France to probe microplastic pellet pollution on Atlantic beaches

Another sad ecological disaster !

IMO, we, as a species, need to figure out how to stop living with plastics. They are extremely easy to make, extremely useful, and extremely harmful to humans and every other animal.

I can't see any people eating these off the beach. Much of the plastic waste sloshing around the oceans was deposited there in the last century, before the West started to recycle in earnest. Fresh plastic waste in the oceans usually originates in third world countries. Dumping will be a problem if governments don't pay for recycling to be more profitable. Nudge unit-based scare stories on plastic are now almost as prevalent as those on the internet. Countries now in a position to use plastic responsibly are flagellating themselves over the residue from accidents and historical use. It's ridiculous. Without plastic the poverty gap would be huge and people would be dying from a range of diseases that have not been an issue in the first world more than half a century. Puritanical activist science is getting out of hand.

Without plastic the poverty gap would be huge and people would be dying from a range of diseases that have not been an issue in the first world more than half a century.

Yes of course that's a 100% foregone conclusion lol.