Study Suggests BPA-Free Plastics Are Just As Harmful To Health (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Plastic products that boast of being "BPA-free" aren't necessarily any safer for us, suggests a new mouse study published Thursday in Current Biology. The chemicals used to replace BPA in these plastics can still leak out and affect the sperm and eggs of both male and female mice, it found. And these same effects could be happening in people. Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a chemical commonly used to create polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. These clear white plastics are themselves used in food and drink packaging, as well as consumer products and medical devices, while resins are used to coat metal products like canned foods. When these products degrade or are otherwise damaged (from being repeatedly heated in a microwave, for example), they can leach out BPA, exposing us to it. As a result, it's estimated that 93 percent of Americans have some level of BPA in their system.

While working on another project, the authors began seeing some but not all of their control mice, both male and female, develop reproductive problems. Though the mice had kept in cages made of polysulfone, not polycarbonate, the researchers noticed a whitish residue in some of the cages, indicating they had been damaged and were leaching chemicals. When Patricia Hunt, a researcher at the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University, and her team analyzed the chemical signature of the damaged cages, they found both BPA and BPS, a bisphenol that is widely replacing BPA. The cases were polysulfone plastic, which is partly made from BPA, but it's advertised to be more heat and chemical resistant than polycarbonate and thus less likely to break down. Polysulfone isn't thought to degrade into BPS, but Hunt's team found that if certain chemical bonds in the plastic were broken in the right way, BPS could form. Following in the vein of their original experiments with BPA, Hunt's team exposed more mice to low doses of BPS, and compared their reproductive health to mice exposed to BPA and mice raised in fresh new cages, presumably free of any BPA/BPS contamination. The BPS mice had more defects in their egg and sperm cells than did the control mice, but the level of damage was similar to that seen in mice they exposed to the same dose of BPA alone. "Though manufacturers have shied away from making explicit claims about BPA replacements being safer, Hunt noted, customers have certainly assumed that they are safer," the report notes.

Comments

Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[DogDude]

Plastic is toxic. Always has been. Don't use it to wrap anything you eat or drink. It's not good for you.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Gravis Zero]

Plastic is toxic. Always has been.

The problem with that statement is that what's considered a plastic is chemical diverse. We do know some plastics do not have the kind of negative heath effects that BPA has because they are far more chemically stable. If you read the actual study, you'll see this is only in relation to "structurally similar bisphenols", not plastics in general.

The real problem we have here is that companies have been allowed to use any old molecular structure in their products they wish without proving anything about the health impacts it may or may not impart.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.... if you want inert, use glass or something, not plastic.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

You should of seen how much my uncle was after the bees bit him.
--
The Singing Lizard Children Band @ Mt. View Art & Wine Festival 2018

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Megol]

So use ceramics instead. Oh, the glazing often contains poisons. So wood should be good, right? Many woods are contains large amounts of toxins and/or poison, this as they are produced to protect the tree. The list goes on.

Many plastics are actually a much lower "danger" than the alternatives so you are wrong, always has been.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Megol]

The right kind of glass is generally good, but why do you think plastics are used in some cases where the container have to be really inert (strong acids for instance)? Because some plastics aren't affected by things that make glass dissolve.

Plastic is a description of material property, plastics a description of a material class that are (generally) plastic and made of some sort of polymer often (but not always) man made. Plastics aren't inherently toxic and anyone thinking they are should be forced back to school.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[mentil]

Indeed. An FDA safety study comparable to those done on pharmaceuticals should be required for food/beverage containers and their interior coatings. Banning an individual chemical years after someone gets around to doing a study on its effects is just whac-a-mole; it shouldn't be used unless it's already proven safe.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Solandri]

The real problem we have here is that companies have been allowed to use any old molecular structure in their products they wish without proving anything about the health impacts it may or may not impart.

