Every generation has some product/ingredient that they didn’t know was dangerous at the time: tobacco, lead, asbestos, etc. What is that item for this generation?

Jpopy@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 715 points –
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Micro plastics. We were advertising them in facial scrubs ffs.

This right here. We are undoubtedly the plastic generation. And it's not letting up any time soon; our kids will be included in this cohort as well. Banning plastic bags in cities is next to useless when everything we eat, everything we drink, and everything we buy is wrapped in plastic.

My country is exceptionally bad about this.

Buy a plastic package of crackers? It will be filled with smaller packages of crackers all wrapped in plastic with a plastic freshener pack for each one. I am not exaggerating. I am not sure I have ever bought something that didn't have at least two degrees of plastic wrap.

We did stop giving plastic bags out at cashiers unless requested, but that means shitall when everything you buy is triple-wrapped to begin with.

If it makes you feel better a significant amount of microplastics come from tires wearing away on the road.

Japan?

*reads bio*

Japan.

EDIT: this was my experience in Japan as well: deny the plastic bag from the worker, to buy a plastic bag of 2 apples, individually wrapped in plastic, with the plastic foam sleeves to prevent bruising... and yet Japan still has less single-use plastic waste than America!

Yeah Japan. The argument is that the big souvenir boxes are typically left open and shared among all your coworkers (which to be fair, is usually the case in my office). It still seems excessive though.

What are people doing in the states that they actually have even more?

Banning plastic bags I could get behind. It was inconvenient, but necessary. My city just passed an ordinance that all paper bags require a $0.15 charge. As if it wasn't already $7 for a hamburger, now you get to pay more to keep your fries from spilling all over the car seat.

When you get the burger in the car, you could put the stuff into reusable containers.

It's mostly from polyester and cotton/poly blends. They dredged the ocean floor and looked at the microplastics it dug up. Sourced it from clothing mostly.

Plastic in general, except that we know and just keep doing it. I'm trying to use less plastic if I can but it's frickin everywhere. If you want to buy an ear of corn it's wrapped in plastic as if it isn't already wrapped in nature's protection. Seriously people.

This, big time. Pretty much every product or package contains some plastics, including so many one-time use disposable ones. Plastics are infesting the Earth from pole to pole, they are everywhere. Clothes are made of plastic, do laundry and a bunch of microplastics go down the drain. Car tires drop microplastics as they wear. And then there's all the large ones we can see like plastic bags, bottles, etc.