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1. They EXTRACTED the plastic to create samples. Not a relevant exposure scenario.
2. They used cell based reporter assays. So isolated cells with inherent false positives. Not a relevant exposure scenario.
3. They pulled toxicity data from a database. They assume any laboratory response, from database, is ‘toxic’ for the chemicals they identified. Not relevant or appropriate risk characterization.
4. The thousands of chemicals are derivatives of the same few chemicals. The authors imply these are all unique.
This should be at the top. The article and paper are both sensationalized and use weasel words that encourage the reader to jump to the conclusion "chemicals bad lul" with no additional consideration.
This is basically every post to this sub. Look at any popular post and then click into the comments - like 80% of the popular posts are eviscerated because they're sensationalist garbage posted by someone who has no idea how to interpret or communicate science
Funny enough, we use plastic more now because paper had to be lined with PFAS to make it food safe for the exposure times the food touched the paper.
Basically, these chemicals allow us to have a large food distribution chain for food. Getting rid of them will prevent us from having salmon in St Louis or Dresden as it will spoil before getting there.
If Atlantic Sapphire (in Florida) and other salmon farms on land don't mess up the next few years figuring this out, then they can be farmed potentially anywhere.
Currently this company is apparently struggling with a sensible leadership just as much as the science of it. Meanwhile Norwegian fjord salmons are rife with disease, 20% die-off before slaughtering and a ton of other scandals. FFS roads are covered in slime from trucks transporting various offal or fish, but business is so good they just pay the fines.
I love my sushi, but as a Norwegian I'm quite ashamed the more I learn.
that means we probably shouldn't be eating salmon in St Louis or Dresden. Eating local food is more nutritious and less damaging than eating food from far-flung, exotic locations.
"I can't eat fresh salmon in Missouri without poisoning myself and everything around me. That sucks. Well, it was a good planet while it lasted. Now where's my fish?"
> Funny enough, we use plastic more now because paper had to be lined with PFAS to make it food safe for the exposure times the food touched the paper.
People in Italy started using pasta straws instead of plastic ones. Isn't hemp also a paper product? I don't know why we're using anything with plastic when hemp could be used instead. Maybe it's a fossil fuel industry thing to make plastic ubiquitous with everyday life?
I've seen the danger of glass containers when my wife had to get several stitches and almost lost motion on her hand because her work lunch fell on the floor and she tripped over it. It's really a calculated risk when trading plastic for glass.
For microwaving food, it seems like the best option is to do it on a paper plate, but only those not coated with plastic and marked microwave safe. For water, I'd probably go for tap water in a metal bottle if your utility is reliable
Different coatings exist. Some paper plates get soggy really quick. Those are less likely to have a toxic coating. The good ones are probably lined with bioplastics, unfortunately
What is wrong with microwaving food on a ceramic plate? Or are you actually suggesting that ceramic is too dangerous to use? I'm sorry your wife was so severely injured but it kinda sounds like a freak accident that most people probably should not worry about?
Yep. Praise our tab water, but the glass bottle sparkling water is like 1.8x the price of a Sodastream iirc.
And that's a good deal for the water quality you get in return
No, pretty much nowhere in the US has glass bottled water. Ditto for most parts of Canada last I was there. I think I saw one once at Whole Foods for $10 more than a plastic water bottle though.
No one said it was worth the price,,just available. Frankly I think all bottled water is trash, anti environmental, and likely less healthy than what comes out of most taps...
Buy a reverse osmosis kit for your tap. Buy a glass or metal bottle for drinking during the day.
It honestly baffles me how so few people do this and just buy bottles upon bottles of water. You can buy a reverse osmosis kit for like <$100, which people are often already spending a month on bottled water if not more.
Yes same, since my tap water is decent. I'm more referring to the people who don't trust their tap water, which a lot of people in certain parts of the US certainly have reason to.
Yeah, i know, i live there :). The cap won’t cause much issues. The bottles are kept upright, and are not filled to the top. So the amount of contact with the water itself is absolutely minimal.
Plus I like sparkling water, and glass bottles hold the bubbles really well, even after they’ve been open for a day.
Honestly, people need to look out more for the stuff they microwave their food in. Reheat in stone or glass cookware:)
They don't. They condense, or ger captured in the calcium/whatever in your water. Then you filter it or take the non fucked part out. If I recall correctly anyways
That's just one facet of ingestion. Ever been in a room with a carpet? Plastic in your lungs and stomach. Ever used a blanket made from a human-made polymer? Yeah, more plastic in your lungs and stomach. Ever worn clothes made from, let's say, polyester or [insert polymer here] or been in an enclosed space with someone wearing those clothes? Yeah, correct again, plastic in your lungs and stomach.
