Image by Nikolett Emmert from Pixabay
By Jo Nova
Remember how biodegradable plastic was going to make the world a healthier place? It would save us all from the horrible plastic landfill that lasts 1000 years, and it would protect the dolphins. Well, let’s just hope the dolphins don’t eat the bags.
Despite the rush to put biodegradable bags in every shopping centre, no one had bothered to study whether it had an effect on our health, and we still don’t know, but we can say that the mice on that compost heap with these biodegradable bags will be more likely to have diabetes, smaller ovaries, and liver damage. Degradable plastic affected their gut flora. The authors say: “Prolonged exposure to environmentally relevant doses of Starch-based microplastics can have widespread health effects.”
How many native mice will die that could have been saved, and do the Greens care?
This study came out in April:
Mouse study suggests that starch-based microplastics may harm health
Victoria Atkinson, c&en
While many studies have examined the health implications of ingesting petroleum-derived microplastics, none have looked at the long-term health effects on a living organism ingesting starch-based microplastics. To help elucidate the safety of these ecoplastics, Deng and his team used a mouse model to simulate long-term exposure to varying doses of starch-based microplastics. (J. Agric. Food Chem. 2025, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.4c10855) They incorporated various concentrations of starch-based microplastics into the animals’ food, scaled to reflect typical human exposure; after 3 months, they euthanized the mice to probe the impacts of no, low, and high consumption of microplastics
Notably, the exposed mice consistently had elevated blood glucose levels and disrupted insulin regulation—both heavily implicated in conditions such as diabetes.
Organ-sample analysis revealed system-wide physiological changes, including reduced ovary size, liver damage
and inflammation, and impaired colon function. “Starch-based microplastics [SMPs] exhibit widespread harm, potentially affecting multiple tissues and functions,” Deng says. “Given that humans also face real-life scenarios of chronic exposure to starch based microplastics, these findings serve as an important warning regarding their potential health impacts.”
In lab tests normal plastic bags didn’t harm the cells.
Biodegradable bags are TOXIC – and may be linked to liver and ovary damage, scientists warn
By Xantha Leatham, Daily Mail,
‘Biodegradable starch-based plastics may not be as safe and health-promoting as originally assumed,’ said Professor Yongfeng Deng, one of the study’s authors.
In a previous study the researchers compared the compostable bags to normal plastic bags after they had been left out in the sun and composted. But when they put them next to fish cells, “A ‘high level of toxicity’ was produced by the biodegradable bags, harming the fish cells,”
Cinta Porte, lead author of the study, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, said: ‘We were surprised that cells exposed to conventional plastic bags showed no trace of toxicity.
I don’t put these bags into my own compost. The Council can have them.
REFERENCE
Liu et al (2025) Long-Term Exposure to Environmentally Realistic Doses of Starch-Based Microplastics Suggests Widespread Health Effects. J Agric Food Chem, 2025 Apr 23;73(16):9867-9878. doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.4c10855. Epub 2025 Apr 9.
Also, the ostensible reason for banning free supermarket plastic bags, even biodegradable ones, in the fanatically woke countries like Australia was because of plastics ending up in the ocean.
But Australians and other people in Civilised countries properly dispose of their rubbish.
It’s people in Third World countries that cause most ocean plastics by recklessly discarding their rubbish in rivers or places where it ends up in rivers. Anyone who’s been to a Third World country will have observed this, e.g. Nepal where I have quite a bit of experience. In some places all you can see of the rivers is floating plastic, and no water.
It’s a serious behavioural problem in Third World countries which needs to be addressed not by bans of plastic but by education. And instead of Leftists spending their numerous idle hours protesting in support of terrorist organisations they should go to these countries and educate the people plus personally pick up rubbish.
The real reason for the Left’s war against plastic bags and similar convenience products in the West like drinking straws, plastic cutlery, plates, cups etc. is because the miserable, fun-hating Left just hate convenience products and anything at all that makes life easier or fun.
One of the biggest lies about the the free supermarket plastic bags in Australia, endlessly repeated by the Left, was to call them “single use”. Everyone I know had a multitude of secondary uses for them such as kitchen bin liners etc and many other uses, not to mention the original use of making shopping so much more convenient. Now people have to buy kitchen bin liners than get them free etc.. Same plastic consumption if not more. The free Aussie plastic supermarket bag, RIP, was actually quite a high tech product being ultra thin and extremely strong, using minimal materials.
