Microplastics! They're everywhere!

An unhinged list of places scientists have found microplastics—including dolphin breath.

Most people assume the dots in this famous dolphin gif are stars. But if new research is any indication, they may actually be microplastics.

Dolphins are breathing microplastics into their lungs when they emerge from the ocean for air. That’s the topline of new peer-reviewed research published in the journal Plos One on Wednesday.

It’s also the latest entry to the running list I’ve been keeping on my phone for the last few months, titled: “Unhinged places scientists have found microplastics.” And while “dolphin breath” may seem like it must be one of the wildest entries, it’s actually pretty par for the course.

I’ve decided to share that list with you today. Keep in mind that every entry could benefit from nuance and context regarding health risks and particle concentrations. Please click the links attached if you want to learn more.

But I keep this list because it helps remind me why cutting back on plastic consumption and production is so important. It’s not just because the plastics industry is the fastest-growing source of industrial greenhouse gas pollution in the world—although that’s frankly reason enough. It’s because society’s over-reliance on plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, is physically screwing with almost every single thing on this planet. (Except tardigrades, for some reason, which is hardy a comfort).

This is the only thing that can resist microplastics. It’s a water bear, or tardigrade (phylum Tardigrada), pictured using a colored scanning electron micrograph (SEM). Source: Getty Images.

Over the last few years, scientists have found microplastics in:

• The snow at the top of the world’s highest mountain

• The water at the deepest point of the ocean

• Human placenta

• Human blood

• A Missouri cave where humans haven’t stepped foot in 30 years

• Archaeological soil samples buried more than 7 meters deep

• The literal wind

• The literal rain

• The water at the most remote point of the ocean

• The tap water at the Environmental Protection Agency

• The tap water pretty much everywhere

Source: The Guardian

• The top of the French Pyrenees mountains

• The literal air inside of buildings

• Human breast milk

• Human poop

• Animal pellet feed

• Cow meat and milk

• The bodies of honey bees

• Bottled water

• The first-ever poops of human infants

• The agricultural soils of California strawberry farms

• The agricultural soils of Chinese vegetable farms

• The agricultural soils of farms pretty much everywhere

• Human testicles

• Dog testicles

• Arctic ice

• The wastewater and sewage systems of most places

• The soil at the top of pristine Swiss mountains

• Remote Antarctic marine systems

• Beer

• Salt

• The Cocos Keeling Islands, a remote island string in the Indian Ocean

• The fats and lungs of two-thirds of marine mammals

• Every single turtle

• Human semen

I’m sure this list is far from complete. If you have things you think I should add, leave them in the comments. I’m happy to keep updating this post.

But as much as I like to remind myself to avoid plastic, individual action is only one small part of the solution. Without a binding, aggressive global agreement to reduce plastic production and thereby pollution, it does not matter how much ocean cleanup we do. More microplastics will always flow.

Here’s the kicker: Most of the world’s nations agreed to develop the first-ever legally-binding treaty to reduce plastic pollution in 2022. They said they would complete negotiations by the end of 2024. But those talks are stalling, in part because of disagreements over whether plastic production should be limited. The Biden Administration has said it supports production limits, and this has made the plastics and fossil fuel industries furious. Final negotiations for a global plastic treaty are supposed to be held in South Korea next month.

For those talks to be a success, governments will have to feel more pressure from citizens and researchers than they do from the fossil fuel and plastics industries. If that can happen, perhaps we can avoid our tardigrade fate.

I don’t know. Maybe being this guy wouldn’t be so bad. Source: Getty Images

Further reading:

• Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber national delegations, scientists, and Indigenous Peoples at plastics treaty negotiations. CIEL, April 2024.

  196 lobbyists for the fossil fuel and chemical industry registered for the plastics treaty talks… three times greater than the 58 independent scientists from the Scientists’ Coalition for An Effective Plastic Treaty and seven times greater than the 28 representatives of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus. 

• UN plastics treaty: don’t let lobbyists drown out researchers. Nature editorial, April 2024.

  Discussions have been dominated by persistent lobbying by chemical-industry associations and by some fossil-fuel-producing nations, notably Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia. They want to focus, for instance, on recycling and on pollution-limiting rules, rather than on eliminating plastics altogether, partly to allow production to continue on current scales….
  
  No amount of recycling is going to stop the deluge of plastic coming into the economy. Negotiators need to accept that the only way that better waste management and recycling will work is if less plastic is made in the first place.

• The US says it now supports a more ambitious plastics treaty. Industry groups are furious. Grist, August 2024.

  Because the U.S. carries so much weight in the treaty negotiations — and because North America produces one-fifth of the world’s plastics — Dixon said the White House’s new position could be “a welcome signal to fence-sitting countries,” encouraging them to join the high-ambition coalition. “I hope it will only further isolate the small group of countries who are unwilling to commit to the necessary binding regulations we need to see on the supply of plastics.”

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Catch of the Day: I was about to just throw another tardigrade pic in here, but then I saw that reader Nikki submitted these two adorable rabbits named Aiko and Oreo. So I stopped myself.

Just as we’ve never had tardigrades in the newsletter, we’ve never had rabbits either. What a day!

Want to see your furry (or non-furry!) friend in HEATED? Send a picture and some words to catchoftheday@heated.world.