WEBVTT - How bad are microplastics?

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<v Speaker 1>The history of plastic is intimately tied to the history

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<v Speaker 1>of the game of billiards. In the eighteen sixties, the

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

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<v Speaker 1>but it was hard to keep up with the demand

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<v Speaker 1>for high end billiard balls because the material used to

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<v Speaker 1>make the balls was limited. The material was elephant tusks,

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<v Speaker 1>and it took about two tusks to make a complete

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<v Speaker 1>set of balls. A major billiard ball company offered a

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<v Speaker 1>ten thousand dollars reward for anyone who could come up

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<v Speaker 1>with a sturdy alternative. John Wesley Hyatt was inspired by

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<v Speaker 1>this call, and he came up with an alternative to

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<v Speaker 1>tusks that became the first industrial plastic. Now, the initial

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<v Speaker 1>prototypes had the downside that they were highly flammable, and

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<v Speaker 1>there were rumors that they would sometimes explode upon impact

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<v Speaker 1>during a game. Or maybe that's an upside because it

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<v Speaker 1>would make the game a lot more exciting. But anyway,

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<v Speaker 1>today plastics are ubiquitous. They're in our tires, our clothes,

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<v Speaker 1>they line our paper cups, they make disposable medical equipment

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<v Speaker 1>which helps protect us from transmissible diseases, and the microphone

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<v Speaker 1>in computer that I'm using to record this episode have

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<v Speaker 1>plastic in them too. It's kind of hard to imagine

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<v Speaker 1>life without plastic. We're probably all aware that plastic has

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

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<v Speaker 1>for example, And there's now garbage patches in the ocean,

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<v Speaker 1>which are spots where currents have aggregated the trash we've

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<v Speaker 1>released into the sea. And we've probably all seen images

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<v Speaker 1>of animals like turtles and birds that have died from

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<v Speaker 1>consuming or getting trapped by large pieces of plastic. And

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<v Speaker 1>those are the easy to see problems. In the last

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<v Speaker 1>decade or so, we've become more concerned with the plastics

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<v Speaker 1>that are harder to see, the micro and the nanoplastics.

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<v Speaker 1>These are bits of plastic less than five millimeters in length,

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<v Speaker 1>which is like about the length of an ant, and smaller,

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<v Speaker 1>much smaller. Some of these tiny plastics are made on

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<v Speaker 1>purpose for use in things like cosmetics, and some are

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<v Speaker 1>just the teeny tiny bits of bigger pieces of plastic

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<v Speaker 1>that have broken down over time. These tiny pieces of

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<v Speaker 1>plastic are now found around the globe. Even pristine environments

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<v Speaker 1>that rarely see people will see our plastics because super

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<v Speaker 1>small plastic pieces go airborne, and they move with air

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<v Speaker 1>currents around the world closer to home. We've found very

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<v Speaker 1>small pieces of plastic in human hearts, brains, testicles, and more.

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<v Speaker 1>It's even been found in baby maconium, which is a

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<v Speaker 1>baby's first poop, so it's working its way through a

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<v Speaker 1>fetuses as well. How worried should we be? This is

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

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<v Speaker 1>probably already guessed that the answer is, well, we don't

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

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

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<v Speaker 1>and it's not feasible or maybe even design mirable to

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<v Speaker 1>stop using plastics entirely. So what do we do about

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<v Speaker 1>microplastics if we decide we should be worried? Welcome to

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<v Speaker 1>Daniel and Kelly's Plastic Universe.

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<v Speaker 2>Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm a parent,

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<v Speaker 2>so I always think we should be worried.

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

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<v Speaker 1>and I have severe anxiety, so I also always worry,

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<v Speaker 1>and actually being a parent made that a little bit worse.

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<v Speaker 2>All right, Well, then my question for you is do

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<v Speaker 2>you think worrying helps? I mean, I know this is

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<v Speaker 2>like culture of worrying. Jewish mom send each other messages

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<v Speaker 2>like start worrying. Now you could probably like hire a

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<v Speaker 2>room full of Jewish mom somewhere, like worry on your behalf?

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<v Speaker 2>Have you know nine dollars an hour or ninety nine?

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<v Speaker 2>I don't know think that worrying helps. Does it make

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<v Speaker 2>us think deeply about all the possible issues? Does it

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<v Speaker 2>make us better scientists? What do you think?

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<v Speaker 1>I think?

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<v Speaker 2>What's the upside of worrying?

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<v Speaker 1>It depends. I think so. I think Zach doesn't worry enough.

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<v Speaker 1>And so there have been a couple of times where

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<v Speaker 1>I've felt like I've had to step in to get

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<v Speaker 1>the worrying level up to the right amount so that

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<v Speaker 1>we could take care of some problems that needed to

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<v Speaker 1>get taken care of.

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<v Speaker 2>Was that when your stove was on fire recently? For example?

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<v Speaker 1>Uh no, I I actually when I opened up the

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<v Speaker 1>stove and I looked inside and I saw the fire,

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<v Speaker 1>which was not my food, thank you very much, It

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<v Speaker 1>was something else. My first thought was I should call Zach,

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<v Speaker 1>and my second thought was what would he do? I

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<v Speaker 1>don't need to call Zach. And then it turned out

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<v Speaker 1>that Zach's brother had given me a fire extinguisher, So

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

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<v Speaker 1>I pulled out the fire extinguisher. Everything was okay, I

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<v Speaker 1>need to change the heat element or whatever. But I

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<v Speaker 1>think you need to worry a little, but you need

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<v Speaker 1>to not overdo it. And I massively overdo it. Zach

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<v Speaker 1>underdoes it, and then I think we average are worrying

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<v Speaker 1>and we get the right amount of stuff done. But

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<v Speaker 1>what do you think, Well.

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<v Speaker 2>I have this friend who's a neuroscientist who thinks that

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<v Speaker 2>worrying is what makes us better scientists, because you like

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<v Speaker 2>wake up in the midlight you're like, wait a second,

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<v Speaker 2>what if this part of that paper is wrong? What

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<v Speaker 2>if blah blah blah blah blah, How would I know

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<v Speaker 2>for sure? And then you come up with another test

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<v Speaker 2>to verify that, And so it really helps make your

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<v Speaker 2>science bulletproof because you sort of put yourself in the

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<v Speaker 2>mind the reviewer and ask all the critical questions, and

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<v Speaker 2>you worry about being embarrassed in front of your colleagues

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<v Speaker 2>when your results are shown to be an artifact. So

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<v Speaker 2>I think that it is helpful in that sense, and

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<v Speaker 2>it also helps you prepare for eventualities. Like the reason

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<v Speaker 2>I buy insurance is because I worry about stuff, right,

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<v Speaker 2>But I agree that it can go too far. It

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<v Speaker 2>can be unproductive for sure. But you know, I think

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<v Speaker 2>on this podcast we aim for just the right level

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<v Speaker 2>of worrying. We aim to educate you enough to make

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<v Speaker 2>knowledgeable choices about your life.

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<v Speaker 1>Right, Yes, that's right, that's exactly right.

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<v Speaker 2>And so you hear all about disgusting parasites you will

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<v Speaker 2>probably never get and don't have to worry about. But

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<v Speaker 2>now you know enough not to go swimming with snails

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<v Speaker 2>in Venezuela or whatever it was.

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<v Speaker 1>Well, and you know what questions to ask your doctor

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<v Speaker 1>when you go see here you go, Yeah, something like that.

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<v Speaker 1>That's our goal.

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<v Speaker 2>That comes from a person who has repeatedly gone to

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<v Speaker 2>the doctor convinced he had toe cancer.

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<v Speaker 1>Toe cancer in particular. Is there something weird about your

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<v Speaker 1>toes that that makes you think they're cancer?

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<v Speaker 2>Is No, I am just a hypochondriac and am capable

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<v Speaker 2>of convincing myself that's some weird thing. It's probably cancer

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<v Speaker 2>and a better of the doctor. And I'm the kind

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<v Speaker 2>of guy who shows up the doctor without a list.

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

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<v Speaker 1>Ah.

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<v Speaker 2>And you know, a good doctor is the one that,

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<v Speaker 2>like knowledgeably but patiently walks you through the reasons why

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<v Speaker 2>you're not dying today.

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<v Speaker 3>That's right.

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<v Speaker 1>So I came. I came with my own list for

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<v Speaker 1>the same thing for the doctor. And after I went

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<v Speaker 1>through the list, the doctor said, can I ask you

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<v Speaker 1>some questions? Can I give you a survey for anxiety?

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<v Speaker 1>And we discovered Kelly doesn't have cancer. Kelly has severe anxiety.

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<v Speaker 1>So thank you to that doctor for listening to what

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<v Speaker 1>I wasn't saying.

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<v Speaker 2>And so today we're actually doing an episode about something

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<v Speaker 2>I've been wondering about whether we need to be worried about,

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<v Speaker 2>but I wasn't knowledgeable enough about it to know whether

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<v Speaker 2>worrying was justified or just my anxiety.

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<v Speaker 1>And you know what, it's nice to get clear answers,

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

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<v Speaker 2>Least I'm going to be brought up to the forefront

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<v Speaker 2>of current.

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<v Speaker 1>Knowledge, right, that's right, that's right.

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<v Speaker 2>You will me so I won't have to be worried

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

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

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<v Speaker 1>seeing what the general public thinks of this question, or

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<v Speaker 1>at least what the extraordinaries, who are probably not a

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<v Speaker 1>random subset of the general public. Let's see what our

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<v Speaker 1>extraordinaries think. So I asked, should we be worried about

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<v Speaker 1>microplastics or why not?

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<v Speaker 4>Probably not. I've seen articles that microplastics are everywhere and

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<v Speaker 4>they're going to ruin our health in the environment, but

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<v Speaker 4>I've never seen them give irrelevant context, such as what

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

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<v Speaker 4>in the meantime, I'm not too worried about it, and

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<v Speaker 4>I'll continue to worry instead about climate change and my

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<v Speaker 4>own diet.

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<v Speaker 5>I certainly believe that we should be worried about microplastics.

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<v Speaker 5>First of all, there is a coating of plastic around

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<v Speaker 5>the world so thick that anthropologists are considering naming our

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<v Speaker 5>current epoch of the plastic scene because it'll form a

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<v Speaker 5>permanent layer that doesn't even begin to show all the

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<v Speaker 5>potential harmful effects of the microplastics.

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<v Speaker 2>Our immune system simply has not evolved to remove plastics

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<v Speaker 2>from our bodies, and the more they accumulate, then the

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<v Speaker 2>more we can expect trouble.

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<v Speaker 3>Microplastics have been discovered all over the globe, I believe

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<v Speaker 3>in Antarctica. We don't know absolutely sure the link and

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<v Speaker 3>mechanism to problems, but it can't be good.

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<v Speaker 6>In about seventy five years, we went from there being

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<v Speaker 6>none to now being so pervasive that they can be

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<v Speaker 6>found in the deepest depths of the ocean and even

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<v Speaker 6>in our brains. I would love to know what these

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<v Speaker 6>materials can be doing to our health and the rest

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<v Speaker 6>of the ecosystem, so we can support policies that limit

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<v Speaker 6>its production and perhaps even help clean it up.

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<v Speaker 7>Yes, I do think we should be worried about microplastics.

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<v Speaker 7>We don't know how our bodies, animals, and the environment

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<v Speaker 7>are affected by these things, and we should investigate more.

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<v Speaker 2>All right, So a lot of people out there feel

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<v Speaker 2>like there might be something to worry about. At least,

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

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<v Speaker 2>understand what they might do or how they might interfere

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<v Speaker 2>with the function of this incredibly complex Goldberg machine we

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<v Speaker 2>call our bodies.

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

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<v Speaker 1>of our listeners mentioned that to sometimes suggest we could

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<v Speaker 1>call this era the plastic scene, because if you geologically

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<v Speaker 1>dig through, you can see a layer where plastic has

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<v Speaker 1>essentially been accumulating as we've made it go like airborne

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<v Speaker 1>and all over the planet. And so I feel like,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, if you look at human impacts first, you'll

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<v Speaker 1>see like a layer that's a bit radioactive from all

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

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<v Speaker 1>And you know, we've done a lot of beautiful things,

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

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<v Speaker 2>Wow, what a record we are leaving.

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<v Speaker 1>Huh, that's right, that's right. But we do a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of amazing things with plastics, right, And so one of

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<v Speaker 1>the things that kind of frustrated me when I was

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<v Speaker 1>you know, I tried to see how other people have

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

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<v Speaker 1>they're horrible, and like, I get it. I get it.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm an ecologist. I worry about the environment. I worry

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<v Speaker 1>about the impacts on animals. I worry about the impacts

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

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<v Speaker 1>I think you need to keep in mind the trade.

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<v Speaker 2>Offs here, give me a top five reasons why plastics

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<v Speaker 2>are good for humanity?

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<v Speaker 1>Well, I mean, so we've got like all of the

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<v Speaker 1>disposable plastic medical equipment that helps make sure that we

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

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<v Speaker 1>of our clothes now, even clothes that are made of

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<v Speaker 1>natural fibers quote unquote, have some plasticky stuff in them.

