Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods • Hacker News Board

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#181

Post by Maxion » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

conorh wrote: post #67

My wife is a doctor dealing with (part of) the endocrine system and for years she has had us avoiding heating anything up in a plastic container and avoiding food/liquids+plastic where we can. She believes that these endocrine disruptors are very likely much worse for us than we currently realize, and that the research is eventually going to show that.

My wife is a researcher that has looked in to human breast milk, and blood metabolites. She has colleagues who have looked in to similar things. They all avoid plastics as much as possible.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#182

Post by MichaelZuo » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 5:53 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #164

freddie_mercury wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived in a developing country for a decade: they don't speak the local language and don't read local news that's why they don't hear about it. The local news and gossip is always full of it.

Varies by country. But my comment was more about government inspections and news about violations, not news about food poisoning outbreaks. In the developing country I was in, plenty of food products are never tested, but once you've visited a factory it's clear it would be shutdown in any developed country.

Yeah I know a guy who’s daughter almost died after eating an ice cream cone bought at a roadside stall in Thailand. Had to go to hospital and get her stomach pumped and everything…

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#183

Post by Tagbert » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 7:00 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #66

jeffbee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ice cream strikes me as a lot healthier than boiled play-doh.

Is this based off the tapioca balls? I haven’t considered the health of the balls, but I could see it as being the same as swallowing a bunch of gum.

They are not “gum”. They are mainly starch. They have no nutritional benefit but a do convert a big load of sugars in your blood.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#184

Post by gertlex » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 7:37 PM UTC

iAmAPencilYo wrote: post #148

gertlex wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems noteworthy, but not commented that I can see (in the article), that the different samples of "Boba Guys Black Tea Pearls" have 20x variation in measured amount. So what's up with that? (I have uninformed ideas...)

Further down, they explain the measurement errors involved: " If you buy the same product twice, how much will chemical levels vary? When we bought two samples of the same product, plastic chemical levels differed on average by 59%, calculated as Relative Percent Difference (RPD). To test whether completely identical samples would show different levels of chemicals, we sent about 10% of our products in triplicate. Th…

Yep, I saw that section. To my interpretation, these average percents are so much smaller than the variation seen, that it's basically /not/ addressing the outlier variations.

Perhaps plots would be better/less alarming than easy-to-cherry-pick tables, but I'm not expert on conveying this sort of data either...

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#185

Post by anonu » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 9:19 PM UTC

I wonder if the Starbucks and blue bottle coffee results are due to the plastic in the throwaway cups. The Nestle instant coffee (which comes in a glass jar) had much lower scores in comparison.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#186

Post by bitmasher9 » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

falafels wrote: post #156

So, how about a startup for baby food / prenatals that shows transparent, third party testing for plastic compounds and heavy metals? I'm serious, would love to do this.

I love this idea. I hope to see this type of testing for everyday food as well. Here are some hurtles you might run across

* Can you source low plastic baby food, or low plastic food to process into baby food? Seems like large quantities of the food supply are contaminated.

* How can you comparatively advertise your low test results compared to the competition without being the victim of lawsuits? Lawsuits from established companies feels inevitable, but being involved in a lawsuit can harm funding rounds for startups, even if it’s baseless.

* Would brick & motor stores want to deal with you if you are essentially calling the rest of their products poison?

* Will you need special tools for processing the food that introduces minimal plastics?

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#187

Post by asdff » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 9:45 PM UTC

kylebenzle wrote: post #85

rsync wrote: post #74

I am, in a different life, a consumer of compost and I have started looking very carefully at the compost products for sale in the bay area. On the urban consumer side of things I see compost collection bins which cannot possibly be decontaminated of all manner of plastic pieces which will, inevitably, be ground up into the compost product. On the rural side of things I see miles of plastic baling twine and weedeater…

In Columbus we have, "The Compost Exchange" and as a small farmer I get their compost delivered. It is now so full of plastic contamination it's just not worth it anymore. Its disgusting what I find in there, countless grocery bags, Keurig cups, people don't care and I don't save enough money to be worth picking out plastic.

Because they tell you to do this like this. Food container? green waste. Dogpoop bag? green waste. Its less about giving you good compost and more about getting the local landfill to emit a little bit less methane by not having as much organic matter rotting in there.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#188

Post by asdff » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 9:55 PM UTC

conorh wrote: post #67

My wife is a doctor dealing with (part of) the endocrine system and for years she has had us avoiding heating anything up in a plastic container and avoiding food/liquids+plastic where we can. She believes that these endocrine disruptors are very likely much worse for us than we currently realize, and that the research is eventually going to show that.

I think when people act like this they get a little irrational even if they have credentials and education. For example, the concern is limiting plastic intake. the solution is to limit it at home apparently, because this is within our realm of control. It's a fallacy though.

However, if this was approached scientifically, we might ask ourselves to identify where these plastics are most likely to come from when we get in contact from them. Are these few levers in our control really having any effect compared to the levers we have no control over that probably also contribute significant plastic in our lives? That is the first question to be asked before any action IMO. It is humbling I am sure to know of a problem but also subconsciously at least know there isn't anything you can do about it. Like most other pollution I guess; you have to breathe that air at the end of the day. And your only salve is the scientific community gathering evidence of these effects so that regulation might be written to target them specifically. Individually, we are powerless.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#189

Post by alfor » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 9:58 PM UTC

32,571.4% ? 320X the limit?

Why do we continue down that path, are we that stupid collectively? We know the fertility of men is falling year after year, we know this, yet things go on as if it's not important.

We could calmly debate the amount on the limit, but at this point we know the job we have to do.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#190

Post by userbinator » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 10:35 PM UTC

rendaw wrote: post #128

jrmg wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m usually less worried about microplastics than many (human lifespan is at the longest it’s ever been, and people are healthy at older ages than ever - things can’t be that bad overall), but weed eater string is a pet peeve of mine. We’re just spewing nylon microplastics everywhere, and I can’t understand how it’s not at all controversial!

Plastics were really only introduced ~1950 and usage/production has been increasing since, which means that we'll only know the lifetime effects of current exposure levels 80 some years from now. Human lifespan statistics are currently based on people born before 1950.

Mid 1800s is when synthetic plastics started appearing.