Microplastics Quotes

I know we agree that civilisation is presently in its decadent declining phase, and that lurid ugliness is the predominant visual feature of modern life. Cars are ugly, buildings are ugly, mass-produced disposable consumer goods are unspeakably ugly. The air we breathe is toxic, the water we drink is full of microplastics, and our food is contaminated by cancerous Teflon chemicals. Our quality of life is in decline, and along with it, the quality of aesthetic experience available to us. The contemporary novel is (with very few exceptions) irrelevant; mainstream cinema is family-friendly nightmare porn funded by car companies and the US Department of Defense; and visual art is primarily a commodity market for oligarchs. It is hard in these circumstances not to feel that modern living compares poorly with the old ways of life, which have come to represent something more substantial, more connected to the essence of the human condition.

Bottled water comes in plastic, usually made from virgin plastic (non-recycled), which is made from oil and has to be transported (with a high carbon footprint). It sits on a shelf until you buy it, where it may leach chemicals – such as BPA and dioxins as well as microplastics – into the water. And while it has to pass safety standards, it is only tested when it is bottled. Recent studies also showed that 93% of bottled water showed signs of microplastic contamination.

We always tell anyone who ever does their #2minutebeachclean that it matters because every piece of plastic that gets removed from the ocean environment, or any environment, is a piece that won’t go on to kill. It won’t end up in a whale’s stomach or strangling a seabird. And it won’t end up becoming thousands of toxic pieces of microplastic.

No matter how far man travels in space, microplastics will have been there before him.

If the real human environment in developed countries today is third-growth monocultured “forests,” tar-sand petroleum, cow-burnt grasslands, and smog-like clouds of microplastics floating in oceans where fish once thrived, then human cultures need to distinguish between sentimentality about loss and the imperative to survive. They need to establish a more relevant politics than the competitive politics of nation-states. And to found economies built not on profit but on conservation.

When man walks on water, then you will know that plastic has no controls.

The oceans spawned life. Man just added plastic so that the life could come gift wrapped.

I know we agree that civilisation is presently in its decadent declining phase, and that lurid ugliness is the predominant visual feature of modern life. Cars are ugly, buildings are ugly, mass-produced disposable consumer goods are unspeakably ugly. The air we breathe is toxic, the water we drink is full of microplastics, and our food is contaminated by cancerous Teflon chemicals. Our quality of life is in decline, and along with it, the quality of aesthetic experience available to us.

Attacks by orcas and dolphins are on the rise. Why? Not enough food? Ocean temperatures rising too quickly? I have another idea. With the amount of plastic in the world's oceans the plastic will degenerate down into microplastics. Already these microplastics have entered all food chains and are to be found in soils, plants, animals and people. What are these microplastics doing? Well, we have no idea because not enough informed research has been carried out. For me, I believe that the toxins contained within the plastics are causing neurological disorders in animals & people alike. It's causing more irrational behavior and aggression. The orcas & dolphins are Apex predators, just as we are. Coincidence? Because man at present is doing some really irrational things. Only time and more research will find out some truthful answers.

We already have eight hundred million people living in hunger—and population is growing by eighty million a year. Over a billion people are in poverty—and present industrial strategies are making them poorer, not richer. The percentage of old people will double by 2050—and already there aren’t enough young people to care for them. Cancer rates are projected to increase by seventy percent in the next fifteen years. Within two decades our oceans will contain more microplastics than fish. Fossil fuels will run out before the end of the century. Do you have an answer to those problems? Because I do. Robot farmers will increase food production twentyfold. Robot carers will give our seniors a dignified old age. Robot divers will clear up the mess humans have made of our seas. And so on, and so on—but every single step has to be costed and paid for by the profits of the last.” He paused for breath, then went on, “My vision is a society where autonomous, intelligent bots are as commonplace as computers are now. Think about that—how different our world could be. A world where disease, hunger, manufacturing, design, are all taken care of by AI. That’s the revolution we’re shooting for. The shopbots get us to the next level, that’s all. And you know what? This is not some binary choice between idealism or realism, because for some of us idealism is just long-range realism. This shit has to happen. And you need to ask yourself, do you want to be part of that change? Or do you want to stand on the sidelines and bitch about the details?” We had all heard this speech, or some version of it, either in our job interviews, or at company events, or in passionate late-night tirades. And on every single one of us it had had a deep and transformative effect. Most of us had come to Silicon Valley back in those heady days when it seemed a new generation finally had the tools and the intelligence to change the world. The hippies had tried and failed; the yuppies and bankers had had their turn. Now it was down to us techies. We were fired up, we were zealous, we felt the nobility of our calling…only to discover that the general public, and our backers along with them, were more interested in 140 characters, fitness trackers, and Grumpy Cat videos. The greatest, most powerful deep-learning computers in humanity’s existence were inside Google and Facebook—and all humanity had to show for it were adwords, sponsored links, and teenagers hooked on sending one another pictures of their genitals.

