11. Are we really eating a credit card of microplastic weekly?

James Piper: Hello. Welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one sided stories. In this episode, we will discuss those final three types of plastic. How much plastic we're actually all eating, whether blister packs are, rubbish or not. And we have a listener question about limes in beer. I wonder which brand that is. I'm James Piper, author of the rubbish book, and I'm joined by Robbie Stanis, second, my far from rubbish friend.

Robbie Staniforth: Hey, you got me, James. James. yeah, you did it.

James Piper: You came second.

Robbie came second in the resource Hop 100, which is huge news

Okay, so we now need to explain. I'm sure every listener is loyal and knows what we're talking about. But this week we had the release of the resource Hop 100, which is the top 100 people in the world of waste. And we talked about this with Natalie Fee's episode, which was episode five. We'd said that it comes out in September, October time.

Robbie Staniforth: Ah. yes.

James Piper: And if Robbie came second, because Robbie came fourth last year and his name.

Robbie Staniforth: Is Stani, forth nominative determinism.

James Piper: Exactly. We all joked about it at the time. If you came second, we would rename you Robbie Stani second. How you feeling about the big. Well, almost the big win?

Robbie Staniforth: Well, yeah, it is almost the big win, because the first reaction I got when I posted it on my family chat that I came second out of 100 plus people was my mum chiming in to say, oh, shame, nearly there.

James Piper: Yeah, the beauty for me is I came 8th, which is just the perfect number. Crept into the top ten, so everyone's like, oh, well done, you made the top ten, but very low expectations. Ah.

Robbie Staniforth: Ah. See, yeah. Ah. That was the problem, is that people were thinking, look, when you come to second, it. It really does feel like you nearly made the top, doesn't it? And I've just been looking for exactly what my mum said. She's south african, by the way. Ah. Shame. You just missed it.

James Piper: Are we allowed to do accents? It's probably okay when it's rain, family. Yeah, I won't try.

Robbie Staniforth: So I'm preparing my papers for deed poll now. Robbie Stani, second has absolutely no ring to it whatsoever, but it's got to happen.

James Piper: It's got to. And then all you got to do next year, because you probably quite like Staniforf, you've just got to get fourth next year. You've got to work out how many votes that is. Get back.

Robbie Staniforth: Hey, do you know what sounds good, though, James Stani first.

James Piper: I honestly thought you were about to say James Piper, eight.

Robbie Staniforth: No.

James Piper: That'S great. Well, congratulations. It's big news. So, you know, both of us, I'm really pleased.

Robbie Staniforth: Like, yeah, thanks to everyone who voted, you know, thanks so much, anyone. And everyone who took the time to click the button and people. So you said some very nice stuff. I mean, they were lying that I was dedicated, for example.

James Piper: But, I mean, the slight challenge here is the voting closed before our first podcast episode. So you're thanking our listeners. But, you know, next year, that's the year we're gonna get all these listeners, you know, and we're gonna. And I am very fortunate. Cause I control the social media and I've already got great plans for how I'm gonna just, like, put up an Instagram story saying, vote for us with a massive photo of me and this teeny, tiny photo of you. You know, like, monsters, Inc. Where, like, Mike Wazowski is constantly getting blocked by the barcode guys. Next year, get ready for all the social media of me just blocking Robbie out of photos with various strategic bargains.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, no. I'm gonna have to engage in social media now. I just don't think I got it in me, to be honest.

Someone from New Zealand commented on our YouTube episode about recycling

James Piper: And speaking of social media, we've had a very exciting week. So, someone from New Zealand commented on our YouTube, which is amazing. You know, we were talking about the Solomon Islands and. Yeah. Whether we could get a listener from the Solomon Islands. Well, someone commented saying, not quite the Solomon Islands, but I am from New Zealand. And this comment serves two purposes, because we get to mention the Solomon Islands again. And your dad is going to be delighted because we mentioned YouTube again.

Robbie Staniforth: he will be happy. He was happy with the shout out, back in episode nine. It was right at the end as well. So it's good. It's like, you got to listen right to the end, dad. To cheque whether he was properly listening or not.

James Piper: Yeah. Get that YouTube view counted. And I was on threads the other day and someone washing. Asking someone a bit, is your podcast inspirational? How do you inspire people? And I was thinking, I really hope we inspire people to, you know, recycle. I really hope we get people thinking about what bin to put waste in. That would make me so happy. And then literally, at the same time, I was on Instagram and someone had posted saying, I was listening to James and Robbie, and they talked about baked beans in Antarctica, and steel cans. And it inspired me to have baked beans for dinner. And I thought, that's our. That's where we are. That's our level of inspiration. We're inspiring people.

Robbie Staniforth: And

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Robbie Staniforth: what, we got to start somewhere, James, don't we? So I presume this was the, like, steel can episode when we were talking about recycling those. But yeah. Okay, well, it's a start.

James Piper: I'm trying to think if we've got any food coming up in this episode that people will start having for dinner. Maybe we should just say, look, if you fancy lasagna, maybe have it for dinner tonight and send us a little. Little Instagram post to let us know you've done it.

