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YHM 088 - Plastic Perils: How Microplastics Disrupt Your Hormones and Ways to Cut Exposure
208 Plays1 year ago
In this eye-opening episode, host Max Marion and co-host Calvin Morrow dive into the startling reality of microplastics and their effects on our health. Join special guest Attila Banhegyi, Operations Manager at Glowing Orchid Organics, as they discuss groundbreaking research revealing microplastics in the reproductive tissues of humans and dogs. Discover the hidden pathways of contamination in our daily lives and learn practical strategies to reduce your exposure.
Tune in for a conversation that could change how you think about plastics and your health!
Follow Attila:
@glowingorchidorganics
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Transcript
Introduction to Your Health Minute
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Your Health Minute, brought to you by Aqua Omega. I am your host, Max Maron. And with me, as always, is my co-host and moderator, Calvin Morrow. Hello,
Microplastics Overview with Attila Benhegi
00:00:18
Speaker
hello. And with us today, we have a very special guest, Attila Benhegi, the operations manager manager at Glowing Orchids, to discuss microplastics. Now, this is a super hot topic. I know it is for us, you know, being in the the Omega-3 space.
00:00:32
Speaker
and understanding environmental contaminants and pollution um but the more you follow this story the the more you you hear about micro plastics being in absolutely everything even the air we breathe and we're gonna be talking about a new study that just came out finding micro plastics in your balls.
00:00:52
Speaker
That is, that is some real things, right? So is this like, you know, I don't know, Attila, welcome to the show. I'd love for you to introduce yourself to our listeners to start off with. And then I'm really excited to dive into this, this hot topic. Well, for any listeners that didn't bring their snacks, we got no plastic wrapped nuts, but we got yeah not wrapped plastic. So For starters, i'm I'm not a doctor and I don't proca proclaim to be an expert in any of the topics that we're going to discuss. I'm just a generalist who goes down rabbit holes sometimes. In 2011, I drew... yeah so Sorry? upta I'm curious, how did you first get um interested in kind of the health and wellness space?
00:01:35
Speaker
So I first got interested back when I worked up north, so I'll get to that once I give you my intro. Sure, okay, I'll shut up. I'll let you do your thing, I'll listen. It's all good, all good.
Attila's Background and Skepticism towards Plastics
00:01:47
Speaker
In 2011, I dropped out of business uni to go work in the can Canadian oil patch, and I self-funded an aquaponics venture. In that hydroponics field, I quickly became skeptical of the reliance on plastics. You ever seen a milk jug disintegrate in the sun when it's left out?
00:02:05
Speaker
i'm dely there Yeah, I've seen it kind of fold over a little bit. Yeah, so if you leave it even longer, then it'll start falling apart and eventually turn to dust. So that dust is what made me wonder about the butterfly effect of these man-made products on our environment and living organisms.
00:02:20
Speaker
um So I'm currently the Operations Manager at Gloyne Orchid Organics where we do not have, like, okay, we're gonna have to edit that part out because you threw me off with that question, but We try to go as eco-friendly as possible and plastic-free as possible with our packaging. I have some of our products right here, like our natural deodorants. These come in paper tubes. They're one of the first in Canada with paper tube packaging for deodorants. Just push them up from the bottom and then tap them down to go back. And my first foray into getting into health was when I was working up north. I felt like I was losing a lot of my time.
00:03:05
Speaker
um working 16-hour days, 40 days in a row sometimes, and I wanted to win back that time by investing in my health and extending my health span and my longevity.
00:03:20
Speaker
and ah through listening to podcasts up there since I had a lot of free time. I learned about blue zones and some studies that showed that the amount you invest in your health in your younger years pays dividends in your older years.
00:03:35
Speaker
so You could see the contrast between me and my astaxanthin supplements on the oil patch versus all my coworkers who are chain smoking and drinking energy drinks and all day long. Oh yeah, you're getting figures out of bags. Exactly, exactly. That's called borrowing from the future. You see that. You say there's a debt that's going to be paid at some point. And if you borrow too much ah when you're young, you pay for it when you're older. I 100% agree. So in my case, I'm going to save that chain smoking for my 90s.
00:04:06
Speaker
go Yeah, jam-pack it in. Yeah, so the next thing that landed me into being a health-spiracy theorist was a decade ago when I experienced mold toxicity symptoms.
00:04:19
Speaker
So I figured out that that... We hear a lot of people come on here and talk about, like even a lot of the NDs that come on our show, they talk about experiencing type of mold contamination or mold toxicity or feeling like that those poisoning effects of mold and and kind of like taking charge of their health from there. It's interesting. I didn't mean to drop it. Just we know it's fine hear that a lot, a lot, a lot. like I feel like it's just as underrepresented as or even more underrepresented than these plastic issues that we're having. Yeah, you see it all the time.
