November 17, 2025 • 47 mins
Microplastics are everywhere. In the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. In this episode, Morgan talks with Microplastics researcher Dana about how microplastics affect our health and the environment. Dana breaks down the science behind primary and secondary microplastics, explains how everyday items like tires and plastic products contribute to the problem, and shares practical ways we can all reduce our plastic footprint. Learn why microplastics are a growing threat to food security and plant growth, and discover the hope in knowing that small changes, combined with community and governmental action, can reverse their effects.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Personally the Fuldsman.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The hottest hot topics lately microplastics. Everyone is working on
their health and well on this these days, and we
love to see it. So this next series dives into
that further. But with the help of science and research,
I have microplastics researcher Donna joining this week to give
us an actual breakdown of what's happening in the world
of microplastics and if it's as bad as it seems,
then integrated health practitioner Kara Clark is joining me next week.
(00:41):
She's been helping me get through all the detoxes and cleanses,
trying to rid my body of long COVID and getting
me back to some prime health. You may remember her
from another episode she did with me several months ago.
But first let's get into the world of microplastics. Well,
(01:03):
microplastics have officially taken over the Internet. Everybody's talking about them,
and so I thought what better to do than go
straight to a source. So Donna is joining me from
a completely different time zone.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Hi Donna, thanks for coming on. Hi. Everyone excited to
be here and talk about microplastic my favorite topic.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, so you are a microplastics researcher and you're a
startup founder, so I want to hear your whole backstory
and how you even got into this line of work. Yeah,
of course, I will start with my back backstory background.
So I'm from Kazakstan originally and both of my parents
they are from the Rolc. The Rollc is the region
in Kazakston where a huge environmental disaster took place in
(01:46):
the sixties. So basically the Rolc was once one of
the largest lakes in the world. However, due to human activities,
due to mismanagement and stuff like that, we unfortunately lost
ninety percent of the sea of the lake. We only
have ten percent of it's left.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
If you like google literally the Rollc before and after,
you'll be shocked by the pictures. You will see how
it was so big and right now like it's just
a thin strand of water, and that's really devastating just
by the fact of it. But of course because it's
an environment environmental disaster, it also affected the ecosystem. The
(02:24):
very unique by diversity that we had we lost almost
all of it. And yeah, of course a huge economic
decline because the people of that area, they heavily relied
on this lake as a source of income and food
as fishing industry collapsed because of that, and of course,
every environmental disaster equals human health crisis, unfortunately, and for
(02:49):
me since my relatives are from there. Yeah, I had
a lot of relatives lost to cancer, some of them
has had asthma, allergies and all of those sad things
just because of this environmental disaster that had And this
was one of the main and first reasons for me
to become interested in environmental science and sustainability. That's why
(03:11):
I started doing my bachelor's in civil environmental engineering. That
was the most close, the closest thing to environmental science
that I had in my university as my option, unfortunately,
but that was also a great opportunity for me that
I had a different perspective to environmental science as well,
(03:32):
and I had a great environmental chemistry professor who I
joined to do some more research. We honestly did really
different topics. So we did air pollution, water pollution, environmental
risk assessment, and yeah, we did different stuff. But after
I graduated, my professor was like, Okay, maybe you need
to have one of your own topics, so you would
(03:55):
work on that and lead on that topic and what
if you try microplastics, And honest I was not interested
at all. I was like, okay, but I had the
reason to be not interested because we don't cover the
topic of microplastics or plastics in environmental fields, you know,
which you would expect to do that, but we don't
because it's a very new topic. It's still not in
(04:18):
the education system. And that's why I was also like, yeah,
probably it's not as big as climate change, you know.
But I was like, Okay, I'm gonna give it a shot.
I will just read some papers. Let's see, like what
is happening in that science area. And honestly, I started
reading papers and I was so shocked with everything because
microplastics are literally everywhere and whenever wherever scientists are looking
(04:42):
for them, they find them like in very distant lens
in all of our food, water, air, everything in clouds.
And that was even before. It was three years ago,
so it was even before like some of the papers
about you know, microplastically human body, and that was already
shocking for me. Another thing was the lack of your goal.
You know, there are almost no regulations on microplastics, and
(05:04):
since I was working specifically on the topic of microplastics
discharging from wastewater treatment plans. I realized that there are
literally no regulations on microplastics discharge anywhere in the world,
so any country can discharge as many microplastics as they
can want and that will not be fined, regulated or monitored,
you know. So I was very interested in this topic.
(05:25):
That's why I was like, okay, I want to work
more and more. So I've worked in research in Kazakhstan
we published the paper, I worked a bit in Spain
on microplastic research and here in Germany as well. And yeah,
I started because I also understand that science is great,
research is great, but I also want to talk about
(05:46):
this topic more so people no, because you know, literally
everyone is affected by microplasts. There's not a single person
who will not be affected. Even if you don't use
any plastic at all, It's already in our air and water,
so you will be exposed. And I was like, okay,
I want to I want people to know. I want
everyone to, you know, talk about this. So I started
(06:07):
creating videos, educational videos on Instagram, and I saw a
huge interest from people. People were very curious. You were
asking questions and that's why maybe I also had a
very big growth on social media. So I had zero
followers last year and I have over one hundred thousand,
(06:27):
like right now, And this was very crazy for me.
And yeah, I think I was doing a long introduction,
but yeah, that's basically it. No, this is a great
introduction to who you are.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And first of all, I want to recognize that you
took something that was happening, and not only your community
but your life. You were personally affected by something that
was happening, and you said, how can I make this better?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And that's what you're doing, which is really cool.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think it's awesome when people find a way to
not only be able to wish they could help their community,
but actually go about doing something to hopefully make it better,
not just for theirs, but for everybody. So I love
that part of your story, and I also think it's
cool if you're able to speak to it, like personally,
what was that experience like when you had family members
and stuff and there was this economic disaster happening and
(07:16):
you couldn't really do anything about it.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I mean, it all happened way before I was born.
I was in the sixties, I was born in the
late nineties, so I don't really know what was happening
during that time. But I had my grandfather. I have
my grandfather who did a lot of work in order
to restore some of the parts of Rols or at
least maintain what is left right now, because if it
(07:43):
wasn't for his efforts, we would like everything would disappear.
But he at least at least could save some part
of it that we have right now. And apart from that,
he told me a lot of stories how he went fishing,
for example, was his father to that lake or I
also heard stories about like for example, when whenever I
(08:04):
come there, there's no water around, like in order to
see the roc which was our city was used to
be on the shores of the lake, and right now
when you come there, you cannot see anything, and you
literally need to go and drive for several hours just
to see it and imagine it was the city on
the shores of the lake. And yeah, and he also
(08:27):
told me the stories how you can feel the breeze
of the lake in the city because it was a
very salty lake, so you can feel the breeze, you can. Yeah,
the children played there and all of this, and of
course it's very devastating and sad understanding that you would
never be able to experience this in your lifetime because
this has disappeared and all because of humans, because of uz,
(08:52):
And of course it's sad, of course, And yeah, understanding
that you cannot really do something, it's pretty depressing. But
I do have a big dream too one day to
create a project or anything that it will be dealing
with that area. Of course, of course you do.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I am not surprised at all based on how you
already are, and it's probably a cool experience for you
now doing what you are, and I bet it's something
you wish. I'm not sure if your grandfather is still around,
but I'm sure it's something you wish that you could
share with him and just show all of the things
that you're now doing to help in other ways.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, he sees everything. He just doesn't understand English, so
he doesn't really understand what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
That he's proud anyway, that's fair. Well, I love that
there's this personal tie. I think that's so cool. But
let's get into microplastics. So you've learned so so much
and I cannot imagine all the things you've learned, I
cantell just from your social media. So give us the
very very minimal basics to start, and the will kind
of branch from there.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah. I would like to just give maybe a definition
to microplast So microplastics are just small, tiny particles of
plastic less than five millimeters they should be in order
to consider microplastics, and we usually divide them into two types,
primary microplastics and secondary microplastics. So secondary microplastics are those
(10:18):
that broke down from larger plastic objects, so like microplastics
from plastic bats or from plastic bottles. And for the
primary microplastics are those microplastics that were intentionally manufactured to
be very small. It could be a bit confusing because
why would anyone produce microplastics? Right, but microplastics are used
(10:40):
actually for industrial abrasives, for pains, even in some personal
care products as sometimes as fillers or sometimes to give
a cream for example, to give a certain texture or
feel to a certain product. For example, if the cream
is to what are you add microplastics and it becomes thicker?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And so why did those products like microplastics, why did
they even originally get created? Why did they start getting
added into products. What was the purpose behind them?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I think one aside from it is very cheap to
produce them. It's like a very very cheap material and
it's considered to be more or less stable, so they
added to personal care products. But some microplastics were already
banned in the US, Korea, and to some extent in
(11:39):
the European Union as well in Canada, but not all
of them. Not all of the types of microplastics are
bad right now?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Wow, Okay, so there's different types and obviously there's a workaround.