Robbie Staniforth: Well, perhaps someone will let us know that they've been chomping down on limes after you mentioned it earlier.

James Piper: Yeah, good point. A lovely lime supper. And, what is funny here is we're not a food podcast, we're not a geography podcast, but we're sort of presenting ourselves as that. I wonder what's next? Maybe film. I love film. Maybe that's what we're.

Robbie Staniforth: Hey, you've already mentioned Monsters, Inc. We've already ticked that off.

James Piper: Oh my goodness. Good point.

Robbie Staniforth: It's got to be history next, doesn't it? Like the history of recycling. Surely that's easy to edge in.

The Guardian have named Rye cycling podcast as their best podcast of the week

James Piper: Should we tell people what happened yesterday?

Robbie Staniforth: I can't remember what happened yesterday.

James Piper: You are joking. It's like the biggest. Oh my goodness. I think it's the biggest thing that's happened to this podcast. Like, it's massive. How can you not remember? So the Guardian. Oh, exactly. The Guardian have put us in as their, one of their best podcasts of the week.

Robbie Staniforth: Podcast of the week. Cannot believe it. In an esteemed publication such as the Guardian.

James Piper: I know. So if you want to see that review, quote, whatever it is, it's a review. I think, it is very nice. If you want to see that. It will, I promise you, be all over social media because I will not have been able to help myself and I will have shared it everywhere. I am so excited by it. So thank you so much to the Guardian and we're delighted. And honestly, the viewing or listener viewing numbers, the listening numbers skyrocketed yesterday. And now the numbers that we're looking, looking at just are completely different to when we started. And we're so excited by that growth.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, it's great. And my favourite bit, you know, obviously I read the quote and the sort of review about a thousand times in.

James Piper: One day, but you've forgotten it 24 hours later.

Robbie Staniforth: Of course, that's what my memory's like. But my favourite bit, I was just checking my phone to find it is the last two words. A sentence of two words. Do you know what it is? Rarely dry.

James Piper: No, but this will make you laugh now, because, Ryan put a podcast review up. He'll be viewing that. I'm talking about this. So, my friend Ryan, who did Rye cycling.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes. Yeah.

James Piper: Put a review up saying, making the boring less boring.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow, what a compliment.

James Piper: He swiftly deleted it because he realised it was actually, like, not that much of a review. Maybe more and less boring, but not completely dry is almost as good as making the boring less boring.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. Oh. Rarely dry. I really enjoyed that. And, it's fair comment. Come on, this is like, it's fun stuff. Never a dry moment.

James asks question about whether mother in law can move plastic across borders

James Piper: Okay, so into additions and corrections. this is quite exciting because in episode eight, we actually asked the audience for some help because we didn't know an answer to a question. So this was, my mother in law was bringing me plastic, and I had a question about whether she was allowed to move plastic across borders. Ian came back to us, friend of the podcast Ian, he said, there's nothing to say that you can't, and it would be impossible to police, so I think it's fine. And he felt there was probably much more of it going on than we realise. with, like, self catered accommodation. And actually, I've just got back from Cornwall, and in the house I was staying in, they didn't collect cardboard, which I thought was really weird. And, they didn't collect that at the house. So I packaged that wall up and I was going to bring it home with me. Luckily, the homeowner actually then said that, actually, I can take this to a tip for you. So he offered to do that and that was great. But, yeah, I have just experienced that.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I saw Ian in person yesterday.

James Piper: Whoa. That is a big, big recycling celeb.

Robbie Staniforth: Absolutely. Spotted live and in person, not just on email to us each and every week.

James Piper: was he Audi and Harrogate or.

Robbie Staniforth: No, he didn't mention that, actually. But he did mention this one, and I got to agree, because sometimes when I'm staying at these, self catered accommodations, and rather than engage with the recycling system locally, like, they've got different coloured bins and you can do put different things together, I just often box everything up and take it home to recycle, where I know exactly how it works, as described in podcast episode one.

James Piper: lovely. What a throwback. All these new Guardian listeners, they'll be like. They keep referencing old episodes. We're gonna have to go back.

Robbie Staniforth: I've got to find out what colour bins Robbie has.

James Piper: Spoiler blue, green, and black. on the same note about cross border, I also had a really nice message from, Paul, who, has commented on a few episodes. So thank you, Paul. And, I'm really hoping my mother in law is not listening, because his comment was, I don't think there are any implications of cross border waste transfers in the way described, but I'd hold the threat of reporting the mother in law to the EA just in case you need it later.

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Robbie Staniforth: Very savvy.

James Piper: So I just hope she's not listening to this episode.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yeah. cat could be out of the bag there, James.

We just had the release of iOS 18, which is the new Apple software update

James Piper: Okay, so we've been a film, M podcast, a food podcast, a geography podcast. It's time to turn to tech. We've just had the release of iOS 18, which is the new Apple software update. I knew you'd laugh at this.

Robbie Staniforth: Where is this going?