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<v Speaker 1>And you know, I think making clothing more affordable and

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<v Speaker 1>making it so that everybody can afford to where things

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<v Speaker 1>that make them feel nice is huge and great. And

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<v Speaker 1>in general, I don't know that I'm going to go

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<v Speaker 1>for all five because I don't know that people really

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

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<v Speaker 1>think there's a lot of things that are now within

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<v Speaker 1>the price range of the average American that wouldn't be

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<v Speaker 1>if we had to use quote unquote natural substances. And

0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.680
<v Speaker 1>natural substances aren't necessarily always better for the environment. So,

0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:46.000
<v Speaker 1>for example, we started this episode with the story about

0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.800
<v Speaker 1>wanting to find a different material to make billiard balls

0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.240
<v Speaker 1>out of because we were using elephant tusks. Oh no,

0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.160
<v Speaker 1>so everything's a trade off. You know, if we were

0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.080
<v Speaker 1>to get all of our products from nature. That would

0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:58.800
<v Speaker 1>be pretty damaging to the environment also, and so I

0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.640
<v Speaker 1>don't know, I'm Kelly. So the message here is it's complicated.

0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:04.760
<v Speaker 1>It depends you need to look at it from a

0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:05.800
<v Speaker 1>number of different angles.

0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.240
<v Speaker 2>Well, so tell me how long have we had plastic

0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.920
<v Speaker 2>I imagine it's something that came about in the space age,

0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.840
<v Speaker 2>like the sixties seventies, you know, Dow chemicals invented or something.

0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:17.800
<v Speaker 2>I'm pretty fuzzy on the history here. Educate me.

0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:20.439
<v Speaker 1>Well, So that billiard ball example, that was one of

0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:24.120
<v Speaker 1>the first examples of someone making a plastic y substance.

0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.400
<v Speaker 1>It was celluloid and it was a hard substance so

0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.640
<v Speaker 1>that you could bounce billiard balls off of each other

0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.800
<v Speaker 1>without having them like sort of dent and bend in

0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.559
<v Speaker 1>ways that would impact how they moved. They were slightly flammable,

0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:38.679
<v Speaker 1>which I mentioned in the introduction, and so if they

0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.560
<v Speaker 1>spang together sometimes they would set on fire, which would

0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.360
<v Speaker 1>actually make me watch a game of pool. And so,

0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.440
<v Speaker 1>but large scale production didn't really start until the nineteen fifties.

0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.560
<v Speaker 1>Around the nineteen fifties the nineteen sixties, like single use

0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.160
<v Speaker 1>you know, plastic spoons, single use plastic everything really became

0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.120
<v Speaker 1>fashionable as a way to make our lives easier, and

0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.560
<v Speaker 1>they were really they were much less expensive than a

0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.840
<v Speaker 1>bunch of the other stuff. And so since the nineteen fifties,

0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.679
<v Speaker 1>the amount of plastic in our lives has been increasing

0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.640
<v Speaker 1>at a tremendous rate. And that's the big plastic stuff.

0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:12.880
<v Speaker 2>And so help me understand why, Like, if we knew

0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.600
<v Speaker 2>how to make this stuff for one hundred years, why

0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.760
<v Speaker 2>do we only really begin making it in large volume

0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.280
<v Speaker 2>in the fifties. Was this after like post World War

0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.440
<v Speaker 2>two industrialization or something else.

0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:25.840
<v Speaker 1>I didn't look too much into the history of plastics,

0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:27.560
<v Speaker 1>but my sense is that it did take a while

0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.560
<v Speaker 1>to figure out the chemical processes. And so, you know,

0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.560
<v Speaker 1>plastics as a category, like encompasses loads of different kinds

0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.080
<v Speaker 1>of plastics that are good for a lot of different purposes.

0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:38.440
<v Speaker 1>And so I think it took us a while to

0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:40.880
<v Speaker 1>figure out how to make different kinds of plastics, what

0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:44.320
<v Speaker 1>they're good for, how to industrially scale up so that

0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.440
<v Speaker 1>we could, you know, use them for lots of different stuff.

0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:48.600
<v Speaker 1>How do you make injection molds for this kind of stuff.

0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:50.760
<v Speaker 1>I think all of that just took a while.

0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.360
<v Speaker 2>All right, And so we're talking about plastic spoons and

0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:57.040
<v Speaker 2>plastic medical equipment. I know Katrina uses it for her diabetes,

0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:01.319
<v Speaker 2>she has these tubes, et cetera. But nobody's manufact cturing microplastics.

0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:03.320
<v Speaker 2>What are microplastics exactly?

0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.400
<v Speaker 1>Well, people are manufacturing microplastics as I understand it, the

0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.000
<v Speaker 1>bulk of the plastics. So the bulk of the plastics is,

0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:12.679
<v Speaker 1>you know, you get a plastic bag, you get a

0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:14.880
<v Speaker 1>shirt with some plastic in it, and it ends up

0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.920
<v Speaker 1>either in a landfill or it ends up in the ocean,

0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.600
<v Speaker 1>and over time it breaks down. It could be because

0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.880
<v Speaker 1>UV radiation is breaking it down into pieces. It could

0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:26.840
<v Speaker 1>be because there are just fibers on your shirt that

0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:28.960
<v Speaker 1>go airboard and they end up on the floor in

0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.600
<v Speaker 1>your carpet in your home. So they come from big

0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.080
<v Speaker 1>plastic breaking down, but they do also come from purposefully

0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.120
<v Speaker 1>making small pieces of plastic. So for a while, it

0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:45.280
<v Speaker 1>was fashionable to have microbeads in like exfoliation stuff, so

0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:47.960
<v Speaker 1>like cosmetic stuff for like washing your face to help

0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.120
<v Speaker 1>like move dead skin cells off. We now have rules

0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.840
<v Speaker 1>in both the US and Europe against that kind of stuff,

0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.040
<v Speaker 1>but you can still end up with microplastics in I

0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.600
<v Speaker 1>think you can have them like in moisturizers. They almost

0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.000
<v Speaker 1>act like ball bearings, just making it so that things

0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.640
<v Speaker 1>go on a little bit smoother. But let's do some

0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.520
<v Speaker 1>definitions here. Microplastics are defined as things that are five

0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.960
<v Speaker 1>millimeters in size or less. That's true. Big, Yeah, that

0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:13.920
<v Speaker 1>is pretty big. That's like an ant, right, that's something

0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:17.120
<v Speaker 1>you could see. So anything five millimeters in size or

0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.840
<v Speaker 1>less is a microplastic. But we also have a category

0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.840
<v Speaker 1>called nanoplastics, and these are one micrometer in size or less,

0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.480
<v Speaker 1>So these are probably not something you're likely to see.

0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:34.680
<v Speaker 2>I hold on, microplastics are millimeter sized, nanoplastics are micrometer sized.

0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.400
<v Speaker 2>Why don't they line up the name with the size, Like,

0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.760
<v Speaker 2>why don't nanoplastics be nanometer and microplastics be micrometer? Wouldn't

0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:42.440
<v Speaker 2>that make sense?

0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.400
<v Speaker 1>That would make sense. And it's a bit ironic that

0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:50.080
<v Speaker 1>the physicist is complaining about naming. But I'm not gonna say.

0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.360
<v Speaker 2>You know what they say, Every accusation is a confession.

0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.400
<v Speaker 1>That's right, that's right. I don't know who's to blame

0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.480
<v Speaker 1>for this naming system, but yes, you're right, it's not intuitive.

0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:06.000
<v Speaker 2>Pico plastics are one nanometer in size. That's all right.

0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.720
<v Speaker 2>So we have microplastics, which are actually kind of big nanoplastics,

0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:12.520
<v Speaker 2>which is super duper small. But how much of this

0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:13.400
<v Speaker 2>really is around?

0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.480
<v Speaker 1>First, I want to say, it's really hard to estimate.

0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.360
<v Speaker 1>And while I was reading, the more recent papers are

0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.640
<v Speaker 1>estimating more and more and more. And that's because we

0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.520
<v Speaker 1>have better and better techniques for identifying smaller and smaller

0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.960
<v Speaker 1>pieces of nanoplastic. So it's pretty easy, like by eye

0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.080
<v Speaker 1>to count how many pieces of plastic fibers that are

0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.880
<v Speaker 1>five millimeters long are in a water sample, for example,

0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.000
<v Speaker 1>but looking at objects that are one micrometer or less

0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:41.760
<v Speaker 1>is much harder. But there's an estimate that fifty one

0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:47.280
<v Speaker 1>trillion microplastic particles are floating in our ocean. Trillion, trillion, trillion,

0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:49.600
<v Speaker 1>I said, trillion, Yeah, oh my gosh. I read this

0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.720
<v Speaker 1>book called A Poison Like No Other by Matt Simon,

0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.640
<v Speaker 1>and it's all about microplastics. And he talks about how

0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.960
<v Speaker 1>microplastics have been found in invertebrates in the Marianna ste

0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.720
<v Speaker 1>Trench in the most remote mountainous regions you can go to,

0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.439
<v Speaker 1>and like this has just permeated our entire world. So

0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:10.760
<v Speaker 1>you know, when we drive down the road, we kick

0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.960
<v Speaker 1>plastics off of our tires. Some of those go airborne.

0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.399
<v Speaker 1>They take air currents, you know, to the ocean or

0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:20.159
<v Speaker 1>across the ocean. Anywhere you go and sample, there's a

0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.160
<v Speaker 1>really good chance that you are going to find a microplastic.

0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.520
<v Speaker 1>I feel like I should at a caveat. I do

0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.760
<v Speaker 1>feel like that book over sells what we know about

0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.639
<v Speaker 1>the risks a bit. But if you are looking to

0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.800
<v Speaker 1>be scared and you're looking to understand where all the

0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.040
<v Speaker 1>microplastics are and how much of them are out there,

0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:41.280
<v Speaker 1>that book is encyclopedic in its laying out of where

0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.360
<v Speaker 1>we find these things and how they might be hurting us.

0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:45.960
<v Speaker 2>I'm still having my mind blown by the number. Fifty

0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:50.760
<v Speaker 2>one trillion. Yeah, more microplastics than there are stars in

0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.000
<v Speaker 2>the galaxy. Like if Elon Musk wanted to buy all

0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.040
<v Speaker 2>the microplastics for a penny each, he couldn't afford it.

0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:58.919
<v Speaker 2>It's just hard to grapple with that number.

0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.240
<v Speaker 1>It is, and again you should consider that number to

0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.320
<v Speaker 1>have huge error bars. But for example, like there was

0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.040
<v Speaker 1>a study looking at how many pieces of microplastics are

0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:08.760
<v Speaker 1>in a bottle of water, and you you know, you

0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:10.359
<v Speaker 1>think when you get a bottle of water, you're getting

0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.200
<v Speaker 1>something that's nice and clean. Some bottles of water had

0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.440
<v Speaker 1>essentially no pieces of plastic in a liter of water.

0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.560
<v Speaker 1>Others had up to ten thousand particles of plastic in

0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:20.440
<v Speaker 1>a liter of water.

0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.240
<v Speaker 2>Oh boy, they should list on the ingredients including ten

0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:24.720
<v Speaker 2>thousand part plastic.

0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.160
<v Speaker 1>That's right, well, and a lot of it probably depends

0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.640
<v Speaker 1>on like, you know, how were those water bottles stored.

0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:31.879
<v Speaker 1>Did they get like left out in the sun for

0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.240
<v Speaker 1>a few hours, because that breaks it down. Now plastics

0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.720
<v Speaker 1>are starting to come out, and part of why the

0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.200
<v Speaker 1>numbers get so big when you're talking about how many

0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.920
<v Speaker 1>pieces of microplastics are in the environment is that they

0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.840
<v Speaker 1>don't break down really well. So a big plastic bag

0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.720
<v Speaker 1>will break down into much smaller component parts, but after

0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.440
<v Speaker 1>that they don't break down the way something biological would.

0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:54.679
<v Speaker 1>So when you've got biological stuff out there, you have

0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:56.920
<v Speaker 1>decomposers that go and they eat it and they turn

0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.240
<v Speaker 1>it into other stuff. There are some plastic war is

0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.320
<v Speaker 1>that we're discovering, some like bacteria that can break down plastic,

0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.879
<v Speaker 1>but in general, plastic is a thing that wasn't really

0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:09.639
<v Speaker 1>in our environment in super high quantities in the past,

0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.680
<v Speaker 1>so evolution doesn't necessarily have a way to break it down.

0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:14.520
<v Speaker 1>Nature doesn't really have a way to break it down,

0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.640
<v Speaker 1>and so they tend to accumulate and they break down

0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:19.800
<v Speaker 1>to like some point where they're very small, and then

0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.199
<v Speaker 1>often they appear to stop breaking down and then they

0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:24.240
<v Speaker 1>just accumulate in these small sizes.

0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:26.040
<v Speaker 2>So that's the thing I'm trying to wrap my head

0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.560
<v Speaker 2>around is that plastic feels really stable, and you know,

0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.280
<v Speaker 2>if you have a coke bottle, you expect it's still

0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:32.680
<v Speaker 2>going to be there in one hundred years or a

0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.760
<v Speaker 2>thousand years or whatever. So why do they break down

0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.240
<v Speaker 2>at all? Like why do macroplastics turn into microplastics and

0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.000
<v Speaker 2>then stop breaking down. I would expect they're either stable

0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:43.359
<v Speaker 2>and a coke bottle is going to be here in

0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.040
<v Speaker 2>a million years, or it's going to break down into

0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.880
<v Speaker 2>like you know, atoplastics or whatever. The smallest fundamental bit

0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.280
<v Speaker 2>of plastic is why do they sort of stop breaking

0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:53.840
<v Speaker 2>down at the microplastic level.

