 1: research this a lot more to figure out how we

901
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 1: get exposed to it, how our bodies respond to it,

902
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: how much of it is bad. But there does seem

903
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 1: to be a move, for example, in Europe to decrease

904
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: the amount of allowable things like bisfineles, because we are

905
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:56,239
Speaker 1: deciding as the data comes in, oh, this is a

906
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 1: little scary, we don't want to risk it. The other

907
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: problem is that plast sticks come in loads of shapes

908
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: and sizes, and some of them are more likely to

909
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 1: get into our bloodstream, for example, than others, and when

910
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 1: they break down, they break down into thousands of different chemicals,

911
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:14,800
Speaker 1: many of which we haven't looked at for health impacts yet.

912
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 1: So it could be that like ninety percent of plastics

913
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: are okay, but there's ten percent that break down into

914
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 1: super toxic stuff and that's what's causing the problem, or

915
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: maybe all the chemicals that it breaks down into are bad.

916
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:28,439
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound like you've got me worried

917
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: now that I sound like I'm a shill for big microplastic.

918
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:35,880
Speaker 1: This stuff is complicated, and you need to decide on

919
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,359
Speaker 1: your own how worried you are about it. We also

920
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 1: don't have very good methods for counting and quantifying plastics

921
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: in the human body. I mentioned that you can look

922
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: at this stuff during an autopsy, but then once you've

923
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: got these micro or these nanoplastics that you've collected from

924
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 1: an autopsy, how do you know what kind of plastics

925
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,439
Speaker 1: they were in particular, and what about it was bad?

926
00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:59,480
Speaker 1: So you know, maybe one plastic in the brain has

927
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 1: thali attached to it and one has bispinyl a, And

928
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 1: how do you quantify the total impact of all of

929
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: that on our bodies. It's very complicated when there's lots

930
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 1: of stuff interacting. And one thing that also makes it

931
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: complicated is that for things like bysfhinyla, this old phrase

932
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 1: the dose makes the poison doesn't really stand. So for

933
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:24,799
Speaker 1: things like mercury, probably the more mercury, you ingest the

934
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 1: worse it is, we don't want to have a lot

935
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 1: of that. But with a lot of hormones, they have

936
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: this weird way of interacting with our body where low

937
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 1: doses and high doses can have the biggest impact, but

938
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: intermediate doses sometimes have low impacts. So it's almost like

939
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 1: the letter you if you're looking at it on a graph.

940
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 1: And so it's not necessarily the case that more and

941
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 1: more and more and more is worse, but having a

942
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: little bit could be really bad, or having a lot

943
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: could be really bad, And so it just makes it

944
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:56,320
Speaker 1: even harder to figure out these associations and try to

945
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:58,400
Speaker 1: get a handle on how bad and what doses are

946
00:46:58,440 --> 00:46:59,240
Speaker 1: okay for people.

947
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 2: Okay, then give me a overview of like potential things

948
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:06,240
Speaker 2: to worry about in terms of effect on human health.

949
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 2: I'm not going to have more kids, so I don't

950
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 2: really need to worry about my boys swimming anymore. But

951
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:13,360
Speaker 2: beyond fertility, what concerns are there for human health?

952
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 1: Okay, So again we don't really understand the mechanism totally

953
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:20,959
Speaker 1: for some of this stuff, but one concern is that

954
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 1: there might be earlier puberty. So, for example, from the

955
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies to today, I think puberty has moved up by

956
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: something like a year on average. And so the question

957
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:34,280
Speaker 1: is do having all of these chemicals that mimic estrogen

958
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 1: in the environments, is that, for example, moving up puberty

959
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:41,360
Speaker 1: time for women and women who enter puberty earlier, I

960
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,399
Speaker 1: believe they have a higher risk of things like breast

961
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 1: cancer later on. So there could be bigger implications than oh, man,

962
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: I've got my period a year earlier. It could have

963
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:54,799
Speaker 1: more health impacts down the line. There's also some proposed

964
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: link between obesity and microplastics. So obesity has increased in

965
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:03,719
Speaker 1: the United States, you know, roughly along the line as

966
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:07,799
Speaker 1: are increasing use of plastics. But a lot of things

967
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 1: have changed about the United States over that amount of

968
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,320
Speaker 1: time too. You know, it's probably easier to get fast

969
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:15,239
Speaker 1: food and less healthy food, So it's really hard over

970
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 1: time to tease these things apart. But plastics could be

971
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:21,080
Speaker 1: playing a role because we have seen that some kinds

972
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:23,799
Speaker 1: of plastics and the chemicals that they carry into our

973
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:27,480
Speaker 1: bodies change the way our bodies metabolize food and the

974
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: way our bodies make fat cells and stuff like that.

975
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: And we found that lab animals and domestic pets are

976
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: more likely to be obese as well, and those are

977
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,439
Speaker 1: animals that are exposed to plastics a lot because of us.