Unfortunately, that's the only logical way you can do it. You cannot prove a negative - that's a fundamental tenet of the scientific method. If you push a hundred reindeer off a cliff and they fall to their deaths, you have not proven that reindeer cannot fly. All you've done is demonstrated that those hundred reindeer either could not or chose not to fly. OTOH, if you produce a single example of a flying reindeer, then you have unequivocally proven that reindeer can fly.

So you cannot prove that a newly developed chemical is not harmful. You can only prove if it is harmful. Consequently, the scientific way to handle newly developed chemicals is to assume they are safe until proven otherwise. You can run them through a preliminary gauntlet of tests designed to detect immediate or short-term toxicity. But long-term low-level toxicity as as appears to be the case with BPA requires years if not decades of data just to tease out a statistical probability that it might be harmful. If you required that all new chemicals be tested to root out that sort of low-level toxicity, nothing new would ever be developed because it'd be too expensive and take too long to approve for public release.

People want 100% safety, but practically that's an impossible goal to achieve. The best you can do is test for immediate toxicity, and recall chemicals which exhibit toxicity in the long-term after they've been in public circulation for a while.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if all plastics had a certain level of toxicity, you might still wonder if it's a good idea to ban plastics. We know the effect isn't all that dramatic and the benefits of plastics may outweigh the effect. Other materials might be heavier, seal less well or be more prone to breakage, causing effective product prices to rise, which for people on the breadline (like me) would be way worse than a little toxicity.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

Plastics as we know them in general consumer products are toxic in varying degrees. Some are worse than others. Megol is a moron trying to obfuscate.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

Plastics aren't inherently toxic and anyone thinking they are should be forced back to school.

Water isn't inherently toxic either, and yet people die by drowning all the time. Stop being a nitpicking idiot and understand this is about what people do to and with plastics that makes it toxic.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Ol Olsoc]

Plastic is toxic. Always has been.

The problem with that statement is that what's considered a plastic is chemical diverse. We do know some plastics do not have the kind of negative heath effects that BPA has because they are far more chemically stable. If you read the actual study, you'll see this is only in relation to "structurally similar bisphenols", not plastics in general.

The real problem we have here is that companies have been allowed to use any old molecular structure in their products they wish without proving anything about the health impacts it may or may not impart.

Speaking of diverse, one of the early plastics was made of casein, from cow milk. https://www.scientificamerican... Milk and vinegar will do it.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true that you cannot prove that a chemical is not harmful.
But manufacturers of food containers can and should, however, be forced to prove that the food containers/liners do not leach into food under various conditions (with certain time, heat, acidity, other parameters).

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Ol Olsoc]

The right kind of glass is generally good, but why do you think plastics are used in some cases where the container have to be really inert (strong acids for instance)? Because some plastics aren't affected by things that make glass dissolve.

Plastic is a description of material property, plastics a description of a material class that are (generally) plastic and made of some sort of polymer often (but not always) man made. Plastics aren't inherently toxic and anyone thinking they are should be forced back to school.

The issue with plastics is that some have given others a bad name. But some in here seem to think that any and all are bad, or just love trolling.

The estrogen mimics that are used in some plastics are unquestionably bad, especially for the male of the species. But to cast something like casein plastic, made of cow milk and acetic acid as somehow bad is silly, and only shows the ignorance of the person. condemning them.

Bisphenol A is an estrogen mimic, and it appears polysophone might release BPS. That's what this study is suggesting, and nothing else.

Re: Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the real problem is when you stick the plastic in the microwave. Go buy some ceramic dishes if you're worried about it.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[makomk]

What a load of chemical industry apologist hogwash. Firstly, the new chemical in question is a slightly tweaked version of the one that's already known to be harmful, so you're essentially arguing that if companies selling harmful products modify them in a way that we have no reason to expect will fix that harm, they should be entitled to market those products as not having the problem until absolutely proven otherwise. Secondly, you certainly can prove that a newly developed chemical doesn't cause the same kind of harm as a similar, existing chemical - for instance, the experiment mentioned in the article could've shown that BPS had less effect on fertility and genetic damage than BPA. It's just that no-one wanted to test this.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[avandesande]

