5 ms·

Plastics are inert. This is why they don't biodegrade easily. It is the additives in the plastics (to make them softer, or color them, or whatever) that are ter

Plastics are inert. This is why they don't biodegrade easily. It is the additives in the plastics (to make them softer, or color them, or whatever) that are terrible for you. By the time these things are 'microplastics' I am having a hard time feeling scared that they are harmful. I'm not saying they aren't, but until someone can tie them to an actual problem, I don't see an issue -- especially since there is nothing we can do about it. That said, one-time-use plastics are absolutely obscene and need to be removed from society as soon as humanly possible.

tomp 4y ago
There’s nothing wrong with one-time-use plastics, in countries with good waste management systems. Paper straws suck.
- radec 4y ago
  What's a good waste management system? Honest question.
  - tomp 4y ago
    Burying plastics in the ground; returning carbon to where it came from.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      No, burning them in a waste to energy plant. While we still use hydrocarbons for a while for power, we might as well let some of them hang out as our stuff for a bit before being burned for energy.
      - 2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
        I get that argument, but wouldn't it be better to bury it deep so that the carbon is taken away rather than added to the ecosystem? Sure, small-scale "energy recycling" makes sense, but if everyone did it with all our waste plastic outout then we'd pretty much just be using fossil fuels with extra steps, and the carbon will end up in the atmosphere.
        colechristensen 4y ago
        It is fossil fuels with extra steps but see that when you burn garbage for power that’s displacing the equivalent amount of power that would be provided by fossil fuels (almost everywhere around the world today). Therefore you get to leave some oil or whatever in the ground instead of going to the trouble of burying garbage. Burning garbage instead of fossil fuels should be carbon neutral with some benefits of not filling landfills etc.
    - vouaobrasil 4y ago
      Animals live in the ground and you are talking about filling their homes with garbage? You are sick.
  - MorrisMinor 4y ago
    Plasma converter: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification Unfortunately it's more expensive than just throwing waste into a hole in the ground.
- brettermeier 4y ago
  There are no countries with good waste management systems. Waste counts as recycled, if it was exported. What happens after that, nobody knows and nobody cares. Even in Europe, just a tiny amount of plastic gets recycled, most is shipped away, so that others should care about. Edit: Source: "The recycling lie" https://www.daserste.de/information/reportage-dokumentation/dokus/videos/die-recyclingluege-video-102.html https://www.daserste.de/information/reportage-dokumentation/... (german)
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Mandate plasma gasification instead of plastics recycling. The result is a syngas that can be burned for energy and an inert slag you can dispose of in asphalt. Edit: MorrisMinor suggests this further down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34293509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34293509
- dashundchen 4y ago
  Honestly go look outside. Go alongside a well trafficed road in the city or the country and take a close look at the soil. The curb or tree lawn is filled with visible bits of degraded plastic, and that's not even seeing abraded tire dust that will just look like soot or dirt. Go to pretty much any beach and sift through the sand. Again you will find an abnormal number of plastic mixed in. Even in "clean" places with not a lot of litter plastic bits are visibly everywhere. Own any synthetic clothes? Look at your lint trap after running a dryer or shaking out your clothes. The dust and lint coming off will quickly become microplastics. The wastewater from your washer will also be filled with them
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    Not where I live?
  - Noumenon72 4y ago
    I worked in a plastic factory for ten years so I feel like I would recognize this if I had ever seen it. I haven't. I will take a look though.
- politician 4y ago
  Metal straws (and spoons, forks, knives) are amazing.
  - fff3331 4y ago
    [dead]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- maxbond 4y ago
  Every paper straw I have ever used has been great.
legulere 4y ago
Plastics are relatively brittle however without those additives and will break down into harmful micro and nano plastics: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720360472 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489... There’s a lot we can do about it. Clothes tires and mismanaged waste are leading sources for microplastic that can be reduced.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  Without the full article we can only go by the abstract of your link, which doesn't say anything definitive except that the effects on humans are unknown.
  - mumblemumble 4y ago
    The precautionary principle would seem to be worth considering in that case.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      I'm not sure how freaking out about it is going to help. I am all for removing plastics as much as possible, so the motivation to do that should help the other. In the meantime there are definite, known bad things that I can freak out about health-wise.
      - nullish_signal 4y ago
        "Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't", yes?
Traubenfuchs 4y ago