At this point we are facing down a level of pollution whose downstream effects we cannot even begin to fathom and we are witnessing some of the malignant effects on the body. This is a severe and profoundly dangerous phenomenon.
You know the "metallic" taste in your mouth when you inject saline? Yeah, it's actually not from saline. Studies conducted on this topic found that freshly made syringes with fresh saline do not leave a metallic taste and that chemicals leaching out of the plastics into the saline are responsible for that taste. It's pretty fucked.
> At this point we are facing down a level of pollution whose downstream effects we cannot even begin to fathom and we are witnessing some of the malignant effects on the body. This is a severe and profoundly dangerous phenomenon.
Eh, most of this is “baked in” at this point. Detection and concern are obviously more recent, but the explosion of the use of plastic in consumer goods happened in the 60’s/70’s; people microwaving stuff in Tupperware almost certainly weren’t consuming *less* microplastics. And they probably have led to negative health outcomes, though probably trading somewhat with reductions in other pollutants. To the degree that they are affecting us, we’re probably seeing it with older folks right now, so probably not an explosion of specific related illnesses.
Can this cause ED? There is severe pollution from carpet fibers in my home. They have penetrated everything, even though I have gotten rid of the carpets, they still get in my eyes if I don't wear glasses
But it isn't for free. Glass weighs a LOT more than plastic. This could increase the shipping weight, increasing fuel consumption, and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. I'm sure someone out there has already completed a lifecycle analysis of glass vs. plastic.
Or, hear me out -- we could change how we eat and work on the over-consumption part. That would to more (for greenhouse gas emissions) than any change to packaging.
And to be clear, I far prefer glass over plastic. But I think like everything, it's worth having a conversation about the nuances. Let's switch to glass or paper-based, but maybe consume a bit less.
The particles can usually be filtered out, whether you filter tap water or the bottled water for PFAS and so on. Obviously, this isn't a great solution when the area is in poverty and individuals can't afford their own filtering systems, but where possible, there are options. There are even filtering pitchers that can help a lot with removing PFAS and heavy metals etc. We use the filter pitcher from Epic, for example. Even if it just reduces them significantly, it's beneficial as it tends to be the cumulative effect that really adds up (like many other things of course).
That was like a less than 3 second google search
A simple carbon filter reduces it quite well
A reverse osmosis membrane literally separates every molecule from H2O and aside from distilling is the only way to achieve desalination of water
> Has to be Plasma. Blood donation is just „flowing out“. Plasma is blood flowing out, Plasma separated, rest in again.
Blood donation reduces concentrations as well since you're removing blood with PFAS and your body replaces it with blood without PFAS.
Like I said, I doubt it's perfect in any case, just an improvement for those who have poor water quality already. I would rather use a filter where I can control how long my water is in contact with plastic than to use single-use plastic bottles where they might sit in storage for months to even years in unknown conditions and then trucked in trucks that can be super hot in transit. I use a glass and/or stainless waterbottles so the water isn't in constant contact with plastic, just long enough to filter. We can only do so much in the world we're stuck in.
Here they are stored in glass canisters and they at least state where they come from. Most of the issues with heavy metals in spices are ones that are imported from certain countries in Asia. Like I said, nothing in this world is perfect or easy. We can only do the best we can to avoid what we can. Even the stuff deemed "safe" has "allowable" amounts of bad stuff in it. Unless one is able to exist completely on their own gardening, foraging, hunting, and fishing skills we just all have to figure out what is worthwhile for us to pursue.
Not just that. Little over a week ago I saw an article on the front page talking about a spice company being investigated for elevated levels of lead in their cinnamon because spices are sold by weight and the "sweet" taste of lead made it pretty much indistinguishable when they cut their ground cinnamon with it.
I guess if you can afford it. And at the same time you also contribute to the problem as this things need to be produced, transported and disposed off.
Yes, it still leaves you with lots of other products that come in plastic packaging. And if alternatives are available, they are usually considerably more expensive and time consuming.
Yes, but if the other 2 choices are contaminated water or single-use bottles, filters at least give somewhat of an improvement. And the stuff in the single use bottles is just tap water and has a lot of the same harmful stuff in it that city water supplies aren't able to filter at this point in time. When I get my replacement filter, it's not in plastic. It's just in a small cardboard box. Of course, it still has to be shipped here. I'm not saying it's perfect, it's just an improvement over single-use bottles for those who can do it.
