Well, hello there listeners and welcome back. My name is Stephanie Safarian and you're listening to episode

345 of Sustainable Minimalists at Toys Weekly show about Intentional and Ecominimalist Living. On today's show I am answering a listener's question about

places in which plastic might be hidden that we wouldn't normally think of. So hidden sources of microplastics and

alternative replacements to avoid them. Let's start off by getting on the same page. What on

earth is a microplastic? Well a microplastic is a plastic

particle that measures less than 5 millimeters in size. There are also nanoplastics which are even

smaller than microplastics.

There are two basic kinds of microplastics. There are primary microplastics and secondary

microplastics. The primary ones, primary microplastics, are intentionally

manufactured to be small. There are the microbeeds and personal care products.

We'll get to them later.

They're the pellets used in plastic manufacturing.

So primary microplastics are made small on purpose.

And then there are the secondary

microplastics which are the result to the consequence of plastics

durability. So plastic is quite durable, that's why it has, that's one of the reasons why it has risen to prominence.

But the durability is really also a double-edged sword, because as these durable plastics get broken down by oceans and

sunlight and waves they break down into fragments they get smaller and

smaller but they never truly disappear.

Presumably, microplastics will remain on this earth for centuries and centuries,

800-ish years on average.

Now another quick reminder, these microplastics,

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