The Microplastics Crisis Is Worse Than You Think

0:03Welcome to Super Life with me, Darin Olien, a podcast where we explore, discover, and share solutions that promote a healthier life and a better world.

0:13Darin Olien:Together, we'll ignite possibilities, inspire change, and build sovereignty, creating a roadmap towards a super life for you and for all. Get ready to start living your super life.

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2:12Darin Olien:Welcome to the show. This is Darren Olin. This is the Super Life Podcast. I'm stoked you're here. I'm committed to you. I'm committed to you to having a clean life, a life on a mission of creating your dream life. That's why I'm here. And today I'm going to dive into some fatal conveniences that are emerging, that are good, because when you have awareness, you can then do something about it. For years, I've been warning you about plastic in water, right? So I've been telling you, hey man, filter your water, all that stuff. We're going to get into that as well. Well, the government finally just hit the panic button.

2:50Darin Olien:In the last few days, they officially flagged microplastics as a priority contaminant. And they threw over$100 million at a desperate plan to try to figure this out. And to help us, to help our brains, help our blood. It's getting everywhere. The emergency here is, it's a problem. And plastics have been around for a long time and they don't break down, they just accumulate. So let's talk about how to protect you and your family. Single-use plastic water bottles and industrial runoff have created this reality more than anything else. And it's now in our drinking water. It's trash that we're drinking.

3:36Darin Olien:Let that sink in for a little bit. On April 3rd, a few days ago, well, when I'm recording this, on April 3rd, 2026, the EPA finally put microplastics on their draft list of priority contaminants. Simultaneously, Health and Human Services announced the STOMP initiative, a$144 million project to detect and remove microplastics from the human body. Noting that these particles are being found in babies, in babies' bodies, and human brains, along with a lot of other tissue. And we don't even know the full extent of these. And we also don't even realize the interaction they're having with other contaminants in our modern day world.

4:31Darin Olien:Which is why I wrote Fatal Conveniences. Please inform yourself. Get Fatal Conveniences the book. Use it as a resource to move forward on a clean way of living. That is my ruthless plug. I'm doing it because it's an issue. I'm doing it because my dad suffered from it. I'm doing it because I learned about it 30 years ago. We need to self-inform so that we can change the reality that's affecting us. The science. Some of it. We aren't just talking about large pieces of plastic. Size matters. Nanoplastics are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier. The BBB. You do not want things that are not supposed to be in your brain crossing that barrier, entering your brain.

5:23Darin Olien:Because plastics keep breaking down, keep in mind, plastics are a slew of chemicals and petroleum. They keep breaking down. They are gnarly. They're not supposed to be in the body. Once inside the body, these plastics act as endocrine disruptors, fatigue, lack of estrogen balance, testosterone balance, contributing potentially to endometriosis, pregnancy issues, both male and female, you name it, this is a big problem. They mess with your hormones. They cause massive gastrointestinal inflammation. And who knows, you're trying to fix this stuff. And all the while, you're being hit by microplastics added up over time.

6:11Darin Olien:This is how it all happens. So these things, again, carry other toxic hitchhikers because they were created from a chemical slough starting with petroleum. This is not a good thing. The also connection that we do not want in our body is PFAS. This forever chemical is a massive, massive crisis, which is ravaging well water as well as municipalities across our country and other countries and is directly linked to high cholesterol, cancers, immune disorders, and you name it. Okay, these things, it's the Wild West and creating a slew of problems. So what can we do? The number one rule, stop drinking out of single-use plastic bottles right now.

7:04Darin Olien:Stop it. You know, listen, when I go into the airport, number one, you can get water through TSA if you say it's medical grade. Buy a glass bottle of water ahead of time. Say it's medical grade water and TSA most likely, most of the time, 99 % of the time, we'll let you go through. That's what you can do. Be proactive. Number one, you know, I'm absolutely obsessed with what I put in my body. And by the way, you should too. However, the NAD market is certainly exploding right now. And here's the shocking truth. Independent tests showed that 87 % of the supplements, the NR supplements, which is the precursor for NAD, had not what they advertised in it.

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8:49So why would you gamble with your health with people that aren't supporting it with their own tests? Support the companies that are supporting you. So all you have to do is go to trueniogen.com. Use the promo code Darren20 and you get 20 % off. That's Darren20TrueNiogen.com

9:36Darin Olien:This is an emergency. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but I mean to sound dramatic. You have to filter your water. This is a must. A high quality reverse osmosis filter or distillation. I use a reverse osmosis filter from AquaTrue. Use them for years. I travel with the damn thing. and then replace those filters every six months or so. Get a glass bottle. I have a, it just happened for your convenience. I have a super life blue glass bottle you can travel with, you could take with everywhere. Now you don't have that damn plastic bottle. Be the creator of your life. Don't be the victim of it. This is what this is all about.

