Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet. Here’s What We Can Do.

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Plastic is designed to last. And last it does. Often composed of “forever chemicals” which take thousands of years to break down, it flakes throughout its life into microplastics — fragments, fibers and films less than 5 millimeters long. Microplastics are everywhere: they’re in our air, our water and our food, and they’re in our own bodies. And their effect on human health is still largely unknown, writes Wired science journalist Matt Simon in his new book “A Poison Like No Other.” Simon joins us to discuss the extent of the microplastic threat and what we can do. Guests: Matt Simon, science journalist, WIRED; author, “A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies”, "Plight of the Living Dead: What Real-Life Zombies Reveal About Our World—and Ourselves" and "The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar: Evolution's Unbelievable Solutions to Life's Biggest Problems." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Forum comes from Rancho La Puerta, a wellness resort in Baja, California, just an hour from San Diego.
0:07.6	Three, four, and seven-night summer packages include fitness classes, hiking, live music, mindfulness, and culinary adventures, featuring fruits and veggies straight off the vine.
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0:23.8	Saver summer at Rancho LaPuerta.com.
0:28.3	Greetings, boomtown.
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0:44.6	From K UED in San Francisco, this is Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
1:05.0	Those plastic bottles you see floating in our rivers and oceans or plastic bags blowing across sidewalks,
1:12.0	every one of them will break down into smaller and smaller bits eventually becoming invisible,
1:17.8	but still very much in our environment. Microplastic, writes Matt Simon, is the pernicious
1:23.3	glitter that has bastardized the whole earth, a forever residue from the party that is consumerism.
1:30.6	We'll talk with Simon about his new book called A Poison Like No Other, How Micropastics
1:35.4	Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies, and he'll tell us what we can do about it. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
1:52.4	Plastic is designed to last, and last it does. It flakes throughout its life into
1:58.6	microplastics, or fragments, fibers, films less than 5 millimeters long.
2:04.6	And these microplastics are everywhere.
	...

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