James Piper: I knew you'd laugh at this. So we just had the release of iOS 18, and they have brought some really cool new features for podcasts. We want to be at the cutting edge of podcast tech. Robbie and I noticed some of the biggest pog. Yeah, and some of the biggest podcasts aren't even doing this yet. So, you know, we are, guys. If you're listening to this, we are cutting edge. But, I've introduced chapters. So if you're listening to this on Apple, on the now playing screen, you should see chapters at the top, and you can switch to different things that you want to hear. And if you scroll through, you know, on the timeline, on that little bar, that gives you the time, you'll be able to see that it's all divided up into sections. So if you want to just skip ahead to rubbish process, trash talk, rubbish or not, or rubbish question, feel free to use that.

Robbie Staniforth: What? So you're saying that there's filler in here and it's not all killer. It's rarely dry. Come on.

James Piper: I think in the future I'll, just chapter like. And Robbie's laughing. Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: Robbie laughs again.

James Piper: Yeah. And then people could just skip over it. It's great. Or. Or they could just listen to you laughing. This could just be like, 20 chapters of Robbie laughing, and everyone's just hitting that. Be great.

Robbie Staniforth: Very good.

James Piper: So, as always, if you want to talk to us, feel free to email us talkingrubbishpodcastmail.com or connect with us on socials where we can be found at rubbishpodcast rubbish process.

Robin Roberts: Welcome back to top of the plastics

Welcome to top of the plastics why did I pause so much?

Robbie Staniforth: I don't think that's how they do it on the radio.

James Piper: Or that was like, james. Yeah, that was like, are you ready to rumble? Welcome back to top of the plastics.

Robbie Staniforth: Ah. yes. Very good. Nice callback to, episode nine, this big cliffhanger that we've had.

James Piper: I know. I actually forgot when we left this cliffhanger that we were going to have an episode in between. So, I mean, I reckon people have had to, look up what the other plastics are. I don't think they've been able to wait a week.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, they've been on tenter hooks for sure.

James Piper: Absolutely. So, as a reminder, we did the first four types of plastic last week. So number one was pet.

Robbie Staniforth: No idea what that stands for.

James Piper: I was about to say, what does that stand for, Robin?

Robbie Staniforth: Polyethylene tetraphythalate.

James Piper: Thank you very much. And two was high density polyethylene, otherwise known as hdpe. Three was pvc, which is polyvinyl chloride. And four was LDPe, which is low density polyethylene. And this is a great opportunity for me to mention that we have WhatsApp now. And you can get our WhatsApp number on our link tree, which can be found in the show notes or on our Facebook and Instagram or on our website or wherever I put it, everywhere. But you can message us on WhatsApp. And that started happening. They've been rolling in.

Robbie Staniforth: Really? Yeah.

James Piper: Yeah. Mostly people trying to sell me stuff. I've had a lot of. I can promote your podcast to a million people for the low, low price of ten pounds.

Robbie Staniforth: We're already at 900 plus thousand, so. Come on.

James Piper: Exactly. Exactly. but we did have a text from Adam, and Adam is from wrap, so it's great that he's, Well, he's very happy that he can just text me whenever he wants now about things that we've said. I think he's delighted that he has a very direct level of communication to say, you got this wrong, and that's.

Robbie Staniforth: Vitally important that we get his expertise. I saw him yesterday, also said he was loving it.

James Piper: Who were you in a room with yesterday?

Robbie Staniforth: I've been everywhere.

James Piper: And, he just wanted to point out something that we do actually know, but I decided it might be a bit complicated. We try and do it on the podcast, but he was quite right that really, we need to be accurate, which is that we talked about. I mean, we spent a lot of time talking about HDPE having lots of molecules.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, God.

James Piper: Being rigid and sticky. Ground there and LDP having fewer molecules and being flexible. And actually, that's just not completely true, because you do get flexible HDPE, and you do get rigid LDPE.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, so how the heck are we gonna remember it? Has he given us a better way to explain it?

James Piper: No, I still think of HTP Enbridgers as an LDP and flexible, because I just think that's so much easier to remember. But he did want me to call out some examples. So, he was saying, like, for instance, a lot of the bags for life are HTPE, and we've said that on the podcast before. Yes, that is true.

Robbie Staniforth: And, yeah, but they're sort of starting to get a bit rigid, aren't they, those bags?

James Piper: Well, you can definitely feel the extra molecules. You can definitely 100%. And, LDPE

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James Piper: is, LDPE can be rigid, but again, it's kind of used in a squeezy, flexible fashion. So he was giving an example of, like, reusable sports bottles. So, like, again, it's kind of, it's a mix between rigid and flexible. So I'd say, like, really, the difference between LDPE and HDPE is still flexible and rigid a little bit. And actually, the difference really is the density and therefore the melting point. So HDPe, I think, has a higher melting point than LDPE.

Robbie Staniforth: Well, let's, let's the exceptions prove. Prove the rule, maybe, or something on that. I'm, not sure that's relevant, but let's leave that in.

James Piper: Yeah, let's go with that as the phrase.

