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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

> Their sales pitch was that the product was petroleum-free, a boon for spas that like to market being “natural.”

It's interesting that people see genetically modified yeast producing hydrogen peroxide as "natural" -- but not regular hydrogen peroxide.

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I think this was just a bad summarization of the selling point for spas. This solution, coming from yeast, is carbon net negative (as they mention further down in the article) and reduces demand for a product of petroleum which might lead to more staying in the ground. The spa can then claim a lower carbon footprint which I imagine is very marketable.

The entire ad campaign around OxiClean: "usages the power of oxyzen" as if it natural and chemical free. It may be natural, but it isn't the [semi] friendly O2 variety that we breath.

Read some of the Q&As for Ozone Generators on Amazon, many people think it's safe for humans and pets. The internet is a dangerous place for information at times.

Older laser printers were notorious for generating Ozone. I don't think people realize that Ozone is also bad for humans in addition to the atmosphere.

I really don't know how people think these are safe, I have a "ozone-free" UVC disinfectant light and it still produces enough ozone to smell pretty bad. I can only imagine how an O3 generator smells.

Arrrrrgh oxygen is a chemical, everything is made of chemicals.

Oxygen is an element. Diatomic oxygen commonly known as O2 is a chemical. Everything is made of elements, including chemicals.

Oxygen gas, colloquially referred to as 'oxygen', is a chemical.

If you want to be a smartypants I guess noble gases are elementary.

I didn't start the pedantry.

Aquious Ozone is some of the safest and environmentally friendly disinfectant you can find. Only problem is that you need to use it right after making it.

Well you can see the advantage here, the biological process that created this hydrogen peroxide from wastewater also created other compounds beneficial to the application. This isn't New Age chakra stuff, this has a direct chemical cause-and-effect.

> It's interesting that people see genetically modified yeast producing hydrogen peroxide as "natural" -- but not regular hydrogen peroxide.

If the yeast started producing too much hydrogen peroxide then presumably it would just die. Unlike when someone adds too much chemicals to a pool, which is common enough that probably most people have experienced it.

Their product sounds like pure hydrogen peroxide, not the actual yeast.

The yeast are in chemical reactors. The company harvests the peroxide from the reactors and sells it as a substitute to petroleum-produced peroxide.

Vanillin is a good example of this. Vanillin produced by engineered yeast cost multiple times more than synthetic vanillin despite being identical products. This is because US packaging does not need to call the yeast-produced compound artificial vanilla flavor.

They also buy waste from corn ethanol plants, which is nice, but there's a lot of natural gas and diesel implicated in those processes.

The ethanol plants are already in the greenwashing business so it makes sense to go all-in. :)

Hydrogen peroxide needs to be industrially synthesized and from googling a traditional synthesis route uses a palladium catalyst. That said I'm sure antiseptic hydrogen peroxide is highly regulated regarding trace metals.

That's because GMO-free and the natural fallacy are marketing ploys.

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