Really? no, Really?Microplastics Exposed: What Consumer Reports Found in Our Food & Water Supply
We now know that microplastics are literally everywhere! In our water, in our food, even in the organs of wild animals - found in the most remote places on Earth! But wait! Now scientists are discovering that there are even smaller fragments, called nanoplastic…so small… we consume them, potentially, with every breath we take. Really, no really!
These tiny particles and the chemicals that make plastics have been found in our brains, our lungs, kidneys, liver…even in men’s penises. Obviously, Jason and Peter had questions; so, they turned to the man who tests the levels of microplastics in the foods we buy and eat, Dr. James Rogers. He is the Director of Food Safety Research and Testing at Consumer Reports. He is responsible for leading the food safety and sustainability operations of the organization, including food testing, data analysis, and risk and safety assessments. As acting head of Product Safety Testing, he also oversees the team that assesses safe operation and use of consumer products.
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IN THIS EPISODE:
- Don’t wash your chicken! (Unless you own a hazmat suit.)
- Blowing things up, dropping them, smashing them! What’s it really like in the Consumer Reports testing lab?
- Ingesting microplastics, what are the effects on the body?
- Why you should rethink microwaving your food in plastic containers.
- Hidden issues that complicate ending our dependence on plastics.
- What CR found when they tested 85 commonly purchased foods for plastic contamination.
- Cut these foods from your diet to reduce phthalate consumption.
- Why are brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, red die number 3, titanium dioxide – all legal if known to be detrimental to our health?
- What must consumers do to demand safer food?
- Google-heim: How much do you know about recycling? Take our quiz to find out!
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FOLLOW JAMES:
Consumer Reports website - www.consumerreports.org
LinkedIN – James E. Rogers, Ph.D.
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FOLLOW REALLY NO REALLY:
Now really, really, now, really hello, and welcome to really know really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who want you to know that subscribing to our show brings so much joy you can see it even on a microscopic level. And speaking of microscopic levels, we now know that microplastics are literally everywhere in our water, in our food, even in the organs of wild animals found in the most remote places on Earth. But wait, now, scientists are discovering that there are even smaller fragments called nanoplastics, so small we actually consume them with nearly every breath we take. Really, no, really, these tiny particles and the chemicals that make plastics have been found in our brains, lungs, kidneys, liver, and yes, even male genitals. So as owners of male genitals, Jason and Peter had questions, so they turned to the man who actually tests the levels of microp plastics in the foods we buy and eat, the director of Food Safety Research and Testing at Consumer Reports, doctor James Rogers.
So take a deep, plastic y breath. Here's Jason and Peter very.
Serious, because I know what our episode is partially going to be.
About today and I was.
Just about to crack up in this this bottle of water.
And now I'm like, don't do it. Don't do it because.
Okay, all right, because I know, you know, particulates and water particulates, you might as well just chew the bottle.
Because of them.
Because of the microplastic microplastics.
So we read microplasics, water, microplastics, and food the one now I draw the line.
The headline is.
Microplastics Discovery and penises raises a rectal dysfunction.
Hello, And I said, no, really, no, really, I'm there.
Let me ask you a question. Does it add then? Does it lens, girth, firmness anything? Does it affect quality of delight?
Well?
There goes on a very special episode.
This is the while that I read great guest on The problem is microplastics are all around us, in our food.
In our water, even in our air.
I am getting a little concerned out environmentally about just that it's out there.
Also, when I always two weeks ago, when we.
Were talking to micro you were fine, life was good.
You know, being oblivious is a good thing. I mean because when they start attacking.
Well, also, you know, we talk about some serious stuff, but we we we try to do it with.
Light, oh light, and so how and.
Some hope to it because there's some serious stuff that comes up.
But it always looks for incredible people in this, in microplastics, et cetera, and in save food safety, but in looking for this, and you know, I take it very seriously when we book our guests. The cool thing about doctor James Rogers, not only is he a doctor in microbiology, but he's with Consumer Reports, the director of food safety and research and testing. And what I love about Consumer Reports is they're not beholden to anybody. They their own product, They test their own product, so it's not like they have to have research. We have doctor James Rodgers with us, and how are you a doctor or James or mister Rogers? A whole new time When you say it that way, I've heard that my entire life. Sorry, more as you can see, we're idiots. But I love that you're with Consumer Reports and just get let's talk about that for a second. When you walk down the hallway, there are you opening doors and the guys on on a toilet going testing testing right now.
