Scientists Discover 100 To 1000 Times More Plastics In Bottled Water (washingtonpost.com) 204
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: People are swallowing hundreds of thousands of microscopic pieces of plastic each time they drink a liter of bottled water, scientists have shown -- a revelation that could have profound implications for human health. A new paper released Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found about 240,000 particles in the average liter of bottled water, most of which were "nanoplastics" -- particles measuring less than one micrometer (less than one-seventieth the width of a human hair). [...]
The typical methods for finding microplastics can't be easily applied to finding even smaller particles, but Min co-invented a method that involves aiming two lasers at a sample and observing the resonance of different molecules. Using machine learning, the group was able to identify seven types of plastic molecules in a sample of three types of bottled water. [...] The new study found pieces of PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is what most plastic water bottles are made of, and polyamide, a type of plastic that is present in water filters. The researchers hypothesized that this means plastic is getting into the water both from the bottle and from the filtration process.
Researchers don't yet know how dangerous tiny plastics are for human health. In a large review published in 2019, the World Health Organization said there wasn't enough firm evidence linking microplastics in water to human health, but described an urgent need for further research. In theory, nanoplastics are small enough to make it into a person's blood, liver and brain. And nanoplastics are likely to appear in much larger quantities than microplastics -- in the new research, 90 percent of the plastic particles found in the sample were nanoplastics, and only 10 percent were larger microplastics. Finding a connection between microplastics and health problems in humans is complicated -- there are thousands of types of plastics, and over 10,000 chemicals used to manufacture them. But at a certain point, [...] policymakers and the public need to prepare for the possibility that the tiny plastics in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the clothes we wear have serious and dangerous effects. "You still have a lot of people that, because of marketing, are convinced that bottled water is better," said Sherri Mason, a professor and director of sustainability at Penn State Behrend in Erie. "But this is what you're drinking in addition to that H2O."
The typical methods for finding microplastics can't be easily applied to finding even smaller particles, but Min co-invented a method that involves aiming two lasers at a sample and observing the resonance of different molecules. Using machine learning, the group was able to identify seven types of plastic molecules in a sample of three types of bottled water. [...] The new study found pieces of PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is what most plastic water bottles are made of, and polyamide, a type of plastic that is present in water filters. The researchers hypothesized that this means plastic is getting into the water both from the bottle and from the filtration process.
Researchers don't yet know how dangerous tiny plastics are for human health. In a large review published in 2019, the World Health Organization said there wasn't enough firm evidence linking microplastics in water to human health, but described an urgent need for further research. In theory, nanoplastics are small enough to make it into a person's blood, liver and brain. And nanoplastics are likely to appear in much larger quantities than microplastics -- in the new research, 90 percent of the plastic particles found in the sample were nanoplastics, and only 10 percent were larger microplastics. Finding a connection between microplastics and health problems in humans is complicated -- there are thousands of types of plastics, and over 10,000 chemicals used to manufacture them. But at a certain point, [...] policymakers and the public need to prepare for the possibility that the tiny plastics in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the clothes we wear have serious and dangerous effects. "You still have a lot of people that, because of marketing, are convinced that bottled water is better," said Sherri Mason, a professor and director of sustainability at Penn State Behrend in Erie. "But this is what you're drinking in addition to that H2O."
Cans? (Score:2)
Do my cans of seltzer water have this problem? They're aluminum but I think they might be lined with plastic.
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And if they around lined with plastic, are you possibly drinking thousands of nanoparticles of aluminum? And what does that do to your system?
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There is, actually, a great deal to be said for traditional glass and ceramics.
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According to the paper, most of the particles are not PET and hence are not from the bottle. And yes, both steel beverage cans and aluminum beverage cans are typically plastic lined.
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Do my cans of seltzer water have this problem?
Aluminum leaches into water, too, and can have long term cognitive impacts.
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But what about the fluoridated tap water?
I hear it is a foreign substance that is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. And it seems to cause a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness following the physical act of love.