So it's like, okay, well these are bands. It looks
like we've banned microplastics, but they're technically not all banned.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, that's true. And in general there are so plastic
can be a very big shape shifter, so they have
a lot of different types. So maybe you've heard of
the normal seven months like POLYII and poly dalade, poly
what else exists? Polystyrene and all of this mainstream plastics,
(12:20):
But honestly, they're like one hundred types of plastic that
exists and currently from one European So there was a
letter in order to ban more and more microplastics. I
don't remember which organization did the letter, but they've recognized
over five hundred, five hundred ingredients and personal care products
(12:44):
as microplastics. Yeah, so there could be more than five
hundred ingredients that are microplastics.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Actually, I would love to know the list of things
what all are microplastics actually in so I know that
you mentioned some of these food things. You mention clouds,
which is something that someone a normal person like me
can't really do anything about. But so what is that
list that we're looking at here of things that do
have microplastics?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So for the things that do have microplastics in them,
I think almost everything has at this point, probably unfortunately. Yeah,
but if we talk about the materials itself, like what
you can avoid in order to produce microplastics. And you
probably don't know that this is made of plastic paper
(13:33):
cups for example, the name is paper cup that is
actually aligned with plastic inside. They're also chewing gum. This
is one of the shocking ones. Chewing gum. The base
of the chewing gum is puliving you as a tate
if I remember correctly, and it's a plastic. So chewing
gum right now is like literally flavored plastic. Yeah, you're
(13:54):
kidding me. You're talking all these gears. I've been cheering
on com and it is really chewing on plastic. Yeah,
most of the commercial ones are like that. There are
some brands that create like plastic free chewing gum that
you can look for.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Not I guess I'm shocked that we even have to
create plastic free things.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, that's true. Originally chewing gum doesn't have that didn't
have any plastic in the beginning. It's just you know,
they wipe up, for example, with the clothes. With the clothing,
it's the same thing because you know, we've been wearing
clothing for thousands of years literally, and plastic started to
exist only less than a century ago, like around eighty
(14:38):
years ago. But right now almost all of our clothes
are made of plastic, out of synthetics like polyester and
acrylic s, nylon and stuff like that. So this is
really Yeah, I know, this is like so strange, so weird,
but plastic has, I don't know, with such a growth.
(15:00):
It became a part of almost everything. And you know,
when you think about like it's not possible to leave
without plastic, but we did leave without plastic, right like
literally a century ago, I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Assuming too, like, did people like they discovered that plastics
could be You had mentioned that it can be very
valuable in the sense that it can be manipulated into anything.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
So do you feel like it was being used.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
By different people just to like as a kind of
a cheaper product, or plastic even cheaper, I guess, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, plastic in general, it's a very affordable, cheap material
to use. So just to give some good reputations to plastic.
Plastic was one of the reasons why our medicine and
science skyrocketed because science became a medicine as industries is,
fields became very accessible to everyone because for example, if
(16:01):
you think about medicine industry, like again a century ago, right,
you would use the same syringe for example, because you
cannot always you know, buy a syringe made out of
glass and you can at at the same time properly
clean it and it is infected. So right now we
have syringes that are made of plastic and single use,
(16:23):
which is really great for us because then we will
not transfer diseases. Or for example, for science as well,
we use a lot of single use plastic. Unsaying science,
So think about glows, the masks, and all of the pipets.
Everything that we use is almost everything that we use
is made out of plastic or even like worse, single
(16:45):
use plastic, which is of course bad for the environment,
but could for the science because you know, everything is
clean and not affected by anything but any other chemicals.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So when something is That's what's really hard about this, right,
is because you have something that's obviously helping us in
the science world, that's helping us in advancements in medicine
and being able to not transmit diseases, but then it's
bad for the environment.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So how do you.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
As somebody who's researching this try to figure out, Okay, well,
how can we do both or can we do both?
What's the I guess middle ground to meet on when
these type of topics come up.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I think one of the first things that we need
to deal with is over consumption. So I think the
way we consume everything might be one of the part
of the problems and might be a solution for us,
because over consumption is really a big problem. We have
too much clothing, like compared to what we used to have.
(17:49):
For example, we use a lot of single use plastic
that is not necessary in most of the cases, like
for example, again with paper cups, right, you can have
a usable cup, there's nothing wrong with that, right. Or
for the plastic bags, we don't really need them, right
because we have somehow we manage to do that, to
(18:10):
do groceries without them, and right now, for example, I
live in Germany and I never have plastic bags. I'm
always with my tought back and it's not you know,
it's not such a big difference. So I would say
that the one of the roots of the problem is
definitely over consumption from other sizes, also an overproduction of things,
(18:32):
because that also contributes to the problem. But I would
say this thing is what matters because in terms of
like for example, as we said again, like medicine and science,
it would be difficult for us to say, okay, don't
do science or don't heal people now because we hate plastics. Right.
But I think it's also a point that we need
(18:53):
to consider. In science, for example, I see some people,
some researchers, being concerned about that and even doing more
research on how we can greenify our labs, make them
more sustainable, make them to have less plastic. Of course,
in those fields where you need, like you cannot swap
for anything that of course keep your plastics. But if
(19:15):
it's not that necessary, I think it's doable for us
to reduce. So maybe not make them disappear completely for
our lives, but reducing is a very good, great step
towards sustainability.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So and you also mention, like you talked about using things,
especially in your household, when you're talking about paper cups,
what are the swaps that we should be making, because
obviously everything does consume microplastics now, but what are the
things that you provid As somebody who's done research on
all of this, you've seen all the different things happen.
What are things that you would personally have in your home,
(19:52):
You're like, I'm okay with having this. Do you see
a lot of people online and they're making swaps, like
they're swapping to glassware and they're you know, making each
other using stainless steel or just the different especially kitchen items,
skincare items, like so much of this conversation revolves around
the fact, Okay, yes we should do that, but what
do we switch to and what do we use?
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, I would agree with the kitchen point because I
would say, that's like the biggest point of exposure to microplastics.
And I would definitely tell people, like, if you want
to start to have less microplastic, that's like the first
starting point is kitchen, because that's where we basically expose
(20:36):
ourselves to microplastic the most, especially because we usually eat
hot food and hot drinks. So I would strongly suggest
to try and swap out all the plastics that has
to deal with heat. So for example, if it's a
plastic container that you put in your microwave, or if
it's any other plastic cutlery, I would strongly suggest and
(20:59):
try to reduce that or swap it out completely to
either glass, to either steel or any other metal, or
either wood. Also a good suggestion because when it comes
to plastic plus heat, it's always a generation of literally
a lot of microplastics, thousands or even millions. So this
(21:21):
is very important for when I talk about microplastic and
advice around them, is for people to remember that heat
plastic is always equals to a lot of microplastics.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Okay, And that's what I was going to ask you
because you mentioned that, So when plastic is in cold,
does it have a different reaction or is it really
just we need to be really careful about heat and
plastic in general.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, I would say when it's at froom temperature, it
would be more stable. I cannot say that it will
not break down to microplastic. It still can, especially if
there's some you know, physical you know traction or anything.
It would still be able to produce microplasts to release microplastics.
But with heat, it just increases one hundreds or thousands fold.
(22:12):
That's why. Yeah, that's why a lot of researchers say, like,
don't heat anything in plastic.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
That's very important and so okay, you also mentioned that
it's in clouds and it's in water. How the heck
are we supposed to not be consuming the things that
are around us in our environment? Like, how can we
balance out that microplastic consumption?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
As I said, everyone will be exposed to microplastics, but
it all depends on the concentration. Of course, if you
swap out the things like from plastic to glass and
all the other non plastic materials, you will be exposed
to less microplastics, not to zero microplastics, of course that's
(22:58):
not possible unfortunately this time, but you will be reducing
and probably reducing significantly, because yes, it's in the air
and in the water, but the amount you are exposed
to from like water and air will be always be
less than, for example, from your food that you made
(23:19):
in plastic and you eat it every day. In terms
of what you can do, of course, there's not much
you can do, especially concerned with clouds, for example. But
if it's microplastics in the air, because right now there's
some research going on that. Yeah, microplastics is in your
houses and in your cars, and of course the indoor
concentration of microplastics is way way way higher than for example, outdoors.