Number five is polypropylene, otherwise known as PP

Okay, Robbie, we have three more to do. So, number five. Number five is polypropylene, otherwise known as PP.

Robbie Staniforth: You've missed your q for in at five. I thought you were going to continue that.

James Piper: Okay, let's do it again in at five. Polypropylene, PP, typically and historically, would be used as, like, a bag in a cereal box. So you think about that kind of plastic that you get in your cereal box, but also things like that.

Robbie Staniforth: It's not as stretchy, is it, as the pe ones, the LDPe. It's a bit like, sort of firmer, film.

James Piper: Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say anything now, because we're going to get. We're going to get Adam messaging and going. Well, it's actually not about stretch, it's about melting point.

Robbie Staniforth: I'm gonna put my neck on the line and say an LDPe bread bag is sort of stretchy. And the cereal box, that's PP. You don't get as much stretch out of it.

James Piper: Okay, Adam, I'm gonna text you Robbie's mobile number. If you have any, queries, just WhatsApp him directly. and it's worth noting that a lot of yoghurt tubs, margarine tubs, butter tubs, those kind of things are made of. Of PP. They used to be polystyrene. Lots of yoghurt pots used to be polystyrene, but spoilers. And now number six, polystyrene is very difficult to recycle. And so the industry has moved towards pp. So I would say polypropylene is becoming more prevalent. Really?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. So that's the triangle with the number five in pp polypropylene.

James Piper: Yeah. And it's used a lot in food. So around 70% of polypropylene is used in food contact applications. So as we talked about, like butter yoghurt, cereal bags. and there is currently a lot of work going on to get that recycled. I know there's. What's the programme? I think it's called Nextloop or. Yes, is it next loop? And it's run by Nextech. And they're doing a load of work about polypropylene recycling. a guy called Ed, is leading that. And they are really interesting what they're doing. And I think one of the key things about recycling polypropylene is that kind of chain of custody you have to prove where it came from in order to recycle it into something that can be used for food contact. So, things like blockchain and, the things that are being used to.

Robbie Staniforth: Run cryptocurrencies can also be used coming back in.

James Piper: And with iOS 18, you can track the recycling polypropylene process in at six polystyrene. We've sort of given a little spoiler here. So, number six polystyrene, this is the bad plastic, I would say. This is the one people often say is quite difficult to deal with.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, you're going to get people jumping up and down like the white goods manufacturers who say polystyrene can be recycled and, shortened to P's, isn't it? So come on, let's keep up with our acronyms.

James Piper: Yeah. And I think that's fair, actually. That's a really good point. I am being unnecessarily mean there. I guess there's two types of polystyrene. I often think there's only one type, so. And I think a lot of our listeners will think there's only one type. That white stuff that gets everywhere when you open a television and, you know, you've got that big, bulk thing of polystyrene and then it just tears in half and suddenly you've got it all over your living room. Yeah, that's expanded polystyrene and we call that Eps.

Robbie Staniforth: Don't the Americans call it like styrofoam or something?

James Piper: Styrofoam, is that right?

Robbie Staniforth: I think that's right, yeah.

James Piper: And then you also, and this surprises me, you get a, clear kind of rigid plastic. And so that's why, like yoga pots used to be made out of polystyrene. So we often think of it in the one type, which is what we see on a day to day basis. But it used to be, as I say, that some of these rigid plastics were polystyrene. They're more likely to be moved to PP now.

Robbie: Recycling is tricky because its 95% air

So let's just talk about the expanded stuff, the white stuff. the challenge is really with recycling that its like 95% air. And so that means that its really bulky, but its also really low in weight. And so whenever were trying to recycle things, its all about the economics. And when youve got something thats heavy and doesnt take up a lot of space, then its worth recycling because you can transport it around and you can make money out of the material that you recycle. When we talk about Epsilon,

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you just need so much of it to make any money out of it. And it takes up so much space that, it just doesn't make any sense to travel it around.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. Well, when I used to work in IKEA, we actually invested in a machine that basically de expanded it, I think that's the technical term. And it was basically like a corkscrew machine. You fed this expanded polystyrene in at the top and it using a corkscrew and a bit of heat, it sort of moulded it into more dense blocks that you could then put on a pallet and sort of transferred, transport it like any other type of waste. And it just made it more efficient for the transportation and more worthwhile doing so. It does require a lot of effort and you need a lot of it to bother investing in one of these machines. But obviously an IkEA store is a massive, operation.

James Piper: Excellent. And I've actually recently seen eps in a surfboard because I went down to Croyd, for the weekend a, couple of weeks ago.

Robbie Staniforth: Rad. That sounds rad. You catch some gnarly waves.

James Piper: I'm just so cool. And, and they had a sign on the beach saying, don't buy cheap polystyrene surfboards, you know, buy proper ones. And if you do buy a cheap polystyrene surfboard, make sure you don't leave it on the beach. And then when I went up to the shops to have a look at these surfboards, because I was intrigued, they all had written on them, you know, don't leave me on the beach. So clearly they've had a problem with, you know, polystyrene being left when people buy these cheap surfboards for the week and then just leave them. which was quite interesting.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that's definitely anti the surf vibe, isn't it? Those guys really want to clean up the waters, do the exact opposite of putting plastic pollution into them, as you.

