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The study was off by a factor of 10, and the levels of flame retardants found was actually under the FDA guidelines for maximum daily exposure. However, in my

The study was off by a factor of 10, and the levels of flame retardants found was actually under the FDA guidelines for maximum daily exposure. However, in my own assessment, my maximum daily exposure to ingested flame retardants should be zero, rather than some off the cuff figure that was certainly done with appeasing industry in mind. So yes, I still ditched my plastic cookware in favor of stainless steel and silicone, and am still happy that the erroneous study got my attention.

JKCalhoun 2y ago
Agree. I was not shocked by the levels of flame retardants but that they were present at all.
- nancyminusone 2y ago
  Why should this be shocking? 1) Make thing that operates on hot surfaces/ near fire 2) Materials thing is made of known for being flammable 3) Add extra chemicals to help stop thing from catching on fire Seems pretty logical to me.
  - Reason077 2y ago
    Because many of these flame retardants are not only environmentally toxic, but seriously incompatible with human life. They shouldn’t be present in products designed to come in contact with food, when many good alternatives are available (inherently heat-resistant thermoplastics, silicone, stainless steel, etc)
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      > but seriously incompatible with human life. There is no good evidence of this for the chemical in question.
      - tannedNerd 2y ago
        [flagged]
        pfdietz 2y ago
        Teach your kids it's ok to make shit up when it's in a good cause. Should do them no harm, right?
      - Reason077 2y ago
        Brominated Flame Retardants?! It's pretty widely accepted that these are highly toxic. The question regulators have been looking at [1] is how dangerous they are when used in domestic furniture, curtains, etc, where children might be exposed and it might be present in household dust. At least when used in these products, the presence of BFRs hopefully does more good than harm, by preventing fires. But nobody ever thought anyone would actually be crazy enough to put BFRs in kitchen utensils, where perfectly good, and cheap, alternatives exist! [1] https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/polybrominated-diphenyl-ethers-pbdes-action-plan https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-t...
        pfdietz 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decabromodiphenyl_ether https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decabromodiphenyl_ether > In 2004, ATSDR wrote "Nothing definite is known about the health effects of PBDEs in people. Practically all of the available information is from studies of laboratory animals. Animal studies indicate that commercial decaBDE mixtures are generally much less toxic than the products containing lower brominated PBDEs. DecaBDE is expected to have relatively little effect on the health of humans." But I'm sure you're right. After all, history tells us that if someone is widely accepted to be a witch, they must be a witch.
        voltaireodactyl 2y ago
        For my part, I’m certain your counter-argument is the more accurate take. After all, history tells us that such studies are never quietly funded by the industries most likely to profit off of positive results, without regard to human cost.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    The flame retardants are not intentionally added to the materials.
  - lowbloodsugar 2y ago
    You forgot: 4) Profit Then it’s entirely not shocking.
  - croes 2y ago
    The problem were not the flame retardants per se but the black plastic added from other recycled electronic devices to get the black color flame retardants.
  - burkaman 2y ago
    Wood is also known for being flammable, but wooden cooking tools are very common. I think anyone who cooks a lot has an intuitive understanding that just touching something hot is not enough to make anything in a kitchen catch on fire, and that home kitchen fires are relatively rare even with a gas stove involved. So it is surprising to learn that there are flame retardants in these tools because they clearly aren't necessary.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      The flame retardants were added to the plastic cases of electronics, which at the end of their lives got recycled into kitchen utensils. That is why white plastic utensils are not being called out: although white utensils are common, white electronics cases are rare, so the white utensils do not have high levels of retardants.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - burkaman 2y ago
        I understand, I'm just explaining why the average person wouldn't expect to find flame retardants in kitchen tools. It is not a logical assumption like the other comment claimed.
  - unparagoned 2y ago
    The flame retardants aren’t there on purpose. If they had the choice there wouldn’t be any in these plastics.
pessimizer 2y ago
> my maximum daily exposure to ingested flame retardants should be zero What does this even mean? You refuse to eat anything that could possibly put out of a fire, or if included within anything else, could slow down the progress of fire when that thing burns? I don't understand taking pride in irrationality. If you have some evidence (or even some reasonable suspicion) that the specific chemical could be harmful in the amount that you consume it, avoid it. It's weird for me to brag that I'd avoid something despite any evidence, because somebody mentioned it once and I refuse to let it go. What if what you replace it with causes cancer, but has no effect on fires?
- whatshisface 2y ago
  They obviously meant halogenated, dangerous flame retardants, which are approved for use in consumer electronics but not utensils, not water... If there was a thread on the respiratory hazards of airborne micron-sized particles, I guarantee that someone in the comments section would say "I can't believe these unscientific yokels are afraid of clouds."
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    "Dangerous" depends on dose, and zero is impossible. If someone has a plan to inhale no micron-sized particles, their plan will not work.
    - whatshisface 2y ago
      When people say "zero" they mean "negligible," because a negligible deviation for zero is negligible. :-)
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        Well if that's the plan, distinguishing actual zero from negligible, step one is figuring out whether the leeching from the existing products is negligible or not. No assuming that non-zero presence means much.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
At an individual level, sure - there is tons of conflicting information out there so you just need to use your best judgement to decide what to do for you. At a broader level, though, I am certainly not happy this erroneous study got my (and many other people's) attention, because it's conclusions were complete bullshit. I don't understand these kinds of unscientific apologetics - it's the exact same kind of thinking that leads people down the road of "Sure, that study of vaccine implications in autism may have been completely fraudulent, but I'm still glad it got my attention because it informed me of all the random chemicals in vaccines!" I personally did not ditch my plastic cookware, and I'm glad I didn't, because so far there is zero actual evidence that one needs to.
- mjamesaustin 2y ago
  On the flipside, blindly accepting industry safety standards is how we ended up with lead paint and asbestos everywhere. Insufficient evidence of harm is not the same as proof of no harm. We can live in a world of nuance where we refute the specific claims of this study while still making choices to proactively avoid potential harm from plastic products. Many other valid studies are finding microplastic in our bodies and environment at levels we didn't remotely suspect before.
- croes 2y ago
  So 8% of the limit of toxic is okay for you even if they can be made with 0%? Where was the problem with 80% then, it’s still below the limit. It adds up with all other sources of harmful materials. Less is better
ars 2y ago
Did you catch the part that most of the plasticware had zero flame retardant? Rather they were just a few outliers that completely threw the average off?
- croes 2y ago
  Wasn’t that most didn’t contain flame retardants recycled from electronic devices? The problem isn’t the flame retardant but the source and for black kitchen utensils they sometimes used old plastic from TVs and such
  - Snoozus 2y ago
    Is this really clear from the study? Which utensils are made from black ABS and actually end up touching food? The lid of a blender maybe? It can't be anything that gets hot.
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
No science, only vibes.

