A Spoon’s Worth of Plastic

The latest news in microplastics found in the body have weighed in at a “spoon’s worth of plastic.” Because, anything but the metric system, right? Personally, I’m waiting for the the Banana’s worth of plastic. This current observation is twice as much as what was reported in 2016.
I’m not even sure what that means. The weight the article refers to is in micrograms. As I understand, when looking at a mere gram of brain matter, .48% (that is point four eight) of it is plastic. Now I’m not sure how that equates to a spoon’s worth of plastic. What type of spoon? Plastic I assume? I’ve always been told that a paper clip weighs about a gram but I have never ventured to find out for myself. So let’s do that real quick. This standard office paper clip weighs less than a gram. Now let’s weigh this standard plastic spoon – 4 grams. Then I throw the paper clip on the scale with the spoon and it still weighs in at 4 grams. Of course my scale is by no means a calibrated scientific instrument. But you get the point.

What happens when we get too much plastic in our system? What is too much plastic? Is there a point where we become recyclable as a plastic? Oh wait. That wasn’t all it was hyped up to be. Better yet, like Spiderman gained his powers from a spider bite, perhaps if I get enough plastic in me, I can become the origin story of Mister Fantastic.