Plastics made from polyethylene and polypropylene are extremely safe and durable but because they are cloudy or opaque are not preferred for food items by manufacturers.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

"should of seen"
fail at english

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

With that attitude, everything is toxic. We all might as well just lay down and die.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

BPA literally targets the top gene associated with Type-2 Diabetes
https://medium.com/@InfinoMe/diabetes-time-to-resort-to-plastic-measures-500cdf1fe528

Re: Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. There is no safe plastic. You should really only be using lead free glass, stainless steel, ceramic or certain woods for any food or beverage product.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Kernel Kurtz]

With that attitude, everything is toxic.

I think that is only in California.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[sonamchauhan]

Often!= Always

I see you did not mention glass, stainless steel, enamelled surfaces.. all of which can have toxics, but all more tractable to analyse, and probably safer than plaztics

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[HiThere]

Are they really? What do they use as plasticizers?

Many brittle plastics are relatively safe, but that's not what is usually desired as a material.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[kyrio]

This article isn't about anything new, people have tested all sorts of plastics, even the "safe" ones, and almost all plastic tested is toxic. The "safe" plastics are considered mostly safe because they shouldn't have toxic chemicals in them. Most do. Anyone claiming that plastic is safe is an idiot. A simple plastic which has almost no use in the modern world doesn't change that over 90% of plastics tested have proven to be toxic, and the leaching requires nothing more than a slightly high temperature, or a tiny scratch. You tried to sound smart but you barely got past the headline before commenting on something you clearly don't know much about.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Ol Olsoc]

This article isn't about anything new, people have tested all sorts of plastics, even the "safe" ones, and almost all plastic tested is toxic. The "safe" plastics are considered mostly safe because they shouldn't have toxic chemicals in them. Most do.

Not my argument. I was responding to someone's argument that merely by being plastic, it is dangerous.

Anyone claiming that plastic is safe is an idiot.

And vaccines cause autism, amirite?

I'm not certain where you pick up your outrage, but I'd never simply say "plastics are safe". That statement makes no sense. What do you mean when you say plastic? Plastic is a term of property of a substance, and not a term of what the substance is made of.

So it is really easy to have plastic materials that consist of substances that are not good for living things. For example, I always get very interested when I see "phenol" in a substance. There is a very good chance that it can be harmful.

What do you mean when you say "safe" when referring to plastics? Structurally safe? Safe from degradation? Biologically safe?

So yeah, I suppose anyone coming out with a vague blanket statement that "'Plastics are safe" might be accused of ignorance of the subject. I'm not so certain that people with the similar statement that "All plastics are unsafe" are not suffering from the same level of ignorance.

A simple plastic which has almost no use in the modern world doesn't change that over 90% of plastics tested have proven to be toxic, and the leaching requires nothing more than a slightly high temperature, or a tiny scratch.

Congratulations with cherry picking and discarding of data at a level that would make a global warming denialist proud. My pointing out that casein plastic is not toxic in response to a claim that "All plastic is unsafe" does indicate that the statement "All plastic is unsafe" is completely untrue. All plastic is not unsafe.

You tried to sound smart but you barely got past the headline before commenting on something you clearly don't know much about.

Well then educate me. First off - you are apparently an expert, as you present yourself as one, despite some statements that I know are odd for an expert to be making, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Tell me what I believe about so-called plastic. Then show me the light.

Re:Newsflash: plastic is toxic

[Anonymous Coward]

OTOH, if you produce a single example of a flying reindeer, then you have unequivocally proven that reindeer can fly.

You've unequivocally proven that THAT reindeer can fly, not all reindeer.
And of course the inverse being true: that it's not true that ALL reindeer cannot fly.

let's go back to glass

[Anonymous Coward]

I've started going back to using glass containers for food and Stainless steel drink bottles. I wish we could go back to glass milk bottles where I live. With glass you can reuse and recycle. Businesses don't like it because glass weighs more and breakages etc but too bad - you have to put your own health ahead of dollars some time. Glass needs lots of energy to produce I hear you say - well just incinerate the plastic rubbish to power it.
 