I know we agree that civilization is presently in its decadent declining phase, and that lurid ugliness is the predominant visual feature of modern life. Cars are ugly, buildings are ugly, mass-produced disposable consumer goods are unspeakably ugly. The air we breathe is toxic, the water we drink is full of microplastics, and our food is contaminated by cancerous Teflon chemicals. Our quality of life is in decline, and along with it, the quality of aesthetic experience available to us. The contemporary novel is (with very few exceptions) irrelevant; mainstream cinema is family-friendly nightmare porn funded by car companies and the US Department of Defense; and visual art is primarily a commodity market for oligarchs. It is hard in these circumstances not to feel that modern living compares poorly with the old ways of life, which have come to represent something more substantial, more connected to the essence of the human condition. This nostalgic impulse is of course extremely powerful, and has recently been harnessed to great effect by reactionary and fascist political movements, but I’m not convinced that this means the impulse itself is intrinsically fascistic. I think it makes sense that people are looking back wistfully to a time before the natural world started dying, before our shared cultural forms degraded into mass marketing and before our cities and towns became anonymous employment hubs.

Environmentalists probably know already about “the Great Pacific garbage patch”—that mass of plastic, twice the size of Texas, floating freely in the Pacific Ocean. It is not actually an island—in fact, it is not actually a stable mass, only rhetorically convenient for us to think of it that way. And it is mostly composed of larger-scale plastics, of the kind visible to the human eye. The microscopic bits—700,000 of them can be released into the surrounding environment by a single washing-machine cycle—are more insidious. And, believe it or not, more pervasive: a quarter of fish sold in Indonesia and California contain plastics, according to one recent study. European eaters of shellfish, one estimate has suggested, consume at least 11,000 bits each year. The direct effect on ocean life is even more striking. The total number of marine species said to be adversely affected by plastic pollution has risen from 260 in 1995, when the first assessment was carried out, to 690 in 2015 and 1,450 in 2018. A majority of fish tested in the Great Lakes contained microplastics, as did the guts of 73 percent of fish surveyed in the northwest Atlantic. One U.K. supermarket study found that every 100 grams of mussels were infested with 70 particles of plastic. Some fish have learned to eat plastic, and certain species of krill are now functioning as plastic processing plants, churning microplastics into smaller bits that scientists are now calling “nanoplastics.” But krill can’t grind it all down; in one square mile of water near Toronto, 3.4 million microplastic particles were recently trawled. Of course, seabirds are not immune: one researcher found 225 pieces of plastic in the stomach of a single three-month-old chick, weighing 10 percent of its body mass—the equivalent of an average human carrying about ten to twenty pounds of plastic in a distended belly. (“Imagine having to take your first flight out to sea with all that in your stomach,” the researcher told the Financial Times, adding: “Around the world, seabirds are declining faster than any other bird group.”) Microplastics have been found in beer, honey, and sixteen of seventeen tested brands of commercial sea salt, across eight different countries. The more we test, the more we find; and while nobody yet knows the health impact on humans, in the oceans a plastic microbead is said to be one million times more toxic than the water around it. Chances are, if we started slicing open human cadavers to look for microplastics—as we are beginning to do with tau proteins, the supposed markers of CTE and Alzheimer’s—we’d be finding plastic in our own flesh, too. We can breathe in microplastics, even when indoors, where they’ve been detected suspended in the air, and do already drink them: they are found in the tap water of 94 percent of all tested American cities. And global plastic production is expected to triple by 2050, when there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

Microplastics will inhabit the known universe eventually. Including us.

Mankind will become the new Ken & Barbie in the near future.

How long will it be before we see a different microplastic filled rainbow in the sky?

We can't clean up the Earth that we have already contaminated, but we sure as hell can take actions to make sure that we don't pollute this planet any more than it already is.

Eventually, all the plants in nature will exhibit plastic tendencies.

Maybe it's time that we started to farm plastic because it's already in the food chain.

Microplastics now come in 'blood' flavor just especially for you and your family.

What will your heart do when it is clogged up by microplastic? STOP.

Microplastics gave me an appetite for pollution.

Microplastics will the death of everyone.

Nature gave microplastics a home.

