According to Webster, Stockholm syndrome is a coping mechanism that captive individuals use to help them through stressful and abusive situations. People develop positive feelings toward their captors or abusers over time, allowing them to deal with the pain and horrific reality in which they find themselves. You’ll hear about this phenomenon even in the most egregious and foul situations, often involving things like child abuse, coach-athlete abuse, relationship abuse and sex trafficking.

It seems that a strange Stockholm syndrome has developed now between humans and plastic. With word this week that researchers have found microplastics in breast milk, you might expect the general public to be up in arms, to be angry at the situation. You might think there would be an outcry over this literal invasion of the human body and immediate steps taken to find a solution.

Plastic has been found from the summit of Everest to the bottom of the deepest ocean trenches and microplastics have been identified in human blood, lungs, feces and now in breast milk. Plastic has a hold on every one of us, it is the masked gunman that threatens our lives daily, and it seems like we have gotten comfortable with this reality. We love the convenience of it all, don’t we? When news like this comes and goes without too much fanfare, it seems obvious that we are prepared to love it to death.