A Rant About Microplastics

Ever owned stretchy pants, stretchy shirts, stretchy socks? Lycra, spandex, elastane? Just different brand names of the same synthetic fiber. It is a “polyether-polyurea copolymer,” an alternative to rubber.

What about pleather, or faux leather? Although it may feel like the more ethical choice in the face of rampant animal cruelty, it’s just plastic. It’s all just plastic. In the name of capitalism and marketing, instead of fostering a more sustainable and purpose driven relationship with animals and animal products, fast fashion has been pushing plastics into circulation for decades.

When these clothes are washed, every load of laundry releases an average of 70,000 microplastic particles into the water. Integrating plastics into fashion ultimately renders the clothes un-recyclable, and these articles can take hundreds of years to degrade.

A few years ago, I applied to participate in a research group that was studying the presence of microplastics in the most remote parts of the planet. Although I was not selected for the team, I did continue to follow the issue, and waited for the findings. The group collected snow samples from 19 locations in the Ross Island Region of Antarctica, and found that there were microplastics present in all 19 samples. The group then attempted to identify the source of the microplastics, and found that while some of the microplastics were likely sourced from the adjacent research facilities, other polymers appeared foreign. The findings suggested that some microplastics are candidates for atmospheric distribution, travelling up to 6000kms to reach the site, by air. That’s right, airborne microplastics, floating on the currents, hopped continents, and ended up as fallout on the southern pole.

6000km is about 3700 miles. To put that in perspective, if the microplastics floated from Los Angeles to New York City, they’d still have to float another thousand miles before they’d covered a similar distance.

Just like the water cycle we were all taught in elementary school, Ricky the Raindrop has a new travelling neighbour. The plastic cycle has entered the chat.

These plastics come from several sources, many well documented and well considered, others not as much. Consider the tyres on our vehicles. Comprised of rubber, we watch the levels of remaining tread to gauge when they need replacing. Have you considered where that rubber is going? Where is that matter that was once on your tyre? Consider the fact that every toothbrush you have ever owned or used is still in existence. Consider that while an organic cotton tampon may take 6 months to biodegrade, their non-organic competitors are projected to take between 500 and 1,000 years to decompose. Meaning every tampon you have ever owned or used is still in existence. Pads take about 800 years. Red solo cups are projected to decompose at a 450 year pace. Contact lenses are responsible for 20-30 metric tons of plastic waste nationwide, annually, and every contact lens you've ever worn, however mangled, is still in existence. Every birthday balloon, every cell phone case, every toothpaste tube, every mouthwash bottle - none recyclable, all still in existence.

Plastic will be the death of humanity. And these are just the plastics resultant from individual purchasing decisions, let alone the plastics generated on the commercial or industrial level. And! They only photodegrade, they don't biodegrade. Which means, instead of actually reintegrating into the organic chain, they just break apart into smaller and smaller destructive bits.

Well, I am almost done writing about this topic for the day, I’ve just depressed myself by learning that even if we staged a global intervention at this point, it’s too late. By 2040 the projections are that we’ll have succumbed to the plastic takeover. They’ve found plastics in the bottom of the Mariana Trench, in fish in every ocean, it’s bioaccumulating and biomagnifying it’s way up the food chain, and they’ve even found microplastics in human blood in 77% of samples collected, according to one study. Seriously, y'all should google it.

These microplastics have no lower bound on sizing, and some exist in the submicron range, at less than 100nm long. With zeros, that number looks like 0.000,000,100 m. Which is about 0.000004 inches. So, smaller than most water filters, but nonetheless capable of doing great damage at a cellular level. It really is quite devastating.