Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 383 posts

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#171

Post by noir_lord »

sarnowski wrote: post #57
afiori wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In at least a couple of European countries it is well known that unless your city has specific problems tap water is better than bottled water. The reason being that (except some cases of corruption...) legal limit are much stricter for tap water. Better in impurities at the very least, the taste is usually quite worse.

Living in Germany/Berlin and can confirm. Our tap water is excellent and is way cleaner than all bottled water you can buy. Keep in mind, bottled water is also kept around way longer and has the time to „breed“. In tests, the tap water is consistently less contaminated. I recommend everyone to just stick to it. As an anecdote: you can let your tap water be tested for free if you have a newborn to ensure and confirm t…

UK as well has generally excellent tap water and everywhere I’ve lived it had never tasted any different to bottled water.

That said I’ve never been a fan of bottle water anyway, I’ve always preferred what my Nan used to call ‘council pop’ (tap water).

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#172

Post by rb808 »

onion2k wrote: post #143
fireattack wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bottled water is a scam, and it also is a resources that's often extracted from poor countries and communities Are you sure about this? My impression is that the price/weight ratio of bottled water is way to low to make any sense to not bottle them in close proximity, so "extracted from poor countries " doesn't sound plausible.

The bottled water is produced close to where it's sold. The issue is in countries where the water bottling plant takes up lots of the available local water so the poorer citizens can't access it, and they can't afford the bottled water either. This means they don't have access to any clean water. One of Nestle's recent CEOs actually went on record to say say he didn't believe access to clean water should be a human r…

He didnt say that. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nestle-ceo-water-not-human...

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#174

Post by ralph84 »

zaroth wrote: post #87
irrational wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's just the places in the US I've lived in that have safe tap water.

Yes, just the vast majority of the US (geographically and population wise) has incredibly good tap water, with a long tail of famously bad exceptions to the rule.

Geographically the vast majority of the US doesn't have tap water.

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#175

Post by djsumdog »

markdown wrote: post #132
djsumdog wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tap water in the developed world is really really good. You can measure a country by the ability of that nation to provide clean water to people. Municipal water supplies in cities like Atlanta and Cincinnati are often tested 200~300 times per month at several pumping and maintenance locations. Bottled water is a scam, and it also is a resources that's often extracted from poor countries and communities. The document…

> that's often extracted from poor countries and communities. Most bottled water came out of a local tap.

Yep, that's true too. Most bottled water is just municipal tap water.

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#176

Post by ArlenBales »

Richard_East wrote: post #105
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #7

I wonder if all the articles talking about the prevalence of microplastics, are in actuality demonstrating the safety of microplastics. If it is in 93% of bottled water, and bottled water is used by millions of people (according to https://www.consumerreports.org/bottled-water/should-we-brea... around 110 Million people in the US avoid drinking tap water), then there has been widespread exposure to microplastics. It…

"From 1973 to 2011, there was a decline of more than 50 percent in sperm counts among men living in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand." "The researchers said that they cannot determine from their data what might have caused the decline, but it could be related to environmental or lifestyle factors." https://www.livescience.com/59948-sperm-count-drop-western-m...

Easily correlated to other factors such as the surge in obesity and diabetes since the 1970s.

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#177

Post by armitron »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #7

I wonder if all the articles talking about the prevalence of microplastics, are in actuality demonstrating the safety of microplastics. If it is in 93% of bottled water, and bottled water is used by millions of people (according to https://www.consumerreports.org/bottled-water/should-we-brea... around 110 Million people in the US avoid drinking tap water), then there has been widespread exposure to microplastics. It…

Microplastics can accumulate in human organs, especially the kidneys and the liver. It could take some time for microplastic accumulation in internal organs to cause serious health issues. I don't know about you, but I'm not comfortable being a guinea pig for huge corporations and then wake up one day with the bill due.

Not like similar debacles haven't happened in the past: Tobacco, asbestos, lead, VOCs, the list goes on and on.

We're all a part of gigantic experiment the consequences of which we won't find out for some time.

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#178

Post by groby_b »

zaroth wrote: post #129
groby_b wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

63 million people is a really, really long tail.

Where did you get 63 million? The third link from GP has a headline which reads “360,000 Californians have unsafe drinking water. Are you one of them?” That’s approximately 1% of CA’s population. That’s not even a long tail.

The second link.

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#179

Post by mrb »

Direct link to the study (published Sep 2018):

HTML: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6141690/

PDF: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6141690/pdf/fch...

Alternative PDF version: https://orbmedia.org/sites/default/files/FinalBottledWaterRe...

Re: Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study

#180

Post by calculuscrayon »

Cytobit wrote: post #114
notadoc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you concerned about electrolyte imbalance with drinking distilled water?

I've often heard that drinking distilled water is bad due to it leaching minerals/electrolytes. Has anyone done the math on this to either validate or debunk this? A 16oz bottle of San Pellegrino has 20mg of sodium. How can such a small difference in sodium intake (and other minerals) have a meaningful influence on electrolyte levels?

It is a common misconception that drinking distilled water is dangerous. Water isn't a major source of minerals. [source](https://biology.stackexchange.com/a/7194)
Post reply on HN