<story><title>Visualising the amount of microplastic we eat</title><url>https://graphics.reuters.com/ENVIRONMENT-PLASTIC/0100B4TF2MQ/index.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rmah</author><text>The Reuters article is based on an article published by the WWF about a study they commissioned at the U. of Newcastle (Australia).  Press release is here (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;wwf.panda.org&amp;#x2F;wwf_news&amp;#x2F;press_releases&amp;#x2F;?348337&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;wwf.panda.org&amp;#x2F;wwf_news&amp;#x2F;press_releases&amp;#x2F;?348337&lt;/a&gt;) and the summary is here (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dropbox.com&amp;#x2F;s&amp;#x2F;nxvyl3v5s9d0a1v&amp;#x2F;PLASTIC%20INGESTION%20Web%20spreads.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dropbox.com&amp;#x2F;s&amp;#x2F;nxvyl3v5s9d0a1v&amp;#x2F;PLASTIC%20INGESTIO...&lt;/a&gt;).  If I&amp;#x27;m reading this right, the study itself was a analysis of 50 other studies, not original work.  A brief about the methodology is here (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.newcastle.edu.au&amp;#x2F;newsroom&amp;#x2F;featured&amp;#x2F;plastic-ingestion-by-people-could-be-equating-to-a-credit-card-a-week&amp;#x2F;how-much-microplastics-are-we-ingesting-estimation-of-the-mass-of-microplastics-ingested&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.newcastle.edu.au&amp;#x2F;newsroom&amp;#x2F;featured&amp;#x2F;plastic-inges...&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;p&gt;And, given the language &amp;quot;people could be ingesting...&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;suggests people are consuming...&amp;quot;, I&amp;#x27;m a bit suspicious of the numbers given.  The study itself is said to be under review for publication and has been for over six months now.  Anyone know if that&amp;#x27;s a long time, normal or short?&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this matters, but the naive math doesn&amp;#x27;t really work... they say &amp;quot;about 2000 pieces a week&amp;quot; and that they were &amp;quot;fibers&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;about 5 grams&amp;quot;.  The pieces are stated to be &amp;lt; 1mm in size.  Assuming an average of 1mm x 0.1mm x 0.1mm &amp;quot;fibers&amp;quot; (rather large IMO), that&amp;#x27;s 20 cu mm or 0.02cc.  Given plastic&amp;#x27;s density that&amp;#x27;s 0.03g, not 5g.  I wonder if someone misplaced a decimal point or confused mg with g.</text></comment>
<story><title>Visualising the amount of microplastic we eat</title><url>https://graphics.reuters.com/ENVIRONMENT-PLASTIC/0100B4TF2MQ/index.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>JoeAltmaier</author><text>From the article: &amp;quot;but the scientific community is still only scratching the surface of understanding just how much plastic we consume and how harmful it could be.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Zero harm, so far. That&amp;#x27;s phrased like they&amp;#x27;re racking up lists of harm it causes. But so far, zero. So &amp;#x27;scratching the surface&amp;#x27; means &amp;#x27;haven&amp;#x27;t found anything&amp;#x27;?</text></comment>