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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

#141

Post by bordercases »

dTal wrote: post #124
zolthrowaway wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's wrong with using tons of oil? Plastics are incredibly useful. Tons upon tons of bottles end up in landfills, oceans, etc. Even with plastic recycling, PET yields aren't 100%. There is only so much oil and eventually the plastics we have will cease to be recyclable. I'm not trying to say that it's wrong to use a disposable plastic bottle from time to time. There's not anything wrong with having a case of water…

We will never run out of oil, as it can be synthesized from organic waste (basically just by cooking the crap out of it). Right now it's not really a profitable enterprise in competition with ground based oil, but at some point it will be. And it's carbon neutral (as is everything that doesn't involve digging up basically pure carbon and burning it). Of course, all of your other points are spot on. It is irresponsibl…

> We will never run out of oil, as it can be synthesized from organic waste (basically just by cooking the crap out of it)

Powered by what? Oil?

What's the efficiency of that? How long are you willing to wait if you don't use combustible carbons?

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

#142

Post by wuliwong »

frockington wrote: post #119
kartan wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't buy plastic disposable water bottles if you live in a developed nation I´m playing with semantics here. But some parts of USA hardly count as developed states. As a country, the USA is overachieving in a lot of measures, but individual states found themselves at the same level than developing nations. It´s difficult to apply the same rule to 10,000,000km2 of territory and 325 Million people.

Does that mean the US can get officially recognized as a developing nation and get all the perks? Guaranteed the US would start pushing more initiatives like the Paris Climate Accord if they got the economic benefits, would be great for the climate change movement

Their point was it isn't accurate to apply a single label to the entire USA not that the single label should be changed.

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

#143

Post by [deleted] »

alfanick wrote: post #67
vatys wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a reverse osmosis system for ~$150. Maybe not cheap, but not super expensive either. Even if you're renting for a year and leave it behind that's less then $0.50 a day over one year.

Which leaves you with classical-clean-US-water - no taste, nothing. Doesn't taste good, doesn't taste bad, it's just not there.

[deleted]

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

#144

Post by wuliwong »

sametmax wrote: post #82
TomMarius wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments that do this in Europe fail horribly and just increase prices by huge multiples, nothing else. Last year a whole division of a capital city (Prague) got pretty seriously sick because of government failure. Today in the morning the water did not run at all. Thanks, government. I know HN is very leftist, so I expect downvotes. It'd be nice to have a discussion though.

Last time I checked, we had very decent municipal water in France. In many cities it actually tastes better than bottled water. Water sources are quite well protected as well. It's not perfect, but honestly much better than the swimming pool water I drank in the US. So "Europe" is maybe a broad term here.

Agreed about "Europe" being too broad a term. Another commenter mentioned a similar sentiment about making claims about the entire USA.

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

#145

Post by detaro »

TomMarius wrote: post #91
englishrookie wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is different in Eastern Europe (you know, the old Warsaw pact countries), but in Western Europe tap water is of very reliable quality, and consistently delivered.

I'm comparing the EU as a whole to the USA as a whole because it's pretty much the same in terms of competence and corruption. BTW Czech Republic is the most successful out one of Warsaw Pact countries and is on basically the same level as some of the western ones.

If that's what you want to say, then say that instead of making blanket claims that governments regulating drinking water fail horribly.

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

#146

Post by wuliwong »

MatthiasP wrote: post #135
TomMarius wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments that do this in Europe fail horribly and just increase prices by huge multiples, nothing else. Last year a whole division of a capital city (Prague) got pretty seriously sick because of government failure. Today in the morning the water did not run at all. Thanks, government. I know HN is very leftist, so I expect downvotes. It'd be nice to have a discussion though.

Austria here and I am very satisfied with my "socialist water" experience. Exposing basic requirements for survival to free market forces seems like a recipe for failure.

What about food?

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

#147

Post by subpixel »

Retric wrote: post #20
djsumdog wrote: post #4

Bottled water is a scam. It's less regulated than municipal tap water in most developed nations, companies suck up water from small towns and use tons of fuel to ship it out of those watersheds and then charge people 1000% markup. For countries without clean water, the effort should be put into getting municipal water supplies. Don't buy plastic disposable water bottles if you live in a developed nation. They prop up…

25% of US municipal drinking water fails Safety standards: https://www.popsci.com/drinking-water-standards Those standards are also very loose IMO letting a lot of crap though that I don't want to drink on a regular basis. So, it's really more of a mixed bag than you might think.

I'll add that there is a deeply ingrained myth that New York City tap water is "the best in the world" when in fact it's not even among the 10 cleanest water supplies in the country and contains concerning amounts of dangerous pollutants like chloroform.

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

#148

Post by dTal »

bordercases wrote: post #141
dTal wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will never run out of oil, as it can be synthesized from organic waste (basically just by cooking the crap out of it). Right now it's not really a profitable enterprise in competition with ground based oil, but at some point it will be. And it's carbon neutral (as is everything that doesn't involve digging up basically pure carbon and burning it). Of course, all of your other points are spot on. It is irresponsibl…

> We will never run out of oil, as it can be synthesized from organic waste (basically just by cooking the crap out of it) Powered by what? Oil? What's the efficiency of that? How long are you willing to wait if you don't use combustible carbons?

Supposedly, fueling the process by burning the product is about 85% efficient [1]. Regardless, the point is we will always be able to make plastic, even when the wells dry up. The worst that'll happen is the price will go up.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization

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

#149

Post by drharby »

antibland wrote: post #109

I use a Berkey filtration system and feel mildly optimistic about not drinking plastic every time I fill my glass. From late September, 2017 [0]. > "There is nowhere really where you can say these are being trapped 100%. In terms of fibres, the diameter is 10 microns across and it would be very unusual to find that level of filtration in our drinking water systems.” With that being said, we know that the berkey can f…

Hmmm...the site cites this exact study in its marketing material.

Hmmmmm

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

#150

Post by def_true_false »

TomMarius wrote: post #90
Numberwang wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well most of western Europe has cheap perfectly drinkable water. I don't think you can blame social democracy. Blame incompetent and corrupt locals.

The EU as a whole is very comparable to the USA as a whole in terms of competence and corruption. This was my point - somewhere it'd be OK or even very good, but somewhere it's going to be horrible and there is going to be no way out.

I'd be very surprised if the water in Prague was consistently bad. One failure doesn't mean much in the big picture.

Edit: And it certainly isn't comparable to having water that's not safe to drink at all (bad water being the rule, rather than the exception).

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