Another guy's punching a mattress. Another guy's punching a mattress.
I mean they you guys like the remember in In I think it was Banana's Woody Allen's character is a product tester and he's on an exercise bike that goes back and forth to the desk and he picks up a phone and I always figure that's what it's like a Consumer reports.
Doesn't look isn't that way?
You open the door and the guy's on the toilet going now testing testing guys are dropping stuff.
Guys like the hallway of I wouldn't want to test the jab in these toilet Like is the temperature control correct? You know, it's always a shock. I know it's going to be okay, and it still surprises me every time. It's always I think there's I acted that up for people not watching it on YouTube.
I went also, so is it is it? Is it like that?
Are you ever shocked by that? Or is it in a different building a different wing?
Well?
No, the way consumer ports set up is that there's individual labs for each product. So yes, we do test toilets, but what we do is we pull it up with balls and plush it to imitate.
How do you mean that anyway? I'm not sure. I followed you, dare you?
Oh?
Really?
You knew immediately what he's talking.
Yeah, you want the load. Excuse me that duplicates.
They're not going to you're not bringing clarity.
They're bringing bustlers of people in from a buffet to test their product. Is that these are scientists?
Somebody said we can, we can measure the density and wait and duplicate and see how many flushes its.
Work in front of her.
Even a non scientist configures figure Hello, announcement, we're testing anybody?
What do you tested the toilet? Does it actually flush? Does it swirl the red wet?
You hook it up, You hook it up just like you would in your own home, and you fill it up with these balls, and then you flush it and you see if that load is taken away and goes down the drain.
But now you've got balls and your system and that can't.
No, no, no, no no, it falls into a track trash trash.
Really, as you can see, you really have to talk remedia today.
When you do this, it's like, wow, okay, so look who did research knows everything about consumer reports, testing and laboratory facilities.
Oh I know, I know. It falls into a trap.
Oh, hold on the consumer, their flushing falls into the sour system. All that's all.
I think that's scientists, not the laboratories. And I know that scientice gets called in to go.
Hell, you're fleshing bulls in the sert system of the You're fired.
I think that's what happening.
I did an episode where I well had a thing and it's blow.
All I know anything that happened.
So in your in your area of expertise, we're hearing about plastics in water and food in the particulars in air. Can you give us some just how dangerous it is and what they're trying to do about particulates in our food and our water.
Well, we have not tested microplastics ourselves. Well, we tested with the plasticizer chemicals that are used to make plastic, right, But there are connected and interrelated. So, for instance, microplastics refer to very small pieces of plastic that will shere all of a water bottle of a plastic container during use. They're small. There's microplastics and their nanoplastics that are even smaller, and if they get in the water, they get into food. You consume that and then they accumulate in the body. So there's the potential for there to be a problem because those little pieces of plastic could let these plasticizes or chemicals out, which have been associated with intocrine disruption, cancer, high blood pressure.
But we don't know, at least in the.
Data that I've seen, to say that there is a very strong connection between the presence of these plastics in your body and an.
Actual public health problem or a health problem.
I think the data and the information is being collected, but I haven't seen where it's been proven that, yes, this is a problem.
Exactly what the probation.
But this goes into my wife, who is really really concerned about this because I guess there's been a flurry of new articles and new research that are being released about these kinds of micro and nanoplastics.
So even things like we have a series of.
Little dishes and pots that are designed to go into a microwave. They're very hard. You don't even think of them as plastic. They're almost like ceramic plastic. But one of the articles said, yeh, don't do that because every time you microwave it, you're releasing some of this chemical into the oh Man.
So in our article, yeah, we talked about do not microwave anything in plastic.
In fact, in my house we got rid of those, yeah, those.
Chinese takeout containers all that. We replace it all with glass because of that exact problem, because the heat releases it into your food.
So so.
Okay, So I mean, I don't know. I know this is not necessarily.
Where you where you guys would go to follow up.
But why we know that plastic and plastic waste, and now these microscopic bits of plastic getting into our food chain and getting into our systems. Why is there not or is there a push to start really eliminating and replacing plastics.