00:04:48
Speaker
So that was about a decade ago, and it was from my first home that I'm living in right now, actually. um It led to a marathon of research, testing, troubleshooting, and having to re-renovate my home to remediate the entire structure. So we had to break the walls back to the studs and redo the entire thing. A fun fact about that is that my EFA, essential fatty acids test from 2017, showed an AA to EPA ratio of 18 to one.
00:05:18
Speaker
I don't know if you guys are familiar with that particular test. yeah So I didn't realize that was bad until I was at a CHFA West show where Brain Armor was talking about it. And I asked the host about my results and he says, holy, he was like blown away. And ah since then I've been so supplementing with Omegas. I usually do a two to one EPA to DHA ratio.
00:05:46
Speaker
And, um, I'm happy to report that my test from 2022 showed a ratio of less than three to one. There you go. there you go That's where you want to be. Yeah. So, uh, thank you guys. Uh, that was a long intro, but, uh, thank you for your amazing supplements and for having me on this conversation. Appreciate the kind words. Yeah.
Understanding Microplastics and Chemicals
00:06:07
Speaker
So today we're talking about microplastics, which is, I think it's going to be exciting. What about for, for anyone who doesn't know what microplastics are, why don't we start with kind of like a, you know, top of funnel explanation of what it is and and and give a little definition. Okay. Yeah. So it's going to be a little bit of a longer definition because I like to break microplastics and all these chemicals in general into three categories. Okay. We've got the plasticizers, the forever chemicals and the microplastics.
00:06:35
Speaker
So in the first category, the plasticizers, we have chemicals like BPA, bisphenol A, which is often replaced with BPS and BPF, which are no better in many cases.
00:06:46
Speaker
And we also have phthalates in this category, which are used in cosmetics as solvents and stabilizers and are usually ah for making plastics more durable and flexible. I read this whole thing when we were getting ready for this on companies who started like saying, BPA free, BPA, but they replace it with a chemical exactly identical to BPA, just called something else that no one's no one's identified or talking about yet. So they're just kind of skirting.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, just fun. Skirting the truths, you know? Skirting those truths. Yeah, it's kind of like hot potato mixed with multiple chairs. Skirting the truths. So funny. Yeah. Yeah. The second category, we have the forever chemicals. These might be the most dangerous ones. A few of these are used to repel oil or they're used in adhesives like tape. Like the forever chemicals that were found in like the cooking pans and air fryers.
00:07:41
Speaker
That's terrible. I just got an air fryer like a year ago and I love it. I use it all the time. I use it like every day. Yeah. Just make sure you don't scratch it. Yeah. Okay. That's the key. All right. That's when that stuff flakes off. So, fire retardants too, like on your coaches and stuff like that, um, have these forever chemicals. and you look And your skin's constantly exposed to all these things, right? And it's crazy. Wasn't there like a big report on sunscreens as well?
00:08:09
Speaker
and forever chemicals. Like I was, I swear I was on, not on Google news. I don't know. It was like, it was, I was just going through the news. I saw this article click on it. It's like one exposure. One time you put sunscreen on, boom, forever chemicals. Like, unreal yeah. And the cancer causing chemicals and when your skin's sweaty, it absorbs it even better. Yeah. Yeah. And you're, you're trying to prevent getting skin cancer and just creating one for another. Just yeah. That's how it might be worse actually. Yeah.
00:08:37
Speaker
Yeah, I personally, I don't use sunscreen, but even if I'm in the sun, I just try to limit the exposure. Or if I really need to, then I'll use like a natural one. But there's no mechanism that we know of to easily quickly detox these forever chemicals from our bodies. Their half-life is about seven years. They mimic fatty acids. So this might be something that you guys could research how I don't know if it does or does not substitute um like the pathways in which your supplements get into our brain, because our brain is made up of, what, two-thirds of these tiny acids.
00:09:18
Speaker
yeah um The most common forever chemicals are called per and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS. Other names or other chemicals that are similar to it are PFOS and PFOA. It's thought that these can slowly leave through our urine and through blood loss. So I guess women have a little advantage there if it's that time of the month, but it's not fast enough rate ah considering our level of exposure.
00:09:50
Speaker
even incinerating these forever chemicals doesn't degrade them. So scientists only recently in 2022 found a way to break down these forever chemicals outside the body using lye and dimethyl sulfoxide at 248 degrees Fahrenheit. So this is why I'm saying don't scratch those nonstick pans because once it's in you, it's hard to get it out. So there's one more category. So we're still defining these microplastics, right? and um The third callette category I do call microplastics and they further break down into nanoplastics. So the microplastics are between 100 nanometers and 5 millimeters in size. So 1 nanometer is 0.00001 millimeters.
