5 ms·

Well, lead and mercury aren’t typical engineering metals. Iron seems fine and actually good for you as long as the dose isn’t too high. Good point on stainless

Well, lead and mercury aren’t typical engineering metals. Iron seems fine and actually good for you as long as the dose isn’t too high. Good point on stainless - would be interesting to see what is worse for us in practice based on dosage - chromium from stainless (probably minute quantities) or microplastic. Then there’s aluminum, which seems to be safe but I think science is continuing to develop on that. Then there’s titanium which is still too expensive for normal consumer goods but I think there’s room for that to go down with investment. For example Apple now uses titanium in the iPhone. I think engineering metals have much less influence on the environment than plastics do, but I’m very in favor of more study. My point is that I think this is something we really need to be thinking about. Right now engineering as a field doesn’t spend much time thinking about environmental harms from plastic in normal goods, and we might want to spend more time on that.

londons_explore 2y ago
Aluminium is fairly poisonous too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelford_water_pollution_incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelford_water_pollution_in... And this study suggests aluminium in the brain might be cause (or effect) of autism, Alzheimer's, and various other neurological conditions: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64734-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64734-6 (Sulphates, acetates and oxides form really easily from contact with food and the environment)
- TaylorAlexander 2y ago
  Well the first link is a massive chemical spill which is usually bad, but doesn’t say much about the effects of aluminum in everyday objects. The latter I’m aware of as we have Alzheimer’s in my family and I work in the machine shop with aluminum quite often. I do wear eye and respiratory protection but I also recently researched it and it seems the link between Alzheimer’s and aluminum is still quite unclear and not firmly established. But as I’ve said in a few replies now I’m all for study of what the systemic harms of each are. If plastics cause harm and metals cause harm then the real question is what is the nature and magnitude of those harms. I think this requires more careful study. My point is that it may be time to look at plastic pollution the way we look at CO2 pollution.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    There was an old result that claimed aluminum was found in Alzheimer's diseased brains, but I understand this was later shown to be a laboratory artifact.

londons_explore 2y ago

Aluminium is fairly poisonous too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelford_water_pollution_incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelford_water_pollution_in... And this study suggests aluminium in the brain might be cause (or effect) of autism, Alzheimer's, and various other neurological conditions: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64734-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64734-6 (Sulphates, acetates and oxides form really easily from contact with food and the environment)

TaylorAlexander 2y ago
Well the first link is a massive chemical spill which is usually bad, but doesn’t say much about the effects of aluminum in everyday objects. The latter I’m aware of as we have Alzheimer’s in my family and I work in the machine shop with aluminum quite often. I do wear eye and respiratory protection but I also recently researched it and it seems the link between Alzheimer’s and aluminum is still quite unclear and not firmly established. But as I’ve said in a few replies now I’m all for study of what the systemic harms of each are. If plastics cause harm and metals cause harm then the real question is what is the nature and magnitude of those harms. I think this requires more careful study. My point is that it may be time to look at plastic pollution the way we look at CO2 pollution.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  There was an old result that claimed aluminum was found in Alzheimer's diseased brains, but I understand this was later shown to be a laboratory artifact.