10:23Darin Olien:Reverse osmosis water removes microplastics and fuss to the best of our ability, that's what it's removing. Also, emerging evidence shows that there's ways to induce detoxification of these nano microplastics. Of course, sweating daily. I sweat daily with a dry sauna as well as my Therisage infrared sauna. These things are great every day. The other great argument for a rich plant-based meal is because of the fiber. Fiber seems to be binding to these chemicals and bringing it out of the body. Plant-rich diets eat more fiber, excretes more toxins. Beta-glucans, medicinal mushrooms, beta-glucans from medicinal mushrooms, that seems to be emerging evidence too.

11:23Darin Olien:So what are scientists, what are we doing? Okay, we hear an announcement from the government. I don't hold my breath on that stuff. Okay, cool. You're taking$100 million,$144 million. You're putting effort into it. Great. If I had that money, I would have this done yesterday. I understand. It's not easy. But researchers are finding that specific strains of bacteria and fungus that produce enzymes are capable of breaking down these tough polymers and these tough polymer chains of plastics like PET and PE. This current research focuses on turning these microbes into working faster and better for us.

12:10Darin Olien:How great is that? And putting those microbes that are non-toxic, we put them in the ocean and they start to break down microplastics. Start to get those out of, isolate them and then get them out of the ocean in a variety of ways. But at least they bind to them. And there's another emerging research around plant-based foculants. Scientists are using extracts. This is incredible. I just read this the other day. extracts plant extracts from okra and fenugreek these are naturally naturally kind of oozy and goozy substances they act as act as these foculents that are causing microplastics to clump together in larger masses then they can be easily skimmed now this research think about this If you have this station in a municipality, it's then accumulating, binding to the microplastics to have a stage at the municipality level to take this out because it makes it bigger and then you can take it out.

13:16Darin Olien:So all these things, all this science needs to be supported in understanding. There's also a thing called bio sponges. It's a new green filter that's being developed by nanocellulose and chitosin. Chitosin is derived from crustacean shells. These act as sponges having massive surface area that can trap up to 98 % of the microplastics through absorption. There's also magnetic separation, which I thought was interesting. One innovation method involves adding magnetic nano coils or iron oxide particles to water. These particles bind to the microplastics, allowing scientists to use magnex. Now listen, we're getting into metals.

14:06Darin Olien:I get it. That doesn't sound the greatest way to do it anyway. Some of the other ones, but I'm just giving you information. People are working on it. We just need the right people, the right resources to get this at scale. There's also in the laundry side of things, there's microfiber catchers. So there's AI-assisted filtration systems at commercial levels that from, because listen, you know now that clothing is microplastics, not the clothing that I have on right now, because I get it from industry of all nations. It's 100 % organic. I get all my clothes. 99 % of my clothes now have been transitioned to industry of all nations.

14:49Darin Olien:And then, of course, my buddy Jeff Garner, who makes some clothes for me every once in a while. But I don't put microplastics on my skin. So when we do laundry, 50 ,000 at least just from a pair of jeans of microplastics are going back into the environment. So there is filtration systems that are being used now, developed in your laundry. Laundry, a new 2026 regulation is also in certain regions around the world are demanding that this happens. And then there's a AI, weirdly an AI assisted filtration system at commercial levels for residential as well as commercial laundry units to catch fibers before they reach the sewer.

15:34Darin Olien:It's really cool stuff. photocatalytics. This is involving light-activated catalysts that can, when you're exposed to sunlight, can create chemical reactions that break plastics down into harmless components. There's some good research into this. We just need this faster. We need this at scale. There's also a boiling method. A significant study released in 2024-2025 confirmed that boiling hard tap water can remove up to 90 % of microplastics. As the water boils, calcium carbonate that is naturally in most water forms and encrusts the microplastics and which then sink to the bottom then can be caught with just a coffee filter.

16:22Darin Olien:So if you find yourself in a situation, boil the water and run it through a coffee filter, obviously you want one that's not dyed or bleached or something like that because then you're also opening up to that. The point is here is you can do what you can do right now. Filter all your water, get a good reverse osmosis filter, go to superlife.com, go to AquaTrue under my marketplace and you are getting hundreds of dollars of discount for your countertop or under the counter counter filter system and you can empower yourself. Get a blue glass bottle also off of the website. Get a glass bottle. Get it for one of your entire family.

17:02Darin Olien:And now all of a sudden, no one's getting microplastics. You can control that at home. And you are 95 % there. Plan ahead. Fill up water bottles before you leave. Take a backpack. You know what I'm saying? You can do this. Doesn't have to be scary. Okay, that's it. We're moving forward in the right direction. But you always have choice. You always have sovereignty. Make sure you get it going and take action on these solutions. Peace. I love you. Super life, baby.