0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.159
<v Speaker 1>Well, I feel like that's a chemistry question, So I'm

0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:04.280
<v Speaker 1>a little angry, but I'm kidding, But I think what's

0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.600
<v Speaker 1>happening is that, like, you know, if you've got and

0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.320
<v Speaker 1>I am joking, but you've got like a big piece

0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:10.000
<v Speaker 1>of plastic.

0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:11.960
<v Speaker 2>I just like how you said, I'm angry, but you

0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:12.760
<v Speaker 2>said it with a smile.

0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:18.119
<v Speaker 1>I'm hard to read too, so so you know, So

0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.240
<v Speaker 1>imagine you've got like a plastic bag floating on the

0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.280
<v Speaker 1>surface of the ocean. It's getting hit by UV radiation

0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.119
<v Speaker 1>and that's starting to like break some of the bonds

0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.760
<v Speaker 1>and break it into small parts. Those tiny pieces eventually

0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:30.560
<v Speaker 1>get so small that they sort of break away from

0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:32.240
<v Speaker 1>the rest of the bag and they start to sink.

0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.280
<v Speaker 1>And as they sink, they sort of end up out

0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.560
<v Speaker 1>of the reach of UV radiation, and they end up

0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:39.840
<v Speaker 1>in the sediment, or they can end up in the soil,

0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:41.800
<v Speaker 1>or they end up in the gut of something else.

0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:44.520
<v Speaker 1>And in some cases they probably do keep breaking down.

0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.000
<v Speaker 1>Like it's possible that our stomach acid breaks them down

0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.760
<v Speaker 1>a little bit. But I think in general plastics, part

0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.080
<v Speaker 1>of why they're so useful is because they are sturdy,

0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.159
<v Speaker 1>and it takes a lot to break them down. And

0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:58.480
<v Speaker 1>so maybe in a million years, of five millimeter fiber

0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.560
<v Speaker 1>plastic piece will disintegrate into its like atomic pieces. But

0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:03.560
<v Speaker 1>it's going to take a while.

0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.680
<v Speaker 2>I see. I'm always amazed at the power of UV radiation.

0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:09.639
<v Speaker 2>You know, in my house, if you burn something on

0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.000
<v Speaker 2>a pan so you can't scrub it clean, you just

0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:14.199
<v Speaker 2>put it outside for like a week, oh and the

0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.639
<v Speaker 2>sun will break it up. It's amazing what UV radiation

0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:19.680
<v Speaker 2>will do. Thank you, Southern California.

0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:22.280
<v Speaker 1>Wait, wait, what is your Okay, what does your backyard

0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.800
<v Speaker 1>look like? And how many animals have you attracted by

0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:27.880
<v Speaker 1>doing that? Because I live in a place where animals

0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.119
<v Speaker 1>want to be and they'd be licking those plates and

0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:30.800
<v Speaker 1>it would be gross.

0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:33.560
<v Speaker 2>That's fine, that's helpful. You know, some squirrel wants to

0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.600
<v Speaker 2>use their you know, long teeth on that thing scrape

0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:38.640
<v Speaker 2>some of that burnt oatmeal off the pan, like, please

0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:39.480
<v Speaker 2>help us out.

0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:43.880
<v Speaker 1>Man, all right, all right, some rabbit raccoon wants to Okay.

0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.120
<v Speaker 2>All right, So we have plastics everywhere? How long has

0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:48.760
<v Speaker 2>this sort of been something we've known about, Like plastics

0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.720
<v Speaker 2>came about in large quantities like fifty seventy years ago.

0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.399
<v Speaker 2>Was it very soon after that that we discovered that

0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:55.240
<v Speaker 2>they were everywhere?

0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.080
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I think when plastics started to go mainstream.

0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.960
<v Speaker 1>It was, you know, easy to say plastics rolling down

0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:03.760
<v Speaker 1>the street on a windy day or something like. I

0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:08.159
<v Speaker 1>think we've been aware of macroplastics as as a problem

0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:10.280
<v Speaker 1>for a long time. We're not very good at disposing

0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.720
<v Speaker 1>of them. They tend to end up in the oceans,

0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:15.440
<v Speaker 1>they tend to end up in animals. So we've known

0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:17.119
<v Speaker 1>that's been a problem for a while. And it probably

0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:20.000
<v Speaker 1>didn't surprise anyone when we first started talking about the

0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.760
<v Speaker 1>fact that it breaks down into tiny pieces. But the

0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.800
<v Speaker 1>first time of tension was really brought to this issue

0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.119
<v Speaker 1>was when a marine ecologist named Richard Thompson wrote a

0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:33.120
<v Speaker 1>paper about how he was collecting samples of sediment from

0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.119
<v Speaker 1>beaches and estuaries and the subtitle zone in the United Kingdom,

0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:40.480
<v Speaker 1>and he found microplastics in all of those places. And

0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:43.200
<v Speaker 1>he looked at plankton samples, so these are like tiny

0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:45.520
<v Speaker 1>little samples from the water column. And he looked at

0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.040
<v Speaker 1>samples from the nineteen sixties and then at various dates

0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:52.040
<v Speaker 1>getting closer to the present, and he found microplastics back

0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:54.400
<v Speaker 1>from the nineteen sixties. But he also found that they

0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.400
<v Speaker 1>were increasing over time and that even you could find

0:22:57.440 --> 0:22:59.679
<v Speaker 1>them inside of the bodies of little invertebrates that live

0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.760
<v Speaker 1>in the world, and so he noted that we don't

0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.600
<v Speaker 1>know the environmental consequences of having this stuff in the water,

0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.119
<v Speaker 1>but it's in the water. This problem is getting worse,

0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:11.280
<v Speaker 1>but it still took about a decade before people started

0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.680
<v Speaker 1>really digging in and particularly thinking about the impacts on

0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:15.320
<v Speaker 1>human health.

0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:19.600
<v Speaker 2>I love this example of digging through past samples collected

0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:24.119
<v Speaker 2>for completely separate reasons and finding evidence or answers to

0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:26.760
<v Speaker 2>a question you have later on. This is why you

0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:28.960
<v Speaker 2>should always keep all of your samples and all of

0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:30.879
<v Speaker 2>your notes, because who knows how it's going to be

0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:33.240
<v Speaker 2>useful later. This is incredible. I love that.

0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:35.800
<v Speaker 1>This is why museums are so important, because they do

0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:38.040
<v Speaker 1>they keep those samples for you, and they're in a

0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:41.639
<v Speaker 1>location where anybody can request them. So somebody, and you know, Peru,

0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:44.359
<v Speaker 1>can think of a question that requires American water samples

0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:46.520
<v Speaker 1>from the nineteen sixties or something, and if a museum

0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:49.520
<v Speaker 1>has them, they can get those data. So anyway, yay

0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:52.560
<v Speaker 1>for archiving, material behavior.

0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:55.640
<v Speaker 2>Record keeping exactly all right. So it sort of came

0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:57.960
<v Speaker 2>to the fore in the early two thousands, and then

0:23:58.000 --> 0:23:59.879
<v Speaker 2>has the field sort of exploded in research.

0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:02.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the last ten to fifteen years, we've become a

0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:05.480
<v Speaker 1>lot more interested in what it's doing in freshwater systems,

0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:08.000
<v Speaker 1>what it's doing in oceans, what it's doing in our bodies.

0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:10.040
<v Speaker 1>And let's take a break, and when we get back

0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:32.240
<v Speaker 1>from the break, we'll start digging into that stuff. All right,

0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:36.960
<v Speaker 1>So we have already established that microplastics are like everywhere,

0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:40.480
<v Speaker 1>they're kind of unavoidable, and so let's start digging into

0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:42.639
<v Speaker 1>you know, whether or not we need to worry about that.

0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:45.520
<v Speaker 1>So one thing that you maybe need to worry about

0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:48.960
<v Speaker 1>a little bit is that they bioaccumulate. So you might

0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:52.080
<v Speaker 1>have heard this word from you know, Rachel Carson's book

0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:55.600
<v Speaker 1>Silent Spring about DDT and how as you move up

0:24:55.800 --> 0:24:59.720
<v Speaker 1>the food chain you get more and more concentrated levels

0:24:59.760 --> 0:25:04.280
<v Speaker 1>of the chemicals. And so an example for microplastics is

0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:07.720
<v Speaker 1>that there was a study looking at the soil in

0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:12.200
<v Speaker 1>Mexico and they found that microplastics were a bit less

0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:15.080
<v Speaker 1>than one particle typically in each gram, But if you

0:25:15.119 --> 0:25:19.840
<v Speaker 1>pulled an earthworm out per gram of earthworm, you would

0:25:19.840 --> 0:25:23.080
<v Speaker 1>find almost fifteen particles. So the earthworms were going through

0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:27.120
<v Speaker 1>the soil and as they would ingest a piece of microplastic,

0:25:27.200 --> 0:25:29.640
<v Speaker 1>it was like staying in them. And then they looked

0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:32.639
<v Speaker 1>at chickens that were eating the earthworms, and there were

0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:35.800
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and thirty particles per gram of chicken feces

0:25:35.800 --> 0:25:38.000
<v Speaker 1>because you know, chickens were eating those. And so as

0:25:38.040 --> 0:25:40.719
<v Speaker 1>you go up the food chain for the same like mass,

0:25:40.720 --> 0:25:42.720
<v Speaker 1>you're finding more and more of these particles.

0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:45.600
<v Speaker 2>So why do the earthworms accumulate them? Is it because

0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:48.040
<v Speaker 2>they get filtered out of the soil and they stay

0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:51.080
<v Speaker 2>in the earthworms Like there's something inside the earthworm that's

0:25:51.080 --> 0:25:52.399
<v Speaker 2>like accumulating these things.

0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:55.520
<v Speaker 1>So if you were to take a snapshot of what's

0:25:55.560 --> 0:25:58.040
<v Speaker 1>inside of that earthworm, over like a year of an

0:25:58.080 --> 0:26:00.360
<v Speaker 1>earthworm's life, and I don't know how long earth works live,

0:26:00.400 --> 0:26:02.560
<v Speaker 1>it might not be a year, but like there might

0:26:02.640 --> 0:26:05.240
<v Speaker 1>be a lot of particles that they ingested but they

0:26:05.280 --> 0:26:09.240
<v Speaker 1>pooped out. But because they're going through so much soil,

0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:11.920
<v Speaker 1>if you take a snapshot, they might have about fifteen

0:26:11.960 --> 0:26:15.040
<v Speaker 1>particles per gram of earthworm because they're just moving through

0:26:15.080 --> 0:26:18.280
<v Speaker 1>tons of soil and just sort of accumulating it as

0:26:18.280 --> 0:26:18.480
<v Speaker 1>they go.

0:26:18.760 --> 0:26:21.120
<v Speaker 2>But in order to accumulate it, they have to eat

0:26:21.160 --> 0:26:25.360
<v Speaker 2>more than they poop, so they preferentially don't poop out microplastics, right,

0:26:25.400 --> 0:26:28.439
<v Speaker 2>Otherwise they would have the same density as the soil.

0:26:29.119 --> 0:26:31.240
<v Speaker 2>Like if you just pass a tube through the soil,

0:26:31.320 --> 0:26:34.280
<v Speaker 2>it's going to have exactly the same density as the

0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:37.640
<v Speaker 2>soil unless there's some filter in there that's like accumulating

0:26:37.680 --> 0:26:40.520
<v Speaker 2>the microplastics or preferentially not pooping them out.

0:26:40.560 --> 0:26:40.760
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:26:40.960 --> 0:26:43.560
<v Speaker 1>Yep, Yeah, that's a great point. You're right, they're accumulating them.

0:26:43.600 --> 0:26:45.240
<v Speaker 1>They might poop some of them out, but in general

0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:46.520
<v Speaker 1>they tend to be accumulating them.

0:26:46.640 --> 0:26:49.159
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Interesting, And so then the chickens eat those and

0:26:49.200 --> 0:26:53.320
<v Speaker 2>then it gets more concentrated, and eventually when you're eating chicken,

0:26:53.400 --> 0:26:54.400
<v Speaker 2>it's like half plastic.

0:26:54.560 --> 0:26:57.600
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, not necessarily half plastic, but there's a fair bit

0:26:57.640 --> 0:27:00.159
<v Speaker 1>of plastic in there. But one thing that's important in

0:27:00.240 --> 0:27:04.800
<v Speaker 1>mind is that not all plastic matters the same from

0:27:04.840 --> 0:27:07.320
<v Speaker 1>a standpoint of ingesting it. So you can get plastics

0:27:07.320 --> 0:27:10.000
<v Speaker 1>in your body either by inhaling it because a lot

0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:14.000
<v Speaker 1>of it goes airborne, or by ingesting it, and our

0:27:14.040 --> 0:27:17.159
<v Speaker 1>bodies will defecate and urinate out a lot of the

0:27:17.200 --> 0:27:20.320
<v Speaker 1>plastics that we consume, and if you breathe it in

0:27:20.640 --> 0:27:25.159
<v Speaker 1>are what is it called our mucociliary elevator or something

0:27:25.200 --> 0:27:28.880
<v Speaker 1>basically like we will like hawk it up. And actually

0:27:28.880 --> 0:27:31.399
<v Speaker 1>maybe Matt wants to remove that sound effect.

