• Fordry@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Use natural fiber clothing only, no polyester, just cotton or whatever other natural fibers. Try to use less packaged food. But one of the major sources of microplastics is tire wear from vehicles, not sure what can be done about from a personal level other than not drive, which, I mean, who’s really gonna do that?

    • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Most societies actually got around perfectly fine for most of history without driving. It’s really only in the past seventy years or so that urban planners brains collectively escaped their heads and started designing cities where it’s impossible to do anything without exploding some old dinosaur goo in a giant expensive death machine.

        • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Because their cities were designed in sensible ways where that wasn’t necessary.

          Parts of the country are still halfway reasonable. I’m in Manhattan, and can walk twenty minutes to Penn Station, where I can hop on a train and be in downtown Philadelphia in under two hours. I can get to most places in NYC by subway faster than you could drive there. A train to the airport can get me anywhere in the world.

          None of this requires a car, and air travel aside, this was how most of the developed world was set up for the past several hundred years.

    • yumpsuit@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      tire wear from vehicles, not sure what can be done about from a personal level

      One more reason to wear a well-fitted respirator

      • Drusas@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Unfortunately, all of the best fitness wear is polyester or otherwise plastic based. And it’s so far superior to the alternatives that there is no switching away from it.

        • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          I just remembered there are some great products made of bamboo, wool, or hemp! Yah, the vast majority of great products are plastic. Perhaps one day we’ll have like a scale or way to know if basically the product lasts or if it will shed a lot of plastic. That way we could switch to great plastic rather than stop using it entirely. Oof.

    • centof@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Hmm, interesting regarding them coming from vehicles. As far as microplastics from clothing, does anyone know if they are absorbed through the skin? I would think they would only readily be absorded thought food and water intake, but I am just surmising.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Let me think. Ah: We could actually solve two problems at once, microplastics and rolling resistance, by using steel wheels on steel streets. Make a street lane two beams of steel, that saves on material, and the wheels conical so that they follow those beams automatically, replacing the car’s differential. In case we need more grip we can spray sand, though as the street is now steel we can also use magnets for breaking. I should patent that!

    • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      No polyester is difficult 😭 do you know if there any other natural fibers somewhat comparable or breathable, for cycling etc.?

      No driving is easy for me right now - my car has two wheels and I’m the engine 🚲🤪

    • Case@unilem.org
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      1 year ago

      Not driving isn’t an option in my area. Not if you want to be employed.

      Its a 30 minute drive to the bus stop to get to work. Plus travel time along bus stops.

      Its a 35 minute drive to the front door.

      If its still half an hour to just get to the bus stop, what’s the point even, at a personal level?

      Captain Planet told me in the 90s what was gonna happen. Corporations just took it as a play book to accelerate shit.