Human brains average about 0.5% plastic by weight

[southwestforests]

whats worth of all that convenience,

It is not limited to "convenience"
There are some life-saving things I left out above because the list was going on for too long.
Here are the ones I didn't include,
some might be a convenience, some documentably save lives, as do some which were included in the first post.

What is your no plastic design for a mobile phone battery?

What is your design for a no-plastic automobile battery?

What is your design for a no-plastic defibrillator?

What is your no plastic design for DVDs an CDs?

What is your no plastic design for the LED used in phone screens, computer screens?

What is your design for leak proof underwear which uses no plastic?

What is your no-plastic design for that retainer thing people get after having braces?

What is your no plastic design for dentures?

What is your no plastic design for automobile safety glass?

Those flourescent lights which hang in schoolrooms above the heads of your children and grandchildren, what is your design for no plastic diffusion panel covers for them?

And while we're talking kids, what is your design for no plastic bicycle helmets?

What is your design for no-plastic car seats?

 

[Florida Guy]

wait a minute? you do not have access to glas bottles anymore? which country are you living in?
in germany there is still access to glas , but the plastic lobby is going hard.

I haven't seen any drinking water in glass, not for a very long time. Used to be soft drinks came in glass, milk, everything was glass but now plastic is cheaper. This is usa, germany has glass still?

I noticed that plastic influenced taste a long time ago. I bought a plastic gallon jug of water in case of emergency. A couple months later, I decided to drink some. I had to spit it out, it had a nasty chemical plastic taste

It costs more but we could use ceramic, glass, leather, paper, rubber, wood, metal and other materials to replace plastic.

 

[linusbert]

haven't seen any drinking water in glass, not for a very long time.

thats how they do it, they make glass more expensive BUT do not let the customer have a choice in it. in germany water in glass is also more expensive, but i still have the freedom to pay the premium for it.

What is your no plastic design for

actually i should forward those to our politicians and industry lobby, whats their design for plastics if i am allergic to their new plastics and cant use any of your mentioned products.

 

[southwestforests]

actually i should forward those to our politicians and industry lobby, whats their design for plastics if i am allergic to their new plastics and cant use any of your mentioned products.

While at it, ask them what materials other than plastic they would use for IV bags, ostomy bags, catheter bags.

(I'm a writer, and I'm autistic, I can come up with stuff all week)

 

[pamojja]

Also, the exposure must be even worse for people in poorer countries working in plastics factories or dodgy recycling and rubbish dumps under conditions that would be illegal in Western countries. But we happily import the stuff they make.

And export the toxic trash back again.

In India, I know for many years, it is a nightmare. When first there in 1984 no plastic bags or private cars (except Ambassadors) were available. 2 years later, everywhere. In 2024 plastic waste is still simply burned in the open.

Recently stayed with an architect's house in a small town on the beach, and saw they let her housemaid mix mud and cow dung to give the patio a protective new layer, as it is usually done. But with the addition of by hand smashed and mixed in batteries, for the coloration. Beside were vegetable fields, whom its owner were proud of not using artificial fertilizers. - However, in India, batteries are dropped wherever they expire. Also in vegetable fields.

Understandable that simple farmers haven't recognized the dangers of batteries yet, but even in well-meaning academics cycles? A Portuguese activist tested all wells of this town, all are actually contaminated.

Though there is a weird hope of mine with India: Nowhere else population is growing like there, in the last 30 years half a billion newborn Indians. With such a rate of pollution and population growths, it's probably the place where strange genetic mutations emerge at a faster rate than anywhere else in this world, with populations declining. With the likelihood of immunity to some pollutants. Like the wolves in Chernobyl, which through mutation thrive now even in radioactive contaminated areas.

This civilization is bound to cease, but maybe India might become the cradle of the next civilization, by a few individuals mutating and selecting for pollution resistance?

 

[Wishful]

What is your design for a household light switch which uses no plastic?

I recall ones with ceramic bodies. I can't recall what the handle was, but ceramic or wood would have worked.

What is your design for a microwave which uses no plastic?

Trickier, but probably possible. If you allow natural polymers, such as rubber, cellulose and shellac (natural polyester), it's easier.

For most of your other examples, they can be done without synthetic polymers. The airbags could possibly be made out of silk, or even cotton. Breakable covers can be made from glass or ceramic. Transistors and IC's don't contain plastic (aside from new organic ones). Before epoxy or urethane coatings were developed for that, the bits of silicon were encased in metal or ceramic, sealed by glass. IV bags could be made from cotton, lined with a very thin layer of inert metal.

What is your no-plastic design for lightweight, high-refracting, unbreakable, glasses lenses such as mine?