It doesn't seem to be in that positive for the world.
It's a it was a consumer positive for a long time, but now it seems to be a destructive element for the entire planet.
So why is there no global push to get rid of this stuff?
Well? I think there is.
For instance, in Maryland where I live, they have banned the use of plastic bags in the grocery store, right, And so there are different small movements, mostly by advocates that are concerned about this problem, but there has not been a worldwide push or a regulatory federal regulatory push, it's more local. You have to understand that if you get rid of plastics, what are you going to use? It's going to be end up being metal or glass or something else that can be shown not to cause these problems. Right, The expense is going to go up, the fragility might go up, the weight's going to go up when you're shipping food imagine shipping it in a plastic bag versus a glass container.
And what the weight is going to be.
So there are a lot of things that have to be resolved. But I would pose that there are some people that are pushing back against our use of plastic and trying to decrease it in maybe small amounts, but they're trying.
What are some of the stuff that you've studied that we would be shocked about.
Are shocked to hear or surprise to hear regarding plastic?
Yeah?
Yeah, So what we did is we did the testing for plasticizers and food and so we went to the grocery store. We bought eighty five different types of foods and we test them for thalates, which is one of the plastic sizer chemicals, and bysphonos which is the second one, and This is a repeat of food testing we did about seven years ago.
And so some of the.
Things we found is that every product we tested had thalates in it at some certain levels. Okay, some of the problems that you may not expect to have thalates, such as organic products.
Will have high amounts of tholates in it.
Fried foods usually has a lot of thalates, and so we advocate that you don't eat as much fried foods. Fast food had a lot of thalates in it, so we suggest you reduce the amount of fast food that you eat. There was one product that was organic that had the highest amount of thalates and everything that we tested. And so what we said in the article towards the end is we can't tell you how to avoid these chemicals, but we can tell you how to reduce your exposure by them. What food you eat, so a more natural diet, more fresh fruits and vegetables, that type of thing.
Well, some of them are really, if I'm remembering correctly, some of them are really not what you expected. Like you open a tin can, you go, oh, a tin can of soup, and you go, I'm good.
I opened a tin can of soup. But the liner inside they can.
Which I wouldn't even think of, you know it, or inside a milk carton.
Same kind of thing, and it's check out the Consumer Reports article will be shocked.
Now, there was some good news.
The bisphenols, which is another category of plasticizers. They actually were less than when we tested UH seven years ago, and so that suggested to us that if these manufacturers want to make a difference, they can because not all the not all the tholates, for instance, were found in every food and there were lower levels. So someone's doing something better than others of trying to keep these chemicals out of.
What incentivize them to turn down the bisphanol rate?
Well, I mean one of them was that the FDA banned this pinola from baby water bottles or baby bottles, right, and so that was a start to actually ban these products from food content surfaces such as baby bottles, but it kind of stopped there, and so we would want them to do the same thing with dalts.
You know, as I'm listening to you, I'm really wondering. As Peter and I joke all the time, I am a big believer in ignorance is bliss? How do you you know so much about how everything can hurt us, kill us spinaticut.
I mean, do you do you feel you are a little more.
Existentially cautious or worried about using the day to day things we all consume or use in some way? Then perhaps someone as blissfully ignorant as I would be.
Well, let me give you an example.
I have a blended family of five kids, and they hate to hear when I'm about to report something about the.
News, right, and it's there's nothing that we can eat.
Like my son, he's a he works out a lot, and we're going to test. We're talking about testing protein powders, and either he wants me to test what he uses or he doesn't because he may not want the bad news. I think the way that I think about it is I'm going to do the best that I can with the knowledge that I have. Like I said, I replaced all my bowls and using glass. We have some plastic glasses. That's we're out on the deck, so that bread and chatter. We replaced our utensil with silicone. I'm going to do the best that I can within my budget and what I can actually change now when I go out to dinner, I know, I don't have any control over how they fix my food or store my food, so I have to accept, Okay, I want to take one, but at least when I eat at home, I try to do as much as I can. I don't try to think about it too much. When I work for the Department bag, I actually went to a slaughterhouse, and sometimes that will turn you off from eating meat if you actually watch the entire process. But I'm like, I like steak too much, So okay, So that's kind of how I try to try it.