00:10:35
Speaker
And nanoplastics are smaller than that. Respect. It's like a nothing. yeah it's like We can't even see nanoplastics with a naked eye. You're breathing it. It's getting into your lungs. It's It's everywhere. yeah yeah it was really It really feels like a potential chemical castration of the human race.
00:10:54
Speaker
I wonder what the long-term effects are going to be, especially think about the fertility issues that you're hearing about all the time and they continue to get worse and worse and worse. And if like fast forward 50 years from now or something like that, like if, if like you're exposed to these forever chemicals or microplastics basically from the date that you're born. Well, they're finding them in placentas to reproduce. Like that's insane, right?
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's found on the heights of Mount Everest in the trenches of the Pacific ocean. I mean, and it feels like it legit feels like, you know, like one of those movies where it's like people can't have kids anymore. This was the thing. Yeah. It's like we didn't think much of it. You know, it's like plastics everywhere. Strong plastic everywhere. Making everything out of plastic. No big deal. Yeah. There's a big push to making, you know, everything's made 200 years later. yeah Like when did plastics are being used? Like, do you know, do you go to 1960s in the night? That's it.
00:11:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's not even that long ago. Not even 100 years? ah Well, hold on. um I pulled it up. His team were first to show that microplastic particles have accumulated oceans since the 1960s. When did we start making stuff out of plastic? Well, I'll touch on a very interesting investigation on corporate responsibility with 3M.
00:12:08
Speaker
and and You guys want to know about that? In the 1900s, about a hundred years or so. That's it. Yeah. Think of how long the world's been around. That's what I'm saying, right? yeah This is the thing that can take you out. That's nuts. Yeah. We were always worried about like overpopulation on the planet and that's going to be our downfall, right? But wow now it looks like it might be population collapse. Yeah. Isn't it already on a downwards but i downturn? I think so. i Yeah. I've read that it's like we're not hitting the refill rate. Right.
00:12:39
Speaker
I mean, that's crazy. I was watching, that's a good I watched Planet of the Apes yesterday and my kids were like, this is really what the world would look like if humans stopped being here. Like you like see all the buildings with like the, yeah the vines coming up and older it's over. Yeah, man. Like it's crazy to think that would do it. Is there an island in Japan that did that too?
00:12:56
Speaker
It's like a mine or something like it's crazy. It's like looking into the future. that like oh mess It's just crazy, right? yeah There's Chernobyl that Chernobyl. Yeah. Yeah. Nature. It reclaims earth. It is wild. And then however long these chemicals take to go away, it's like, it'll cleanse itself and we won't last, but it'll restart. Yeah. Cause as's we've been around for billions of years. So humans have only been here for a speck of that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:23
Speaker
It's plastic that takes us out. It is. or Well, you were talking about corporations' responsibility in this. Maybe we can touch on that a little more. Are are they the the main contributors to this issue?
Historical Role of 3M and PFOS Issues
00:13:33
Speaker
Sure. I believe so. And this segment is for the true crime lovers out there. OK, let's hear it. In 1902, Two Harbors, Minnesota, United States, 3M was founded.
00:13:52
Speaker
In 1979, an internal company report deemed PFOS certainly more toxic than anticipated and recommended longer-term studies. They knew that PFOS had sickened and even killed laboratory animals and had caused liver abnormalities in factory workers.
00:14:12
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm not great at that voice, but ah Chris Hansen was a chemist at 3M. I'll add some music to it. ah crime music Yeah, so Chris Hansen, chemist at 3M and her team found PFOA-OS in Swedish blood samples from 1957 and 1971. So after that, her lab analyzed blood samples that had been collected before 3M created PFO-OS and they tested negative.
00:14:40
Speaker
Apparently these chemicals had entered human blood after the companies started selling products that contain them. They had leached out of the 3M sprays, coatings, and factories into all of them. I'm going to go test the blood and test for PIA. I'm going to do this. I love doing that. I'm going to test all that shit. I wonder if you even knew this and just kept going anyways, you know, full steam ahead. Yeah. So, uh, I'm going to get that. I'm going to be fantastic in like drugs, like drugs and injectables. It must be.
00:15:07
Speaker
I think it feels like it's in everything at this point. It's got to be right. Like if it's, if it's in everything, if it's in a plastic, and like like most, most drugs are like oil based. So when there be some form of cross contamination, cross contamination or plastic a drug product, I would think so. I think just because we can't see what the naked eye doesn't mean. I mean, you're in the, the, uh, like cosmetic space. Like how many cosmetic products are carrying have,
00:15:35
Speaker
micro-plastic for some form of fat. Loaded, right? Yeah, from the ingredients to the packaging, yeah. Yeah. Soaps, I'm talking soaps, deodorant. Deodorant is bad, right? That was the big thing. Well, those things isn't the worst thing about deodorants. It's the aluminum that they add to the deodorants. Yeah. There's also fragrances, natural fragrances that they add. There's a plethora of ingredients that could be bad for you in deodorants. What do you use for deodorant?
