I've been thinking about this the last few days when I first read the story and a comment by an expert on how asbestos actually works. I thought it was too small for your lungs to ever expel and you get scarring. But it's the fiber shape that is the problem, just like a dog eating some twine and getting a bowel obstruction. It can enter a cell but can't get out, and wont degrade like bio matter (bacteria for example) so is under constant attack by the immune system which generates all kinds of damage as a by product, eventually leading to cancer. It takes decades to manifest.
Micro Plastic Fibres - The new Asbestos?
- Thread starter neil_g
- Start date
I have and do work with lots of micro materials from carbon dust to naturally occurring radiation.
Should wear masks for most work that produces dust, just wish they invented a mask that allows you to work without putting halve your effort into breathing
Should wear masks for most work that produces dust, just wish they invented a mask that allows you to work without putting halve your effort into breathing
Won't happen as that effort to breath is simply you having to work extra hard to pull oxygen in through the micro filters.
Will your firm not provide air fed masks? Have used them before and like them a lot but only downside is you wear a backpack for most of them and it's quite a bulky device.
I heard silica gel dust was the next asbestos, seems to be a lot of 'next asbestos' things around...
I'm sure he was just referring to the fibres
I suspect it will be worse than asbestos, not from a health point of view, but from an ecological damage point of view.
I would think it'll take hundreds if not thousands of years to get out of the ocean food chain even if we stopped making them tomorrow.
I would think it'll take hundreds if not thousands of years to get out of the ocean food chain even if we stopped making them tomorrow.
It concerns me greatly how reliant our society has become on plastics, many of which are single-use 'disposable'. It's pretty much impossible to avoid in daily life and this has happened in a relatively short period of time.
We've been making a conscious effort in our house to reduce our plastic use:
We've been making a conscious effort in our house to reduce our plastic use:
- Buying shampoo bars and soaps to avoid plastic packaged shampoo / body wash
- Buying loose fruit and vegetables not wrapped in plastic (where possible)
- Buying food products with minimal / more recyclable packaging, e.g. glass bottles instead of plastics. Glass can be continuously recycled unlike plastic which degrades.
- Avoiding unnecessary plastics: matches instead of lighters, cotton buds, coffee cups, drinks bottles etc.
- I'll offset my plastic use by performing street cleans. I'll take a spare bag with me and pick up any recyclables.
Soldato
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They were saying the same thing about trendy sea salt its evaporated sea water and yep, its got micro plastics in it.
The worst thing is there are biodegradable plastics available but apart from a brief flirtation the local supermarket had with it a few years back with plastic bags no-one is interested.
The worst thing is there are biodegradable plastics available but apart from a brief flirtation the local supermarket had with it a few years back with plastic bags no-one is interested.
I am surprised how much glass has become depreciated - I'd be unsurprised if there wasn't ways to create versions that are much more convenient to modern life while still not having the downsides of plastics in terms of biodegradation and micro particles, etc.
Asbestos isn't really a good analogy.
Asbestos wasn't the "Old" Asbestos either really!
Now. I am nowhere attempting claiming that Asbestos is not a problem. I know a lot of people suffer and die from Asbestos related illness each year. But in the great scheme of things, the numbers are still relatively small. Asbestos, after all, is a natural mineral. It will have been (Albeit in small quantities) present in the environment from the dawn of time.
If Asbestos was really as dangerous as the current safety rules imply, nobody over 50 would be alive today.
It is hard for younger people today to appreciate just how ubiquitous Asbestos was in day to day life up until the mid 70's and even later.
It was in Everything!
I, and tens of millions of others, grew up in homes where almost everybody had an ironing board with a nice flaky Asbestos iron pad. Asbestos simmering pads that were put over the gas rings and filled the house with flaky fibres every time you did any cooking were everywhere too (And somewhat missed actually. they were really very useful!) , Vehicle brake pads were made from Asbestos and anybody living next to a road would have been breathing in Asbestos fibres constantly.
Asbestos was in paint and plaster (Artex for example)
I remember using a really very useful Asbestos based RawlPlug screw fixing product that was a sort of Asbestos/Cement cotton wool that one mixed with water and forced into the totally irregular holes that were the inevitable consequence of attempting to drill into 1920's cinder block that would have been (And are probably still today) totally impossible to successfully plug with any other material.
(40 years later these shelves are still standing and I can still happily hang my whole weight on them.)
Asbestos, really was, Everywhere....