I always dream about opening a single use plastic shop in the future, for those who just don‘t care and those who are actively opposed to it being removed everywhere. For example, drinking delicious Coca-Cola Zero Sugar at McDonalds from a paper straw is disgusting. The straw usually disintegrates before I am done and sticks to the lips at the start. I love single use plastic.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  Why is everyone using straws as an example? First, they are not what I am talking about -- we used to get beverages in re-usable containers and now it is almost impossible to find anything in glass. We don't need plastic to-go containers, we don't need everything in a plastic wrapper or vacuum sealed in a thick plastic container (as evidenced by companies not doing that and having zero problems with their products being damaged). These are just a few things that could be changed with zero inconvenience to the consumer. In fact, the plastic sealed packages that require a chainsaw to open being discontinued would be a convenience for consumers, since I have never met a person who didn't hate them. Keep your plastic straws.
  - fwsgonzo 4y ago
    We must not inconvenience anyone at any cost! Even if it creates a layer of plastic on earths surface and we get microplastic in our spines. It would have been easier to believe in a better future if people could stomach tiny inconveniences.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    I would be so far from shocked if we found out soon that plastic grocery bag / straw bans were a psi-op by big oil/plastic manufacturers to make people hate the idea of reducing single-use plastic. I couldn't have picked a more inconvenient and inconsequential place to start legislating if I had tried. A ban on plastic soda bottles? Great! There's are existing non-plastic solutions, nobody would be negatively impacted, and we'd see that reducing our plastic use can be easy and not require major sacrifices. Instead we come up against it every time we buy a beverage or go to the grocery store.
userbinator 4y ago
It is the additives in the plastics (to make them softer, or color them, or whatever) that are terrible for you. That said, one-time-use plastics are absolutely obscene and need to be removed from society as soon as humanly possible. Those seem to be somewhat conflicting viewpoints. The overwhelming majority of single-use plastics are PE or PP, which also don't really have much in the way of additives. PVC, ABS, and others in those families are what need the really harmful plasticisers, and also cost a lot more; as a result, they aren't going to be chosen for single-use applications unless there are other important reasons to do so. Then the article goes on to mention PFAS, which is related to fluoropolymers, another very different category. I'm sure FPs are used in some single-use applications, but they are not cheap compared to PP or PE so they'll be massively lower in volume. I hate how articles like this just promote a "plastics = bad" narrative, and they didn't even mention what type of microplastic they found.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  I have dental floss and tape made out of PFAS. Unfortunately its 25% PFAS content is what makes Oral B floss so good and waxy- I haven't found a non-PFAS floss that works half as well
  - user68858788 4y ago
    My dental hygienist warned that Oral B isn’t effective and recommended I use a woven floss, like cocofloss. Stay safe out there.
- blahblah1234567 4y ago
  Googled: list of additives in PE plastic Found: "Stabilizers are the most widely used additives in the PE industry. Other additives commonly added to polyethylene are stearates (e.g., calcium and zinc stearates to neutralize acidic catalyst residues and to impart lubricity), pigments (e.g., carbon black, cadmium yellow, and titanium dioxide), metal deactivators (e.g., oxalyl bishydrazide for PE cable insulation), processing aids (e.g., Dynamar, Ucarsil, Viton-A, to improve flow of the molten polymer), optical brightners (e.g., Uvitex OB to enhance appearance). Additives commonly added to polyethylene include antioxidants (hindered phenolics and phosphites for process stabilization), antiblock compounds (e.g., silica, talc, and kaolin to reduce sticking of adjacent film layers), and slip agents (e.g., erucamide and oleamide to reduce friction)." "POLYETHYLENE (Stabilization and Compounding)" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/polyethylene-stabilization-compounding-ahmed-eltayef/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/polyethylene-stabilization-co...
SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
Asbestos is also chemically quite inert. But in small fibers, it can physically interfere with cellular processes. I'm not aware of evidence that microplastics behave in the same way, but a number of other small nonreactive particles do have biological effects, so "chemically inert" doesn't seem like a good heuristic for "harmless".
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  I don't think that is a helpful comparison. Of course being 'inert' is not a good heuristic for harmless -- a bullet made out of teflon fired into you will harm you quite severely despite teflon's inertness. My implication was that without further evidence there is no reason to assume harm by default, because inert things are non-reactive and there is no known mechanism for microplastics having a mechanically harmful effect on mammals.
wkat4242 4y ago
But them being inert also makes it very hard for our body to clean it up, so it ends up accumulating in our bodies.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  If you don't know it is there and it doesn't affect you, why does it matter?
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    Because it takes up space in organs etc. It gets in the way. Stuff blocks up. It could become dislodged and accumulate into a blood clot. Lots of reasons why we shouldn't have foreign objects in our bodies.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      That sounds an awful lot like 'affecting you'.

