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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

#211
post #161

The various "OMG MICROPLASTICS" studies always smacked of alarmism. No one has actually identified tangible harms from microplastics; it's just taken as a given that they are bad. So this fueled a bunch of studies that tried to find them everywhere. Even the authors of this study go to great pains to not challenge the dogma that microplastics are existentially terrifying. So I fully expect we'll still be panicking ov…

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…

I agree very strongly with intellectual humility. I just wish the microplastic fear mongerers would also take that lesson.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do a medical procedure several times a week that requires gloves.

If you don't flap your hands around for 30+ seconds, any remaining moisture from handwashing (or sweat) makes them stick to your skin and you wind up fighting them (and about half the time, ripping a hole). A towel is not enough.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#213
post #161

The various "OMG MICROPLASTICS" studies always smacked of alarmism. No one has actually identified tangible harms from microplastics; it's just taken as a given that they are bad. So this fueled a bunch of studies that tried to find them everywhere. Even the authors of this study go to great pains to not challenge the dogma that microplastics are existentially terrifying. So I fully expect we'll still be panicking ov…

Beware of the confirmation bias, it works both ways. Reporting might be alarmist (it always is), actual research is largely not. This study doesn't discredit the entire field, it's pretty obvious that microplastics are everywhere and different types are harmful to an unclear extent, even if the amount might be overestimated in some studies. >This type of research requires very little creativity or study design -- jus…

Unfortunately too often authors of non alarmist research end up promoting alarmist interpretations of their work in science media.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#214

I'm amazed that wasn't taken into account! Many years ago, in the final year of my Biology degree, I did a paid summer internship at an Evolutionary Biology lab here in Spain, assisting in a project where they were researching relationships between metal ion accumulation (mostly zinc) and certain SNPs (≈"gene varieties"). A lot of my work was in slicing tiny fragments of deep-frozen human livers and kidneys in a bios…

>>That some research on microplatics did not take into account the absolutely mental amount of single-use plastic that is involved in biological research, particularly gloves of all things, boggles the mind What boggles the mind is you commenting on an article you clearly did not read...stating something that is not there...

The article starts with this:

"Nitrile and latex gloves that scientists wear while they are measuring microplastics may lead to a potential overestimation of the tiny pollutants, according to a University of Michigan study."

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#215
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which reminds me, I need to arrange my biannual COVID booster.

Is it a only covid-19 booster or does it include a few of the other coronavirus floating around?

Just COVID-19. I do get other shots though, for example the annual flu shot and most recently an RSV shot (not the one I had participated in a clinical trial for.)

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#216
But stearates are also chemically very similar to some microplastics, according to the researchers, and can lead to false positives when researchers are looking for microplastic pollution.

"Chemically very similar", as in "contains long hydrocarbon chains", something which even all biological matter (lipids) has. I've looked at a few microplastic studies and many of them use pyrolysis and mass spectroscopy to detect their presence, which is going to show almost the same results for animal fat as pure hydrocarbon plastics like PE (the most common plastic by production volume) and PP.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hav…

Gourds were made from gourds back in the day. Or possibly ceramic.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#218
Decades ago the only modern disposable gloves like these were "natural" latex which served medical professionals well but were miserably inadequate for chemical use. So nobody even thought about using them with aggressive industrial materials.

Nitrile emerged only as a specialty alternative to some of the earlier synthetic chemical-resistant compounds.

They were not disposable, more expensive than the earlier synthetic compounds, also not as thick a glove was needed so they gave you protection that was never available from anything but a much more clumsy alternative. Not nearly as tactile as the disposables though, that is their big redeeming feature.

One of the major weak points of nitrile is acetone, and things like MEK or ethyl acetate, which will soak into the polymer, swell, and weaken it. If you don't let them get too weak and shred them, they will shrink back after they dry out and are still fairly OK after that But nitrile is much better against most other solvents, acids, and alkalis though. Chlorinated solvents can be kind of rough too.

I was often the first one to use nitrile in some facilities, these ended up taking over and were the typical turquoise non-disposable ones that go about halfway up the forearm. Not the skin-tight "student models" that so many people use today. Now available in various colors :)

But these early "green" gloves alone were the same ones contributing to the stereotypical look of an environmental worker, where they can be even more scary when they sometimes add a complete tyvek suit with boots, hood, respirator, and the gloves with rubber bands around the sleeves, sampling the river water while you are fishing downstream :(

The ones like we used are $16 a pair now and were never cheap enough to be disposable. They actually last many months though. Only one other old guy uses them when I go back to my old lab, everyone else was "trained" on disposables now, each lab has a wall-mounted dispenser of various sizes like they have in hospitals. The "cost savings" are so well-realized so long ago that nobody knows it's completely false :\ People go through them like water, and it's still a shitshow when they try not to.

It's really worse from a contamination standpoint because people will still wear them for an hour or two during various chemical-handling events, but also do a little paperwork or keyboard typing with the gloves on, plus doorknobs and cabinet handles they are touching are much riskier than it used to be when disposables were not an option. Just because it's such a drag to peel them off and put on a new pair 10 minutes later.

Before disposables arrived, we used to have slightly oversized non-disposables, and throw them on & off & on many times per day, I still do. Plus I often wash the gloves while wearing them not much differently than washing my bare hands, mainly to get rid of chemicals using (very) hot soap & water or even using other strong solvents like heptane to rinse off heavier chemicals and oils. Probably about as particle-free as you can get except for what is floating around in the ambient air. Not like the skin-tight almost too-thin gloves people settle for now where they need to be peeled back off inside-out and thrown away each time.

By this point in the 21st century there are dedicated representatives of the glove manufacturers making high-touch sales calls, so there have got to be some bonuses that didn't exist that many decades ago.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#219
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is like saying "miles per gallon" when discussing weight. "nanomolar detection levels"...microplastics are individual particles identified by spectroscopy, reported as particles per mm^2. "Nanomolar" is a dissolved-species concentration unit. It has nothing to do with particle counting. (I, and other laymen, understand what you mean but you go on later in the thread to justify your unsourced and unjustified cl…

> ... "1 nanomole of polyethylene" requires you to pick an arbitrary average molecular weight. This changes the answer by orders of magnitude depending on what you pick. Which is why nobody does it. > Relatively little quantitative science in this area depends on counting plastic particles in microscopic images...Many others use methods that depend on gas chromatography or NMR. So we're dismissive of some subset of p…

Doesn't take an expert to see that fatty acids and hydrocarbon chains from the degradation of polyethylene look nearly the same.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#220

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…

> 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 are supposed to. I've seen plenty of fast food places where the gloves stay on between jobs. I'm sure there are upscale places that are better on this point. > You're never relying on "feel" to determine whether there are "raw chicken juices on you". Using "feel" is not reliab…

> It's more than just procedure or habit, your hands feel dirty and you want to wash that off.

I'm not sure that's reliable across people. I'm definitely like that; whenever my hands feel the least bit dirty or oily or anything, I really want to wash them. But I've run into people who have commented on the fact that I do that, and I've learned that there are lots of people who just don't have that compulsion at all.

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