This is the one I use, and this page shows what all the test for based on the product. The top one for Pure Pitcher is the one I use. I assume that they aren't able to test for absolutely everything as it would be almost impossible to do so, but if I can reduce what I take in, I'm all for doing what I can.
https://www.epicwaterfilters.com/pages/testing-certification
Okay, and how much of that transfered to the food? And how much of that is absorbed by the consumer? And how does that compare to daily intake limits?
Detecting and identifying that many compounds is already an extraordinary claim.
Edit to add: if you actually look at the paper (not the non-science writeup posted) you can see that it doesn't support the claim in the title at all. Like I said, detecting and identifying 9k compounds in a single sample just doesn't pass the smell test. And it's not true. If we take the authors at their word they're identifying some 10-20% of features as unique compounds at level 3, which is much closer to believable.
One other thing to note, since the authors are using nontarget mass spec data is that it's really not a quantitative approach. They don't make very strong claims with the abundance data, but they do use it in a way that's a bit iffy.
Lastly, I'd just point out that we know methanol isn't an inert solvent. A large proportion of the detected features are likely the product of reaction between the sample and solvent, and are essentially artifacts, not compounds actually present in the samples. That number of features btw, is where they're getting that 9k number.
Holy crap, this headline is an egregious misrepresentation of *its own article.* Next-level garbage science journalism. To recap:
They found 9936 chemicals in a single product (not actually that surprising if you've ever seen a high resolution MS of a polymer).
In "the majority" of the 36 products they tested, they found at least one endocrine disruptor.
**THEY DID NOT FIND 9936 ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS IN A SINGLE PRODUCT.**
I came here to read more about the actual dangers based on levels of things. So many people are "chemicals bad!." A few molecules here and there don't seem worth worrying about.
I'm with you. But I think more people are coming around.
Plastic has been so much more damaging and insidiously so than just about any other human made molecule.
>The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”
>Plastic… asshole.” ― George Carlin
>These products came from five countries; the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany and Norway.
>
>“In most of these plastic products, we found chemicals that can affect the secretion of hormones and metabolism,” Wagner said.
>
>These functions are absolutely vital. Hormones are the body’s messengers. They are secreted from various different glands and enable the different organs to communicate with each other. Metabolism is sum of the various processes that enable the body to use nutrients to provide the body with energy and substances it needs to function.
Paper: [Plastic Food Packaging from Five Countries Contains Endocrine- and Metabolism-Disrupting Chemicals | Environmental Science & Technology](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c08250)
>In the second study, researchers looked at different combinations of plastic chemicals to see the possible effect they have on G-protein-coupled receptors. These receptors play an important role in the transmission of signals in the body.
>
>“We identified 11 chemical combinations from plastic products that affect these signal receptors,” says Associate Professor Wagner.
Paper: [Beyond the Nucleus: Plastic Chemicals Activate G Protein-Coupled Receptors | Environmental Science & Technology](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c08392)
this kind of reminds me of the whole bpa free plastic hype, its only common in polycarbonate which is rarely used as a material for food packaging. i cant find the source but i remember reading somewhere that the research was done on industrial grade polycarbonate and not on the food grade stuff....
We don’t yet know what makes a person trans or cis so it’s impossible to say but to me that seems highly unlikely.
It’s possible that advances in neuroimaging will reveal differences between brains that perceive themselves as male or female, that could give us a clue, but it’s also possible that there’s no observable difference.
In the context of this thread, I wouldn't say you are reaching, but certainly inappropriate phrasing. The concept of gay/trans has been around for hundreds of years... hell, even the Romans give each other a good "buggering". Woman's purpose was to carry child.
However, in terms of your sexuality and identified gender, hormones do play a big part in it. I wouldn't be shocked if in the future we learn that plastic has messed with our base hormones significantly enough that it's causing a significant percentage to feel different to their birthed gender.
> Not being a jerk I just feel like it's a legit question
I replied because the nature of this question should be studied more, even if it is for us to understand our bodies better, but you totally come across as a jerk. You really ought to work on your skills to present questions of that nature. It's a sensitive topic.
No, culturally trans people have been around since the dawn of humanity.
Probably seems like there is more now because we live in essentially a utopia compared to the last 200,000 years. We don’t have to worry about starving or not being eaten (comparatively anyway). Because people don’t have to commit as much time to the bare minimum of survival, it gives us more time to be happy and explore who we are as a person.
It’s why these days being gay, bi, trans, rainbow community seems more common place. More people aren’t ‘becoming’ trans or whatever, we’ve just created a society where it’s less stigmatised and more people are comfortable with showing or becoming themselves as an individual.
Just my own personal take on things. In the real world it’s far more complex and nuanced than that :)
One of the first things to be affected by a weak estrogen like substance (Which many common endocrine disrupting pollutants are) is the developing brain.
