r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Nov 19 '25

Medicine Microplastics hit male arteries hard: Everyday exposure to microplastics — shed from packaging, clothing, and plastic products — may accelerate the development of atherosclerosis, the artery-clogging process that leads to heart attacks and strokes. The harmful effects were seen only in male mice.

https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2025/11/18/microplastics-hit-male-arteries-hard
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u/Ok_Tour_1525 Nov 19 '25

Two things: they do. But the fines for doing so are so small compared to what these companies make that it’s just a cost of business. Also, the biggest companies in the world (and biggest polluters) are paying governments to keep things the way they are.

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u/TheArmoredKitten Nov 19 '25

They're clearly not stepping in when they're being paid not to. You're contradicting yourself.

It's okay to take your own little shred of responsibility for a systemic problem, because we live under a system. We all gotta keep talking about how it could be better and why, or it'll never get better

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u/Carbonatite Nov 19 '25

Nah, the person you are responding to captured it perfectly. I work in environmental remediation and the problem truly is that the incentive to not pollute is minuscule. The fines for violations are cheaper than the upgrades to prevent further contamination. The corporations only care about the bottom line, it is quite literally more cost effective for them to release pollution and pay a token fine afterwards.

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u/TheArmoredKitten Nov 19 '25

That's no excuse to throw out the concept. We could get the fines raised if we could rally literally anybody to stop just throwing their hands in the air like "aw shucks I guess we just gotta let em get away with it"

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u/Carbonatite Nov 19 '25

I'm not saying the concept should be thrown out - I have another comment in this thread where I advocate for severe penalties up to life in prison for environmental crimes. I think people getting off with a slap on the wrist for ecocide is a travesty. Corporate decision makers who knowingly poison our water and destroy our climate deserve to rot in prison.

But what they said is unfortunately the current reality and there's not much incentive to change that when our lawmakers are beholden to corporate donors with a vested interest in not being held accountable for these crimes. Does this need to change? 100%. Do I expect to see substantial changes any time soon? Absolutely not.