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Scheele’s Green, the Color of Fake Foliage and Death (2018)
- permo-w 4y agofascinating article. one brief element I found interesting was the government regulation of production materials (arsenic in green dye) I was genuinely unaware that it went that far back. for whatever reason I had the impression that these kinds of laws largely began in the post-war era
- _a_a_a_ 4y agoNah, stuff goes way back. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phossy_jaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phossy_jaw "The Grand Duchy of Finland, part of the Russian Empire, in 1872, was the first country to place an absolute ban on the manufacture, use, and sale of white phosphorus in matches, followed by Denmark in 1874 and France in 1897"
- wiml 4y agoSugar-of-lead (as a sweetener in wine and other foods) goes even further — it was suspected to be toxic millennia ago, though maybe only subject to a governmental ban as recently as the late 1600s.
- perihelions 4y ago- "Commercial greens are often made with pigment green 7, which contains chlorine and can’t be recycled or composted safely." ?
- croo 4y agoUhhh what's the problem with chlorine? Chlorine kills living cells, bad for any living organism in water, most often damaging fish's sensitive gills as well as the skin that covers their entire bodies. Definitely bad for compost as it kills all the microbes and little fun guys doing the work.
- ray__ 4y agoElemental chlorine maybe, but there’s none of that in green 7.
- gus_massa 4y agoI agree. Probably the confusion is caused by the common name of the additive for fish tanks "Dechlorinator". But the "Dechlorinator" does not remove Chlorine atoms from the water. It only transform the NaClO (bleach [1]) into NaCl (table salt[1]). It "steals" the oxygen and binds it to another molecule. [1] ignoring a few technical details.
- kragen 4y ago"However, the presence of chlorine in an organic compound does not ensure toxicity. Some organochlorides are considered safe enough for consumption in foods and medicines. For example, peas and broad beans contain the natural chlorinated plant hormone 4-chloroindole-3-acetic acid (4-Cl-IAA);[13][14] and the sweetener sucralose (Splenda) is widely used in diet products. As of 2004, at least 165 organochlorides had been approved worldwide for use as pharmaceutical drugs, including the natural antibiotic vancomycin, the antihistamine loratadine (Claritin), the antidepressant sertraline (Zoloft), the anti-epileptic lamotrigine (Lamictal), and the inhalation anesthetic isoflurane.[15]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organochlorine_chemistry#Toxicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organochlorine_chemistry#Toxic... incineration might be a bad idea but composting might be fine if we are talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalocyanine_Green_G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalocyanine_Green_G it's apparently nontoxic enough to use as a tattoo ink so I wouldn't worry about it this is just another witch-burner who wants to destroy anything they don't understand out of fear
- gus_massa 4y agoI agree, except for the last sentence. My guess is that it's someone confused by the misleading name of the fish tanks additives. (More details in my reply to the sibling comment.)
- eganist 4y ago[flagged]
- perihelions 4y agoYour AI is lost in the wilderness. - "Environmental risks: Like many other synthetic pigments, Phthalocyanine Green G is not biodegradable. It can accumulate in the environment, particularly in water bodies, and affect aquatic life. Its presence in water may disrupt ecosystems by inhibiting the growth of certain microorganisms or reducing light penetration, which in turn affects photosynthesis and the overall health of aquatic plants." This compound is *not soluble in water*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalocyanine_Green_G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalocyanine_Green_G
- zokier 4y agoI don't think you need to be water soluble to have impact on aquatic environments; take for example microplastics?
- magic_hamster 4y agoPeople are accepting ChatGPT as a credible source of information far too readily.
- xkcd-sucks 4y agoJust by intuition, highly halogenated polyaromatic compounds such as this seem like they might degrade into terrible things - Compare to dioxins. Definitely would not want to burn them at the very least
- addaon 4y ago> carving breasts into rocks and crafting cloth into petals. The anti-parallelism of this phrase is epic.
- StrictDabbler 4y agoIt is probably a syllepsis, where a governing word or phrase applies differently in multiple contexts. The canonical example is "He hastened put out out the cat, the wine, his cigar and the lamps." In this case the governing word would be "into" but I'm hesitant because prepositions in English are treated so differently than they are in Latin or Greek. It also verges on paraprosdokian. Anyway, I love these structures, so thank you for drawing attention to it.
- illiarian 4y agoCould you say that the writer's style is... florid?
- baybal2 4y agoLots of other modern dyes are quite poisonous as well, and are not banned even for things like toys, or foodware. Lead oxide for example only got banned in the most of the world in 200X, with countries copying EU's ROHS regulations. Chromates are well known to be cancerogenic, but are only about to be banned in EU. All bright red cars manufactured after nineties have to use organic red pigments, which fade very fast, in comparison to chromate or lead pigments, that's why there is such huge monetary interest in finding a new inorganic bright red pigment.
- rco8786 4y agoAs an aside, what’s the conversion on that horrible pop up? I’m on your site for .5 seconds, I’ve never heard of you, and I don’t even know what I’m reading yet and a giant blocking “Subscribe & Save” modal? Yuck.
- hulitu 4y agoThis is "standard" missionary behaviour from websites in 2023. Apparently they think that people will pay for any story they publish.
- Nick87633 4y agoI'd buy you a green dress. But not a real green dress, that's cruel!
- matzf 4y agoExplaining a joke ruins it, but as this has been voted down it seems necessary. This is a seemingly non-sensical quote from the song "If I had a million dollars" -- in the context of TFA it suddenly makes perfect sense. Chapeau!
- DeathArrow 4y agoI think fake flowers are kitsch.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]