Now someone tell me why this will never become a thing… like all other good news.
As always with most things in our capitalist society, it’s better for shareholders if general population injests microplastics than for them to spend money on products to prevent it. Capitalism only spends money on things that bring profit, not to make a world a better place. If while making that profit the world becomes a better place, that’s a marketing win.
If this can be commercialized into an at-home filter that’s easy to install and use, you can absolutely bet that this would be advertised to hell and back and make a fuckton of money from people convinced of the absolute need to filter out microplastics.
Of course, no direct adverse health effects have ever been proved from them, but wouldn’t you pay $30 for a filter, just in case? I guarantee you millions of people would.
The shareholders don’t want you to become living plastic; they want you to buy shit, and this is a very obvious product that would make a lot of money.
Microplastics and other pollutants from plastics production are endocrine disruptors This is believed to affect your metabolism, body temperature, fertility, thyroid and immune system. Co-pollutants from plastic exposure such as heavy metals have extensive and well known health effects. PVC (found in residential plumbing and consumer goods such as vinyl records) are notoriously toxic and off gas for years, releasing several potent carcinogens and heavy metals into the environment. Source 1 source 2
Microplastics, and several types of plastics in general, are well understood to have significant health effects.
This tech is literally trash bathed in leaf sauce. Even if someone would patent it it’s like you tried to patent a herbal tea - yea, you may try and maybe win, but every farmer and their mom will brew one themselves from loosely scattered weeds.
So after a short thought it means it’s going to be a massive, profitable venture for someone, because people are actually dumb enough to pay tens of $ for a handful of sawdust and reasonably pure tannic acid if it comes with a fancy cap and in a gray cardboard box.