oops

I remember when I found out that shit was plastic. I always assumed they were organic material of some kind, like the body scrubs with the crushed up walnut shell in it (which probably has fucking microplastic in it, too). So disgusting.

This is why we need to change how shit works. It shouldn't go: company does some shit > fall out > government steps in. It should go: company has an idea > must get permission first from environmental agencies

Nah corporations really don't give a shit at all, like all chewing gum is literally just plastic too and sheds tons of microplastics into your mouth as you chew it.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/rethink-chewing-gum-habit-essentially-plastic/
Plastic is an organic material though, so your assumption was correct.
- The difference is in the definition or organic. When the average person thinks organic, they mean something that is or used to be alive. When a scientist think organic, they're talking about carbon compounds.
- Interesting. Always thought chewing gum was more like when you made "plastic" out of the caesin in milk.
Plastic is an organic material, trees are mostly plastic (lignin, a phenolic polymer, cellulose a polysaccharide polymer, hemicellulose an heteropolysaccharide and suberin a polyester-like polymer).
The problem we're having is a naturalistic fallacy crossed with the unpleasant fact that almost everything we touch sheds dust and powder absolutely everywhere. This along with spores and yeast and other dusts constantly enter our bodies.
Plastic is only of note because we made it.
Any problems beyond that is speculative and will requires ginormous gobs of grant money to actually answer with anything than precautionary principle-based FUD.
- Hydrocarbon based plastic absolutely isnt natural, there are many different kinds of plastic in existence but overwhelmingly stuff from the last 50 years has been the ~~inorganic hydrocarbon~~ non biodegradable hydrocarbon type which doesn't break down and is likely a endocrinologal distruptor & a carcinogen.
i assumed it was just glass or similar, maybe the same material as those moisture-absorbing silica packets
- There are probably some with sand and other hard minerals, I think Dove had some soaps with aluminum oxide in it?

Wtf is this meme border?

bordering on insanity
It's that bullshit when they take a vertically oriented picture/video, stretch it and blur it to a 4:3 ratio, and center the content over it.
Imo a waste of bandwidth and computer power for people who can't cope with the idea of vertical content on a horizontal screen, on a platform primarily accessed by phones anyway.

Used to?

Map of countries where they're banned
- Chalk one up for the good old US of A. Gotta take our wins where we can get em.
  I used to use a facial scrub with the plastic beads. I look back and it's like what the fuck, but at the time it was fine. Sorry world.
- Chuckles, I am in danger
- dam us government trying to prevent colorful toothpaste

Plastic gotta be this age's lead/quicksilver.

It is. Along with PFAS.
- The PFAS/PFOA controversy, is mostly about banning these commodity products so that the proprietary, non-commodity alternatives by western companies can become the only high temperature dry lubricant on sale.
  Maybe in another 60 years we'll have the same controversy about them !
Except plastic doesn't really seem to do anything. It just "is there". Unless you swallow enough of it to clog something, it doesn't seem to do anything.
We've seens lots of "it might interefere with hormones", but that part is always to be confirmed in the next research grant request and then we never hear about it again.
- Plastics are a broad category. But specific plasticizers, like BPA, have been demonstrated to cause specific endocrine issues, up to and including a causal link to certain cancers, miscarriages, and other reproductive/immune issues. And it's not just correlations being found, as the research is showing the mechanism of action by actually inducing the effects in vitro.
  And so when a particular plasticizer has been shown to be harmful, the research goes into other chemically similar plasticizers to see whether they have biological effects, as well. BPS is another plasticizer that is being studied, as it is chemically similar to BPA.
  So we haven't shown that all microplastics are bad. I'm skeptical that these effects would extend to all plastics. But some common compounds that are present in many plastics are a cause for concern, and the difficulty in treating water or waste for microplastics in general means that some of those harmful compounds are present in lots of places where we'd rather not.
  We moved from leaded gasoline to unleaded gasoline based on the specific dangers attributable to lead itself. We can do the same for the specific compounds in our plastics shown to be harmful. Maybe the end result is that we have a lot of safer plastics remaining. But your comment seems to suggest that we not even try.

It's not what microplasitcs are! Does anyone knows what micro is at this point?

Microbeads are manufactured solid plastic particles of less than one millimeter in their largest dimension.[1] They are most frequently made of polyethylene but can be of other petrochemical plastics such as polypropylene and polystyrene. They are used in exfoliating personal care products, toothpastes, and in biomedical and health-science research.[2]
Wikipedia
- To add to this, the definition of microplastic is less than 5mm. So yes, 1mm microbeads are microplastics.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics
- Millibeads
If these aren't microplastics, what are?
"Micro" just means "small" in this case and doesn't mean "microscopic" or have anything to do with "micrometer".
The definition of "microplastic" according to NOAA: "Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long".
1x10^-6 m.
a micron in size?

