GEOLOGY WITH JEFF SIMPSON
  • Home
  • GLG101IN
  • GLG110IN
  • GLG280/281
  • GEONEWS
  • JEFF
  • Sustainable Building Project
  • UDP

Baby Poop Is Loaded With Microplastics

9/22/2021

 
WHENEVER A PLASTIC bag or bottle degrades, it breaks into ever smaller pieces that work their way into nooks in the environment. When you wash synthetic fabrics, tiny plastic fibers break loose and flow out to sea. When you drive, plastic bits fly off your tires and brakes. That’s why literally everywhere scientists look, they’re finding microplastics—specks of synthetic material that measure less than 5 millimeters long. They’re on the most remote mountaintops and in the deepest oceans. They’re blowing vast distances in the wind to sully once pristine regions like the Arctic. In 11 protected areas in the western US, the equivalent of 120 million ground-up plastic bottles are falling out of the sky each year.  And now, microplastics are coming out of babies. In a pilot study published today, scientists describe sifting through infants’ dirty diapers and finding an average of 36,000 nanograms of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) per gram of feces, 10 times the amount they found in adult feces. They even found it in newborns' first feces. PET is an extremely common polymer that’s known as polyester when it’s used in clothing, and it is also used to make plastic bottles. The finding comes a year after another team of researchers calculated that preparing hot formula in plastic bottles severely erodes the material, which could dose babies with several million microplastic particles a day, and perhaps nearly a billion a year.  - Wired

Comments are closed.

    GeoNews

    This is a way to share science-based info from reliable sources. Click the source link after text to read more. Use this Google Doc or this Google Slides template to summarize an article. An occasional podcast featuring news and topic experts will be included.
    ​
    Contact Prof Jeff to share items.

    Categories

    All
    Agriculture
    Air Pollution
    Animals
    Arizona
    Beaches
    Biosphere (Plants / Animals)
    Climate Change
    Earthquakes
    Earth's Interior
    Economics
    Energy
    Erosion
    Fire
    Food
    Forests
    Fossil Fuels
    Geologic History
    Geophysics
    Glaciers
    Groundwater
    Health
    Humor
    Indigenous Peoples
    Magnetic
    Mass Wasting
    Meteorites
    Minerals
    Mining
    Nuclear Power
    Oceans
    Ozone
    Plate Tectonics / EQs
    Pollution
    Population
    Recycling
    Renewable Energy
    Rivers
    Soil
    Space Science
    Sustainability
    Transportation
    Tsunami
    Volcanoes
    Waste
    Water


    Archives

    September 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020



    RSS Feed

Site powered by Weebly. Managed by MacHighway
  • Home
  • GLG101IN
  • GLG110IN
  • GLG280/281
  • GEONEWS
  • JEFF
  • Sustainable Building Project
  • UDP