James Piper: Say, Robbie, from a business to business perspective, actually, EPS is quite well recycled because you can crush it down, you can make it transportable, you can recycle it, but from the household, it's very tricky. It generally isn't accepted at curbside. Obviously you can cheque just in case your local authority does pick it up. But if you have bought a new tv and you've got loads of polystyrene, really, most of it's going to end up in the general bin. There are quite a few tips now that will take it, because certainly there's been investment from industry, so it's definitely worth looking up and checking whether yours does and taking it back to them if they can take it.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it is useful stuff. It's just a shame it's so hard to kind of collect. Like they can do something with it. But, yeah, it's just tricky. in your home bin, in at.

James Piper: Seven, as we said last week, is other just the catch all category for any plastic we haven't mentioned yet.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, really? And it gets stamped with number seven. Other just something else.

James Piper: Yeah. Although you can have different letters, actually. We'll come on to that in a second. So, this captures a lot of plastic, but things like polycarbonate sitting here, which is kind of the plastic you get when you buy toys and games and things like that. You know, that kind of hard plastic that would be polycarbonate. And a lot of products are made with polycarbonate rather than packaging. Okay, so historically, you wouldn't really find number seven in packaging.

Robbie Staniforth: Did you just say historically?

James Piper: Are we.

Robbie Staniforth: We are now a history podcast.

James Piper: He's listening out for all the different subjects I could possibly do.

Robbie Staniforth: That's all I'm doing.

James Piper: How we get true crime next. Robbie, let's try and turn this into a true crime podcast. Typically you, historically you wouldn't have with number seven, packaging. It would be mostly toys, games and products. But this is also where things like bioplastics, compostable plastics come in. And so this is where it would be stamped with a number seven. And occasionally with bioplastics, you'd be looking for the letters pla.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: Which I think stands for poly lactic acid. He says, pulling out his phone to cheque.

Robbie Staniforth: Whoa. Okay, you've been brave there.

James Piper: That doesn't sound like a plastic, does it?

Robbie Staniforth: It doesn't sound technical enough.

James Piper: It is. It's poly lactic acid.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, there we go. This is your big push to get from 8th to first, isn't it?

James Piper: Absolutely, 100%. So, you know, we'll talk about the bioplastics. This is plastics that are derived from bio based materials. I don't want to go into detail on this because we're going to overrun. and these are whole topics in themselves, so please don't worry. If you're thinking, they didn't really talk very much about number seven, they just talked about toys when there's all this bioplastic compostables coming to it. and really this is a bit of a theme, Robbie. We get so many emails saying you discussed food waste, but you didn't talk about this. And I'm like, yeah, because I'm trying to plan out like 3400 episodes. Anyone who sat there thinking, okay, they didn't cover that. Remember what I said in episode nine? You know, we're going to do series of things, we're going to talk about so much stuff and we're going to go right into detail. So definitely email us and let us know what you want included. But if you then think, well, they haven't talked about it, even though I mentioned it, it's honestly because I'm just planning out a very, as I said, I need to get Robbie here till 2027 so he can announce the launch of DRS and flexible curbside.

Robbie Staniforth: Like, oh, this is brilliant, James. It's like one of those get out of jail free cards.

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Robbie Staniforth: we, didn't mention it, but don't worry, it's coming up in a future episode.

James Piper: But definitely email us to tell us because we don't know what we don't know.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, well, that's true.

James Piper: Trash talk, Robbie.

Our question today has been reported in the BBC, the Guardian, the Daily Mail

Our question today has been reported in the BBC, the Guardian, the Daily Mail. It's currently, as far as I can tell, on the World Economic Forum website. It's on the UN's website. It got 34,700 results on Google when I searched it. And the question is, do we eat a credit card of plastic each week?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, okay.

James Piper: Have you been wondering where your visa's gone?

Robbie Staniforth: I've not been chomping down on credit cards, but using it to buy food. But, it seems a lot, doesn't it?

James Piper: It does seem a lot. And this is all to do with microplastics. And we did say we talk about microplastics soon and microplastics will be a bit of a theme that we keep coming back to. But this is a great opener for us because we can talk about kind of misinformation and science that isn't quite right, but this is a big one. This is a news story that went round, a lot and continues to go around. It's always talked about, about the amount of microplastic we might eat and accidentally consume in our food and drink. And to eat a credit card's worth of microplastic each week, we need to eat about 5.5 grammes of plastic. So that's our starting point. We've got to eat to achieve this stat that everyone talks about. We've got to eat 5.5 grammes of microplastic a week.

Robbie Staniforth: Tell me you didn't pull out your scales again and weigh a credit card. Did you just get that online?

James Piper: I did. Why didn't I get the scales? They got fresh batteries in.

Robbie Staniforth: That's mad chance to use your scales. Missed.

James Piper: I'm gutted. Don't worry, there'll be loads of opportunities for me to use those scales again.

