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Microplastics Found In 88 Percent Of Sampled Food, From Sirloin Steaks To Plant-Based Burgers (www.iflscience.com)

submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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It isn’t just seafood that’s loaded with microplastic pollution. In a new study, scientists found microplastics in nearly 90 of sampled meats and meat-like alternatives – including seafood, chicken breasts, beef steaks, tofu, and plant-based burgers.

It’s become well-documented that seafood is often tainted with the presence of microplastics due to the shockingly high quantities of plastic in the planet’s oceans. For instance, a 2017 review found that regular eaters of fish and shellfish could be ingesting up to 11,000 microparticles a year.

However, until now, there’s been relatively little research into the prevalence of plastic in terrestrial protein sources, like beef and chicken.

To pry into the issue, scientists at Ocean Conservancy and the University of Toronto sampled 16 protein types, including highly processed protein products and minimally processed "fresh" products.

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[-] Gigan@lemmy.world 83 points 10 months ago

Single-use plastics should have been banned 10-15 years ago and we should be phasing out the rest of them now.

[-] rowrowrowyourboat@sh.itjust.works 43 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Nearly half (44 percent) of the identified microplastics were fibers, while a third (30 percent) were plastic fragments. This is in tune with other studies that have shown plastic fibers from clothes and other textile products are the most prevalent form of microplastic in the environment.

More important than single-use plastics seems to be synthetic clothing.

[-] Aux@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Quality synthetic clothing is actually great. You can wear the same t-shirt 10 years in a row and it will look and feel like a new one. But cheap ones tend to fall apart faster than cotton variants.

[-] time_lord@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

You know what else lasts 10 years? Quality cotton t-shirts.

[-] Aux@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago

They don't really.

[-] andros_rex@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Thrift stores throw away most of the clothing they get. $5 shirts on Shein are obviously garbage, but even the stuff sold in malls is basically single use.

Know tons of people who’d rather toss/“donate” something than sew a button back on.

[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

They should have been banned in the early 80's when we found out how dangerous they are. Humans refuse to be inconvenienced though.

[-] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago

Or there are some megacorps that teach us that so we grow up not even remembering there were any alternatives. Reusable containers were a thing just like paper bags and paper wraps, refills can become a thing one day, but in the supermarket I see individually packed old cucumbers like they are dicks in a condom, and I cringe at the thought they'd be trashed just like that.

[-] andros_rex@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

That’s why “recycling” is so popular I think. The industry knew that there would be pushes against plastic, and came up with an ingenious way to make you the one “responsible” while also selling you the fairy tale that we could just reuse the stuff forever. People feel good about themselves for putting stuff in the blue bin, without realizing the near certainty that it’s going to end up in the landfill too.

[-] Aux@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago

It's not a question of convenience. Plastics require several magnitudes less energy to produce goods than alternatives like metal, glass and wood. If we stop using plastics today our emissions will sky rocket so high the planet will start boiling.

We need to force governments to recycle better, because a lot of plastics are completely ignored in many countries.

Here's a quick example. My hobby is 3D printing and I live in the UK. The most common plastic in this hobby is PLA. It is both sustainable and recyclable. But Britain doesn't recycle it as part of household waste. There are companies here which offer PLA recycling, but they require at least 50L worth of PLA to pick it up from you. I use about 5kg per year, so even if I throw away everything I print, I will need 10 years to fill the recycling order. But since I only want to throw away failed attempts, it will take a lifetime to fill it.

If my council would start using hot composters instead of cold ones I could at least throw my PLA waste into compost with food and it would decrease into lactic acid, but the government doesn't give a shit, so all my plastic goes into landfill.