Finally, when plastic bags are done with after serving their multiple secondary uses, they can be burned for fuel in energy-producing furnaces as they have a similar energy content to liquid hydrocarbons. They are a fuel too valuable for land fill. Or they would be, but energy recovery from burning waste is generally prohibited in Australia even though it’s done in fully woke places like Europe or New York.
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Totally agree, David. I think the big supermarkets now rub it in by packaging large amounts of fruit and vegetables in plastic. Their attitude seems to be that they have all the say and grovel to the destructive left to get good publicity. Plus they now force many people to not only pay their skyrocketing prices but you have to serve yourself as well. Arrogance rules their world.
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It’s a serious behavioural problem in Third World countries which needs to be addressed not by bans of plastic but by education……The 3rd world understands littering is not ok, but collecting and disposal of all household waste products costs MONEY….alot of MONEY. But the woke gullible Western leftist loony GREENS are more concerned about installing useless ruinables everywhere instead of helping the 3rd world with sanitation.
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Then comes the useless supermarket paper bags that you have to now pay for. Made from renewable resources (sustainable forestry) or recycled paper products that supposedly help the environment by replacing those deomonised plastic shopping bags.
I noted the Woolworths ones have printed on them that the maximum weight is 6kg. Yeah right. I watched as a shopper packed his paper bag with his minimal amount of groceries, picked the bag up by the handle, only to have it break and all the goods fell on the supermarket floor. If there were glass products and the bottles broke, would the supermarket reimburse you for your loss because the bags they provide are useless. How many more bags are now need because you can only pack a few items before the bag can’t manage any more before they break? The assistant grabbed him a replacement bag for no cost and he repacked all the shopping, it didn’t break this time but I wonder how far it got before it did again?
How much energy is used to make a paper bag compared to that of a plastic bag? I would be thinking a hell of a lot more. As David said, the plastic bags typically were multi use once they reached the household, bin liners, animal poop bags, storage and a multitude of other things.I still have a small supply of old bags for just such purposes. So the paper bags are supposedly reusable, wonder how many do that, or just throw them in the bin or recycle bin?
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Makes no difference. According to Professor Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of natural resources and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona and a leading global voice on abrupt climate change leading to near-term human extinction, humans will be extinct by 2026. https://www.biznews.com/energy/abrupt-climate-change. Prediction made in 2023. So don’t fret about micro plastics ‘cos at best you have no more than 12 months left. And to think that the bloke gets paid for this.
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A badly needed red herring?
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They ‘used a mouse model’. A real mouse test would have been more credible. A long term test on real mice doesn’t take all that long, 6-24 months. So let’s wait till a real mouse test is done, and in the meantime let’s just do what is sensible, ie, remove plastic bans on the reasonable grounds that already exist, use the much better plastic straws, use the re-usable plastic shopping bags that we all miss, and go on disposing of plastic properly.
Two of the major downsides of biodegradable plastic are (i) it fails if not used soon enough (and that includes trying to re-use it), and (ii) it encourages people not to dispose of it properly (“it doesn’t matter, it’s biodegradable”).
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They mean the test was modelled on mice. They don’t mean it was a model that only simulated mice.
They used three groups of five mice.
One group was given typical food. The other two groups were given food infused with starch based microplastics. These two groups were given high and low does respectively, scaled from human consumption.
The mice were fed for three months and then had various medical assessments.
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Thanks. I misread. Obviously I should have read it all – unfortunately the word “model” is a red flag.
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These bans on plastics are more about creating an opportunity for self-aggrandisement by the proponents than it is about public health.
To paraphrase Pul Keating: Never get between a virtue signaller and an opportunity to promote themselves on the public stage.
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Those who seek to ban plastic almost never have any clue whatsoever that in a modern society almost EVERYTHING you see, touch or use contains synthetic polymers.
It leads to bizarre spectacles like Greta the Goblin Thunberg sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in a hi-tech plastic yacht.
And no one (present company excepted) understood the hypocrisy in that.
Was there any better way for Thunberg and her brain-dead followers to prove their ignorance?
If you want to avoid synthetic polymers you have to revert to the lifestyle of pre-20th century. But if you want to also avoid the use of coal, you’d have to revert to the Stone Age or before that as there is evidence of coal burning at Landek Hill, Czech Republic, ~25,000-23,000 BCE. And the Chinese have been burning coal since 4000BCE and Marco Polo also observed them burning coal in the 13th century.