Some say that's the way your hard-core Commie works.
We should really win the fight for the purity of our essence.
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Coke Heil!
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It will give you shiny white teeth :)
On a more serious note, flouridation should be done temporarily only if there are contaminants (bacteria) in the system that needs to be cleaned out. When done over here in Finland on rare occasions, there is always a public service announcement where, when and why it's done so that people are aware of it.
If the water needs to be permanently flouridated, it's a band-aid workaround for serious hygiene problems with the water.
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But don't worry, endocrine disruption leading to infertility, development problems, loss of hair, cognitive decline, sensory perception loss, metabolic sluggishness, and cancer are extremely rare
That just sounds like getting old
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Indeed - except you're old at 40, not at 80, if you're unlucky.
100 to 1000 times more than what? (Score:5, Funny)
Alarmist headlines aside, it is good that we have finally reached the ability to mass-produce and deploy nanoparticles. This deployment will bring a new factor in human evolution and finally put us ahead of the degenerative AI and its robots.
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100-1000 times more than the previously known 240-2,400 particles per liter of bottled water -- bringing to total to "240,000 particles in the average liter of bottled water, most of which were "nanoplastics" -- particles measuring less than one micrometer"
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100-1000 times more than the previously known 240-2,400 particles per liter of bottled water
Yo, BeauHD, see how easy it is to make a not shitty headline and a summary that actually means something?
Re: 100 to 1000 times more than what? (Score:2)
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One could have called the process something simple, like "editing", and the person perhaps an "editor"?
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OMG, they must be the 7G now.
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And still no awesome Magneto powers.
What a rip-off!
Mainlining (Score:3)
People are swallowing hundreds of thousands of microscopic pieces of plastic each time they drink a liter of bottled water,
This is why I consume all my water intravenously.
Re:Mainlining (Score:5, Funny)
This is why I consume all my vodka intravenously.
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Oh wait, IV bags and tubes are made of...plastic!
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But I'm not swallowing the plastic, so problem solved!
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SOMETHING definitely leeches out (Score:2)
You can taste it when you drink water from a plastic bottle, and that's why I don't. And I don't have a particularly discerning sense of taste, which is why I've always found it puzzling why people choose to drink water from cheap plastic bottles.
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Tap water in most areas I've tried it in has a strong chlorine taste. Regular basic filtration doesn't do much. I don't really taste plastic on bottled water from most brands unless they've been left sitting in the sun. But given the choice I'd still pick a faint plastic taste over the taste of chlorine.
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You typically need activated carbon to remove chlorine from water. You may want to think about why that chlorine is in there. Better make sure to very carefully filter for biological contamination as well.
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I mean come on, the chlorine evaporates in 15 minutes at the very maximum. Fluoride is a different story although, tap water is very good quality where I live so I put glass bottles of tap water into the fridge without the caps and put the caps on after a few hours, all chlorine is gone. I don't fill the bottle to the neck so water surface has more air contact. As I said, fluoride is harder to get rid off although but luckily my water treatment plant say they don't add fluoride to tap water.
Same principle a
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Sure, if you have the time/patience, that works as well. If you want it inline, activated carbon it is.
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Just put it in the fridge in advance, I have multiple bottles in there and do a rotation. When one bottle is empty, I simply refill it. I always have water available and no need to be patient. Also, not sure how activated carbon would automagically and instantaneously evaporate and remove chlorine from the water but it might, I don't know. Anyway, different studies have shown that those filter quickly become packed with bacteria, mold and what not so it's a big no no for me. Simply have your filter analyze
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The main body of particles is not PET. These are not from the bottle.
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Apparently some people are still back in 1967, when "plastics" sounded new and spiffy and... profitable.
Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: The
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Take a swig of my tap water and you will understand why I use bottled. Not to mention people who have wells tainted with iron. If you're a city boy you may not have had a big drink of iron water, but it's unpleasant to say the least.
