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Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

reuters.com

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Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#111

Post by gshubert17 »

jrajav wrote: post #58
ajross wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. No. Demographics can show you with extremely small error bars the aggregate health effects of smoking and (heavy) drinking. If there was an effect of that magnitude from other variables, we'd know for sure. Microplastics and pthalates and other related contaminants are real, and deserve study. But let's not get ahead of ourselves with the doomerism. We surely…

How many cycles do we have to go through of "oh, recklessly dumping this substance into the ecosystem probably doesn't have any ill effects, and you should prove it does before being such a negative nelly"? Just once, I'd like to sacrifice consumerism at the altar of my and my family's internal organs, versus the other way around. We're a few decades late to finally be putting full product lifecycle accountability in…

If Congress were interested in policy changes, would a tax on plastic (to cover recycling, cleanup, and future medical costs) be a way to go?

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#112

Post by conroy »

bsenftner wrote: post #71
throw10920 wrote: post #63

Hooray for Consumer Reports! They're one of the few truly independent (e.g. no paid sponsorships like you see on YouTube channels) product testing and review companies. I have a subscription to them and it's served me well, and I hope they stick around for a while.

Who else is there? Today's consumer protections for anything Internet related feels nonexistent. Who else is like Consumer Reports?

GearLab uses the same model as Consumer Reports. No sponsored content, they buy all the products themselves, etc.

https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/about

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#113

Post by 29athrowaway »

achrono wrote: post #36

It's time to come up with what I'd call a Plastic Chain Index. For any given edible item, a very low plastic chain index implies that it would only have plastic inadvertently absorbed from the environment, whereas a high one would be e.g. those super hot French fries rolling in plastic. If you're optimistic, this will usher in easy measurement, widespread awareness and consumer enlightenment. But realistically, we wi…

Some accumulate in the food chain. So the big fish has all the plastic from the small fish it eats.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#114

Post by forward1 »

javier_e06 wrote: post #10

Notwithstanding the literature that says Phthalates are also breathed and absorbed through skin, that ship has sailed for this and the few generations ahead of us.

This is really important. Everyone squirting hand sanitizer at store checkouts and then handling BPA-paper receipts is a particularly good example.

> commonly used hand sanitizers, as well as other skin care products, contain mixtures of dermal penetration enhancing chemicals that can increase by up to 100 fold the dermal absorption of lipophilic compounds such as BPA.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#116

Post by AlexandrB »

jrajav wrote: post #58
ajross wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. No. Demographics can show you with extremely small error bars the aggregate health effects of smoking and (heavy) drinking. If there was an effect of that magnitude from other variables, we'd know for sure. Microplastics and pthalates and other related contaminants are real, and deserve study. But let's not get ahead of ourselves with the doomerism. We surely…

How many cycles do we have to go through of "oh, recklessly dumping this substance into the ecosystem probably doesn't have any ill effects, and you should prove it does before being such a negative nelly"? Just once, I'd like to sacrifice consumerism at the altar of my and my family's internal organs, versus the other way around. We're a few decades late to finally be putting full product lifecycle accountability in…

Unfortunately, sometimes there are no perfect answers and it's instead a question of balancing different pros and cons. Flame retardants are a great example - asbestos does it really well, but creates potential for long-term harm. Modern furniture and home building moved onto other fire suppressants like PBDEs[1]. These are also not great for you, however, and the question of whether it's worth it or not depends on how much those few seconds of time are worth if there's a fire in your home. The answer to that question is extremely subjective, so it's easy to disagree with any decision that the industry makes.

Remove all PBDEs: "Why are you putting my family in jeopardy?"

Use PBDEs: "Why are you putting my family in jeopardy?"

Finally, as with many other issues, the unseen element is cost. It's possible to use materials that don't require PBDEs to keep them from igniting rapidly, but will people be willing to pay that premium for their homes and their furniture? The rising popularity of "dollar stores"[2] and TEMU suggests that they won't. And making things more expensive through regulation has the side effect of empowering political forces that would gladly obliterate any kind of regulatory protection for consumers - making things worse, not better.

[1] https://www.ecohome.net/guides/2223/flame-retardants-in-furn...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/more-wealthy-people-shopping...

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#117

Post by jodrellblank »

gruez wrote: post #88
mtsr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently wondering whether billionaires are already sourcing water only from pre-plastics ice like glaciers or icebergs.

Can't you just distill water? Worst case you can use electrolysis to deconstruct/reconstruct water at the molecular level.

You can get reverse osmosis filters for boats, which turn ocean water into drinkable water, for a few thousand dollars. There's some discussion over whether that's safe to drink long term, since it removes all the disolved minerals that tapwater and well water and ground water have[1], so some people then remineralise it.

Pictures of reverse osmosis filters show a lot of plastic containers with plastic tubing between them.

[1] https://waterfilterguru.com/how-to-remineralize-reverse-osmo...

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#118

Post by rsanek »

conroy wrote: post #112
bsenftner wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who else is there? Today's consumer protections for anything Internet related feels nonexistent. Who else is like Consumer Reports?

GearLab uses the same model as Consumer Reports. No sponsored content, they buy all the products themselves, etc. https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/about

Looks like they do use affiliate links though, which means they have an incentive to recommend items sold on sites that will give them higher affiliate commissions.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#120

Post by rsanek »

taeric wrote: post #95
bilsbie wrote: post #74

How much should we worry about the disposable cups they put coffee in? My understanding is we’re putting a hot liquid in a cup lined with plastic.

All canned drinks are lined with plastics. I think all canned things, period, at this point.

Important to note there's a big difference in leeching between hot and cold items being put into contact with plastics.
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