JKCalhoun 2y ago

Agree. I was not shocked by the levels of flame retardants but that they were present at all.

nancyminusone 2y ago
Why should this be shocking? 1) Make thing that operates on hot surfaces/ near fire 2) Materials thing is made of known for being flammable 3) Add extra chemicals to help stop thing from catching on fire Seems pretty logical to me.
- Reason077 2y ago
  Because many of these flame retardants are not only environmentally toxic, but seriously incompatible with human life. They shouldn’t be present in products designed to come in contact with food, when many good alternatives are available (inherently heat-resistant thermoplastics, silicone, stainless steel, etc)
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    > but seriously incompatible with human life. There is no good evidence of this for the chemical in question.
    - tannedNerd 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        Teach your kids it's ok to make shit up when it's in a good cause. Should do them no harm, right?
    - Reason077 2y ago
      Brominated Flame Retardants?! It's pretty widely accepted that these are highly toxic. The question regulators have been looking at [1] is how dangerous they are when used in domestic furniture, curtains, etc, where children might be exposed and it might be present in household dust. At least when used in these products, the presence of BFRs hopefully does more good than harm, by preventing fires. But nobody ever thought anyone would actually be crazy enough to put BFRs in kitchen utensils, where perfectly good, and cheap, alternatives exist! [1] https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/polybrominated-diphenyl-ethers-pbdes-action-plan https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-t...
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decabromodiphenyl_ether https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decabromodiphenyl_ether > In 2004, ATSDR wrote "Nothing definite is known about the health effects of PBDEs in people. Practically all of the available information is from studies of laboratory animals. Animal studies indicate that commercial decaBDE mixtures are generally much less toxic than the products containing lower brominated PBDEs. DecaBDE is expected to have relatively little effect on the health of humans." But I'm sure you're right. After all, history tells us that if someone is widely accepted to be a witch, they must be a witch.
        voltaireodactyl 2y ago
        For my part, I’m certain your counter-argument is the more accurate take. After all, history tells us that such studies are never quietly funded by the industries most likely to profit off of positive results, without regard to human cost.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffbee 2y ago
  The flame retardants are not intentionally added to the materials.
- lowbloodsugar 2y ago
  You forgot: 4) Profit Then it’s entirely not shocking.
- croes 2y ago
  The problem were not the flame retardants per se but the black plastic added from other recycled electronic devices to get the black color flame retardants.
- burkaman 2y ago
  Wood is also known for being flammable, but wooden cooking tools are very common. I think anyone who cooks a lot has an intuitive understanding that just touching something hot is not enough to make anything in a kitchen catch on fire, and that home kitchen fires are relatively rare even with a gas stove involved. So it is surprising to learn that there are flame retardants in these tools because they clearly aren't necessary.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    The flame retardants were added to the plastic cases of electronics, which at the end of their lives got recycled into kitchen utensils. That is why white plastic utensils are not being called out: although white utensils are common, white electronics cases are rare, so the white utensils do not have high levels of retardants.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - burkaman 2y ago
      I understand, I'm just explaining why the average person wouldn't expect to find flame retardants in kitchen tools. It is not a logical assumption like the other comment claimed.
- unparagoned 2y ago
  The flame retardants aren’t there on purpose. If they had the choice there wouldn’t be any in these plastics.

