[HN Gopher] Plastic chemical phthalate causes DNA breakage, chro...
___________________________________________________________________
Plastic chemical phthalate causes DNA breakage, chromosome defects,
study finds
Author : Jimmc414
Score : 194 points
Date : 2024-10-25 13:59 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medicalxpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medicalxpress.com)
| ssijak wrote:
| Why are we not considering banning plastics in most household
| items?
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Because it would drive prices of basic household goods up 400%
| and make low and middle income families vastly poorer.
|
| I'm all for pushing back on chemicals wherever possible,
| especially in food packaging, but let's be real.
| alyandon wrote:
| I try to avoid reheating things in plastic containers. It's
| about the only thing I can think of I can do as a consumer to
| reduce the risk of chemicals leeching into the food.
| milch wrote:
| There are "bulk" stores that have no packaging and you fill
| up what you need into reusable containers that you either buy
| or bring yourself. They generally have common bulk items like
| flour but also lots of options for typical grocery store
| fare. The prices at those stores generally aren't 400% of
| what they are at a regular grocery store, and if they are
| higher I'm sure a large part is that this is a niche kind of
| store rather than how everyone gets their groceries.
|
| That's obviously not the whole supply chain, and I'm sure
| many goods still arrive at that kind of store in plastic, but
| these tend to be run by the types that avoid plastic anyway
| so whatever they can get in reusable packaging I'm sure they
| are getting wrapped in something other than plastic. Anyway,
| if plastic is going to be used, the exposure from a single
| 100lbs bag of something that you refill into a container is
| probably vastly lower than from 100 individually wrapped 1lbs
| bags
| mrob wrote:
| That kind of thing only works in a high trust society.
| Given the choice, I'm not going to buy food from bulk bins
| where some stranger could have contaminated them, whether
| by malice or incompetence.
| vundercind wrote:
| I think furniture and carpet would get it worse than most
| stuff. The alternatives to plastic (largely glass) in other
| cases are more like 20-50% more expensive, but furniture?
| Carpet? Solid wood and wool, leather--god, I dunno what you'd
| even use for cushion fill that'd last anywhere near as long.
| Those are closer to 400% the price of synthetic stuff. Or
| more.
| maxwell wrote:
| Pine. Oak. Jute. Bamboo.
| reissbaker wrote:
| FYI, bamboo is usually actually:
|
| 1. Some actual bamboo that has been processed to remove
| starches and sugars
|
| 2. Mixed with incredible amounts of chemical glues (some
| of which include BPA)
|
| Most bamboo products are at least as suspicious to me as
| plastic.
| cyberax wrote:
| All the bamboo flooring products are engineered (in other
| words). Oak is great for flooring, but it's impractically
| heavy for the furniture.
| jabl wrote:
| > I dunno what you'd even use for cushion fill that'd last
| anywhere near as long. Those are closer to 400% the price
| of synthetic stuff. Or more.
|
| AFAIU natural latex is an alternative to the ubiquitous
| polyurethane foam, and lasts longer. Quite pricey though.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I'm all for pushing back on chemicals wherever possible,
| especially in food packaging, but let's be real.
|
| The devil is that food that comes pre-packed under vacuum or
| inert atmosphere in plastics lasts much, _much_ longer than
| food that gets stored in anything else - including tin cans
| by the way, they 're all lined with plastics because acidic
| food would otherwise literally eat away the can.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| Jars can be refilled. I think things would actually get
| cheaper.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| > would drive prices of basic household goods up 400%
|
| Glass is nominally more expensive and works. Our go-to food
| storage is mason jars. $12/dozen, probably cheaper by volume
| than the plastic crap on the shelves at Target or Walmart.
| haccount wrote:
| A bottle of wine by mass is ballpark 50% glass and 50%
| wine. A one liter glass jar of olives around 300 grams of
| glass.
|
| So it's not merely packaging cost but also about
| convenience of shipping it around.
|
| That said we still manage to ship both of those all over
| the world despite the unfavorable mass and relative
| sensitivity of their packaging.
|
| The jar of olives however have plastic liner in the jar
| lid, so you're not escaping plastics anyway. The solution
| as I see it is to use the right plastics in the right way
| and ensure proper disposal of the waste.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| Wine and olives also cost more than milk and eggs. You
| can package milk in glass bottle 5 percent of the weight
| of the product made at thousands of degrees from burning
| fossil fuels or you can package it in an inert HDPE
| container, that is processed at several hundred degrees
| and weighs say 0.5% of the product contained within.
| lighter packaging means less fuel burned to ship it.
| Lower processing temperatures means less fuel burned to
| make it. Ethylene polymerized into plastic for milk jugs
| doesn't end up in the air as CO2. Plastic feed stocks
| directly compete with fuel feed stocks. The less fuel we
| need to burn to ship things the more carbon is kept out
| of the atmosphere and the more carbon made into plastic
| that is stable when buried for thousands of years the
| less ends up in the air. You can make a lighter foam egg
| carton for less cost, that better protects the eggs than
| a paper one. Paper is no more a natural material than
| plastic. The manufacturing process releases hydrogen
| sulfide, contaminates water and when the paper rots the
| toxic dyes in ink printed on it is unbound and free to
| leach into the environment. Paper cups are coated with
| persistent waxed and plastics that migrate once the cup
| that supported them is gone. White paper products are
| bleached and brown paper is produced with harmful
| chemicals including even flame retardants at times. What
| is cheapest, lightest and most stable is usually also the
| most environmentally friendly thing.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Only certain plastics contain phthalates.
|
| There aren't any in polypropylene plastic, polyethylene plastic
| or polycarbonates.
|
| I'm sympathetic, less plastic is probably good - it does have
| to be a well thought through change. If the change reduces
| safety, or if it gets manufacturers to switch to a worse risk
| profile product, we could be net worse off.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| Sadly I found a study at
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3222987/ saying that
| many polypropylene polyethylene products release estrogenic
| chemicals (IDK if it's the same as phthalate) likely from
| additives, including when bent/deformed. And polycarbonates
| are infamously _made_ of polymerized BPA and similar
| chemicals (usually endocrine disruptors).
| arcticbull wrote:
| Thanks for sharing the study. I will say the made-from
| argument is less compelling since table salt is made from
| sodium (explosive) and chlorine (chemical warfare agent)
| and yet it's pretty yummy. So long as it doesn't degrade,
| that's not super problematic. However the study I will
| read.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| Polycarbonates have been known to leach from BPA
| (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/bpa-
| chemica...), I don't know if they've tightened up
| manufacturing or switched to non-estrogenic or non-
| bioactive chemicals since then.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Because they are very useful. And in general have great
| properties. You known weight, resiliency, price and so on.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Look at all of the bottles/containers in your bath/shower.
| Would you really want glass in a wet slippery area? Metal
| containers?
| Dig1t wrote:
| I mean, you could make a simple and cheap bottle out of
| aluminum probably? We had shampoo before the widespread usage
| of plastic bottles, though you are right that they used to
| come in glass. Perhaps we could use that fancy unbreakable
| soviet glass.
|
| Sounds like a good business idea actually..
