{"id":1647,"date":"2024-03-09T16:07:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-09T17:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=1647"},"modified":"2024-03-12T21:03:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T21:03:29","slug":"a-new-film-at-sxsw-warns-of-the-potential-harm-of-microplastics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=1647","title":{"rendered":"A New Film at SXSW Warns of the Potential Harm of Microplastics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At SXSW, a documentary traces the arc of plastics in our lives, and highlights evolving research of the potential harm of its presence in our bodies.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s been more than five decades since Dustin Hoffman\u2019s character in \u201cThe Graduate\u201d was offered a kernel of wisdom about the path to prosperity.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlastics,\u201d he\u2019s told by Mr. McGuire<\/a>, the starched corporate executive who offers the advice. \u201cThere\u2019s a great future in plastics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plastics have indeed been a game changer for humanity, and the enormous range of cheap, durable plastic goods, from food containers and PVC pipes to polyester clothing and single-use medical products, have inarguably improved life.<\/p>\n

The problem, as nearly everyone knows, is that plastics are forever<\/a> and very little of it has been recycled<\/a>. The U.N. has estimated that most of the 400 million metric tons<\/a> churned out annually \u2014 a doubling of production since 2000 \u2014 will remain on Earth in some form as they are broken down into teeny specks by sunlight, wind and the sea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Roughly 20 years ago, Richard Thompson, a marine biologist, first discovered<\/a> a worrisome accumulation of small plastic particles in ocean habitats and coined the word \u201cmicroplastics.\u201d Since then, scientists have been finding these fragments everywhere<\/a>, from remote<\/a> mountain peaks<\/a> and the Arctic<\/a> to the ocean seafloor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the decade that followed, scientists began to discover microplastics embedded in a wide range of living creatures<\/a>, including in the seafood we eat. More recently, microplastics have been found inside the human body: in our lungs, our blood, our feces and in breast milk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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At SXSW, a documentary traces the arc of plastics in our lives, and highlights evolving research of the potential harm of its presence in our bodies.It\u2019s been more than five decades since Dustin Hoffman\u2019s character in \u201cThe Graduate\u201d was offered a kernel of wisdom about the path to prosperity.\u201cPlastics,\u201d he\u2019s told by Mr. McGuire, the starched corporate executive who offers the advice. \u201cThere\u2019s a great future in plastics.\u201dPlastics have indeed been a game changer for humanity, and the enormous range of cheap, durable plastic goods, from food containers and PVC pipes to polyester clothing and single-use medical products, have inarguably improved life.The problem, as nearly everyone knows, is that plastics are forever and very little of it has been recycled. The U.N. has estimated that most of the 400 million metric tons churned out annually \u2014 a doubling of production since 2000 \u2014 will remain on Earth in some form as they are broken down into teeny specks by sunlight, wind and the sea.Roughly 20 years ago, Richard Thompson, a marine biologist, first discovered a worrisome accumulation of small plastic particles in ocean habitats and coined the word \u201cmicroplastics.\u201d Since then, scientists have been finding these fragments everywhere, from remote mountain peaks and the Arctic to the ocean seafloor.In the decade that followed, scientists began to discover microplastics embedded in a wide range of living creatures, including in the seafood we eat. More recently, microplastics have been found inside the human body: in our lungs, our blood, our feces and in breast milk.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1649,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1647"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1650,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647\/revisions\/1650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}