Things That Make Me Go "Hmmmm". . .

 Microplastics in the water supply.  It's a topic of more than one news article/news report in recent months.

And yet, advertisements for laundry detergent pods and dishwasher detergent pods abound.  Everybody seems to love them.  So convenient and easy to use.

Hello?  If we are alarmed by the scientific findings of microplastics in our water (and in our own body tissues), why are we using these handy pre-measured plastic-wrapped (a coating that 'dissolves' in water) things rather than scooping/measuring/pouring out powdered or liquid detergents ourselves?  Do we not wonder just where this 'dissolved' plastic from these pods goes to?

Things that do down the drain, be it the sink drain, toilet drain, shower drain, drain on the washing machine, don't just magically disappear.  They still exist.  

Maybe their existence is not something people on municipal water and sewer systems thing about?  At least, not as much as the people with private wells and septic systems they have to keep maintained think? 

Then again, I'm amazed at how many people who do have septic systems at their homes but don't have the foggiest idea what is 'good' to put down the drain and what is harmful to the septic system.  Can bacteria eat it, get nutrients from it, and easily break it down to a liquid?  That's generally 'good'.  Is it hard to dissolve/not organic and doesn't get eaten by bacteria?  That's gonna be a septic issue sooner or later that you'd rather not have to deal with.

And plastic?  It may dissolve, somewhat, in order for the contents of those little pods to be accessible for your washing machine and your dishwasher to clean your clothes or your dishes with.  But it's still in the water going down the drain.  And it's not nutritious for bacteria, even if they do try to ingest it.  While there, purportedly, are bacteria that do eat and 'break down' plastics into even smaller plastic particles, not all bacteria do.  And what eats, digests, or otherwise totally gets rid of those even smaller plastic particles that are the waste product of the plastic eating bacteria?

Hmmmm.  My brain hurts.  For decades, if not even a full century at this point, people got along just fine having to measure out their detergents.  It's really not that difficult.  So why can't we all just go back to doing that?  Probably, at this point in the big plastic-in-the-environment picture, it won't make a huge difference, but it would stop continuing addition of plastics into the water supply from that source.  Little things count.