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Plastics are poisoning us

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Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#391

Post by gessha »

shortcake27 wrote: post #115
realshadow wrote: post #11

I became a minimist to save the planet as much as i could. Its easier than any one could think you know. Here is what i have been doing for a decade and would receommend 1. Reusing plastic bags (i love cotton bags but not ideal). Fold and keep one or two in your pocket before you leave home 2. Support and use light software so you dont need to upgrade your gadgets (12y laptop i use) 3. Prepare and eat home cooked mea…

I’ve had a lot of water bottles over the years. This is quite an unpopular take, but I believe PET to be lesser of all evils. I’ve spent a lot of money on numerous steel and plastic water bottles. They all break and good luck recycling them. Most likely they end up in landfill. PET bottles use less raw resources, are cheap, lightweight, extremely durable, and when they reach end of life they’re easier to “recycle” (d…

I’ve been using a Zojirushi thermos as a water bottle and it has been with me for 6 years.

There’s replacement parts on their website to get worn out pieces which is convenient.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#392

Post by concordDance »

ahoy wrote: post #369
hospitalJail wrote: post #133

The word 'Plastic' needs to die. Instead we should be more specific on the type of plastic. Teflon, PLA, ABS, resins, foams, etc... are all plastics, but they are so unrelated outside their long chains, its terrible to stereotype them all into one category. You aren't going to get cancer from PLA or Teflon, but rather the manufacturing process. You can eat these plastics as far as I know and you'd be fine. Eat someth…

I don't want more labels. I don't want to have to be an "informed consumer" when im buying cookware in order to know whats going to give me cancer. Those products shouldn't exist.

Everything has or might have a risk. For all we know carrots increase the risk of cancer.

If we banned everything that increases the risk of some sort of bad thing we'd probably end up banning everything (or more realistically, everything we'd do studies on).

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#393

Post by bearbin »

anigbrowl wrote: post #336
shortcake27 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had a lot of water bottles over the years. This is quite an unpopular take, but I believe PET to be lesser of all evils. I’ve spent a lot of money on numerous steel and plastic water bottles. They all break and good luck recycling them. Most likely they end up in landfill. PET bottles use less raw resources, are cheap, lightweight, extremely durable, and when they reach end of life they’re easier to “recycle” (d…

How does a steel water bottle break

dent, crush, lid or seal failure (which can't be cheaply/practically made of steel)

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#394

Post by concordDance »

anigbrowl wrote: post #334
hospitalJail wrote: post #133

The word 'Plastic' needs to die. Instead we should be more specific on the type of plastic. Teflon, PLA, ABS, resins, foams, etc... are all plastics, but they are so unrelated outside their long chains, its terrible to stereotype them all into one category. You aren't going to get cancer from PLA or Teflon, but rather the manufacturing process. You can eat these plastics as far as I know and you'd be fine. Eat someth…

Maybe the solution is better labeling. No, we are awash in labels already and I am sick of everything having a legal treatise attached to it. Labels just throw the problem back in the laps of consumers, an approach which clearly does not work.

The problem is that without labels you're having someone in government decide what risk levels are acceptable to everyone and that simply doesn't work when you have a population that includes upper class suburban mum who is willing to pay for $100 bananas to decrease her lifetime cancer risk by 0.01% and a homeless dude with a $20/week food budget.

And guess which one of these groups has actual influence on government policy? Yup, its the poor who get screwed.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#395

Post by marcosdumay »

Gigachad wrote: post #70
yasman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO anything that is heated and plastic or plastic-adjacent is suspect. Not to mention the fact a lot of these “eco” things need special equipment to process which isn’t available everywhere

The eco cups are PLA. They are derived from a completely different source from the petrochemical plastics. While that doesn't on it's own make them completely safe, they likely have massively different properties from other plastics.

> The eco cups are PLA.

That is very surprising given that PLA can't support heat.