(23:43):
So one of the things you can do is, of course,
one of the advice I would give is to open
your windows regularly so your microplastics will be out in
the wild, and vacuum your house more or less often. Yeah,
that way you can reduce microplastics.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Do you think air purifiers help at all with any
of microplastics or is that.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Kind of a myth? I never encountered any research about that,
so either it was research so there are no proofs,
or I just didn't see that.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yes, Okay, that's interesting though, because it's for sure you
know that you see all the air purifiers being bought,
and that's like a thing where they're like, Okay, it's
gonna purify your air. I'm like, okay, purify it from microplastics,
and that would be awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, but it also depends because if an air purifier
is made out of plastic, and usually it's you know hot,
it's getting hot right the pure fire, so it can
introduce some microplastics into the air in exchange of you know,
removing other chemicals. So that's the question. Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, it's really paying attention now. So you said like
reducing that is there also being this environmental side of
things just to ease anybody's minds who are also like
me and I'm just really blissfully unaware of the environmental
side of this.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So with microplastics, how.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Are they getting into our water and how are they
getting into the air that we're breathing?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Like what is that process?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Like? Just take me all the way back to school,
because we definitely did not learn about this in school.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, So basically, how there are primary microplastics? As I said,
there are not as many of them as secondary microplastics,
of course, but primary microplastics they are either introduced into
our environment during the production. So if some of them, yeah,
just for example, if something is produced and some of
(25:45):
the microplastics, they can be introduced into the air by accident.
For example, when it comes to secondary microplastics is you've
probably seen a lot of plastic waste, like just laying
all over the world, you know, in the bitches and
the water and everywhere. And of course with time, it
will release microplastics. With any physical damage, any physical contact
(26:10):
with anything, it also released microplastics and sund heat also
will make ye larger plastic objects to release microplastic, and
it's releasing into our water, air, and soil. Depends on
where the plastic is. And since plastic is not really
you know, biodegradable, so we as we know, it can
(26:32):
stay around for like hundreds of years. So for example,
there's one microplastics, it goes into the water and it
can stay in our water and travel all around the
world for like many many years. So it will adapt.
You create a new plastic object, it will release more
microplastic and it will stay in the system. And some
(26:54):
of the points of discharge for microplastics is of course,
as I said, waste water treatment plants, they do this
charge microplastics into our water bodies without any regulations, as
I said, without any monitoring. Another thing is tires. Tires
is considered a huge contributor to microplastics. So like tires
(27:15):
in the cars, in our cars, Yeah, and there's a
lot of physical friction, you know, between the road and
tires and they all get in either air or with water.
It goes into the system and then this water goes
into our water. And even when because you know with
water treatment plants they do filter some amount of microplastics,
it can be even a huge percentage, like ninety ninety
(27:38):
five ninety nine percent of microplastics are filtered from the water.
But then it all goes into the sludge. And in
some countries they use this sludge. I know in some
states of the US they also do that they use
this sludge as fertilizer. So you know, this sludge is
a concentrated concentrated with microplastics. So all the microplastics that
(28:03):
we're caught during the filtration process is in dislodge and
this dislodge goes as a fertilizers into our soils that
we grow our crops or anything or fruits, or ridges
with that frutilizer and that's how basically, for example, the
microplastics are introduced into our vegetables or any other crops
or anything like that. Oh my gosh. Okay, So basically it's.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Just one giant evolving monster that keeps evolving as we
keep doing things.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah that's true.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So environmentally, so like you know, we see the things
that we can do as humans, oh like less consumption,
trying to change the things that we're using, and being
really intentional about the products that we're using. What can
we do environmentally to help reduce our imprint when it
comes to microplastics because obviously we all have a role
(28:57):
in this. What can each of us be doing, maybe
even just a little bit to make that and hopefully
a little bit less as the years go on.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, So the first thing is, of course, reduce your
consumption anything it could be, even not plastic, but plastic
is also very important. To reduce your single use waste
as much as it's possible. It really makes a different
and it's really what we need right now. Even if
you feel like, oh, I'm an individual, I really hope
that we stop this talk with I'm just an individual.
(29:28):
We really need to stop that because your actions they
do really matter. And yeah, the first thing is to
reduce your consumption. The second thing is I always say
take action, like at least learn more about the problem,
and also try and talk about this problem with other people.
(29:49):
Try to talk about it with your friends, with your family,
because as long as you talk about this, as long
as you talk and keep it as keep the conver
decision going about the microplastics or any other problem that
you concert with, there will be some action as well.
So the governments will know that people are talking about
(30:11):
that and we should try and do something. But of
course we need to even go more if possible, like
sign petitions, yeah, demand changes from the government. Vote for
those people who have environment in their minds. This is
very important because our part of it is very important,
but the part of our governments and regulations is as important.
(30:34):
And we need those regulations as soon as possible because
right now, as I say, like there are no regulations,
we can discharge like trillions microplastics literally, and that's how
it is right now. Like for example, in our in
Astana in Kazakhstan, where I did my research, we found
out that there is like a billion microplastics per day
(30:54):
is just stared directly into the water, and I feel
like it's more or less the same, if not even
more in other countries. So yeah, of course, try and
do your individual action, try to speak about that and
take some action. And I know you can't predict.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
I'm like in shock right now by this, just this,
I'm just gonna call it a little monster because that's
stillly thing that's gonna make it make sense.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
In my brain.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
But of course you can't predict what's going to come.
But if we continue this trajectory and we continue with
where we're at with consumption, with how much microplastic is
in everything, I mean, what are we looking at in
the grand scale of things when we look five ten
years down the road when it comes to this particular topic.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
As you said, it's difficult to say, honestly, because again,
the microplastic research is still very very new. We I
think we did have on these seven articles about microplastics
before to sold in fourteen, and yeah, all the other
articles are only coming up right now.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And how long has microplastics even been studied? Put it
into those terms for me, because I know you said
you've been studying it for a little bit, but in
general the topic when did it even kind of become
a thing that people could start studying.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
So the term microplastic was first coined in two thousand
and four, so it's still in like the first few
decades of this. Yeah, yeah, that's how it is. Yeah,
microplastics is still in its infancy as a research field.
And yeah, it's difficult to say for me, and I
don't want to be super depressing about the topic because
(32:44):
I tried to make people like empowered you still can
do something. But one of the interesting things I can mention,
For example, there is some new research suggesting that microplastics
are affecting photosynthesis of plants and plants grow both in gyeral,
so for example, they're reducing the rate of photosynthesis and
(33:06):
you know, no Poto synthesis means practically no yield. And
right now, the reduction of what the synthesis caused just
by microplastics, not even including the climate change or any
other practice, but just microplastics as around seven to thirteen
percent if I remember correctly. And yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I'm just like shocked over here, because we need photosynthesis
to breathe.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
That's important yeah, yeah, that's true. And unfortunately, microplastic is
not only about like some fish that is dying in
the ocean, which is also very tragic, but it's also
about like our very food and ear. And right now
they're saying that it could be a threat to our
food security because we could probably lose I don't remember
(33:57):
all the figures right now, well, but I think it
was one hundred and thirty metric tones of food per
year could be lost just because of microplastics in terms
of corop production, and that was a huge number. And
that's what they estimate that we are losing right now
already just because of microplastics. But from the bright side,
(34:20):
and if we continue doing that, of course this number
is going to only grow bigger and bigger. And we
already in like shake a situation when it comes to
food security, right.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
And well, and I don't want to make you talk
about depressing things, but I also know that sometimes when
we can really see a bigger picture and we can
be like, okay, give me what's actually happening, some people
can feel more empowered that way to say, Okay, what
I am as one single person does matter, and I
will change that footprint.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Because it, in the bigger picture is going to matter
one day.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
So hopefully at least the hard conversations and the negativity
around that idea of this can bring some positivity, is
the hope.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, but there's also a positive side on that research
because they estimated that we need to reduce only thirteen
percent of our plastic ways in order to you know,
negate the effect of microplastics, and I think thirteen percent
is quite doable, and if you think about it, maybe
(35:25):
you can even try do that in your life. Just
try reducing your plastic use by thirteen percent. I think
it wouldn't be a very big change that you do,
but in the grand scheme of things, it could mean something.
And it's a great start well.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And very much so if one person does it, like say,
I do it, and then I tell all my friends, like, hey,
just maybe scale it back just half a bit, and
you get a group of us and then it just
keeps spiraling from there.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
It's a very grassroots idea of it.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
But that's how this works, and that's how we start
to come together as a community to make a change.