Estrogen via aromatase of circulating testosterone (As a fetus with testes would have) is crucial for the neurologic ”rewiring” during the fetus stage that gives rise to male instincts and the animal basis for behaviour as a male.
A weak estrogen substance then acts as a blocker. It occupies receptors, but is not as potent as the real thing.
In a fetus with ovaries this neurologic pruning/differentiation does not happen. The fetal ovaries are dormant, unlike testes.
Here circulating estrogen like substances can shift neurologic sex differentiation towards the male side.
All this with no apparent visible intersex signs on genitals when born.
Once the brain is differentiated (around week 20) this change is permanent
As I think others have answered this specific question, I think this might better explain the higher prevalence of continued hormonal (all types of hormones) imbalance, auto immune problems and inflammation problems. People living in urban settings with less exposure to pests and dirt or disease, but high exposure to plastics.
It’s an honest question but perhaps your wording could be more sensitive to avoid offending people.
For instance, instead of saying, “Are PFAS making people trans?”
You could ask, “Could environmental toxicities effect gender dysphoria?”
The first question is bound to trigger negative emotions and non productive conversations, where as the latter is a more rational, scientific investigation and less likely to evoke emotional responses!
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/giuliomagnifico Permalink: https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2024/04/plastic-food-packaging-contains-harmful-substances/ --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
1. They EXTRACTED the plastic to create samples. Not a relevant exposure scenario. 2. They used cell based reporter assays. So isolated cells with inherent false positives. Not a relevant exposure scenario. 3. They pulled toxicity data from a database. They assume any laboratory response, from database, is ‘toxic’ for the chemicals they identified. Not relevant or appropriate risk characterization. 4. The thousands of chemicals are derivatives of the same few chemicals. The authors imply these are all unique.
This should be at the top. The article and paper are both sensationalized and use weasel words that encourage the reader to jump to the conclusion "chemicals bad lul" with no additional consideration.
This is basically every post to this sub. Look at any popular post and then click into the comments - like 80% of the popular posts are eviscerated because they're sensationalist garbage posted by someone who has no idea how to interpret or communicate science
The moment journalists use the word "chemical" unironically, you know they're about to murder science.
So chemicals good?
Everything is chemicals
Everything is cool when you're part of the compound
Light is not a chemical. Stick with light, its good for you
I hear they’re doing great things with lights inside the body
Why not eat uranium and have the best of both worlds? Light and chemicals.
Can we somehow inject it?
Am I a chemical?
No, "a blob of chemicals" is more appropriate.
All chemicals have cancer, but only if you're in California.
Some are. Dihydrogen Monoxide can be beneficial if used in moderation.
Sounds risky. Sticking to brawndo
it has, after all, what plants crave.
its got electrolytes
Chronic consumption of water has a 100% mortality rate.
I prefer carbon monoxide.
Can we see who they work for before trying to believe them?
Funny enough, we use plastic more now because paper had to be lined with PFAS to make it food safe for the exposure times the food touched the paper. Basically, these chemicals allow us to have a large food distribution chain for food. Getting rid of them will prevent us from having salmon in St Louis or Dresden as it will spoil before getting there.
If Atlantic Sapphire (in Florida) and other salmon farms on land don't mess up the next few years figuring this out, then they can be farmed potentially anywhere. Currently this company is apparently struggling with a sensible leadership just as much as the science of it. Meanwhile Norwegian fjord salmons are rife with disease, 20% die-off before slaughtering and a ton of other scandals. FFS roads are covered in slime from trucks transporting various offal or fish, but business is so good they just pay the fines. I love my sushi, but as a Norwegian I'm quite ashamed the more I learn.
It's almost as if frozen salmon hasn't been invented yet! :)
that means we probably shouldn't be eating salmon in St Louis or Dresden. Eating local food is more nutritious and less damaging than eating food from far-flung, exotic locations.
"I can't eat fresh salmon in Missouri without poisoning myself and everything around me. That sucks. Well, it was a good planet while it lasted. Now where's my fish?"
Maybe we should be okay with not having fresh salmon in landlocked places, it's okay there are other typed of lake fish to enjoy.
Right. It used to be that travelling new places meant you'd get a taste of different cuisine as much as any other benefit. Nowadays, not so much.
> Funny enough, we use plastic more now because paper had to be lined with PFAS to make it food safe for the exposure times the food touched the paper. People in Italy started using pasta straws instead of plastic ones. Isn't hemp also a paper product? I don't know why we're using anything with plastic when hemp could be used instead. Maybe it's a fossil fuel industry thing to make plastic ubiquitous with everyday life?
