If we know almost nothing about them, we have no idea if they are worse than microplastics and until we do, such headlines are just scaremongering for clicks.
If microplastics are bad, nanoplastics can be reasonably assumed to be worse. The main thing I am thinking about is how a decaying plastic molecule might stay mostly unchanged as a microplastic, but once it becomes a nanoplastic the molecule itself could degrade into more toxic chemicals, perfectly sized to interact with our various receptors in our bodies.
It might be reasonable to assume that for the time being (precautionary principle), but in the end, most plastics are (C2H4)n. The form it can take is limited too, so while it could have effects on endocrine receptors, it would overall be limited.
[edit] I'm dumb sorry, I get it, additives can be more complex and are unknown, I'll read the article next time :/
Still stand by my initial belief, but I shouldn't have been so dismissive.
> “If you go down to the nanoscale the properties of these materials are very different. They’re much more reactive,” he said.
> A 2023 study showed that nanoplastics attracted clumps of a particular protein, called alpha-synuclein, that has been linked to Parkinson’s disease and dementia. This happens in cells in a dish and lab mice.
> Earlier research in zebrafish found that nanoplastics can be passed from Mom to baby via the placenta and can cross the barrier to get into the brains of mice where they damage brain cells and alter the brain’s activity.
> “I don’t know if I’d make a direct link to disease outcome but I will say that pathogenic bacteria really like plastics and so it kind of concentrates those bacteria that can lead to pathologies,” she said.
Humanity has also had a great time making different kinds of plastics, only to discover that they are also penetrating our body at a microscopic scale.
While we don't have the smoking gun yet (i.e. radium jaw), it's at least scary to me, because platics are so pervasive across the population that if a smoking gun DOES emerge, it might be too late. I think the article itself brings up another good example: asbestos.
I get all the jokes about dihydrogen monoxide killing people who breathe it, i.e. drowning, but this is fundamentally different, because we are discovering a thing that is interacting with our bodies in a way that was not historically present throughout evolution. Presumably if we'd evolved in the mist of nano plastics there wouldn't be much cause for worry, because a priori we'd have survived and thrived in its presence.
Even if nano plastics did exist for the last billion years, it wouldn't mean they're safe, just that they don't kill people faster than they can reproduce.
It's amazing how accepting people are of dangerous substances...
(picoplastics taste like gravy.)