There are legally allowed stuff in our food. I'm looking at some of the worst ones here. Brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propyle parabin red dye number three, titanium dioxide, all legal, all known to be detrimental.
To human beings.
How is it that it remains okay for the continued use of stuff that we have proven it is not healthy?
You have asked a very interesting question.
How is it that it remains okay for the continued use of stuff that we have proven.
Is not healthy?
You have asked a very interesting question that is so confusing and perplexing. Let me take an example of the red dye number three. This is a dye a coloring that is used to color candies such as the red Skittles or.
Peeps, et cetera.
And it is a dye that has been shown to be harmful. The FDA actually banned that dye out of cosmetic products such as lipstick thirty years ago. However, it has been allowed to be used as a food coloring. Now, if you get skittles from the US skittles from Europe, Skittles from Europe does.
Not have red dye number three.
Skittles from the US does they use like fruit dyes and fruit extracts to color the skittles the red skittles in the Europe.
And if you ask the manufacturer, and this was in our article.
Too, they would say, well, the Europeans are more concerned about this. United States people really don't care about it. And so that's how you can have two different markets, which I don't understand. It seemed like it'd be more economic to have the same products here in the EU, but you have two different markets. And so your governor actually banned red dye number three and three other chemical contaminants not titanium dioxide.
In California, because.
We could not get any movement with the federal government, which would be our Food and Drug Administration.
Okay, So you.
Have manufacturers that say it's okay, and you have the FDA which is very slow in regulating certain harmful contaminants, even with pressure from US like Consumer Reports and other consumer groups to try to get these chemicals out of our food.
And so how's it allowed? Was allowed because a.
Long, long, long time ago it was allowed with less scientific and public health information as to how harmful it could be. And it just takes a long time to get our federal government to move and get rid of this stuff from our food. So I hope that answered your question.
Yeah, unfortunately it does.
So the question that's backs into that question, then how much pushback do you get? So if I'm a manufacturer of this stuff and I have big money, I've got lobbyists up to wazoo, They're saying this, I'm not going to do anything. Look, I'm ghostling it. Do you get how many times a week do you get pushed back? A month or year do you get pushed back from anybody?
So, any major story that is really trying to address a particular contaminant in food. I mean, let's use this as an example. I told you what the manufacturers respond was. But there was also like a not a smear campaign, but someone said, oh, you're trying to get rid of Skittles in the United States, and.
We're like, no, we're not right.
And so many times what they will say is we have a safe amount of red dy number three in our red skittles.
The problem is that.
I see is that are you using the most up to date, reliable scientific information that really shows whether red dye number three is safe or not? And if you're not, if you're relying on the data from twenty thirty years ago, then I'm not sure you're telling the truth that it's still safe. Maybe you are, but can we see some testing data or some public health data that will tell us that.
It actually is safe.
Obviously the European countries did not think so, because they demand that you get red dy number three out of their red skittles. So maybe they know something that we are not accepting over here. I don't know what that explanation is.
So there's well, along with that, none of the fouly levels exceed standard set by US and European regulators. So that's one statement, and then the next statement of scientists can't confirm a level that is safe. So now we don't how much of this crap you can eat, but we've determined that the level you can eat, that the level you can eat the.
Safe Right now, if you haven't determined the level, then how can you tell me?
What if I eat nine hundred bags of Skittles a week, up my my exposure.
Again, probably not good, but we haven't determined that that's on safe. So it's at a game that's being played that we haven't determined the safe level.
But here's a level.
Well, think of it this way. Let's take lead in baby food for instance. The people who are really really on the food safety side baby safety side will say there is no safe level lead in baby food, right, But it may be that the data will show you that we can bring it down, you know, as close to zero as possible, but we can't get it to zero because of the way we grow our food and process our food. So this lowest, lowest level may be the best that we can get. And so maybe that's the level that we're going to have to claim. Now I will say that consumer reports, other consumer groups we advocate for a much lower level that is either already been set by a regulatory agency or has been suggested by others. We think that food safe level should be lower than is usually popular or is usually regulated right now. And so what you'll see if you look at our articles, for instance, we'll accept the Prop sixty five levels from California and say they're much more healthier than safety base than the federal levels.
Right.