Re:let's go back to glass

[Camel Pilot]

Yes... started using a Growler for drinking water and got a few side glance looks at work.

Re:let's go back to glass

[DontBeAMoran]

Glass is too heavy and require too much energy to move around. We're trying to reduce our energy consumption and you want to go back to heavier cargo that will destroy our roads even more?

Aluminium should be used instead of both glass and stainless steel since aluminium is practically recyclable infinitely and is almost as lightweight as plastic at the mechanically equivalent thickness.

We're already packing sodas in aluminium cans, why aren't we doing the same for water? What's wrong with water in aluminium cans instead of water in plastic bottles?

Re:let's go back to glass

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, I don't know if you were aware, but that aluminum is always lined. And unless specifically stated, it's usually lined with plastic containing BPA. Which brings us back to our original problem.

Re:let's go back to glass

[Anonymous Coward]

Seconded.

Years ago my sister asked for BPA-free food storage canisters for Christmas.

After looking at the stainless steel and concluding they were ripoff I bought glass.

She was happy.

Re:let's go back to glass

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd get more than a few, if you check the definition of growler on the urban dictionary.....

Re:let's go back to glass

[ls671]

Na, you are confusing it with old tin cans that were lined. Aluminum cans aren't and that's one of the reasons that they are easily recyclable.

Not sure how much testing has been done with regards to the toxicity of aluminum although...
 

Re:let's go back to glass

[Anonymous Coward]

Aluminum cans aren't and that's one of the reasons that they are easily recyclable.

Many aluminum food and beverage containers sold in the United States feature a protective liner on the interior of the can containing trace amounts of Bisphenol A (BPA).

Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Mother Jones had a series of articles covering the fact that BPA substitutes were untested and likely to have essentially the same endocrine disrupting effects as BPA because they are chemically very similar to BPA.

Here's one article from 2014.

After reading their coverage I switched to glass containers for all leftover food and I never microwave anything in a plastic dish. If I buy something that comes in plastic and is intended to be cookied in the packagin, I dump it into a glass dish and microwave it that way instead.

Here's some crazy stuff you probably didn't know - those thermal receipts that you get at the grocery store and fast food places are chock full of BPA, its a necessary component to the thermal printing process. And just handling a receipt gets BPA into your bloodstream - not very much, one or two receipts isn't going to make a noticeable difference. But, there are two chemicals that massively acclerate the absorption through your skin - grease (like from fast food) and hand sanitizer. Get either of those on your skin before you touch the receipt and you get ~100x the dose. And if you are cashier who touches a couple of hundred receipts every day, well that's not healthy.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Mal-2]

What's worse is that someone handling money a lot, and who worries about the filth on that money, is going to go through lots of hand sanitizer.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, double-whammy. Best way to handle it is to wear gloves. Every time I see a cashier with a bottle of hand sanitizer I let them know and then tell them to google it so they will know I'm not just some tinfoil conspiracy fabulist.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't make stuff up. Here's another article on the subject. I quote:

While BPA can have effects similar to the hormone estrogen, it is between 10,000 to 100,000 times weaker. In order to achieve an intake of BPA at the regulatory limit (which is 100 times less than the level which causes no effect in long term animal studies) by consuming canned soup, which has one of the highest levels of BPA (and taking the soup with the highest level of BPA), you would need to drink 100 cans of soup in a day to reach the acceptable exposure level.
However, the same reactivity that makes BPA good at turning into plastic makes it a good developer in thermal printer paper. BPA is mixed with proto-dye, where the paper is heated by the printer head, the BPA reacts with the proto-dye and a dark colour is produced. Not all thermal printer papers use BPA though.
The current paper “Holding Thermal Receipt Paper and Eating Food after Using Hand Sanitizer Results in High Serum Bioactive and Urine Total Levels of Bisphenol A (BPA)” looks at whether BPA-containing thermal receipt paper could be a significant source of BPA exposure for humans.
However, the conditions used in this experiment are quite unlike any realistic use of thermal paper. The subjects wet their hands with a hand sanitiser that penetrates the skin. They then held thermal paper in their wet hands for four minutes, after which they immediately handled and ate food.
If you have ever watched a cashier handle thermal paper, they typically hold it between thumb and forefinger (or thumb and first two fingers) for only a few seconds. This means that not only is the duration of exposure much smaller, the amount of skin surface area available for absorption is smaller, so much less material will be absorbed.
Even under these extreme conditions (whole, wet hands, four minutes holding, immediately handling and eating food), the BPA levels in the subjects blood all remained well under levels shown to have a biological effect, and was quickly eliminated from the blood. There was measurable levels of BPA, but 30 nanomolar BPA for the average maximum blood concentration (yes that is nano - which means 1x10-9 moles of substance per litre of blood, ie tiny) cannot by any means be thought of as “high” as per the title of the paper. The lowest biological threshold for BPA activity is 100 nanomolar, and this was only seen when cells in tissue culture were exposed to this concentration for three days! ...
cashiers handle thermal paper for a few seconds, they do this for hours on end, surely their overall exposure is much more than 4 minutes”.
However, BPA is rapidly inactivated in the body. Short exposure times (and much smaller skin surface exposed) means that very little BPA is taken in, and by the time the next exposure happens, even if it is only a couple of minutes, the BPA has been substantially removed. ...
As a reality check, subjects with dry hands (which is typically how people handle receipts) who held the receipts for the same long time showed no change in blood or urine BPA.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

> While BPA can have effects similar to the hormone estrogen, it is between 10,000 to 100,000 times weaker.

There is a lot of debate whether microdosing of endocrine disruptors can have significant effects. The author of that piece seems to have made a career as a BPA apologist because whenever a study comes out showing harmful effects, he's there downplaying it. Musgrave is clearly in the camp that believes microdoses do not cause significant effects. Others disagree.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

"Crazy" is right. Motherjones is a kook website and they "warn" about everything all the time. It's just that this time something crazy they said turned out to be true, but I would caution anyone to take that as meaning that everything else they said is similarly true (like the "crazy stuff you probably didn't know" from the OP)

Complain about enough things, some of it is bound to be true, it's hard to get it wrong all the time. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[hey!]

About 20-25 years ago there was movement to go "chlorine free" because of all the environmental impacts of chlorine compounds. Greenpeace, I think, was onboard.

At the time I worked for an environmental education organization, and we weren't onboard with the chlorine ban. The reason was that if you simply replaced chlorine compounds with other chemicals which performed the same functions, it is likely you'd get similar effects from discharging those chemicals, or perhaps other effects nobody knew about yet. It was at best buying a pig in a poke.

Anytime you ban something, you need to look at specifically what companies replace them with, because companies have no economic incentive to solve the problems supposedly addressed. It's like "fat free half and half", where companies replace the (healthy) dairy fat in coffee creamer with corn syrup. They know damn well they're not doing you any favors.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

"Crazy" is right. Motherjones is a kook website and they "warn" about everything all the time.

I was wondering why so many AC's are hating on MJ. And then I remembered that MJ was the first to report on the contents of the Steele Dossier, in October of 2016, months before any other news org.

So you know what? All you magats, you just go ahead and make america great again by eating receipts that you microwaved in styrofoam containers. That will put all the libtards in their place.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[NoobyNoobyDoo]

"Apologist" is a loaded term.

If there really is a debate, and he's right, then you could say he's a "realist" and those on the other side were "scaremongers".

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apologist" is a loaded term.

That's right, I used it specifically to communicate the fact that Musgrave isn't only a skeptic about the question of microdoses of BPA, he defends BPA against pretty much every criticism. Just read some of the stuff that comes up from that google search. Nobody serious has such broad, uncritical love for BPA. That guy's suspicious as hell and anyone citing him is either naive or willingly complicit. Find a better source.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I've seen all kinds of "conservatives" (some real people I know, some probably fake agitprop accounts) flip out at the mention of Mother Jones. Of course, ask them what "fake news" they put out, and the answer it always crickets.