World Wildlife Fund commissioned study to estimate amount of microplastics in drinking water

So, Robbie, what is a microplastic? Let's start there, because we need to start with the basics.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, well, I know this bit, I'm not sure about how much we eat, but, it's basically plastic that's smaller than five millimetres. So it's small plastic, but five millimetres is visible to the eye, isn't it? You can see a five millimetre speck, basically, of plastic. And, a, ah, microplastic, effectively, quite often, is plastics that have somehow been broken up and shredded through various processes or just naturally, if it gets, into the environment, into these very small pieces that go right down to of like, teeny tiny microscopic pieces too.

James Piper: Absolutely. And that's the challenge with this, that there is a big range in microplastics. So they start, the top end is like five millimetres and then they go down to microscopic levels. Absolutely. And this is a study that was commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund. It's an australian based study. So it was the University of Newcastle in Australia, so not our Newcastle. And what they did was they reviewed papers on plastic in food.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay? It wasn't primary research.

James Piper: It was so not like my research, except for this one. Yeah. So, from what I can see, they didn't actually weigh things themselves. They just relied on other people's work, other people's studies, and they sort of compiled it all into one thing to say, well, how much microplastic could we consume in a week? And as I say, they came out with this report that said up to 5.5 grammes. Someone worked out that 5.5 grammes was the same as a credit card. And so that became a really nice headline. And there's a very famous image, well, famous to me, in recycling spheres, of like someone holding chopsticks with a credit card in those chopsticks, to suggest that they're eating it. And that's kind of the image that then stuck with people in terms of this report. So they looked at a number of different things, a number of different food types and drinks that they thought could contain microplastics. So they looked at drinking water, shellfish, salt, beer, sugar, honey and fish. That was like their maintain their feeling for the main sources of microplastic.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. And that's presumably what because either they're consumed at high rates or those food stuffs are like exposed to microplastics, the most kind of thing, basically, yes.

James Piper: And drinking water was their key one. So drinking water, they estimated, was the source of 90% of the microplastics.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, wow.

James Piper: The salt, shellfish, honey, beer, sugar fish were 10%, and then the drinking water was 90% of the source of microplastics.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. I'm surprised by that. Like, I really, you know, you sort of. Because you don't see plastic in your water. That's definitely not one where I've ever noticed a five millimetre piecing. You wouldn't think it was that high.

James Piper: Well, I'm glad you said that, because what they did in this study, and this is one of the first flaws, is they said, we will look at the size of microplastics in the ocean and use that as the size of microplastics that might be in drinking water. Now, there is a big difference between the size of microplastics that are in the ocean, which is around three milligrammes. So, sorry, I'm moving from millimetres to milligrammes, but basically a reasonably side plastic that's in the ocean.

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James Piper: But in your drinking water, the water has been filtered and you would never have a piece of plastic in it. That biggest. So one of the challenges of this report, or one of the things that we can just automatically tell is wrong, is if we go off their weight of microplastic, it would mean that all of the microplastic you're drinking and drinking water would be visible to the human eye. So you basically are drinking a glass of water where you can see thousands of particles of plastic in your water, and you can actually see them as you're drinking it. And they estimated that you were drinking about 1769. I say about, and they give a really specific number. They estimated that you were drinking 1769 particles in a week.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Okay, well, that, I mean, just as the sort of layman's logic or whatever, that doesn't sound right. I'm sure there are parts of the world where filtration systems aren't as good as in the UK, and microplastics is getting into drinking water. But it seems a bit of a stretch to think that people are actively widespread, in a widespread manner. Drinking water that sort of looks cloudy because it's got particles you can see more than cloudy.

James Piper: I mean, these are literally shards of plastic that you would see. It's that sort of size. And they actually came up with three results, and I do feel a little bit for the study here, because they came up with three scenarios, and the scenarios were 0.1 grammes of plastic a week, 0.3 grammes of plastic a week, and 5.5 grammes. So the average is actually 0.7 across their three scenarios. And of course, the media just went, well, we're not interested in the 0.1 and 0.3. We're only interested in the 5.5. So they just wrote about a credit card's worth of plastic, even though that is just impossible for us all to consume. What's really interesting is then, because, what's great about science, you know, I've got a biology degree, right? So what's great about science is people should publish work and then people go, okay, that's interesting. Let's replicate those results, let's critique it, let's see if we can do it and do our own research. And then once that own research is done, if that comes out with a different result, then we update the thinking and we just keep iterating science. You don't just take someone's report and go, but that's gospel. Now, let's leave that in. Let's not do it again, and other studies have now been done. and because people read their studies said, well, that can't be true because I don't see my plastic every time I'm drinking a glass of water. So it can't be true. So there was a more recent study done and that suggested that the number is actually a million times smaller. So this was a study that actually did their own data and they felt that we were consuming a grain of salt a week compared to a credit card. Okay, so that is what were talking about here. Thats the difference.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I think it doesnt negate the problem, but yes. Okay. Thats how science works, isnt it? You just try to get to the true answer of what were consuming. M. Yes.