00:16:05
Speaker
Old Spice. That's it. Tell them how bad Old Spice is. Make them feel bad. Make them feel bad. I'm not that kind of guilt mongering type of guy, but we do have alternative options for you here. I'm happy to send you a sample after this talk. Oh yeah. I'd be open to it. We got 10 cents. Don't you get like that red burn thing from like the... No, I'm not like I use it every kind of day. If I'm starting to smell a little stinky, I'll throw it on, but I would say I only use deodorant maybe two or three times a week.
00:16:36
Speaker
That's it? Yeah. I'm around the same there. Yeah. but you need to worry Many of our customers say that they apply on one day and then it lasts for even two days. Right? Yeah. ah Which is nice.
00:16:48
Speaker
I think you might like a gin tonic or a lime mojito type of scent. How's the... Yeah, absolutely. How's the Native brand? Is that pretty good? Native used to be really good about four or five years ago. That was like OB, right? They got bought out by Procter & Gamble about four or five years ago for a hundred mil. And the quality dipped or what? Yeah. That's how it goes, yeah. Such is the case. It's usually what's... You see that all... It's been a gradual decline. But they did last year get into plastic-free packaging.
00:17:16
Speaker
ah Um, I haven't seen that yet. Yeah, they've got ah paper tubes, but they haven't really impacted it. They haven't rolled that out everywhere yet, right? Uh, no, not everywhere. And, uh, like their tubes get stuck or they're too slippery in there. Like we've really worked hard on developing tubes that are stuff, right? There should be like a massive overall when it comes to packaging and stuff like that, but there would need to be some type of recycling program that would be put into place and like it would have to be government funded yeah where countries and it has to be because if you look at programs like like even like Coca-Cola or Pepsi, I think they've spent billions of dollars funding like their recycling programs. It's nuts. I mean if the corpplay miss it when Coca-Cola glass bottles.
00:18:03
Speaker
What's that, sir? I miss when Coke had glass bottles. I mean, any kind of soda tastes better out of a glass bottle, right? Even a beer tastes better out of a glass bottle than a can. Yeah. Well, those cans are lined with plastics. I don't know if you knew that. Our aluminum cans have plastics in them too? Yeah, of course. I didn't know this. This is terrible. There's like a microfilm layer of plastic inside there. So small that you don't notice, but enough. And it's very disruptive to like your hormones and stuff like that too. Yeah.
00:18:31
Speaker
That's interesting. so wasn't Was it 3M that was involved in like the $12 billion dollars settlement, like the class action lawsuit? Yeah. So in 2006, they paid a small penalty of $1.5 million without admitting any wrongdoing. yeah um All they did is change from PFOS to PFAS, basically what we touched on earlier on in the talk. It's essentially the same thing. Yeah. And um they knew all about these these issues and they kept it quiet.
00:19:02
Speaker
ah they found out that money is money it's money it's money it's money it's all it is it's just money like it's follow the money like it's and they you make enough money you can hide just about anything yeah fucking nut Yeah, we've been finding that there's PFOS and 13 other forever chemicals in weeks old fetuses from terminated pregnancies. What about baby? I bet you find it in baby food. That'd be some fucked up shit. You're saying it in baby food? Baby fetus. Before the baby's even born, they have my... know what else thinks I'm talking formula. Okay. um You know those plastic pouches that baby food is in? It's in that. And it's even in some of the glass, like Gerber baby foods as well.
00:19:43
Speaker
So is there anything safe? I guess what you have to grow, grow food yourself. Is it in our soil? It's everywhere. What are you talking about? True. Can't avoid this. You can reduce your exposure for sure. And that is some ways to give you some strategies. Yeah. I'm going to make you guys wait for that. We'll wait a little bit for that. Yeah. So we found that $62 billion is what it would cost.
00:20:10
Speaker
remove all these forever chemicals from the water supply in US. Which feels like pretty reasonable. Yeah, but it's more than the market cap of, uh, of 3M. Oh, they just, they just won't do it. Yeah. okay yeah So 3M settled for $12.5 billion to cover the costs of filtering out. Um, it's even in your clothes. No, like wasn't there a big thing around Lulu lemon or something like that? Or one of those fitness brands?