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The local inhabitants on Hawaii didn’t burn coal, (until they were ‘discovered’ anyway). Whilst others around the world were certainly burning coal, large numbers of humans were not. It’s only when something better comes along that the old fuel is retired. eg wood, charcoal, coal, coke, liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, nuclear. And in most cases, the development wasn’t government sanctioned through funding nor taxation, the exception of course being nuclear. And it doesn’t seem to matter how much government assistance is given, fusion is still 20 years away from being useful.
And with regard to Hawaii not burning coal, there’s a reason for that too.
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The Hopi Indians of North America used coal to fire their pottery, Apparently it has been used traditionally all over the place.
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But not in Hawaii.
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Back in the day, children were taught in school about the miracles of plastic.
And it really is a miracle product and nothing to be ashamed of.
I even remember being taught in 3rd grade about how some plastic was made from milk. You can do a simple experiment at home or in the classroom to make casein plastic.
I wonder if they still teach such things or it’s too “sciency”?
Better to “teach” climate catastrophism instead.
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Can’t make plastic from milk because milk (typically) comes from cows. Cows are an existential threat to the planet. Or so I’ve heard.
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I will stop eating mice immediately.
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[This, and the dozen replies, is a good example of how a throw away line diverts to an off topic conversation. Unless I missed the part where insects and rabbits are sneaking microplastics into us by our consumption of them. – Raquel]
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Especially with chips.
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The woke and Australian Government are still encouraging non-Elites to eat insects.
I wonder how long before they start promoting mice as human food? They already eat them in Asia and Africa.
Source: NSW Food Authority https://share.google/l6YftMtqjUy8XWDZu
Breeding insects could also offer environmental advantages because of low greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution and land use impacts.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-14/csiro-wants-australia-eat-bugs-edible-insect-industry-road-map/100127974
The CSIRO wants Australia to start eating more bugs. But they’re not going to replace snags
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To anybody advocating the inclusion of insects in my diet my response is simple. You first and then I’ll think about it.
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I’d add
“After observing you for a long time”
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“I wonder how long before they start promoting mice as human food?”
In South America, they already eat Guinea Pigs, which are basically mice on steroids.
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No mice? Just don’t look too closely into any processed food.
I’m old enough to remember KFC including rabbit meat with the excuse when prosecuted that in Kentucky rabbit is traditionally considered to be chicken. They claimed to have stopped.
And the chicken breast meat sold in supermarkets. Look closely at the sheer size of some pieces and ask yourself if you’d like to meet up with a chicken like that in a dark alley one night.
And yet I have no desire to raise and kill my own meat for food. The cows over the back fence would never trust me again.
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And I have wondered for years about McNuggets. Which part of a chicken is the nugget? Or the gigantic flat chicken pieces in parmigianas and schnitzels.
I remember decades ago when police raided Chinese restaurants in Hindley Street, Adelaide and seized possum carcasses. Known to Chinese traders as roof chicken.
Or of a time in England when skinned cats were sold as rabbits in a bag. An escaped cat was letting the cat out the bag. Presumably not a plastic bag. That would be pollution. It also was a time before cats were ever considered pets, a very recent development. Ermines and pole cats had a purpose. Cats caught mice, part of the food chain.
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>police raided Chinese restaurants in Hindley Street, Adelaide and seized possum carcasses
In our town 20 years ago the Chinese restaurant occupied one half of a semi-detached duplex sharing a common wall with the Veterinary Clinic next door.
Rumour insisted there was a service window or wall hatch in that common wall.
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Don’t forget the Outback Cafe, Road Kill Grill
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I always thought that KFC stood for’Kentucky Fried Cat.
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It seems there ain’t a whole lot of chicken in those nuggets. But there is starch if you don’t have enough biodegradable plastic in your diet.
https://flawlesscooking.com/whats-in-fake-chicken-nuggets/
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“Lab-grown or cultivated chicken is produced by growing chicken cells in a laboratory setting.”
Now that’s scary. We could have human cells soon. Vegan cannibalism.
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Well, mRNA shots that were rolled out 5 years ago contained foreign DNA that was beyond safe levels, so it’s not a huge leap to make such an assumption. No responsible health authority will be scrutinising nuggets anytime soon.
We can’t settle the age old argument, but in this case the chicken seems to come before the egg…
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There might have been an argument for rabbit back in the day but following along the lines of change rabbit (underground mutton) and cheap as chips is now far more expensive to produce than chicken ergo no incentive to substitute a more expensive meat for a cheaper one.