Nanoplastics -- the miracle drug? (Score:3)
Nanoplaastics must be really healthy, when you consider how long people are living these days compared to say 200 years ago. Up until the 2000s, no ex-president lived even to age 91 (there's been over 40 presidents btw). Since the year 2000 -- presidents born after , we've been had at least 4 ex-presidents who lived past age 91.
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Cheers! https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/i... [cnn.com]
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This is probably one of the better examples of how correlation != causation that I've heard.
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Of course the people living until 91 today didn't grow up in a world where everything was packaged in plastic like today.
Your data set is laughable too. "Well we've had some presidents who lived a long time", as if presidents, who are almost always wealthy, are a large enough and / or representative enough data set to come to any conclusion with.
Then again, going by the language you're using you're probably not trying to make an honest point here.
Re: Nanoplastics -- the miracle drug? (Score:2)
Those 90+ year olds were exposed to more radiation in their lifetimes, at an early age, than you're ever likely to see; short of a nuclear war.
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And that's relevant how?
Re: Nanoplastics -- the miracle drug? (Score:2)
The implication is the people who are 90+ are healthier because of their time, lack of plastic, etc.
It's a bold, incorrect assumption in many respects.
Just pointing out an obvious one. Survivor bias is a thing.
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The first ten men mentioned in the Bible, Adam through Noah (except Cain and Abel), lived on average more than 850 years (Genesis 5: 1-32). Methuselah lived for 969 years. This was the maximum, but by no means exceptional. However, while God fixed the modern living day of man to 120 years, plastics have clearly out-Godded her.
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Have you ever noticed that when you take those years to be months, which would make sense for a couple of reasons, not the least being that the stories likely come from a time when people were more likely to count months rather than years because they were more important for their survival, those insane time spans suddenly start to look quite reasonable?
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Well, duh! Don't you know that plastics are practically indestructible and it takes centuries for them to break apart? Once you're 100% lined with plastic on the inside, you're immortal!
Bottled water (Score:2)
Does the type of bottle make a difference?
I buy Propel water in 24 ounce bottles. They seem identical to pop bottles.
(Not like the thin plastic bottles you get with (insert generic water brand here) 500ml )
The town water supply is suitable for washing, but I am not going to drink it.
My wife drinks Smartwater in 1 litre bottles.
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According to the paper, it is not PET that makes the largest section of particles. So this is not from the bottle.
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If you stick to the most expensive brands you're good to go. Tell your wife to keep drinking that Smartwater and her IQ will skyrocket like yours.
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RO is cheaper in the long run but the break even point still takes a while. I assume you don't get a lot of choice in the remineralization mix so that would be a big differentiator with some brands of bottled water without a lot of extra effort.
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Don't bother with remineralization. Or, buy the cheapest remineralization filter you can find and never change it.
You'll notice a difference in taste. After a few months, you won't notice any more.
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Aside from having a higher pH, pure water is a solvent. If minerals don't get put in the water, the water will take them from your body.
But not replacing an expendable cartridge sounds like something that will develop mold.
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Edit: lower pH.
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RO systems have an additional stage for adding back minerals. I was replying to someone who said to disable that.
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I wonder where that myth started. That's what kidneys do, keep the minerals you need, toss the rest.
I drank distilled water for months at a time while in the Navy without harm. There is a tradition of salting the coffee, but sodium chloride isn't the mineral people seem to worry about.
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A WHO report, for one:
https://www.who.int/publicatio... [who.int]
Results of experiments in human volunteers evaluated by researchers for the WHO report
(3) are in agreement with those in animal experiments and suggest the basic mechanism of the
effects of water low in TDS (e.g.
Your body can only maintain homeostasis by sacrificing mineral reserves set aside for that purpose. But distilled tastes slightly acidic compared to water with minerals too.
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Copy paste glitch.
Results of experiments in human volunteers evaluated by researchers for the WHO report are in agreement with those in animal experiments and suggest the basic mechanism of the effects of water low in TDS (e.g.
