[HN Gopher] 'Biodegradable' drinking straws contain PFAS
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'Biodegradable' drinking straws contain PFAS
Author : hammock
Score : 103 points
Date : 2022-05-02 21:39 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cen.acs.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (cen.acs.org)
| decremental wrote:
| Great. Ordered some lunch from a kind of hippie dippie place
| today and they gave me one of those straws. Oh well, part of a
| balanced microplastics diet I guess. I'm sure my years of
| drinking bottled water has been far worse for me.
| dynamohk wrote:
| You can buy stainless steel straws. Reusable too.
| verisimi wrote:
| Its worth it - turtles can snort PFAS paper straws, no problem :)
| peanut_worm wrote:
| What would be the effects of a blanket ban on single-use plastic
| food packaging
| hammock wrote:
| From the article:
|
| _> University of Florida toxicologist John Bowden was fascinated
| by the durability of today's paper straws compared with older
| ones that would break down quickly in a drink, and he wanted to
| know whether the new straws' water resistance might come from
| PFAS.
|
| >An analysis detected PFAS "forever chemicals" in 36 out of 38
| brands of plant-based straws tested._
| armchairhacker wrote:
| I got a metal straw which is nice.
|
| The main downside is you have to rinse it, and it comes with a
| brush to clean which I sometimes use. However I haven't ever
| actually noticed it getting dirty. I drink water / tea flavored
| with stevia so it might not be as clean if you drink something
| else.
| lucb1e wrote:
| We have plastic ones and I prefer the texture of those to
| metal. Reusable I mean obviously, not throwaway. Had them for
| years, we use them maybe three times a month (mainly after
| getting takeaway and requesting the drink without those awful
| paper straws) so probably that contributes to longevity. I
| haven't noticed it getting dirty either but we just run it
| through the dishwasher like other cutlery.
|
| Takeaway: plastic isn't bad, just don't waste it, like every
| other resource from planet A...
| crackercrews wrote:
| Other cutlery only needs washing on the outside. How do you
| ensure the straw is also cleaned on the inside?
| kube-system wrote:
| Those metal straws scare me. Every time I see one, I imagine
| tripping or bumping into something with one in my mouth
| crackercrews wrote:
| Accidents are not common. But they're not impossible either.
| [1]
|
| 1: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/woman-dies-after-
| accidentally...
| ulber wrote:
| They definitely need a brushing after smoothies, but apart from
| that I'm not the most worried about bacterial growth inside
| them. They're not used for cooking, so as long as there isn't
| significant biomass inside there it doesn't feel too dangerous
| - bacteria multiplying in food and manufacturing toxins is the
| thing I'm really careful about. I imagine people routinely get
| similar exposure to bacteria from many other sources they don't
| even think about.
| ecmascript wrote:
| I have tried to convince people to not purchase stuff that has
| non-stick properties and / or water resistance in clothes etc.
|
| Unfortunately, people close to me don't care and now this. I have
| also wondered why the new straws are so much better than the old
| paper ones. This makes me so incredibly sad since I really try to
| avoid to purchase stuff with these kinds of chemicals in them
| among others.
|
| Just like one hour ago I was stopping at a fast food restaurant
| and ate, they had these kinds of straws which I imagine contains
| PFAS.
|
| Fuck. Even if you really try it seems you can't avoid it.
| version_five wrote:
| Populism doesn't work. People like to hear easy answers that
| making some first order change couldn't possibly affect anything
| else, and end up supporting leaders that promise these poorly
| thought out changes. It's true for all political stripes. This
| article is as good an example as any, if a minor one. People need
| to be more critical of simple "mandates" that they think will fix
| anything.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _Populism doesn 't work_
|
| By definition, if the way to recognize it is that it sells
| "silver bullets" (pseudosolutions).
| [deleted]
| joshuamoes wrote:
| seems to good to be true... But really I worry where else these
| will appear if we start looking.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Why is the world so obsesed with plastic straws? Are those really
| the most polluting item right now? Why do we not focus rather on
| plastic bottles for eg. soft drinks, which are the only option in
| many markets? Or useless double and triple packaging? Even the
| term "carbon footprint" is used to shift focus from "big oil" to
| "average joe" [0]... how many years of plastic straws is
| equivalent to eg. deepwater horizon oil spil?
