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ishitar t1_iv9pcay wrote

Seems low. About the same as number of individual krill they might eat when each krill itself must have multiple thousand of micro and nano plastic in it. Must be some lower bound cutoff point, just like that hilarious estimate a few years back the ocean contains billions of micro plastic, when estimates of the Baltic sea are in the hundreds of quadrillions and sediment at the bottom of the Mediterranean contains 2 million plastic pieces per square meter.

Why this matters: recent studies of the beached members of another whale species around Japan show unusually high levels of systemic amyloidosis, particularly in the gastrointestinal tract. Amyloidosis is the deposition of misfolded protein (most notably produced by bone marrow in mammals) and other studies have shown nanoplastic can increase amyloid deposition (makes sense as the nano particles can act as seeds in protein fibrillation, or formation of misfolded protein fibers). It matters to all species on earth as the 10 billion tons of plastic (+.5 billion annually) continue to break down and the plastic disseminates and increases in concentration through the trophic web.

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zoinkability t1_ivaeliw wrote

Hmm, wonder if there could be a connection between micro plastics and Alzheimer’s

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windowpuncher t1_ivaoezo wrote

Maybe, but Alzheimer's has been a thing long before modern plastics

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lambertb t1_ivaceq2 wrote

This is a meaningless statistic without some reference to the health effects of that level of exposure.

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Eupion t1_ivcfd3i wrote

I think now it’s meaningless. Since we’ve pollution so much, everything has micro plastics in it. Everything from our toothpaste, to food packages being grind it up and feed it to our livestock. I wouldn’t be surprised if a freshly laid egg, had micro plastics in it.

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ViennaLager t1_ivbv65v wrote

I find the use of microplastic pieces as a pointless metric. It is so trivial and just used to create headlines. What is important is the amount and that has to be quantified in a better way, such as weight.

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MrGodzillahin t1_ivci5e1 wrote

Idk for me, the fact that it’s a steadily increasing number is enough, as long as it’s increasing and truly impossible to remove (which it is). If there was no other pollution at all, constantly increasing microplastics means the eventual death of all life on Earth, right?

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ViennaLager t1_ivcmf1j wrote

Useless metric because it increases by default. Even if there were no more plastic to be released this number would still go up because as microplastic breaks down it turns into more pieces. What is the difference between 10 million plastic pieces of 5mm or 20 million of 2.5mm? How do you know if its more next year or just smaller pieces?

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CarnivalLaw t1_ivc0nnw wrote

Excuse me, you’ve got something in your baleen.

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Needleroozer t1_ivc4vkf wrote

Good for them! Nice to know Nature's out there cleaning up our mess.

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Lilster_edamame t1_ivclkfn wrote

Is there anyway to remove micro plastics?

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Flinkelinks t1_ivcisse wrote

Did they account for Microplastics Georg, who lives in a trench and swallows a trillion microplastic pieces per day?

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mc9t t1_ivc41bn wrote

How many microwaste pieces do people breath in when they flush the toilet?

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GTCapone t1_ivcc6up wrote

All I read was "blue whales swallow" and I'm on board.

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[deleted] t1_iv99oia wrote

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[deleted] t1_iv9gbyg wrote

[removed]

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