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Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

news.umich.edu

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Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#221

Post by userbinator »

EPWN3D wrote: 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…

One could say that all living beings are made of naturally occurring microplastics, long before humans even existed. After all, where else did that oil in the ground come from?

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#222

Post by userbinator »

legitster wrote: post #148

I had always assumed there was a methodological failure that kept getting replicated. There were enough articles like "scientists find microplastics at bottom of peat bog" that really made me dubious of the claims. "Strong claims require strong evidence". Somehow it happens pretty regularly in academia that only one method becomes acceptable and any conflicting results get herded out on technical grounds.

I think it's partly deliberate and partly ignorance of chemistry. We are simply finding that biological matter is nearly indistinguishable from man-made microplastics.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#223

Post by cogman10 »

kelnos wrote: post #220
cogman10 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I agree that it's not reliable.

My point is that changing gloves is something that is even less reliable and needs to be drilled in through procedure and habit. Handwashing also needs the procedure and habit, but it has the added benefit that for a good number of people there's also a physical compulsion that goes along with that procedure and habit.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#224

Post by refulgentis »

peyton wrote: post #199
refulgentis wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the analogy working as intended: the answer to "why do programmers still write memory-unsafe code" is the same shape as "why do microplastics researchers still wear gloves." The real answer is boring and full of tradeoffs. The HN thread version skips to indignation: "they never thought of contamination so ipso facto all the research is suspect" (to go a bit further, in case it's confusing: both you and I agree…

You’re ignoring the article to grind your axe.

What do you mean? (Genuinely seems you replied to wrong comment to me. What axe? What’s in the article that’s been ignored?)

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#225

Post by refulgentis »

userbinator wrote: post #219
refulgentis wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... "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.

Not sure what you mean or how it’s related. If the idea is microplastics aren’t actually a problem, I’m totally open to that. But “it’s possible everyone involved is overrating it due to scientists seeing fatty acids or hydrocarbons and calling it plastic” needs a little more than anon assertion :)

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#226

Post by userbinator »

refulgentis wrote: post #225
userbinator wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not sure what you mean or how it’s related. If the idea is microplastics aren’t actually a problem, I’m totally open to that. But “it’s possible everyone involved is overrating it due to scientists seeing fatty acids or hydrocarbons and calling it plastic” needs a little more than anon assertion :)

PE consists of very long hydrocarbon chains. It can degrade into shorter hydrocarbon chains. Fatty acids also have long hydrocarbon chains. The detection method for microplastics commonly involves pyrolysis, which breaks down polymers into smaller molecules. It's not hard to see that they'll end up looking nearly the same.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#227

Post by ip26 »

kevinob11 wrote: post #187
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't really looking. In the most well known case we were able to identify they were killing salmon because the salmon were dieing and worked back from that, not because some study led there first. https://www.ehn.org/toxic-tire-chemicals-threaten-salmon-as-...

Isn't [bad thing is happening] let's work backwards and find [difficult to find cause] a really solid approach?

Good when the damage is done, bad as a method of approving new chemicals.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#228

Post by nobodyandproud »

creesch wrote: post #91
nobodyandproud wrote: post #85

Finally some good news.

Good news with a note: > That’s not to say that there is no microplastics pollution, the U-M researchers are quick to say. > > “We may be overestimating microplastics, but there should be none. There’s still a lot out there, and that’s the problem,”

And with some actual numbers, when digging in further:

> They found that on average, the gloves imparted about 2,000 false positives per millimeter squared area.

> Clough prepared the substrates while wearing nitrile gloves, which is recommended by the guidance of literature in the microplastics field. But when she examined the substrates to estimate how many microplastics she captured, the results were many thousands of times greater than what she expected to find.

The reason this is important is that one flawed dataset reports a hopeless situation; the other at least provides a “if we stop now” message.

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