Category: plastic

Cosmetics cause cancer, damage unborn foetus, destroy your skin and make you fat. It’s not just women, many men’s cosmetic products are just as bad.

Parabens (and oxybenzone) are EDCs endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals widely used as preservatives in the cosmetic, pharmaceuticals, and food industries because of their antimicrobial properties. We are paying for the huge profits of cosmetic companies, in pain suffering and early death.

When Oxybenzone is exposed to sunlight it changes the wavelength of short wavelength UV light to a longer wavelength. The energy released by the process generates free radicals of oxygen, peroxide, percarbonate and perchloride,

The free radicals have 10 times higher oxidation potential than bleach and will kill all bacteria. The free radicals will also oxidise and age your skin and is the reason why all UV screens are very, very toxic. The best and safest option is a sunblock that just stops the light from reaching your skin. Sun blocks usually contain Zinc Oxide or Titanium Dioxide, do not use the products containing nanoparticles.

Just Stop It

https://lnkd.in/eGaakHiQ

image from Vogue The toxic beauty; https://lnkd.in/eB-tWCFR
#food#cosmetics#pharmaceuticals#beauty

State of knowledge and environmental and human health impacts

The millions of tonnes of plastic already in the environment are going to breakdown into nano and then molecular plastic. The toxicity level will increase by thousands if not millions of times, even if we stop all plastic pollution now.

Are we too late even from a blanket precautionary approach? The good news is that many of the thermal plastics will decompose over a period of a few years.

https://lnkd.in/eH9PR3RE

https://lnkd.in/ev6_2cXN

https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/a9088790-ace5-11ed-8912-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-280658643

New report states most Oceanic plastic pollution is from the fishing industry

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-07-13-new-study-finds-plastic-pollution-be-almost-ubiquitous-across-coral-reefs-mostly

From the report “Human-derived plastic pollution was found on the most remote and pristine coral reefs, such as those adjacent to uninhabited islands in the central Pacific. Of the total debris, 88% was macroplastics larger than five centimetres. Although some of this was consumer debris, such as water bottles and food wrappers (often the main source of plastic pollution in other ecosystems), nearly three-quarters of all plastic items documented on the surveyed reefs were related to fishing, including ropes, nets, and fishing lines.”

Goes Foundation response;
I am not sure if I believe that most plastic is from the fishing industry, I think it may be that most plastic from other sources has just degraded to micro and nano plastic and become invisible, but millions of times more toxic. The stability of plastic is a function of colour and UV stabilisers, see our earlier post for an explanation; https://lnkd.in/gTERZEST

Bioclimatic climate change; https://lnkd.in/ev6_2cXN
www.GoesFoundation.com

https://lnkd.in/eqFyaJwG

Why is most of the plastic washing up on beaches or floating in the world’s oceans clear, blue, or white? This question was raised by Antoinette Vermilye (she/her) vermilye

Plastic will break down due to UV irradiation into smaller particles. Blue and white colours are good at reflecting UV energy and will be less prone to degradation. Clear plastic, like water bottles, will also survive longer because there is less of a reaction between the UV and the surface. It is the generation of free radicals on the surface of the plastic that causes the degradation. So if the light passes through or is reflected, then the plastic will survive longer.

You then have huge amounts of UV stabiliser added, such as oxybenzone, which is used in sunscreen, or similar chemicals that change the wavelength of UV light from a shorter to a longer less damaging wavelength. The products work, but they are horribly toxic at levels as low as 62 ppt parts per trillion. 15,000 metric tonnes of the chemical are used in sunscreen; 70,000 metric tonnes wipes out all life in the world’s oceans. The survival of the oceans are balancing on the edge of the abyss; humanity can not survive if the ocean ecosystem crashes.

Plast and colour resistance to UV oxidation https://lnkd.in/ekRdSxv2.

Clear plastic, like bottles and blue and white plastic, are going to survive longer, and this is what we observe. Photo from Antoinette Vermilye (she/her) taken in the Bahamas

All the other thermal floating plastic colours end up as micro, nano, and molecular plastic; at each stage, the plastic particulate becomes five times more toxic as the diameter is reduced by 50%. Toxicity is a function of surface area and the ability to adsorb other toxic lipophilic chemicals from the water.

The toxicity of plastic is off-the-scale at nano-levels, which is why it is also implicated and is one of the main reasons for bioclimatic climate change;

https://lnkd.in/ev6_2cXN

Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are now being encapsulated in plastic for slow release. Plastic is toxic to animals and plants and will destroy the soil biome. How unbelievably stupid can you get….

We seriously need to think about being 100% organic if possible. The nutritional value of many foods is now approaching zero, while organic is currently more expensive, there is a better chance that you will have food that is less toxic and more nutritious.

The GOES report. https://lnkd.in/ev6_2cXN

Plastic fertilizer and pesticides
https://lnkd.in/eKCTTMTV

https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Sowing-a-Plastic-Planet_1dec22.pdf#page=5

Even if we became carbon neutral tomorrow, atmospheric CO2 will still pass 500ppm and oceanic pH will still drop below pH7.95, and all coral reefs including most marine life will simply dissolve, along with the food supply for 2 billion people and any chance of stopping climate change.

We could survive climate change, we will not survive the total destruction of the oceans in less than 25 years.

The GOES Report … https://lnkd.in/ev6_2cXN
COP26 Presentation….. https://lnkd.in/g-axggNz
Actions and solutions www.Goesfoundation.com

The slide below is the contents of 100ml of seawater that we collected from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean 1000km from land. Its full of plastic fibres and thousands of particles of partially combusted carbon that contain carcinogenic PHAS (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and heavy metals. The carbon comes from the burning of fossil fuels, 300 million tonnes a year is burnt by the shipping industry and 1 million tonnes of sub 50um particles end up in the oceans every year.

We have wiped out more than 90% of life in the Equatorial Atlantic.
Other reports confirm 50% loss of krill in the North Atlantic. https://lnkd.in/ef22NiNa

Given that plankton are the life support system for the planet, humanity is finished unless we take action now.
#climatechange#hydrocarbons#food#marine#shipping