So to your point, yeah, thirteen percent seems like a
lot in that big picture, but it really isn't. If
one person starts to do it and we kind of
create that domino effect, the monster can be reversed, but
we must help it exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I agree with you, and I think people always underestimate
themselves because, for example, when I became a microplastic researcher,
all my friends were started to get, you know, more
cautious when they talk about plastic and they're like, okay,
for example, if we go somewhere, they try to use
less plastic just because of me. Just I'm not even
(36:37):
saying anything to them, but they're like, I'm not gonna
take this plastic back. I know you're gonna judge me,
and yeah, I'm never judging any of them, but they
still do feel like this obligation to not use and
this is already an impact, you know, So this is great.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well, and that's how it works, right, even if you're
just scaring them a little bit to not use it,
like you don't even have to say anything, it's just
like a little.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Bit of a fear.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Then sometimes we need that push just to make sure
that we're heading in the right direction. So not only
is it better for your body to be not utilizing
a lot of these plastics, but it's also better for
the environment, So to me, that's a win win. And
you can go to you know here, I'm not sure
what they're called where you're at right now, but we
have like dollar stores and they have plastic or not plastic,
(37:21):
they have glass were that you can easily buy and
make it a quick swap in your home, so you're
no longer using plastic and that's you know, a big fix.
But so on that same topic though, so say people
start making that swap and doing things, how do we
recycle these things and how do we get rid of
them without adding more to the problem.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
That's a very good question, A very yeah, a very
good question when it comes to all the plastic that
we already have, like what to do with those? And
it all depends on your creativity. I would say, if
there are some people that you can recycle, recycle them.
But if you can they then reuse them, it's even better,
especially when it's something that is not so for example,
(38:08):
you probably swap out things from the kitchen because that's
the yeah think you start with, and you try and
use those things that you swapped in the areas that
are not considered not related to your food, you know,
to kitchen. I don't know if I'm explaining it in
an understandable way.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, no, I get what you mean, Like you start
to use it, like use those cups maybe that are
plastic for to hold pencils, or they hold your makeup
brushes or something that's not being used that you're technically
putting into your body.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, that's right. And for example, I had a plastic cup.
I also it was a very long plastic cup. I
started to use this as a waste for my flowers.
For example. I know that there are some people who
are using their old cutting boards to put it under
the pots. You know, for example, all the the old
plastic clothing that you had, you can try and do
(39:05):
something out of them, like make a little project or
for example, donated to animal shelters for example, or anything.
I think it all depends on your creativity. But I would, yeah,
try and encourage people to try to reuse those things,
because Okay, this plastic already exists in the system, like
it will not not create microplastics just because you get
(39:26):
rid of it. So maybe try to reuse it in
some way that is possible. Just try to remove it
from your food from your.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Mouth, you know, yes, well, and I was like starting
to think of that as like, oh, no, well, I
don't want to encourage everybody to just then throw everything
away because that's also part of the problem. So it's
such a delicate balance, but I think it's one if
we're really intentional about that, we can make a difference
and we can start to change, even if it's a
small thing.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
It can start with cups and then it can.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Go to pants, and you can always just maneuver and
find ways to do things. You know, me personally, I have
been getting really creative with trying to swap things out
and find ways to donate them in different directions.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
I have donated a lot of stuff to animal shelters
so that I never knew they would.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Need pillows being one of them because I was like,
I need different healthier pillows. I was like, but I
don't want to throw these away, so animal shelters, so
there are ways to do it, but I just wanted
to make sure we gave them all the educational resources
to do.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
So, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, And I love to end my podcast on it's
either a piece of advice or motivation or inspiration or
maybe something we didn't even address yet, and you feel
like really empowered you want to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I kind of give the floor over to you.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
So anything that comes to mind for you, this is
totally yours floor as yours.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, I would like to end on like an empowering
note there there is. I have met a man who's
working on finding a solution to microplastic problem and I
really like what he said to me. He told me like,
we are at the very historical point in our lifetimes,
(41:13):
in the history in general, where we catch the problem
way before, before that spiraled and it's now no longer
you know, solvable, Like for example, with climate change, we
realized that climate change is doing, is climate change exists
(41:36):
in general way after I wouldn't say too late, but
quite late, right because right now there there's a lot
of difficulties, a lot of challenges in order to talkle that.
But with microplastics, right now is the point where we
learned about the problem when it's still only now started
(41:58):
to affect the environment and our health. Right, So we
do and at the same time, we have all the technology,
technology and all the people that are working in science
so many people are now joining the science, so we
do have all the capabilities, all the opportunities right now
to solve this problem. If you think, I know, it's
(42:18):
very depressing. The field is very depressing. The environmental science
itself is just a science of studying problems, which is
quite Yeah, I know it's very sad and can be
very anxious about that, But with microplastics, I really do
have a lot of hope and I really agree with
that guy that we do have all the technological advancement
(42:39):
and a lot of amazing people working in order to
solve that problem. And definitely, if we keep talking about that,
if we do our part, if we take action, we're
definitely going to solve it together. I love that is that.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I love that's how we're inding it because it is
And that's why I even found you on social media
to begin with, was not only were you educating people
on the topic, but you were trying to educate in
a way that will help us, not just make us
scared and say Okay, well don't do this. It's like,
don't do this, but this is why you should it,
and this is why it can help us. So I
love what you're doing and I love your social media content,
(43:17):
So do you want to shout that out really quick
so people can go follow you?
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah? Yeah, follow me on Instagram and on TikTok. My
handle is done caget. I think it would be difficult
for human to me put it in the show notes too,
so they can find it that way and maybe a
quick shout out to my app. So we created an app,
Microplastic Free. It's an app where there are a lot
of educational lessons that I've worked myself with the help
(43:43):
of other microplastic researcher about what are microplastics, the environmental impact,
the human health impact of microplastics. And there's also a
scanner with which you can take pictures of foot packaging
of clothing, tacts of personal care ingredients and get an
instant microplastic rescore. Is it high or is it low.
There's also a new feature that we added, petition section,
(44:03):
so you can literally sign on the positions about microplastics
in the app itself. We did that in collaborations with
several organizations. We will have even more positions there soon
and another new feature that we are adding, I hope
maybe in this December, but maybe in the next year
a Trusted Brands section where you can see all the companies,
(44:25):
all the brands that do produce plastic free products. This
idea actually came from our own users because they were
taking pictures. They see, Okay, this is plastic, but what
can I do with What should I buy instead? And
we're like, okay, that's a great idea. Maybe we can
add brands or companies for them so they know where
to shop instead. So yeah, please download that. It will
be of great help for me and for our planet
(44:48):
as well. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I'm so glad you shouted that out because it's so
cool one what you're doing, but also that you guys
created an app to again help more people. And like
we mentioned, the swab part is what's hard. It's hard
to find things and know what you're doing is right.
So to have an app that's right at your fingertips
to say, hey, is this good for me or not?
Or is this good for the environment, and then another
option for something that can be So shout that out
(45:12):
one more time. I will still link it in the
notes so nobody has to write it down or anything.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
So it's Microplastic Free Scanner, or you can just write
microplastic free. That's perfect.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Well, it's so cool what you're doing, and I hope
it just continues to I hope we continue to do better.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
I hope your job continues.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
To hopefully get easier, would be the hope I would
hope out of doing that research that maybe one day
you can search for a new subject because we did
all the right things and we got rid of it.
But all that to say, thank you for the work
that you're doing, and thanks for the information and sharing
on social media because it's how I found you, and
I'm really glad that I did to share with my listeners.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah, thank you so much for reaching out. I really
like talking about microplastics. I love that.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
I love when somebody gets to geek out on things
they love too, because when there's so much information around it,
you know, we see the Internet and there's so much
that we see, but you know, you see influencers all
the time talking about microplastics and I'm like, okay, but
how do you know that?
Speaker 1 (46:11):
And who are you?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
So I saw you and I was like, well, she's
actually doing the research, so I'm gonna talk to her
about this. Yeah, Well, thank you again, and I will
make sure to link everything in the show notes for everybody,
so you guys can follow her and get that app
so we can all do a little bit better by
ourselves and for the earth.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
I know episodes like these are sometimes hard to take.
You may feel helpless, confused, or like you're in over
your head, and trust me, I've been there. I do
these episodes as a way to inform because there's so
much noise happening on social media, and the way to
cut through that is with evidence based facts and research.
So if this is your first totep in understanding the
world of microplastics, much like me, you're doing great. We're
(46:52):
gonna figure this out. Donna is a great source of
information on this topic, so be sure to follow her
on social media and download that app she was talking about.
