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Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

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Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#201

Post by gamblor956 »

crazygringo wrote: post #119
cogman10 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily, I believe the glove mandates for food prep are actually anti-hygiene. Unlike bare skin, you can't really feel when your gloves are contaminated. So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. With bare hands, you can feel the raw chicken juices on you, so it's pretty natural to want to wash your hands right after handling the raw chicken. Gloves are important in medicine, but that's with proper us…

> So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. To the contrary. You take off and throw out your gloves every time you finish doing something with raw meat. It's procedure. It's habit. You're never relying on "feel" to determine whether there are "raw chicken juices on you". Using "feel" is not reliable. I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors a…

Food safety regulations in most states require that food workers replace gloves if they handle raw meat and switch to other foodstuffs.

But they don't generally require them to replace gloves between batches of (the same kind of) meat, or between different kinds of vegetables, or when switching from vegetables to meat, or between customers if they're on a service line. While it's recommended in those situations, I'm not sure any state mandates it.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#202

Post by gus_massa »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #151
gus_massa wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But science is about doing your own research! The idea is that science results are based on evidence that is published in serious [1] peer review [2] journals. At some time you realize you can't repeat all the test at home, because it would be full of mice and transgenic plants and a huge particle collider and ... Also, there are a lot of very hard topics. So you must trust the system, but not too much. * Big pharma…

> But science is about doing your own research! Not for the average adult human on planet Earth, no. Fifty percent of people are of below average intelligence. Of the 50% that remain only a fraction have access to the equipment necessary to replicate any given experiment, of that fraction only a small percentage will have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to accurately replicate any given experiment, of that tiny…

> For the average person science should mean knowing how to determine if someone is more qualified than they

I agree. But how do you that without researching? Who makes the list of trustful institutions?

Let's pick homeopathy. The pharmacy in the corner of my home sells homeopathy too. There are even some curses in some universities [in Germany?] [I searched in MY university. Apparently there is no curse for human medicine, but there is a curse for veterinary https://www.fvet.uba.ar/?q=homeopatia .] Can we agree homeopathy is not real? How do you know?

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#203

Post by ceejayoz »

Eisenstein wrote: post #189
0xffff2 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors and nurses are. Like, if you're cutting up chicken for an hour you're not, but if you're moving from chicken to veggies you absolutely are. I think that because I was a food service worker and it's impossible to change gloves during a rush. Nitrile gloves and sweaty hands simply do not mix. There are also many more…

If you don't have time to change gloves how do you have time to wash your hands?

It's much quicker to wash your hands.

Gloves require your hands to be perfectly dry to put on effectively.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#204

Post by achenet »

zahlman wrote: post #197
eigenspace wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I think that while it's true that we haven't really demonstrated any tangible harms of microplastics, and there is a lot of alarmism around it, I think the concern is more rational than it might appear. If it's true that microplastics are everywhere and in everything (which maybe that's now not actually the case), even a very small chance that there's some serious harm we're not aware of should be taken extremely…

> and part of that humility should involve being cautious about introducing them to our bodies and environment. What does that look like today, pragmatically speaking?

asking, for all tasks shown to introduce large amounts of microplastics in our bodies and environment, "can we accomplish this task in a way that doesn't introduce microplastics in our bodies and environment"?

For example, using a reusable metal gourd instead of plastic water bottles for the task of 'portable hydration'.

and because this is Hacker News, I'll kindly welcome the comment: 'well actually metal gourds have some toxic substance in the lining that's worse than microplastics' and reply: ok, Cardboard bottles then. Or a gourd made of a sheep's bladder like back in the good ol' days, whatever they used back in the bronze age.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#205

Post by fuzzfactor »

schiffern wrote: post #84
sfn42 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still not aware of any reason to worry about micro plastics. As far as I know they seem harmless?

The problem isn't just the plastics themselves. Plastics are chemical "sponges" that will soak up pollutants over time from the environment (brominated fire retardants, bisphenols, PBCs, pesticides, phthalates, heavy metals, etc) and deliver them in a concentrated dose into the body. Even if plastics of all sizes are 100% biologically inert, they're still a Trojan Horse for other toxins. https://www.sciencedirect.com…

Instant corrective upvote.