|
| Edit: Actually thinking about it, that really is a good
| business idea. If anyone wants to build that business with
| me, email me at the address in my bio.
| maeil wrote:
| These exist for cosmetics[1], though the pump is still
| plastic. Would work fine for other shower products too.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Calvin-Klein-one-Skin-
| Moisturizer/dp/...
| dylan604 wrote:
| You just have to convince the vast majority of people that
| the extra expense of the container is worth it to them.
|
| I have taken a very unscientific poll, and a very few
| number of people would want glass containers. You have to
| realize that people commenting on HN are not the mass
| public. The polls I've done were just asking during
| specific skincare product related conversations. The vast
| majority were onboard for paraben/phthalate free products
| made from plant based ingredients, but the no plastic issue
| was not something people felt strongly about at all.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| You mean like perfume and cosmetics? Sturdy glass with
| carpets near the bathroom sink and the shower will do the
| trick. I'll take a few cuts through my life over cancer and
| chronic diseases.
| mrob wrote:
| >carpets near the bathroom sink and the shower
|
| Now every spillage is a potential mold growth problem,
| which is also bad to inhale.
| peterb0yd wrote:
| I use bar soaps for everything. Ethique is an amazing brand.
| https://ethique.com/
| ssijak wrote:
| yes, I would. thick glass is great and cant break easily if
| it is smaller container. there is also stainless steel and
| other materials.
|
| plastic was invented 100 years ago. people did just fine in
| the house without it.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| People also survived without antibiotics and electricity in
| past. Electricity generation is a far bigger environmental
| load than plastic. By your logic we should revert to
| burning candles. Even windmills and solar panels are made
| from toxic chemicals. Everything in life has its tradeoffs.
| It is not responsible to use a one sided mass hysteria to
| impose a lower standard of living on people when it is not
| clear what the quantifiable harm the technological
| innovation that is plastics is to justify doing so. Many
| things are toxic in the right dose but the dose makes the
| poison. Making policy without considering tradeoffs is the
| road to Idiocracy and watering plants with Brawndo.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| bar soaps and shampoos exist. They just aren't popular. They
| also weigh MUCH less when transported than a plastic bottle
| full of liquid.
|
| plastic containers for perfume and cosmetics don't bother me.
| beauty products tend to last much longer than soap anyway.
| krunck wrote:
| "They [phthalates] are used primarily to soften polyvinyl
| chloride (PVC). " [1]
|
| PVC is used in water pipes, bottles, packaging films, blister
| packs, cling wraps, and seals on metal lids.[2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalates [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_chloride#Application...
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Also quite commonly used as a fragrance enhancer.
| jackyinger wrote:
| That's horrifying. But thanks for pointing that out, now
| I've got a real reason to dislike artificial odors ("air
| fresheners")
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| PVC is also commonly used in 3D printing, with very pungent
| fumes.
| Filligree wrote:
| Professional 3D printing, perhaps. I imagine it's a common
| engineering plastic.
|
| Home 3D printing fortunately uses mostly PLA, which is
| biodegradable. Though I'm unsure how degradable it'd be
| inside your lungs.
| afh1 wrote:
| >PVC water pipes
|
| This is the most relevant one IMO. You can buy glass cups and
| jars, it doesn't matter if the water you put into them comes
| through PVC pipes! Even if you buy BPA-free phthalate-free
| bottled water, I think it's safe to assume that at one point
| that water went through several meters of PVC pipes to get to
| that bottle!
|
| PVC water pipes must be ubiquitous nowadays, and are
| certainly better than the older copper alternative, which in
| turn is better than the older lead alternative!
|
| Maybe the next step is special PVC for water piping. Until
| then I guess we're better than we have ever been, water
| piping-wise.
| mrob wrote:
| Water pipes are made from rigid, unplasticized PVC. It's
| only flexible PVC (e.g. cable insulation) that contains
| plasticizers.
| afh1 wrote:
| Well, great, then!
| morpheos137 wrote:
| Yeah as long as you're not chewing or extension cords you
| should be good.
|
| The most common water pipe in new construction is cross
| linked polyethylene. XLPE. It is stable, inert, and
| contains no plasticizers. PVC is often used for sewage
| drain pipes. Like the parent said it is the rigid
| crystalline kind typically containing minimal
| plasticizers tightly bound within the crystal matrix.
| hedgehog wrote:
| It depends. Leaching from cold water passing through a pipe
| for a few seconds is a lot different from a water bottle
| that might be in a backpack or warm car most of a day.
| hammock wrote:
| Just about any kind of flexible or soft-ish plastic you
| encounter as a consumer that is not PET (soda bottles,
| plastic bags, polyester) is going to have phthalates in it.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| see "Green Chemistry" in the USA about 20 years ago.. science
| was well-developed.. also "Body Burden" search term.. largely
| stone-walled at the politics level.
|
| "Product liability is a third-rail in American politics" yes
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| We should also ban plants while we are at it, since there are
| only a few letters of difference.
|
| In other words: Banning certain types of plastics makes sense
| and we do that all the time. Banning "plastics" is about as
| sensible as banning dihydrogenmonoxide.
| ugh123 wrote:
| Also used in sex toys
| mschuster91 wrote:
| These are mostly made of silicon based plastics, glass or metal
| and by definition don't have that much exposure time to the
| user's body.
| ugh123 wrote:
| Of course i'm not referring to toys made from glass or metal.
|
| > Prior material analyses of sex toys like those
| characterized here revealed phthalate concentrations in most
| tested products at concentrations ranging from 24-60% by
| weight [11, 14, 15]. In addition, there is growing concern
| over human exposure to micro-and nano-plastics. The
| translocation and biouptake of nano-sized particles is now
| well established [16]. Human exposure to nanoplastics and the
| potential for enhanced release of plastic additives are of
| potential concern.
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10034881/#:~:text=P.
| ...
| sktrdie wrote:
| Apart from food packaging, one great way to easily ingest plastic
| is to use synthetic clothing. Just a basic rubbing of a synthetic
| sleeve on your nose causes thousands of polyester particles to
| release in thin air, readily breathable.
|
| Not just clothing, but also bedding is a huge issue. With
| pillows, mattresses and towels mostly made of synthetic fibers.
|
| My usual instinct is: try rubbing the synthetic material; if it
| releases thousands of particles in thin air, stay away from it
| buildbot wrote:
| I hate how normalized this is. Breathing in a difficult to
| break down plastic dust is not something that seems healthy.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Nitpick:
|
| All else being equal you're generally safer being exposed to
| stable things that don't break down than unstable things that
| happily react with all sorts of things (and tend to meddle
| with the chemical processes required for life).
|
| If you get to choose between breathing tires and milk jugs
| pick the milk jugs every time.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > All else being equal you're generally safer being exposed
| to stable things that don't break down than unstable things
| that happily react with all sorts of things
|
| Unless the other thing is asbestos or generally any kind of
| mineral/anorganic material - pneumoconiosis [1] is nasty in
| all its variants. There is no mechanism _at all_ for your
| body to break down or expel anorganic contaminants in your
| lungs.