00:20:41
Speaker
Well, anything with polyester or non-natural fibers. Well, it was like, I'm pretty sure it was a big brand like that. Like you can probably pull that up and it was like something to do with like. Well, apparently laundry is the top source for microplastics. Oh, there's little bounce sheets. Yeah. Yeah. Softness. Yeah. Yeah. Well, just clothes in general, all those synthetic clothing. Or am totally out to lunch? There was something. And all I can think about is the flat bum.
00:21:08
Speaker
No, there was something in the fibers that was bad for like... Their paths were too tight and they were causing... No, they were being like absorbed, like some of these chemicals that were found in in some of these...
00:21:20
Speaker
and Okay. Yeah. You hear something from three years ago, the micro-pastic pollution from washing our Lululemon clothing. Oh, it's washing them. yeah But it was something to do with it being absorbed as well. And I mean, if it gets at oh if it's getting absorbed in your skin for sure. I think that's a hit piece on Lululemon. Whereas none of the other companies are like exempt from, from that issue. if they No, but you know I'm not saying, I'm not saying them exclusive. I'm just saying them because everybody knows them and because it had made it in the media, but yeah like anything like that, all clothing, right?
00:21:49
Speaker
I'm sure half the Gulf of parallel ware. What about my golf balls? Are they destroying the environment too? I put a few of those in the bush last week. I feel like anything humans make are going to destroy the environment one way or another. Yeah. We're just buying clothes that are a hundred percent cotton or linen. Too hot. Too hot. It's too hot and uncomfortable. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. What about, what about, uh, is it aren't tampons? I like have like a lot of,
00:22:19
Speaker
Chemicals too. Yeah. Microplastics. Like we were talking to that guy this see at the health food show and they make a hundred percent cotton tampons or like feminines to address that issue. Right. They cost like four times as much, which make it hard for course. Yeah. Well, because they're not as commercially available, you can make anything cost the same as something else. Right. It's just like. Yeah. There's microplastics, tons of nano microplastics and period products.
00:22:49
Speaker
ah So 3M putting that shit in your like most intimate air, like no wonder we're going to chemically castrate ourselves. Like that is crazy. Interesting. So, uh, 3M is saying that they're going to end PFAS across its portfolio by the end of 2025.
3M's Future Plans and Chemical Concerns
00:23:06
Speaker
Okay. Well, that sounds encouraging. What they replace it with. yeah Same thing. That's the big question. they're They're still researching alternatives, what they're going to replace it with. Uh, eliminated by 2025, but they don't have alternatives in place. Yeah.
00:23:21
Speaker
We're going to just have to ask for it. They'll probably kick the can down the road as much as yeah and the can. The road keeps turning, right? like You need products, you need packaging, you need economy. Well, they have 16,000 products that contain it. That's from 3M.
00:23:36
Speaker
yeah
00:23:39
Speaker
well One day the human race will find out that you can't breathe money or eat money.
00:23:46
Speaker
yeah
00:23:50
Speaker
Let's talk about the microplastics and the testicles. Do we touch on that? I don't think so. Right. That's crazy. You were talking about fertility rates dropping. Yeah. And sperm, sperm counts, they're dropping about a little over 1% a year from Dr. Swan's research. I don't know about you, but I know like even a lot of my friends, like wouldn't like, like my kids are 10 and seven now, but I remember even even when Janelle and I decided to start having kids, we never had issues. We're super lucky, but a lot of our friends did. Okay. And I think you're hearing about that more and more now, right? The fertility rates dropping, like, you know, more and more service, like in vitro services, things like that, like, um, like what is it? H C H C G to help like with.
00:24:38
Speaker
sperm production or egg production and fertility. Like it's like all these drugs and these clinics are popping up everywhere because there's all these fertility issues happening. It's huge now. And and Dr. Shanna Swans attributes it largely to these plastic problems that we have. She says there's even a phthalate syndrome like fetal ah alcohol syndrome, but with phthalates and stuff.
00:25:00
Speaker
and so male genital development. And there's a specific study that she did. This one's very interesting. The gist of it, she did it in 2005 and replicated in 2007, is that men with less than two inches of anus to genital distance are seven times more likely to have sperm count in the sub-fertile range than men who had a distance over two inches.
00:25:27
Speaker
Is everybody going to measure their distance? between yeah a scientific method but but And it's in that distance is directly attributed to, uh, like the amount of plastics in your system that you're exposed to. Wow. That's crazy. That is interesting. I guess it's the distance that the microplastics would need to travel. I don't know. It's crazy though.
00:25:54
Speaker
It is, yeah. We know so many people who have had to do, like even Tony Robbins, he had to do IVF with his wife. They tried a whole bunch of times and it didn't succeed. And they ended up going through surrogacy. So, you know, the the man who's famous for willing things into existence, even he couldn't get it done, right? This is a hard battle to defeat.