We can do this, guys, Stay calm, deep breaths. I'm
so happy that you're here. Get ready next week to
learn all the things I've been doing in the world
of detoks and cleanses with Kara. Subscribe away by friends
Personally the Fuldsman.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The hottest hot topics lately microplastics. Everyone is working on
their health and well on this these days, and we
love to see it. So this next series dives into
that further. But with the help of science and research,
I have microplastics researcher Donna joining this week to give
us an actual breakdown of what's happening in the world
of microplastics and if it's as bad as it seems,
then integrated health practitioner Kara Clark is joining me next week.
(00:41):
She's been helping me get through all the detoxes and cleanses,
trying to rid my body of long COVID and getting
me back to some prime health. You may remember her
from another episode she did with me several months ago.
But first let's get into the world of microplastics. Well,
(01:03):
microplastics have officially taken over the Internet. Everybody's talking about them,
and so I thought what better to do than go
straight to a source. So Donna is joining me from
a completely different time zone.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Hi Donna, thanks for coming on. Hi. Everyone excited to
be here and talk about microplastic my favorite topic.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, so you are a microplastics researcher and you're a
startup founder, so I want to hear your whole backstory
and how you even got into this line of work. Yeah,
of course, I will start with my back backstory background.
So I'm from Kazakstan originally and both of my parents
they are from the Rolc. The Rollc is the region
in Kazakston where a huge environmental disaster took place in
(01:46):
the sixties. So basically the Rolc was once one of
the largest lakes in the world. However, due to human activities,
due to mismanagement and stuff like that, we unfortunately lost
ninety percent of the sea of the lake. We only
have ten percent of it's left.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
If you like google literally the Rollc before and after,
you'll be shocked by the pictures. You will see how
it was so big and right now like it's just
a thin strand of water, and that's really devastating just
by the fact of it. But of course because it's
an environment environmental disaster, it also affected the ecosystem. The
(02:24):
very unique by diversity that we had we lost almost
all of it. And yeah, of course a huge economic
decline because the people of that area, they heavily relied
on this lake as a source of income and food
as fishing industry collapsed because of that, and of course,
every environmental disaster equals human health crisis, unfortunately, and for
(02:49):
me since my relatives are from there. Yeah, I had
a lot of relatives lost to cancer, some of them
has had asthma, allergies and all of those sad things
just because of this environmental disaster that had And this
was one of the main and first reasons for me
to become interested in environmental science and sustainability. That's why
(03:11):
I started doing my bachelor's in civil environmental engineering. That
was the most close, the closest thing to environmental science
that I had in my university as my option, unfortunately,
but that was also a great opportunity for me that
I had a different perspective to environmental science as well,
(03:32):
and I had a great environmental chemistry professor who I
joined to do some more research. We honestly did really
different topics. So we did air pollution, water pollution, environmental
risk assessment, and yeah, we did different stuff. But after
I graduated, my professor was like, Okay, maybe you need
to have one of your own topics, so you would
(03:55):
work on that and lead on that topic and what
if you try microplastics, And honest I was not interested
at all. I was like, okay, but I had the
reason to be not interested because we don't cover the
topic of microplastics or plastics in environmental fields, you know,
which you would expect to do that, but we don't
because it's a very new topic. It's still not in
(04:18):
the education system. And that's why I was also like, yeah,
probably it's not as big as climate change, you know.
But I was like, Okay, I'm gonna give it a shot.
I will just read some papers. Let's see, like what
is happening in that science area. And honestly, I started
reading papers and I was so shocked with everything because
microplastics are literally everywhere and whenever wherever scientists are looking
(04:42):
for them, they find them like in very distant lens
in all of our food, water, air, everything in clouds.
And that was even before. It was three years ago,
so it was even before like some of the papers
about you know, microplastically human body, and that was already
shocking for me. Another thing was the lack of your goal.
You know, there are almost no regulations on microplastics, and
(05:04):
since I was working specifically on the topic of microplastics
discharging from wastewater treatment plans. I realized that there are
literally no regulations on microplastics discharge anywhere in the world,
so any country can discharge as many microplastics as they
can want and that will not be fined, regulated or monitored,
you know. So I was very interested in this topic.
(05:25):
That's why I was like, okay, I want to work
more and more. So I've worked in research in Kazakhstan
we published the paper, I worked a bit in Spain
on microplastic research and here in Germany as well. And yeah,
I started because I also understand that science is great,
research is great, but I also want to talk about
(05:46):
this topic more so people no, because you know, literally
everyone is affected by microplasts. There's not a single person
who will not be affected. Even if you don't use
any plastic at all, It's already in our air and water,
so you will be exposed. And I was like, okay,
I want to I want people to know. I want
everyone to, you know, talk about this. So I started
(06:07):
creating videos, educational videos on Instagram, and I saw a
huge interest from people. People were very curious. You were
asking questions and that's why maybe I also had a
very big growth on social media. So I had zero
followers last year and I have over one hundred thousand,
(06:27):
like right now, And this was very crazy for me.
And yeah, I think I was doing a long introduction,
but yeah, that's basically it. No, this is a great
introduction to who you are.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And first of all, I want to recognize that you
took something that was happening, and not only your community
but your life. You were personally affected by something that
was happening, and you said, how can I make this better?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And that's what you're doing, which is really cool.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think it's awesome when people find a way to
not only be able to wish they could help their community,
but actually go about doing something to hopefully make it better,
not just for theirs, but for everybody. So I love
that part of your story, and I also think it's
cool if you're able to speak to it, like personally,
what was that experience like when you had family members
and stuff and there was this economic disaster happening and
(07:16):
you couldn't really do anything about it.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I mean, it all happened way before I was born.
I was in the sixties, I was born in the
late nineties, so I don't really know what was happening
during that time. But I had my grandfather. I have
my grandfather who did a lot of work in order
to restore some of the parts of Rols or at
least maintain what is left right now, because if it
(07:43):
wasn't for his efforts, we would like everything would disappear.
But he at least at least could save some part
of it that we have right now. And apart from that,
he told me a lot of stories how he went fishing,
for example, was his father to that lake or I
also heard stories about like for example, when whenever I
(08:04):
come there, there's no water around, like in order to
see the roc which was our city was used to
be on the shores of the lake, and right now
when you come there, you cannot see anything, and you
literally need to go and drive for several hours just
to see it and imagine it was the city on
the shores of the lake. And yeah, and he also
(08:27):
told me the stories how you can feel the breeze
of the lake in the city because it was a
very salty lake, so you can feel the breeze, you can. Yeah,
the children played there and all of this, and of
course it's very devastating and sad understanding that you would
never be able to experience this in your lifetime because
this has disappeared and all because of humans, because of uz,
(08:52):
And of course it's sad, of course, And yeah, understanding
that you cannot really do something, it's pretty depressing. But
I do have a big dream too one day to
create a project or anything that it will be dealing
with that area. Of course, of course you do.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I am not surprised at all based on how you
already are, and it's probably a cool experience for you
now doing what you are, and I bet it's something
you wish. I'm not sure if your grandfather is still around,
but I'm sure it's something you wish that you could
share with him and just show all of the things
that you're now doing to help in other ways.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, he sees everything. He just doesn't understand English, so
he doesn't really understand what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
That he's proud anyway, that's fair. Well, I love that
there's this personal tie. I think that's so cool. But
let's get into microplastics. So you've learned so so much
and I cannot imagine all the things you've learned, I
cantell just from your social media. So give us the
very very minimal basics to start, and the will kind
of branch from there.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah. I would like to just give maybe a definition
to microplast So microplastics are just small, tiny particles of
plastic less than five millimeters they should be in order
to consider microplastics, and we usually divide them into two types,
primary microplastics and secondary microplastics. So secondary microplastics are those
(10:18):
that broke down from larger plastic objects, so like microplastics
from plastic bats or from plastic bottles. And for the
primary microplastics are those microplastics that were intentionally manufactured to
be very small. It could be a bit confusing because
why would anyone produce microplastics? Right, but microplastics are used
(10:40):
actually for industrial abrasives, for pains, even in some personal
care products as sometimes as fillers or sometimes to give
a cream for example, to give a certain texture or
feel to a certain product. For example, if the cream
is to what are you add microplastics and it becomes thicker?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And so why did those products like microplastics, why did
they even originally get created? Why did they start getting
added into products. What was the purpose behind them?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I think one aside from it is very cheap to
produce them. It's like a very very cheap material and
it's considered to be more or less stable, so they
added to personal care products. But some microplastics were already
banned in the US, Korea, and to some extent in
(11:39):
the European Union as well in Canada, but not all
of them. Not all of the types of microplastics are
bad right now?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Wow, Okay, so there's different types and obviously there's a workaround.
