Earlier quoted context omitted.
I consider the government interfering in commerce to be authoritarian, correct.
Do you think single use plastics are a net positive for society?
They evidently are. They are useful, convenient, and cheap.
Plastics are poisoning us
371–380 of 528 posts
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heating up Teflon straight up kills birds if they're in the same room.
Source?
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#373There are plastic rocks forming. Those aren't rocks with plastic melted on top of them. They are literally plastic rocks formed via the same processes alongside normal rocks. We could ban plastics tomorrow, and it wouldn't be enough. We've screwed over the entire Earth.
It's basically the same situation as lead. It's been spread all over the place and doesn't break down. Thank god we at least managed to stop adding to the problem though.
There are unfortunately still several sources of lead: solder, galvanized metal (something that gardeners and farmers use a lot!), cheap manufacturing, ammunition, airplane fuel, apparently still a lot of fishing equipment, and several other hobby and industrial sources.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#374Considering how ubiquitous plastics are, they look rather harmless to me. We are wasting hundreds of millions of tons per year, we eat it, drink it, we have been doing that for decades and we are still discussing statistical signifiance. Sure, not completely harmless, but few things are. And considering the tremendous value plastics have brought to society, I'd say the downsides are comparatively small. What worries…
There's microplastics which are now absolutely everywhere. Apparently we consume a credit card's worth of plastic per month. Nobody should feel ok about consuming a drink that's got a ground up credit card in it, yet that's what we're doing. In Asia especially it's crazy how plastic is often used - you go to a 7/11 to buy a cold drink, they put it in TWO flimsy plastic bags which you throw in the first trash can you…
When I was in Tokyo, 25 years ago, I got to the point where I’d trick the convenience store cashiers into not putting a single can of soda into a plastic bag. Which they would do, every single time. So I’d hand them my money, then pick up the beverage while they were busy with the till.
It was a public debate issue at the time, trying to solve trash problems. I don’t know where they are at with the problem now.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's microplastics which are now absolutely everywhere. Apparently we consume a credit card's worth of plastic per month. Nobody should feel ok about consuming a drink that's got a ground up credit card in it, yet that's what we're doing. And what's the effect? We've been doing this for decades?
Replace plastic with lead and reread. Lead was used for centuries before the risks were fully understood.
And mercury.
Lead was used for millenia. Romans drank from lead goblets. It sweetened the wine.
And we didn’t know the full story of lead until 20 years after it was banned from gasoline, and the violent crime rates started to drop.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Teflon Aka Polytetrafluoroethylene cookware represents a health hazard. Are you saying, then, that this claim [1] is false? It states that PTFE is safe, whereas PFOA — what Teflon used to contain — was the component that made Teflon unsafe. [1] https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/is-teflon-coating-safe
PTFE is a PFAS, as is PFOA. > Now, since PFOA belongs to a large group of chemicals called PFAS, consisting of 4,700 similar substances, it might be tempting to just switch to one of the other PFAS chemicals that hasn’t been restricted yet. But that wouldn´t solve the problem, it would only postpone and perpetuate it. [1] [1] https://marketplace.chemsec.org/articles/news/2020/04/01/the... I.e. there's a whole zoo of…
Sorry, but PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) may be a PFAS (per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances but not a Perfluorooctane Sulfonate PFOAS) however, it is definitely not a PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid).
Your link does not contain a reference to PTFE and looking at the meaning of the acronyms should provide evidence fluorethylene is not a sulfonate or an octanoic acid.
The manufacture of PTFE may involve generating these as bio-hazardous byproducts and PTFE could be contaminated or even break down into them, but they are chemically not the same.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's microplastics which are now absolutely everywhere. Apparently we consume a credit card's worth of plastic per month. Nobody should feel ok about consuming a drink that's got a ground up credit card in it, yet that's what we're doing. And what's the effect? We've been doing this for decades?
I think you severely underestimate not only how long effects can take to show, but how long and complicated it can be to fund good long term scientific studies. There's this belief that if something has an effect, it'll just show up magically on the news after the minimum amount of time, without taking into account all the hurdles people have to go through to research. Even if you didn't have powerful companies with…
Microdosing can also result in slow development of symptoms. Is everyone fat because of sedentary lifestyles? Endocrine disruption? Maybe plastic ingestion makes people lazy. We don’t know because almost no one has asked. And now you can’t even create a control group to study it.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
Teflon Aka Polytetrafluoroethylene cookware represents a health hazard. The stuff contains a great deal of Florine and breaks down at 300C, but that’s not purely binary instead it becomes increasingly unstable as your approach the temperature. Further no manufacturing process is perfect, I wouldn’t therefore assume eating significant quantities would be safe. That said, it’s generally used as a coating rather than a…
Heating up Teflon straight up kills birds if they're in the same room.
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Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#379Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand that Teflon might be a hazard in pans but feel like it reduces the amount of burned food in contrast to steel/iron pans so much for me that I hope it is a net gain. (sorry in advance for all who want to suggest iron skillets. I can't make them work in daily use.)
If you are regularly burning food in steel or iron pans, maybe it's time to understand why? I cook in exclusively iron and steel cookware and I cannot remember the last time something got burned (excepting when I deliberately charred something.)
I guess that it is due to the heat source (ceran cook top) and being used to using too little oil (with a teflon pan I use less than a teaspoon in most cases).