We were so quick to embrace new technology that enabled us to make plastic bottles. It was faster! It was cheaper! It was a heathier alternative to recycling bottles. The plastic drinking bottle had arrived. But how many companies make plastic bottles? How many did research to find out the heath pros and cons? How many buried their findings so as to maximize profits? Today microplastics are everywhere. In the oceans; in the air; in the food chains and in us. There is nowhere where they aren't on this planet of ours and they even inhabit our blood streams. Scary? It should be! Because so much isn't known about the long term effects of microplastics on living organisms and if they really pose a serious threat. The companies that make the bottles and all the plastics know some of the answers, but if we want them to start telling the truth, then we will need to start asking more serious and searching questions before we all become a plastic society in a plastic world.

I just love microplastics. That's why I keep them in a special place within my heart.

Microplastics will cause us so many problems, that wars will just seem like a small irritation.

What will turn your heart to plastic? Microplastics.

Microplastics will change the way man thinks.

Your P.S.I. (Plastic Susceptibility Index) score will determine your susceptibility to neurological disorders on a scale of 1 - 10.

You can't get rid of microplastics, but they can get rid of you.

Neurological problems will stem from the microplastics that enter your bloodstream.

Barbie...A microplastic's dream girl.

Microplastics will be the new Thalidomide of the twenty-first century.

Microplastics have the propensity to absorb chemicals and toxins very quickly and then pass them along to their hosts. Times and man are changing, but not for the better.

When Flury looked at the plants under a confocal microscope, which shines lasers that make the fluorescent dye in the plastics glow, he found particles had attached to the roots but hadn't penetrated them. So this is worrisome in that plastics might be accumulating around the roots we eat-carrots, sweet potatoes, radishes but it's good news in that neither a fibrous nor taproot system seemed to uptake plastic into the plant itself, unlike how crops readily soak up nutrients like nitrogen and iron. "The plant has probably an incentive to take up an iron particle, whereas a plastic particle will not be used by the plant," says Flury. This contradicts previous lab studies on wheat and other crops, like beans and onions and lettuce, showing that roots do take up plastics. Over at ETH Zürich, analytical chemist Denise Mitrano took a different tack, tagging nanoplastics not with fluorescence but with the rare metal palladium. And instead of growing wheat in agar, she grew it hydroponically, exposing the growing plants to the "doped" particles. She could then track the nanoplastics as the wheat plants took them up into their roots and shoots. "We didn't let the wheat go to grains, so we don't know if the nanoplastic would eventually get into the food source, but it did go up further into the plant," says Mitrano. However, she didn't see any big changes in the physiology of the plants, like growth rate or chlorophyl production. "But we did see that it changed the root structure a bit and the cellular structure in the root, which would indicate that the plant was still under stress.

Mothers not only pass the harms of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on to their fetuses but on to even more distant generations. When a mother is exposed to EDCs, so too are her fetus's germ cells, which develop into eggs or sperm. "It's thought that during that exposure, the chemical can target those germ cells and do what we call reprogramming, or making epigenetic changes," says Flaws. "That can be a permanent change that gets carried through generations, because those germ cells will eventually be used to make the next generation, and those fetuses will have abnormal germ cells that would then go on to make the next generation." In the mid-20th century, scientists documented this in women who took a synthetic form of estrogen, called diethylstilbestrol or DES, to prevent miscarriages.? The drug worked as intended, and the women gave birth to healthy babies. But once some of those children hit puberty, the girls developed vaginal and breast cancer. The boys developed testicular cancer, and some suffered abnormal development of the penis. Scientists called them DES daughters and sons. "When those DES daughters and sons had children, we now have DES granddaughters and grandsons, and a lot of them have increased risk of those same cancers and reproductive problems," says Flaws. "Even though it was their great-grandmother that took DES and they don't have any DES in their system-their germ cells have been reprogramming, and they're passing down some of these disease traits." And now toxicologists are gathering evidence that mothers are passing microplastics and nanoplastics complete with EDCs and other toxic substances- to their fetuses. In 2021, scientists announced that they'd found microplastics in human placentas for the first time, both on the fetal side and maternal side.Later that year, another team of researchers found the same, and they also tested meconium-a newborn's first feces and discovered microplastic there too. Children are consuming microplastics, then, before they're even born.

Microplastics and nano-plastics are found everywhere in us and the environment. Now microplastics have been found in sediments which have not seen human habitation for hundreds of years. So how did they get there? If both microplastics and nano-plastics can invade all of our bodily systems through pores and filters within the body, the same can be said for the natural filtering systems of different rock layers. No difference from us except we think rock is rock is less able to do it because it's denser. The trouble is that rain is so contaminated with these plastics that they are carried through the rain into the ground water and the subsequently through the different rock layers. So, now we have contaminated groundwater, not only from chemicals, but also plastics as well. And as you all know, we drink 'fresh' ground water because it's so natural. Well, maybe not so natural now.

most plastics in use today are simply not biodegradable and are in fact, highly resistant to degradation. Indeed, the billions of tonnes of plastics already released into the environment, since the origin of their creation, remain with us to the present day in one form or another and may take thousands of years to completely degrade.

