> it seemed exceedingly likely to the layman that it would leach out It seemed exceedingly likely to scientists too. I've been reading about the dangers of mic

> it seemed exceedingly likely to the layman that it would leach out It seemed exceedingly likely to scientists too. I've been reading about the dangers of microwaving stuff in plastic containers, or using plastic wrap in the microwave, as long as I can remember. Here's a study from 1990, citing several others that go back to 1988. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Migration-testing-of-plastics-and-microwave-active-Castle-Jickells/d74897403d3129107a7c942108e7156a52daec7b https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Migration-testing-of-p... I'm pretty sure there were earlier ones as well. What's important here is not to conflate leached chemicals with micro- or nano-particles. Scientists and consumer advocates (and many consumers) have been well aware of the former for a long time, while awareness of the latter is relatively new. > Microplastics, were they unobservable in the 80's? Sort of. The term is sometimes attributed to Richard Thompson in 2004. https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/discover/are-microplastics-a-big-problem https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/discover/are-microplastics-a-big-... Prior to that (or thereabouts) nobody knew to look for whole plastic particles as opposed to individual chemical components. Therefore tools to quantify or analyze them were not well refined, and likewise for methodologies. The specific issue of microplastics in microwaves is even newer than that. It's evolving science, which is practically redundant because that's what science always does. Cases of zero awareness to high awareness overnight are rare. More often it's increasing awareness, and correspondingly increasing sophistication in measurement or analysis, as each study takes years and someone to fund it.