An Enduring Legacy of Ingenious Stupidity

Pollution and especially pollution from plastics is every industries responsibility.  This may be a deviation from my usual themes, but plastics and their chemical influence is as much a by-product of the tech industry’s rapid growth as many others, significantly contributing to the worlds plastic pollution crisis. Whilst activists get heated up over climate the fact is they are more likely to die in ignorance of a faster developing crisis, the chemical legacy of which is dictating the real nature of future generations.

How history loves to repeat itself, especially when we’re too busy posturing and polluting to pay attention!  Ah yes, the Romans! Those brilliant architects of civilization who gave us aqueducts, coliseums and roads that still stubbornly persist. They were the epitome of ancient sophistication and champions of public health! Except, of course, when they were gleefully poisoning themselves with lead. Their splendid aqueducts and plumbing were marvels, yet they were blissfully ignorant that lead pipes and lead-sweetened wine were turning their brains to mush. Fast forward to today and we find ourselves equally enlightened, substituting lead with the wonders of, yes you guessed it, plastic. Bravo humanity for maintaining a consistent track record of obliviousness!

In ancient Rome, lead was the miracle metal (and for many centuries and societies thereafter). It made water flow and wine taste sweet. The Romans even used lead acetate, charmingly referred to as “sugar of lead,” to enhance the flavour of their food and drink. How sophisticated! Who cared if it caused widespread neurological problems and behavioural changes? Certainly not the Romans or even as late as the Victorians! They merrily plumbed their water systems with lead and imbibed their lead-laced libations, oblivious to the cognitive decline it induced. It’s almost charming how they ignored the glaring evidence piling up around them.

Fast forward to our modern era, where we’ve traded lead for plastic, a material so versatile it invades every corner of our lives, from water bottles to food packaging. But wait, there’s a twist! Plastics break down into micro-plastic particles and release endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA and phthalates, which play havoc with our hormones. The result? Increased cancer rates, obesity, feminized males and masculinized females in foetal development.  It’s as if we looked at the Romans and said, “Hold my BPA-laden water bottle and shut that baby up with a plastic comforter; we can do worse”. Microplastics, they are everywhere, literally, Microplastics in our blood as the World Health Organization underscored in a 2022 report on its impact, “There are so many unknowns”. Ah, but correlation only indicates that two variables move together, it doesn’t tell us if one causes changes in the other, the fig leaf of indefensible inaction.

Our ruling classes, much like Roman aristocrats, seem perfectly content to ignore the mounting evidence. Economic growth and convenience trump public health every time. After all, acknowledging the problem would mean rethinking our entire way of life. And who has time for that when there are profits to be made? Who cares if it’s laced with chemicals that can mimic hormones and interfere with our biological processes? We have cheap goods in a world where even deadly convenience now trumps health, plastic is our undisputed Emperor’s New Clothes.

Our love affair with plastic shows no signs of abating, despite the mounting evidence of its dangers. So, here’s to our glorious tradition of wilful blindness! Just as the Romans toasted with lead-tainted wine from leaden pottery, we sip our microplastic cocktails from plastic glasses, blissfully unaware, or perhaps uncaring, of the long-term consequences. Cheers  to the enduring legacy of ingenious stupidity and to the future generations who will undoubtedly shake their heads at the mess we’ve made, looking back and wondering, “What were they thinking?”

If History is not repeating itself it certainly has a rhythm!

Ref:

• Microplastics Everywhere | Harvard Medicine Magazine
• Microplastics are in our bodies. Here’s why we don’t know the health risks (sciencenews.org)
• Landmark study links microplastics to serious health problems (nature.com)
• Frontiers | A Review of Human Exposure to Microplastics and Insights Into Microplastics as Obesogens (frontiersin.org)
• New Report Shows Plastics are a Pervasive Source of EDCs – Endocrine News
• Systematic review of microplastics and nanoplastics in indoor and outdoor air: identifying a framework and data needs for quantifying human inhalation exposures | Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology (nature.com)
• Dietary and inhalation exposure to nano- and microplastic particles and potential implications for human health (who.int)
• Lead poisoning (who.int)
• The countries that eat and inhale the most microplastics – https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13455991/countries-people-eat-inhale-microplastics.html