One Word: Plastics

One day several years ago I got in the shower and noticed that someone in the household had purchased a new-fangled kind of body wash that was ... well, scrubby. It had tiny little beads made out of plastic in it.

The first thing I thought was that that sounded like it might be a pretty good exfoliating kind of thing.

The second thing I thought was "in what universe do those tiny little pieces of plastic not go down the drain, out through sewage treatment, etc., into the food chain and end up back in my intestinal tract?"

And then I pretty much forgot about it until something caught my attention the other day -- I don't remember exactly what -- and kept niggling at me until I did a little Googling, and voila:

[A 2019] study, "Human Consumption of Microplastics,” looked at the presence of microplastics in fish, shellfish, sugars, salt, honey, sugar, beer and bottled water, as well as air intake. Microplastics refers to tiny pieces of plastic that range from a single nanometer to about five millimeters. Sources include primary microplastics that are manufactured as microbes, capsules, fibers and pellets used in cosmetics, personal care products, abrasives and textiles. ... Researchers evaluated about 15 percent of American's caloric intake and estimated that annual microplastic consumption ranges from 29,000 to 52,000 particles, depending on age and sex. The estimates increased to 74,000 to 121,000 particles when inhalation was considered. Further, the researchers said individuals who meet their recommended water intake through bottled water alone could be ingesting an additional 90,000 microplastics annually, compared to 4,000 for those who drink only tap water.

And that's when a third thing occurred to me:

I'm not likely to ever make the short list for a Nobel in any of the sciences. If I understood what was going to happen within a minute of first noticing the damn things, is there any chance whatsoever that the people who created and deployed them hadn't figured it out long before they put those products on the market?

Anyone want to suggest an over/under on when we'll start seeing "if you have blah-blah-blah cancer-stuff that may have resulted from ingestion of microplastics, call 1-800-AMBULANCE-CHASERS -- you may be entitled to compensation!" ads on TV?