And so when we do our analysis, we try to take the safest level that we can find in the literature or Prop sixty five or other scientists that look at this and say this is the level it should be, and it's usually much lower than what a federal regulatory level is.
So if people, if if if the electorate, the consumer really got their act together and said, we want to advocate create the pathway for these things to become either abouish or you know, greatly.
What is what is the way? Is it? Is it boycotting products, is.
It, you know, focusing on certain companies or industries. Is it making it a bigger issue among our elected representatives? What what is the what's the best pathway to get a positive change here?
That doesn't seem to becoming any other way.
Well, I think it's going to be multi level.
One when consumers are informed and knowledgeable and they can get information from.
Us from other consumer groups. Vote with your dollars.
Okay, if we show you that macron in cheese A has less stylates than macro and cheese B than by a. Second, is as an informed consumer right the companies and say I saw.
This article in Consumer Reports.
It said, you know your MACRONI and cheese is terrible in the area of tholates.
What are you going to do about it?
So become an engaged and inform and active consumer. Third thing is in every story that we have where we're finding something, we have a link so you can join a petition or we will like let's say for thoalates and food contact surfaces, you can sign our petition and we take that to the FDA, and we take that to these manufacturers and say you need to do something about that. Fourth, write your congress people right and say you represent me in the state of California, you need to do better.
Fifth, what we.
Found is that in sometimes at the state level you can have more success than you can at the federal level.
Luck with that, by the way, before we go, don't wash your chicken.
Don't wash your chicken.
What don't wash your chicken, don't wash your chicken.
So again, if you look at the data from the CDC, et cetera, if you wash your chicken. Number one, you're not going to get any harmful bacteria such as salmonilla, cample bacter off of it because the bacteria go down into the pores of the skin and washing the surface does nothing. Number Two, when you're spraying that chicken in the sink, you're creating a big cloud of mist that may contain salmonilla in it. And if you have your salad greens next to the sink, it's going to fall into your salad greens. You don't cook them. Cooking is a kill step. You can get food poisoning from that. And number three, peop we're not as clean as they really think they are. There's a study out there where they looked at how many times have people washed their hands between fixing the chicken fixing the salad. The numbers did not call inside. They said they washed their hands as much. But if you look at the video, they washed their hands if at all.
Down here.
So there's just no way to really wash your chicken safely. Even though we got a lot of fire on that one, I got a lot of flat where people say, I'm going to wash my chicken. My grandma washed my chicken, my mama wash my chicken. You don't know what you talking about.
Yeah, no, did I hear wash your chicken?
But I've actually think I read recently about washing your chicken with soap. Because no, I don't have to tell you what I.
Can't. Okay, so wait a minute, Wait a minute.
So jeans, you bring how much chicken to make and you just throw in the oven.
That's it.
So what I do is I unveil it in the sink as gently as part.
You unfil you unfail.
And I take it out and you put me with it in the shower.
He's unal music play.
Okay.
I take that plastic bag of that plastic wrap. I immediately put it in the trash can. If there's anything like sometimes you see that slimy stuff on chicken cow and I wipe it all and you.
Yell out driving driving it down right, Okay, it's padding.
You're not you don't want to understanding.
Scared like crazy, you put it in your roasting pan, you season it, you cover it up, and then you make sure you wash your hands and you clean.
That entire circe after today was warm soap and wah oh, now suddenly soap is okay on my chicken. No good, Listen, I know food is your area. I'm gonna ask one off the beaten. This is going to be like asking about the Kennedy assassination. Fifteen years ago. My wife and I brought a person into our house to go through and electromagnetic waves because the cell phone was changing brain waves in the human brain. For a minute of holding the phone by your head would change your brainwave activity for thirty minutes. It was disaster. The cell phones are going to ruin the world. Put them down, don't use them, keep them three feet away. Anything anything on the cell phones anything.
I haven't seen anything, but stay tuned.
Uh.
There has been some discussion. Is that is there anything for us to test in that area? Because I do have product safety under my here you go, remit, yeah, I.
Just acquired them last year.
I'm not as good as product safety person as a food safety person, but I'm learning quickly.
Good And if you if you, if if it's not a problem for you if you can take also have a dish wash, the dishwasher hallway and maybe possibly refrigerator hallway.
We'll get back town.