So it's like, okay, well these are bands. It looks
like we've banned microplastics, but they're technically not all banned.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, that's true. And in general there are so plastic
can be a very big shape shifter, so they have
a lot of different types. So maybe you've heard of
the normal seven months like POLYII and poly dalade, poly
what else exists? Polystyrene and all of this mainstream plastics,
(12:20):
But honestly, they're like one hundred types of plastic that
exists and currently from one European So there was a
letter in order to ban more and more microplastics. I
don't remember which organization did the letter, but they've recognized
over five hundred, five hundred ingredients and personal care products
(12:44):
as microplastics. Yeah, so there could be more than five
hundred ingredients that are microplastics.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Actually, I would love to know the list of things
what all are microplastics actually in so I know that
you mentioned some of these food things. You mention clouds,
which is something that someone a normal person like me
can't really do anything about. But so what is that
list that we're looking at here of things that do
have microplastics?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So for the things that do have microplastics in them,
I think almost everything has at this point, probably unfortunately. Yeah,
but if we talk about the materials itself, like what
you can avoid in order to produce microplastics. And you
probably don't know that this is made of plastic paper
(13:33):
cups for example, the name is paper cup that is
actually aligned with plastic inside. They're also chewing gum. This
is one of the shocking ones. Chewing gum. The base
of the chewing gum is puliving you as a tate
if I remember correctly, and it's a plastic. So chewing
gum right now is like literally flavored plastic. Yeah, you're
(13:54):
kidding me. You're talking all these gears. I've been cheering
on com and it is really chewing on plastic. Yeah,
most of the commercial ones are like that. There are
some brands that create like plastic free chewing gum that
you can look for.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Not I guess I'm shocked that we even have to
create plastic free things.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, that's true. Originally chewing gum doesn't have that didn't
have any plastic in the beginning. It's just you know,
they wipe up, for example, with the clothes. With the clothing,
it's the same thing because you know, we've been wearing
clothing for thousands of years literally, and plastic started to
exist only less than a century ago, like around eighty
(14:38):
years ago. But right now almost all of our clothes
are made of plastic, out of synthetics like polyester and
acrylic s, nylon and stuff like that. So this is
really Yeah, I know, this is like so strange, so weird,
but plastic has, I don't know, with such a growth.
(15:00):
It became a part of almost everything. And you know,
when you think about like it's not possible to leave
without plastic, but we did leave without plastic, right like
literally a century ago, I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Assuming too, like, did people like they discovered that plastics
could be You had mentioned that it can be very
valuable in the sense that it can be manipulated into anything.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
So do you feel like it was being used.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
By different people just to like as a kind of
a cheaper product, or plastic even cheaper, I guess, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, plastic in general, it's a very affordable, cheap material
to use. So just to give some good reputations to plastic.
Plastic was one of the reasons why our medicine and
science skyrocketed because science became a medicine as industries is,
fields became very accessible to everyone because for example, if
(16:01):
you think about medicine industry, like again a century ago, right,
you would use the same syringe for example, because you
cannot always you know, buy a syringe made out of
glass and you can at at the same time properly
clean it and it is infected. So right now we
have syringes that are made of plastic and single use,
(16:23):
which is really great for us because then we will
not transfer diseases. Or for example, for science as well,
we use a lot of single use plastic. Unsaying science,
So think about glows, the masks, and all of the pipets.
Everything that we use is almost everything that we use
is made out of plastic or even like worse, single
(16:45):
use plastic, which is of course bad for the environment,
but could for the science because you know, everything is
clean and not affected by anything but any other chemicals.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So when something is That's what's really hard about this, right,
is because you have something that's obviously helping us in
the science world, that's helping us in advancements in medicine
and being able to not transmit diseases, but then it's
bad for the environment.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So how do you.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
As somebody who's researching this try to figure out, Okay, well,
how can we do both or can we do both?
What's the I guess middle ground to meet on when
these type of topics come up.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I think one of the first things that we need
to deal with is over consumption. So I think the
way we consume everything might be one of the part
of the problems and might be a solution for us,
because over consumption is really a big problem. We have
too much clothing, like compared to what we used to have.
(17:49):
For example, we use a lot of single use plastic
that is not necessary in most of the cases, like
for example, again with paper cups, right, you can have
a usable cup, there's nothing wrong with that, right. Or
for the plastic bags, we don't really need them, right
because we have somehow we manage to do that, to
(18:10):
do groceries without them, and right now, for example, I
live in Germany and I never have plastic bags. I'm
always with my tought back and it's not you know,
it's not such a big difference. So I would say
that the one of the roots of the problem is
definitely over consumption from other sizes, also an overproduction of things,
(18:32):
because that also contributes to the problem. But I would
say this thing is what matters because in terms of
like for example, as we said again, like medicine and science,
it would be difficult for us to say, okay, don't
do science or don't heal people now because we hate plastics. Right.
But I think it's also a point that we need
(18:53):
to consider. In science, for example, I see some people,
some researchers, being concerned about that and even doing more
research on how we can greenify our labs, make them
more sustainable, make them to have less plastic. Of course,
in those fields where you need, like you cannot swap
for anything that of course keep your plastics. But if
(19:15):
it's not that necessary, I think it's doable for us
to reduce. So maybe not make them disappear completely for
our lives, but reducing is a very good, great step
towards sustainability.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So and you also mention, like you talked about using things,
especially in your household, when you're talking about paper cups,
what are the swaps that we should be making, because
obviously everything does consume microplastics now, but what are the
things that you provid As somebody who's done research on
all of this, you've seen all the different things happen.
What are things that you would personally have in your home,
(19:52):
You're like, I'm okay with having this. Do you see
a lot of people online and they're making swaps, like
they're swapping to glassware and they're you know, making each
other using stainless steel or just the different especially kitchen items,
skincare items, like so much of this conversation revolves around
the fact, Okay, yes we should do that, but what
do we switch to and what do we use?
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, I would agree with the kitchen point because I
would say, that's like the biggest point of exposure to microplastics.
And I would definitely tell people, like, if you want
to start to have less microplastic, that's like the first
starting point is kitchen, because that's where we basically expose
(20:36):
ourselves to microplastic the most, especially because we usually eat
hot food and hot drinks. So I would strongly suggest
to try and swap out all the plastics that has
to deal with heat. So for example, if it's a
plastic container that you put in your microwave, or if
it's any other plastic cutlery, I would strongly suggest and
(20:59):
try to reduce that or swap it out completely to
either glass, to either steel or any other metal, or
either wood. Also a good suggestion because when it comes
to plastic plus heat, it's always a generation of literally
a lot of microplastics, thousands or even millions. So this
(21:21):
is very important for when I talk about microplastic and
advice around them, is for people to remember that heat
plastic is always equals to a lot of microplastics.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Okay, And that's what I was going to ask you
because you mentioned that, So when plastic is in cold,
does it have a different reaction or is it really
just we need to be really careful about heat and
plastic in general.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, I would say when it's at froom temperature, it
would be more stable. I cannot say that it will
not break down to microplastic. It still can, especially if
there's some you know, physical you know traction or anything.
It would still be able to produce microplasts to release microplastics.
But with heat, it just increases one hundreds or thousands fold.
(22:12):
That's why. Yeah, that's why a lot of researchers say, like,
don't heat anything in plastic.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
That's very important and so okay, you also mentioned that
it's in clouds and it's in water. How the heck
are we supposed to not be consuming the things that
are around us in our environment? Like, how can we
balance out that microplastic consumption?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
As I said, everyone will be exposed to microplastics, but
it all depends on the concentration. Of course, if you
swap out the things like from plastic to glass and
all the other non plastic materials, you will be exposed
to less microplastics, not to zero microplastics, of course that's
(22:58):
not possible unfortunately this time, but you will be reducing
and probably reducing significantly, because yes, it's in the air
and in the water, but the amount you are exposed
to from like water and air will be always be
less than, for example, from your food that you made
(23:19):
in plastic and you eat it every day. In terms
of what you can do, of course, there's not much
you can do, especially concerned with clouds, for example. But
if it's microplastics in the air, because right now there's
some research going on that. Yeah, microplastics is in your
houses and in your cars, and of course the indoor
concentration of microplastics is way way way higher than for example, outdoors.
