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Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

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Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#61
post #37
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass is amazing. You haven't tasted a beverage until you had it in a glass cup or bottle.

Neither glass nor plastic add or detract from the flavour of a beverage.

There is absolutely a difference in perception, especially noticeable with metal/non-metal.

Drink a soda from a can and then the same kind from a glass? Night and day. Try experimenting with spoons to eat: wooden, plastic, different metals. You really notice that, or you should: the spoon goes right on your tongue to introduce the food.

Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#62
post #37
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass is amazing. You haven't tasted a beverage until you had it in a glass cup or bottle.

Neither glass nor plastic add or detract from the flavour of a beverage.

I find that carbonated beverages behave very differently in plastic cups.

Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plastic-free paper and cardboard packaging. But that is normally loaded with PFAS which is used to stop paper from breaking down when exposed to food fats. However PFAS is a chemical that accumulates in the human body and has been linked to cancer, liver damager, decreased fertility, asthma, and thyroid damage. So yeah, you can remove the plastic lining from paper, but that severely decreases our quality of…

Maybe wrap it in five sheets of paper and wrap that in plastic. It should hold enough for the trip home and should help limit the amount of chemicals moving into the actual food. At home, you can move the food into glass containers for storage.

One time I was grabbing Mexican food after an arduous night of clubbing with my friend Rachel, who wore green dreads, smelled of patchouli, and was a member of Food Not Bombs.

We went to the taco stand which was known as the "drive-by shooting" place, and got carne asada quesadillas or something, and she told me to insist that they not use any packaging on them, but just put them in our hands. We "single-handedly" saved the planet that night!

Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#64

This was a strange read. "Just as toxic" reads, obviously, as "as bad as", with the implication that paper is as bad as plastic. But the article ignores paper entirely and focuses on the use of PLA liners in (some) paper cups and lids. So, already there is obviously far less potentially toxic material and so already the title is untrue. Then the article states that there are "as many chemicals" in PLA as regular plas…

Whether there is a microscopic lining, or the plastic is an inch thick, the amount that leaches off, especially in the presence of a hot food substance, that's the amount that's harmful, and any leaching is going to be in small, frequent doses over a large period of time, and that's the harm they'll find.

What's harmful in that? Where are the studies that show that it is harmful? I write this comment on plastic, got to work in a mostly plastic car, drink my coffee out of plastic packaging, have my lunch in plastic containers. I'm sure there should be long term health effects already discovered based on the ubiquity of plastics of all sorts.

Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#65
post #59

Oh, yeah, that's no secret. Anything that touches food is lined to within an inch of its life with plastic. There's no escaping that. Every soda can you drink, most of your reusable water bottles, all that supposedly eco-friendly packaging is loaded with plastic. And they can BPA-free you all they want, but they just keep shifting to newer, less tested substances that don't have a bad reputation yet.

I guess they could coat them in something else, like beeswax.

Are you crazy! Bees don't work for free!

Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#66

The author's point out how before the Second World War, people had to be taught how to adapt to a consumable life style, and therefore we can (and must) continue to adapt to a more sustainable lifestyle.

I'll adapt as soon as they stop selling us unrepairable kitchen appliances that break 2 months after warranty expiration, and cars that are following the same path of enshittification.

Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#67
post #54

Why is it so difficult for us to switch to hemp plastic? It I said to be non toxic & biodegradable [0]: https://www.plantswitch.com/hemp-plastic/

I don't know if hemp plastic is better or not, but I wouldn't take a manufacturer's website word for it, as they're clearly not an impartial source.

That website also contains a number of red flags: disable text selection and right click, excessive use of superlatives, no details on why it's better/less toxic than other bioplastics, no hint of even the slightest study on hemp plastic.

Maybe hemp plastic really is loads better, that would be fantastic! But that link didn't convince me.

Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#68
post #32
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass sucks. That's why we stopped using it. It's expensive, it's brittle, it's heavy, it takes up a lot of space.

Glass is amazing. You haven't tasted a beverage until you had it in a glass cup or bottle.

Different metals used for cutlery also affect flavours: https://scienceillustrated.com.au/blog/science/does-cutlery-...

Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#69
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Definitely happens, latest when one of the cheaper thinner bottle types have been sitting a bit too long in the hot the plastic taste becomes intense. And even if below noticing levels I think plastic molecules have been detected in such beverages, but uncertain here.

Do I really need to specify "unless you have put the bottles in the sun, which the label tells you not to do"?

Which is sometimes unavoidable, but to be precise, the same even on hot days without direct sun exposure, lets stop pea counting. You will easily find studies that stuff from PET production like acetaldehyde goes into the beverage and impacts taste.

But certainly also kind of what you are used to, always surprising for some folks to learn that for others chlorine water is associated with freshness, while clean water is a bit foul.

Re: Paper cups are just as toxic as plastic cups

#70
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass sucks. That's why we stopped using it. It's expensive, it's brittle, it's heavy, it takes up a lot of space.

Glass is awesome. It's reusable many times over and recyclable after that. We used to have systems to allow that reuse (bottle return) before somehow we ended up throwing away a plastic bottle (recycled at best) every time we buy a pint of milk. And contrary to sibling comment, glass containers don't leach heavy metals (or anything else) into food.

Plastic bottles are more environmentally friendly.

Glass requires massively more energy to manufacture, even using 100% recycled glass. Glass is heavy, so it's more expensive to transport. Collecting and washing bottles for re-use consumes a substantial amount of energy, which greatly increases the number of trips required to break even on the higher manufacturing impacts. The lifespan of a re-usable glass bottle is relatively very short, because glass is fragile. Glass compares poorly to HDPE when we factor in a realistic lifespan for glass and a realistic recycling rate for HDPE.

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