A couple of I have a have a brand new dishwasher. It does a nice clean. It doesn't dry a thing.
Doesn't do They get pissed off James when you go, I'm thinking of buying our hair dryer.
I does have a.
Pool here that breaks every year every year.
And I don't know. I mean, I'm in the I'm in the market for a car.
You know, we have our huge car testing track up and yeah, that's one of the biggest issues that we publish as cars.
And so I can call anybody up and said.
You know, we got your number, James, information right, and I'd.
Rather you buy a membership to some reports.
Let me tell you something.
This is I promise you I have never not had a membership some reports. My parents had it and I continue to have it this very day. It's it's a fantastic un Then we should know about the dishwasher.
Thing we bought based on the consumer.
Recommended the black dot with a half thing in it or the red dot with the zero around it.
By the way, can you just put.
Without that it's Chevron's Ron is not the dots anymore. That changed about seven years ago.
James Rogers, he's the director of food Safety Research and Testing. Thanks Consumer Reports. It is one of the best makeing the Cools magazine because also they're completely you're completely independent. When you're testing toilets with the balls. You got to buy the toilets and the balls, right.
You would we go to home People or Lowells or wherever, and we get and you'd.
Buy it, and then you give the report, and then you get pushed back from lobbyists.
We're talking ping pong balls, tennis.
Oh my god, you went to toilet marbles.
You know what?
Can you say a phone?
Send them some photos, will you, James? Or he gets off my back with the toilet and the balls thing. James, thank you and I apologie. I apologize, No, thank you for coming on. We really appreciate it, and thanks.
For it was great and it was fun. Thank you for having me.
Well, let me tell you very learned man. He's very nice man. He does very important work.
I'm washing my chicken and if my wife insists, I'm gonna wash it with soap. And you know what else, when you come over, you're gonna eat it.
What do you think of that?
I'm no longer coming to your house because there's a cloud of uncertain there's no cloud coming out.
You know something I never heard of that don't watch.
He had the guy on for a reason. And then let me tell me we're working. And then he tells you. One of the most important things in there is why close.
If he said I should jump off a roof, I should jump off a pretty much. I don't have to do everything, he says.
He's not the boss. And man, you know what I love. It's how you embrace You embrace the new information and change.
Yeah, I question.
I'm a question buddy. Nothing wrong with being a questioner. He said to Salmon that I could go into the pores. What if I take the skin off, if I if I opened it, if I unveil my you know what you did?
I remove all the skin. Now there's no pores. You know, I know you?
You and DA turn your kitshen into an operating.
First of all, the whole thing is in the vest, so we don't cook.
Turn your thing into an operating theater. What seats above and you'll deal with the.
Chick style scrub scrub.
My god, we have so many places. We're dead, We're dead. Do you know any plan containers we have? Of course you have to say today every everything plastic goes out. Well, you know this is a big thing for that. She's really freaked out by this, and I understand that.
I am now freaked up by and I you know, here I am thinking, oh, I'm good.
I'm using the microwave plastic stuff to make my oat meal, and I'm going I'm killing.
I look on the bottom and says microwave safe. You put it in the thing.
Micro it is, it's safe for the microwave.
For me, only part of it melted into the egg. I do this every day. I'm dying. I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead. Spatula, my spatula is going.
But but you know, they don't know yet. I think they don't know. We don't have the research yet on me. You know, we were joking about that, the finding it in your penal tissue. But okay, is it bad?
Lari Larry?
I think you know we were looking at merchandise for items to start selling hatchlic I think we do silicon spatulists specialists I have.
I want to go to David, but I have a feeling we're going to get more information that I'm not going to enjoy.
And he's going to be wearing a fet and he's what's happening?
Where do we go?
Well, actually, my biggest concern is what if you're you're cooking and then somebody comes out and you have your your salmonilla cloud, right, and then someone comes out of the bathroom and then the fecal.
Cloud, which we've met before.
Do they cancel each other out when salmonella meets veicle it's super.
Cloud, you know, supercloud? Do you put them in the toilet like balls in.
Balls in the toilet?
Yes?
Well I was going to test that in my toilet, but Landlord saying no, that wasn't it.
Anyway, I have a recycling quiz for you, because we've been talking about plastics and trying to keep him out of the food and the water and the chickens and the fish.
