Studies find red, blue and green plastic decomposes into microplastic particles faster than plainer colours

Retailers are being urged to stop making everyday products such as drinks bottles, outdoor furniture and toys out of brightly coloured plastic after researchers found it degrades into microplastics faster than plainer colours.

Red, blue and green plastic became “very brittle and fragmented”, while black, white and silver samples were “largely unaffected” over a three-year period, according to the findings of the University of Leicester-led project.

The scale of environmental pollution caused by plastic waste means that microplastics, or tiny plastic particles, are everywhere. Indeed, they were recently found in human testicles, with scientists suggesting a possible link to declining sperm counts in men.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Regarding polluting and cleaning up afterwards and using toxic compounds in products yes in general they have.

      • optissima@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        On what scale? It seems like the current climate change issues were triggered and amplified before communism was practiced by any state, but while capitalism was actively being used by colonialists throughout the 1800s. Do we count those 100+ years without regulations? If the punishments are minimal, not a single violation of any environmental regulation on a large scale has been appropriately pushed in the leading capitalist state, the US, ever, do those regulations really mean anything to those that are truly the greatest impacts to environment?

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          On what scale?

          Apples to apples, for instance Soviet Union compared to Europe, there is no doubt Soviet union was decades behind the west regarding regulating on toxic compounds and pollution and cleaning up.
          Same with China, they build their industrial capacity on polluting without limits, compare that to Japan or South Korea. China even had the advantage pollution wise that they started later, so a lot of know how was available on how to pollute less for comparable industrial output.

          At least China has improved, but Soviet union never did.