Microplastics found in sediment layers dated to 1733!

[thewayne]

Wow. Microplastics in Antarctica, microplastics in our internal organs.

And we keep buying water bottles. I wish they'd bring back glass bottles with deposits on them. I made a nice bit of coin when I was a kid in the '60s and '70s collecting those bottles and taking them back to stores.

*sigh*

This latest discovery comes from Latvia, where they were dredging up sediment samples from a lake for study.

One comment from Slashdot had some interesting takes:
Other possibilities:
1. Samples were contaminated.
2. Microplastics are not really plastics
3. Microplastics have always existed and occur naturally
4. Method of detection of microplastics is flawed
5. Microplastics didn't really appear in the samples, but the researchers have an agenda
6. Story was misreported
7. Microplastics come from something other than post-1950s life on earth
8. Researchers are funded by a group that wants microplastics to show up everywhere, even on Mars and the Moon.
9. Story was mistranslated.
10. Microplastics are really midi-chlorians but don't tell anyone.

Or microplastics are supermigratory. Let's see if they appear in drilled core samples.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/microplastics-sediment-layers

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/02/23/2343252/microplastics-found-in-sediment-layers-untouched-by-modern-humans

Comments

[graydon]

A possibility that the list leaves out: microplastics are migratory in sediment and do not stay in the context of deposition. (Given the usual density differences, it would not be any kind of surprising if the plastics sink with the water.)

[thewayne]

That's what I'm thinking, they're just supermigratory and get everywhere.  Dredging is probably not the best way to sample that old of a layer, we'll see what other sampling produces over time.

[disneydream06]

I'm not a big conspiracy theory person, but you have to wonder if they are finding plastics in something from 1733. :o :o :o
I don't know if they still do, but Voss water use to come in glass bottles.
And it was good water.
I do buy 1.5 liter bottles of Smart Water, but then I reuse the bottles for months using tap water.
Not perfect, but at least I don't one time and done.
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Same here.  I have three one liter bottles that I use to keep myself supplied at work.  Then I carry a Nalgene plastic bottle that I can run through the dishwasher at home and have a second at work so I can throw one in the freezer and always have really cold water.  I bring home one of the one liter bottles at least 3-4 times a week to refill through my Pur sink filter.  We almost never buy disposable water bottles.

[disneydream06]

I keep mine filled from home too.
Rochester water sucks and the hospital water is worse. BLECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kaishin108]

We have a water filter on our kitchen sink that I use for coffee and tea and then I buy 2 gallons of water at a water station to drink. I really do also with they had 2 gallon glass bottles to store it in. Then I refill old glass ice tea or kombucha bottles with water if I take it somewhere. All of these plastics, ugh!

[thewayne]

I have five glass 'tea' bottles that I use for my bedside 'night' drinks, they get rotated thru the fridge so they're cold when I go to bed, and run thru the dishwasher as needed.  We have a Pur filter on the sink and a Brita pitcher.  It seems like the glass tea bottles disappeared with the pandemic, though.

[kaishin108]

Oh, I like and can relate to your system. :)
The Kombucha has to be bottled in glass, so that is a good source if mine break or anything. I am so sick of plastics.

[disneydream06]

I use to have a metal jug that was something like 1.3 liters or something like that.
Anyway, One night I was carrying it in to work by the hole in the screw on top and jug fell right off/out of the screw on cap. The weight of the water must have started to strip the screw on cap. UGH...
That brought an end to that jug. :(

[thewayne]

Whoops!  Yeah, that's a rather crashing ending!

[disneydream06]

Put a nice little dent in it. LOL.........
That's when I moved on to the big Smart Water bottles. :o

[kaishin108]

Darn! :-(

[disneydream06]

Exactly. :(

[silveradept]

That's certainly the kind of thing where you continue to wonder about the ubiquity of the things.