0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:33.919
<v Speaker 2>I don't think no, I think you should keep that.

0:27:34.200 --> 0:27:36.080
<v Speaker 2>And I just wish that the audience could see the

0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:40.200
<v Speaker 2>face you made.

0:27:40.600 --> 0:27:43.600
<v Speaker 1>I was pretty expressive there. But so you know, you

0:27:43.680 --> 0:27:45.120
<v Speaker 1>cough it up and then you can spit it out

0:27:45.240 --> 0:27:46.560
<v Speaker 1>or swallow it and then it'll end up in your

0:27:46.560 --> 0:27:48.679
<v Speaker 1>feces and anyway, all very gross. But our body has

0:27:48.720 --> 0:27:50.359
<v Speaker 1>ways of getting rid of a lot of this stuff.

0:27:50.640 --> 0:27:54.639
<v Speaker 1>But if you've got nanoplastics that are small enough, they

0:27:54.680 --> 0:27:57.760
<v Speaker 1>can pass across our alveoli, which is a point in

0:27:57.800 --> 0:28:00.560
<v Speaker 1>our lungs where our lungs are sort of in facing

0:28:00.560 --> 0:28:03.240
<v Speaker 1>with our blood, and they can get into our bloodstream,

0:28:03.720 --> 0:28:05.919
<v Speaker 1>or sometimes they can move across our gut into the

0:28:05.920 --> 0:28:08.359
<v Speaker 1>rest of the body. So very small pieces can end

0:28:08.440 --> 0:28:10.320
<v Speaker 1>up in other parts of the body where they're not

0:28:10.400 --> 0:28:12.280
<v Speaker 1>going to get removed, or they're much less likely to

0:28:12.320 --> 0:28:12.880
<v Speaker 1>get removed.

0:28:13.000 --> 0:28:14.720
<v Speaker 2>And I've heard it said that we eat like a

0:28:14.800 --> 0:28:17.679
<v Speaker 2>credit cards worth or a bottle cap worth of plastics

0:28:17.720 --> 0:28:20.720
<v Speaker 2>every year or every week or whatever. Is that true,

0:28:20.960 --> 0:28:22.560
<v Speaker 2>or is that people overworrying.

0:28:23.160 --> 0:28:25.920
<v Speaker 1>There was a study that came up with that figure

0:28:26.000 --> 0:28:29.680
<v Speaker 1>and that went like global, just like microplastics, it ended

0:28:29.760 --> 0:28:33.119
<v Speaker 1>up everywhere. But there was another study that looked at

0:28:33.160 --> 0:28:36.800
<v Speaker 1>the numbers a little more critically and they ended up

0:28:36.840 --> 0:28:40.800
<v Speaker 1>deciding something like you would require twenty three thousand years

0:28:40.920 --> 0:28:43.040
<v Speaker 1>or something like that to acquire the amount of plastic

0:28:43.120 --> 0:28:46.440
<v Speaker 1>that that paper was estimating. And so that I think

0:28:46.480 --> 0:28:48.840
<v Speaker 1>what most of us have heard about plastic getting in

0:28:48.880 --> 0:28:54.120
<v Speaker 1>our body is pretty overblown. But that said, they have

0:28:54.320 --> 0:28:59.040
<v Speaker 1>found plastic in human brains. So this was they did autopsies,

0:28:59.080 --> 0:29:01.520
<v Speaker 1>so somebody had already paid away and they looked through

0:29:01.560 --> 0:29:04.240
<v Speaker 1>the brain to look for plastics and they found it.

0:29:04.320 --> 0:29:08.120
<v Speaker 1>Plastics have been found in plaques in our arteries, so

0:29:08.160 --> 0:29:10.320
<v Speaker 1>when your arteries are getting clogged, there's some little pieces

0:29:10.360 --> 0:29:11.040
<v Speaker 1>of plastic in there.

0:29:11.080 --> 0:29:11.280
<v Speaker 2>Two.

0:29:11.920 --> 0:29:15.840
<v Speaker 1>It has been found in testicles, kidneys, livers, like anywhere

0:29:15.880 --> 0:29:20.120
<v Speaker 1>you can imagine, maybe not wanting plastic to be, plastic

0:29:20.200 --> 0:29:24.120
<v Speaker 1>is there. And we found plastic in maconium. Daniel, do

0:29:24.160 --> 0:29:26.120
<v Speaker 1>you remember, I mean I probably said it wrong, let's

0:29:26.160 --> 0:29:28.360
<v Speaker 1>just be clear, but do you remember what maconium is?

0:29:28.520 --> 0:29:30.240
<v Speaker 1>This is a word I only needed to know the

0:29:30.280 --> 0:29:32.040
<v Speaker 1>definition of once or twice in my life.

0:29:32.240 --> 0:29:36.080
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it sounds familiar. It sounds like mucus. Is it

0:29:36.440 --> 0:29:38.120
<v Speaker 2>something gross inside the body?

0:29:38.360 --> 0:29:39.880
<v Speaker 1>It's your baby's first poop?

0:29:40.160 --> 0:29:43.840
<v Speaker 2>Oh, of course, yes, of course, mconium. I remember that.

0:29:43.920 --> 0:29:45.160
<v Speaker 2>Now it's weird looking.

0:29:45.200 --> 0:29:47.480
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, yes, it's weird looking, and it has plastic

0:29:47.480 --> 0:29:52.560
<v Speaker 1>in it, and so that means it's probably microplastics or nanoplastics.

0:29:52.560 --> 0:29:55.760
<v Speaker 1>Probably nanoplastics are passing from mom to the fetus, and

0:29:55.800 --> 0:29:59.000
<v Speaker 1>the fetus is already, you know, defecating them out pretty soon.

0:29:59.240 --> 0:30:01.960
<v Speaker 1>So we start our life with these microplastics with us.

0:30:02.520 --> 0:30:06.320
<v Speaker 2>And we talked recently about water filtration systems and these

0:30:06.400 --> 0:30:10.360
<v Speaker 2>amazing processes that clean up our water. Are microplastics too

0:30:10.400 --> 0:30:11.720
<v Speaker 2>small to be filtered out?

0:30:12.120 --> 0:30:13.360
<v Speaker 1>No?

0:30:13.080 --> 0:30:13.520
<v Speaker 3>Not so.

0:30:13.640 --> 0:30:17.320
<v Speaker 1>About ninety five percent of the microplastics that go into

0:30:17.760 --> 0:30:22.000
<v Speaker 1>the wastewater treatment plant are removed through the various processes.

0:30:22.560 --> 0:30:26.320
<v Speaker 1>There's a lot of microfibers that go to wastewater treatment

0:30:26.360 --> 0:30:29.160
<v Speaker 1>plants because a bunch of the wastewater that goes to

0:30:29.160 --> 0:30:32.400
<v Speaker 1>those treatment plants is from when we wash our laundry

0:30:33.320 --> 0:30:35.920
<v Speaker 1>or from like our shampoos and body washes. And stuff,

0:30:35.960 --> 0:30:39.000
<v Speaker 1>and our clothes every time we wash them are shedding

0:30:39.520 --> 0:30:42.720
<v Speaker 1>loads of microplastics, and so lots of stuff gets to

0:30:42.760 --> 0:30:45.480
<v Speaker 1>the wastewater treatment plants. About ninety five percent of it

0:30:45.520 --> 0:30:48.600
<v Speaker 1>gets removed. Sometimes the sludge that gets collected at some

0:30:48.640 --> 0:30:51.080
<v Speaker 1>of these plants will get used for other purposes, like

0:30:51.120 --> 0:30:53.880
<v Speaker 1>as a fertilizer, and in that case the microplastics could

0:30:53.880 --> 0:30:56.160
<v Speaker 1>get back into the environment. But if they're just put

0:30:56.160 --> 0:30:58.240
<v Speaker 1>in a landfill, they're probably going to be fine. But

0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:01.080
<v Speaker 1>a lot of them do still get through these wastewater

0:31:01.120 --> 0:31:03.920
<v Speaker 1>treatment plants, and there were some data from twenty fourteen

0:31:03.960 --> 0:31:06.560
<v Speaker 1>to twenty sixteen that estimated that something like eight to

0:31:06.680 --> 0:31:11.400
<v Speaker 1>thirteen billion pieces of microbeads were being released from treatment

0:31:11.440 --> 0:31:15.240
<v Speaker 1>plants into freshwater systems every day. And we're trying to

0:31:15.320 --> 0:31:18.000
<v Speaker 1>use fewer microbeads, but there's still a bunch of these

0:31:18.000 --> 0:31:21.600
<v Speaker 1>getting into our freshwater systems. But they also get into

0:31:21.680 --> 0:31:26.200
<v Speaker 1>freshwater systems or our oceans through other routes. For example,

0:31:26.360 --> 0:31:30.240
<v Speaker 1>a huge source of plastic is our tires, and so

0:31:30.360 --> 0:31:33.000
<v Speaker 1>when we drive, we're wearing some of the plastic off

0:31:33.000 --> 0:31:35.000
<v Speaker 1>of those tires, and that ends up either in the

0:31:35.040 --> 0:31:36.720
<v Speaker 1>air or sometimes it ends up on the side of

0:31:36.720 --> 0:31:39.080
<v Speaker 1>the road, and then the next time it rains, it

0:31:39.160 --> 0:31:41.560
<v Speaker 1>takes those little pieces of plastic into our rivers and

0:31:41.560 --> 0:31:43.720
<v Speaker 1>our lakes, and then in some cases it brings it

0:31:43.760 --> 0:31:46.720
<v Speaker 1>to our oceans. And so yeah, those are some major

0:31:46.800 --> 0:31:49.280
<v Speaker 1>sources of plastic into our aquatic systems.

0:31:49.960 --> 0:31:52.920
<v Speaker 2>And so it's everywhere, and we found in our bodies,

0:31:53.080 --> 0:31:57.320
<v Speaker 2>including our brains and all the other important bits. Why

0:31:57.440 --> 0:31:59.320
<v Speaker 2>is this an issue or is it an issue or

0:31:59.360 --> 0:32:01.680
<v Speaker 2>why might it be an issue for our health?

0:32:02.000 --> 0:32:05.600
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so we're not super clear on it. First all,

0:32:05.640 --> 0:32:08.000
<v Speaker 1>I want to say that we've done some experiments on fish,

0:32:08.120 --> 0:32:10.719
<v Speaker 1>and the fish seem to get kind of messed up.

0:32:10.760 --> 0:32:12.400
<v Speaker 1>So fish end up, you know, they eat the little

0:32:12.400 --> 0:32:16.600
<v Speaker 1>invertebrates that eat the microplastics, and then they accumulate it

0:32:16.600 --> 0:32:19.360
<v Speaker 1>in their own body. And we found that microplastics can

0:32:19.480 --> 0:32:22.440
<v Speaker 1>mess with things like how the fish move, It can

0:32:22.520 --> 0:32:25.320
<v Speaker 1>damage their intestines. I think in some cases we found

0:32:25.360 --> 0:32:28.040
<v Speaker 1>that it reduces their growth, and it seems to reduce

0:32:28.080 --> 0:32:30.320
<v Speaker 1>their growth because it essentially like takes up space in

0:32:30.360 --> 0:32:33.840
<v Speaker 1>their gut and they like feel like they've eaten, but

0:32:33.920 --> 0:32:37.120
<v Speaker 1>they haven't eaten anything that's nutritious and so you know,

0:32:37.160 --> 0:32:39.560
<v Speaker 1>they lose weight and that can impact their reproduction and

0:32:39.560 --> 0:32:41.440
<v Speaker 1>stuff like that. So we know that there are some

0:32:41.480 --> 0:32:43.800
<v Speaker 1>examples where it's been a problem in fish, but fish

0:32:44.160 --> 0:32:47.280
<v Speaker 1>are swimming in this environment with loads of microplastics, so

0:32:47.320 --> 0:32:48.680
<v Speaker 1>that might not tell us what we need to know

0:32:48.720 --> 0:32:52.640
<v Speaker 1>about people. So here are some of the top issues

0:32:52.680 --> 0:32:55.960
<v Speaker 1>that we worry about for microplastics. One of the main

0:32:56.000 --> 0:32:59.680
<v Speaker 1>issues that we worry about is that these microplastics tend

0:32:59.840 --> 0:33:05.080
<v Speaker 1>to to attract and stick to other stuff in the environment. So,

0:33:05.280 --> 0:33:09.640
<v Speaker 1>for example, they stick to heavy metals PCBs, which are

0:33:09.640 --> 0:33:14.040
<v Speaker 1>polychlorinated by phenols and some other kinds of toxic material,

0:33:14.240 --> 0:33:17.840
<v Speaker 1>and they get what's called sorbed by the plastic.

0:33:18.840 --> 0:33:21.080
<v Speaker 2>Absorbed, not absorbed, just sorbed.

0:33:22.000 --> 0:33:23.000
<v Speaker 1>I think it's sorbed.