00:26:22
Speaker
All right, what about food? Okay.
Microplastics in Food and Environment
00:26:25
Speaker
Food. Yeah. That's a big one. Yeah. well It's in rainwater, right? yeah so there's three different forms of pathways that it gets into us we've got the inhalation that you mentioned and a large portion of that comes from car tires sir eroding as they drive on the on the road and then the wind blows out and we're inhaling Yeah.
00:26:52
Speaker
you can get that through a products labels higher retardants furniture and clothing we talked about it absorbs more if you're sweaty oh eight percent of the exposure can be taken up on your skin and zero point one four and of that and get into but stream and then there's personal care products like <unk>dorant worse and um ah for all your listeners i'm going to make a discount code for our deodorant
00:27:26
Speaker
do i ahqua mega we'll give them fifteen percent off on on their orders hoqua omega fifteen percent ah that's pretty sweet so what's the website where they can get that ah glowing arc could ah com glowingorchi dot com so you write that down it'll be in the description as well if ah if you didn't catch it or you don't know how to spell it ah that's really generous thanks its
00:27:51
Speaker
and there's the foods the consumption ah there' a consumer reports article that went through and tested a whole bunch of foods i'm just scrolling down it right now and that's where it showed that even baby food had plastics and when it comes to fruits and vegetables apples have the most it just absorbs it from the soil carrots are the most for vegetables and like letterstuce is the least and i
00:28:22
Speaker
i attribute that i think to the length of time it takes to grow those crops and apple trees in the ground for twenty thirty forty fifty years before starts producing good fruit that's crazy mean you'd think like okay i you know i planted these fruits and vegetables in my backyard like surely they're going to be safe to consume and they're not right already contaminated yeah drove me crazy three years ago we decided to make a big investment in our garden and buy some um reccertified compost on a big truckload fifteen yards
00:28:54
Speaker
and it gets dumped at our place and um finding plastic but like not a small amount it's loaded like a piece of a lighter loss umtacks whatever just loaded with plastic bits and i'm like unreal yeah yeah so i i'm thinking to myself well getting exposed to plastic no matter what food i'm buy anyway umm go to use this sort is it is on yeah is there more contamination in in rural areas ah less less contamination rather in rural areas versus urban areas
00:29:31
Speaker
as you mentioned the tires being one of the most i'm thinking you know you know a city like ours cornwall here versus toronto or something like that there's got to be a lot more plastic floating around in the air in those areas but explain that as a fair assumption china's nuts about turulation's gigantic yeah or india yeah i was just in toronto last month and all my my niece's diapers getting put into the green bin ask my sister i'm like but you guys putting the diapers in the green bin for it
00:30:01
Speaker
says the government says put your diapers in the green bin and they'll compost that's new to me and i checked the website and it literally says put all your personal hygiene products and diapers in the green bin they toss it in the muicipar um lost flash like and all of that that's crazy too right because those those unless you're using like ah the cotton cloth diapers yeah i would not yeah most diapers have plastics have a lot of plastic and plastics in them for sure say that's a pretty vulnerable area those like your genitals man nice yeah crazy
00:30:35
Speaker
yeah and for such like a verse virtue signaling country canada you know we're all like eco-friendly and all this stuff how can one of our biggest cities have such a policy like that and think it's insane carbon tax is coming to fix it don't worry
00:30:52
Speaker
and
00:30:55
Speaker
that's a ah for podcast episode there i think for for podcast altogether probably yeah um yeah so how great what are the tips and tricks yeah almost that are like almost there we we got ah like the food how does it get in the food in the first place right so if it gets into it from from growing in these contaminated soils or from like landscape fabric that's on top or from the fertilizers that are contaminated with plastic in the ah because lot of fertilizers have plastics added to them millers <unk> them and stuff
00:31:27
Speaker
and it also gets into from processing ah cows that are getting milk have these plastic milking devices and that actually transfers plastics into the milk so and milk cows won't have the plastic in it whereas machine house will um yeah now people are go to be leaving up the even the the food that they're excuse me the food they're eating doesn't have any issues like impact on the but microplastics in the milk that does but ah
Minimizing Microplastic Exposure
00:31:58
Speaker
the additional plastics at the final stage so at least the cows are filtering out a a large amount of that if it's forever chemicalss and in them not as much get expirable yeah made of plastic everything's made of plastic yeah i think ah toxins more so get excreted through urine and feces versus i would i would hope like i haven't seen a study on this but i would hope that like or human bodies like breastfeeding mothers not giving these oxins through ah milk like body must have some kind of filter mechanism okay
00:32:31
Speaker
and that through the urine through the poen not through ah but
00:32:38
Speaker