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I should check what I'm pasting for HTML entities
Results of experiments in human volunteers evaluated by researchers for the WHO report are in agreement with those in animal experiments and suggest the basic mechanism of the effects of water low in TDS (e.g. < 100 mg/L) on water and mineral homeostasis. Low-mineral water markedly: 1.) increased diuresis (almost by 20%, on average), body water volume, and serum sodium concentrations, 2.) decreased serum potassium concentration, and 3.) increased the elimi
Re:Reverse osmosis (Score:5, Informative)
It's a problem of scale that people have a hard time getting their heads around.
It IS true that your body can absorb some minerals from drinking water, if those minerals are present in the water. And that includes minerals that are essential for human health.
It is ALSO true that your body expels minerals through sweating, excretion, etc. Including electrolytes. There is no stopping that process.
So, it is true that if all you do is drink distilled water, and don't get any minerals from food, you will lose your minerals and die.
But of course, nobody does that. We eat food. And the mineral density and bioavailability is way higher in food. Hugely higher. So much higher, in fact, that the amount in drinking water is trivial.
There ARE exceptions. In poor countries where there may be inadequate food, or food that is mineral-depleted, the body might rely more on minerals from drinking water. Also, babies should never drink water (with or without minerals) because their bodies are not ready for it yet. And marathon runners or people who are sick will shed electrolytes way faster than normal, and need electrolyte-enhanced water (even regular tap water is not enough).
But that isn't what people hear. They hear "each glass of distilled water you drink leeches a whole bunch of valuable minerals from your body and slowly kills you!" That isn't true at all. Not remotely. And it is not supported at all by the evidence found in this study. If you are a healthy adult eating healthy food, your body isn't relying on minerals from drinking water at all. It is already getting way more than it needs, in all cases, from food. You aren't losing them at some dangerously faster rate by drinking distilled water. The amounts are so tiny, in that case, that they just vanish.
But, some people cannot get their heads around this and insist on maintaining an irrational fear of distilled water.
PVC, PEX, copper, iron, lead (Score:2, Insightful)
The water that is delivered to your faucet very likely travels through pipes made of PVC or PEX (plastics), copper, iron, or even lead. ALL of these types of pipe may leach plastics or metals into your drinking water.
You'd better stop drinking water now, from any source, if you want to protect yourself!
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Now why don't you just take it easy, Tony, and please make me a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater, and help yourself to whatever you'd like.
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Wait, rainwater? The kind with acid in it? And what container are you going to drink this grain alcohol from?
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I drink only distilled water, or rain water to replenish my precious bodily fluids. And only pure grain alcohol, straight from the cask.
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Rainwater! Every drop of rainwater coalesces around a dust particle. Who knows what you are getting.
"Mercury in California rainwater traced to industrial emissions in Asia"
https://currents.ucsc.edu/02-0... [ucsc.edu]
The Chinese have implemented a cunning plot to contaminate your precious bodily fluids.
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Most common particle in the paper was PS. It is not the pipes or the bottles.
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Article is paywalled.
I don't think the study established anything about how much stuff you drink, that leeches from your pipes. We do know that pipes leech, as demonstrated by Flint, Michigan.
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The _paper_ is not paywalled and it comments on what particles were found.
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Don't drink water! Fish fuck in that stuff!
The evidence is in, folks (Score:5, Funny)
After only 30 years of drinking bottled water, patients' veins begin to stand out on the backs of their hands. At forty years, muscle mass begins to decrease and belly fat starts to form. After fifty years hair turns grey and can even fall out. Before sixty years of drinking this stuff, women can no longer bear children and men may have potency problems. After eighty years the rate of death increases exponentially and is often preceded by dementia. Not a single user of bottled water has survived past 110.
This scourge must be stopped now!
I drink only rain water, Mandrake. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Kidding aside, this does freak me out. It makes sense on a microstructural level that there would be consequences.