(23:43):
So one of the things you can do is, of course,
one of the advice I would give is to open
your windows regularly so your microplastics will be out in
the wild, and vacuum your house more or less often. Yeah,
that way you can reduce microplastics.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Do you think air purifiers help at all with any
of microplastics or is that.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Kind of a myth? I never encountered any research about that,
so either it was research so there are no proofs,
or I just didn't see that.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yes, Okay, that's interesting though, because it's for sure you
know that you see all the air purifiers being bought,
and that's like a thing where they're like, Okay, it's
gonna purify your air. I'm like, okay, purify it from microplastics,
and that would be awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, but it also depends because if an air purifier
is made out of plastic, and usually it's you know hot,
it's getting hot right the pure fire, so it can
introduce some microplastics into the air in exchange of you know,
removing other chemicals. So that's the question. Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, it's really paying attention now. So you said like
reducing that is there also being this environmental side of
things just to ease anybody's minds who are also like
me and I'm just really blissfully unaware of the environmental
side of this.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So with microplastics, how.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Are they getting into our water and how are they
getting into the air that we're breathing?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Like what is that process?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Like? Just take me all the way back to school,
because we definitely did not learn about this in school.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, So basically, how there are primary microplastics? As I said,
there are not as many of them as secondary microplastics,
of course, but primary microplastics they are either introduced into
our environment during the production. So if some of them, yeah,
just for example, if something is produced and some of
(25:45):
the microplastics, they can be introduced into the air by accident.
For example, when it comes to secondary microplastics is you've
probably seen a lot of plastic waste, like just laying
all over the world, you know, in the bitches and
the water and everywhere. And of course with time, it
will release microplastics. With any physical damage, any physical contact
(26:10):
with anything, it also released microplastics and sund heat also
will make ye larger plastic objects to release microplastic, and
it's releasing into our water, air, and soil. Depends on
where the plastic is. And since plastic is not really
you know, biodegradable, so we as we know, it can
(26:32):
stay around for like hundreds of years. So for example,
there's one microplastics, it goes into the water and it
can stay in our water and travel all around the
world for like many many years. So it will adapt.
You create a new plastic object, it will release more
microplastic and it will stay in the system. And some
(26:54):
of the points of discharge for microplastics is of course,
as I said, waste water treatment plants, they do this
charge microplastics into our water bodies without any regulations, as
I said, without any monitoring. Another thing is tires. Tires
is considered a huge contributor to microplastics. So like tires
(27:15):
in the cars, in our cars, Yeah, and there's a
lot of physical friction, you know, between the road and
tires and they all get in either air or with water.
It goes into the system and then this water goes
into our water. And even when because you know with
water treatment plants they do filter some amount of microplastics,
it can be even a huge percentage, like ninety ninety
(27:38):
five ninety nine percent of microplastics are filtered from the water.
But then it all goes into the sludge. And in
some countries they use this sludge. I know in some
states of the US they also do that they use
this sludge as fertilizer. So you know, this sludge is
a concentrated concentrated with microplastics. So all the microplastics that
(28:03):
we're caught during the filtration process is in dislodge and
this dislodge goes as a fertilizers into our soils that
we grow our crops or anything or fruits, or ridges
with that frutilizer and that's how basically, for example, the
microplastics are introduced into our vegetables or any other crops
or anything like that. Oh my gosh. Okay, So basically it's.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Just one giant evolving monster that keeps evolving as we
keep doing things.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah that's true.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So environmentally, so like you know, we see the things
that we can do as humans, oh like less consumption,
trying to change the things that we're using, and being
really intentional about the products that we're using. What can
we do environmentally to help reduce our imprint when it
comes to microplastics because obviously we all have a role
(28:57):
in this. What can each of us be doing, maybe
even just a little bit to make that and hopefully
a little bit less as the years go on.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, So the first thing is, of course, reduce your
consumption anything it could be, even not plastic, but plastic
is also very important. To reduce your single use waste
as much as it's possible. It really makes a different
and it's really what we need right now. Even if
you feel like, oh, I'm an individual, I really hope
that we stop this talk with I'm just an individual.
(29:28):
We really need to stop that because your actions they
do really matter. And yeah, the first thing is to
reduce your consumption. The second thing is I always say
take action, like at least learn more about the problem,
and also try and talk about this problem with other people.
(29:49):
Try to talk about it with your friends, with your family,
because as long as you talk about this, as long
as you talk and keep it as keep the conver
decision going about the microplastics or any other problem that
you concert with, there will be some action as well.
So the governments will know that people are talking about
(30:11):
that and we should try and do something. But of
course we need to even go more if possible, like
sign petitions, yeah, demand changes from the government. Vote for
those people who have environment in their minds. This is
very important because our part of it is very important,
but the part of our governments and regulations is as important.
(30:34):
And we need those regulations as soon as possible because
right now, as I say, like there are no regulations,
we can discharge like trillions microplastics literally, and that's how
it is right now. Like for example, in our in
Astana in Kazakhstan, where I did my research, we found
out that there is like a billion microplastics per day
(30:54):
is just stared directly into the water, and I feel
like it's more or less the same, if not even
more in other countries. So yeah, of course, try and
do your individual action, try to speak about that and
take some action. And I know you can't predict.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
I'm like in shock right now by this, just this,
I'm just gonna call it a little monster because that's
stillly thing that's gonna make it make sense.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
In my brain.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
But of course you can't predict what's going to come.
But if we continue this trajectory and we continue with
where we're at with consumption, with how much microplastic is
in everything, I mean, what are we looking at in
the grand scale of things when we look five ten
years down the road when it comes to this particular topic.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
As you said, it's difficult to say, honestly, because again,
the microplastic research is still very very new. We I
think we did have on these seven articles about microplastics
before to sold in fourteen, and yeah, all the other
articles are only coming up right now.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And how long has microplastics even been studied? Put it
into those terms for me, because I know you said
you've been studying it for a little bit, but in
general the topic when did it even kind of become
a thing that people could start studying.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
So the term microplastic was first coined in two thousand
and four, so it's still in like the first few
decades of this. Yeah, yeah, that's how it is. Yeah,
microplastics is still in its infancy as a research field.
And yeah, it's difficult to say for me, and I
don't want to be super depressing about the topic because
(32:44):
I tried to make people like empowered you still can
do something. But one of the interesting things I can mention,
For example, there is some new research suggesting that microplastics
are affecting photosynthesis of plants and plants grow both in gyeral,
so for example, they're reducing the rate of photosynthesis and
(33:06):
you know, no Poto synthesis means practically no yield. And
right now, the reduction of what the synthesis caused just
by microplastics, not even including the climate change or any
other practice, but just microplastics as around seven to thirteen
percent if I remember correctly. And yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I'm just like shocked over here, because we need photosynthesis
to breathe.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
That's important yeah, yeah, that's true. And unfortunately, microplastic is
not only about like some fish that is dying in
the ocean, which is also very tragic, but it's also
about like our very food and ear. And right now
they're saying that it could be a threat to our
food security because we could probably lose I don't remember
(33:57):
all the figures right now, well, but I think it
was one hundred and thirty metric tones of food per
year could be lost just because of microplastics in terms
of corop production, and that was a huge number. And
that's what they estimate that we are losing right now
already just because of microplastics. But from the bright side,
(34:20):
and if we continue doing that, of course this number
is going to only grow bigger and bigger. And we
already in like shake a situation when it comes to
food security, right.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
And well, and I don't want to make you talk
about depressing things, but I also know that sometimes when
we can really see a bigger picture and we can
be like, okay, give me what's actually happening, some people
can feel more empowered that way to say, Okay, what
I am as one single person does matter, and I
will change that footprint.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Because it, in the bigger picture is going to matter
one day.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
So hopefully at least the hard conversations and the negativity
around that idea of this can bring some positivity, is
the hope.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, but there's also a positive side on that research
because they estimated that we need to reduce only thirteen
percent of our plastic ways in order to you know,
negate the effect of microplastics, and I think thirteen percent
is quite doable, and if you think about it, maybe
(35:25):
you can even try do that in your life. Just
try reducing your plastic use by thirteen percent. I think
it wouldn't be a very big change that you do,
but in the grand scheme of things, it could mean something.
And it's a great start well.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And very much so if one person does it, like say,
I do it, and then I tell all my friends, like, hey,
just maybe scale it back just half a bit, and
you get a group of us and then it just
keeps spiraling from there.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
It's a very grassroots idea of it.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
But that's how this works, and that's how we start
to come together as a community to make a change.