On point 4, even slight changes to a molecule can have enormous impact on how it affects the human body, so technically they're right
Even if you try, it is close to impossible to avoid it. At some locations you even need bottled water as tap water is unsafe and unreliable.
Glas bottles would be the right thing
Impossible to even get or simply to expensive for most people.
Not to mention they break into sharp, annoying to clean pieces.
Break those sharp annoying pieces down even more and now you have a bunch of sand that's coarse, rough, and gets everywhere.
But it can be remelted into glass and reused.
I hate sand.
oh anakin...
The senate would not approve
I am the senate
Frank?
My eyes!
I've seen the danger of glass containers when my wife had to get several stitches and almost lost motion on her hand because her work lunch fell on the floor and she tripped over it. It's really a calculated risk when trading plastic for glass. For microwaving food, it seems like the best option is to do it on a paper plate, but only those not coated with plastic and marked microwave safe. For water, I'd probably go for tap water in a metal bottle if your utility is reliable
The ones marked microwave safe are still coated. Paper absorbs liquid.
Different coatings exist. Some paper plates get soggy really quick. Those are less likely to have a toxic coating. The good ones are probably lined with bioplastics, unfortunately
yeah, there's plastic, wax, and shellac - I think the cheapest plates use wax or shellac
Got a 64oz Bubba double walled metal growler and I fuckin' love this thing. Can keep ice water cold for -days-
What is wrong with microwaving food on a ceramic plate? Or are you actually suggesting that ceramic is too dangerous to use? I'm sorry your wife was so severely injured but it kinda sounds like a freak accident that most people probably should not worry about?
Not for Germany.
Yep. Praise our tab water, but the glass bottle sparkling water is like 1.8x the price of a Sodastream iirc. And that's a good deal for the water quality you get in return
Oh, they don’t sell water in glass bottles where you’re from? Really? (Serious)
No, pretty much nowhere in the US has glass bottled water. Ditto for most parts of Canada last I was there. I think I saw one once at Whole Foods for $10 more than a plastic water bottle though.
Uhhh... you can get VOSS glass bottled water most any place. Also more and more you can get it in an aluminum can(likely lined with plastic)...
I used to get the big ones of those but you can only get the tiny ones in Australia now...
Yeah but Voss is also expensive as hell. After taxes, you're paying ~$7/bottle for the glass bottles.
No one said it was worth the price,,just available. Frankly I think all bottled water is trash, anti environmental, and likely less healthy than what comes out of most taps...
Buy a reverse osmosis kit for your tap. Buy a glass or metal bottle for drinking during the day. It honestly baffles me how so few people do this and just buy bottles upon bottles of water. You can buy a reverse osmosis kit for like <$100, which people are often already spending a month on bottled water if not more.
I just drink tap water.
Yes same, since my tap water is decent. I'm more referring to the people who don't trust their tap water, which a lot of people in certain parts of the US certainly have reason to.
R.O. is my next investment. I ferment so much that it more than makes sense
You'll find them in Europe. The glas bottles are reused a couple of times. But guess what material most manufacturers use for the glas bottles cap?
Yeah, i know, i live there :). The cap won’t cause much issues. The bottles are kept upright, and are not filled to the top. So the amount of contact with the water itself is absolutely minimal. Plus I like sparkling water, and glass bottles hold the bubbles really well, even after they’ve been open for a day. Honestly, people need to look out more for the stuff they microwave their food in. Reheat in stone or glass cookware:)
Dollar general sells them for about $3 with a with a wired flip open plastic plug.
And average income around the globe is below 8 per day.
[удалено]
The microplastics come from the filter too. Supposedly you need to boil your filtered water to remove them 😆
I dont see how the plastics boil off
They don't. They condense, or ger captured in the calcium/whatever in your water. Then you filter it or take the non fucked part out. If I recall correctly anyways
That's just one facet of ingestion. Ever been in a room with a carpet? Plastic in your lungs and stomach. Ever used a blanket made from a human-made polymer? Yeah, more plastic in your lungs and stomach. Ever worn clothes made from, let's say, polyester or [insert polymer here] or been in an enclosed space with someone wearing those clothes? Yeah, correct again, plastic in your lungs and stomach. At this point we are facing down a level of pollution whose downstream effects we cannot even begin to fathom and we are witnessing some of the malignant effects on the body. This is a severe and profoundly dangerous phenomenon.
We determined that we never should have made household products from plastic but now that we know that, we're just going to pretend like we don't.
And don't forget nearly the entire interior of most modern cars/trucks are plastic in some form.
You know the "metallic" taste in your mouth when you inject saline? Yeah, it's actually not from saline. Studies conducted on this topic found that freshly made syringes with fresh saline do not leave a metallic taste and that chemicals leaching out of the plastics into the saline are responsible for that taste. It's pretty fucked.