|
| > If you get to choose between breathing tires and milk
| jugs pick the milk jugs every time.
|
| Well, plastic, glass or metal, no matter what the jugs are
| made of, they'll hurt your lungs just like the tire dust
| will.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumoconiosis
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Unless the other thing is asbestos or generally any kind
| of mineral/anorganic material - pneumoconiosis [1] is
| nasty in all its variants. There is no mechanism at all
| for your body to break down or expel anorganic
| contaminants in your lungs.
|
| Yup. I was thinking of heading off comments like yours by
| mentioning silicosis or lead poisoning but didn't want to
| clutter up a simple clarification.
|
| Anyway, still mostly safer than "happy to react with
| things" compounds which is why people like you get to
| make comments about it here and now vs it simply being a
| thing everyone has accepted is not good to breath for
| hundreds of years (like certain wood dusts)
| webstrand wrote:
| > There is no mechanism at all
|
| I think that's somewhat misleading, the lung has a mucus
| layer and cilia to move particles caught in the mucus up
| and out. But I'll agree that it's not a completely robust
| system. Anything that gets past or can't be moved by the
| mucus layer is going to be a problem, especially
| particles that can't be broken down by the macrophages.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Aren't they both plastic?
| klodolph wrote:
| There are plastics in the tire, but the exterior bulk of
| the tire is rubber, which is not plastic.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Yep, rubbers are generally the class of elastomers.
|
| Natural rubber is poly-cis-isoprene, synthetic rubbers
| are a mix of petroleum-derived polymers.
| sitkack wrote:
| > All else being equal
|
| This premise only exists in a synthetic hypothetical
| universe.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| Would it be too snarky for HN to reply "Yes, that is
| indeed how hypothethicals work"?
| brnt wrote:
| I doubt this. Sure, reactants aren't good, but impossible
| to biologically break down neither. Causing havoc and
| bioacumulating seem to be two ends of a spectrum, where you
| want to be in the middle. Stuff that safely and easily
| broken down.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > All else being equal you're generally safer being exposed
| to stable things that don't break down than unstable things
| that happily react with all sorts of things
|
| There's a similar paradox in nuclear radiation. (Sometimes
| expressed with a puzzle about differently radioactive
| cookies and what to do with each.)
|
| Gamma rays are scary because it takes a lot of lead
| shielding to even slow them down... but that _also_ means
| that they aren 't stopping to interact with things--like
| yourself--as they travel.
|
| Alpha particles seem relatively safe because they don't
| travel far and are blocked by your skin... But that means
| they're doing _something_ to that skin, and luckily for you
| any damage is being dealt to already-dead cells on the
| outside.
|
| But if you had to put one of them inside your body, it's
| quite possible the gamma ray emitter would be the safer
| option, simply because more of its energy would escape
| harmlessly.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > But if you had to put one of them inside your body,
| it's quite possible the gamma ray emitter would be the
| safer option, simply because more of its energy would
| escape harmlessly.
|
| That's definitely the case with Polonium-210. Even though
| it emits alpha particles, it's very dangerous to ingest.
| kulahan wrote:
| Nobody is going around purposely breathing in plastic dust,
| there's been dust everywhere forever, and breathing in dust
| is a natural and unavoidable part of life.
|
| What, exactly, do you think is normalized here? That people
| wear clothing? That people didn't throw out every polyester
| fiber the moment somebody said plastic can break down into
| small pieces? That people aren't freaking out over a danger
| that we know roughly nothing about so far?
|
| People really need to stop finding excuses to freak out over
| things.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Clothing industry has somehow gotten by unscathed during all
| the environmental awareness that has spread in the past 20
| years. I am pretty sure clothes are the #1 cause of the
| microplastics that have inundated the ocean and our water
| supply.
|
| We have been heavily pushed to drive less, recycle more, and
| use less water, but I have not seen messaging about not buying
| new clothes you don't need.
| schiffern wrote:
| The problem isn't really "buying new clothes," since most of
| the microplastics are released in the laundry. Sewage
| treatment plants aren't designed to remove them, so they get
| released with the discharge water. It can also clog up septic
| leachfields.
|
| They do make purpose-built products to filter microplastic
| lint from laundry[1][2], but a more hacker approach is to
| just search for "pool filter."
|
| I wish they made comparable products for the dryer.
|
| [1] https://www.filtrol.net/
|
| [2] https://planetcare.org/
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| > I wish they made comparable products for the dryer.
|
| Isn't that just the lint filter? Every dryer I've seen has
| one.
| kyleee wrote:
| Those are probably not fine enough (in terms of
| filtration) and retrofit may be difficult if it restricts
| airflow.
| haccount wrote:
| There's an entire big and celebrated business sector that
| spends every working hour taking intact plastic products and
| grinds then into fine shreds, a process likely to contribute
| more than a fair share to microplastic dissemination. Maybe
| worth investigating, a good candidate for more microplastic
| release than the clothing industry.
|
| Name of that business sector? Plastics recycling.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Plastics recycling also kinda barely exists. Only 5% of
| plastic in the US is recycled, the whole thing was a
| greenwashing operation by oil companies to encourage
| additional consumption. Realistically putting the plastic
| deep underground back from whence the hydrocarbons came is
| not a bad sequestration strategy.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-
| misled-...
| brnt wrote:
| The US is at the back of the pack though, in Europe some
| countries recycle more than half of plastic.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| Same for aluminum, which is highly recyclable. A
| ridiculous amount of it ends up in landfills for no
| reason other than people can't be fucked.
|
| Plastic recycling is just another American "we tried
| nothing and are out of ideas." Much of the lack of
| recycling for plastics, when it comes to bottles, isn't
| some grand conspiracy so much as people just throwing
| bottles in the trash or on the side of the road, because:
|
| * There aren't omnipresent recycling bins to go alongside
| trash cans.
|
| * There aren't local programs for recycling pick up.
|
| * Some people can't be bothered and the government isn't
| punching them in the face, as it should.
|
| Only a half dozen states have a can/bottle deposit, even.
| Each state should be required to have deposits and
| municipal recycling pickup in any city of appreciable
| size, and heavy penalties for littering, or all sorts of
| federal funding should be withheld.
| pkaye wrote:
| Do they recycle or just burn it for energy?
| greenavocado wrote:
| Countries like Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland
| incinerated 50-80% of their plastic waste. Germany
| incinerated around 50%. Countries in Eastern and Southern
| Europe generally had lower incineration rates and higher
| landfill rates. Approximately 42% of plastic waste in
| Europe was being incinerated in waste-to-energy
| facilities.
| brnt wrote:
| Recycling is not burning.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| The way we used to "recycle" plastic was to put it on a
| container ship along with glass and aluminum and send it
| to China. Once it arrived, they would recycle the glass
| and aluminum and bury or burn the plastic. We reduced the
| quantity of (valuable) aluminum and glass over time until
| China got mad and told us to stop shipping them just the
| garbage (plastic). That was largely the end of the show.
| jerlam wrote:
| France passed a law back in 2020 to require new washing
| machines to have a microplastics filter by 2025:
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2020-00137.
| ..
