It feels like every few weeks i see an article about microplastics being in the human body. As i understand plastics are inert so why do we expect them to be any more harmful than normal dust?
In: Biology
Monomers. That’s why. Plastics are only sort-of “inert” when thousands of the plastic’s essential molecules, the “monomers”, are joined up the way they’re supposed be for normal use – i.e. “polymers”, which is the definition of plastic.
But in real life, plastics are forever breaking up their polymer molecules into monomers, like little bristles coming off a rope. And the little pieces are definitely not inert. They have disproprotionately huge effects on our bodies when they act like hormones or neurotransmitters and such – one plastic monomer molecule can have the impact of billions of more mundane everyday compounds.
For example – the monomers for vinyl and for teflon are definitely very harmful. People who make those plastics get sick, often with cancer.
So when it’s said that plastics are inert, that’s what scientists call a big fat lie.
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