And you know what. The vast majority of people born in the 50's and 60's are growing old just fine! We are not all dying of Asbestosis, Indeed, people born in the 60's are probably the healthiest generation there has ever been (To the extent that there are those today who consider this to be a big problem :/ )
The plastics thing however has the potential to be much more serious. These plastic microfibres are being discovered in the actual flesh and organs of fish and other sea life, so they are small enough to pass from the gut (Which is technically "Outside" the organism) into the actual tissues of the organism. This isn't just a case of them starving because their stomachs are full of rubbish!
We eat that seafood (And other things too), so those microfibres are going to end up in our internal organs too! Think in terms of Liver, Kidneys, lymphatic system, Whatever, and so on gradually accumulating deposits of plastics that can neither be excreted or processed and might/will (As yet, we do not know) gradually impair their function over our lifetimes. :/
It is now far too late to try to do anything to "Prevent" it. The damage really has been done, even if we simply continue as we have done till now, it probably will not make things any worse (#)
All we can do now is to make a serious investigation as to what this might mean for our future and to try to attempt to create a strategy to mitigate whatever consequences might arise.
#
Asbestos wasn't the "Old" Asbestos either really!
Now. I am nowhere attempting claiming that Asbestos is not a problem. I know a lot of people suffer and die from Asbestos related illness each year. But in the great scheme of things, the numbers are still relatively small. Asbestos, after all, is a natural mineral. It will have been (Albeit in small quantities) present in the environment from the dawn of time.
If Asbestos was really as dangerous as the current safety rules imply, nobody over 50 would be alive today.
It is hard for younger people today to appreciate just how ubiquitous Asbestos was in day to day life up until the mid 70's and even later.
It was in Everything!
I, and tens of millions of others, grew up in homes where almost everybody had an ironing board with a nice flaky Asbestos iron pad. Asbestos simmering pads that were put over the gas rings and filled the house with flaky fibres every time you did any cooking were everywhere too (And somewhat missed actually. they were really very useful!) , Vehicle brake pads were made from Asbestos and anybody living next to a road would have been breathing in Asbestos fibres constantly.
Asbestos was in paint and plaster (Artex for example)
I remember using a really very useful Asbestos based RawlPlug screw fixing product that was a sort of Asbestos/Cement cotton wool that one mixed with water and forced into the totally irregular holes that were the inevitable consequence of attempting to drill into 1920's cinder block that would have been (And are probably still today) totally impossible to successfully plug with any other material.
(40 years later these shelves are still standing and I can still happily hang my whole weight on them.)
Asbestos, really was, Everywhere....
And you know what. The vast majority of people born in the 50's and 60's are growing old just fine! We are not all dying of Asbestosis, Indeed, people born in the 60's are probably the healthiest generation there has ever been (To the extent that there are those today who consider this to be a big problem :/ )
The plastics thing however has the potential to be much more serious. These plastic microfibres are being discovered in the actual flesh and organs of fish and other sea life, so they are small enough to pass from the gut (Which is technically "Outside" the organism) into the actual tissues of the organism. This isn't just a case of them starving because their stomachs are full of rubbish!
We eat that seafood (And other things too), so those microfibres are going to end up in our internal organs too! Think in terms of Liver, Kidneys, lymphatic system, Whatever, and so on gradually accumulating deposits of plastics that can neither be excreted or processed and might/will (As yet, we do not know) gradually impair their function over our lifetimes. :/
It is now far too late to try to do anything to "Prevent" it. The damage really has been done, even if we simply continue as we have done till now, it probably will not make things any worse (#)
All we can do now is to make a serious investigation as to what this might mean for our future and to try to attempt to create a strategy to mitigate whatever consequences might arise.
#
I feel much the same about Global Warming/Climate change.
Either it is nonsense or it is already far too late to make any significant change.
Where we should be putting our resources now is in mitigating the consequences..
Either it is nonsense or it is already far too late to make any significant change.
Where we should be putting our resources now is in mitigating the consequences..
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Rather glad we filter everything through our Big Berkey.
You filter your food through it as well.
Indeed.
No offense intended but if you find it funny/surprising that's down to your own ignorance not a problem with what he said, this is stuff that's been known for years, the only reason you can still buy Rockwool but not white asbestos insulation is $$$.
Put it this way, would you rather be decapitated by a steel broadsword or a titanium broadsword? It's the object that does the damage not the chemical makeup, and Rockwool fibers are of similar danger to blue/brown asbestos fibers.