|
| It has also begun to subsidize the clothing repair industry:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/13/business/france-shoe-
| clothing...
| klipt wrote:
| Maybe we should subsidize plastic-free fibers instead.
| Cotton, hemp, wool...
| bilbo0s wrote:
| You still have massive downsides to new cotton or wool
| clothes. There's just less of the micro plastic downside.
| Clothing is just a place where we take a massive hit on
| everything from carbon output to micro plastics.
|
| Another issue is clothing repair. I think the clothing
| repair thing is kind of brilliant. But for clothing
| repair to work you would need to disincentivize buying
| new clothes. Which subsidizing clothing would work
| against.
| pkaye wrote:
| Higher quality clothes like in the past might be nice.
| Stuff seems to fall apart so quickly these days.
| ffujdefvjg wrote:
| Older clothes weren't just made better, people also took
| care of them better. Partly because of cost, but also
| culture -- fewer changes in fashion trends with slower
| and more local communication, cheap labor to launder your
| clothes by hand (which puts much less wear on the
| garment). Also a culture of repairing and mending (also
| easier to do this when you have fewer things to occupy
| your free time).
| jabl wrote:
| Yes. But really, it was much worse in many ways. A 100
| years ago, say, the people doing clothes repair for a
| living were desperately poor, and often being single
| women they often had to resort to prostitution to feed
| themselves as the income from repairing clothes simply
| wasn't enough.
|
| I do think that from an environmental standpoint we
| should repair and recycle clothes a lot more than we do,
| but lets not romanticize the past. The small clothes
| repair businesses disappeared for a reason as living
| standards improved. Furthermore, today factory production
| of clothes is incredibly efficient and tends to be done
| in low-income countries, further making it even harder to
| restart some kind of clothes repair industry in high-
| income countries.
| baq wrote:
| sad truth: dryers absolutely destroy clothes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _for clothing repair to work you would need to
| disincentivize buying new clothes_
|
| Why? I repair clothes. I also like buying new ones. In
| between I ruin and lose items, or find that I no longer
| wish to wear them for purely stylistic reasons.
| echelon wrote:
| Though I wouldn't expect the average consumer to take a
| full course in organic chemistry, perhaps we can train
| the public to see benzene rings.
|
| Counting electron delocalization density and reactivity
| can be a rule of thumb for DNA mutation.
|
| Basically a, "Does your chemical look like this? Maybe
| consume less of it." infographic.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > perhaps we can train the public to see benzene rings
| But benzene rings are everywhere, from deadly poison to
| essential nutrients.
|
| And in fact, some chemicals that behave very differently
| may look extremely similar on paper. Especially when it
| comes to biology.
| westurner wrote:
| Linen; linen is made from the Flax plant.
|
| Natural fibers:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_fiber
|
| Green textiles:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_textile
|
| There are newer more sustainable production processes for
| various natural fibers.
|
| TIL that there are special laundry detergents for
| synthetic fabrics like most activewear like jerseys; and
| that fabric softener attracts mosquitos and adheres to
| synthetic fibers causing stank.
| andai wrote:
| >not buying new clothes you don't need
|
| Pretty sure I don't need the ones made of microplastics!
| throwaway19972 wrote:
| > We have been heavily pushed to drive less, recycle more,
| and use less water, but I have not seen messaging about not
| buying new clothes you don't need.
|
| It's there if you follow the right people on social media.
|
| Campaigns that center around personal responsibility,
| however, aren't ever going to work, and there's obvious
| reasons why people are willing to pay to push this narrative
| but not the buying fewer clothes one (at least here in the
| US).
| smm11 wrote:
| Vintage clothing stores are a great resource to combat this.
| It's sad how expensive many are, but you can also try thrift
| stores for clothes.
| jabl wrote:
| > Clothing industry has somehow gotten by unscathed during
| all the environmental awareness that has spread in the past
| 20 years. I am pretty sure clothes are the #1 cause of the
| microplastics that have inundated the ocean and our water
| supply.
|
| Surprise surprise, it has actually been studied. One recent
| review article of the field:
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl2746
|
| From figure 2b) we can see that while microplastics from
| synthetic fibres are certainly an issue, they are far from
| #1. Dwarfed by tires, paint, and macroplastics (large plastic
| pieces thrown away slowly grinding down into microplastics
| e.g. by wave action).
| rustcleaner wrote:
| With luck, maybe some new nudity tolerance movements can be
| fomented. :^D
| zw7 wrote:
| I think about this every time I clean out the dryer lint filter
| and a plume of lint dust comes off of it. I try to avoid
| breathing it in but it's likely some is making it into my
| airways.
| faitswulff wrote:
| Since getting used to them during Covid, I've continued
| wearing masks for situations just like this.
| hedgehog wrote:
| I manage that by using a vacuum to clean my lint filter but
| folding seems to release a lot of dust so I do that next to
| an air filter.
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| Besides containing microplastics, the dryer lint is also
| radioactive
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35990858
| jerlam wrote:
| The lint is also the residue from your clothes being worn
| away. If you can, consider not using the dryer at all,
| especially for synthetic clothing which air dry quickly
| compared to cotton.
| nosianu wrote:
| Try shaking out a piece of clothing in full sunlight. It
| helps you see the millions of future dust particles that will
| come off your clothing.
|
| Over the years I found that of all the dust in my home the
| vast majority comes from my clothing. I deduced that because
| the collected dust looks the same as what I find in the
| dryer, and it feels like cotton too (my by far most warn kind
| of fiber).
|
| That means rooms are full of tiny particles from your
| clothes, if I assume that my home is not an anomaly (and why
| should it be).
|
| Direct sunlight really helps to see how much dust there is
| all around us, and how with every little movement we create
| more. That does not even show the particles too small to be
| seen. The difference is gigantic - without that sunlight you
| don't see any dust and think the air is clean.
|
| I'm not _too_ concerned, since humanity must have dealt with
| this for a long time. Particles from fire especially, and
| there are _lots_ coming from even the tiniest flame. My main
| worry would be chemicals we add to clothes, but given that by
| now we ingest plastic pretty much _all the time_ , with every
| meal, with every breath, we just have to wait and see. I
| don't see a way to end this long-running experiment.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Not just clothing, but also bedding is a huge issue. With
| pillows, mattresses and towels mostly made of synthetic fibers.
|
| Preach. I vacuum my bedsheets every day because my cats are
| insane shedders and I'd otherwise get breaded with cat fur, but
| the vacuum is full with so much what is clearly not cat fur...
| binarymax wrote:
| It's frustrating how hard it is now to buy pure cotton or
| <gasp> wool, from a store. Even if it's 3% synthetic it's still
| not what I'm looking for.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Yep. Specifically, why are 100% cotton socks so ridiculously
| hard to find now?
|
| It used to be that they were a little more expensive - now
| you need to go online to find them.
|
| 'Fun' fact - the average brain has about 7 grams of
| microplastic [0] in it now, up 50% from 2016. At that rate...
|
| SEVEN FUCKING GRAMS. Guys this is beyond stupid.