0:33:23.280 --> 0:33:25.000
<v Speaker 2>Is that what the kids are saying these days?

0:33:25.040 --> 0:33:27.600
<v Speaker 1>Wow, that's what the science kids are saying these days.

0:33:27.640 --> 0:33:32.200
<v Speaker 1>Very generous to call us kids. But so they pick

0:33:32.280 --> 0:33:35.200
<v Speaker 1>up these toxic compounds and then when they get into

0:33:35.320 --> 0:33:39.680
<v Speaker 1>your body, they could release those toxic compounds. And so

0:33:40.120 --> 0:33:42.239
<v Speaker 1>while a piece of plastic on its own might not

0:33:42.360 --> 0:33:45.800
<v Speaker 1>cause a problem, if it's bringing, for example, mercury into

0:33:45.840 --> 0:33:49.040
<v Speaker 1>your body and then depositing the mercury. The mercury could

0:33:49.040 --> 0:33:50.720
<v Speaker 1>be the problem. Does that make sense?

0:33:50.880 --> 0:33:52.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, absolutely it does.

0:33:52.640 --> 0:33:52.840
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:33:53.000 --> 0:33:56.480
<v Speaker 1>Other things that tend to stick to these fibers include bacteria,

0:33:56.960 --> 0:34:00.320
<v Speaker 1>and there's some concern that the way bacteria aggregate, they

0:34:00.360 --> 0:34:02.920
<v Speaker 1>form like biofilms where maybe they could be sharing like

0:34:02.960 --> 0:34:06.160
<v Speaker 1>antibiotic resistant genes or something. This sounded a little bit

0:34:06.200 --> 0:34:09.439
<v Speaker 1>more speculative from what I could tell. But bacteria stick

0:34:09.480 --> 0:34:12.160
<v Speaker 1>to them, and so do viruses, and so these pieces

0:34:12.160 --> 0:34:14.719
<v Speaker 1>of plastic could be ways that bacteria and virus make

0:34:14.760 --> 0:34:15.640
<v Speaker 1>it into your body.

0:34:15.800 --> 0:34:19.239
<v Speaker 2>So basically they're dirty, they're not just weird and artificial

0:34:19.360 --> 0:34:20.760
<v Speaker 2>and everywhere they're dirty.

0:34:21.160 --> 0:34:24.239
<v Speaker 1>They are. But this also contributes to why they're so

0:34:24.360 --> 0:34:27.840
<v Speaker 1>hard to study, right, because whether or not plastic is

0:34:27.920 --> 0:34:30.040
<v Speaker 1>bad for you is going to depend on what the

0:34:30.080 --> 0:34:32.920
<v Speaker 1>plastics saw before it went to you. So like the

0:34:32.960 --> 0:34:36.160
<v Speaker 1>same kind of plastic and an environment with no mercury

0:34:36.239 --> 0:34:38.480
<v Speaker 1>might do nothing, but the same kind of plastic in

0:34:38.520 --> 0:34:40.359
<v Speaker 1>an environment where it can pick up mercury and then

0:34:40.400 --> 0:34:42.600
<v Speaker 1>get to you could cause a lot of trouble.

0:34:42.719 --> 0:34:45.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, exactly, And these things must be easier to study

0:34:45.280 --> 0:34:47.760
<v Speaker 2>in the lab. And then that doesn't really answer questions

0:34:47.800 --> 0:34:50.319
<v Speaker 2>about what happens in reality where most of us live.

0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:54.600
<v Speaker 1>Amen, Yes, it gets super complicated. So then another thing

0:34:54.719 --> 0:34:57.920
<v Speaker 1>that makes it all complicated is that added to the

0:34:57.960 --> 0:35:02.160
<v Speaker 1>plastic are chemicals that help you, for example, make plastic

0:35:02.200 --> 0:35:04.799
<v Speaker 1>that are soft and are like easier to move. So

0:35:04.840 --> 0:35:07.399
<v Speaker 1>for example, if you think of your water bottles, that's

0:35:07.440 --> 0:35:09.960
<v Speaker 1>you can squeeze those, it bends a little bit. But

0:35:10.000 --> 0:35:12.920
<v Speaker 1>then there's other chemicals that make plastics stiffer and harder.

0:35:12.960 --> 0:35:15.640
<v Speaker 1>So for example, if you have a Nalgene bottle, when

0:35:15.640 --> 0:35:18.319
<v Speaker 1>you squeeze that, it doesn't have much give. And so

0:35:18.640 --> 0:35:21.240
<v Speaker 1>these chemicals that we add to the plastic can also

0:35:21.360 --> 0:35:24.920
<v Speaker 1>cause problems in addition to the plastic. So for example,

0:35:25.400 --> 0:35:35.560
<v Speaker 1>there's a class of chemicals called thalates. What it's pH thh.

0:35:34.840 --> 0:35:37.400
<v Speaker 2>What pH that's not allowed?

0:35:37.680 --> 0:35:40.360
<v Speaker 1>No, not in the English language. It shouldn't be. But

0:35:40.640 --> 0:35:43.560
<v Speaker 1>so I'm just gonna thallates. I'm just gonna call I'm

0:35:43.560 --> 0:35:46.640
<v Speaker 1>gonna pretend to the p is silent. The pH is silent.

0:35:47.440 --> 0:35:50.200
<v Speaker 1>And these tend to be used to soften plastics, and

0:35:50.400 --> 0:35:52.880
<v Speaker 1>they're pretty common in our bodies. So there was a

0:35:52.880 --> 0:35:55.480
<v Speaker 1>survey done in eight to ten out of the baby's

0:35:55.520 --> 0:35:58.920
<v Speaker 1>surveyed had thollates in their body, and nearly all of

0:35:58.920 --> 0:36:01.520
<v Speaker 1>the adults that were surveyed it had them too. And

0:36:01.880 --> 0:36:06.239
<v Speaker 1>this chemical is associated with reduced sperm count and motility.

0:36:06.400 --> 0:36:08.680
<v Speaker 2>No, I know, I don't like that. That's not good.

0:36:08.800 --> 0:36:11.960
<v Speaker 1>No, But the results here are mixed. So like, if

0:36:12.000 --> 0:36:15.359
<v Speaker 1>you were making a million sperm and now you make

0:36:15.520 --> 0:36:19.400
<v Speaker 1>nine hundred and fifty thousand sperm, should you care? And

0:36:19.440 --> 0:36:21.160
<v Speaker 1>the answer is, maybe.

0:36:21.200 --> 0:36:23.719
<v Speaker 2>Those are fifty thousand of my boys we're talking about here.

0:36:23.840 --> 0:36:26.600
<v Speaker 1>You weren't gonna make use of all those boys anyway, Daniel.

0:36:28.480 --> 0:36:30.520
<v Speaker 1>So there was a study that was looking at like

0:36:30.840 --> 0:36:33.920
<v Speaker 1>people who had various amounts of exposure to this stuff

0:36:33.920 --> 0:36:36.840
<v Speaker 1>and how long it took for them and their partner

0:36:36.960 --> 0:36:38.799
<v Speaker 1>to get pregnant or you know, for the woman to

0:36:38.800 --> 0:36:42.560
<v Speaker 1>get pregnant. Yeah, And it looked like there wasn't necessarily

0:36:42.680 --> 0:36:45.800
<v Speaker 1>an association between exposure to a certain kind of thallate

0:36:46.200 --> 0:36:49.280
<v Speaker 1>and how long it took to get your partner pregnant.

0:36:49.320 --> 0:36:51.680
<v Speaker 1>And so the point is, maybe sperm counts are lower,

0:36:51.719 --> 0:36:56.239
<v Speaker 1>but that doesn't necessarily result in infertility issues all the time.

0:36:56.680 --> 0:36:59.959
<v Speaker 2>All right, But sperm counts I think are dropping anyway, right,

0:37:00.120 --> 0:37:03.880
<v Speaker 2>and we've been talking about how there's fertility issues already,

0:37:03.920 --> 0:37:06.880
<v Speaker 2>so anything that pushes sperm counts lower is definitely not

0:37:06.920 --> 0:37:09.480
<v Speaker 2>going to be good for fertility, right. I think you're

0:37:09.560 --> 0:37:12.120
<v Speaker 2>arguing that this is a small effect, but still a

0:37:12.120 --> 0:37:15.800
<v Speaker 2>small effect on average can have some measurable impact on

0:37:15.840 --> 0:37:16.879
<v Speaker 2>the number of babies.

0:37:16.560 --> 0:37:19.600
<v Speaker 1>Born, right, Yes, And there are some communities who would

0:37:19.680 --> 0:37:22.760
<v Speaker 1>argue that a big part of the decline infertility could

0:37:22.760 --> 0:37:26.319
<v Speaker 1>be because of things like plastic related chemicals in our

0:37:26.400 --> 0:37:28.799
<v Speaker 1>water or whatever are being ingested with the food that

0:37:28.840 --> 0:37:31.120
<v Speaker 1>we eat, and so yeah, it could play a role,

0:37:31.160 --> 0:37:33.480
<v Speaker 1>and it could play a role in aggregate. Maybe it's

0:37:33.520 --> 0:37:37.640
<v Speaker 1>just playing a small role in that overall trend. There's

0:37:37.680 --> 0:37:40.120
<v Speaker 1>some work done in lab animals like mice that do

0:37:40.239 --> 0:37:45.480
<v Speaker 1>find definitely quantifiable impacts from exposure to thalites on the mice.

0:37:45.680 --> 0:37:49.520
<v Speaker 1>And so the question is if a mouse has infertility,

0:37:49.560 --> 0:37:52.000
<v Speaker 1>does that mean that a human's going to have infertility?

0:37:52.239 --> 0:37:55.719
<v Speaker 1>We don't necessarily know, And often animals in the lab

0:37:55.719 --> 0:37:58.399
<v Speaker 1>are exposed to much higher concentrations of the chemicals than

0:37:58.440 --> 0:38:01.120
<v Speaker 1>we are exposed to on a day to day basis,

0:38:01.160 --> 0:38:03.560
<v Speaker 1>for example, and so it's hard to know how to

0:38:03.600 --> 0:38:06.680
<v Speaker 1>tie those things together. But there is some risk that

0:38:06.760 --> 0:38:10.160
<v Speaker 1>these chemicals are having some impacts on fertility related issues.

0:38:10.719 --> 0:38:12.840
<v Speaker 1>But we don't really know how much we should be

0:38:12.880 --> 0:38:15.120
<v Speaker 1>worried about this happening for humans yet.

0:38:15.280 --> 0:38:17.840
<v Speaker 2>All right, So, Kelly's given us two reasons to worry

0:38:17.920 --> 0:38:21.320
<v Speaker 2>so far. They can trap stuff, they can be toxic chemicals.

0:38:21.320 --> 0:38:22.880
<v Speaker 2>When we come back from the break, we're going to

0:38:22.920 --> 0:38:26.600
<v Speaker 2>hear about more reasons to worry, including Daniel's number one

0:38:26.800 --> 0:38:49.960
<v Speaker 2>reason to worry about microplastics. Oh okay, we're back and

0:38:49.960 --> 0:38:52.440
<v Speaker 2>we're talking about all those little bits of plastic that

0:38:52.520 --> 0:38:55.799
<v Speaker 2>are everywhere in the earth and in you right now

0:38:55.960 --> 0:38:59.480
<v Speaker 2>swimming through your body? Are hundreds thousands? How many bits

0:38:59.480 --> 0:39:01.600
<v Speaker 2>of micropack are in each of our listeners?

0:39:01.640 --> 0:39:04.160
<v Speaker 1>Kelly, Oh I that would be very hard to quantify.

0:39:04.160 --> 0:39:05.960
<v Speaker 1>I don't know exactly how many pieces are in each

0:39:05.960 --> 0:39:06.279
<v Speaker 1>of us.

0:39:07.840 --> 0:39:10.160
<v Speaker 2>We want numbers. I want an individual list of numbers

0:39:10.200 --> 0:39:11.000
<v Speaker 2>for each listener.

0:39:11.040 --> 0:39:13.360
<v Speaker 1>Okay, well, give me a lot more money. And also

0:39:13.440 --> 0:39:15.280
<v Speaker 1>there's going to need to be a lot of slaughter

0:39:15.480 --> 0:39:18.440
<v Speaker 1>because to get those numbers usually requires an autopsy. So

0:39:19.080 --> 0:39:21.160
<v Speaker 1>let's just say we probably all have at least a

0:39:21.400 --> 0:39:24.960
<v Speaker 1>microplastic piece in us, and that's probably quite an underestimate.

0:39:24.520 --> 0:39:26.239
<v Speaker 2>All right, but it sounds like if you really want

0:39:26.280 --> 0:39:28.280
<v Speaker 2>to know, and you're willing to volunteer for an autopsy,

0:39:28.400 --> 0:39:32.640
<v Speaker 2>Kelly will give you a solid answer. Nope, that's a no. Okay,

0:39:32.840 --> 0:39:36.200
<v Speaker 2>that's a nope. Do not ship your body to Kelly

0:39:36.280 --> 0:39:38.600
<v Speaker 2>to get an answer to this question, turns out nope,

0:39:38.640 --> 0:39:39.640
<v Speaker 2>All right, nope.