So to your point, yeah, thirteen percent seems like a
lot in that big picture, but it really isn't. If
one person starts to do it and we kind of
create that domino effect, the monster can be reversed, but
we must help it exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I agree with you, and I think people always underestimate
themselves because, for example, when I became a microplastic researcher,
all my friends were started to get, you know, more
cautious when they talk about plastic and they're like, okay,
for example, if we go somewhere, they try to use
less plastic just because of me. Just I'm not even
(36:37):
saying anything to them, but they're like, I'm not gonna
take this plastic back. I know you're gonna judge me,
and yeah, I'm never judging any of them, but they
still do feel like this obligation to not use and
this is already an impact, you know, So this is great.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well, and that's how it works, right, even if you're
just scaring them a little bit to not use it,
like you don't even have to say anything, it's just
like a little.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Bit of a fear.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Then sometimes we need that push just to make sure
that we're heading in the right direction. So not only
is it better for your body to be not utilizing
a lot of these plastics, but it's also better for
the environment, So to me, that's a win win. And
you can go to you know here, I'm not sure
what they're called where you're at right now, but we
have like dollar stores and they have plastic or not plastic,
(37:21):
they have glass were that you can easily buy and
make it a quick swap in your home, so you're
no longer using plastic and that's you know, a big fix.
But so on that same topic though, so say people
start making that swap and doing things, how do we
recycle these things and how do we get rid of
them without adding more to the problem.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
That's a very good question, A very yeah, a very
good question when it comes to all the plastic that
we already have, like what to do with those? And
it all depends on your creativity. I would say, if
there are some people that you can recycle, recycle them.
But if you can they then reuse them, it's even better,
especially when it's something that is not so for example,
(38:08):
you probably swap out things from the kitchen because that's
the yeah think you start with, and you try and
use those things that you swapped in the areas that
are not considered not related to your food, you know,
to kitchen. I don't know if I'm explaining it in
an understandable way.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, no, I get what you mean, Like you start
to use it, like use those cups maybe that are
plastic for to hold pencils, or they hold your makeup
brushes or something that's not being used that you're technically
putting into your body.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, that's right. And for example, I had a plastic cup.
I also it was a very long plastic cup. I
started to use this as a waste for my flowers.
For example. I know that there are some people who
are using their old cutting boards to put it under
the pots. You know, for example, all the the old
plastic clothing that you had, you can try and do
(39:05):
something out of them, like make a little project or
for example, donated to animal shelters for example, or anything.
I think it all depends on your creativity. But I would, yeah,
try and encourage people to try to reuse those things,
because Okay, this plastic already exists in the system, like
it will not not create microplastics just because you get
(39:26):
rid of it. So maybe try to reuse it in
some way that is possible. Just try to remove it
from your food from your.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Mouth, you know, yes, well, and I was like starting
to think of that as like, oh, no, well, I
don't want to encourage everybody to just then throw everything
away because that's also part of the problem. So it's
such a delicate balance, but I think it's one if
we're really intentional about that, we can make a difference
and we can start to change, even if it's a
small thing.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
It can start with cups and then it can.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Go to pants, and you can always just maneuver and
find ways to do things. You know, me personally, I have
been getting really creative with trying to swap things out
and find ways to donate them in different directions.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
I have donated a lot of stuff to animal shelters
so that I never knew they would.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Need pillows being one of them because I was like,
I need different healthier pillows. I was like, but I
don't want to throw these away, so animal shelters, so
there are ways to do it, but I just wanted
to make sure we gave them all the educational resources
to do.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
So, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, And I love to end my podcast on it's
either a piece of advice or motivation or inspiration or
maybe something we didn't even address yet, and you feel
like really empowered you want to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I kind of give the floor over to you.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
So anything that comes to mind for you, this is
totally yours floor as yours.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, I would like to end on like an empowering
note there there is. I have met a man who's
working on finding a solution to microplastic problem and I
really like what he said to me. He told me like,
we are at the very historical point in our lifetimes,
(41:13):
in the history in general, where we catch the problem
way before, before that spiraled and it's now no longer
you know, solvable, Like for example, with climate change, we
realized that climate change is doing, is climate change exists
(41:36):
in general way after I wouldn't say too late, but
quite late, right because right now there there's a lot
of difficulties, a lot of challenges in order to talkle that.
But with microplastics, right now is the point where we
learned about the problem when it's still only now started
(41:58):
to affect the environment and our health. Right, So we
do and at the same time, we have all the technology,
technology and all the people that are working in science
so many people are now joining the science, so we
do have all the capabilities, all the opportunities right now
to solve this problem. If you think, I know, it's
(42:18):
very depressing. The field is very depressing. The environmental science
itself is just a science of studying problems, which is
quite Yeah, I know it's very sad and can be
very anxious about that, But with microplastics, I really do
have a lot of hope and I really agree with
that guy that we do have all the technological advancement
(42:39):
and a lot of amazing people working in order to
solve that problem. And definitely, if we keep talking about that,
if we do our part, if we take action, we're
definitely going to solve it together. I love that is that.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I love that's how we're inding it because it is
And that's why I even found you on social media
to begin with, was not only were you educating people
on the topic, but you were trying to educate in
a way that will help us, not just make us
scared and say Okay, well don't do this. It's like,
don't do this, but this is why you should it,
and this is why it can help us. So I
love what you're doing and I love your social media content,
(43:17):
So do you want to shout that out really quick
so people can go follow you?
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah? Yeah, follow me on Instagram and on TikTok. My
handle is done caget. I think it would be difficult
for human to me put it in the show notes too,
so they can find it that way and maybe a
quick shout out to my app. So we created an app,
Microplastic Free. It's an app where there are a lot
of educational lessons that I've worked myself with the help
(43:43):
of other microplastic researcher about what are microplastics, the environmental impact,
the human health impact of microplastics. And there's also a
scanner with which you can take pictures of foot packaging
of clothing, tacts of personal care ingredients and get an
instant microplastic rescore. Is it high or is it low.
There's also a new feature that we added, petition section,
(44:03):
so you can literally sign on the positions about microplastics
in the app itself. We did that in collaborations with
several organizations. We will have even more positions there soon
and another new feature that we are adding, I hope
maybe in this December, but maybe in the next year
a Trusted Brands section where you can see all the companies,
(44:25):
all the brands that do produce plastic free products. This
idea actually came from our own users because they were
taking pictures. They see, Okay, this is plastic, but what
can I do with What should I buy instead? And
we're like, okay, that's a great idea. Maybe we can
add brands or companies for them so they know where
to shop instead. So yeah, please download that. It will
be of great help for me and for our planet
(44:48):
as well. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I'm so glad you shouted that out because it's so
cool one what you're doing, but also that you guys
created an app to again help more people. And like
we mentioned, the swab part is what's hard. It's hard
to find things and know what you're doing is right.
So to have an app that's right at your fingertips
to say, hey, is this good for me or not?
Or is this good for the environment, and then another
option for something that can be So shout that out
(45:12):
one more time. I will still link it in the
notes so nobody has to write it down or anything.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
So it's Microplastic Free Scanner, or you can just write
microplastic free. That's perfect.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Well, it's so cool what you're doing, and I hope
it just continues to I hope we continue to do better.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
I hope your job continues.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
To hopefully get easier, would be the hope I would
hope out of doing that research that maybe one day
you can search for a new subject because we did
all the right things and we got rid of it.
But all that to say, thank you for the work
that you're doing, and thanks for the information and sharing
on social media because it's how I found you, and
I'm really glad that I did to share with my listeners.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah, thank you so much for reaching out. I really
like talking about microplastics. I love that.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
I love when somebody gets to geek out on things
they love too, because when there's so much information around it,
you know, we see the Internet and there's so much
that we see, but you know, you see influencers all
the time talking about microplastics and I'm like, okay, but
how do you know that?
Speaker 1 (46:11):
And who are you?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
So I saw you and I was like, well, she's
actually doing the research, so I'm gonna talk to her
about this. Yeah, Well, thank you again, and I will
make sure to link everything in the show notes for everybody,
so you guys can follow her and get that app
so we can all do a little bit better by
ourselves and for the earth.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
I know episodes like these are sometimes hard to take.
You may feel helpless, confused, or like you're in over
your head, and trust me, I've been there. I do
these episodes as a way to inform because there's so
much noise happening on social media, and the way to
cut through that is with evidence based facts and research.
So if this is your first totep in understanding the
world of microplastics, much like me, you're doing great. We're
(46:52):
gonna figure this out. Donna is a great source of
information on this topic, so be sure to follow her
on social media and download that app she was talking about.
We can do this, guys, Stay calm, deep breaths. I'm
so happy that you're here. Get ready next week to
learn all the things I've been doing in the world
of detoks and cleanses with Kara. Subscribe away by friends
Host
Morgan Huelsman
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