My theory is they blame them for Romney losing the election. Because oh noes, they reported something that Romney actually said.

Re:Mother Jones Was All Over This Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure hope that isn't microwave meals you are eating.
If it is, those are vastly worse for health than a thousand years of BPA exposure is.
The ready-made meal generation is the unhealthiest generation of human that has ever existed, more so when we fucked neanderthals and screwed up our genome for a few thousand years until it stabilized... for the most part.

These meals are filled with cheap-shit ingredients like cheapo vegetable oils cooked well beyond smoking point that produces a SO MANY toxic compounds. Not just the oils either, the ingredients for said meals too are usually cooked to dangerous levels.
Then there's all the fillers, preservatives and so on. And this isn't even getting in to artificial stuff yet. Oh boy.
Steer the fuck clear of any of that stuff..
It's the worst thing you can consume that isn't an immediately threatening toxin, or other poisons like cyanide or such.
Burned food is turbo-bad for health. BPA wishes it could be this bad.

Microwaves are fine devices for cooking ingredients with the proper utensils, but don't eat anything prepared for you. At all.
Well, maybe less than 20% of the time, after all, life is supposed to be lived.
I'd be a HUGE hypocrite to say I don't eat or even occasionally cook unhealthy food myself. I still keep it under 20%.
In fact, microwaves are pretty much the most efficient way to cook food if you prepare it properly and use said utensils for cooking. People stupidly don't do this then complain food is awful. Microwaves are not ovens, stop treating them as such. Ironically, learning how to properly cook food in a microwave can be applied directly to ovens and leads to quicker cook times. Most people are terrible at cooking in ovens properly, or because they follow dumb traditions. See spatch-cooked poultry vs whole body as a common one.
Another good one is pressure cookers. Don't waste money on slow cookers, worthless devices. Pressure cookers do it better. Get an expensive-ish pressure cooker and it will outlive you. Worth it.
Same goes for microwaves. Don't get some cheap-shit microwave-meal machine, get a proper big microwave for actual cooking. Despite RoHS's supposed benefits to the environment, metric fucktons of these cheap-shit microwaves and other devices are shitting all over the landscape around the world in land-fills.
Thanks, lead-free solders! Saving the planeettttt! Fucking eco-nuts.

I suggest that stupid headlines

[Anonymous Coward]

about suggestive studies are harmful to my brain cells.

Re:I suggest that stupid headlines

[Anonymous Coward]

And I suggest that idiots that use the title of their post as part of the post are the dumbest slashdot users.

Re: Will trannies be able to sue for penis loss?

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf is gong on with /.

itâ(TM)s more fun to troll than to make intellgent tech posts

Does this mean....

[Anonymous Coward]

I can still eat play doh?

Slashdot users LOVE the Win64 model... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Your software is just fine - well written, functional... I'm going to continue using the Host File Engine by mmell February 17, 2017

Your premise that hostfiles are a good way to deal with advertising and malvertising is quite valid - by JazzLad April 20, 2016

his hosts program is actually pretty good by xenotransplant August 10 2015

his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources by alexgieg September 25 2015

I like your host file system by Karmashock September 09 2015

that APK guy, I use his host file by rogoshen1 Tuesday March 03, 2015

I personally use a HOSTS file blocker produced from a genius called APK by 110010001000 October 27 2017

* Provides full protection against Spectre & Meltdown flaws

APK

P.S.=> Stop ads and malware in their tracks! Get a blazing fast browsing experience! Linux version is also available!... apk

How about the older plasticiser?

[Zorpheus]

I have seen 40 year old plastic from the Eastern Bloc, which is still completely fine. It is still as soft as new, not turning brittle after some years like today's plastic.
So the plasticiser isn't leaking out like today's. But it was banned because the substance is cancerous. Why should we care though if it doesn't leak out? And beside the probably less health effects we would get long lasting products. Maybe that's the actual reason why it is banned?
Anyone knows the name of the substance? Chinese plastics were also on the news years ago fora cancerous plasticiser, this could be the same.

