Activity 3.3.3 – My Plastic Use.
Definition of Microplastics: Microplastics are small particles of plastic that are smaller than 5 millimeters in size, they are generally created due to the degradation of larger plastics and widely spread through improper forms of ocean waste disposal.
Where They Are Found: Well since they find themselves into our ocean water you can expect them to be everywhere from "filtered" water to the fishies swimming in the water. Before this assignment I wasn't completely unaware of microplastics or the harm in them. I often find myself making jokes with friends anytime we're participating in something that could be harmful specifically when it comes to consuming food or liquids, for example eating expired foods or making your liver work overtime because it's your pals birthday weekend. I just kinda laugh it off and say "what's more harmful than all the microplastics we're consuming anyway" and go on with whatever foul activity I have planned for my body that day.
How They Get There: Like I mentioned above, microplastics find themselves into everyday products that we use firstly through our oceans. When items such as plastic bottles or bags break down below the size of 5 millimeters they are considered to be microplastics and that is exactly what makes them so dangerous, being of that size or smaller allows them to pass through traditional forms of purification such as water treatment. These unfiltered particles find their way into our everyday products if they are not filtered out correctly, even if they were able to remove the microplastics chances are the contents of whatever was being purified has already been exposed to the toxins leaking from said products making it a very difficult to process to achieve all together.
Why They Are Problematic to Humans and The Environment: What makes these so dangerous, microplastics are not biodegradable and while we may not know fully what kind of damages those plastics sitting in our bodies can do we know that they are still extremely harmful to not only us but our environment and the creatures that reside within it. Microplastics have the ability to retain toxins from different environments and in turn allow said toxins to release within our bodies, think of them as tiny little sponges slowly oozing harmful toxins into our bodies. Which by affecting our wildlife in turn affects us, think of all the animals drinking water from contaminated bodies of water or the animals that they consume having been contaminated already. Long story short animals eat animals, humans eat animals, voila yummy toxic pebbles sitting in our bodies forever. Because oh yeah they aren't biodegradable. That's one toxic relationship you'll never get out of.
This is just a few of the items I interacted with in one day that contain plastic, everything from my toothbrush to the containers/bags of the food I ate. It's an overwhelming amount of plastic, so much so that I could only use 25 of the images I took today to fill out the collage to its maximum capacity.
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