why are people more concerned about microplastics than regular plastic, doesn’t regular plastic also break down into smaller and smaller pieces?

Question

Like when people are worried about the microplastics in toothpaste, but not the plastic tube it comes in. Isn’t that tube going to break down into way more microplastics than the toothpaste itself contains?

In: Other

Answer 1

Yes, but embedding microplastics in toothpaste is a 100% sure way of letting the microplastics go into bodies of water as pollutants, while you can do more to mitigate the risks for these intact tubes (like recycling)