The intent of this news is indeed to freak people out. However, no analysis of consequences has yet been undertaken. Depending on one's viewpoint, that lack of knowledge is either frightening or comforting.
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Life finds a way eventually, but that way doesn't necessarily involve humans. And I would prefer that it does involve humans.
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The intent of this news is indeed to freak people out.
Is that why right near the top of the article it says clearly that the impact of this on people is unknown? The only people who get freaked out by most news are idiots who read headlines and then run and hide under the couch. That doesn't mean news is intended to freak people out, it means we should tell people to harden the fuck up and address their short attention spans.
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Oh man, kidding aside have I got news for you: https://www.wired.com/story/pl... [wired.com]
I stopped drinking water altogether. To risky. Beer is a good alternative.
Back to Glass bottles? (Score:2)
How about going back to glass bottles for drinks which were common a couple of decades ago (before plastic took over).
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It is mostly _not_ PET and hence mostly cannot be from the bottles.
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The plastic bottles cost less and use less energy to make than glass. They also are less likely to break, and if they do the debris is less dangerous.
Endocrine system (Score:5, Insightful)
Joke comments aside, there has been significant decline in male testosterone levels (look it up, it's easy to find and I mentioned this before and quoted the relevant papers) in the past 30 years, and phtalates seem to be one of the reasons why this is as they are endocrine disruptors.
Decline in testosterone in males lead to infertility, muscular atrophy, easier to gain fat / obesity... and plethora of other issues.
But yeah... let's joke how it's all good since nobody turned into a plastic man yet.
It is possible to do something about this (finding better sources of water).
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But yeah... let's joke how it's all good since nobody turned into a plastic man yet.
It is possible to do something about this (finding better sources of water).
We don't even know that there is anything to do something about yet.
We could try to do better studies, comparing people who drink from plastic bottles against those who don't (while handling all the confounding factors ...) but screeching "100 to 1000 more!" (than what?) is pretty meaningless.
Shit where you eat... (Score:2)
Or rather drink. Not a good idea ant not a sign of an evolved civilization. But such a good way to make MONEY to just throw all kinds of crap into the environment.
Reminds me again of a bacterial colony that, over a certain size, begins to die off from the center by the poison it creates.
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Well, life has never been very good at predicting and preventing consequences. One of the main extinction events [wikipedia.org] on this planet were due to life developing a new, spiffy way to convert sunlight to energy... but with a very, very deadly waste product.
On the other hand, I would say most people consider that a good thing today...
Hey, you never know what silver lining a cloud may have. Sure, it could lead to our extinction, but, I mean, considering the effects we have on this planet, would that really be so bad
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Intelligent life is supposed to be able to make predictions and control where things are going. But I am getting more and more convinced that, as a group, the human race does really not qualify as intelligent life.
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"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
--Kay, Men in Black
As well as lead, benzine, and many other... (Score:2)
BTW, plastics production is increasing, year on year, at a pretty steep rate. About 2% of it ever gets recycled & the rest goes into the ground or the sea. Some plastics release even more harmful chemicals if you burn them.
This message wasn't brought to you by the oil industry.
Please pay attention to details in this stuff (Score:3)
People are easily agitated by gloom-and-doom articles like this, and they are useful to SOMEBODY.
Remember: in huge regulatory matters, BILLIONS of dollars and many careers may be on the line (on either or BOTH sides of the arguments).
This one admits "Researchers don't yet know how dangerous tiny plastics are for human health.", "...there wasn't enough firm evidence linking microplastics in water to human health...", and "Finding a connection between microplastics and health problems in humans is complicated..." but then goes on to presume "... policymakers and the public need to prepare for the possibility that the tiny plastics in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the clothes we wear have serious and dangerous effects."