0:39:39.920 --> 0:39:41.400
<v Speaker 1>Oh so you said you were going to tell us

0:39:41.400 --> 0:39:44.080
<v Speaker 1>your number one fear from microplastics, So go ahead, let's

0:39:44.080 --> 0:39:44.319
<v Speaker 1>hear that.

0:39:44.400 --> 0:39:46.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Well, my number one reason to worry about microplastics

0:39:47.080 --> 0:39:51.200
<v Speaker 2>is we don't understand the body. It's a big, complicated system,

0:39:51.280 --> 0:39:53.160
<v Speaker 2>and there's lots of things that we do to it

0:39:53.200 --> 0:39:54.840
<v Speaker 2>all the time that we don't understand how it works.

0:39:54.960 --> 0:39:58.040
<v Speaker 2>Like I think thailan All still not fully understood. Why

0:39:58.040 --> 0:40:00.799
<v Speaker 2>does thilan All work, or why do all these sechoactive

0:40:00.800 --> 0:40:04.160
<v Speaker 2>medications work, And so there's just a lack of a

0:40:04.239 --> 0:40:06.680
<v Speaker 2>mechanistic understanding of how this is how the body works.

0:40:06.719 --> 0:40:08.879
<v Speaker 2>It seems to me like you just throw a bunch

0:40:08.880 --> 0:40:11.480
<v Speaker 2>of plastic in there. You can't predict what's going to happen,

0:40:11.920 --> 0:40:14.160
<v Speaker 2>and so many weird and terrible things are happening to

0:40:14.200 --> 0:40:17.000
<v Speaker 2>people all the time, it's hard to know like how

0:40:17.040 --> 0:40:19.840
<v Speaker 2>much of this is due to eating plastic or not

0:40:19.960 --> 0:40:22.720
<v Speaker 2>eating plastic. And so to me, the number one concern

0:40:22.840 --> 0:40:26.160
<v Speaker 2>is something we can't predict because the system is too complicated.

0:40:26.320 --> 0:40:29.120
<v Speaker 1>And I think that is absolutely spot on. Yeah, I

0:40:29.160 --> 0:40:31.480
<v Speaker 1>totally agree with you. And one point that I want

0:40:31.480 --> 0:40:33.320
<v Speaker 1>to go back to really quick. We were talking about

0:40:33.360 --> 0:40:36.480
<v Speaker 1>thalates and there are possible impacts on the human body.

0:40:36.680 --> 0:40:38.359
<v Speaker 1>I want to be clear that we do know that

0:40:38.400 --> 0:40:41.760
<v Speaker 1>at very high doses, at high exposure, these things definitely

0:40:41.760 --> 0:40:45.640
<v Speaker 1>are bad. So the question isn't thalates good or bad?

0:40:46.000 --> 0:40:52.000
<v Speaker 1>The question is thalates at very low concentrations are they

0:40:52.200 --> 0:40:54.520
<v Speaker 1>bad enough that we want to give up all of

0:40:54.520 --> 0:40:57.880
<v Speaker 1>the benefits we get by having thalates. And there's another

0:40:57.960 --> 0:41:01.080
<v Speaker 1>chemical that we have the same discs, and that chemical

0:41:01.480 --> 0:41:03.960
<v Speaker 1>is bis phenol a, And just like with thalites, we

0:41:03.960 --> 0:41:07.120
<v Speaker 1>don't totally understand whether we need to be worried about

0:41:07.160 --> 0:41:08.839
<v Speaker 1>it and how much we need to be worried about it.

0:41:09.080 --> 0:41:12.880
<v Speaker 1>But we know that this finyl a acts like estrogen

0:41:12.920 --> 0:41:15.360
<v Speaker 1>in the body. So in some cases it mimics estrogen,

0:41:15.440 --> 0:41:18.279
<v Speaker 1>making your body think there's more estrogen, and in other

0:41:18.360 --> 0:41:21.200
<v Speaker 1>cases it will like bind to receptor where estrogen should

0:41:21.280 --> 0:41:23.960
<v Speaker 1>be and now estrogen can't get to it, and so

0:41:24.000 --> 0:41:26.400
<v Speaker 1>your body should be getting a message from estrogen and

0:41:26.440 --> 0:41:27.640
<v Speaker 1>that message isn't going through.

0:41:27.880 --> 0:41:30.720
<v Speaker 2>And so this is a great example. People are like, BPA,

0:41:30.760 --> 0:41:33.560
<v Speaker 2>what could it do? It's probably fine. O turns out

0:41:33.640 --> 0:41:34.840
<v Speaker 2>maybe it's not fine.

0:41:35.200 --> 0:41:36.919
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And there was a study that found that about

0:41:36.960 --> 0:41:39.360
<v Speaker 1>ninety three percent of people have BPA in their urine,

0:41:39.400 --> 0:41:41.160
<v Speaker 1>so just about all of us are exposed to it.

0:41:41.560 --> 0:41:43.800
<v Speaker 1>And for all of these chemicals, you might be most

0:41:43.880 --> 0:41:46.760
<v Speaker 1>worried if a fetus or a baby is being exposed

0:41:46.760 --> 0:41:49.880
<v Speaker 1>when like tons of development stuff is happening. And so

0:41:49.920 --> 0:41:51.840
<v Speaker 1>there were rules saying like, hey, look we need a

0:41:51.880 --> 0:41:55.840
<v Speaker 1>lot less bysfhinyl a in things like baby bodels because

0:41:55.880 --> 0:41:59.919
<v Speaker 1>we're worried about what tinkering with estrogen could do. There's

0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:03.719
<v Speaker 1>some evidence that it's associated with increased blood pressure, type

0:42:03.719 --> 0:42:07.640
<v Speaker 1>two diabetes, cardiovascular disease. Long down the road, it also

0:42:07.680 --> 0:42:10.800
<v Speaker 1>can impact the brain and the prostate gland of feces

0:42:10.840 --> 0:42:12.440
<v Speaker 1>and stuff. Lots of reasons to worry.

0:42:12.840 --> 0:42:15.120
<v Speaker 2>You said prostate gland of feces, but I think you

0:42:15.160 --> 0:42:15.840
<v Speaker 2>mean fetuses.

0:42:16.600 --> 0:42:17.840
<v Speaker 1>I did I feces.

0:42:19.760 --> 0:42:21.680
<v Speaker 2>You just got poop on the brain. I get it.

0:42:22.080 --> 0:42:25.080
<v Speaker 1>No I do, I do. Sorry, the brain and prostate

0:42:25.160 --> 0:42:30.200
<v Speaker 1>gland of fetuses not feces. Anyway, lots of reasons to worry.

0:42:30.239 --> 0:42:31.799
<v Speaker 1>So we tried to cut down on the use of

0:42:31.800 --> 0:42:35.160
<v Speaker 1>byspinyl a. But the problem is that this chemical is

0:42:35.239 --> 0:42:39.160
<v Speaker 1>really helpful for making plastics stiffer and harder, and so

0:42:39.440 --> 0:42:43.240
<v Speaker 1>we've replaced bisphinyla with something that has a very similar

0:42:43.280 --> 0:42:45.440
<v Speaker 1>shape because we want that same shape so that we

0:42:45.480 --> 0:42:48.319
<v Speaker 1>still get our nice hard plastics. So we've replaced it with,

0:42:48.440 --> 0:42:52.400
<v Speaker 1>for example, bisphinyl s, and we think that actually, maybe

0:42:52.440 --> 0:42:55.160
<v Speaker 1>this other thing does a lot of the same stuff

0:42:55.160 --> 0:42:57.439
<v Speaker 1>to our body that bisphinyla does. So when you see

0:42:57.440 --> 0:43:01.799
<v Speaker 1>a bottle that says doesn't contain BP, that doesn't mean

0:43:01.840 --> 0:43:06.759
<v Speaker 1>that it doesn't contain a very similar bisfunyl thing. So yeah,

0:43:06.800 --> 0:43:10.759
<v Speaker 1>it's hard to replace these things while still keeping the plastics.

0:43:11.000 --> 0:43:12.960
<v Speaker 1>We love doing the things that we love them to do.

0:43:13.400 --> 0:43:16.680
<v Speaker 2>I love those indications on food that make you feel like, oh,

0:43:16.719 --> 0:43:19.480
<v Speaker 2>it's healthy, Like when you look at jolly ranchers and

0:43:19.480 --> 0:43:21.759
<v Speaker 2>they say fat free and you're like, yeah, that's because

0:43:21.760 --> 0:43:25.040
<v Speaker 2>it's one hundred percent sugar. That's right, that's right, doesn't

0:43:25.040 --> 0:43:25.960
<v Speaker 2>make it a health food.

0:43:27.120 --> 0:43:29.480
<v Speaker 1>I like things that are like cholesterol free. I'm like, well, yeah,

0:43:29.480 --> 0:43:32.400
<v Speaker 1>because it it couldn't have cholesterol in it, because we

0:43:32.440 --> 0:43:35.279
<v Speaker 1>know where cholesterol comes from. And it's like, no rat

0:43:35.320 --> 0:43:38.280
<v Speaker 1>feces in this. It's like, well, it shouldn't have rat feces,

0:43:38.840 --> 0:43:41.000
<v Speaker 1>and what does that imply about the other material?

0:43:41.040 --> 0:43:44.359
<v Speaker 2>Anyway, It's but I do appreciate the nuance here that

0:43:44.600 --> 0:43:46.400
<v Speaker 2>you could say, let's just get rid of all of it.

0:43:46.440 --> 0:43:49.480
<v Speaker 2>But you're right that plastics have improved our lives and

0:43:49.480 --> 0:43:52.640
<v Speaker 2>there's positivity there. And it sounds like we're being, you know,

0:43:53.480 --> 0:43:56.640
<v Speaker 2>shills for big microplastics, as ironic as that name is,

0:43:57.200 --> 0:43:59.400
<v Speaker 2>but it's true that, you know, you wouldn't want to

0:43:59.400 --> 0:44:02.160
<v Speaker 2>just get rid of plastics even if there is a

0:44:02.239 --> 0:44:04.919
<v Speaker 2>cost to human health, because it also saves lives. Right,

0:44:05.239 --> 0:44:08.240
<v Speaker 2>having these medical supplies et cetera, et cetera does save lives.

0:44:08.280 --> 0:44:11.120
<v Speaker 2>And so really the question, as always, is a nuanced one.

0:44:11.120 --> 0:44:13.480
<v Speaker 2>It's like, does it do more harm than good?

0:44:13.880 --> 0:44:16.320
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? And so let's dig in for a second into

0:44:16.360 --> 0:44:19.160
<v Speaker 1>all the reasons why it's hard to really understand why

0:44:19.200 --> 0:44:22.040
<v Speaker 1>this stuff is bad for people. So one we talked

0:44:22.040 --> 0:44:24.920
<v Speaker 1>about how you can cough, sneeze, poop, or pee a

0:44:24.960 --> 0:44:27.799
<v Speaker 1>lot of this stuff out. So just because you're exposed

0:44:27.840 --> 0:44:30.720
<v Speaker 1>to something like bisfinil A doesn't mean that your body

0:44:30.760 --> 0:44:34.120
<v Speaker 1>isn't going to excrete it before it causes any damage

0:44:34.280 --> 0:44:37.200
<v Speaker 1>or break it down before it causes any damage. But

0:44:37.360 --> 0:44:39.840
<v Speaker 1>maybe it is causing damage, and so we need to

0:44:40.000 --> 0:44:42.759
<v Speaker 1>research this a lot more to figure out how we

0:44:42.760 --> 0:44:44.960
<v Speaker 1>get exposed to it, how our bodies respond to it,

0:44:45.040 --> 0:44:47.480
<v Speaker 1>how much of it is bad. But there does seem

0:44:47.480 --> 0:44:50.360
<v Speaker 1>to be a move, for example, in Europe to decrease

0:44:50.400 --> 0:44:54.160
<v Speaker 1>the amount of allowable things like bisfineles, because we are

0:44:54.239 --> 0:44:56.239
<v Speaker 1>deciding as the data comes in, oh, this is a

0:44:56.280 --> 0:44:59.040
<v Speaker 1>little scary, we don't want to risk it. The other

0:44:59.120 --> 0:45:01.920
<v Speaker 1>problem is that plast sticks come in loads of shapes

0:45:01.960 --> 0:45:04.120
<v Speaker 1>and sizes, and some of them are more likely to

0:45:04.160 --> 0:45:07.799
<v Speaker 1>get into our bloodstream, for example, than others, and when

0:45:07.880 --> 0:45:11.759
<v Speaker 1>they break down, they break down into thousands of different chemicals,

0:45:11.760 --> 0:45:14.800
<v Speaker 1>many of which we haven't looked at for health impacts yet.

0:45:15.040 --> 0:45:18.040
<v Speaker 1>So it could be that like ninety percent of plastics

0:45:18.080 --> 0:45:20.600
<v Speaker 1>are okay, but there's ten percent that break down into

0:45:20.800 --> 0:45:23.920
<v Speaker 1>super toxic stuff and that's what's causing the problem, or

0:45:23.960 --> 0:45:26.680
<v Speaker 1>maybe all the chemicals that it breaks down into are bad.

0:45:26.719 --> 0:45:28.439
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to sound like you've got me worried

0:45:28.480 --> 0:45:31.520
<v Speaker 1>now that I sound like I'm a shill for big microplastic.

