It's funny, but it's also a serious question.
[There's some teen-boy humor ahead, but I'm keeping it as clean as possible]
If you missed it, a new study found microplastics in EVERY human testicle that was tested, leading to questions about its impact on fertility.
The sample size was small - only 23 people - so like anything, take it with a grain of microplastic, but it points to a larger trend.
Over the past few years, we've found out these microplastics - itty bits of plastic that get into us from food packaging and dust and fabrics - are in our blood and various organs at astonishingly high rates.
Everyone is wondering what the impacts on health will be down the road. Are the microplastics going to kill us all?
Well, the internet decided to tackle this new study on plastics in testicles with a bit of humor.
Besides the usual sex jokes, there were some real gems in the comment section:
Jokes aside, this is a real problem.
What the actual heck do we do when faced with studies like this?
A few people tried to offer solutions:
That's not bad advice, except polyester (plastic) from underwear isn't going to magically make it through your skin and get inside the actual testes or sperm. What actually happens is a much longer journey.
Plastic fibers shed from clothes as you use and wash them.
In fact, one-third of all "primary" microplastics (plastics from everyday object we use) come from textiles like those polyester shorts. When you wash your clothes, little bits of plastic wash down the sewer line, zip through your water filtration plant's filters, and make their way into rivers out to the ocean.
Similarly, about 30% of such primary microplastics are estimated to come from tires. Rain carries them away and they eventually run into rivers that flow into the sea. The rest come mostly from household products.
But here's the thing: Primary microplastics are the minority of the microplastics that end up in nature. Most of them come from bulk plastic garbage. Landfills are designed to prevent runoff and have processes in place to help facilitate breakdown or destruction of trash to protect the environment.
But while your nice American town might care about the environment, most countries do not. They tend to be the countries that the climate alarmists ignore.
According to Ocean Conservancy, in 2015, five countries - China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam - dump more plastic into the ocean than every other nation on earth COMBINED.
In a more recent report from 2020, India was named as the worst offender. Consider this beach in Mumbai:
From Euronews:
Despite the United States producing double the amount of India's plastic waste annually (42 billion kg), only 2.4 million kg of it ends up in our oceans.
So what does this mean for you?
Well, by all means, use natural fibers, get rid of plastic pans and cooking utensils, and get rid of other sources of cheap plastic as you can. Using reverse-osmosis water will probably have the biggest effect.
But also realize that plastic is a miracle material that has many advantages. For example, microplastics are worth the tradeoff compared to E. Coli.
(I'd opt for glass, stone, or metal, though wood has been shown to have "hygroscopicity," or the ability to draw bacteria into the material, where it dies.)
Plastics keep things sterile. They are durable. They have a billion different uses and forms.
And they're cheap.
I love merino wool socks and my alpaca wool sweaters are the best dang shirts I have ever owned, but those also cost $160 bucks and I have to save up all year just to afford one on sale.
So instead of worrying that my wife just bought the kids shirts that are a polyester blend, I'm going to direct my energy where Greta should direct hers: At the mass pollution in corrupt nations like China.
I'll also focus on new technologies that help us make new materials and break down plastic waste.
And then, like every other study...
I'll understand that scientific studies are limited and often taken wildly out of context to grab attention in the headlines (the study above found a few parts per trillion in sperm levels but established no measurable effect on sperm or fertility itself).
Then I'll turn off the internet, cook up some natural food, go touch grass with my family, and thank my Lord Jesus Christ that I live in an amazing time when I only have to worry about microplastics instead of all the things that used to kill off people by the age of 35.