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-
| oi...
| version_five wrote:
| What is the value of projecting our collective oil dependence
| onto the companies that provide it? Pretending it's somehow oil
| companies fault while not making any personal changes is
| delusional.
|
| I think focusing on straws is stupid, but so is pretending that
| but for oil companies we'd have no problems
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sub out "oil" for "tobacco" in your comment for a moment.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Our personal choice is to use fuel, because we need energy,
| BPs personal (well, corporate) incompetence was at fault for
| the totally useless (nothing good, no heat, no transport, no
| plastics, just damage to our environment) oil spill in 2010.
|
| So, we, a collective of millions and billions of people are
| being put on pedestal for using straws (if we do, many of us
| don't), while one incompetent company (people there) offsets
| the efforts of literally millions of people.
| version_five wrote:
| I'm not trying to excuse oil spills, but I think it's
| dodging responsibility to base our whole lives around
| drilling a dirty fuel out of the ground and then blame only
| the company when these happen. Using oil entails some risk
| that it's going to contaminate the environment, and we are
| collectively responsible.
| soheil wrote:
| ESG browny points is probably a key component of that. It's
| dangerous to let politicians decide what is considered green.
| There has to be a quantifiably measurable way the impact on the
| environment from any single product is judged. If there isn't a
| clear way to do so then we should refrain from blanket banning
| a product.
| zukzuk wrote:
| Because they are so utterly pointless. Plastic straws are a
| symbol of an almost entirely unnecessary use of plastic.
|
| And that symbolism -- as seems to be the case with just about
| anything with any semblance of symbolic value nowadays -- has
| become politicized and polarized, which in turn has further
| elevated straws' symbolic value for both sides (there's a
| "straw man argument" pun here somewhere).
|
| The right is obsessed with how the left is trying to control
| even the most trivial aspects of everyone's lives, and the left
| is obsessed with how the right would rather selfishly spew
| plastic into the environment than to give up even the most
| trivial conveniences.
|
| This feels like a tension that can exist only in the
| Twitterverse. I really can't imagine pre-internet society
| actually having strong opinions about any of this.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| So is double packaging (eg plastic bottles wrapped in plastic
| to form a "sixpack", on a pallet, wrapped in more plastic, so
| plastic within a plastic within a plastic, prepackaged
| bananas, double packed cosmetics, toothpaste in plastic
| covered cardboard boxes, etc.), and it contributes a lot more
| (by weight of trash) than straws.
|
| But we have basically zero impact on the first, and drinks in
| a plastic bottle are sometimes literally the only choice, and
| no politician dares mention cocacola and walmart, but we all
| get blamed for straws that we maybe use twice a year... in
| mcdonalds.
| burlesona wrote:
| Virtue signaling only works if people can see you do it. So if
| you're a restaurant, how many noticeable things can you do to
| demonstrate you care about the environment without actually
| changing your business model, profits, or unit economics?
| josh_today wrote:
| chmod600 wrote:
| Wouldn't a light coating of oil or wax be enough to keep the
| straw intact for an hour while sipping a beverage?