pessimizer 2y ago

> my maximum daily exposure to ingested flame retardants should be zero What does this even mean? You refuse to eat anything that could possibly put out of a fire, or if included within anything else, could slow down the progress of fire when that thing burns? I don't understand taking pride in irrationality. If you have some evidence (or even some reasonable suspicion) that the specific chemical could be harmful in the amount that you consume it, avoid it. It's weird for me to brag that I'd avoid something despite any evidence, because somebody mentioned it once and I refuse to let it go. What if what you replace it with causes cancer, but has no effect on fires?

whatshisface 2y ago
They obviously meant halogenated, dangerous flame retardants, which are approved for use in consumer electronics but not utensils, not water... If there was a thread on the respiratory hazards of airborne micron-sized particles, I guarantee that someone in the comments section would say "I can't believe these unscientific yokels are afraid of clouds."
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  "Dangerous" depends on dose, and zero is impossible. If someone has a plan to inhale no micron-sized particles, their plan will not work.
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    When people say "zero" they mean "negligible," because a negligible deviation for zero is negligible. :-)
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      Well if that's the plan, distinguishing actual zero from negligible, step one is figuring out whether the leeching from the existing products is negligible or not. No assuming that non-zero presence means much.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

At an individual level, sure - there is tons of conflicting information out there so you just need to use your best judgement to decide what to do for you. At a broader level, though, I am certainly not happy this erroneous study got my (and many other people's) attention, because it's conclusions were complete bullshit. I don't understand these kinds of unscientific apologetics - it's the exact same kind of thinking that leads people down the road of "Sure, that study of vaccine implications in autism may have been completely fraudulent, but I'm still glad it got my attention because it informed me of all the random chemicals in vaccines!" I personally did not ditch my plastic cookware, and I'm glad I didn't, because so far there is zero actual evidence that one needs to.

mjamesaustin 2y ago
On the flipside, blindly accepting industry safety standards is how we ended up with lead paint and asbestos everywhere. Insufficient evidence of harm is not the same as proof of no harm. We can live in a world of nuance where we refute the specific claims of this study while still making choices to proactively avoid potential harm from plastic products. Many other valid studies are finding microplastic in our bodies and environment at levels we didn't remotely suspect before.
croes 2y ago
So 8% of the limit of toxic is okay for you even if they can be made with 0%? Where was the problem with 80% then, it’s still below the limit. It adds up with all other sources of harmful materials. Less is better

ars 2y ago

Did you catch the part that most of the plasticware had zero flame retardant? Rather they were just a few outliers that completely threw the average off?

croes 2y ago
Wasn’t that most didn’t contain flame retardants recycled from electronic devices? The problem isn’t the flame retardant but the source and for black kitchen utensils they sometimes used old plastic from TVs and such
- Snoozus 2y ago
  Is this really clear from the study? Which utensils are made from black ABS and actually end up touching food? The lid of a blender maybe? It can't be anything that gets hot.

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago

No science, only vibes.