|
| Even if plastic were totally inert, as I've heard people
| insist with certainty (where are they getting these ideas!),
| 7 grams of _plastic_ in your brain is _terrifying._
|
| 0 - https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/23/health/plastics-in-
| brain-...
| layer8 wrote:
| > Even if plastic were totally inert [...], 7 grams of
| plastic in your brain is _terrifying_.
|
| Why do you find that terrifying, if it's inert?
|
| To the downvoters: This is a genuine question.
| brnt wrote:
| The simple answer is that it isn't supposed be there. The
| more interesting one is: how much would you say is too
| much? Would a kilo of microplastics towards the end of
| your life do it?
| layer8 wrote:
| When it has adverse effects (and no benefits), then of
| course it's too much. But GP seemed to be saying they
| find it terrifying even assuming no adverse effects,
| which I found curious.
|
| A huge number of people have implements in their bodies
| (in their teeth, most often), and much more than seven
| grams of "foreign stuff" in their stomach and intestines
| all the time, so that by itself doesn't seem anything to
| be terrified of.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Would you be so blase if it were 7 grams of diesel
| exhaust or coal particulates instead?
| klipt wrote:
| > In Italy, researchers followed 312 patients who had
| fatty deposits, or plaques, removed from their carotid
| artery. Almost six in 10 had microplastics, and these
| people fared worse than those who did not: Over the next
| 34 months, they were 2.1 times as likely to experience a
| heart attack or stroke, or die.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/
| 21/...
| marmadukester39 wrote:
| it's more the unknown effects. It's not clear this stuff
| is actually inert.
| brnt wrote:
| Implements that you put there are different from those
| you don't put there.
|
| That doesn't seem very complicated, does it?
| mandmandam wrote:
| > But GP seemed to be saying they find it terrifying even
| assuming no adverse effects, which I found curious.
|
| It being _in my brain_ is an adverse effect. Inert
| material _in the brain_ is a problem itself.
|
| Do you want inert rocks in your car engine? Taking up
| space, interfering with natural processes, etc?
|
| The brain is incredibly complex; far, far, far beyond our
| current understanding. You don't want _anything_ in there
| that isn 't supposed to be, and _plastic isn 't fucking
| supposed to be there_.
|
| And, did you miss the part where this is up 50% from only
| 8 years ago?
|
| ... Tbh I'm aghast that anyone needs this explained to
| them.
| abeppu wrote:
| Even if they're _chemically_ inert, physical accumulation
| of particles of foreign matter in your brain might be
| causing problems. When it gets inside of cells, is it in
| the way of any processes? When it's between cells, does
| it trigger scarring? Do the particles clog capillaries?
| And because the study referenced was only able to find
| these particles via autopsies, if microplastics in your
| brain were causing health issues for you, you probably
| would never find out or be able to mitigate.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Even things that are chemically inert can cause problems
| in our bodies. Silica is similarly chemically inert, but
| silicosis is a devastating disease.
| timr wrote:
| Also, don't worry, there's not actually 7 grams. The
| study that suggested that was ridiculously bad.
|
| When you extrapolate 100,000-fold from uncalibrated
| micro-scale experiments, you get insane results, but the
| typical internet reader doesn't get past the abstract of
| the paper and instantly activates panic mode, instead of
| questioning the insanity.
| mandmandam wrote:
| "Don't panic, it might only be 3 and a half grams of
| plastic in your brain."
|
| The correct amount of brain plastic is 0 grams. Zero.
| This is a problem and it's very clearly getting worse.
|
| Why would I have to explain that to someone with a PHD in
| biology? So weird.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Because chemical effects are not the only undesirable
| effects something can have. E.g., mechanical, electrical.
|
| In any case, in one study [0], "researchers looked at 12
| brain samples from people who had died with dementia,
| including Alzheimer's disease. These brains contained up
| to 10 times more plastic by weight than healthy samples."
| Another [1] found "nanoplastics accelerate the
| aggregation of b-amyloid peptides" and that they
| exacerbate "the neurotoxicity induced by low-
| concentration peptides".
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/
| aug/21/...
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii
| /S03043...
| roncesvalles wrote:
| >Specifically, why are 100% cotton socks so ridiculously
| hard to find now?
|
| My theory is that it's because of Amazon reviews. For most
| socks on Amazon, there will be at least one reviewer
| posting pictures of how their socks got holes after a few
| days of wearing. These reviewers are ridiculous and seem to
| have sandpaper for flooring, sweat corrosive acid, or
| deliberately wear down these socks just to post the review.
| I've bought many different socks from Amazon and none of
| them get holes even after years of wearing them.
|
| Anyway, I think that seems to have spooked socks
| manufacturers.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I wonder if anyone's done a study for similar-but-natural
| compounds... Does lignin accumulate? Could we find a whole
| bunch of it in the brains of carpenters?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| And plastic shower liners.
| afh1 wrote:
| Hum, almost all of my t-shirts are 100% cotton, or at least
| that's what the label says. I use mostly the same clothes from
| 15 years ago so maybe synthetic is more common nowadays? I
| think the only t-shirts I own that are not 100% cotton are
| those I've got for free on things like marathons and
| hackathons. Does it contain phthalate? I have no idea, there is
| no label saying what they are made of. Probably polyester. Does
| it have phthalates in any meaningful concentration? This review
| says basically that "it varies a lot" and "needs further
| study".
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138266892...
| brookside wrote:
| I recall the cotton tees of my youth being stiff and
| terrible-feeling.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| 100% cotton can be waaay comfier than poly blends. Just
| depends on the weave/wash
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Did your mother (or whomever did the laundry) dry them on a
| clothesline? Air-dried clothes will be a bit more stiff
| than tumble-dried.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| Interestingly Table 4 in that link shows "Plain weave cotton"
| and "polyster" having similar levels of phthalates.
|
| I don't think phtalates are needed as plasticizers in
| polyster, so I guess they are coming from the dyes or
| something else used to treat the fabrics, meaning that the
| choice of cotton or polyster may not matter for phthalates
| specifically?
| brnt wrote:
| I often wonder about carpet or seats and couches. Also made of
| all manner of synthetic fabrics. Even besides the effects of
| living in the same space flame retardants slowly gas off over
| the decades, we rarely deep clean any of this, so when we sit
| down a cloud of craps wafts up into our lungs.
|
| I prefer noncarpets, but hard seating of course not.
| Tade0 wrote:
| My mattress cover is like that, as it's made from polyester.
| When I pull it from the dryer it produces an invisible, but
| irritating cloud of particles.
|
| All that while most of the shavings accumulate in the lint
| collector, so it could have been even worse.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a basic rubbing of a synthetic sleeve on your nose causes
| thousands of polyester particles to release in thin air,
| readily breathable_
|
| Source?
| sktrdie wrote:
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200309221340.h.
| ..
| hammock wrote:
| Are there phthalates in polyester clothing?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Those fleece blankets and jackets too, they are made from
| recycled soda bottles.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The story of phthalates really highlights the drinking from the
| fume hood aspects of our commercial norms. Phthalates are
| designed to squeeze between hydrophobic polymers such that their
| bulk mechanical properties are changed, while remaining
| chemically inert and not subject to breakdown. The question of
| what this would do in the human body, which is full of polymers
| with very sensitively evolved mechanical properties, was obvious
| - yet it was not asked in a funded capacity until we had been
| letting it accumulate in our kids for decades. The position of
| our institutions on this is a clear case of preferring not to
| know.