0:45:33.760 --> 0:45:35.880
<v Speaker 1>This stuff is complicated, and you need to decide on

0:45:35.920 --> 0:45:38.359
<v Speaker 1>your own how worried you are about it. We also

0:45:38.360 --> 0:45:42.400
<v Speaker 1>don't have very good methods for counting and quantifying plastics

0:45:42.400 --> 0:45:44.920
<v Speaker 1>in the human body. I mentioned that you can look

0:45:44.960 --> 0:45:48.040
<v Speaker 1>at this stuff during an autopsy, but then once you've

0:45:48.080 --> 0:45:51.200
<v Speaker 1>got these micro or these nanoplastics that you've collected from

0:45:51.280 --> 0:45:54.200
<v Speaker 1>an autopsy, how do you know what kind of plastics

0:45:54.200 --> 0:45:57.439
<v Speaker 1>they were in particular, and what about it was bad?

0:45:57.480 --> 0:45:59.480
<v Speaker 1>So you know, maybe one plastic in the brain has

0:45:59.600 --> 0:46:02.080
<v Speaker 1>thali attached to it and one has bispinyl a, And

0:46:02.400 --> 0:46:05.120
<v Speaker 1>how do you quantify the total impact of all of

0:46:05.160 --> 0:46:07.839
<v Speaker 1>that on our bodies. It's very complicated when there's lots

0:46:07.840 --> 0:46:11.319
<v Speaker 1>of stuff interacting. And one thing that also makes it

0:46:11.320 --> 0:46:16.160
<v Speaker 1>complicated is that for things like bysfhinyla, this old phrase

0:46:16.239 --> 0:46:19.799
<v Speaker 1>the dose makes the poison doesn't really stand. So for

0:46:19.880 --> 0:46:24.799
<v Speaker 1>things like mercury, probably the more mercury, you ingest the

0:46:24.840 --> 0:46:26.759
<v Speaker 1>worse it is, we don't want to have a lot

0:46:26.760 --> 0:46:29.719
<v Speaker 1>of that. But with a lot of hormones, they have

0:46:29.800 --> 0:46:33.680
<v Speaker 1>this weird way of interacting with our body where low

0:46:33.719 --> 0:46:36.960
<v Speaker 1>doses and high doses can have the biggest impact, but

0:46:37.040 --> 0:46:40.560
<v Speaker 1>intermediate doses sometimes have low impacts. So it's almost like

0:46:40.600 --> 0:46:43.000
<v Speaker 1>the letter you if you're looking at it on a graph.

0:46:43.239 --> 0:46:45.239
<v Speaker 1>And so it's not necessarily the case that more and

0:46:45.239 --> 0:46:48.000
<v Speaker 1>more and more and more is worse, but having a

0:46:48.000 --> 0:46:49.920
<v Speaker 1>little bit could be really bad, or having a lot

0:46:49.960 --> 0:46:51.960
<v Speaker 1>could be really bad, And so it just makes it

0:46:52.080 --> 0:46:56.320
<v Speaker 1>even harder to figure out these associations and try to

0:46:56.320 --> 0:46:58.400
<v Speaker 1>get a handle on how bad and what doses are

0:46:58.440 --> 0:46:59.240
<v Speaker 1>okay for people.

0:46:59.520 --> 0:47:03.480
<v Speaker 2>Okay, then give me a overview of like potential things

0:47:03.520 --> 0:47:06.240
<v Speaker 2>to worry about in terms of effect on human health.

0:47:06.640 --> 0:47:08.040
<v Speaker 2>I'm not going to have more kids, so I don't

0:47:08.200 --> 0:47:10.799
<v Speaker 2>really need to worry about my boys swimming anymore. But

0:47:10.840 --> 0:47:13.360
<v Speaker 2>beyond fertility, what concerns are there for human health?

0:47:13.800 --> 0:47:18.800
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So again we don't really understand the mechanism totally

0:47:18.800 --> 0:47:20.959
<v Speaker 1>for some of this stuff, but one concern is that

0:47:21.239 --> 0:47:24.040
<v Speaker 1>there might be earlier puberty. So, for example, from the

0:47:24.080 --> 0:47:27.520
<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventies to today, I think puberty has moved up by

0:47:27.520 --> 0:47:30.560
<v Speaker 1>something like a year on average. And so the question

0:47:30.719 --> 0:47:34.280
<v Speaker 1>is do having all of these chemicals that mimic estrogen

0:47:34.320 --> 0:47:37.640
<v Speaker 1>in the environments, is that, for example, moving up puberty

0:47:37.680 --> 0:47:41.360
<v Speaker 1>time for women and women who enter puberty earlier, I

0:47:41.400 --> 0:47:43.399
<v Speaker 1>believe they have a higher risk of things like breast

0:47:43.440 --> 0:47:47.759
<v Speaker 1>cancer later on. So there could be bigger implications than oh, man,

0:47:47.800 --> 0:47:50.520
<v Speaker 1>I've got my period a year earlier. It could have

0:47:50.600 --> 0:47:54.799
<v Speaker 1>more health impacts down the line. There's also some proposed

0:47:54.880 --> 0:47:59.800
<v Speaker 1>link between obesity and microplastics. So obesity has increased in

0:47:59.840 --> 0:48:03.719
<v Speaker 1>the United States, you know, roughly along the line as

0:48:03.800 --> 0:48:07.799
<v Speaker 1>are increasing use of plastics. But a lot of things

0:48:07.800 --> 0:48:10.000
<v Speaker 1>have changed about the United States over that amount of

0:48:10.000 --> 0:48:12.320
<v Speaker 1>time too. You know, it's probably easier to get fast

0:48:12.320 --> 0:48:15.239
<v Speaker 1>food and less healthy food, So it's really hard over

0:48:15.280 --> 0:48:18.920
<v Speaker 1>time to tease these things apart. But plastics could be

0:48:18.920 --> 0:48:21.080
<v Speaker 1>playing a role because we have seen that some kinds

0:48:21.120 --> 0:48:23.799
<v Speaker 1>of plastics and the chemicals that they carry into our

0:48:23.840 --> 0:48:27.480
<v Speaker 1>bodies change the way our bodies metabolize food and the

0:48:27.520 --> 0:48:30.120
<v Speaker 1>way our bodies make fat cells and stuff like that.

0:48:30.560 --> 0:48:34.000
<v Speaker 1>And we found that lab animals and domestic pets are

0:48:34.040 --> 0:48:37.359
<v Speaker 1>more likely to be obese as well, and those are

0:48:37.400 --> 0:48:40.439
<v Speaker 1>animals that are exposed to plastics a lot because of us.

0:48:40.880 --> 0:48:43.560
<v Speaker 1>And so you know, maybe we're seeing an indirect effect

0:48:43.920 --> 0:48:45.759
<v Speaker 1>in our lab animals and our pets that.

0:48:45.840 --> 0:48:48.480
<v Speaker 2>We have to be very cautious in concluding anything from

0:48:48.520 --> 0:48:51.960
<v Speaker 2>correlation studies, right, because yes, these things could just be random.

0:48:52.040 --> 0:48:55.319
<v Speaker 2>Like if you've seen the correlation between ice cream and murder, right,

0:48:55.360 --> 0:48:59.120
<v Speaker 2>it's very tight. Doesn't mean ice cream causes murder. It

0:48:59.200 --> 0:49:01.160
<v Speaker 2>means you tend to have ice cream more in the summer,

0:49:01.160 --> 0:49:03.280
<v Speaker 2>and people tend to commit murderers more in the summer,

0:49:03.360 --> 0:49:05.640
<v Speaker 2>maybe because they're not getting enough ice cream. Actually, so

0:49:05.680 --> 0:49:07.400
<v Speaker 2>maybe ice cream suppresses murder.

0:49:07.440 --> 0:49:10.080
<v Speaker 1>Who knows, that's right. Maybe I think we probably all

0:49:10.120 --> 0:49:11.120
<v Speaker 1>need more ice cream.

0:49:11.200 --> 0:49:12.680
<v Speaker 2>Now we're big shells for ice cream.

0:49:12.880 --> 0:49:14.840
<v Speaker 1>Great, I'm okay with that that.

0:49:14.880 --> 0:49:18.759
<v Speaker 2>I'm okay with microplastic free big ice cream. All right,

0:49:18.880 --> 0:49:21.160
<v Speaker 2>there you go. So we're worried about puberty, we're worried

0:49:21.200 --> 0:49:24.240
<v Speaker 2>about ovcity. What else should we be worried about?

0:49:24.560 --> 0:49:28.000
<v Speaker 1>There's some concern about cardiovascular issues. So, for example, there

0:49:28.000 --> 0:49:30.080
<v Speaker 1>was a twenty twenty four paper in the New England

0:49:30.160 --> 0:49:34.080
<v Speaker 1>Journal of Medicine, where people went through surgeries to remove

0:49:34.440 --> 0:49:37.080
<v Speaker 1>plaques in their arteries. So this is like removing the

0:49:37.120 --> 0:49:39.080
<v Speaker 1>build up of stuff that was clogging up the stuff

0:49:39.080 --> 0:49:41.359
<v Speaker 1>in the arteries leading to the heart. And after they

0:49:41.440 --> 0:49:43.960
<v Speaker 1>removed that stuff, they put it under a microscope and

0:49:44.000 --> 0:49:46.239
<v Speaker 1>they looked to see if they were microplastics in there,

0:49:46.560 --> 0:49:48.960
<v Speaker 1>and about half of the people that they looked at

0:49:49.280 --> 0:49:52.600
<v Speaker 1>had microplastics in there, a couple different kinds of microplastics.

0:49:52.640 --> 0:49:55.040
<v Speaker 1>They tried to quantify the different kinds, but then they

0:49:55.120 --> 0:49:58.560
<v Speaker 1>followed those people for thirty four months after the plaque

0:49:58.560 --> 0:50:03.920
<v Speaker 1>was Removedeople who had microplastics in there were more likely

0:50:04.000 --> 0:50:09.520
<v Speaker 1>to have encountered a myocardial infarction, a stroke, or death. Essentially,

0:50:10.000 --> 0:50:13.960
<v Speaker 1>their heart was likely to have some additional problems in

0:50:14.000 --> 0:50:17.040
<v Speaker 1>the like year and a half or more after plaque

0:50:17.040 --> 0:50:18.760
<v Speaker 1>removal if those plaques had plastic.

0:50:19.120 --> 0:50:22.480
<v Speaker 2>Infarction is a word. It's not just a typo for infraction.

0:50:22.320 --> 0:50:25.000
<v Speaker 1>And infarction is an obstruction of the blood supply to

0:50:25.040 --> 0:50:28.240
<v Speaker 1>an organ or region of tissue, typically a thrombosis or embolists,

0:50:28.280 --> 0:50:29.520
<v Speaker 1>causing local death of the tissue.

0:50:29.560 --> 0:50:31.759
<v Speaker 2>So yes, it's also a word that, for some reason

0:50:31.920 --> 0:50:35.280
<v Speaker 2>is just hilarious. It's a word like weasel or booger, infarction.

0:50:35.440 --> 0:50:37.319
<v Speaker 2>It just sounds funny to me. I don't know, I

0:50:37.320 --> 0:50:39.839
<v Speaker 2>know it's not funny when it kills you, but it's

0:50:39.840 --> 0:50:40.640
<v Speaker 2>a funny word.

0:50:40.880 --> 0:50:42.920
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yeah, yeah, A booger is funny when it happens

0:50:42.960 --> 0:50:46.400
<v Speaker 1>to you, and infarction is not. But uh, maybe a

0:50:46.400 --> 0:50:48.880
<v Speaker 1>booger's not funny depending on the context. But anyway, it

0:50:48.880 --> 0:50:51.719
<v Speaker 1>makes me laugh. So you mentioned that a problem with

0:50:51.800 --> 0:50:56.080
<v Speaker 1>observational studies is that you don't know what is causing

0:50:56.200 --> 0:50:58.640
<v Speaker 1>the correlation. So, for example, it could be that the

0:50:58.760 --> 0:51:04.120
<v Speaker 1>people who had microplastics in their plaques are people who

0:51:04.160 --> 0:51:06.880
<v Speaker 1>were more likely to I don't know, get McDonald's that

0:51:06.920 --> 0:51:10.360
<v Speaker 1>are in those like plastic wrappers, and you know, something

0:51:10.400 --> 0:51:14.440
<v Speaker 1>about their diet resulted in them having more microplastics, and

0:51:14.480 --> 0:51:16.880
<v Speaker 1>then they didn't change that aspect of their life after

0:51:16.920 --> 0:51:20.040
<v Speaker 1>the surgery, and that's what led to the problems they

0:51:20.080 --> 0:51:22.919
<v Speaker 1>had down the road. So it's really hard to tease

0:51:22.960 --> 0:51:26.880
<v Speaker 1>apart cause and effect and you know what is causing

0:51:26.920 --> 0:51:29.480
<v Speaker 1>this problem when you're looking at an observational study.

0:51:29.719 --> 0:51:32.080
<v Speaker 2>All right, So there's lots of reasons to worry, but

0:51:32.120 --> 0:51:35.640
<v Speaker 2>we don't have a great mechanistic understanding or really an

0:51:35.719 --> 0:51:39.640
<v Speaker 2>idea for what problems could be caused. So what can

0:51:39.680 --> 0:51:43.200
<v Speaker 2>we do? What are your prescriptions for improving our lives?