Yes, microplastics can come from degrading plastics, no matter what their shape or form. Micro plastics in the bloodstream would be most likely to come from ingestion; that is either by eating or drinking contaminated products as it then becomes easier to enter the bloodstream. Other microplastics would enter the body by inhalation when we breathe. In general, most of the microplastics, in the body, are the PET type (polyethylene terephthalate) which comes from drink bottles, food containers and food wrapping. So we need to be more careful and stringent. If not, then we run the risk of truly becoming a plastic society.

Plastic flavors my food in unbelievable combinations.

Have you had your daily dose of microplastics today?

Your brain will become pickled in plastic if man has his way.

Microplasticosis​ will​ herald the​ onset​ of​ unseen​ behavioral changes, body​ lesions,​ degeneration and​ incapacitation of​ normal​ bodily functions &​ movement​ and​ maybe​ even​ death​ in​ some​ cases.​ Not​ only​ for​ mankind, but​ also​ for​ all​ living​ things​ on​ this​ planet.​ Unfortunately, microplastics​ are​ here​ to​ stay.​

Microplasticosis will be result of an invasive entity residing within all living things. What is this entity? Micro-plastics! They're here right now in all food chains, within all life and beyond. Will there be a cure? Sadly, no because it will be in everything and everywhere. We breathe them in. We ingest them. We cook with them. We drink them. We sleep with them & work with them each and every day. Sadly, in our race to embrace technology and a life of laziness & indifference we have created our own demise. They will change us and everything else in a way that we never thought possible. Microplasticosis...Remember the name because you, your family, your friends, and even your pets will have it in some form or another.

Microplastics will have explored the known universe long before man ever will.

If I was a betting man, I would bet every cent that the moon will have microplastics all over the moon.

The marine plastic debris crisis has been largely addressed thanks to a groundswell of community concern that galvanized governments and industry to take appropriate measures. Governments, particularly in poorer nations, have funded improved waste collection systems that stem the loss of plastics from the land to the oceans via rivers. The demand for plastics has been greatly reduced because of global bans on single use plastic bags and reduced use of plastic in packaging. Furthermore, efficient systems are in place to collect and recycle plastic into new products thus greatly reducing the amount of virgin plastic being manufactured. After some initial teething problems effective systems to remove plastic debris from the oceanic gyres are in operation and the amount of plastic in the gyres has been reduced by three-quarters, reducing harm to marine organisms and reducing the source of much of the microplastics in the oceans. Shorelines and seascapes around the world are now much cleaner and there are much reduced levels of microplastics in seafood.

Technology has given me a taste for plastics. Literally!

Contamination from plastic pollution is a terrestrial problem as much as it is a marine problem. Humans have altered the earth with roads, mines, buildings, ditches, dams, and dumps to the degree that our era deserves a name--the Anthropocene. Natural history is punctuated by changes in life, due either to rapid evolution or catastrophic extinction, and evidence of change is sometimes marked by well-preserved, widely distributed fossils. What is our fossil equivalent? Some suggest it's black carbon from the Industrial Revolution, which shows up in the seafloor and ice caps, or it's radioactive isotopes from the mid-twentieth-century nuclear tests. Now, with evidence of plastic, transported by wind and waves, blanketing Earth from the seafloor to the tops of mountains, it is arguable that plastic is the best index fossil that represents us. Even if we stop polluting the planet with plastic today, we will have to live with a layer of microplastics that will represent this moment in natural history, when a single species so deeply affected the planet for a short while.

the angriest and most passionate voices, start to be rewarded by public opinion. This phenomenon is clearly observed in mainstream and social media. Consider the following comparison, for instance. After sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg made her landmark UN speech in 2019, media attention soared. While her efforts and sense of initiative were undeniably impressive, especially for a teenager, the fact remains that her credentials on the subject were nonexistent, and her scowling message offered no practical solutions whatsoever. Compare her accomplishments to another young environmentalist named Boyan Slat, who doesn’t make passionate speeches or hurl angry slogans, but did design a revolutionary ocean cleanup system that captures debris ranging from one-ton ghost nets to tiny microplastics. At the time of this writing, a quick Google search shows 69 million search results for Greta, and just over 500,000 for Boyan. Greta was named ‘Person of the Year’ by Time magazine. Boyan was not.

The present day is marked by pervasive environmental changes that are clear in almost every geological deposit, whether glacier ice, stalagtites, or sediments from lake-beds or the ocean floor. From spherical carbonaceous particles to microplastics to changes in the carbon and nitrogen cycles indicated by the changing levels of certain carbon and nitrogen isotopes, a human fingerprint is obvious.