978
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: And so you know, maybe we're seeing an indirect effect

979
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:45,759
Speaker 1: in our lab animals and our pets that.

980
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 2: We have to be very cautious in concluding anything from

981
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:51,960
Speaker 2: correlation studies, right, because yes, these things could just be random.

982
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:55,319
Speaker 2: Like if you've seen the correlation between ice cream and murder, right,

983
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:59,120
Speaker 2: it's very tight. Doesn't mean ice cream causes murder. It

984
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 2: means you tend to have ice cream more in the summer,

985
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:03,280
Speaker 2: and people tend to commit murderers more in the summer,

986
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 2: maybe because they're not getting enough ice cream. Actually, so

987
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 2: maybe ice cream suppresses murder.

988
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 1: Who knows, that's right. Maybe I think we probably all

989
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: need more ice cream.

990
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 2: Now we're big shells for ice cream.

991
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:14,840
Speaker 1: Great, I'm okay with that that.

992
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:18,759
Speaker 2: I'm okay with microplastic free big ice cream. All right,

993
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 2: there you go. So we're worried about puberty, we're worried

994
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:24,240
Speaker 2: about ovcity. What else should we be worried about?

995
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: There's some concern about cardiovascular issues. So, for example, there

996
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: was a twenty twenty four paper in the New England

997
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: Journal of Medicine, where people went through surgeries to remove

998
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 1: plaques in their arteries. So this is like removing the

999
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 1: build up of stuff that was clogging up the stuff

1000
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:41,359
Speaker 1: in the arteries leading to the heart. And after they

1001
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 1: removed that stuff, they put it under a microscope and

1002
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:46,239
Speaker 1: they looked to see if they were microplastics in there,

1003
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: and about half of the people that they looked at

1004
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: had microplastics in there, a couple different kinds of microplastics.

1005
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: They tried to quantify the different kinds, but then they

1006
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: followed those people for thirty four months after the plaque

1007
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 1: was Removedeople who had microplastics in there were more likely

1008
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:09,520
Speaker 1: to have encountered a myocardial infarction, a stroke, or death. Essentially,

1009
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: their heart was likely to have some additional problems in

1010
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 1: the like year and a half or more after plaque

1011
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:18,760
Speaker 1: removal if those plaques had plastic.

1012
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 2: Infarction is a word. It's not just a typo for infraction.

1013
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 1: And infarction is an obstruction of the blood supply to

1014
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:28,240
Speaker 1: an organ or region of tissue, typically a thrombosis or embolists,

1015
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: causing local death of the tissue.

1016
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 2: So yes, it's also a word that, for some reason

1017
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:35,280
Speaker 2: is just hilarious. It's a word like weasel or booger, infarction.

1018
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:37,319
Speaker 2: It just sounds funny to me. I don't know, I

1019
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:39,839
Speaker 2: know it's not funny when it kills you, but it's

1020
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 2: a funny word.

1021
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:42,920
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, A booger is funny when it happens

1022
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 1: to you, and infarction is not. But uh, maybe a

1023
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: booger's not funny depending on the context. But anyway, it

1024
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:51,719
Speaker 1: makes me laugh. So you mentioned that a problem with

1025
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: observational studies is that you don't know what is causing

1026
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: the correlation. So, for example, it could be that the

1027
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 1: people who had microplastics in their plaques are people who

1028
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 1: were more likely to I don't know, get McDonald's that

1029
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:10,360
Speaker 1: are in those like plastic wrappers, and you know, something

1030
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 1: about their diet resulted in them having more microplastics, and

1031
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:16,880
Speaker 1: then they didn't change that aspect of their life after

1032
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: the surgery, and that's what led to the problems they

1033
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:22,919
Speaker 1: had down the road. So it's really hard to tease

1034
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 1: apart cause and effect and you know what is causing

1035
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:29,480
Speaker 1: this problem when you're looking at an observational study.

1036
00:51:29,719 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 2: All right, So there's lots of reasons to worry, but

1037
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 2: we don't have a great mechanistic understanding or really an

1038
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 2: idea for what problems could be caused. So what can

1039
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 2: we do? What are your prescriptions for improving our lives?

1040
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'd say that the emerging picture is that

1041
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:49,360
Speaker 1: there are reasons to potentially worry.

1042
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 2: There's always reasons to worry, Kelly.

