[HN Gopher] Is 'Toxic Fashion' making us sick? A look at the che...
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Is 'Toxic Fashion' making us sick? A look at the chemicals lurking
in our clothe (2023)
Author : LordNibbler
Score : 28 points
Date : 2024-11-12 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| smolder wrote:
| From [0]:
|
| > Out of 38 products ordered from fast-fashion giants, CBC
| Marketplace found one in five items had elevated levels of
| chemicals, including lead, phthalates and PFAS.
|
| Lead, we know is bad. Pthalates were recently shown to be bad for
| brains of any age [1], on top of being bad for developing ones.
| PFAS, well, they bioaccumulate, and we probably should be worried
| about overexposure, with studies linking them to various health
| problems. So, yes, it's reasonable to assume that some clothing
| is subtly harming health.
|
| [0]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-fast-fashion-
| ch...
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42069320
| llamaimperative wrote:
| I think it's reasonable to assume that some clothing is harming
| health, and the degree to which it does is entirely unknown.
| smolder wrote:
| The NPR article does talk about some directly observable
| effects like people having trouble breathing and rashes, or
| 'brain fog', though I suppose that's not all conclusively
| casually linked. Still, it's something worth thinking about,
| and something I feel is worth taking into account when you
| have the option of buying a garment consisting of only
| natural fibers versus something boasting it's wrinkle-free,
| or if you're deciding weather or not to buy the water
| repellent spray that the shoe store clerk is pushing, and so
| on.
| exmadscientist wrote:
| Honestly, if you have to choose between PFAS and phthalates...
| I'd probably take the PFAS. Pthalates are horrifying substances
| when you see what they can really do to human development.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Wow, did they show you a bright red shiny plastic thing that
| didn't have terrible chemicals in it? Like the one that they
| ordered from some other country ? no eh? or thick clear flexible
| plastic like that purse is ? Did they find some that doesn't have
| phalates in it? Because that's how you make thick clear plastic
| flexible. This was true in the 80s when they made them in America
| but now they make them in China.
|
| And then the raincoat has. Pfas LMAO that's how they make all
| raincoats waterproof. Did they compare it to the raincoat from
| MEC? In the 90s, we had that shit in a bottle and we would spray
| it inside on our shoes to waterproof them. Pure insanity.
|
| People think that things are safe just for no reason just because
| they are OK they're safe. Guess what you can't make a raincoat
| waterproof and light and cheap without putting dangerous shit on
| it. Go get your oil, skin jacket and then wax it there you go
| safe.
|
| They fluorinate the machines that package your food because the
| food taste better after four months in the fluorinated container
| and fuck you they're never gonna change
| gruez wrote:
| >They fluorinate the machines that package your food because
| the food taste better after four months in the fluorinated
| container and fuck you they're never gonna change
|
| source?
| exmadscientist wrote:
| They don't "fluorinate the machines" but they sure as hell do
| use fluropolymer liners for cans and containers and such.
| It's usually PFA Teflon (alkoxy) but it is fluorinated
| nonetheless.
| ouddv wrote:
| > that's how they make all raincoats waterproof.
|
| Nearly every major outdoor clothing manufacturer is making
| rain-gear without PFAS. Patagonia, The North Face, Arcteryx,
| Helly Hansen, Columbia, and Fjallraven (just to name a few) all
| offer a variety of PFAS-free raingear.
|
| This has been an ongoing effort for 10 or 15 years at this
| point; with a lot of progress occurring in the last few years,
| as the PFAS-free DWR chemistries have reached parity for most
| use cases.
| hollerith wrote:
| DWR == durable water repellent.
| dexzod wrote:
| > have access to medical care. Often the types of doctors that
| will address this - they don't take insurance. They only take
| cash
|
| Is he implying that the doctors who take insurance will not tell
| the truth
| exmadscientist wrote:
| > MOSLEY: So those anti-wrinkle finishes and the finishes to
| prevent mildew and mold and things like that, we're talking about
| formaldehyde and Teflon were used as chemical finishing as well,
| right?
|
| > WICKER: Yes. So Teflon is the brand name for water and stain
| repellent finishes, and that's PFAS, which you might know has
| been in the news lately because it's been found in the water of
| half of all Americans. And part of the reason why it's in the
| water of so many Americans is because there are still
| manufacturers in the United States of textiles for clothing,
| performance clothing, uniforms and furniture that use this stain-
| repellent chemistry, and then they put it in the water. And
| there's nothing illegal about that.
|
| Man, Gell-Mann amnesia is awful. That is... not what Teflon is,
| or how the PFAS problems have arisen, and anyone who would say or
| approve those two paragraphs comes across as having no bloody
| clue what they're talking about. Now I don't trust the rest of
| the article, even if its argument seems generally sound!
|
| (That said: _never_ buy from the six-letter "brands" on Amazon
| and friends if there is _any_ other source for that item. There
| is no reason to deal with those guys, and so many reasons not to
| do it. They usually aren 't even the factories, they're just
| middlemen! Factories at least try to build decent reputations.)
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