James Piper: And the latest study felt that it would take 25,000 years to eat a credit card. So, like, we've got one study that says per week and we've got one study that says 25,000 years to eat a credit card.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, fine. And then when it gets wrapped up and published in the media, obviously you sort of get, rightly in some ways, because plastic is a problem in the oceans and in the food chain and things, but it's sort of over catastrophization, maybe.

James Piper: Yeah. And I'm just literally searching now 25,000 years to eat a credit card to see if I get any responses. I owe 25,000 pounds on three credit cards. Britain's drowning in debt best credit cards rated 20 best ways to earn lots of Marriott points. There is literally, there's nothing, about this. But if I search eat a credit cards worth of plastic a week, I get 35,000 results. So it's just, for me, it's about how we report science, how we update things. The line has never been corrected, even though more studies have been done since those studies have demonstrated with proper research that, this just isn't true. It can't be true. You can still find this story everywhere. And I guess that's my frustration. You are right, though.

Robbie says it's important to keep science accurate on microplastics

This is a problem. Even if we're only eating a grain of salted plastic, at the end of the day, the size of particles is probably more important because actually that's where you can have health issues. They found microplastics now in the brain, haven't they? Because microplastics are so small, they can enter the bloodstream and then they can get into parts of our body. The worse, really. But I do think it's really important that we keep the science accurate.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, agreed. And, you know, it won't stop the pictures that we see of plastics in the environment, micro or otherwise, that find their way into the food chain. And, you know, animals are eating. I'm sure everyone's seen pictures of the seagulls that have been dissected and turtles, etcetera, straws, in their noses. So

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Robbie Staniforth: it's not negating the fact that this is a problem. But you're right. what we can't do is kind of over catastrophize with stats. Like we're consuming a credit card worth of plastic a week.

James Piper: Yeah, and we will do lots on ocean plastics, I'm sure. And it's an area I'm very passionate about as a scuba diver. I love the ocean and I'm really interested in getting into that ocean plastic stuff. I also want to do stuff on microplastic health in the future because, you know, there are studies ongoing now to detect a, whether microplastics actually cause damage to us. And that is not a proven science at the moment. So that needs time. And hopefully we'll be going on long enough, Robbie, to get some of those results in terms of the health impacts of microplastics. But, you know, I think we should state there's a lot of kind of scary stuff out there at the moment with not a lot of scientifically proven results. And, you know, we need to just make sure we're getting proper peer reviewed studies into the health harms of microplastics before we comment on that.

Robbie Staniforth: I guess I. Yeah, and the upside is there is a big spotlight on it, and there's lots of work, as you mentioned, going on to try and prove the health implications. Because really, if it is, and I've seen things around, you know, all sorts like links to cancer from microplastics and things. It's important that we actually understand the health implications. But even before we do, we sort of know that plastic can leak out into the environment. So we should just be doing everything we can to make sure that that doesn't happen. Regardless of the science. It doesn't negate any of that.

James Piper: Absolutely. We need to capture and recycle, which is what this podcast is all about. The R and D World website got an interview from the authors of the original study. So the one talking about us eating a credit card. And this is what they said. I thought it was worth quoting. The authors have confirmed they're still behind their significant work, which has been helping to reduce the adverse impacts of plastic. We will stand by it until someone proves that there is zero plastic exposure to humans, which I just thought was really interesting because they didn't say, we stand by the numbers. You definitely eat a credit card. What they've essentially said is we stand by the fact that we need to do something about this. And we're really pleased that we gave a number that's so big that it got in all the media. And I guess that's the challenge for me. It's like getting this balance right of, we need to solve plastics issue. We need to be recycling better, we need to make sure things don't leach into the environment. We need to get better as a planet in terms of controlling the materials that we use.

Robbie Staniforth: I'm just reducing the amount of consumption that goes on of plastic or otherwise.

James Piper: Absolutely. But I am not a fan of, hey, we put a study out and it got loads of media attention and we're delighted by that. And it doesn't matter whether it's true or not because it got out in the media. That's not a good way of doing things. So I think there's some learning to be had here. There's some really interesting info. And now, hopefully, if you see that report again and it is quoted all the time, you'll see it everywhere. Now, if you see that quote that we eat credit cards worth a week, you can maybe just sit back, think, okay, I'm, not 100% convinced that's true, because actually every time I drink a glass of water, I don't see a load of shards of plastic, rubbish or not.

Robbie says some medicine packaging components can be recycled at home

So today, Robbie, we want to talk about blister packs. We had an email in from Liz. Thank you, Liz. And we've had quite a few emails about this, actually. So let's talk about blister packs. So these are the kind of medicine things, you know, with the plastic and then a bit of metal lining in a cardboard box.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes, yeah, I know the stuff. So there's a number of the packaging components that you can obviously recycle at home. The cardboard box that the pills came in, I mean, I always just discard those straight away. That kind of superfluous bit of packaging. once it gets into the home, obviously it's important that, when it's on the shelf that the pills are protected, etcetera. and the instruction leaflet, you know, there's that piece of paper with the warning and the instructions about how to take them that can be recycled, too.

