371–380 of 423 posts
3M has been facing a raft of litigation that has prompted the move Generally speaking, toxic substances are only "cheap" due to externalizing many of the costs involved, like increased healthcare costs and lost productivity. If you do a thorough analysis of the costs of using such chemicals, they aren't cheap at all. Maybe someday humans will get that.
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Stainless steel containers are often lined with plastic, since people don't like the metallic taste that the steel imparts.
Do you know if that metallic taste is considered (in-)healthy? I have no clue and actually like that taste and must admit that in the steel for everything department I’m following the trends as well (steel for cooking - no PFAS; steel for drink containers - no plastics).
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A high quality, well seasoned cast iron pan will allow you to fry an egg while said egg slides around the pan as if nonstick. Not every pan is capable of this, and meticulous care is required to keep it in shape, but I became a believer in non stick cast iron when I first met a pan that could do it. I had used plenty of "stickier" cast iron pans before and my perspective shifted a bit.
Cast iron is useless for food with starch, eg. hash browns. The starch absorbs the seasoning and you end up with an unseasoned pan with burnt pieces stuck everywhere.
And seasoning is a never ending task.
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This is the prisoner's dilemma situation. Everyone would benefit more from a reduction, but if only one company does it, they benefit (in the short term) even more. I think the signalling is also valuable -- humans have a remarkable tendency to adopt attitudes over time, and I think every contribution towards the attitude that we should not harm the environment is a good one. I for one currently support and will cont…
PFAS are used because there isn't a better alternative. A globally coordinated reduction in production only increases the price of products for consumers.
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Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think any (serious) high CO2 predictions involve the extinction of our species, but rather extensive displacement as a changing climate changes zones of habitability on our planet.
We're currently running a simulation to refute or confirm your assumption. Check back in some 150-200 years to see if your assumption was true.
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Products can be banned in countries so even if China creates them they can't sell them outside China. I don't get your argument, it's like "someone is going to do bad things therefore it's ok for me"?
No my argument is that just like America decided that rare earths mining was gross and messy, therefore offshoring all of these strategic material production to their geopolitical foe, the same thing is liable to happen to other components and chemicals. Note that PFAS has a lot of military applications. Out of sight, out of mind right? Until you really need it.
By saying "just like that" you are implying the decision was sudden and without reason. That's false.
You also are basically saying "I'll be sorry" because the military needs them but are there alternatives and is it essential?
Finally you used "gross" and "messy" as a manipulation technique. Messy is also used to describe anything from clothes left on the floor to in toys left out. Similar with "gross". You are trying to lump pollution with other benign activities to imply it isn't important.
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Germany has mineral water and table water. Table water is the bottled tap water. Though where I live, even table water would be better than unfiltered tap water. Not because of health concerns (I actually had my tap water lab tested as the building is from the 60s), but because of limescale in the kettle and disgust on my tastebuds ;)
Does the preferences for the qualities bottled water in Germany have any intersection with the history of public springs emitting carbonated mineral water? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHvj0MJw7z4
After the world seems to be in agreement that CocaCola and most lemonades are best served carbonated. But for water there's this weird schizm over carbonation.
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What will make people effectively poorer, not having non-stick coating on pans, or the large-scale poisoning of the natural world and our bodies?
There is no proof that PFAS is causing large scale poisoning. Industrial workers with insufficient PPE may get increased risks of health effects if they are subject to prolonged exposure to concentrated amounts. But so does exposure to fertilizer and aspartame. The research is not anywhere near saying PFAS are causing large scale poisoning. It reminds me of the microplastics debate too. Lots of panic about it, little…
> With many health effects noted for a relatively few example compounds and hundreds of other PFAS in commerce lacking toxicity data… [1]
If we were to wait to run studies on all of those hundreds of substances, there will just be that much more pollutant in our environments and bodies that will be virtually impossible to clean up. The risk/reward tradeoff is pretty clear.
In Belgium there is a huge issue with pfas caused by 3M [1], having contaminated things like drinking water etc, so it's not even safe to eat vegetables from your garden or eggs from your chickens. It's a massacre TBH, mostly exposing the head-in-the-sand, umbrella using fingerpointing mentality of Belgian politics. I can imagine 3M has sites like these all over the world, so I would assume this only scratches the su…
There is a similar Issue caused by 3M in Gendorf, Germany - so this is really a problem all over the world - and 3M isn't the only producer of PFAS...
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The risks of dehydration are way overstated imo. And I live in a warm weather country. Whole being thirsty isn’t optimal the actual risk of something serious happening is negligible. Especially since I monitor my urine color and other signs. It’s more convenience and the habit of convenience we’re all so used to these days.
Most people are constantly dehydrated. The fact lots of people drink sugary drinks makes it even worse. As someone dealing with a 3rd round of kidney stones - please stay hydrated! You don't want this pain, trust me...
This strikes me as something constantly asserted but never proven. It should be pretty trivial to find out if this is the case, medically, so there should be data. I went ahead and searched around and although I see a lot of headlines about it, there is a lack of definitive corroboration. I found these sources:
"According to the lay press, 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. While this is not supported by medical literature, dehydration is common in elderly patients."[0]
" In fact, scientific studies suggest that you already get enough liquid from what you're drinking and eating on a daily basis. We are not all walking around in a state of dehydration."[1]
"The notion that there is widespread dehydration has no basis in medical fact"[1]
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555956/ [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/water-works-2/