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Comment by vincentmarle | Hacker News Reader

> Store food in glass containers, not plastic. Above all, don’t microwave foods in plastic or with plastic wrap on top. Avoid pesticides. Buy organic produce if possible. Avoid tobacco or marijuana. Use a cotton or linen shower curtain, not one made of vinyl. Don’t use air fresheners. Prevent dust buildup. Vet consumer products you use with an online guide like that of the Environmental Working Group.

I really want to do this, but it seems impossibly hard. For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers.

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Because its the same thing as a person setting your house on fire then advising you not to breathe in the smoke. Advice like telling people we are drowning in plastic because we don't recycle, telling people with no access to public transportation to minimize the use of cars, telling people with no access to healthcare to take care of their bodies, telling people that grew up in a glorified prison they call public schools to get more education. They flood the world with plastic to the point where people effectively have no other option than use plastic then tell people to not use plastic. It's funny how if people say the solution to income inequality is to execute billionaires we would never seriously entertain that thought, we would immediately know that is an absurd solution, yet when people say guys choose not to use plastic we stop and consider it as if it is a viable solution for ordinary people and not callously asinine advise. It is no wonder there is so much rage in the Western world when the elites present such ridiculous solutions to problems they themselves brought into existence and expect us to act like they are priests endowed with God's personal blessing.

Who is "they"?

It is "we". Almost all people I know will make selfish decisions that harm others for their own advantage. It seems to be simply human nature.

> It seems to be simply nature.

FTFY.

It's all about survival. Humans are animals not much different than a deer, lion or whatever. A deer will run away from something it doesn't know where a lion will attack/kill anything it doesn't know. Just like the stereotypical "git off my land" character of a country bumpkin. I mean, how do you feel when you see a stranger walking on your property? Same thing.

I always laugh when people say they feel close with nature. Um, hello! You ARE nature. The human brain just overlaid a thick layer of self awareness/logic/reasoning/emotion to the lower level animal bits. So instead of pissing on trees we instead draw lines on paper called borders and property lines. And we still live in trees, just dead ones turned into boxes called homes.

For thousands of years we struggled like any other animal to survive. If you had food you made sure no one takes it. If you found a safe place to sleep you dint want to share it. If a stranger wanders into your territory, chase or kill them, they are a threat. If you were a male you had to prove your worthiness to a female by fighting or peacocking (some things never change...) etc. Oh and we smell just as bad. The stink of a locker room or unkempt home is no different then the stink of a farm or zoo. You're a smelly hairless great ape. Deal with it.

Excellent comment! You are completely right and illustrated your points with hilarious accuracy.

Yes, but words exist and mean things. The fact that everything is natural does not mean that unnatural things don't exist.

The upper-middle professional-managerial class who gets to make and implement these decisions, and write these articles.

edit: More simply, what upper-middle class people usually refer to as "everybody."

So much "plastic" packaging nowadays (in the UK) is labelled with "Do not recycle" but no indication of what it's made of. This has annoyed me from an environmental point of view, but probably one should look at it from a health point of view, too. Perhaps those items are made from a material that the manufacturers know has potential health implications and that's why they're carefully not saying what it is?

Perhaps the law should require proper labelling of packaging material that is in contact with food just like it requires food ingredients to be listed. If manufacturers were to lobby hard against such a rule, what might we conclude from that?

> Perhaps those items are made from a material that the manufacturers know has potential health implications and that's why they're carefully not saying what it is?

Unlikely. It's more likely that they don't know, because they didn't look too hard.

The reason it's not recyclable has nothing to do with that, though. It's not recyclable because plastic recycling is very difficult, many plastics can't be recycled, and of those that can, any contaminants will ruin an entire batch. Food is an example of such a contaminant.

any contaminants will ruin an entire batch. Food is an example of such a contaminant.

This is a myth.

(It’s too late to edit my comment, but to be clear, food is a contaminant - it’s a myth that any amount of contaminant will ruin a batch...)

NPR recently collected some history lots of plastics got some recycling symbols even though most plastics are not recycled for economic reasons: plastics have to be unmixed for true recycling. Most food packaging is landfill.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...

The symbol with three arrows in a triangle and a code does not mean an item is recyclable. The official name is a Resin Identification Code. It lets you identify what material an item is made of, but it does not say whether it can be recycled or not, as that varies depending on local facilities.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code

TIL resin identification code.

Edit: the original stated purpose, according to the linked wikipedia page, was: facilitate recycling...

And if it actually will be recycled depends not only on the facility but also on the cost of doing what needs to be done (for separation and transport), and the possibility of what can be done (laminates). However these constraints are not communicated clearly.

