It’s bad enough to have square miles of plastic containers swirling around in the ocean and polluting our waterways. Now we have learned that synthetics, from plastic to polyester, are shedding microscopic bits of substance that we inhale and consume from plastic strewn into the environment.
These microplastics have now started to been linked to possible negative health consequences. Although research on this topic is just beginning, they appear to cause DNA changes and oxidative damage that are linked to increased risk of cancer and reproductive disorders. According to Harvard Medicine, the Harvard Medical School magazine, microplastics have been found in many parts of the human body, including blood, saliva, liver, kidneys, breast milk, and meconium, a baby’s first stool.
Just thinking about microplastics in my bloodstream makes me want to accelerate the process I began years ago: conversion of my household goods away from plastic. A recent perusal of a factsheet on reducing microplastic exposure, supplied by https://www.beyondplastics.org, sent me to the hardware store to look for a set of glass food storage containers. I’m now air-drying any clothes made with Spandex, since the heat of a dryer causes plastics to break down and shed more easily into the air.
I already do approximately half of the recommendations on the list, just to reduce the plastic in my life. Like many people, I carry a stainless steel water bottle so I don’t have to buy water bottled in plastic and can avoid using disposable cups at parties. (Even most paper cups have plasticized linings.) At the supermarket, when possible, I opt for items (honey, peanut butter, applesauce, juice) in glass containers rather than in plastic, and I often reuse the jars for storage, which I’ll be doing more often now. I carry clean food containers in my car and bring them into restaurants for my leftovers—a simple gesture that startles people. Some coffee drinkers carry around ceramic mugs for use in cafes.
In addition to avoiding the waste and pollution of single-use plastics, I find the concept of microplastics has added a whole new level of concern. For instance, I do my food shopping with reusable shopping bags, but they’re made of recycled plastic. Isn’t the recycling a plus? Maybe not enough of a plus, if my bags are shedding microplastics everywhere. It’s not hard to switch to canvas or cotton.
Inside the shopping bag, I carry recycled storage bags so I don’t have to take new plastic bags for my produce—but my recycled bags are all plastic, which will shed microplastics onto my food. I can wash the food off, sending the microplastics into the septic, to leach eventually into groundwater and thence into the creek, which supplies my town with drinking water. The factsheet recommends cotton storage bags. I’ve tried them, and the vegetables wilted in my fridge. Do I go with silicone bags, which are waterproof?
When I looked up the environmental effects of silicone, I was not surprised to find the manufacture of silicone products contributes substantially to pollution. On the plus side, silicone is abundant, being derived from sand. While the reusability of silicone bags is positive and long-term, when they finally wear out and are discarded, they can persist in the environment for decades, says the British blog https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/. After weighing the pros and cons of silicone, the British website suggests alternatives like bioplastics, specifically polylactic acid, or PLA.
Also used for 3-D printing, PLA is derived from plant sources including corn starch, tapioca roots, and sugarcane. Second-generation PLA is even more environmentally friendly, since it’s made from residue, waste, and by-products: stems, straw, husks, and leaves. PLA is compostable, and its production is less energy-intensive than that of fossil-based plastics. On the other hand, its low melting point means it can’t be recycled with other plastics, nor is it compatible with backyard composting because it breaks down too slowly, states https://bioplasticsnews.com/. (Biobag, a company that makes PLA-based bags in various sizes, claims its products can be sent to high-temperature industrial composters.) PLA is good for short-term food storage, but it’s not sufficiently impermeable to moisture and oxygen for long-term storage, and the bags are not as tough as regular plastic bags. Obviously, there are tradeoffs to be weighed. Perhaps I will hedge my bets with a mix of silicone and PLA bags.
What else have I learned? Don’t use plastic cutting boards, and don’t microwave your food in plastic containers. Some of this stuff is easy—just use wooden cutting boards and microwave in ceramic bowls. I’ve never been a fan of non-stick cookware or of liquid soap in plastic dispensers, so I don’t have to phase out those items.
I stopped buying shampoo and conditioner years ago, when I learned I could use baking soda (sold in cardboard boxes) to wash my hair and apple cider vinegar (sold in glass jars) as a rinse. These substances do not strip the natural oils from hair, so I don’t have to wash as often as I used to. There are also shampoos and conditioners manufactured as bars and packaged in paper, but I like the idea of avoiding the chemicals used in commercial hair care products, which are often tested on animals and require intensive energy for manufacture.
But back to plastics.
Dishwashers contain plastic parts that emit microplastics at the high water temperatures required for efficient washing. Tossing plastic items in the dishwasher adds to the effect. Looks like it’s time to do a lot more hand-washing of dishes, or at the very least, leaving plastic out of the mechanical wash. I already buy dish detergent for hand-washing in bulk from Houst Hardware in Woodstock, so I expect to reuse my big plastic storage bottle and the smaller dispenser bottle into eternity. But it appears that microplastics from the bottles could be leaching into the dish detergent. Perhaps I’ll play chemist and experiment with baking soda, cornstarch, and/or vinegar for hand-washing of dishes.
Last year, I switched from laundry detergent in plastic containers to those detergent sheets packaged in cardboard. The sheets contain a type of plastic called polyvinyl alcohol that is currently the subject of controversy over whether it fully breaks down in wastewater, possibly depending on the presence of specific bacteria. Darn it. I suppose when mine are used up, I’ll go to powdered detergent or tablets in cardboard boxes.
Studies done in Europe show that when synthetic textiles (polyester, Spandex, etc.) are washed in domestic washing machines, the higher the temperature and the longer the washing cycle, the more microplastics are emitted into the wastewater. Higher-speed spinning in the washer also increases emissions.
Single-use dryer sheets often contain plastic, unlike wool dryer balls, which soften clothes. Microfiber cleaning cloths are also made with plastic, and it’s easy to save worn-out cotton clothing to use for dusting and wiping.
Then there’s the fact that some replacements for plastic are more expensive, especially when it comes to containers. I see the expenditure as an investment in our health and the well-being of the planet. Since the replacement containers can be used over and over, hopefully the expense for each item won’t come up more than once—or at least not often.
Maybe we can’t change every item on the list, but we can pick the ones that are easiest and try not to drive ourselves crazy.
Google it
Search online for “microplastics,” and your algorithm will throw up ads for plastic-less items like the following. I cannot vouch for their reliability — you will have to judge for yourself — but they do look promising.
https://scrubbelove.com sells cleaning sponges made of coconut fiber and wood chips.
https://pelacase.com offers cell phone cases that are compostable, composed of bioplastic elastomer (a starchy plant-based substance) and waste products from the harvest of flax.
https://www.blueland.com has an array of cleaning products, from detergent tablets for laundry and dishwasher to liquid hand soap in reusable glass pump bottles.
https://us.thehumble.co sells dental care products, including toothpaste tablets, bamboo toothbrushes, and more.
https://theearthlingco.com has developed herbal shampoo and conditioner bars.
Join the family! 
