• keenanpepper@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    This may be true but I hate the practice of referring to “plastic” as if it’s a single substance. It’s a bunch of different materials that don’t really have that much in common with each other, especially from a health/toxicity standpoint.

    For example, people treat it as common sense that “you shouldn’t burn plastic” because the smoke is “toxic”. For PVC this is totally true, it makes very nasty stuff like dioxin that will poison you. But on the other hand you can burn polyethylene (think milk jug) and it’s no more toxic than burning a candle. Definitely way healthier to breath than wood campfire smoke, for example.

    There’s also such a silly pattern where people learn some chemical might have some effect on the body and suddenly everyone is up in arms about it. For example Bisphenol A in many applications was replaced by the very similar Bisphenol S just so things could be labeled “BPA Free”. BPS probably has similar estrogenic effects to BPA.

    I’d say the moral of the story is be wary of received wisdom about chemical toxicity from people who aren’t chemists.

      • abbadon420@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Yeah! I don’t want to accidentally throw a redneck bonfire with white smoke again.

    • sadbehr@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      Have you heard of Dihydrogen monoxide? It literally kills hundreds of thousands of people every single year all over the world, including young children.

      You don’t hear about it in the news though do you…

        • piece@feddit.it
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          1 year ago

          It’s an old (early-internet?) joke iirc. And yes, I think that’s the answer

          • islandofcaucasus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Oh shit, I was thinking there was no way that hundreds of thousands of people did from drowning every year, but they actually do.

            WHO estimates that every year over 200k people die from drowning

            • sadbehr@lemmy.nz
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              1 year ago

              Yea I did my 10 seconds of research before I quoted my number! I could have said ‘200k’ but ‘hundreds of thousands’ sounds much more dramatic don’t you think? Which is the whole point of the Dihydrogen monoxide thing.

          • sadbehr@lemmy.nz
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            1 year ago

            According to its Wikipedia page, this joke was first published in 1983! I suspect most people know it from the early 2000’s when it made a resurgence again.

        • BoomBoom@lemmy.amyjnobody.com
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          1 year ago

          What I think it is, is that every single person who ever consumes it, will eventually die. We are also literally dependant on it. If you stop ingesting it for too long, it can also cause you to die… That’s how it went around here, at least.

        • Spaceman Spiff@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Look at all of the related “risks” and add them up. I’m sure that drowning is a small number, but then add in all of the deaths from scalding, acid rain, poisons (that contain water), etc etc and it eventually gets to be a very big number. Probably in the millions

          • sadbehr@lemmy.nz
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            1 year ago

            The WHO estimates 236k deaths per year worldwide due to drowning. There’s other ways to die to Dihydrogen monoxide other than drowning, so my numbers hold up!

          • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Acid rain has never killed anyone. It can kill plants and destroy farms, so I guess it can kill indirectly by causing famine, but that’s about it.

    • erogenouswarzone@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Not only BPAs but many chemicals like BPAs can cause birth defects because our bodies think they are estrogen.

      If this worries you, read the books It Starts With the Egg and Grain Brain.

      They both suggest that not only what you eat, but how it’s prepared can affect the health of a child.

      For instance it’s a big no-no, according to It Starts With the Egg, to heat most plastics in the microwave. The heat breaks the plastic down, it can get in your blood, your body will think it’s estrogen, and they don’t even know the full effects of this yet.

      So think about

      • burritos in plastic wrapping,
      • cling wrap on a bowl,
      • reheating leftovers in Tupperware,
      • disposable cutlery

      These chemicals are not just in food:

      • your car’s interior
      • your cell phone case
      • even the clothes on your back, unless they’re 100% pure, untreated, natural fabric, may have been made with these chemicals.
      • burgersc12@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Yep, the long term affects are gonna be worse than we can imagine imo. These plastics are everywhere in the environment so it is literally unavoidable anywhere on this earth. They are in small concentrations for now, but they are increasing rapidly as more and more plastic is created/wasted every minute

      • surrendertogravity@wayfarershaven.eu
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        1 year ago

        Thinking about reducing plastic fucks me up and it’s been on my mind a lot lately. Noticing every single time we bring new plastic into the household, and how hard it is to avoid. Chicken comes in plastic wrap, and even if we got it at a butcher counter, they still toss it in a plastic bag before wrapping it in brown paper. Bags of potting soil, our toothpaste tubes, peanut butter jars… it’s endless.

        At least the majority of my clothes are cotton or wool, but another source is carpet and there isn’t anything I can do about this apartment carpet.

    • radix@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Are microplastics similarly diverse in their effects on the human body?

      • keenanpepper@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        I would guess that chemical effects would be diverse while “physical” effects would not be so diverse. Keep in mind that things like mesothelioma from asbestos are kinda sorta “physical” effects because it’s from jagged roughness of the particles at the nanoscale rather than any specific chemistry.

    • dingus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So what you’re saying is instead of having a bonfire I should be have a milk jug fire?

    • somethingsnappy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Also be wary of people that say they are chemists on the internet when oil, plastics, and guns have mostly only been researched by their manufacturers. All totally safe.