James Piper: The blister packs themselves can't really go in home recycling. but they can be recycled. You know, they're made of rigid plastic and there's some metal in there, although the metal is just tiny. they can be recycled. And so certainly in the UK, superdrug pharmacies, the important word here is pharmacies. The super drug store has to have a pharmacy. they do offer a collection box for you to drop them in. So if you do have blister packs, you can take them to any superdrug that's got a pharmacy. and a lot of local pharmacies are starting doing it. So it is definitely worth checking with your local pharmacy or your nearest hospital to see if they provide a take back service. I thought boots did it. So again, in the UK we have a store called boots, which is sort of this kind of health store.

Robbie Staniforth: Health and pharmacy.

James Piper: Yeah. And they do have a website about blister pack recycling. So I thought, I'll go to that and search Bristol. But when I did that, it said no stores in Bristol. And when I searched London, it had only two. So there, are some boots to do it. But I mean, you're gonna. It's few and far between, but if you live in London, maybe it's worth checking whether you're near one of those two stores.

Robbie Staniforth: And presumably the reason that they

00:40:00

Robbie Staniforth: need this scheme is because it's quite a specialist type of recycling. It's a small item, it's got metal, foil and plastic together. So it does need this, like, specialised scheme because the economics just sort of don't work for it to be collected at the curve website and are unlikely to ever work, I think. Quick shout out, though, to other alternative packaging for medicines. Things like hard plastic tubes, bottles, pots, that are plastic, can go in plastic recycling. And likewise the, old school glass medicine bottle. I know I have those, for my daughter, Calpol. Other brands are available. And pill bottles, that are glass. Those can also go in the glass recycling rubbish question.

James Piper: I thought this was a really clever question. I was out drinking with some of the guys from work and I can't remember who asked the question. It was either the people I was with were Adam, John and Luke, so very religious names, so it was one of those. And then out of nowhere, I just thought this was such a clever question. And then out of nowhere, like the other day, I got an email from someone called Hannah. Thank you, Hannah. with exactly the same question. And I thought, this is so spooky because I thought it was really clever. And the fact that I'm slightly thinking, we're all thinking about this all the time.

Robbie Staniforth: This is zeitgeist stuff. James. Like it.

James Piper: Okay, nice.

Robbie asks Maya what happens to lime in corona bottles after recycling

And the question is, and Robbie, I got you to research this one because I had no idea what happens to the lime that's pushed into the corona bottle.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that was obvious. It was going to be that brand of beer, isn't it? The classic lime that goes in. And James pressed me into action on this one and he actually sent a follow up reminder to some say, robbie, this is the one bit of research I've asked you to do, buddy. Have you got an answer? And I hadn't actually done anything yet, but I'm glad to say that I reached out to my friends at Smurfs material recycling facilities. So thanks to Joseph and Matthew,

James Piper: Who are also the religious names.

Robbie Staniforth: Whoa. Yeah.

James Piper: M. Who are we missing? Mark. We've got Adam. I mean, Adam, obviously Adam and Eve. We got John, Luke, Joseph, Matthew. I mean, we're just missing Mark. And then we'd have the whole gospel.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, very good. and they were talking about how it would work in energy from waste. So eventually the limes effectively will end up getting burnt. The chance of it getting, finding its way transported across to food, recycling is zero. Likewise, the chance of it getting mixed up in the actual glass recycling and somehow blown into a bottle or whatever, or go into road aggregate is very, very low too. So glass is crushed, as we've talked about in previous episodes. cheque those out, ah, into the size of a 50 p piece, if you remember. The lime will be bigger than that and it will get screened out or blown off, when the glass, is sorted. So, some at the MRF, but some at the glass recycling point, it will be screened a couple of times. But if, the glass is screened outside one of them mentioned, it's possible that one of the gulls might swoop in and grab the lime. I think that's highly unlikely. Then.

James Piper: Yeah. I don't know. I mean, at my recycling facility down the road, whenever I go there, there's hundreds of thousands of goals.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh really?

James Piper: Yeah, I reckon they do go for the limes. But anyway, that's, So there you go. That would be recycling and reuse. And I was mentioning this to my brother in law Ed when we were around his house the other day and he was saying he might try and concoct some elaborate thing with a piece of string where he ties the lime to a piece of string and then pulls it out at the end and get it in his food waste. And I thought. Maya, the plan. So I think we're all just going to try and do that in my end. we'll let you know how it goes. Oh, another episode, Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, that was great.

James Piper: Don't forget to cheque our link tree for reports because we talked about lots of reports in this episode. So I'll put that on our link tree, which is in our show notes. You can contact us on socials, which is at rubbish podcast, or email us@talkingrubbishpodcastmail.com.

Robbie Staniforth: Dot I was just going to say it'd be a true crime if no one contacted us.

James Piper: Oh, my God, that joke was criminal. So thank you all so much for listening. Thank you, Robbie, for your time. It's been great. I really, really enjoy getting together to talk through all things waste. So thanks for joining to talk rubbish. Bye.

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