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[–] 60 points 8 months ago

"Taste the rainbow" getting new meaning

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  • [–] 54 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    This implies that microplastics were inevitable because of the industrial revolution instead of because of the oil industry destroying regulation for 100 years.

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    According to Karl Marx (in Das Kapital ) the deregulation of industry for sake of profit is inevitable.

    It's cheaper to capture government than it is to follow regulations (which, in turn, are meant to serve the public, sometimes protect the public from industry)

    Some nations are trying to make the capture process slow or difficult, but none have stopped it, and it only accelerates.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

    But supporting their central point, Marx did propose a solution that would make have made microplastics evitable.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Only on the presumption that we didn't detect it and aim for solutions sooner (e.g. invent circular recycling of plastics, replace major causes of microplastics with degradeable alternatives, say, vulcanized rubber with rubber and mushrooms).

    Also the society's response in this late hour would probably be more effective than a disinformation campaign and a shrug.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I think it's safe to assume that if we had stronger regulations, some of which were first implemented 1980, we'd be looking at significantly less than now.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Agreed, but 1980 was the beginning of the Reagan-Bush era and massive environmental deregulation, which only got worse through Clinton and George W. Bush.

    The great conservative movement killed conservation.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    Your phrasing seems to indicate that you're refuting my point when it strengthens it? Yeah if we had followed the Republican bare minimum instead of letting the bottom drop out it'd already be significantly less of an issue.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Plastic is made from petroleum. Petroleum is natural and good for you. I use a 1/4 tsp of petroleum in my water for flavor and I turned out fine.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    No kidding my MiL said this about eating blackberries right off the highway during leaded gasoline times.

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  • [–] 33 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    "In 1804, Richard Trevithick developed the high pressure steam engine, unwhittingly dooming all of humanity."

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  • [–] 17 points 8 months ago

    The first nobhead to pick up a stick to use as a tool kicked off a technological singularity and now we’re buggered.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Me going back in time to meet Eduard Simon:

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Can someone smart clear this up for me? I thought distillation was the process of evaporating liquids then cooling them to form just the pure liquid on the other end, if this can happen in rain, could micro plastics find their way into distilled water too?

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  • [+] 23 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Raindrops always condensate around a little dust particle referred to as nucleus, afaik

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    yeah, i'd think the nucleus for these raindrops were microplastic clouds

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Evaporation ≠ distillation. Nature doesn't have filters everywhere. That's not to say that nature doesn't have filters, but they are seemingly sparse in the air.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Distillation doesn't use filters either

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    Maybe it's more about sterile conditions then, in a glass tube you're probably counting on the way that the water moves through it, I keep thinking back to the game raft and how they "distill" water, always made me wonder if it would really work

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Plastic is just gray goo in slow motion.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago*

    It's rainin' [green plastic army] men, Hallelujah!

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Free filament for 3d printers

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