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

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

#271

Post by [deleted] »

discordance wrote: post #266
samcheng wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distilled water, particularly if heated, is dangerous to drink, according to some chemists I know. The concept is that the ultra-pure water leaches potentially harmful ions from its surroundings, for example chromium from stainless steel fixtures. Better to drink some harmless sodium and chlorine ions.

I think you're referring to deionized water. Deionized (DI) water is water that where all ions are removed. This is not safe to drink. Distilled water is boiled and recondensed water, which leaves you with pure H2O (no minerals etc). It's safe to drink but pretty bland.

[deleted]

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

#272

Post by hollerith »

dwighttk wrote: post #270
discordance wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're referring to deionized water. Deionized (DI) water is water that where all ions are removed. This is not safe to drink. Distilled water is boiled and recondensed water, which leaves you with pure H2O (no minerals etc). It's safe to drink but pretty bland.

Outside of hydroxide and hydronium, which ions are left with “pure H2O (no minerals etc)”? And DI water gets hydronium and hydroxide pretty quickly (if they ever go away.) H2O just breaks down into OH- and H3O+ on its own (as far as I know)

I agree: in fact the deionization process adds one hydronium or hydroxide for every (mineral) ion it removes:

>Deionization is a chemical process that uses specially manufactured ion-exchange resins, which exchange hydrogen and hydroxide ions for dissolved minerals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purified_water#Deionization

In other words, if deionized water is unhealthful because of a lack of ions, distilled water is, too, because it doesn't contain any more ions than deionized water does.

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

#273

Post by dottrap »

mehrdadn wrote: post #250
Judgmentality wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of bottled water comes from municipal water plants (aka tap water).

That Penn & Teller YouTube link even has a section showing this, though you only need to go to the supermarket and look closely at the fine print of all the different brands of bottle water. You'll quickly find a lot are tap water.

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

#274

Post by mncharity »

smhost wrote: post #181
lukaa wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For practical purpose does it matter? It detects non-water particles(pollution) in twice higher ratio than in tap water and plastic bottled water is sold as way purer than tap water with 1000 time higher price. Basically it's scam.

we should start calling bottled water "plastic water"

> we should start calling bottled water "plastic water"

Might that be surprisingly effective as way to reduce bottled water use?

As a drop-in replacement for the phrase "bottled water", it meme-ishly supports interpersonal and self discouragement of use: "Here's your plastic water dear."; "Don't forget to buy my plastic water.".

The "plasticness" of bottles is highly salient when opening, handling, and trashing them, and is associated with the pollution. Imagine an ad with someone opening a bottle, with putting-down-the-cap noise, making that "crunching" bottle noise, drinking from and looking at a bottle, and recycling it, all while describing plastic "dust" and its health and ecosystem issues. So that bottle handling becomes a memory trigger for the issues and an associate visceral "yuck".

Nifty idea.

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

#275

Post by bamboozled »

glennpratt wrote: post #230
cortesoft wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic bottled water is not bought because it is higher quality. People buy it because it comes in a disposable container.

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.

Same experience, many people see tap water as being inferior and maybe even dirty, so they go with the bottled water.

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

#276

Post by grandmczeb »

dottrap wrote: post #273
mehrdadn wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of bottled water comes from municipal water plants (aka tap water). That Penn & Teller YouTube link even has a section showing this, though you only need to go to the supermarket and look closely at the fine print of all the different brands of bottle water. You'll quickly find a lot are tap water.

"Tap" doesn't always have a uniform flavor, even in the same city. It's perfectly possible that bottled tap might taste better than the tap water at your house.

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

#277

Post by SomeOldThrow »

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…

Assuming there’s a lack of toxic effects because a human has not yet named any is fallacious. Safety is inherently impossible to demonstrate with certainty.

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

#279

Post by tokai »

Reason077 wrote: post #147
onion2k wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "The bottled water is produced close to where it's sold." Well, not always. Premium brands are often shipped long distances. Evian, Fiji water, etc...

Voss made a fortune selling Norwegian tap water around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voss_(water)

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