tomp 4y ago

There’s nothing wrong with one-time-use plastics, in countries with good waste management systems. Paper straws suck.

radec 4y ago
What's a good waste management system? Honest question.
- tomp 4y ago
  Burying plastics in the ground; returning carbon to where it came from.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    No, burning them in a waste to energy plant. While we still use hydrocarbons for a while for power, we might as well let some of them hang out as our stuff for a bit before being burned for energy.
    - 2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
      I get that argument, but wouldn't it be better to bury it deep so that the carbon is taken away rather than added to the ecosystem? Sure, small-scale "energy recycling" makes sense, but if everyone did it with all our waste plastic outout then we'd pretty much just be using fossil fuels with extra steps, and the carbon will end up in the atmosphere.
      - colechristensen 4y ago
        It is fossil fuels with extra steps but see that when you burn garbage for power that’s displacing the equivalent amount of power that would be provided by fossil fuels (almost everywhere around the world today). Therefore you get to leave some oil or whatever in the ground instead of going to the trouble of burying garbage. Burning garbage instead of fossil fuels should be carbon neutral with some benefits of not filling landfills etc.
  - vouaobrasil 4y ago
    Animals live in the ground and you are talking about filling their homes with garbage? You are sick.
- MorrisMinor 4y ago
  Plasma converter: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification Unfortunately it's more expensive than just throwing waste into a hole in the ground.
brettermeier 4y ago
There are no countries with good waste management systems. Waste counts as recycled, if it was exported. What happens after that, nobody knows and nobody cares. Even in Europe, just a tiny amount of plastic gets recycled, most is shipped away, so that others should care about. Edit: Source: "The recycling lie" https://www.daserste.de/information/reportage-dokumentation/dokus/videos/die-recyclingluege-video-102.html https://www.daserste.de/information/reportage-dokumentation/... (german)
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Mandate plasma gasification instead of plastics recycling. The result is a syngas that can be burned for energy and an inert slag you can dispose of in asphalt. Edit: MorrisMinor suggests this further down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34293509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34293509
dashundchen 4y ago
Honestly go look outside. Go alongside a well trafficed road in the city or the country and take a close look at the soil. The curb or tree lawn is filled with visible bits of degraded plastic, and that's not even seeing abraded tire dust that will just look like soot or dirt. Go to pretty much any beach and sift through the sand. Again you will find an abnormal number of plastic mixed in. Even in "clean" places with not a lot of litter plastic bits are visibly everywhere. Own any synthetic clothes? Look at your lint trap after running a dryer or shaking out your clothes. The dust and lint coming off will quickly become microplastics. The wastewater from your washer will also be filled with them
- bamboozled 4y ago
  Not where I live?
- Noumenon72 4y ago
  I worked in a plastic factory for ten years so I feel like I would recognize this if I had ever seen it. I haven't. I will take a look though.
politician 4y ago
Metal straws (and spoons, forks, knives) are amazing.
- fff3331 4y ago
  [dead]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
maxbond 4y ago
Every paper straw I have ever used has been great.

legulere 4y ago

Plastics are relatively brittle however without those additives and will break down into harmful micro and nano plastics: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720360472 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489... There’s a lot we can do about it. Clothes tires and mismanaged waste are leading sources for microplastic that can be reduced.

Eisenstein 4y ago
Without the full article we can only go by the abstract of your link, which doesn't say anything definitive except that the effects on humans are unknown.
- mumblemumble 4y ago
  The precautionary principle would seem to be worth considering in that case.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    I'm not sure how freaking out about it is going to help. I am all for removing plastics as much as possible, so the motivation to do that should help the other. In the meantime there are definite, known bad things that I can freak out about health-wise.
    - nullish_signal 4y ago
      "Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't", yes?

Traubenfuchs 4y ago

I always dream about opening a single use plastic shop in the future, for those who just don‘t care and those who are actively opposed to it being removed everywhere. For example, drinking delicious Coca-Cola Zero Sugar at McDonalds from a paper straw is disgusting. The straw usually disintegrates before I am done and sticks to the lips at the start. I love single use plastic.