1043
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 1: There's always reasons to worry, I know. And so you

1044
00:51:53,719 --> 00:51:57,359
Speaker 1: can decide how concerned the information we've talked about, how

1045
00:51:57,360 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 1: concerning that is to you. But there are some things

1046
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:01,319
Speaker 1: you can do in your day to day life to

1047
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,319
Speaker 1: protect the environment. Let's start with those. So one, there

1048
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:07,399
Speaker 1: are like filters that you can get that go on

1049
00:52:07,440 --> 00:52:10,799
Speaker 1: your laundry machine to collect some of those microfibers so

1050
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: that they don't go into the wastewater treatment plant and

1051
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:16,279
Speaker 1: then they don't go into the ocean. You can, you know,

1052
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 1: try to buy clothes that are meant to last a

1053
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:21,479
Speaker 1: little bit longer so that you're not buying as many

1054
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 1: clothes and that would result in less you know, microplastics.

1055
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:27,839
Speaker 1: You could take public transportation so that you're not wearing

1056
00:52:27,880 --> 00:52:30,560
Speaker 1: out your own tires. There's lots of little things that

1057
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:31,120
Speaker 1: you could.

1058
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:33,319
Speaker 2: Do you can invent flying cars so I don't need

1059
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 2: tires anymore.

1060
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:36,840
Speaker 1: Well, I think some people are working on devices to

1061
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:40,279
Speaker 1: collect plastic as they get released from tires, and that

1062
00:52:40,560 --> 00:52:42,399
Speaker 1: seems like it could be pretty tough. You'd maybe never

1063
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 1: get all of it, but you know, you could try

1064
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:48,000
Speaker 1: to work on technologies that make this stuff easier to

1065
00:52:48,040 --> 00:52:50,360
Speaker 1: remove from the environment. But if you're worried about your

1066
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 1: own personal risk, some things that you can do include

1067
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 1: eating from glass or metal containers instead of plastic. If

1068
00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 1: you have tupperware containers, don't wash them in your dishwasher

1069
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:04,400
Speaker 1: because that gets really hot it starts breaking down the plastics.

1070
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:07,920
Speaker 1: Those microplastics could come off in your food. Things like

1071
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: vacuuming regularly are important because you're dropping plastic fibers all

1072
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 1: the time from your clothes and they end up on

1073
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: the floor and then they can get kicked up into

1074
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:19,800
Speaker 1: the air as you're walking around. Maybe not drinking bottled

1075
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 1: water because those tend to have plastics, but there's also

1076
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 1: plastic in tapwater. But if you get a reverse osmosis filter,

1077
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 1: you can take some of it out, but those are expensive,

1078
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:33,759
Speaker 1: and if you remove the microplastics, you're also removing minerals

1079
00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:35,319
Speaker 1: and salts and stuff, and you might want to add

1080
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:37,480
Speaker 1: some of that stuff back in. A lot of this

1081
00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:40,520
Speaker 1: stuff is complicated, so you need to decide what are

1082
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:44,520
Speaker 1: your most likely exposure risks and how concerned are you,

1083
00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:47,440
Speaker 1: because again there are trade offs, maybe a lot of

1084
00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: this stuff at doses. You know, like I live in

1085
00:53:50,200 --> 00:53:52,320
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere. I don't probably breathe in a

1086
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: lot of tire stuff. My water comes from the ground,

1087
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,400
Speaker 1: and while groundwater does sometimes have some plastics, my groundwater

1088
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 1: where I am probably doesn't have a lot of it.

1089
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:02,560
Speaker 2: So we should all move in with you.

1090
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:06,400
Speaker 1: It sounds like I mean no, no, actually, because then

1091
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: then it wouldn't be quite as pristine. But anyway, like,

1092
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 1: I'm not too worried about my exposure to plastics because

1093
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:16,320
Speaker 1: I use a lot of ceramic and stainless steel stuff,

1094
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:19,040
Speaker 1: so I'm not too worried. But you know, you should

1095
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 1: think about the various ways you encounter plastic in your

1096
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:24,360
Speaker 1: life and then decide if you are concerned or not,

1097
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: and if you want to make any changes, it's up to.

1098
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 2: You, And as is my habit, the night before we record,

1099
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 2: I usually ask Katrina what she thinks about an episode

1100
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:35,439
Speaker 2: just to hear she has some ideas. So I asked

1101
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:39,480
Speaker 2: her what she thought we could do to reduce our microplastics.

1102
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:41,280
Speaker 2: And here's what she had to say.

1103
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:45,400
Speaker 8: Well, eating fiber forms a matrix that will protect you

1104
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 8: from all toxins. Think of it like a brit of filter,

1105
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,759
Speaker 8: where it's sucking up the toxins and preventing them from

1106
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:55,960
Speaker 8: being absorbed into your body. So if you're eating fiber,

1107
00:54:56,040 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 8: then you've got this gel that sticks with you down

1108
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 8: to your colon. If there's also microplastics in your food

1109
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:04,759
Speaker 8: and water, it gets sucked up into that so that

1110
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:07,560
Speaker 8: it doesn't get absorbed by your intestinal cells.

1111
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 2: So Katrina is big on fiber, so maybe no surprise

1112
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:12,920
Speaker 2: that she prescribes fiber for everybody.

