It is concerning. We’ve got those huge patches of floating plastic garbage in the Pacific, and it seems we, and all forms of life, can’t avoid ingesting microplastics. I have no idea what the long term consequences will be, for humans, for life in general.
How does one see all the future consequences of human invention? Henry Ford was thinking of $$, not the environmental consequences of burning a lot more fossil fuel, when he applied assembly line production to automobiles, making cars available to all. And I’m sure it would not have made a difference to him, anymore than it did to the oil company executives who hid what they knew, and knew far earlier than they admitted. Who thought in advance what so much plastic might mean in the long term? My state just recently banned plastic bags, otherwise my own habits have not changed.
That seems to be a big problem where humans are concerned: the brain power to alter the environment and natural world, but weak in weighing future consequences of such alteration. Until we arrive at a “woops, what did we do?” state of affairs.
Plastic pollution is one of the defining legacies of our modern way of life, but it is now so widespread it is even finding its way into fruit and vegetables as they grow.
www.bbc.com