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Even these new, who-knows-what additive laced straws start
| falling apart after 5-10 minutes.
| robbiep wrote:
| You do realise this article is in fact describing exactly
| what that who-knows-what is, right?
| the_jeremy wrote:
| I don't believe it was an exhaustive list of ingredients,
| only one set of concerning ingredients common to most.
| chmod600 wrote:
| But why? What is the engineering challenge in a cheap tube
| that needs to survive modest collapsing pressure and contact
| with cold water for an hour?
|
| Maybe wax-coated paper, or a thin foil coating on paper, or
| some other kind of plant matter pounded into the right shape,
| or something.
| version_five wrote:
| There is no challenge, we've invented plastic straws. The
| challenge is to use something that the people who are
| worked up about straws do not identify as plastic.
|
| Wax is a hydrocarbon that I believe comes from oil. I don't
| know how it breaks down on the environment but it's not
| immediately clear it's actually "better" than plastic,
| other than maybe not being seen once it falls apart.
| ars wrote:
| Wax defeats the entire purpose of making a paper straw. Oil
| would not stay in the paper.
|
| Just use plastic, it's better for the environment anyway.
| chmod600 wrote:
| Why does wax defeat the purpose of a paper straw? Aren't
| there some biodegradable waxes?
| ars wrote:
| Why are you using a paper straw in the first place? It's so
| it vanishes if you litter it - a wax covered straw is not
| going to do that.
|
| It will eventually biodegrade, but it's going to take a
| long time.
|
| If you are worried about straws getting stuck in animals, a
| wax covered one will also get stuck.
|
| The entire straw ban is the height of stupidity. Just start
| a "don't litter, throw it away" campaign and you'll solve
| 95% of the problem, without creating new ones.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| My favorite part is when the paper straws come individually
| wrapped in plastic.
| ectopod wrote:
| They used to be waxed back in the day. They worked, but if you
| were careless they would collapse. I think it's a reasonable
| trade off, but many people hated them.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i think that's implied in the article, where the researcher
| wonders why the new straws last longer than what i think you're
| asking.
| burlesona wrote:
| So, what I don't understand is chemists and industrial engineers.
| There are highly educated humans somewhere who sat around and
| said, "you know what would sell well right now is straws that
| looked like paper but were actually durable in water," and one of
| them said "oh just coat that stuff in PFAS, it'll work!"
|
| Not only that but the product then got all the way through all
| the other humans required to reach industrial scale manufacture
| and distribution.
|
| So a large number of people decided that it was worth exposing
| other humans to known toxic chemicals[1] to sell a product.
|
| Do the people involved just not care as long as they get paid? Do
| they not believe that chemicals do any harm? Do they think the
| harm is so tiny that it doesn't matter, and the people who are
| concerned are idiots? I genuinely don't understand it.
|
| 1: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects/index.html
| the_jeremy wrote:
| If these chemicals aren't banned in the US, then people are
| going to use that as evidence that they're not harmful at the
| amounts you'd get from using a straw. I'd point more to the
| government if we're trying to assign blame.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| PFAS are ubiquitous in paper food containers too. One weird
| trick to make paper waterproof: coat it in fluoridated
| chemicals!
|
| https://toxicfreefuture.org/new-study-finds-pfas-chemicals-i...
| soheil wrote:
| How many times do we need to learn that absence of evidence is
| not evidence of absence? Anything new that we consume or use as a
| tool to consume food with should be regarded as highly safe.
| Skeptical empiricism is the best way to achieve that.
| robotnikman wrote:
| It seems nearly impossible to avoid these harmful chemicals
| nowadays, they are everywhere. It's very depressing...
| Jupe wrote:
| Just thinking: Is it possible the (probably fast-growth trees)
| used in the production of these straws are the actual source of
| the PFAS chemicals? I mean, they are "forever chemicals".
| Reichhardt wrote:
| Why do we insist on composting or burying so much trash? Let's
| just burn plastic in the same high-temperature facilities common
| across Scandinavia. Plastic and packaging use is still only 5% of
| the oil going up in smoke in engines.
| dataflow wrote:
| How is incinerating supposed to be better than burying (not
| composting)?
|
| Edit: Yes, I obviously understand there's an energy release,
| but is finding yet another way to burn more oil and get carbon
| into the atmosphere really what we need at this point in time?
| ars wrote:
| It's WAY WAY better! The plastic does not accumulate, and you
| get to use the energy embodied in the plastic, instead of
| pumping more oil out of the ground.
