There’s more dire news about microplastics.
I’ve written many times about this previously, but it is such an important topic that it deserves more attention. That attention should get a lot higher after the publication of a story in the Washington Post about microplastic pollution this week.
Microplastics are generated by 3D printers, and here’s how it happens:
- Print jobs occur.
- Print waste is created: bad prints, scraps, support materials, and especially multicolor poop.
- Waste cannot be recycled because it doesn’t carry the recycling stamp.
- Waste is dumped in landfills.
- Over time, the plastics break down into smaller and smaller pieces.
- Eventually, they are small enough to become air or water-borne.
- They travel through the environment and food chain, where eventually you breathe or consume them.
- They collect in your body, and the chemicals they’re made from do unknown things to your health.
All of the steps above are well-known, except for the last one. What exactly do these pollutants do to the body?
In the story, the Post reports that exposure to microplastics has been sharply increasing in recent years:
“Last year, a team of researchers at the University of New Mexico used cadaver brains to analyze whether the tiny particles were passing through the blood-brain barrier.
They found the plastics were not only entering the brain — they were actually accumulating there. Brains of people who died in 2024, for example, had significantly higher concentrations of microplastics than the brains of people who died in 2016. And there was no correlation between the amount of microplastics and the age of the person at the time of their death.Researchers also looked at brain samples going back to 1997 and found the same trend — newer samples had more microplastics.
The study also estimated that the human brain was 0.5 percent microplastics by weight — or that the brain contained around 7 grams of the tiny plastics, about the weight of a plastic spoon.”
That is alarming.
They also cited several research reports that suggest there are links to dementia, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease.
As awareness of these problems increases, it is likely that we will see more reasons to phase out today’s filament swapping 3D printers. These devices generate massive amounts of plastic waste that is going straight to the landfill in almost all cases. The introduction of low-waste 3D printer systems, such as the Snapmaker U1 and the Bambu Lab H2C, will be seen as safer devices over time.
If you are considering purchasing a new desktop 3D printer and want to help maintain a safe environment, you should be looking at low-waste 3D printer options.
Via Washington Post