| timr wrote:
| You can't just say "squeeze between hydrophobic polymers", as
| if that's a single thing, and therefore any such "hydrophobic
| polymer" will be vulnerable to a phthalate.
|
| In particular, DNA is _not_ hydrophobic -- it 's an extremely
| polar environment. The known DNA/RNA intercalating chemicals
| are also very polar (at least, in critical selected locations).
| For example, Ethidium Bromide:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethidium_bromide
|
| Point being: assuming that the paper in the headline is true
| (which I do not assume, but I digress), your theory of the
| mechanism is probably wrong, and therefore misleading.
|
| Edit: having now looked at the paper, they're discussing one
| specific chemical (bezyl butyl phthalate) which is actually
| quite polar. It's also an ester, and trivially broken down by
| common enzymes into a number of different child compounds, any
| of which could be individually responsible for the claimed
| effects. Biochemistry is complex.
| whatshisface wrote:
| It gets into hydrophobic binding sites, and accumulates in
| lipids.
|
| > _Aromatic compounds, aliphatic hydrocarbons, and halogens
| are the hydrophobic parts of ligand PAEs. Hydrophobic contact
| is caused by the spatial proximity of the non-polar amino
| acid side chains and the hydrophobic substituents on the
| ligand PAE molecules. Water molecules are released from the
| hydrophobic region upon hydrophobic contact, and the
| unconstrained water molecules released can participate in the
| energy-favorable hydrogen bonding interactions, which enhance
| the overall binding affinity of the ligand [37,38,39].
| Therefore, the hydrophobic interactions between ligands and
| receptors affect the ability of PAEs to bind to hormone
| proteins and influence the ability of PAEs to bind to DNA
| response elements._
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10488033/
| timr wrote:
| The paper is about DNA mutation. DNA is not a hydrophobic
| binding site. It doesn't interact with hydrophobic binding
| sites. Moreover, the chemical studied in this particular
| paper is not particularly hydrophobic.
|
| Your theory is wrong, at least in this case. Also, this
| paper says the opposite of what you think it says:
|
| > based on the three-dimensional potential energy surface
| information, it was discovered that the hydrophobic,
| steric, and electrostatic fields of PAEs significantly
| influence their endocrine disruption effects on humans.
|
| They're saying that hydrophobic effects matter, but non-
| hydrophobic effects also matter. So everything matters.
|
| FWIW, the paper is not particularly worth citing. Someone
| made an ML model that said what any competent chemist could
| tell you by looking at a phthalate.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Who said DNA was hydrophobic? I'm sorry, but we're not
| disagreeing. Phtalates are very lithophilic and that's a
| major mechanism of their accumulation in the body.
|
| If phtalates were highly polar, they wouldn't be soluble
| in plastic. That means they're going to bind to fat
| tissue and non-polar receptors.
|
| >the chemical studied in this particular paper [...]
|
| Also, the paper didn't study "a chemical," it covered
| about 30.
| timr wrote:
| I'm telling you that you're overgeneralizing based on
| incorrect information. The paper being discussed here
| directly refutes your hypothesis of action, because it's
| about a particular chemical that _is known to be
| metabolized_ , causing downstream effects in an extremely
| polar molecule (DNA).
|
| Generally, "pthalates" are not a thing, but rather a
| whole bunch of different things (some are hydrophobic,
| some are not), and many of them are metabolized by the
| human body, so they don't actually accumulate. You have
| to be more specific.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17604388/
|
| > If phtalates were highly polar, they wouldn't be
| soluble in plastic.
|
| Setting aside "highly polar", which is not specific, you
| are wrong. Many/most pthalates are far from what chemists
| consider "hydrophobic", and are in fact esters, alcolhols
| and acids.
|
| > Also, the paper didn't study "a chemical," it covered
| about 30.
|
| The paper in the OP was about one molecule: BBP.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _Generally, "pthalates" are not a thing, but rather a
| whole bunch of different things (some are hydrophobic,
| some are not), and many of them are metabolized by the
| human body, so they don't actually accumulate. You have
| to be more specific._
|
| I am being specific enough to be talking about the
| hydrophobic pthalates that do accumulate in the human
| body. If I was talking about the other ones that claim
| would be trivially wrong... when the popular media says
| cyanide is dangerous, they're talking about the dangerous
| molecules with R-CN, not the safe ones.
| timr wrote:
| > I am being specific enough to be talking about the
| hydrophobic pthalates that do accumulate in the human
| body.
|
| They're all amphiphilic, to some degree. That's how they
| work. It's also common to the chemical group that they
| break down quickly, because they tend to be esters and
| alcohols. Any phthalates that bioaccumulate would be the
| exception, not the rule.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S14
| 384....
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >preferring not to know.
|
| I think this does have some ongoing influence on why more
| detailed analysis of common chemicals is not required.
|
| From what I can tell, it looks like phthalates started with
| excess coal tar which contained tonnes of a solid waxy aromatic
| hydrocarbon called naphthalene that nobody probably had much of
| a way to monetize for quite some time.
|
| Plenty of money was surely being made in other ways so
| regardless of the accounting methods, the surplus ends up being
| a no-cost item. When there are tonnes of an unutilized resource
| like this the full-scale effort would turn every tonne into
| something useful, and all it has to do is be _the least bit
| useful_ and the _least bit worth money_ for it look pretty good
| on paper. Plus the longer it builds up without having a good
| way to get rid of it can make a difference. Especially if one
| of the physical properties of the asset has something to do
| with combustibility and /or toxicity.
|
| This gives extreme financial leverage compared to comparable
| chemical processes where a major raw material has a nominal
| cost, or even an attractive cost.
|
| Anyway, naphthalene was an early source of cheap phthalic acids
| & anhydrides.
|
| Also some oil fields have enough naphthalene content for it to
| be accumulated in the bigger refineries along with other waxy
| hydrocarbons which are processed in abundance.
|
| Plus to meet increasing demand phthalic anhydride can also be
| made from ortho-xylene which many more refineries are commonly
| processing a stream of. This may not be zero-cost raw material,
| but it is still a hydrocarbon which is in bulk and easy to add
| value to if you're going to do something other than burn it for
| fuel.
|
| In the 1980's the phthalate I would see the most of was "di-
| octyl phthalate", known as DOP. It was mostly di-(2-ethylhexyl)
| phthalate since the "octanol" that formed the diester was
| usually 2-ethylhexanol, not much n-octanol involved.
|
| The 2-EH itself was some nasty-smelling stuff, one drop on your
| foot and you would have to leave your shoes outside when you
| got home. It was a byproduct of butanol & isobutanol
| manufacture, which themselves are relatively clean solvents.
