Microplastics are Everywhere – Except in Our Biodegradable Golf Balls!

A news feature from Nature.com has been making waves and getting a lot of international attention. Microplastics are always something that is on our minds here at Biodegradable Golf Balls. Regular golf balls that are lost in the environment break down slowly and contribute to the current microplastic pollution problem. Biodegradable Golf Balls on the other hand contain zero plastics. We always knew plastics discarded into the environment were not good news, but some of the current research done on the topic of microplastics really had us thinking we are in the right business for the right reasons.

The news feature was called “Microplastics are everywhere — but are they harmful?” (hint they sure are!) had some seriously stark revelations for the world.

Microplastics are extremely small pieces of plastic debris that make their way into the environment, and eventually into animals and into us. We are talking about little plastic particles 5 millimetres or smaller, a sesame seed is about 5 millimetres. They come from plastic that is broken down when exposed to the elements. Some come from when certain plastics are exposed to heat. Others like microbeads are made that way!

Microplastics were everywhere. From the deepest depths of the ocean to the snow of the Artic there weren’t many places researchers couldn’t find microplastics. The scale of the problem was also staggering the estimates in the range of” 15 trillion and 51 trillion microplastic particles” in the water on this planet! They also estimate that we might be ingesting up to 100,000 of these per person per day!

The harm to us, wildlife and the ecosystem is something that we are only beginning to understand. Some are small enough

to get into cells and could cause issues similar to that of asbestos.  Others are thought to cause hormonal disruption. Some marine animals have been known to ingest so much plastic that it displaces regular food and causes them to go hungry while feeling full. Laboratory studies indicate eggs and young development are harmed when in environments high in microplastics, and adult reproduction is also negatively affected.

Luckily the levels and effects are still at their early stages and if we act now we can

work together to prevent more plastics from entering our ecosystem. Biodegradable Golf Balls are one part of a full solution to the problem! Each year thousands of regular golf balls find themselves in the drink or lost to never be recovered. They take hundreds of years to break down and little by little shed tiny microplastics into the ecosystem. Biodegradable Golf Balls contain zero plastic and break down within days and not years. They shed no plastics and contain none of the toxic chemicals found in regular golf balls.

The source used for this blogpost  is “Microplastics are everywhere — but are they harmful” (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01143-3)

Categorised in: Interesting News

This post was written by dyllan