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Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on ‘what the papers don’t say’ – without fear or favour.
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As if the microplastic scare was not enough to attract attention to our destructive relation with nature, scientists at Portsmouth and Brighton University have just discovered thousands of fibreglass shards in just a few kilos of shellfish hauls.
Using a high-powered microscope they found up to 11,220 fibreglass particles per kilogram of oysters, and 2,740 per kilogram of mussels, Sky News reported last week.
The discovery of glass in sea organisms has been linked to the degradation of fibreglass – especially that used for boats – which is entering various ecosystems and beginning to pose a “new threat” both to natural species and human consumers.
Researchers studying the glass-infested animals have stated that the miniscule fibres have penetrated and lodged themselves in organic tissue, merging with it and causing multiple local inflammations, of which the true consequences are unknown.
As with each new infringement of human industry upon the natural world, policy-makers and researchers caveat their unsettling findings with the label of its “unknown consequences”, stating that for the time being we should not yet be afraid to continue consuming shellfish.
Professor Faye Couceiro, lead researcher and an expert in environmental pollution, told Sky News: “We don’t know what that means for human health yet. But it’s likely something similar will be happening, so the question is at what concentration does that become a problem.”
Green MP Vows to ‘Push’ Keir Starmer on Climate and Public Services After Party’s ‘Momentous’ Election Result
The Green Party secured four seats – quadrupling its representation in the Commons – now the real work begins, co-leader Adrian Ramsay says
Yet to any concerned reader, the consequences seem clear enough. The discovery two decades ago that tonnes of microplastics that had entered the food chain and littered the planet, and notorious images of fish and birds with stomachs mostly full of multicoloured plastic debris, should have been a sobering realisation that the inorganic products of human activity are returning to and destructively merging with nature.
It is no longer, however, a mere question of plastics – plastics which have infiltrated every corner of the world, from Arctic snow to remote deserts. The ecological and biological damage threatened by microplastics was clear enough: they are small enough to be absorbed into cellular systems, to reduce fertility, and to disrupt vital endocrine processes.
These imperceptible products of the environmental breakdown of discarded plastic were not taken seriously. The question of whether the consumption of plastic is “truly harmful” is still shockingly up for debate.
‘We Must Stop Incitement of Violence Against Environmental Activists Before Someone is Seriously Harmed’
Regulators are failing to stop the media from encouraging vigilante action against activists – the law must step in to keep them safe, argues Tom Hardy
We can soon envision government guidelines on the levels of plastic that are acceptable to consume, and how to live with a plastic diet and environment, already heralded by articles supinely accepting that “plastic is everywhere” and perpetuating the same vague optimism that we still don’t know what this actually means.
Today, however, a new sobering reality of the destructivity of manufacture sets in. It is no longer simply the case of undetectable traces of microplastics infiltrating our bodies and wreaking havoc on nature.
Shards of glass are now spreading in the ecosystem, piercing and inflaming flesh in a new Ballardesque horror of violent mixtures of the organic with the inorganic
Rafael Holmberg
The permeation of the inorganic products of industry in organic matter can no longer be ignored. Yet despite this, we are told to keep consuming potentially glass-infested shellfish. As with the microplastic crisis, the economic market responsible for these catastrophes still insists that we do not let it influence our consumer habits.
As plastic not only destroys living cells, but as glass now skewers inner organic tissues, we are still being told that the consequences are “unknown”, and that we should only slightly adapt our spending in accordance with these discoveries.
How Climate Change Went From a Hot Political Issue to a Tool to ‘Divide and Polarise’ the Public in Just Five Years
Climate leadership is not the vote loser its opponents like to portray it as – but the danger for the climate movement is assuming public support will endure forever, argues Russell Warfield
“Tips and tricks” for selecting lower-plastic over higher-plastic foods is a new trend. This seems to be a convenient ignorance of the fundamental problem: we should not be tweaking consumer trends to adapt to almost incomprehensible levels of climate destruction.
We should instead recognise and seriously discuss the ecological problem that consumption and industry as a whole have produced. The value of ignorance is quickly depreciating, and it is time to take the global consequences of our actions seriously.