this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
248 points (97.3% liked)

The Climate Crisis

1313 readers
1 users here now

The impacts and solutions of the Climate Crisis

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The average brain weighs 1300-1400 grams. If 0.5% of that is plastic by weight, your brain contains 6.5 - 7 grams of plastic. The average plastic credit card weighs 5 grams.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/microplastics-brain-pollution-health

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 51 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

For every kilometer you drive, your tires shed 1 trillion plastic particles. 78% of microplastics in the ocean are from tires.

[–] xkbx@startrek.website 40 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

What are you suggesting? That I stop peeling out of every parking lot and doing sick doughnuts!?

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 37 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

What I'm saying is that we need to figure out to make tires out of some unholy bamboo/cheese composite.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

What if the roads were rubber and the tires were asphalt?

[–] Pandantic@midwest.social 6 points 3 weeks ago

This was in a cartoon with the Flintstones once!

[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Or just go back to unvulcanized rubber

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Then it would be like 10x more particles....?

[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

They wouldn't be plastic and would be biodegradable, which is likely a step in the correct direction.

[–] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 6 points 3 weeks ago

But the oil products! We gotta make the oil billionaires more billions!

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 11 points 3 weeks ago

10-4, rolling coal instead to impress potential sexual partners.

[–] explore_broaden@midwest.social 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Maybe switching most of the transportation to steel tires on steel roads would help with this.