So here you go.
Recycling quiz.
What percentage of recyclables in the home are put out in bins?
What percentage of potential recyclables in the home?
Yes, exactly, so people use in the home, get in the bin. A fifty percent, B twenty one percent or C four percent.
It's not it's not fIF see I say one hundred percent. You go with because it gets put out. It isn't getting right.
Yeah right, I'm guessing because it's it's the Jason Alexander school of it's too low.
It can't be.
That's so it's four percent incorrect, it's B twenty one percent.
I was going to say that, Ye tuk myself.
Out of it.
You're playing for a woman in New Jersey. You gotta go with the gut.
One point five million tons of rigid plastics are collected each year.
What percentage of that is turned into something else?
No numbers? A A that was dramatic, boss A.
Seventy five percent, B fifty one percent or C one percent?
Seventy five percent, fifty one percent or one percent?
That is correct.
I'm gonna go withy the schmock.
I'm going in the middle again. Fifty one percent, fifty one percent, Peter.
I'll just just for just for just giggles, here we go one percent correct with one.
Percent to see, I don't understand. We we send twenty one percent.
We were in.
We washed chicken across a cloud. We're incompetent people.
How much plastic waste does the US ship overseas A one million metric tons, b two hundred million metric tons or ce none. The US banned the exportation of recyclements.
I believe it's gonna be so wrong.
See now I'm triple.
I believe it is an ungodlin number of like two hundred million tons, and I.
Believe we got nailed and they said we're not taking it anymore.
So it's zero, it's actually a one million. Now.
The interesting thing though, is, and this is worldwide, this is not just the US. Four hundred million metric tons of plastic are created each year, and and this is a separate number, three hundred and fifty million metric tons are thrown.
Away each year.
So there you go.
Yeah, David, thank you. Wow, I'm so depressed.
The minute I get home, I'm going to the pool table, I'm gathering up the one through nine bowl, putting it in the toilet and see what goes.
Do have a good time with that. And I got a good plumber for you. Everybody. Thank you for joining us on really no, really, no, Really.
There's another episode of Really No Really. He comes to a close. I know you're wondering.
Sure, we may be unintentionally ingesting some odd things, but what are some of the strangest things human beings have eaten on purpose? Well I'll serve that up in a moment, but first let's thank our guest doctor James Rogers. You can find the good doctor on LinkedIn where he is James E. Rogers, PhD, and his work and writings appear on his website Consumer reports dot org. Find all pertinent links in our show notes, our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at Really No Really podcast, And of course you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online at reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some amazing factor story that boggles your mind, share it with us, and if we use it, we will send you a little gift.
Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.
Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and take that bell so you're updated when we release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now the answer to the question what are some of the weirdest things people have intentionally eaten?
A lady named.
Adel Edwards likes to eat the foam cushions of sofas and couches.
She ingests about a pillow sized portion each week by snacking on tiny pieces several times a day, sort of like marshmallows that you sit on.
Vaudeville performer Chaz Chase made a name for himself by eating lit cigarettes and cigars. He claims to have eaten thousands of them over his twenty year vaudeville career.
I guess because he couldn't juggle.
Videos reveal there is an unnamed man in China who apparently eats live bees, and if you can find out his name, I'm sure Peto.
Will pay handsomely.
In nineteen seventy, Leon Sampson won a twenty thousand dollars bet by eating an entire car.
He ground up chunks of the car and mixed it with soup or mashed potato.
No single piece was bigger than a grain of rice, and unfortunately, in the seventies they.
Hadn't invented smart cars. Yet magician Todd ro Ubens is famous for eating light bulbs. What's the secret to this trick, though, you.
May ask, Well, a magician never reveals his secrets in this case, because there isn't one.
He's actually eating light bulbs. And lastly, a man.
Named Michelle Latito is the only person to ever eat an entire airplane. It took him two years from nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty to eat a two seater Cessna. Tiny little bits every time, but all of them either metal, glass, plastic, or rubber. It earned him a bona fide world record and hopefully a lifetime of frequent flyer miles. But in all seriousness, pika is a very real eating disorder, most often affecting children, in which the sufferer is compelled to eat items not meant for human consumption. And if you know someone seemingly suffering from this, please consult a healthcare professional. Really No, Really is a production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment.