Oh, so comfort and convenience rates higher than chemical avoidance for you? People were happy to have heavy glass lenses when there weren't any other options. As with plastic, there are higher-index types of glass for lighter--and more expensive--lenses. There are also new techniques for focusing light that can be done with glass--at a much higher price than plastic. There are alternatives to plastics for most applications; plastics are simply more economical ... when you ignore the potential hazards and long-term problems. Likewise, fossil fuels are great ... when you turn a blind eye to the full costs of them. I expect that the general public doesn't know about the true long-term costs of using plastics, so they'd oppose a ban on plastics that would raise the costs--or lower the comfort and convenience--of the things they want.

 

[Wishful]

For southwestforests' second list, most of those are conveniences that people lived quite well without for a long time. Cars had seats long before plastic seats were offered. Leather worked quite well. For helmets, I expect that there are natural products that would work (maybe bulkier and less sexy). I think there was one made from mushrooms.

Safety glass (crumbles rather than forms sharp shards) is made by controlled hardening of glass. The plastic layer isn't essential.

A mobile phone battery (portable phones are a convenience, not a necessity) could be made without plastic. Likewise, lead-acid batteries were made without plastic (tar was a common component at one period, and probably less healthy than modern plastics).

There are alternatives to plastics for most needs; they're just more expensive, or less convenient. The harm from not using plastics can be much higher than the cost of using them. Are you really going to refuse surgery because they wanted to use plastic tubing or IV bags? No one is forcing you to use a computer or phone with plastic components. No one if forcing you to drink water from plastic bottles (filtered by plastic membranes for reverse osmosis filtering). If you really want to avoid chemicals from plastics, you can minimize that ... at the cost of money and comfort and convenience.

 

[godlovesatrier]

The plastics are everywhere. Food we eat air we breath water we drink. Even in the UK nano plastics are alive and well in UK water I don't think they even test for them. I filter all my water at 0.05 microns to reduce the plastic burden as much as possible. I useda gravity filter so it's not that expensive.

I feel like it's impossible really to escape plastic injestion. Apart from filtering the water that is.

 

[Blazer95]

Huh, sounds weird because I always thought neurologists brains consist of 100% plastic!

guess you never stop learning

 

[Wishful]

I still think that checking old human remains (other animals too) for traces of plastic micro and nano-particles would be useful. Did we accumulate significant levels of natural plastics 10,000 years ago? The development of synthetic polymers would have added new types. With detailed data, they could check for correlations between different diseases and the increase in specific types of polymers. Since the increases in accumulation would vary regionally, that could help rule out correlations with other factors. Is the rise in rates of peanut allergies due to diet, lack of parasites, or to polypropylene microparticles?

 

[linusbert]

This civilization is bound to cease, but maybe India might become the cradle of the next civilization, by a few individuals mutating and selecting for pollution resistance?

i can understand the idea, but humans are throwing out new toxins by the year, no evolution of any complex lifeform will adapt to this. maybe bacteria might.

 

[pamojja]

no evolution of any complex lifeform will adapt to this. maybe bacteria might.

Honestly, who had thought wolves could adapt so fast to radioactivity? Which I consider the worst of all human released toxins due to their mind-boggling long half-life. With no past civilization - which could take care of it - lasting even a fraction of that timeframe.

Chernobyl wolves have evolved resistance to cancer​

In respect to this suicidal mess humanity has brought itself, I think in larger time scales.

 

[linusbert]

Honestly, who had thought wolves could adapt so fast to radioactivity? Which I consider the worst of all human released toxins due to their mind-boggling long half-life. With no past civilization - which could take care of it - lasting even a fraction of that timeframe.

Chernobyl wolves have evolved resistance to cancer​

In respect to this suicidal mess humanity has brought itself, I think in larger time scales.

radioactivity is not man made, its known to life forms on earth since forever. every lifeform should have mechanisms to defend against it. so the evolution is just shifting towards more effectiveness of the existing mechanisms.
also radioactivity declined and also its been a long time. i guess if you are not going to the reactor chambers humans could walk around without protection and be just fine.
a few fongue developped capability to somewhat metabolize radioactivity, that i find interesting.

plastics on the other hand, we will know in a few decades what will happen. if its not that bad, or if its really bad.

humanity does not think in larger time scales, the longest time scale is until next election cycle.

 

[pamojja]

humanity does not think in larger time scales

I'm with the Buddha, who allegedly remembered many cycles of world contraction and expansion, not just one big bang

i guess if you are not going to the reactor chambers

That's the problem with larger time scales. Sea floors turn to mountains, and mountains are washed away. Long before such monumental changes, all the humanly enriched radioactive waste, including reactor cambers, will expose unnatural radioactivity in the open, at levels seen at the very beginning of earth's history only. By then plastics have enough diluted, humans with 0.5% plastics in their brain since long gone.

This civilization is bound to cease,

Which also means no plastics at all will be added very soon (seen through larger timescales).
.