0:51:43.640 --> 0:51:46.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so I'd say that the emerging picture is that

0:51:46.120 --> 0:51:49.360
<v Speaker 1>there are reasons to potentially worry.

0:51:49.600 --> 0:51:51.160
<v Speaker 2>There's always reasons to worry, Kelly.

0:51:51.200 --> 0:51:53.680
<v Speaker 1>There's always reasons to worry, I know. And so you

0:51:53.719 --> 0:51:57.359
<v Speaker 1>can decide how concerned the information we've talked about, how

0:51:57.360 --> 0:51:59.640
<v Speaker 1>concerning that is to you. But there are some things

0:51:59.640 --> 0:52:01.319
<v Speaker 1>you can do in your day to day life to

0:52:02.040 --> 0:52:05.319
<v Speaker 1>protect the environment. Let's start with those. So one, there

0:52:05.320 --> 0:52:07.399
<v Speaker 1>are like filters that you can get that go on

0:52:07.440 --> 0:52:10.799
<v Speaker 1>your laundry machine to collect some of those microfibers so

0:52:10.840 --> 0:52:13.040
<v Speaker 1>that they don't go into the wastewater treatment plant and

0:52:13.040 --> 0:52:16.279
<v Speaker 1>then they don't go into the ocean. You can, you know,

0:52:16.360 --> 0:52:18.640
<v Speaker 1>try to buy clothes that are meant to last a

0:52:18.680 --> 0:52:21.479
<v Speaker 1>little bit longer so that you're not buying as many

0:52:21.600 --> 0:52:25.440
<v Speaker 1>clothes and that would result in less you know, microplastics.

0:52:25.480 --> 0:52:27.839
<v Speaker 1>You could take public transportation so that you're not wearing

0:52:27.880 --> 0:52:30.560
<v Speaker 1>out your own tires. There's lots of little things that

0:52:30.600 --> 0:52:31.120
<v Speaker 1>you could.

0:52:30.960 --> 0:52:33.319
<v Speaker 2>Do you can invent flying cars so I don't need

0:52:33.360 --> 0:52:34.160
<v Speaker 2>tires anymore.

0:52:34.320 --> 0:52:36.840
<v Speaker 1>Well, I think some people are working on devices to

0:52:36.920 --> 0:52:40.279
<v Speaker 1>collect plastic as they get released from tires, and that

0:52:40.560 --> 0:52:42.399
<v Speaker 1>seems like it could be pretty tough. You'd maybe never

0:52:42.440 --> 0:52:45.040
<v Speaker 1>get all of it, but you know, you could try

0:52:45.080 --> 0:52:48.000
<v Speaker 1>to work on technologies that make this stuff easier to

0:52:48.040 --> 0:52:50.360
<v Speaker 1>remove from the environment. But if you're worried about your

0:52:50.400 --> 0:52:54.080
<v Speaker 1>own personal risk, some things that you can do include

0:52:54.440 --> 0:52:58.080
<v Speaker 1>eating from glass or metal containers instead of plastic. If

0:52:58.080 --> 0:53:01.719
<v Speaker 1>you have tupperware containers, don't wash them in your dishwasher

0:53:01.760 --> 0:53:04.400
<v Speaker 1>because that gets really hot it starts breaking down the plastics.

0:53:04.680 --> 0:53:07.920
<v Speaker 1>Those microplastics could come off in your food. Things like

0:53:08.040 --> 0:53:12.080
<v Speaker 1>vacuuming regularly are important because you're dropping plastic fibers all

0:53:12.120 --> 0:53:14.520
<v Speaker 1>the time from your clothes and they end up on

0:53:14.560 --> 0:53:16.160
<v Speaker 1>the floor and then they can get kicked up into

0:53:16.160 --> 0:53:19.800
<v Speaker 1>the air as you're walking around. Maybe not drinking bottled

0:53:19.840 --> 0:53:22.160
<v Speaker 1>water because those tend to have plastics, but there's also

0:53:22.239 --> 0:53:25.600
<v Speaker 1>plastic in tapwater. But if you get a reverse osmosis filter,

0:53:26.080 --> 0:53:28.759
<v Speaker 1>you can take some of it out, but those are expensive,

0:53:29.640 --> 0:53:33.759
<v Speaker 1>and if you remove the microplastics, you're also removing minerals

0:53:33.760 --> 0:53:35.319
<v Speaker 1>and salts and stuff, and you might want to add

0:53:35.360 --> 0:53:37.480
<v Speaker 1>some of that stuff back in. A lot of this

0:53:37.520 --> 0:53:40.520
<v Speaker 1>stuff is complicated, so you need to decide what are

0:53:40.560 --> 0:53:44.520
<v Speaker 1>your most likely exposure risks and how concerned are you,

0:53:45.200 --> 0:53:47.440
<v Speaker 1>because again there are trade offs, maybe a lot of

0:53:47.440 --> 0:53:50.200
<v Speaker 1>this stuff at doses. You know, like I live in

0:53:50.200 --> 0:53:52.320
<v Speaker 1>the middle of nowhere. I don't probably breathe in a

0:53:52.360 --> 0:53:56.160
<v Speaker 1>lot of tire stuff. My water comes from the ground,

0:53:56.200 --> 0:53:59.400
<v Speaker 1>and while groundwater does sometimes have some plastics, my groundwater

0:53:59.440 --> 0:54:01.160
<v Speaker 1>where I am probably doesn't have a lot of it.

0:54:01.440 --> 0:54:02.560
<v Speaker 2>So we should all move in with you.

0:54:02.640 --> 0:54:06.400
<v Speaker 1>It sounds like I mean no, no, actually, because then

0:54:07.320 --> 0:54:11.120
<v Speaker 1>then it wouldn't be quite as pristine. But anyway, like,

0:54:11.120 --> 0:54:13.839
<v Speaker 1>I'm not too worried about my exposure to plastics because

0:54:13.920 --> 0:54:16.320
<v Speaker 1>I use a lot of ceramic and stainless steel stuff,

0:54:16.640 --> 0:54:19.040
<v Speaker 1>so I'm not too worried. But you know, you should

0:54:19.200 --> 0:54:21.640
<v Speaker 1>think about the various ways you encounter plastic in your

0:54:21.680 --> 0:54:24.360
<v Speaker 1>life and then decide if you are concerned or not,

0:54:24.440 --> 0:54:26.560
<v Speaker 1>and if you want to make any changes, it's up to.

0:54:26.520 --> 0:54:29.680
<v Speaker 2>You, And as is my habit, the night before we record,

0:54:29.719 --> 0:54:33.080
<v Speaker 2>I usually ask Katrina what she thinks about an episode

0:54:33.160 --> 0:54:35.439
<v Speaker 2>just to hear she has some ideas. So I asked

0:54:35.480 --> 0:54:39.480
<v Speaker 2>her what she thought we could do to reduce our microplastics.

0:54:39.719 --> 0:54:41.280
<v Speaker 2>And here's what she had to say.

0:54:41.880 --> 0:54:45.400
<v Speaker 8>Well, eating fiber forms a matrix that will protect you

0:54:45.400 --> 0:54:47.560
<v Speaker 8>from all toxins. Think of it like a brit of filter,

0:54:48.160 --> 0:54:51.759
<v Speaker 8>where it's sucking up the toxins and preventing them from

0:54:51.800 --> 0:54:55.960
<v Speaker 8>being absorbed into your body. So if you're eating fiber,

0:54:56.040 --> 0:54:59.200
<v Speaker 8>then you've got this gel that sticks with you down

0:54:59.239 --> 0:55:02.120
<v Speaker 8>to your colon. If there's also microplastics in your food

0:55:02.160 --> 0:55:04.759
<v Speaker 8>and water, it gets sucked up into that so that

0:55:04.840 --> 0:55:07.560
<v Speaker 8>it doesn't get absorbed by your intestinal cells.

0:55:08.040 --> 0:55:10.520
<v Speaker 2>So Katrina is big on fiber, so maybe no surprise

0:55:10.719 --> 0:55:12.920
<v Speaker 2>that she prescribes fiber for everybody.

0:55:13.120 --> 0:55:14.799
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was going to ask if the answer to

0:55:14.840 --> 0:55:17.480
<v Speaker 1>every question in the Whites and household is beans.

0:55:17.520 --> 0:55:22.560
<v Speaker 2>Beans, She seeds beans fiber. It's good. She's just rooting

0:55:22.560 --> 0:55:25.880
<v Speaker 2>for the microbes inside everybody to help with the microplastics.

0:55:26.040 --> 0:55:28.480
<v Speaker 1>Well, we could probably all use more fiber anyway. And

0:55:28.760 --> 0:55:30.759
<v Speaker 1>there are some studies in mice, for example, that find

0:55:30.760 --> 0:55:34.919
<v Speaker 1>that microplastics disrupt the gut microbiome, so fiber can help

0:55:34.960 --> 0:55:37.279
<v Speaker 1>you in the battle against plastics in a lot of

0:55:37.320 --> 0:55:39.560
<v Speaker 1>different ways, and so, you know, I want to be

0:55:39.560 --> 0:55:41.640
<v Speaker 1>clear throughout this episode. You know, I've tried to make

0:55:41.640 --> 0:55:44.200
<v Speaker 1>sure I was including caveats about whether or not this

0:55:44.360 --> 0:55:46.960
<v Speaker 1>is likely to be important, Like I don't want people

0:55:46.960 --> 0:55:50.200
<v Speaker 1>to be freaking out. There are some reasons to be concerned,

0:55:50.600 --> 0:55:53.759
<v Speaker 1>but at the moment, there's just so many different places

0:55:53.840 --> 0:55:57.279
<v Speaker 1>we can encounter plastics, and so many different kinds of plastics,

0:55:57.280 --> 0:56:00.520
<v Speaker 1>and so many different contingencies that matter, like where the

0:56:00.520 --> 0:56:02.400
<v Speaker 1>plastic was before it got to you. That we just

0:56:02.400 --> 0:56:04.560
<v Speaker 1>don't have a very good handle on this problem yet.

0:56:05.280 --> 0:56:07.960
<v Speaker 1>And this is all the more reason to invest in

0:56:08.000 --> 0:56:10.640
<v Speaker 1>basic science so we can try to understand this better.

0:56:11.040 --> 0:56:13.239
<v Speaker 1>But like so many risks in life, you got to

0:56:13.280 --> 0:56:15.919
<v Speaker 1>kind of decide for yourself, how concerned am I going

0:56:15.960 --> 0:56:17.360
<v Speaker 1>to be given what we know about this.

0:56:17.920 --> 0:56:20.200
<v Speaker 2>So don't worry too much, don't worry too little, worry

0:56:20.440 --> 0:56:21.240
<v Speaker 2>just the right.

0:56:21.120 --> 0:56:25.400
<v Speaker 1>Amount that's right, Just the right amount. Good luck with that.

0:56:26.320 --> 0:56:29.080
<v Speaker 1>And the reason we talked about microplastics today is because

0:56:29.080 --> 0:56:31.600
<v Speaker 1>a listener sent us an email saying I would love

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<v Speaker 1>to know more about microplastics. So I sent this episode

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<v Speaker 1>to them, and let's see what they had to say.

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<v Speaker 9>Plastic is a wonderful material and all its different applications

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<v Speaker 9>and all the different fields where it's an essential material.

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<v Speaker 9>Although I don't believe that we.

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<v Speaker 10>Need to be more picky how we use plastic, and

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<v Speaker 10>we need to cut some products from our lives, especially

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<v Speaker 10>the disposed of single use ones that are quite unnecessary.

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<v Speaker 10>I believe I'm deeply concerned for the effect microplastics have

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<v Speaker 10>on smaller creatures, especially.

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<v Speaker 9>Ocean creatures as you mentioned in the episode, and.

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<v Speaker 11>The effects that they may have on their larger food

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<v Speaker 11>chains and ecosystems. It might sound bleak, but I'm less

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<v Speaker 11>so concerned for the effects on human health, as we are,

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<v Speaker 11>of course the responsible ones. But thank you Daniel and

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<v Speaker 11>Kelly for the episode is informative. I learned some new things,

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<v Speaker 11>and thank you for picking my suggestion.

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<v Speaker 1>Thank you very much for that feedback. We did end

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<v Speaker 1>up focusing a lot on human aspects of impacts of microplastics,

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<v Speaker 1>but there's definitely evidence that microplastics and aquatic ecosystems are

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<v Speaker 1>bad and impact a variety of different organisms in negative ways.

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<v Speaker 1>So I think at a minimum, it would be important

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<v Speaker 1>for all of us to think about how we can

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<v Speaker 1>cut back on plastics in our lives, and we should

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<v Speaker 1>think about what we're doing too organisms beside ourselves. So yes,

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<v Speaker 1>thank you for making that important point.

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<v Speaker 2>All right, well, thanks everyone for sending in your questions,

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<v Speaker 2>for being curious about the nature of the world. Though

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<v Speaker 2>we don't have a clear prescription about how you should

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<v Speaker 2>live your life, at least now you're better informed about

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<v Speaker 2>what we do and don't know about microplastics.

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<v Speaker 1>Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

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