Re:How about the older plasticiser?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the plasticiser isn't leaking out like today's.

On what basis do you come to that conclusion? I mean, you haven't even named the chemical and yet you assume that it does not contaminate any food that it comes into contact with. That's a lot of faith you've got in the hellishly autotractic USSR. I mean they killed like 20 million people, do you think they even worried about plastic poisoning people's food where the health effects aren't even visible for 20 years?

Plastics are toxic garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

During the 20th century, cancer fatalities in the West increased eight-fold, and that's even with us having gotten much better at 1) detecting cancer early, 2) treating it succesfully, and 3) offering treatment to more people.

The theory is that it's the explosive use of plastics in our environment, in our clothes and in our homes, and in food preparation and storage that has resulted in this increase.

A minimum effort everyone should commit to is removing all plastics from your kitchen, including coated pots and pans.

Re:Enough

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly do not know how science works or you are a weak level-2 troll.

Make containers of glass

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem solved

Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

if you think ThelmA`s story is neAt,, three weeks Ago my cousinns step-dAAd got $7275 just sitting there eleven hours A week from there ApArtment And they're clAssmAte's sister`s neighbour did this for eight months And got pAid over $7275 pArt time from their pc. Applie the steps AvAilAble here,......www.99logic.com

The PVC problem

[Anonymous Coward]

We only use stainless or polypro for food storage. No non-stick pans, only stainless or cast iron/carbon steel. Stainless water bottles. Stainless water filter. The big problem is all the PVC underground delivering your water to you.

So, about those recycled plastic roads.....

[Fencepost]

I can't help but wonder what's going to leach out of/off off all those roads that are starting to be made with recycled plastic and whether it'll be better or worse than what runs off of asphalt (also made from oil).

Re:So, about those recycled plastic roads.....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to go out there and lick roads I don't think anyone is going to care what leaches into you

Re:So, about those recycled plastic roads.....

[sonamchauhan]

Your fish will lick roads. Your crops will lick roads. Hence you will too. Life doesn't fit into neat silos.

Re:So, about those recycled plastic roads.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Animals already lick non-plastic roads, for the salt.

Re:So, about those recycled plastic roads.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Your fish will lick roads.

I don't mean to quote Dwarf Fortress, but...
The Carp stands up

Knee Jerk!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Hum

In other news....

[Anonymous Coward]

... science is proven to cause cancer in laboratory animals.

Not sure I understand

[Anonymous Coward]

This effect was discussed more than two years back:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-problem-with-bpa-free-alternatives-are-just-as-troubling/

I genuinely want to know, what's the new finding in this study?

Slashdot reposting articles from many years ago?

[kyrio]

This is not some amazing new revelation, we've known all of this for many, many years. A Jew paid off government officials to approve BPA in the first place, that was about 70 years ago, if I'm remembering correctly.
All plastic is toxic. All water and food s polluted.
Pesticides will produce the same effects. Every product you buy from the grocery store or a restaurant is covered in or full of pesticides.
Enjoy your diseased life. Try not to die too early with your testosterone levels of an 80 year old man. Maybe if you try to have kids early in life, your body will not be incapable of doing so. Hope every day that your child won't have autism or any of the other diseases that are caused by the mother's screwed up hormones and diseased body and toxic diet.

Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

We know how to mitigate the risks with the plastics. I have always been of the assumption that whatever they replaced the BPA with is probably just as risky, and definitely not as well studied nor had the track record that BPA has. At least we know the risks with PBA, god knows what the risks are in the new stuff they'll find 20 years from now.

As already mentioned in here, dont put hot liquids in plastics, leave plastic cups/bottles in cars, or microwave in plastic containers.

Remove any food from the plastic containers and heat them on a plate or glass container instead