Does the cup get out of the machine in a complete different shape? Because if it's PLA, it should.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#396

Post by kitkat_new »

pvaldes wrote: post #79
realshadow wrote: post #11

I became a minimist to save the planet as much as i could. Its easier than any one could think you know. Here is what i have been doing for a decade and would receommend 1. Reusing plastic bags (i love cotton bags but not ideal). Fold and keep one or two in your pocket before you leave home 2. Support and use light software so you dont need to upgrade your gadgets (12y laptop i use) 3. Prepare and eat home cooked mea…

8 -> copper is toxic. People with some genetic traits will suffer cirrhosis and shouldn't use it for water storage. Cooking on copper pots specially should be avoided. Iron and Aluminum are safer.

what about steel? Have been using one for a decade now

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#397

Post by abathur »

hirundo wrote: post #354
grimgoldgo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are regularly burning food in steel or iron pans, maybe it's time to understand why? I cook in exclusively iron and steel cookware and I cannot remember the last time something got burned (excepting when I deliberately charred something.)

Please don't take your skill in this for granted. It's a gift. I've been using cast iron pans sporadically for four decades, following all of the common advice, and failing magnificently every time. I still use one occasionally to put a crust on a steak ... and then use a small piece of chainmail[1] to defeat the klingons. It's not that I don't believe you. It just doesn't work that way in my pan on my stove with my…

I don't cook enough (and never steak) for you to assign me much weight, but FWIW I've had a (lighter, spun) cast iron skillet for 8ish years. I followed a seasoning procedure available online that involves (IIRC) 3 rounds of applying thin coats of flaxseed oil and leaving it in an oven at a fairly high temp.

This process went fine, but I always had to baby the pan (had to be very careful cleaning it with said chainmail, very careful with what/how I cooked in it) and had to re-do the initial seasoning several times when it got too troublesome.

This process would leave the pan at a dark brown, and for a while I blamed this on not removing rust well enough before seasoning or not babying it well enough for it to build up to a ~normal black coat.

At some point during the early pandemic I tired of this. I decided to do something similar on the stovetop where I could observe/iterate better. Apply a coat, wait for it to stop smoking, and repeat until it was black. (plus a few for good luck; I didn't keep track; this took maybe dozens of rounds?)

I've had a much better time since then. The most ~babying I've done is applying a few fresh coats if I don't use it for a while or water doesn't bead when I rinse it.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#398

Post by concordDance »

jimmychoozyx wrote: post #250
hospitalJail wrote: post #133

The word 'Plastic' needs to die. Instead we should be more specific on the type of plastic. Teflon, PLA, ABS, resins, foams, etc... are all plastics, but they are so unrelated outside their long chains, its terrible to stereotype them all into one category. You aren't going to get cancer from PLA or Teflon, but rather the manufacturing process. You can eat these plastics as far as I know and you'd be fine. Eat someth…

"The word 'Plastic' needs to die." ... "its terrible to stereotype them all into one category." I disagree, because, that's like me telling you "The word 'Cancer' needs to die." etc. That would imply you'd be required to tell me the specific cancer you refer to when you say "you aren't going to get cancer from PLA or Teflon" etc. General terms exist for a reason.

I'd actually say that cancer as a general term is in fact very unhelpful given the varieties and probably does need to die.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#399

Post by concordDance »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #291
hospitalJail wrote: post #133

The word 'Plastic' needs to die. Instead we should be more specific on the type of plastic. Teflon, PLA, ABS, resins, foams, etc... are all plastics, but they are so unrelated outside their long chains, its terrible to stereotype them all into one category. You aren't going to get cancer from PLA or Teflon, but rather the manufacturing process. You can eat these plastics as far as I know and you'd be fine. Eat someth…

We refer to them as plastics because it's meaningful and useful to do so in most contexts, including the context of the harm they do. Whether that harm is done during manufacturing or ingestion is irrelevant. They're all plastics and they all cause harm. It's not useful to nitpick over their long chains or oxygen double bonds. That rhetoric contributes nothing but deflective nerdery and confusion to the conversation.

"Plastic" is not actually a useful or meaningful term. E.g. if scientists made perfect artificial skin that was atom for atom identical to your skin it would be mostly made of plastic.

Not all "plastics" cause harm (at least, not any more than the skin you shed every day).

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#400

Post by cubefox »

nness wrote: post #351
cubefox wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My city banned single use plastics ages ago. So what is the food from the supermarket packaged in? I assume mostly in single use plastics.

Not OP but increasingly cardboard with minimal plastic for lids or seals. Unfortunately few biodegradable products.

Cardboard is biodegradable, but not air/water tight. So not useful for most food. You would still need something like plastics.
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