Researchers may have found an effective, green way to remove microplastics from our water using readily available plant materials. Their device was found to capture up to 99.9% of a wide variety of microplastics known to pose a health risk to humans.
  • LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.chEnglish
    85·
    1 year ago

    In case anyone wasn’t clear, this is for drinking water/waste water systems. Not for cleaning up the ocean.

    This sounds like a great, renewable, filter material that can be added (or replace existing filters) to a municipal water treatment plant. There’s serious issues with microplastics getting into drinking water, and this could certainly help with that.

    • Omnificer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      24·
      1 year ago

      While I think this is a perfectly valid follow-up question, even if the “solution” is to bury it (with safeguards such as not able to get into groundwater), that’s better than it being in the drinking water. Short term at least.

      Considering how early this research is, it’s also possible they wanted to know their filter works before solving disposal. And, while not explicit, it sounds like this is meant to replace existing filters that themselves use plastic, so this could be a net gain even if disposed in the exact same manner as the original filters however that may be.

    • gibmiser@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      1 year ago

      There are some microbes and I believe meal worms who can eat certain plastics. There will be solutions

        • gibmiser@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10·
          1 year ago

          It’s not hopeless is all im saying. We still gotta do better to reduce use of plastics, but there is still hope to fix some of the damage we have already done

          • ickisEnglish
            3·
            1 year ago

            I concur; we should always strive for progress, not perfection.

    • umbrella@lemmy.mlEnglish
      12·
      1 year ago

      If we can take it away from our water and trap it in plant material, I think it would be better off.

      • Rednax@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        People in this thread are looking for complicated answers. But the best thing to do with sawdust, plant matter and a tiny bit of micro plastics seems to me also to just burn it.

    • aninnymoose@lemm.eeEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      As always with most things in our capitalist society, it’s better for shareholders if general population injests microplastics than for them to spend money on products to prevent it. Capitalism only spends money on things that bring profit, not to make a world a better place. If while making that profit the world becomes a better place, that’s a marketing win.

      • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
        61·
        1 year ago

        If this can be commercialized into an at-home filter that’s easy to install and use, you can absolutely bet that this would be advertised to hell and back and make a fuckton of money from people convinced of the absolute need to filter out microplastics.

        Of course, no direct adverse health effects have ever been proved from them, but wouldn’t you pay $30 for a filter, just in case? I guarantee you millions of people would.

        The shareholders don’t want you to become living plastic; they want you to buy shit, and this is a very obvious product that would make a lot of money.

        • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.eeEnglish
          5·
          1 year ago

          Microplastics and other pollutants from plastics production are endocrine disruptors This is believed to affect your metabolism, body temperature, fertility, thyroid and immune system. Co-pollutants from plastic exposure such as heavy metals have extensive and well known health effects. PVC (found in residential plumbing and consumer goods such as vinyl records) are notoriously toxic and off gas for years, releasing several potent carcinogens and heavy metals into the environment. Source 1 source 2

          Microplastics, and several types of plastics in general, are well understood to have significant health effects.

          • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
            2·
            1 year ago

            There are some established effects, and none of them are good - to be very clear - but my general understanding is that the effects don’t seem to be super super significant, though there’s a lot we don’t know. I’d certainly support efforts to reduce and eliminate them from the environment, including drinking water, but I think the amount of paranoia and fear (that will absolutely be exploited by corporations) is probably a bit overblown. If there were obvious and clear direct health risks, I imagine we’d have noticed them by now, though again, there’s a lot we don’t know.

            To put it another way, is the risk so great that I think every family should spend $30 on a filter every few months? Probably not, but I know plenty of companies will cheerfully sell you them anyway just to make people feel better about it.

            • Esp@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              3·
              1 year ago

              In retrospect I think I was thinking of PFAS. I’m not sure if that’s technically a microplastic or not. Anyway; I would imagine intaking chemicals that your body is unable to remove effectively is probably bad no matter what it is. As bad as mercury or lead ? Probably not. I guess the question to find out is what thresholds of microplastic content correlate to how much negative health outcomes.

              And yeah, the irony of the same corpos that poisoned the worlds water supply with microplastics wanting to sell you a microplastic filter wrapped in plastic container isn’t lost on me and most definitely will happen.

    • jantin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      This tech is literally trash bathed in leaf sauce. Even if someone would patent it it’s like you tried to patent a herbal tea - yea, you may try and maybe win, but every farmer and their mom will brew one themselves from loosely scattered weeds.

      So after a short thought it means it’s going to be a massive, profitable venture for someone, because people are actually dumb enough to pay tens of $ for a handful of sawdust and reasonably pure tannic acid if it comes with a fancy cap and in a gray cardboard box.

  • Izzgo@kbin.social
    8·
    1 year ago

    Sounds like a great stop gap measure to benefit humans. My concern will be that, once WE are no longer drinking microplastics, we’ll forget that everyone else is. But meanwhile, Brita? How soon can you add this to your filters?

  • Rbon@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    That’s crazy that it’s just sawdust and tannic acid! I bet these scientists tried a lot of more complex recipes before they found this one.