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Kids nowadays are drowning in plastic stuffies, which I assume are made of toxic waste. No joke, iirc they off gas enough to pick up on household air quality se

Kids nowadays are drowning in plastic stuffies, which I assume are made of toxic waste. No joke, iirc they off gas enough to pick up on household air quality sensors.

arriu 3y ago
Interesting, where can I read more?
- MrVandemar 3y ago
  Try (best title ever) “Slow Death by Rubber Duck” by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie. Excellent book, although they frame their enquiry a little too much like “Supersize Me” and I'm not sure it was the best way.
  - anjel 3y ago
    The subtitle "The Secret Danger of Everyday Things" really ties the room together.
barbazoo 3y ago
What kind of toxin is in toys nowadays?
- MrVandemar 3y ago
  None. A “toxin” is a naturally occuring poison, such as snake venom. The word you're looking for is the umbrella term “toxicant”. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicant But, pendantry aside, pretty sure a lot of those plastic toys, especially the sort of rubbery squishy ones, are probably loaded with pthalates and other exotic and interesting things.
  - gremlinunderway 3y ago
    this is pretty pedantic alright. For better or worse and as much as lots of people wanted to push back against it, you're just going to have to accept that "toxin" has become a general term now no longer tied to just naturally occurring poisons. Words evolve, they change with use. It's like the people dying on that pedantry hill over "literally" being now used in slang to just mean "a lot / really significantly" rather than "how something appears in literature". I'm sure there were people equally complaining about the death of the English subjunctive verb [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive
    - MrVandemar 3y ago
      Equally, should we not value the richness and vibrancy of the language? Should we not strive for accuracy and precision? Or do we want to pare down the language to some banal Orwellian Newspeak, drained of vigour, designed to make the possibility of interesting and original thinking impossible? Anyway, “Toxicant” is a perfectly cromulent word.
cocoa19 3y ago
I have multiple air sensors and I don’t notice a high pollutant count (voc, co2, pm1/2.5/10) due to toys. Gas stoves however.. they spike voc and co2 around the house when used.

Kids nowadays are drowning in plastic stuffies, which I assume are made of toxic waste. No joke, iirc they off gas enough to pick up on household air quality sensors.

arriu 3y ago

Interesting, where can I read more?

MrVandemar 3y ago
Try (best title ever) “Slow Death by Rubber Duck” by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie. Excellent book, although they frame their enquiry a little too much like “Supersize Me” and I'm not sure it was the best way.
- anjel 3y ago
  The subtitle "The Secret Danger of Everyday Things" really ties the room together.

barbazoo 3y ago

What kind of toxin is in toys nowadays?

MrVandemar 3y ago
None. A “toxin” is a naturally occuring poison, such as snake venom. The word you're looking for is the umbrella term “toxicant”. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicant But, pendantry aside, pretty sure a lot of those plastic toys, especially the sort of rubbery squishy ones, are probably loaded with pthalates and other exotic and interesting things.
- gremlinunderway 3y ago
  this is pretty pedantic alright. For better or worse and as much as lots of people wanted to push back against it, you're just going to have to accept that "toxin" has become a general term now no longer tied to just naturally occurring poisons. Words evolve, they change with use. It's like the people dying on that pedantry hill over "literally" being now used in slang to just mean "a lot / really significantly" rather than "how something appears in literature". I'm sure there were people equally complaining about the death of the English subjunctive verb [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive
  - MrVandemar 3y ago
    Equally, should we not value the richness and vibrancy of the language? Should we not strive for accuracy and precision? Or do we want to pare down the language to some banal Orwellian Newspeak, drained of vigour, designed to make the possibility of interesting and original thinking impossible? Anyway, “Toxicant” is a perfectly cromulent word.

cocoa19 3y ago

I have multiple air sensors and I don’t notice a high pollutant count (voc, co2, pm1/2.5/10) due to toys. Gas stoves however.. they spike voc and co2 around the house when used.