| The 2-EH was clarified but it is a low-volatility solvent that
| doesn't dry up very fast, and stinks so bad it is not an ideal
| paint ingredient. There was no published laboratory testing
| procedure but I did do some pioneering chromatography anyway
| and there was a rich array of minor byproducts which are still
| most likely not fully identified chemically yet.
|
| So 2-EH is another low-cost item but not much higher viscosity
| than the butanols.
|
| Esterifying to combine with the phthalic and you get the
| compound DOP, the syrupy liquid used as a plasticizer that
| doesn't dry up much faster than the plastic solids themselves,
| and imparts the increased flexibility desired by the processor.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if there are some minor impurities in
| the DOP that trace back to the 2-EH raw material, which could
| be much more potent endocrine disruptors than the known
| plasticizer chemical itself. The statistical possibility is
| based on the number and variety of unidentified minor
| constituents, the way that very small amounts of hormones have
| very outsized effects, and the correlations that have been seen
| which incriminate the plasticizer and seem to show some
| connection.
|
| Plus, after a few short years being a leading analyst of 2-EH
| and DOP, one day some highly purified 2-EH became available in
| "research grade", purchased it to serve as reference material,
| and it turned out to be relatively odor-free ! It was the
| 2-ethylhexyl aldehyde _content_ that made it smell so bold. So
| I have known something was up for a very long time but still
| don 't have all the details I would want.
|
| Now if there is some minor component other than the known
| plasticizer bulk chemical itself which is causing disruption,
| and in-vivo work is being done on the highly purified reference
| material in order to evaluate _the target plasticizer itself in
| the absence of as many unknowns as possible_ I 'm not so sure
| the findings would apply as much in the real would as I would
| like.
|
| At the beginning, phthalates were not optimized to serve as
| plasticizers.
|
| They just happened to not fail at the task.
|
| Got more popular, and non-surplus alternative sources of raw
| materials for plasticizing will break ground to meet the demand
| once the more-attractively-priced "chemical waste" has all been
| spoken for.
|
| Something like a playbook that predates the plastic age.
| Nahtnah wrote:
| This whole thread is a great example of an interesting
| phenomenon... whenever people talk about this people come out
| of the woodwork to nitpick the details of whoever is
| criticizing the wonton use of likely poisonous compounds.
| Theyll argue things like this about the details of the exact
| likely bioactivity of the compound, or go on about how its
| impossible to have modern society without poisoning everything
| in a huge perfect enemy of the good argument.
|
| Like, go drink from a cup of pthalates if youre so ok with it
| being in your brain, balls, ovaries, etc. No ones arguing we
| need to ban plastics, but maybe coating the world in single use
| water bottles without considering the effects is suboptimal.
| Shouldnt the onus be on proving its safe before spreading it
| everywhere, rather than proving its dangerous?
|
| https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2021/06/wor...
|
| Theyll call me extreme/ignorant/naive, but maybe a society
| where we have to poison ourselves to sustain "growth" isnt
| worth sustaining.
|
| Not to mention the constant alarm bells about rising GI cancers
| in younger people. "OH BuT YOU HAVNEnT staTIstiCALLY prOved A
| cAusAL AssOCiaTION".
| timr wrote:
| I'm not nitpicking the parent. The parent comment is just
| wrong, full stop. You should not listen to them.
|
| They have an incorrect notion of what a phthalate is (usually
| a slightly greasy ester or an alcohol), how polar/hydrophopic
| they are (mixed; generally ampiphilic), and whether or not
| they tend to bioaccumulate (in general, they do not).
|
| Your broader point is well-taken, however, but not in the way
| you intended: chemistry does not reward a shallow
| understanding. The details matter a lot.
| Nahtnah wrote:
| You're arguing as if you understand all the side effects of
| the biochemistry on the biology. None of us do. Theyre
| correct about one thing: its probably not good for you.
|
| But sure, you might be more right on the basics of the
| biochemistry.
|
| I guess I'm just frustrated about the state of the world -
| im not a degrowth person I just want a better balance.
|
| There seems to be plenty of evidence for, for example,
| their role in endocrine disruption.
| timr wrote:
| At no point did I claim they were "good for you". I'm
| just saying that the OP is not making a valid argument.
| Nahtnah wrote:
| Sure, but I didnt claim he made a valid argument either.
| What I am claiming is when someone says things like
|
| "The question of what this would do in the human body,
| which is full of polymers with very sensitively evolved
| mechanical properties, was obvious - yet it was not asked
| in a funded capacity until we had been letting it
| accumulate in our kids for decades"
|
| which the article I linked supports, people come out of
| the woodwork to argue we need "more evidence/an exact
| biochemical pathway" when we dont have the
| understanding/technology to actually do that.
| foxglacier wrote:
| You're assuming we're all being poisoned. We might not be,
| and clearly if we are, it's not a huge effect because we're
| still not obviously more diseasous than before. It could even
| be that the benefits of these chemicals on civilization
| outweigh the health costs so we're better off using them.
| Nahtnah wrote:
| You're assuming were not all being poisoned, lol. Did you
| even read what I wrote.
|
| There's plenty of evidence we're increasingly fucking with
| our bodies, again see the rising rates of cancer in youth.
| Yes, there are likely many causes for that. You'd have to
| be criminally negligent to argue a class of chemicals like
| phthalates is in the clear. Yes, the details are
| complicated. Yes, the dose makes the poison. Yes.
|
| I believe we're smart enough to find a way to have/eat out
| cake, but smart people are arguing in this classic way
| about details that miss the main point people should care
| about, downplaying the issue in a way that laypeople cant
| understand the nuance of. So we keep following the $$$ and
| likely poisoning ourselves.
| Dig1t wrote:
| Reminder that the FDA denied a petition last year to ban these
| chemicals in food packaging.
|
| https://www.fda.gov/food/hfp-constituent-updates/fda-respond...
|
| There is already a mountain of research showing that phthalates
| are endocrine disruptors and cause developmental defects. The FDA
| knows this and is doing nothing.
| broof wrote:
| https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the...
|
| CR showing how much of it is in our food. What's crazy is how
| unpredictable it is, some have little, and other very similar
| products have 100x the amount. As a consumer I have little
| ability to control this.
| b800h wrote:
| I hate to be the one to say this (especially as phthalates are
| horrible) but it needs a suffix:
|
| "......in worms."
| calibas wrote:
| "The study also showed that C. elegans metabolizes BBP in the
| same way as mammals, and is impacted at similar BBP levels that
| occur in humans, suggesting that C. elegans is an effective
| model for studying the impacts on people."
| lasermike026 wrote:
| No one cares. The people profit from this don't care. Virtually
| everyone who buys these products doesn't care either. If you care
| and you want to do something about it get on the next spaceship,
| leave the earth and abandon this unintelligent human species.
| manmal wrote:
| That spaceship's interior, functional space outfit, and most
| equipment will of course also consist of various plastics.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| The blind irrational hatred of "plastics" is bordering on a
| religion or mass hysteria.
|
| HN is supposed to be a forum of educated, rational people capable
| of critical thought. Here are some basic facts.
|
| 1. Plastic is often presented in the media as some kind of
| monolithic hazardous compound where it is not. There are
| different kinds of plastic. Alternatives are usually economically
| and environmentally inferior.
