Time now is 613 and let's talk about
a big topic here on this Earth week.
Scientists say tiny pieces of
plastic floating everywhere.
They're in the air, the dirt, the water.
Until recently there really wasn't
a way to know if they've made it
into our bodies in today's Earth.
8 report, we're taking a look at
what San Diego researchers are
discovering about these microplastics.
I just have to dilute them and
put them in tubes and count
them in. This tube researcher Carol
Wiggins shows us the micro plastics that
have turned the water a light orange,
so they're all just really tiny
dots for the purpose of a research
here at the Scripps Institution
of Oceanography at UC San Diego,
she broke larger plastic pieces into
these little fragments since that's
where similar to what's found in the real
world and you can't see them at all.
But you can see them through the
microscope as she shines a blue light.
They turn up green on her screen
and wiggan counts them all.
I've been doing this for 10 years.
I'm an amazing counter.
She was able to determine that each
slide has about 1500 microplastics,
and that helps her know what
she'll be putting into each of
these. So this is an oyster in here,
and it's in sterile seawater right now,
and eventually tomorrow, I'll add
microplastics and Vibrio parahaemolyticus,
the bacteria that causes food poisoning
in this specific study, wiggan is
testing to find out if microplastics
shuttle food poisoning into oysters.
Microplastics have been a really
interesting field to watch.
For the last 1520 years,
because we've come a long way in terms
of figuring out how to detect it.
In fact, the latest research shows
microplastics have been discovered
in our lungs and in our blood.
It's not that it wasn't there,
it's just that the methods for detecting
microplastics are pretty complex,
pretty expensive and time-consuming.
The newest form of testing has proven
what scientists have long suspected.
Now we can use it to test,
you know, more parts of the body.
Are our tissues, or,
you know, in our brains.
Now we're able to definitively.
Today that they stay in our body,
but many microplastic researchers
still need to pinpoint how much
we absorb, how much we release,
and the harm they may cause
in the past couple years.
You've probably seen articles that
state we ingest about a credit cards
worth of plastic every single week.
In this case, we'll use playing
cards about the same size.
Now think about that over a year,
52 cards worth of plastic
going into our bodies.
We can explains a lot of that depends on
how much plastic is in our daily life.
If you drink from plastic
water bottles regularly,
if you eat from plastic bags and
out of plastic containers often,
and if you wear clothes made of polyester,
spandex, nylon, yes.
All those popular yoga pants.
Well, that's also sending
microplastics into your body and
then think about all the plastic toys
kids are constantly playing with.
I mean, this motion alone,
plastic hitting plastic,
the friction that sends micro
plastics into the air
start a little bit hard to avoid.
Just because we've created such a mess when
you're sitting in your like living room.
And there's a ray of light, and you can
see all the particles in the light.
A lot of those are probably plastic.
That's because all the plastic we use gets
broken down by friction or even melting,
and ends up in the air and in the ground.
But it also ends up in the
ocean where it breaks down more.
They end up being so small that
they're lightweight and they can just
float through air currents and wind.
It all goes into our food where it
circles right back to us by either
eating, breathing, or touching
everything from on land.
Into the ocean comes back to humans,
and it's just all a kind of a
circular, interconnected world.
And as with most research,
the more awareness and knowledge
scientists like WIGGAN can share.
The more they hope people consider change.
So Wigan does say that people often ask
her what in the world can we do about this?
How do we clear microplastics
from the earth from our bodies?
And she recommends, you know,
cutting back on plastic
use in however way you can.
Small ways can make a difference.
She also suggests talking with local
state national leaders to let them know
that you're concerned about this Surfrider,
by the way, will be joining us on
The CW San Diego in our 7:00 AM hour
to show us some of the most common
plastics that end up in the ocean.
Just things that we can think about on.
How we can reduce a little bit?
That is a lot of plastic.
Yeah, it's everywhere shocking to me,
especially like you know you
always see like she said when the
light like kind of hits the air
and you see all the particles.
And I always think like oh
I'm sure it's just dust
really thought it was dust,
but now they're seeing.
No it's like micro plastics too.
We breathe it in
wow. Yeah it's everywhere you you
had you like in your stand up you
had the kids toys and everything.
I mean we are surrounded that it's
everywhere I mean look everything
we're typing on the friction of just
touching plastic really does sends it.
And then it's all about
those incremental changes.
Like she said, just trying your best.
This actually ties into my Earth
aid on Monday is the first zero
waste grocery store in San Diego,
and it was fascinating to see like
you bring in your own glass jars.
Yeah, and you fill up your own products.
You don't need the plastics,
so there are ways to do it right?
That are pretty simple that we can
make our day-to-day changes with.
So things do add up.
Thank you for bringing that to.
Yeah, that's a fascinating story.
She's also an amazing scientist, right?
Yeah, doing all that.