1113
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:14,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask if the answer to

1114
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 1: every question in the Whites and household is beans.

1115
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 2: Beans, She seeds beans fiber. It's good. She's just rooting

1116
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:25,880
Speaker 2: for the microbes inside everybody to help with the microplastics.

1117
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:28,480
Speaker 1: Well, we could probably all use more fiber anyway. And

1118
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:30,759
Speaker 1: there are some studies in mice, for example, that find

1119
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:34,919
Speaker 1: that microplastics disrupt the gut microbiome, so fiber can help

1120
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 1: you in the battle against plastics in a lot of

1121
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:39,560
Speaker 1: different ways, and so, you know, I want to be

1122
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:41,640
Speaker 1: clear throughout this episode. You know, I've tried to make

1123
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: sure I was including caveats about whether or not this

1124
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:46,960
Speaker 1: is likely to be important, Like I don't want people

1125
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: to be freaking out. There are some reasons to be concerned,

1126
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 1: but at the moment, there's just so many different places

1127
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 1: we can encounter plastics, and so many different kinds of plastics,

1128
00:55:57,280 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: and so many different contingencies that matter, like where the

1129
00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:02,400
Speaker 1: plastic was before it got to you. That we just

1130
00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:04,560
Speaker 1: don't have a very good handle on this problem yet.

1131
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 1: And this is all the more reason to invest in

1132
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 1: basic science so we can try to understand this better.

1133
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:13,239
Speaker 1: But like so many risks in life, you got to

1134
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:15,919
Speaker 1: kind of decide for yourself, how concerned am I going

1135
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:17,360
Speaker 1: to be given what we know about this.

1136
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 2: So don't worry too much, don't worry too little, worry

1137
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:21,240
Speaker 2: just the right.

1138
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:25,400
Speaker 1: Amount that's right, Just the right amount. Good luck with that.

1139
00:56:26,320 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 1: And the reason we talked about microplastics today is because

1140
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 1: a listener sent us an email saying I would love

1141
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:34,640
Speaker 1: to know more about microplastics. So I sent this episode

1142
00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:36,279
Speaker 1: to them, and let's see what they had to say.

1143
00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:42,640
Speaker 9: Plastic is a wonderful material and all its different applications

1144
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:47,120
Speaker 9: and all the different fields where it's an essential material.

1145
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 9: Although I don't believe that we.

1146
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:52,680
Speaker 10: Need to be more picky how we use plastic, and

1147
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:58,320
Speaker 10: we need to cut some products from our lives, especially

1148
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 10: the disposed of single use ones that are quite unnecessary.

1149
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 10: I believe I'm deeply concerned for the effect microplastics have

1150
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:12,280
Speaker 10: on smaller creatures, especially.

1151
00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 9: Ocean creatures as you mentioned in the episode, and.

1152
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:20,720
Speaker 11: The effects that they may have on their larger food

1153
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:26,919
Speaker 11: chains and ecosystems. It might sound bleak, but I'm less

1154
00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 11: so concerned for the effects on human health, as we are,

1155
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 11: of course the responsible ones. But thank you Daniel and

1156
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 11: Kelly for the episode is informative. I learned some new things,

1157
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:43,440
Speaker 11: and thank you for picking my suggestion.

1158
00:57:43,800 --> 00:57:45,920
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for that feedback. We did end

1159
00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 1: up focusing a lot on human aspects of impacts of microplastics,

1160
00:57:51,040 --> 00:57:55,600
Speaker 1: but there's definitely evidence that microplastics and aquatic ecosystems are

1161
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 1: bad and impact a variety of different organisms in negative ways.

1162
00:58:00,040 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 1: So I think at a minimum, it would be important

1163
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 1: for all of us to think about how we can

1164
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:07,000
Speaker 1: cut back on plastics in our lives, and we should

1165
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:10,560
Speaker 1: think about what we're doing too organisms beside ourselves. So yes,

1166
00:58:10,600 --> 00:58:12,160
Speaker 1: thank you for making that important point.

1167
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:15,040
Speaker 2: All right, well, thanks everyone for sending in your questions,

1168
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 2: for being curious about the nature of the world. Though

1169
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:19,200
Speaker 2: we don't have a clear prescription about how you should

1170
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:22,000
Speaker 2: live your life, at least now you're better informed about

1171
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 2: what we do and don't know about microplastics.

1172
00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:35,280
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1173
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:37,880
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1174
00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:40,800
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1175
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:42,640
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1176
00:58:42,720 --> 00:58:45,680
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1177
00:58:45,680 --> 00:58:48,680
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1178
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:49,120
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1179
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:52,920
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1180
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:56,160
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1181
00:58:55,240 --> 00:58:57,320
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1182
00:58:57,400 --> 00:59:01,200
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1183
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1185
00:59:05,400 --> 00:59:06,960
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