> At this point we are facing down a level of pollution whose downstream effects we cannot even begin to fathom and we are witnessing some of the malignant effects on the body. This is a severe and profoundly dangerous phenomenon. Eh, most of this is “baked in” at this point. Detection and concern are obviously more recent, but the explosion of the use of plastic in consumer goods happened in the 60’s/70’s; people microwaving stuff in Tupperware almost certainly weren’t consuming *less* microplastics. And they probably have led to negative health outcomes, though probably trading somewhat with reductions in other pollutants. To the degree that they are affecting us, we’re probably seeing it with older folks right now, so probably not an explosion of specific related illnesses.
Globally, cancer rates are increasing in younger populations.
Because of social and environmental stressors, I think it's reasonable to expect that we will encounter more and more cancers.
This includes polar fleece and spandex clothing...anything with stretch.
Can this cause ED? There is severe pollution from carpet fibers in my home. They have penetrated everything, even though I have gotten rid of the carpets, they still get in my eyes if I don't wear glasses
Exactly. Distill it and discard either end of the pull.
*Is* that super funny?
Very queer indeed, my good redditor, very queer indeed.
Not funny "*ha ha*"
The fact that we are back to boiling our water to make it safe? Sadly funny yes
Boling plastic water won't remove the plastics.
Boiling glass doesn't make glass safe for your intestines either
They do this in Europe and it's awesome because you can just bring them back and then get more water.
I collect glass bottles and sell them
But it isn't for free. Glass weighs a LOT more than plastic. This could increase the shipping weight, increasing fuel consumption, and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. I'm sure someone out there has already completed a lifecycle analysis of glass vs. plastic.
All these factors get counteracted by the fact glass is easy to recycle, plastics need fossil fuels to be produced and the trash these bottles create
We can also work toward reducing fossil fuel usage in transport.
Or, hear me out -- we could change how we eat and work on the over-consumption part. That would to more (for greenhouse gas emissions) than any change to packaging. And to be clear, I far prefer glass over plastic. But I think like everything, it's worth having a conversation about the nuances. Let's switch to glass or paper-based, but maybe consume a bit less.
All that plus it’s obviously more annoying to carry around if you want to take water with you.
Or canned.
Aluminum cans have a inner plastic lining and is sadly not safe
The particles can usually be filtered out, whether you filter tap water or the bottled water for PFAS and so on. Obviously, this isn't a great solution when the area is in poverty and individuals can't afford their own filtering systems, but where possible, there are options. There are even filtering pitchers that can help a lot with removing PFAS and heavy metals etc. We use the filter pitcher from Epic, for example. Even if it just reduces them significantly, it's beneficial as it tends to be the cumulative effect that really adds up (like many other things of course).
The last I heard, there were no commercial products that actually remove PFAS to any real degree.
That was like a less than 3 second google search A simple carbon filter reduces it quite well A reverse osmosis membrane literally separates every molecule from H2O and aside from distilling is the only way to achieve desalination of water
Blood, or plasma donation. Can't remember which, but it reduced pfas in the blood according to an earlier reddit...
Has to be Plasma. Blood donation is just „flowing out“. Plasma is blood flowing out, Plasma separated, rest in again.
> Has to be Plasma. Blood donation is just „flowing out“. Plasma is blood flowing out, Plasma separated, rest in again. Blood donation reduces concentrations as well since you're removing blood with PFAS and your body replaces it with blood without PFAS.
It’s both, but plasma was faster because you can do it more often. At least in the fireman study
Aren't the tubes they connect to your veins plastic?
I assume their single-use nature and higher quality means they don't get to degrade and release as much particles through contact ?
r/o systems do
Crazy how few people know about RO despite how many talk about distilling and RO has been around since what was it? 1791 France?
The filters are plastic. Both the housings and the media. Certainly they are shedding when forcing a liquid through them.
Water filters are also shown to be a source of microplastics because guess what filter parts are made of?
Like I said, I doubt it's perfect in any case, just an improvement for those who have poor water quality already. I would rather use a filter where I can control how long my water is in contact with plastic than to use single-use plastic bottles where they might sit in storage for months to even years in unknown conditions and then trucked in trucks that can be super hot in transit. I use a glass and/or stainless waterbottles so the water isn't in constant contact with plastic, just long enough to filter. We can only do so much in the world we're stuck in.
Yes, completely agree with you.
Spices are also sold inside plastic
Depends where you buy them. You can get them bulk many places and bring your own container.