I'm 52 years old, I live in Germany, where we "recycle" for ages, about 30 years now, and we tell our kids and grannies and everybody in between to separate the trash because "recycling", and we see benches and other sturdy plastics items "made from trash" and still, only 17% of the collected packaging trash is reliably recycled, while the recycling of other plastics (toys, vehicle parts, any plastics that are not packaging) is also intransparent.

https://bmbf-plastik.de/en/publication/plastic-atlas-2019-fa...

https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/kurzerklaert/kurzerkl...

There's a big difference in the amount of leakage from the plastics when it's cold vs when it's heated - so a good step is to put whatever you're heating on a plate before you put it in the microwave (or oven, or…), rather than heating it in the plastic it came in.

Also, avoid using dishwasher and dryer. But some types of plastic cookware is just a pain to clean up. The only solution is avoid buying any plastic cookware or food container completely.

Unheated food-grade plastic is generally okay, but when exposed to heat or UV light, you have a big problem. This paper is worth reading [0], according to their experiment, almost all commercially available plastic products—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals after being exposed to UV lights or heat.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/

Isn't that common sense anyway? Especially the packaging it came with?

Lots of plastic containers for left over food claims to be microwave friendly.

There are several pre-made food products on the market with plastic containers that instructs you to cook them in microwave with the plastic packaging still on. One product I tried recently even had a little tab on the plastic wrapper that would start whistling when the food was done. I think I tried it that one time. I don't usually buy things like that.

It’s interesting they call out vinyl shower curtains but not vinyl and polyester clothing, which we wear on our bodies all day.

Even most cotton shirts and jeans tend to be a blend with synthetic plastic fibers because it stretches and breaths better.

Or carpet.

I think there's two issues.

The first is that I recall the shower curtain problem was related to the heat / steam floating around in the shower which facilitated shedding of particles and also ingestion. Having the "plastic" clothing just on the body may be less bad.

Also, and more importantly, I think people who are conscious about those things tend to wear less plastic fibers but won't necessarily think about the shower curtain.

For example, except for full on technical sportswear (think biking shorts), I never wear polyester or other synthetic fibers in clothing that goes directly on my skin. I used to avoid it because, for the most part, I've found that polyester is less breathable, tends to stick a lot, etc. I try as much as possible (I check the labels) to stick to cotton / linen (for the summer) / wool (for the winter). Now, the whole "plastics are bad" thing doesn't really push me to reevaluate my choice.

> Even most cotton shirts and jeans tend to be a blend with synthetic plastic fibers because it stretches and breaths better.

Just look at the labels...

I'm not sure you should specifically be worried about vinyl shower curtains, but vinyl is a specific concern, because to get the form of vinyl that's soft and pliable, the vinyl is mixed about 50/50 with phthalates that are known endocrine disruptors.

That said, phthalates are used in tons of stuff, and it's not fully clear to me which sources are the most important. I've replaced my soap/shampoo/shaving creams with phthalate free versions. It's also present though in basically all plastic tubing, which is known to leach phthalates and is used very extensively in food production machinery.

> I've replaced my soap/shampoo/shaving creams with phthalate free versions

How do you identify these? You mean there are products that advertise themselves to be phtalate free? Or that you are actively looking for phtalate composition in the products you buy?

They’ll advertise it clearly on the bottle.

I search https://www.ewg.org/ to get non-toxic products

If it’s in plastic tubing, would that include all homes with pex piping? Water dispensers in refrigerators? Seems impossible to get away from.

It will definitely leach from PVC pipe. I'm not sure about PEX. Yes to water dispensers in refrigerators.

In general, the problem will be worse with smaller diameter pipes/tubes due to surface area/volume ratio, worse if the water has been standing in the pipe/tube, and worse if the water is hot.

These chemicals are extremely difficult to get away from. I saw a study where they tried to get volunteers to take a reasonably large set of actions to reduce their levels of BPA and Phthalates, and they were able to get them down to about half the original levels, but not lower.

> For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers.

I stopped buying these a while ago. Buy fresh veggies, classic pasta/rice/lentils or whatever you fancy, meat from the butcher if you eat meat, I skip anything I can't identify or anything that I couldn't make myself at home with regular ingredients.

It's super restrictive but you get rid of literally 99% of junk food. You are what you eat, quite literally

Not that simple. The paper your butcher uses also has plastic most likely. Most paper products do these days.

You nonetheless minimize exposure that way to be clear.

It's not easy, almost impossible, to do overnight. Try it one thing or habit at a time. Single out one thing which is harmful, and commit to finding and integrating a substitute.

Also, remember "cleaning" products besides a select few like Bronner's have the same type of crap in them. "Eco-friendly" ones like Seventh Gen and Meyer's are bullshit if you look at the ingredients list.