You know that old saying: If it's stupid but it works it's not stupid? This is the proof that it is incorrect.

Don’t like thinking about how much of that probably made it to my brain, organs, and muscles :)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03453-1
This study released last year based on samples from cadavers suggests there’s enough in your brain to make a plastic spoon
- "this is not what we meant by brain plasticity"
- Maybe they can recycle me into a plastic spoon then.
- Damn.. yeah those samples suggest ~6–8mg of plastic per gram of sample tissue in the brains from 2024 😟 That would be like 10 grams in an entire adult brain if the distribution is even.
  “Thankfully” it looks like the brain has the highest concentration of all studied organs 🙃
- Sometimes I feel like my brain is a plastic spoon already
- we could make 8 billion spoons with the right recovery recycling operations?
  fuck yeah
- people passing close to a crematorium:
  someone is burning plastic
You don't like glitter in your brain?

Just mineral or ground rocks work just as well. I hate my wife’s soft face scrub, i need that shit that feels like I’m scrubbing my face with sandpaper, to exfoliate well. They sell one that has ground up lava rock, i love that shit, and it makes me wonder why anyone ever thought plastic bits was a good idea

I feel like it's just capitalism doing a capitalism. People are self-conscious about their skin, so you can sell them all kinds of crap.
Even a basic washcloth does a decent job with exfoliating, if you use it regularly. Rub your face dry with a scruffy towel, if you need more than that.
But of course, there's hardly any money to be made with reasonably priced products, so you won't see TV ads for them.
They probably had some extra plastic to offload lol.
- “What do we do with all these old bottles sir?”
But lava rock grinds are not part of the industrial waste stream repurposed for profit. This is innovation!
My ex would use St. Ives "Apricot Exfoliant" or something, which has powdered apricot pits and walnut shells. Those are waste products that I wouldn't expect to cause problems but who knows.
- I wouldn’t be surprised if they cause issues in pipes. I work in building maintenance and when sand collects in a horizontal drain it causes issues. Kitty litter is the worst because it turns to cement inside the pipes. But over time the beauty products add up im sure
Well, rocks in toothpaste would be very bad because they'd be harder than your teeth.
- Harder? No. Enamel is harder than steel. It is more brittle though so don't go chewing rocks.
- Tiny bits of rock and shells is how ancient people kept their teeth clean, that and not consuming sugar every minute

Oh I'd somehow forgotten this era

That shit was in everything non solid for like 2 years

I still use a few profucts with a similar concept, though the beads are of cellulose or similar fiber as opposed to plastic. I’m not aware if they’re problematic or not, so I thought I’d comment in the hope that perhaps someone who feels strongly about these things might educate me if they are indeed bad for you or the environment or something.

Reasons we need more oversight and regulations for these corporate snake oil salesmen. This shit should be a crime against humanity and every damn company that put that shit into their products should be abolished.

we need more oversight and regulations
I think that ship has sailed
- Reguwhat now?
And every single person who was part of the decision should be punished.
- Call me crass, but we should tie them to a tree and pour molten plastic down their throat.

That's not micro though?

No, but these beads pretty much go straight into the local waterways where they can very quickly break down into micro plastics. All so a human didn't have to use a tool like a brush or a loofa to scrub themselves. Convenience at any cost.
- The brushes and loofas also contribute to micro plastic pollution.
- Tbh many brushes and loofahs are plastic and erode into microplastic too.
But they become micro as part of abrasion with your teeth.
Up to 5mm is still considered microplastics.
- Big airsoft lobbying?
- Seriously? That's a lot of mm...
my microwave has been lying to me!?

This stuff still exists in my country, and the expensive toothpaste my mother bought is one of them 🙂

Please, do name and shame.

Inalways thought that those were like the crunchy exterior of chewing gum, but as little glitter pellet things

Chewing gum is plastic
https://www.vice.com/en/article/rethink-chewing-gum-habit-essentially-plastic/
- yummy
- The shell as well? Thought it was some kind of carbohydrate

Haha, my poorly googled current events assignment is highly relevant after all these years! Take that you dork try hards!

I think my face scrub still has these. But I would have to check, it might be just sand they put in there. Works great tho.

Edit - I checked, the ingredients say it's silica. So yes, they put sand into it.

Yeah, it's sooooo funny... it's heeeeeeel-larious! I don't know about you, but I for one can't stop laughing!

The way language is used or abused creates patterns in the mind.
I strongly suspect that this way of using language is not healthy at all, for an individual nor for a community.

Funny has apparently been used to describe something suspicious for more than 200 years. So say it with a wild west accent.