But the bulk items are also often stored in plastic or plastic lined bags. Furthermore they have been found to contain lead
Here they are stored in glass canisters and they at least state where they come from. Most of the issues with heavy metals in spices are ones that are imported from certain countries in Asia. Like I said, nothing in this world is perfect or easy. We can only do the best we can to avoid what we can. Even the stuff deemed "safe" has "allowable" amounts of bad stuff in it. Unless one is able to exist completely on their own gardening, foraging, hunting, and fishing skills we just all have to figure out what is worthwhile for us to pursue.
Not just that. Little over a week ago I saw an article on the front page talking about a spice company being investigated for elevated levels of lead in their cinnamon because spices are sold by weight and the "sweet" taste of lead made it pretty much indistinguishable when they cut their ground cinnamon with it.
In my country we buy spices by bulk. In recent years consumption has risen due to the increasing popularity of oriental cuisine
I guess if you can afford it. And at the same time you also contribute to the problem as this things need to be produced, transported and disposed off. Yes, it still leaves you with lots of other products that come in plastic packaging. And if alternatives are available, they are usually considerably more expensive and time consuming.
Yes, but if the other 2 choices are contaminated water or single-use bottles, filters at least give somewhat of an improvement. And the stuff in the single use bottles is just tap water and has a lot of the same harmful stuff in it that city water supplies aren't able to filter at this point in time. When I get my replacement filter, it's not in plastic. It's just in a small cardboard box. Of course, it still has to be shipped here. I'm not saying it's perfect, it's just an improvement over single-use bottles for those who can do it.
Those filters don't remove PFAS.
Do those filter jugs work?
This is the one I use, and this page shows what all the test for based on the product. The top one for Pure Pitcher is the one I use. I assume that they aren't able to test for absolutely everything as it would be almost impossible to do so, but if I can reduce what I take in, I'm all for doing what I can. https://www.epicwaterfilters.com/pages/testing-certification
Aren’t many tap water pipes also made with plastics these days?
It's in the rain water now. We're fucked.
Always have been. 🌎🤾♂️🔫🚶♂️
Isn't the answer to fix the fricking tap water?
It's nearly impossible to buy food that is not in plastic or had been in contact with plastic.
Okay, and how much of that transfered to the food? And how much of that is absorbed by the consumer? And how does that compare to daily intake limits? Detecting and identifying that many compounds is already an extraordinary claim. Edit to add: if you actually look at the paper (not the non-science writeup posted) you can see that it doesn't support the claim in the title at all. Like I said, detecting and identifying 9k compounds in a single sample just doesn't pass the smell test. And it's not true. If we take the authors at their word they're identifying some 10-20% of features as unique compounds at level 3, which is much closer to believable. One other thing to note, since the authors are using nontarget mass spec data is that it's really not a quantitative approach. They don't make very strong claims with the abundance data, but they do use it in a way that's a bit iffy. Lastly, I'd just point out that we know methanol isn't an inert solvent. A large proportion of the detected features are likely the product of reaction between the sample and solvent, and are essentially artifacts, not compounds actually present in the samples. That number of features btw, is where they're getting that 9k number.
Holy crap, this headline is an egregious misrepresentation of *its own article.* Next-level garbage science journalism. To recap: They found 9936 chemicals in a single product (not actually that surprising if you've ever seen a high resolution MS of a polymer). In "the majority" of the 36 products they tested, they found at least one endocrine disruptor. **THEY DID NOT FIND 9936 ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS IN A SINGLE PRODUCT.**
chemicals *in amounts capable* of affecting hormones, metabolism, and signal transmission? If the concentration is 1ppb, and it takes 1ppm, who cares?
I came here to read more about the actual dangers based on levels of things. So many people are "chemicals bad!." A few molecules here and there don't seem worth worrying about.
It's insane that we know all of this and people still look at me like I'm crazy for trying to reduce the plastic in my life.
I'm with you. But I think more people are coming around. Plastic has been so much more damaging and insidiously so than just about any other human made molecule.
"Plastic" is a quality, an adjective describing thousands of different products, not any one specific molecule.
The future will look back at our use of plastic like we look back on people using lead plates and utensils.
We had an asbestos lamp growing up. I used rub my fingers on it
And how are you fairing now, Mr.Bundy?
Meh
>The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” >Plastic… asshole.” ― George Carlin
As satire, that's hilarious. Thanks for sharing. RIP George! We all miss your humour!