so i saw i saw a video when they were they were making some feed for pigs right and they're just taking food that's about to go bad and everything and they just throw it in this giant machine and if they have like bread or whatever they throw it in with the plastic they don't even care and it just like flat open to food and then they give that to the animals like that happens with salt so lot most salts have plastics in them pos pro sir rock salt is the least if you're looking for salt so even our salt our seasoning has plastic iod die salt has the most and then rock salt all
00:33:11
Speaker
and also gets in from the packaging that we have our food in like water bottles are loaded with it more a brasion and shaking those plastic those plastic clear plastic bottles you buy in the store are like one of the worst because they sit on like hot hot trucks they get real hot and then when they get really hot they absorb bouncing around bouncing around absorbing the plastic chemicals from those and those like cheap bottles you buy like two bucks a case there oh yeah actually start or i remember being ah going to school as like a whenever a teenager and drinking only that no and it's like well the tap water we were getting like
00:33:41
Speaker
terrible it it was just giving us a lead let in that top water yeah so we started were like oh we had the great idea let's boil our water and then we'll just like pour it in like our mountain dew leftover mountain dew bottle and it would like warp and change the shape of it as we were straightfor it just drain plastic we just thought it's funny you open our fridge and the oh you want a water bottle and all these like warped water bottles in our fridge like oh that's funny now i realized that was probably not the best idea been at least seven years probably got rid of a oh yeah yeah it's been yeah at least like most of us are all getting the same amount of exposure so we're all
00:34:14
Speaker
becoming as yeah aired as the other yeah we're we're in the same boat and yeah from cooking of course getting it into our foods as well like plastic cutting boards please throw out your plastic cutting board and don't scratch you know
00:34:30
Speaker
okay ay or don't use an onstick pan use like cast iron or stainless steel you just need to learn how to season them properly and
00:34:43
Speaker
i think it's worth it if it's going to help your health in the lung and the long term yeah for sure i like these tips about having to how to avoid microplastics are we getting into how to avoid ah and avoid some more from food and what are yeah adult yeah sure so ah to avoid um um scroll down to my notes here
00:35:04
Speaker
i broke it down into guys want to talk about personal avoidance or like potential solutions that we can do i lets let's let's go with personal ones so a lot of our listeners have some to kind of take home you know and and have some actionable items to to better i broke this down into three arts post level social level and personal level and in our household we can avoid new plastic purchases or by the appropriate types of plastic
00:35:35
Speaker
and use plastics the right way
00:35:40
Speaker
on a social level we can urge our friends and family to switch to more equal conscious option and on a personal level this is the good stuff here is some people don't want to do this but exercising and eating healthy and sweating will really help make your body more resilient and oh that's great that's that's that's good to hear it'll speed up the detox detoxification of these substances so they don't biocumulate get in the steam room yeah wedding is one of our best
00:36:13
Speaker
ah eating probiotics ah bifi bifidelbactcterium and lactto bacillus has been shown on a study in rats to more than double bpa excretion from the body so you're vgurt and sauerkcraut stop drinking out of plastic bottles obviously um try to potentially drink uml filtered and remineralized water use like a reusable stainless steel water bottle or glass
00:36:45
Speaker
water bottle remove synthetic carpets and polyester furniture from your home oh that's big though change those are just stuff that we're inhaling nonstop get down there with a flashlight and just brush it a bit and you'll see all those particles floating off sure a big portion of that is dead skin cells and other household
00:37:09
Speaker
large amount of that is also plastic okay and an indoor air filter to reduce and inhalation exposure ah of filters will be able to plastics wear natural clothing like cotton wool line in sort of um yes sir unless you absolutely have to but your bedsheets make a big impact too right that's where you spend that five for your time that's true yeah it's a third of every date right and so i hate traveling sometimes because the beds sheetets just
00:37:41
Speaker
terribleable <unk> i get home it's like got this nice aic egyptian cotton sheets and it's like a breath of fresh air every time and i just feel so nice so investing in a nice set of sheets and a third of our lives in our beds right so yeah and always feels asleep kind of home that's for or a my friend is but to start a silk business looking forward to testing he's going to send me a and silk sheet or natural as while they're made from silkworms um that sounds like a ah fun
00:38:13
Speaker
fun friend to have yeah yeah in vietnam right now so sourcing a supplier so um another thing we can do is mentioned consume rock salt versus idda salt it's the plastic cutting board for wood um minimize processed food consumption anything in plastic container or vacuum seal i personally don't eat meat but if meat eater vacuum sealed ah meats are not as good as if you went
00:38:44
Speaker
butcher and you got it in ah the wax paper okay our colleague there just got a vacuum seaal her she's over the moon but maybe she shouldn't listen to this episode yeah maybe like they have to those mason jar sealers that's cool you to it in the mason jar and then you stick that thing on top and it sucks out all the air that good alternative there for that much freezer burn or ah freezerying sort of freezeing but then you need an expensive driver
