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

cbc.ca

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

#241

Post by dd36 »

fouc wrote: post #227
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #221

See also: * Microplastics found in 93% of bottled water tested in global study https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16793888 * Microplastics found in 90 percent of table salt https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18248471 * Microplastics Are Blowing in the Wind https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19672514 * Microplastics found in supermarket fish, shellfish https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14245133 I think people…

It's possible the microplastics could be to blame for the decline in male fertility.

They need to test blood and urine.

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

#242

Post by userbinator »

cwkoss wrote: post #239
inimino wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's your control group? If life expectancy would have been a year higher, how exactly would you know?

Indigenous peoples who are less connected to the global economy tend to have 4x+ the gut microbial diversity. Would be interesting to study the link between microplastics and the microbiome.

I don't think they have higher life expectancies, however.

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

#243

Post by sgustard »

hu3 wrote: post #214
JohnFen wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know lots of people who buy it because they believe it's higher quality. They don't care about the container.

That would be me and my family over the last decade. We buy bottled water hoping it would benefit our health over tap water.

I hope in that case you buy it in refillable 5g water cooler jugs, rather than small disposable bottles.

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

#244

Post by sgustard »

Isamu wrote: post #4

It's good to see the honest qualifications in the article: >Mason's team was able to identify specific plastics over 100 microns (0.10 mm) in size but not smaller particles. According to experts contacted by CBC News, there is a chance the Nile Red dye is adhering to another unknown substance other than plastic. >Mason leaves open that possibility but leans strongly to the smaller particles being plastic. >The develo…

I didn't TLDR so can someone tell me: is 93% of the planet's fresh water contaminated with plastic? Or is there something about bottling water in plastic that adds plastic to the water?

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

#245

Post by hu3 »

sgustard wrote: post #243
hu3 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be me and my family over the last decade. We buy bottled water hoping it would benefit our health over tap water.

I hope in that case you buy it in refillable 5g water cooler jugs, rather than small disposable bottles.

Yep, 5 gallon water jugs.

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

#246

Post by Judgmentality »

mehrdadn wrote: post #237
glennpratt wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true in my experience. I've witnessed plenty of people in wealthy US suburbs that stock bottled water at home and even stock up on vacation. They claim it's for the taste and purity.

I don't know about purity but the taste can indeed be better than tap.

It can also be worse. I'd guess for almost everybody the difference in taste is dominated by the placebo effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIJEw5aDzOo

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

#247

Post by tictok4 »

baxtr wrote: post #115
40four wrote: post #33

I was curious if the micro-plastics could be coming from the bottles they are packaged in. The article says... It's not clear how the plastic is getting into the bottled water — whether it's the water source itself or the air or the manufacturing and bottling process. "Even the simple act of opening the cap could cause plastic to be chipping off the cap," Mason said. I think it's easy to assume it's from the water so…

Makes me wonder how much plastic kids eat when they eat with plastic spoons

everything for kids is plastic. it's sad.

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

#248

Post by userbinator »

armitron wrote: post #101
hourislate wrote: post #78

I was under the impression Gerolsteiner and San Pellegrino were from deep under ground springs where it took the water decades or more to filter down into the source where the bottler draws it from. Are the plastics somehow in the source or are they being introduced in another way, perhaps when the bottles are washed, handled, etc before filling?

The bottles themselves are suspicious and have been implicated [1]. All plastics have been found to leech chemicals, including PET [2] which is used for bottled water. If you think that in a typical warehouse or storage facility (before it hits a supermarket or sales point), bottled water is never refrigerated and that the temperatures it is exposed to are very frequently 'extreme', it should come as no surprise that…

The precautionary principle should strongly characterize -all- plastics as unsafe

It really bothers me to see people making such rash statements, because they serve more to spread fear and panic more than anything else. Just looking at some of the comments here, it seems this microplastics thing is approaching mass hysteria. There is absolutely no doubt that plastics have contributed greatly to an increasing quality of life over the century or more since they've been invented. If you don't believe me, compare what it was like to live in the early 1800s or before.

The overuse of disposable plastics is certainly problematic, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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

#249

Post by kasbah »

kasbah wrote: post #195

Interesting, makes me want to put some microplastics in our DNA sequencer / robotic fluorescent microscope and have a scan. https://reseq.hackteria.org

* put some bottled water into the DNA sequencer/fluorescence microscope I mean

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

#250

Post by mehrdadn »

Judgmentality wrote: post #246
mehrdadn wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about purity but the taste can indeed be better than tap.

It can also be worse. I'd guess for almost everybody the difference in taste is dominated by the placebo effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIJEw5aDzOo

I mean, maybe to you it's a placebo effect, but I know I can at least smell the chlorine in my tap water... which I suppose isn't strictly "taste" but basically the same for the point of the discussion.
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