I am NOT saying the plastics detected are safe....I am just pointing out that somebody wanted this article written and distributed and it points people in a certain direction (presuming harm, and asserting a need for future regulation) before anybody has even established that the presumed problem is actually a real problem. It MIGHT be a problem. It SOUNDS bad. Any action taken will have a definite impact on a great many people. Some companies may be destroyed, some people may lose their jobs, suffer financial losses, families may break up, kids may lose options for college as their parents suffer financially, supply chains may get disrupted, products people count on may become unavailable, etc. These actions have a myriad of spin-off effects that are often not predicted. As a result, we need to make sure something IS a problem before we decide to treat it as one.
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Disclaimer : this is a tangent to your comment, just a thought that popped up, in no way applying this to your thought process/beliefs.
I find it funny how on the one hand "markets decide who is best, bad companies fail" and then when we decide to change the market conditions for reason XYZ, "think of the companies! the Jobs!" I mean, how is regulating something to oblivion different from a foreign company overtaking the market, or a drought preventing operation?
For now this is just scaremongering (Score:2)
Re:Think that's bad? (Score:5, Informative)
The mask isn't to protect you, it is to protect others from catching whatever you are spreading.
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unless you get those that are designed to protect you instead of others.
selfish i know. and way more expensive.
but purifies the air you breathe feels like countryside.
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Hate to tell you, but the manure you smell is your halitosis.
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Well then you won't mind if the next time you're laying on the table in an operating room, none of the surgeons, the anesthesiologist, or nurses wear masks, right? Because it's "absolutely useless" ?
Oh, I'll bet you would throw a fit and sue malpractice if that happened. Hypocrite. Go jump up your own ass and die.
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That wasn't ironic?
Jeesh, could have fooled me, there are people posting this kind of bull seriously?
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I think at this point the reason people vote for him is simply because he seems to be the one that is hellbent on destroying everything. It almost seems like some people think that no matter what happens they will not get anything out of it, no matter who wins, so all they want to accomplish anymore is that everyone else is as miserable as they are.
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What's his alternative? Either one is a turd sandwich because you can choose between corrupt and vile, or authoritarian and antidemocratic and vile, or someone who at least won't derail the USA completely and give Putin, Xi and other criminals(*) free reign to do as they please. Anyone with a brain in the GOP is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
(*) criminals as in they don't care how many people die as long as they get their Maslov pyramid needs.
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I’m curious how you described Biden as anti democratic and authoritative. Can you cite some examples? Take a look at Reagan’s policies and today he’d be called a liberal woketard.
Re:WINNING! (Score:4, Insightful)
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You haven't yet figured out that policy positions do not matter if democracy itself is at stake.
Who gives a shit what a candidate's views are on arts spending or student debt relief if the ability to vote them out is taken away?
Let's think about the things that really matter, and prioritize appropriately. The rest can be fixed later through acts of Congress.
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Damn, they don't even allow click-through referral views any more. They must hate staying in business.
I think it's more that their business model has moved on. They are no longer in any way dependent on ordinary readers. As much money as desired, more or less, comes flooding in either from government or directly from the owners of government.
In return, the "newspaper" publishes what those extremely rich, extremely powerful, utterly cynical people tell it to. (Although actually an editor or journalist who wants to keep her job - let alone advance to a career - doesn't trouble the bosses by asking for instruc
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Is it me or does Bezos sound like the street name for some drug?
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Then why put up a paywall? Either he wants to make money or he wants his paper's news to be read.
He does want his paper to be read, but not by pondlife who can't afford to subscribe. (And perhaps throw in a few extra thousands just to get noticed).
And certainly not by people who make a habit of reading alternative media - or sites such as Slashdot.
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What's obvious is that you're too lazy or too stupid to inform yourself about even the most basic elements of the chemistry involved in plastics and how they degrade. Your argument, essentially, is, "Spoon-feed me stuff I could easily learn on my own, or it's all a lie for gubmint handouts.
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Yeah, and just like a lot of other things, they don't kill you at first contact.
So plastic bottles have been common since the late 80s. That's about 35 years now. If it's as damaging as, say, smoking, you needn't even see a relevant change in diseases so far.