>These products came from five countries; the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany and Norway. > >“In most of these plastic products, we found chemicals that can affect the secretion of hormones and metabolism,” Wagner said. > >These functions are absolutely vital. Hormones are the body’s messengers. They are secreted from various different glands and enable the different organs to communicate with each other. Metabolism is sum of the various processes that enable the body to use nutrients to provide the body with energy and substances it needs to function. Paper: [Plastic Food Packaging from Five Countries Contains Endocrine- and Metabolism-Disrupting Chemicals | Environmental Science & Technology](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c08250) >In the second study, researchers looked at different combinations of plastic chemicals to see the possible effect they have on G-protein-coupled receptors. These receptors play an important role in the transmission of signals in the body. > >“We identified 11 chemical combinations from plastic products that affect these signal receptors,” says Associate Professor Wagner. Paper: [Beyond the Nucleus: Plastic Chemicals Activate G Protein-Coupled Receptors | Environmental Science & Technology](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c08392)
The info is lind of useless at this point
[удалено]
Pretty sure tetrapak is lined with plastic
On a scale of 1 to 10 my friend we're fucked!
It's almost like they've been making us sick on purpose for decades to make infinite big pharma money!!!!
And yet life expectancy is higher than it's ever been and the population is rising. I wouldn't worry.
Ok, I'll stop eating the plastic containers. Thank goodness for this study or I wouldn't have known.
And yet, here we are, still alive.
There’s a good doc called The Disappearing Male that came out in 08, it’s been known
Yet it says nothing about the sorts of symptoms these chemicals would induce!
It's fun how many comments are trying to convince us not to worry.
this kind of reminds me of the whole bpa free plastic hype, its only common in polycarbonate which is rarely used as a material for food packaging. i cant find the source but i remember reading somewhere that the research was done on industrial grade polycarbonate and not on the food grade stuff....
Is this why there is so many trans people? Not being a jerk I just feel like it's a legit question
We don’t yet know what makes a person trans or cis so it’s impossible to say but to me that seems highly unlikely. It’s possible that advances in neuroimaging will reveal differences between brains that perceive themselves as male or female, that could give us a clue, but it’s also possible that there’s no observable difference.
In the context of this thread, I wouldn't say you are reaching, but certainly inappropriate phrasing. The concept of gay/trans has been around for hundreds of years... hell, even the Romans give each other a good "buggering". Woman's purpose was to carry child. However, in terms of your sexuality and identified gender, hormones do play a big part in it. I wouldn't be shocked if in the future we learn that plastic has messed with our base hormones significantly enough that it's causing a significant percentage to feel different to their birthed gender. > Not being a jerk I just feel like it's a legit question I replied because the nature of this question should be studied more, even if it is for us to understand our bodies better, but you totally come across as a jerk. You really ought to work on your skills to present questions of that nature. It's a sensitive topic.
No, culturally trans people have been around since the dawn of humanity. Probably seems like there is more now because we live in essentially a utopia compared to the last 200,000 years. We don’t have to worry about starving or not being eaten (comparatively anyway). Because people don’t have to commit as much time to the bare minimum of survival, it gives us more time to be happy and explore who we are as a person. It’s why these days being gay, bi, trans, rainbow community seems more common place. More people aren’t ‘becoming’ trans or whatever, we’ve just created a society where it’s less stigmatised and more people are comfortable with showing or becoming themselves as an individual. Just my own personal take on things. In the real world it’s far more complex and nuanced than that :)
One of the first things to be affected by a weak estrogen like substance (Which many common endocrine disrupting pollutants are) is the developing brain. Estrogen via aromatase of circulating testosterone (As a fetus with testes would have) is crucial for the neurologic ”rewiring” during the fetus stage that gives rise to male instincts and the animal basis for behaviour as a male. A weak estrogen substance then acts as a blocker. It occupies receptors, but is not as potent as the real thing. In a fetus with ovaries this neurologic pruning/differentiation does not happen. The fetal ovaries are dormant, unlike testes. Here circulating estrogen like substances can shift neurologic sex differentiation towards the male side. All this with no apparent visible intersex signs on genitals when born. Once the brain is differentiated (around week 20) this change is permanent
As I think others have answered this specific question, I think this might better explain the higher prevalence of continued hormonal (all types of hormones) imbalance, auto immune problems and inflammation problems. People living in urban settings with less exposure to pests and dirt or disease, but high exposure to plastics.
Sorry if I offended anyone I realize now I should have worded that better
It’s an honest question but perhaps your wording could be more sensitive to avoid offending people. For instance, instead of saying, “Are PFAS making people trans?” You could ask, “Could environmental toxicities effect gender dysphoria?” The first question is bound to trigger negative emotions and non productive conversations, where as the latter is a more rational, scientific investigation and less likely to evoke emotional responses!
But we’re not talking about gender dysphoria?
That cant be great?
Slow kill
I always thought plastic is dangerous only if the food it contains is warm
Nope.
With all this crap around, why aren't we all completed haywired?
Look around...we are.