00:39:16
Speaker
of course um my bucket list to eventually get one of those yeah i feel like healthy hours in the day yeah
Solutions and Innovations for Plastic Waste
00:39:25
Speaker
and awareness i mean i feel like still even after all talking about all this people just put the blinders on and just go about their business anyway who and then they wonder why they feel shitty so stuff like such as life it's how she goes it's it just wonder why wonder why we're all getting sick and why there's more and more disease showing up and then take a closer look at some of this type of evidence and pretty clear why food ahplastics and abundance of drugs
00:39:57
Speaker
yeah like set ofary behavior corporate greened corporate greened yeah bob your uncle back it in castration yeah is the end of the human race collusion between governments and corporations yeah allow that corporate reed to flourish and copy it really is unfortunate like ah if you guys are ever like you know all about the bottle deposits right and never see plastic bottles on the streets anymore right last bottles because somebody ends up picking them up and returning them to the depot
00:40:30
Speaker
but like i was in hawaii earlier this year being at the ah wiikiki marina harbor and it was just loaded floating plastic mattresses versus whatever choose all in that marina and you're thinking this is the most beautiful place in the world and they're not cleaning that out of but i didn't see any bottles because those have a deposit on them i wonder if there was a system where you got have to pay a deposit for anything plastic
00:41:02
Speaker
based on its weight like have to pay five cents per gram of plastic if you wanted to dispose of it you take it to the disposal facility and you get that awesome that just a wild idea i thought about that same idea for cigarette butts back in the day red butts had a deposit on um um know if it would ever work but there definitely needs to be some kind of i be not the rabbi robots are too stinky as a kid though you're looking around for some i don't know candy money right you're just going around picking up cigarette maybe collect them in yeah
00:41:35
Speaker
there not i mean it's it's an incentive for sure you know would it work with everyone no but maybe enough do you return all your cans i don't but i do know whenever i you know every single garbage or recycling day there's there's people who going up and down and they're collecting them all so yeah i just give him to the neighbor and i don'll tell them ah yeah okay hit the jackgpot there yeah absolutely also a cultural issue here undeveloped countries that are just hitting their industrialization they're just
00:42:09
Speaker
<unk>mping waste into oceans mans and seen a few videos of that like some green waste going into like the ocean sahaate sad yeah government is turning a blind eye to it in those countries but it's like it's bad bad yeah so as much as ninety five percent of the plastic that is transported by rivers into oceans um from ten rivers in asia and africa crazy <unk>ber said yeah that's that's unreal and it makes it feel like this should be an easy solution be like okay let's just you know fix it right at the ah
00:42:44
Speaker
you know right at the base it' like that seems really go happen and like in europe about forty two percent of plastic packaging was recycled in twenty seventeen whereas in the us eight point four percent of it but but in canada there's no place for it anyway it just sits in like big storage facilities yeah it's crazy becomes a recycling system here is very flawed because you but it in the bright bin and then they take it there and only um percentage of that actually getsed what about those trash burning facilities in europe i always thought that would be a good idea
00:43:15
Speaker
if they could find a way to prevent the the waste or the like the forever chemicals from entering the atmosphere like if there was filters that could prevent that i think they have filters and they they repurpose that energy and and so why don't the other people like just something brilliant i think that is a great idea great way forward to and reduce the and i ah the ecological impact these plastics um'm curious maybe we're just going to slingshot it all into the sun and then that'll be a problem for a hundred years from now like all all that garbage we threw up in the sun yeah it's coming back at us now
00:43:51
Speaker
yep yeah what whatever our solution is i feel like there's going to be a butterfly effect oh and one thing we tried now it's causing issues in this new way yeah we're definitely and new world here yeah and you've definitely opened my eyes to microplastics and i'm sure a lot of our listeners as well i want to remind all of our listeners if you made it this far you can go to gloing orchid dot com and use the code aquamega to get fifteen percent off of is it all of the products or
00:44:21
Speaker
yeah let's do it off all the product we have free sha over eighty dollars i think okay very cool um for any of our listeners who want to follow you or glowing orchid what's the best way for them to get a hold of yeah so we got instagram at glowing orphfit organics they can also email us or email me personally ahtila atglowingorca dot com or just going on our website goingorchid dot com but also have about thirty stores across canada that sell our products like our website for locations and see if you
00:44:53
Speaker
very cool i want to thank you i want to thank you again attia for for being on our podcast and opening up our eyes it was that it was so great having you on the show like you guys for having me awesome chatting with you absolutely take care and bring