Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

cen.acs.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 160 posts

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#141

Post by ars »

lm28469 wrote: post #130
ars wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People can carry their own set of utensils, and even their own food packaging; Carry this, carry your own reusable bags. But also get rid of the car which could hold these things for you. Why is there such a push to make life miserable for people?

> But also get rid of the car which could hold these things for you. You don't need 2 tonnes of metal and 100+hp to carry "your own reusable bags"

Not to carry them, to store them. It's basically a portable storage locker.

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#142

Post by friend_and_foe »

That's because they were never designed to be enviroentally friendly. They were designed to be able to be marketed as environmentally friendly. Big difference. If someone sees it disintegrate they'll think "good, biodegradable" even if that's not actually what's happening. The manufacturers don't care. They know, most of the people raising the hubbub about it don't take the 5 minutes to understand what theyre screeching about, they don't have to appease the environmentalists, they have to appease the pantywads, the kind of people who don't buy animal tested cosmetics but flush them down the drain all the same.

Just use paper for Christ's sake and quit it with all these shenanigans. Brown, recycled paper, maybe some wax. And glass for bottles and things. It's all you need.

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#143

Post by gtop3 »

tfourb wrote: post #117
gtop3 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think proof is the right word. It's impossible to prove something is safe.

Of course you can proof the safety of a chemical compound for human consumption (at least to the best of current technical abilities and within an acceptable margin of error). This is done for i.e. drugs thousands of times each year. Yes it costs money and time, but that is about the only serious objection. You could also go to a risk based model, where the burden of proof for groups of chemical compounds shifts base…

The FDA approves medical treatments, many of which are chemicals. They approve treatments based largely on how effective it is as treatment. It's safety profile is studied and considered in a broader context. Many drugs approved by the FDA are incredibly blatantly unsafe. The FDA spends non-trival amounts of effort communicating risks associated with chemicals to doctors and patients.

Outside of this example, proving a negative on this scale is a 1000x larger problem than proving there are no leprechauns. No one has proven there are no leprechauns. It is logically possible to prove a negative, but we simply cannot observe all of the places a leprechaun might be hiding at the same time. The best thing we can do is list off all the places we know there are no leprechauns. This is very different than "proof".

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#144

Post by arthur2e5 »

beebeepka wrote: post #108
dwater wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic use in commercial kitchens is pretty high too. Taking boiling hot food and putting plastic wrap over it or putting it in a plastic container is pretty common. With sous vide the food is cooked inside a brand new plastic bag. The only way to avoid it is to be fanatical.

Only speculating but something tells me mineral water is often bottled while it's at still hot. I didn't know what sous vide is. According to the wiki article, containers are either plastic or glass. It boggles the mind. Why would anyone cook in a plastic container

Sous vide is long waterbath at around 55 C or lower. Not a typical plastic safety issue temperature.

Cooking in plastic (or any "original package") has a food safety point in restaurants. Keeping it sealed until the outside is sterilized reduces possible contamination. Immersion also makes for easier and faster heating.

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#145

Post by ars »

ex3xu wrote: post #135
ars wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People can carry their own set of utensils, and even their own food packaging; Carry this, carry your own reusable bags. But also get rid of the car which could hold these things for you. Why is there such a push to make life miserable for people?

If a doctor told you to stop smoking and lower your blood pressure, would you berate him for pushing to make your life miserable? Our collective addiction to the conveniences of modern life is leading to the proliferation of carcinogenic materials and destroying the environment. Generations upon generations lived without these spoils uphill both ways without complaint. If the slightest suggestion of lifting some weig…

Plastic dishes are not hurting the environment. This is 100% about appearances, it's actually helping anything at all.

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#146

Post by r00fus »

rcme wrote: post #48
r00fus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve switched to using Radius silk floss - it’s better in almost every way compared to the various brands we’ve tried. Only annoying thing is the packaging but it’s plastic free also.

Yea silk floss is really nice. Food caught between your teeth sticks better to the silk than to glide, and getting the silk between your teeth requires slightly more pressure, which feels nice to me.

The glide actually cause problems with shoved food into my gums that only the dentist was able to remove later.

It’s amazing when you look at this measure it says that Glide has 240k ppm (24% of entire product mass) was organic flourine!!

https://www.mamavation.com/beauty/toxic-pfas-dental-floss-to...

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#147

Post by ericd »

carlmr wrote: post #95
542458 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somewhat agree, but it's probably more complex than that - We have a country-wide system of reusable aluminum and glass containers that can be returned for refund and a significant portion of the population can't be bothered and just chucks them in the trash (or worse, the gutter). Lots of people don't respond to incentives well.

The incentives aren't strong enough then. In Germany it's 25 cents for plastic and aluminum. 8cents for glass. A lot of people just throw the glass away in public bins, because a) glass is heavy and b) 8 cents is too little incentive. The 25 cent cans most people return. If it was 1€ a glass bottle you bet your ass people would return them.

Yeah, there’s no way we’re tossing our $3 milk delivery bottles…

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#148

Post by smegsicle »

verall wrote: post #104
blondie9x wrote: post #60

Pick your poison. Micro-plastics or PFAS. All consumption has a trade off. Some are worse than others. Micro-plastics are causing major endocrine system disruption in youth. Testosterone levels and estrogen levels are getting all our of whack and causing gender related diversification issues that will grow exponentially over time with micro-plastic consumption levels increasing. I would pick PFAS.

Can you expand on "gender related diversification issues"? I'm not really sure what you mean.

the chemicals in the microplastics are making the kids gay

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#149

Post by Reptur »

agtech_andy wrote: post #30

The reality is that US regulatory agencies have been extremely permissive for many years. Many other nations piggy back on their findings. We need a massive increase in enforcement. What we will see with cheaper and more available testing is that PFAS are everywhere. It is hard to find waterways or soils, even in remote areas, that are not contaminated. It is really tragic and the extent of the pollution can make you…

They are permissive because the same people who own stock in the manufacturing industry of these containers and food industries also own stock in healthcare. They make money off of the suffering.

Re: Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS

#150

Post by voisin »

agtech_andy wrote: post #30

The reality is that US regulatory agencies have been extremely permissive for many years. Many other nations piggy back on their findings. We need a massive increase in enforcement. What we will see with cheaper and more available testing is that PFAS are everywhere. It is hard to find waterways or soils, even in remote areas, that are not contaminated. It is really tragic and the extent of the pollution can make you…

> Many other nations piggy back on their findings. We need a massive increase in enforcement.

I don’t think it as much an enforcement issue as a standards issue - we shouldn’t presume anything is safe without strict standards for the science proving it.

Post reply on HN