Eisenstein 4y ago
Why is everyone using straws as an example? First, they are not what I am talking about -- we used to get beverages in re-usable containers and now it is almost impossible to find anything in glass. We don't need plastic to-go containers, we don't need everything in a plastic wrapper or vacuum sealed in a thick plastic container (as evidenced by companies not doing that and having zero problems with their products being damaged). These are just a few things that could be changed with zero inconvenience to the consumer. In fact, the plastic sealed packages that require a chainsaw to open being discontinued would be a convenience for consumers, since I have never met a person who didn't hate them. Keep your plastic straws.
- fwsgonzo 4y ago
  We must not inconvenience anyone at any cost! Even if it creates a layer of plastic on earths surface and we get microplastic in our spines. It would have been easier to believe in a better future if people could stomach tiny inconveniences.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  I would be so far from shocked if we found out soon that plastic grocery bag / straw bans were a psi-op by big oil/plastic manufacturers to make people hate the idea of reducing single-use plastic. I couldn't have picked a more inconvenient and inconsequential place to start legislating if I had tried. A ban on plastic soda bottles? Great! There's are existing non-plastic solutions, nobody would be negatively impacted, and we'd see that reducing our plastic use can be easy and not require major sacrifices. Instead we come up against it every time we buy a beverage or go to the grocery store.

userbinator 4y ago

It is the additives in the plastics (to make them softer, or color them, or whatever) that are terrible for you. That said, one-time-use plastics are absolutely obscene and need to be removed from society as soon as humanly possible. Those seem to be somewhat conflicting viewpoints. The overwhelming majority of single-use plastics are PE or PP, which also don't really have much in the way of additives. PVC, ABS, and others in those families are what need the really harmful plasticisers, and also cost a lot more; as a result, they aren't going to be chosen for single-use applications unless there are other important reasons to do so. Then the article goes on to mention PFAS, which is related to fluoropolymers, another very different category. I'm sure FPs are used in some single-use applications, but they are not cheap compared to PP or PE so they'll be massively lower in volume. I hate how articles like this just promote a "plastics = bad" narrative, and they didn't even mention what type of microplastic they found.

Rebelgecko 4y ago
I have dental floss and tape made out of PFAS. Unfortunately its 25% PFAS content is what makes Oral B floss so good and waxy- I haven't found a non-PFAS floss that works half as well
- user68858788 4y ago
  My dental hygienist warned that Oral B isn’t effective and recommended I use a woven floss, like cocofloss. Stay safe out there.
blahblah1234567 4y ago
Googled: list of additives in PE plastic Found: "Stabilizers are the most widely used additives in the PE industry. Other additives commonly added to polyethylene are stearates (e.g., calcium and zinc stearates to neutralize acidic catalyst residues and to impart lubricity), pigments (e.g., carbon black, cadmium yellow, and titanium dioxide), metal deactivators (e.g., oxalyl bishydrazide for PE cable insulation), processing aids (e.g., Dynamar, Ucarsil, Viton-A, to improve flow of the molten polymer), optical brightners (e.g., Uvitex OB to enhance appearance). Additives commonly added to polyethylene include antioxidants (hindered phenolics and phosphites for process stabilization), antiblock compounds (e.g., silica, talc, and kaolin to reduce sticking of adjacent film layers), and slip agents (e.g., erucamide and oleamide to reduce friction)." "POLYETHYLENE (Stabilization and Compounding)" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/polyethylene-stabilization-compounding-ahmed-eltayef/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/polyethylene-stabilization-co...

SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago

Asbestos is also chemically quite inert. But in small fibers, it can physically interfere with cellular processes. I'm not aware of evidence that microplastics behave in the same way, but a number of other small nonreactive particles do have biological effects, so "chemically inert" doesn't seem like a good heuristic for "harmless".

Eisenstein 4y ago
I don't think that is a helpful comparison. Of course being 'inert' is not a good heuristic for harmless -- a bullet made out of teflon fired into you will harm you quite severely despite teflon's inertness. My implication was that without further evidence there is no reason to assume harm by default, because inert things are non-reactive and there is no known mechanism for microplastics having a mechanically harmful effect on mammals.

wkat4242 4y ago

But them being inert also makes it very hard for our body to clean it up, so it ends up accumulating in our bodies.

Eisenstein 4y ago
If you don't know it is there and it doesn't affect you, why does it matter?
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Because it takes up space in organs etc. It gets in the way. Stuff blocks up. It could become dislodged and accumulate into a blood clot. Lots of reasons why we shouldn't have foreign objects in our bodies.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    That sounds an awful lot like 'affecting you'.