|
| 2. The most common types of plastic for consumer applications are
| polyethylene and polypropylene, followed by polyvinyl chloride
| and polystyrene. PE and PP are biologically and chemically inert.
| The same reason why they don't break down is the reason why they
| are harmless. Polystyrene derived from a naturally occuring
| compound styrene found in some plants and can and does breakdown
| under attack of UV light, acids, microorganisms. All three PE,
| PP, and PS are most commonly manufactured without harmful
| additives. Only PVC uses significant quantities of plasticizers
| some of which are harmful. Unless you are chewing on your shower
| curtain you have little to worry about.
|
| 3. At least several hundred billion tons of commodity plastics
| have been mass produced over the last 70 years with little to no
| quantified, attributable environmental damage from these
| plastics. Most microplastic is essentially inert dust that is no
| different from other organic or inorganic dust such as pollen or
| clay. Plastics are not allergens because they are non reactive
| and do not stimulate an immune response. It is very likely that
| blood of animals contains plastic molecules along with thousands
| of other molecules in trace quantities doing no more harm than
| natural silt in a river system.
|
| 4.The fact that commodity plastics do not readily rot or degrade
| is a good thing. Petroleum carbon made into stable plastic and
| buried in a landfill is kept out of the atmosphere.
|
| 5. Plastic items are less energy demanding to recycle and produce
| in the first place because of lower thermal processing
| requirements than glass, metal or wood.
|
| 6. Lignin in wood is a natural plastic.
|
| 7. Most of the macro plastics in the ocean comes from Asia and
| the fishing industry. In the west it is buried in a landfill
| where it helpfully sequesters carbon.
|
| 8. Plastic items are often lighter to ship also consuming less
| energy that way versus alternatives.
|
| 9. Most microplastics in the ocean are from synthetic fibers and
| tire abrasion. I have yet to see a non handwaving study that
| these actually result in significant environmental harm. Maybe we
| should research more durable tire materials. Perversely electric
| vehicles wear tires quicker than ICE vehicles due to a more
| aggressive torque curve. Cotton has to be planted (diesel
| tractor), sprayed with fertilizers and pesticides, picked
| (diesel), spun, woven, etc. just because it's natural doesn't
| mean it's better for the environment at mass scale. This true of
| other things too like glass, metal, paper, etc.
|
| 10. People should stop irresponsibly hating on plastics when the
| alternatives are worse.
|
| This neo Luddite Puritanism is just dumb and unscientific.
|
| I challenge anyone to rebut my assertions with hard facts that
| quantify to supposed damage plastic does versus what alternatives
| would do.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| We're all responding to an article about how plasticizers used
| in certain plastics to make them all more flexible can damage
| DNA in some organisms. Why do you consider that empirical study
| to be new Luddite Puritanism? And if the plasticizer can leach
| out of plastics, which has been shown in numerous studies over
| the years, why do you consider them inert?
|
| It's not enough to assert, loudly, that you are right and we
| are all wrong and everything is fine let's all go back inside
| and let the chemists keep doing what they're doing. You have to
| explain also why PE and PP never under any circumstances ever
| contain any plasticizers.
|
| Regarding plastics and microplastics in the oceans, I've seen
| tons of pictures of dead birds that after autopsy have filled
| their crops with broken plastic pieces instead of food. This is
| not good, and having all of our sea birds die is not an
| insignificant environmental harm.
|
| So hand-waiving that away doesn't change the fact that
| introducing plastics have caused new and exciting forms of harm
| in our biosphere.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| 1. I was interacting with the general theme of the comments
| on the article, which is the zeitgeist plastic bad.
|
| 2. I believe you should consider logical fallacies and
| questions of scale and trade offs.
|
| Specifically people arguing against "plastics" in general
| seem to depend on hearsay, strawmen, all or nothing fallacy,
| appeal to authority, etc. it is black and white thinking
| against the nuance of the real world. In recent times on many
| issues it seems that black and white thinking is presented as
| something that is a rational way to approach things. It is
| not. The real world is complicated and full of nuance anf
| tradeoffs. Just because you can show some plastics may have
| some harmful effects does not mean that the miracle of
| plastic materials is a net bad for humanity or the
| environment unless you can show the harm EXCEEDS that of
| scalable alternatives. The burden of proof is on those who
| are against plastics to show that the net harm caused by
| specific compounds is worse than the net benefit of using
| them. We will never be able to prove that all plastics are
| harmless in every possible context. Nor should we. In life we
| have to make decisions based on the best available
| information we have. So it makes more sense to ask after 70
| years what significant harms have been caused by plastics
| that would be made less than alternatives. Even a thousand
| pictures of dead birds does not make a compelling case unless
| it is weighed against the costs of harvesting forests for
| paper and burning fossil fuels to make glass and metal to
| make inferior packaging that costs more and takes more fuel
| to transport.
|
| All else held equal light weight non biodegrade materials
| made from cheap highly productive chemical feed stocks are
| better for the environment than alternatives.
|
| A series of anecdotes and one sided analyses does not make a
| compelling case.
| tirant wrote:
| Electric vehicles have extremely precise traction control due
| to the nature of their motors so even with higher torque they
| keep traction much better than their ICE counterparts.
|
| EVs are also heavy and might wear tires quicker in braking
| situations though.
| sktrdie wrote:
| I agree with many of the points, but how do they relate with
| the article at hand?
| hammock wrote:
| You are right about all of this. It is also true that
| phthalates and BPA-like chemicals pose considerable harm to
| people today.
|
| You clearly know this, and much more.
|
| Why not go one step beyond "hey anti all plastic people, not
| all plastics are bad" and help them get educated on, avoid and
| solve the harms that do exist?
|
| Lack of nuance, on either side of the debate, mostly comes
| across as propaganda (to me)
| Nahtnah wrote:
| 3. At least several hundred billion tons of commodity plastics
| have been mass produced over the last 70 years with little to
| no quantified, attributable environmental damage from these
| plastics. Most microplastic is essentially inert dust that is
| no different from other organic or inorganic dust such as
| pollen or clay. Plastics are not allergens because they are non
| reactive and do not stimulate an immune response. It is very
| likely that blood of animals contains plastic molecules along
| with thousands of other molecules in trace quantities doing no
| more harm than natural silt in a river system.
|
| You're missing a couple points yourself. For example, the
| article is talking about phthalates. These are additives added
| to plastics. These leech from microplastics. So your rant about
| how plastics are inert shows you didnt even understand the
| article yourself tbh.
|
| There is plenty of evidence that these compounds are harmful
| and affect the biology. See the section on wikipedia on
| phthalates. What there isnt is much evidence and
| experimentation showing theyre NOT harmful.
| foxglacier wrote:
| This is misleading. "at levels similar to those detected in
| humans, [...] egg cells with the wrong number of chromosomes."
|
| So where are all these people with the wrong number of
| chromosomes? They should be everywhere. Maybe all this damage
| ends up leading to no human growing from the egg, so they're
| never born but again where are all the infertile women? It should
| be nearly everyone! It's either written to deceive or it's
| obviously wrong.
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