Let's all take a moment to consider how blessed we are to have those ingredients list, by the way.

It's difficult to do it all at once. Taking little steps might help: instead of using plastic tupperware, use glass; instead of buying beans in a can, buy dry beans; balcony garden? Sure!

Even if some things are impossible to do, it's imo best to not pile on top of those problems issues that aren't impossible to solve.

Even dry beans come in a plastic bag...

If so, and while microplastics may still be an issue, leeching due to wet beans being in contact with the plastic lining of their cans is not. Along the same lines as my original general message: a bit at a time.

Yeah this is my issue. I have to drink bottled water for water quality reasons. How am I supposed to avoid plastic there?

Filtered water? Sure, the filter cartridges are plastic, but I’d guess that you’d reduce your plastic usage in general.

This is very much a cultural thing. Over here, you can easily get bottled water in glass bottles. The delivery services will pick up your tray with empty bottles to be reused. That's reuse after cleaning, not recycling!

Europe, I guess? I had a talk late last year with a local brewery (traditinal bavarian one, family operated since the 1400s). And apparently everyone, especially Coca Cola, is going for glass right now. To the point reusable glass bottles are an actual bottle neck for them. Mind you, depsite the Covid caused demand drop. That was quite an interesting fun fact for me.

Couple of options:

(a) I used to live in Malaysia where tap water wasn't drinkable as-is, but filtering and boiling made it drinkable and tasted just fine. Hot water dispensers are pretty standard to have in most Asian homes; just put the water through a filtering pitcher before pouring into the hot water dispenser.

(b) Subscribe to those 5-gallon big blue bottles and a dispenser. They get actually reused instead of downcycled.

Blue plastic bottles leach endocrine disruptors, either BPA or BP-S.

One thing I miss about Germany is S.Pellegrino in glass bottles. Since I moved to Belgium it has been incredibly hard to come by glass-bottled water.

I've found glass-bottled water easy to find in Belgium, I buy cases of Ginstberg (they have both still and carbonated water) in glass bottles in a supermarket here in West Flanders.

I know at least a couple places where you can buy it (Huis Maria in Harelbeke, Vanuxeem in Ploegsteert, so both Flanders and Wallonia) so I would assume those to be widespread enough throughout the country.

To me coming from France it was Belgium that was the easier place to find glass-bottled water :)

I only shop at AH and Delhaize, the choice isn't that great there.

Can't you just drink tap water, or if it really tastes that bad use a water filter. The idea of buying a new bottle every time you want a drink of water seems insane to me!

I assumed they were talking about reused glass bottles. Here (so in Belgium) I buy cases of water bottles with a deposit and return them empty.

The bottles are reused, and the water tastes a lot better than at least my tap water (in Antwerp - the tap water comes from a stagnant canal used for merchandise shipping, and last year for example it turned green and smelled of algae for a while after a ship carrying fertilizer capsized).

I have a filter for cooking/making tea. However there's something about S.Pellegrino and others that makes it taste much better. And the filtered water has completely different taste in the first day vs the rest of the month.

And yeah, you usually give the bottles back. However, it's much more common in Germany than in Belgium, it seems. I have never seen a line to give the bottles back in Gent, unlike Berlin.

Drink Voss? and re-fillVOSS bottles with distilled water?

You can get distilled water delivered in very large glass jugs (4 gallons i think?)

Some thought that distilled water may not be desirable:

https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientscha...

very minor concern vs. benefits you get.

This is mostly about dissolved minerals, carbonates etc, and you should be able to control trivially.

I know I would prefer to know exactly what's in my water.

There are some pretty decent filters out there that are not crazy expensive, guess it depends on how bad the water is though.

Get a water filter and drink tap. They sell filters made primarily out of steel.

> I have to drink bottled water for water quality reasons

Why is your water quality bad?

> I really want to do this, but it seems impossibly hard. For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers.

Hacker News: colonizing to Mars is straightforward and natural. Buying vegetables fresh or organizing a farmers market is impossibly hard and goes against human nature.

It's reasonable to work on the factors that you can easily influence. Once you've tackled those, you can see what else you can still fix. It doesn't need to be all or nothing.

My instincts have told me not to do any of this. All my life I've seen people microwaving stuff in plastic containers. I find it repulsive. I don't even own a microwave. I keep leftovers in bowls and reheat it in the oven or in a saucepan. I've always hated everything plastic really. And anything that decreases air quality. How people can spray tiny droplets of god knows what into the air and subsequently breathe then in is beyond me.

What part of taking out the food you buy out of its plastic container before microwaving it is impossibly hard?

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