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Making a 90 degree turn here:
Recent studies have shown that Alzheimer’s disease can be reversed in mice by restoring the brain’s energy balance using a compound called P7C3-A20.
{That’s enough to search on}
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Lots of people are doing lots of promising research. Perhaps modern computer programs can sift through what is known and point the way.
From a personal perspective my top three would be dementia, diabetes and cancers.
Then again, who wants to live forever?
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“Then again, who wants to live forever?”
Where to start. George Soros, Bill Gates, Vladimir Putin, Xi, Elon Musk, anyone that had enough money to purchase every necessity.
The down side is a world full of really old people all still thinking that they can change the world, with them still in control of course. The serfs would continue to be raised and allowed to expire like, well, workers.
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Biodegradable or compostable? Starch based plastics should be biodegradable and compostable. The end result will be CO₂ + H2O + compost. No need for mice to worry. On the other hand mice need to worry about being predated or used in lab experiments where even the control mouse gets it in the neck. Warning to all mice: Mice should be careful of certain wanted ads in the Mouse Herald seeking mice for modelling jobs, no experience necessary.
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Interestingly the products of degradation are virtually the same for petro chemical based plastics and starch based, good old carbon and water.
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Hazards from microplastics and forever plastics are a con. Patrick Moore has been telling the world for a decade, or more. This is not science, but just propoganda from Greenpeace.
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We know that microplastics accumulate in human tissues, — in blood, in the placenta, and in the brain. We don’t know definitively whether this causes harm — at least not in randomized trials, but we know in autopsy studies that the people with more plastic in their carotid artery plaques were 4.5 times more likely to die or have a heart attack or stroke. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822
So we don’t know if plastic particles are drawn to carotid artery plaque in some people, and are just incidental bystanders, or if the kind of people who “eat” or breathe plastic are stress kittens in a hurry or living in polluted air, which might raise their risk of death, but we know that people with microplastics in their plaque were a lot more likely to die. And that study was only a three year follow up. To see something as strong as a 4.5 hazard ratio in such a short study is unusual.
Often medical papers are published with tiny HR’s (Hazard ratios) like the one showing that high fat milk reduces the risk of dementia by 13% (HR 1.13). I am skeptical that these low HR’s mean a lot. But a HR of 4.5, that’s attention grabbing.
Microplastics and PTFE (Teflon) or PFAS forever chemicals might be chemically inert, but they can still lock onto or trigger receptors or have hormonal action, or inflammatory action and at nanogram levels. Obviously we didn’t evolve to deal with them. So it is believable that they could be a big problem.
Patrick Moore would have made those comments before most of the microplastic studies came out.
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I’m calling BS on that one.
Everyone will die….. with or without microplastics in their tissue.
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[Funny. 😉. Obviously Jo meant “to die FROM or have ….” – Raquel]
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They’re actually studying us.
“These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vastly hyperintelligent pandimensional beings.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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The very idea of the earth and its human population being part of a research project. Yet another concept which once seen cannot be unseen.
I always wonder what causes authors to write what they do. Adams, Orwell, and so many more.
The more certain I am the less certain I am.
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Huxley had ideas too.
Imagine a world full of useless eaters, all smacked out of their brains on Soma.
Sounds like a leftist’s utopia. Let them have it I say but make voting optional beforehand.
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FWIW – another thing to worry about
“Lung Cancer? Alarming Study Finds Ultra-Processed Foods Are Even Worse Than Previously Thought”
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/lung-cancer-alarming-study-finds-ultra-processed-foods-are-even-worse-previously-thought
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I hope that mouse is fully vaccinated.
The very integrity of Science would be in jeopardy if not.
And it is settled Science that mice are not horses.
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The last sentence in this report is actually even more revealing. Traditional plastics, no damage!
You don’t mean the environmental activists have pressured the world’s unthinking, robotic politicians
into creating new fear campaigns over health and plastics with no data, and spending billions to fix a non known problem, do you Jo?
Or is this just reusing the entirety of the climate-change-due-to-humans reasoning behind the debate that says ‘just in case these idiots are right (with no supporting data), we had better spend $trillions
to save our great, great, great grand children from their frying nightmares – based on no facts? In this latter case they didn’t tell the nation that to supply a big sedative for their nightmares, it would cost us our entire current economy and standard of living. Just in case!
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