Ask Lemmy

Fairly worried. I limit plastic but even limited it's in a lot. I want to install a filter on my washing machine to help catch micro plastics from my clothes. I have a septic but I think it would still be helpful in adding yet another barrier before they filter into groundwater.

I'm a little more worried since they said that it will create blockages in your veins and arteries so you're more likely to stroke the fuck out.

Everything sucks and there isn't much to do about it on the individual scale and the push to put the moral onus on consumers is fucking bullshit. I'm 90% certain the recycling service I pay extra for just dumps it with my regular garbage.

I don't sit around thinking about microplastics. Microplastics are something to worry about when you are making purchases, but not something you can realistically worry about while living the rest of your life.

Most of your microplastics aren't coming from your tide pods anyway. They actually come from plastic fibers in your clothing that get abraded in your washer and dryer.

What can you do about it? Try to use glass, metal and ceramic cookware. Avoid teflon cookware. Purchase clothing that has all natural fibers. Avoid facial scrubs that have micro beads, although those have been banned pretty much every in the US in the last decade.

At the end of the day, I worry about microplastics about as much as I worry about irradiated iodine from nuclear bomb tests.

No. Why worry about things you can't change?

No.

Surely if microplastics were a problem the government would intervene and put regulations on the corporations producing them.

I'm not. I'm 52 years old. That ship sailed for me a long time ago.