|
| It's one of those rare win/win things, with no downsides. Of
| course people won't do it because you have to "recycle" it -
| which is worse for the environment, but it's an emotional
| thing, so don't expect people to listen to reason.
| upwardbound wrote:
| +1. Burying plastic (in a place where it's safe to do so)
| would be a form of carbon sequestration so should be
| considered a positive.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Carbon sequestration isn't necessarily an end goal that is
| necessarily worth extra effort, even if this comment made
| sense beyond that.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Under what logic does "Remove oil from the ground, process
| it into something, and then bury that something" count as
| actual carbon sequestration? You've not removed anything
| from the atmosphere in any plastic cycle I'm aware of, and
| you've used an awful lot of energy in the process of going
| from "ground" to "ground." You'd have been better off, in
| every possible way, just leaving that oil in the ground in
| the first place.
|
| Except for the important way, which is corporate profits.
| upwardbound wrote:
| I agree but the same logic applies to "remove oil from
| the ground, burn it, capture the carbon from the smoke
| using expensive equipment, then bury the smoke" which
| describes all major carbon sequestration plans if I
| understand correctly.
|
| I think that both forms of sequestration (sequestering
| gaseous CO2 (or a solid-stabilized form of it) vs
| sequestering plastic) are worse than not drilling the oil
| to begin with, but better than letting the CO2 end up in
| the air.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Climeworks is doing some work with atmospheric capture
| and sequestration in basalt via underground water
| injection (I believe they site with hydroelectric plants
| which gives them the reinjection well infrastructure
| mostly for free).
|
| You can do the same thing by grinding basalt and
| spreading it on fields, which... given that I live on a
| pile of basalt, might be useful eventually. I keep
| collecting the stuff to make a greenhouse with, though.
|
| It may be better than leaving it in the air, but given
| all the other biological activity of plastic, I'd really
| rather we not use the stuff in the first place at this
| point.
| titzer wrote:
| For one, you can generate electricity. It does produce CO2,
| however, whereas burying sequesters the carbon.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| You get energy out of it instead of wasting that energy.
| Syonyk wrote:
| First, there's a lot of energy in the chemical bonds, so
| depending on how you're incinerating it, you can get some
| useful energy out of it. The Hefty Energy Bag program does
| this - they did a lifecycle analysis on various plastic "end
| of life" paths from "landfill" to "advanced plastic thermal
| decomposition" to "burn it in a cement kiln" - with the last
| one working by far, the best. At last per their analysis. If
| you're offsetting coal use, which is what would otherwise be
| burned in the cement kiln (I believe natural gas and hydrogen
| don't emit enough radiation because of their lack of carbons
| to be as useful), great.
|
| Second, done properly (insert a lot of observations about
| combustion temperature here), it ends up as nothing worse
| than CO2, nitrogen, water, etc at the exhaust stack. Given
| how horribly bioreactive plastics tend to be, and their
| tendency to erode into microplastics given half an
| opportunity, this is roughly the "Flare the methane to CO2
| because it's far less bad" end of plastic compared to burying
| it, which, at _some_ point in the future, stands good odds of
| being uncovered - perhaps by a group that doesn 't understand
| just how nasty the stuff really is.
|
| If your takeaway is "There don't sound like any great ways to
| deal with plastic," good. Because there aren't.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| It prevents the plastics from entering the environment.
|
| Plastics are a material with no effective bio-degredation
| process so we should destroy it rather than return it to the
| environment. Otherwise we're just delaying cleanup.
|
| Incineration destroys these unnatural carbon chains and
| returns the materials to a state usable by natural life.
| ars wrote:
| People are obsessed with "recycling" plastic, instead of doing
| the right thing and burning it for energy. It's some kind of
| emotional "I'm not wasting it" thing.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| scientists recently found microplastics in rain and human
| blood... so let's not burn them unless the exhaust is heavily
| filtered
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