A Vote for Wool

**artificer** · 1st February 12, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by Pleater

the various supermarkets which have been making dissintegrating carrier bags as part of their 'green' credentials have now decided to stop - which is great as I have had a real problem with carefully separating matching balls of yarn and then storing them together in large containers, only to discover that I have a container full of yarn and white flakes and a problem with identification.

The amount of small plastic debris of all sorts and sizes has been increasing for several decades - even though the manufacturors have been trying to deny the quantities collected on beaches around the UK. That is a separate issue from the plastic containers and items which do not fall apart with time.

That animals of all sizes are also injesting the particles has also been known for some time, but no effort to minimise the quantity entering the environment seems to have been made, and very little investigation into the consequences seems to have been done.

Burning plastic is a recipe for disaster, and the only really effective system seems to be recycling - but so many things are not recyclable. It is a real dilemma.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

All true, and the less said about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch the better.

Man, C'thulhu is going to be pissed, it's almost right above his home. :cthulhusmiley:

**Tobus** · 1st February 12, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by artificer

All true, and the less said about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch the better.

Yikes, I knew it was big, but according to the page you linked, that garbage patch is one and a half times the size of the USA! Unbelievable!

**tundramanq** · 2nd February 12, 07:05 AM

Until the last century dumping in the oceans, rivers and air we breath was standard practice every where, until medicine made the connection between diseases, plagues and other health issues associated with it. A lot of cultures have died off for mysterious reasons throughout history. It is still practiced in third world counties.

**tyger** · 2nd February 12, 10:05 AM

Originally Posted by ForresterModern

.... emphysema.....chronic bronchitis......COPD..........atherosclerosis..... .cancer...........

j

All true.

After getting my DVM, and spending a few years in practice, I returned to school and earned a MS and a PhD. One of the very best courses that I took toward my PhD was physiological biochemistry.

Among many other things, I leared that a major destructive effect of smoking invovles direct inactivation of alpha 1-antitrypsin A1AT).

A1AT protects against neutorophil (a white blood cell) elastase. Essential methionine residues are oxidized to sulfoxide forms, decreasing the enzyme activity by a factor of 2000. This has major effects not only on the lung (COPD, emphysema) but on the liver (cirrhosis) in many patients .

If you smoke, your neutrophils are putting out elastase 24/7. It would be best to quit.

**piperdbh** · 2nd February 12, 10:13 AM

All you scientists are making me think about quitting my thrice-yearly pipe smoking addiction.

**Bugbear** · 2nd February 12, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by piperdbh

All you scientists are making me think about quitting my thrice-yearly pipe smoking addiction.

I'm not a scientist. I did stop smoking several years back, though. Doesn't sound like you're trying hard enough, piperdbh.

I drink coffee in the morning, so that's my vice.

**Woodsheal** · 2nd February 12, 11:15 AM

It's long past time for this thread to be moved from "Historical" to "Miscellaneous"....

**Kilted Karl** · 2nd February 12, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Woodsheal

It's long past time for this thread to be moved from "Historical" to "Miscellaneous"....

Aye,

Karl

**tyger** · 2nd February 12, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by tyger

Among many other things, I leared that a major destructive effect of smoking invovles direct inactivation of alpha 1-antitrypsin A1AT).

Yes, I was working in the shop on a buckle for pidperDBH

, and I got to thinking about it: if I remember correctly (from 1982), smoking elicits a protagonistic/antagnoistic feedback loop that involves the A1AT inhibitor. Now, remember, this is 30 years ago, so there may be some new science that transcends, but you get the point.

Smoking a few won't really hurt. But somewhere a body does cross the line, and that line varies among us bodies.

If there ever was anything 'historical' in this thread, I missed it. It seems that all we have been talking about from the very beginning was non-wool, "pollution", particles, and their known/likely effects on the body, specifically the pulmonary system.

**tyger** · 3rd February 12, 05:51 AM

Got up this morning, thinking (as usual), and said to myself:

"There is no history so true as the present."

I suspect that others have said something much like this.