One of the sources of intentionally manufactured microplastics are known as porous polymers in fine mesh sizes.

This is over a $1 billion market and growing.

One of the pharmaceutical uses is precisely as a medium to deliver oral medications in a time-release way.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/porouspolymer-bead-real-world...

These porous polymer powders consist entirely of microscopic little sponges where they soak up and/or leach out all kinds of chemicals more so than the plain polymer, and with different affinity too.

However, even when common waste plastic particles themselves are not microscopically porous, different plastics soak up different chemicals to different degrees depending on what type of contact they come into. For instance kilos of polyethylene nurdles floating in the water will actually become "soaked" with some hydrocarbon liquids that are also floating or dissolved in the water. Even physically softened. These are very solid pea-sized beads that are not micro-sized plastics at all. They would have to degrade a whole lot before they fall into the micro category. And they are not manufactured to intentionally have a nano-porous structure like the finer mesh porous polymer powders.

Chemicals and plastics just don't go away so safely every time.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#206

Post by fuzzfactor »

dust42 wrote: post #52

So basically the gloves that kitchen staff now must wear means we get an extra dose of micro plastics? Yikes.

The transparent disposable food-service gloves are usually polyethylene so I wouldn't think they would have the exact same false-positive result as the nitrile gloves. Microscopic particles of stearates are what's on these nitrile gloves, not actual polymer dust or excess abrasive losses.

Maybe a different false-positive particle type in significant amounts is on the polyethylene ones ?

Pure stearates in micro amounts would be expected to be related to mild food-grade soaps, which do end up dissolving in water or oil and do not remain solid like a relatively immobile polymer particle would do.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#207

Post by crazygringo »

ceejayoz wrote: post #203
Eisenstein wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have time to change gloves how do you have time to wash your hands?

It's much quicker to wash your hands. Gloves require your hands to be perfectly dry to put on effectively.

I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.

You can dry your hands on a towel in seconds. I don't know what you mean by "perfectly dry"...? Like, nobody needs to blow-dry their hands before putting gloves on or anything.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#208

Post by crazygringo »

ceejayoz wrote: post #123
crazygringo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. To the contrary. You take off and throw out your gloves every time you finish doing something with raw meat. It's procedure. It's habit. You're never relying on "feel" to determine whether there are "raw chicken juices on you". Using "feel" is not reliable. I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors a…

> I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves... I've seen enough absent-minded nose wipes on the back of gloves at Chipotle-style establishments to be pretty OK with this take. And that's where people are watching .

Yeah, but then something tells me they wouldn't be washing their hands instead. Which is the comparison being made.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#209

Post by crazygringo »

gamblor956 wrote: post #201
crazygringo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. To the contrary. You take off and throw out your gloves every time you finish doing something with raw meat. It's procedure. It's habit. You're never relying on "feel" to determine whether there are "raw chicken juices on you". Using "feel" is not reliable. I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors a…

Food safety regulations in most states require that food workers replace gloves if they handle raw meat and switch to other foodstuffs. But they don't generally require them to replace gloves between batches of (the same kind of) meat, or between different kinds of vegetables, or when switching from vegetables to meat, or between customers if they're on a service line. While it's recommended in those situations, I'm…

I mean, they don't require gloves to be replaced in those situations because there isn't a good safety reason to. There's zero reason to replace your gloves when switching from dicing green peppers for a salad to picking up raw chicken. Or similarly between customers if you're just handling food, and not a cash register or anything. It's not like you're touching the customers...

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#210

Post by hnlmorg »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #172
hnlmorg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cooked a steak yesterday therefore I am an expert in biology. Creating a user interface for the world’s knowledge doesn’t make the developer an expert on the knowledge that the interface holds in its database. Regardless of how sophisticated that interface might be.

'I disagree, therefore I am an expert in skepticism.' The sword cuts both ways.

No it doesn’t. What you’re describing is an oxymoron.
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