I live in a really popular cycling area which is very mountainous. Ebikes have massively changed the demographic of cyclists here. I would normally never have seen anyone over 50 cycling here because it's too arduous for most people
Now it's not unusual to see an octogenarian tootling up the mountain passes on an ebike, and it's even nicer to see so many people smiling when they're cycling, instead of the stone-faced lycra crowd
I mean, you literally just open it in a browser with a paywall remover. It takes less effort than fucking moaning about paywalls -
Tiny pieces of plastic that pollute the environment can be produced by simply opening a plastic bottle or tearing a food wrapper.
Microplastics are between 0.001 and 5 millimetres in size and are usually either produced directly, or form when large plastic debris breaks up. We now know that millions of tonnes of microplastics are abundant in the environment and can harm marine life by entering the food chain. Microplastics are also found in our food, although the effect on human health is still unclear.
“Plastic is everywhere and enters our daily lives – and microplastics might be there as well,” says Cheng Fang at the University of Newcastle, Australia.
He and his colleagues tested whether everyday activities could release microplastics. They opened common plastic items such as bags, bottles and packaging film by twisting the bottle cap or tearing the bag, for example, or by cutting them with scissors or a knife, which deforms and fractures the plastic.
Read more: Plastic tea bags shed billions of microplastic particles into the cup
The team used a scale that is sensitive to weights as low as one nanogram to collect and measure the microplastics that landed on its surface. Between about 10 and 30 nanograms of microplastic were released from opening the plastic items, which amounts to between 14,000 and 75,000 individual microplastic particles. But the team says that the true amount released is probably even higher, because many microplastics are statically charged and remain in the air.
Studying the microplastics with a microscope revealed that most were in the form of fragments or fibres of varying shape and size. Some could be seen with the naked eye, such as those from cutting bottles. The team also used a technique called spectroscopy to deduce the microplastics’ chemical composition and found the majority were made of polyethylene, one of the most widely used plastics.
“This finding sends an important warning,” says Fang. “We might need to take our own responsibility and work with industry together to reduce [microplastics].”
“You’d love to say that you’re surprised and shocked at the results, but unfortunately, you’re not. We’re now realising that microplastics are literally everywhere,” says Christian Dunn at Bangor University, UK. It is now crucial that we work to find out the possible health effects of microplastics and cut back on unnecessary plastic use, he says.
It's almost as if another company with interests in a different but similar field that's run by a fucking psychopath is trying to get rid of the competition
Um, should they even have to ask for help?!