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Comment by nebula8804 | Hacker News Reader

>Trying to avoid them is like trying to avoid endocrine disruptors by not touching plastic or eating anything that has touched plastic.

Is there any evidence that something transfers to you if you do touch it? This is the first I am hearing about something like this. I thought plastic was essentially a solid.

I have been interested in converting much of my daily interaction of plastic to other materials. Things like converting my Zerowater water filter to a homemade ceramic pot....but the water filter itself is plastic so whats the point?

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Transfers to you? There are microparticles of plastic in every liquid you drink, floating in the air, in the digestive systems of practically every animal in the food chain.

When you wash a piece of polyester or microfiber in a washing machine you are sending millions of little microscopic pieces of plastic into the water supply.

Ever drink from a plastic water bottle that sat in a hot car and it tastes really funny? Enjoy your plastic.

If you google "plastic in the air", "plastic in food", "plastic in animals", "plastic in water", it's pretty much impossible to not find evidence. It's incredibly depressing. It's in the Mariana trench and on Everest.

It seems like there are varying definitions of microparticles. Are you referring to stuff that is still slightly visible to the naked eye (if you squint), something the requires a regular microscope or something that needs an electron microscope. I'd like to think that my zerowater filter which filters out enough such that a TDS meter reads 0 would filter out microplastics but who really knows. I don't inspect every cup of water I drink with a microscope.

I always wondered why there hasn't been more of a push to explore plastic pyrolysis technologies to help remove these plastics from circulations. I see countless pictures of discarded clothing, and other plastic based waste and I'm thinking that there is some potential solution: break it down back into its original oil based input.

This is a bit of an aside, but how do you like that filter? I've been using Pur for a couple of years.

>Is there any evidence that something transfers to you if you do touch it? This is the first I am haring about something like this. I thought plastic was essentially a solid.

I recall a few years ago there were a few articles/studies saying that that BPA were in thermal paper (ie. receipt paper). I think the conclusion was that if you were picking up a few receipts per day, the amount was negligible, but if you worked in retail it might be a hazard.

Also if you crumple a receipt and don't wash your hands, and touch food, its a hazard

I believe I recall that if you used hand sanitizer and then handled a receipt the BPA transfer was significantly higher.

As an example, thermal paper receipts used to literally be BPA powder on paper. Ever known someone to eat after handling a receipt without washing their hands, or to tuck the receipt in their mouth (yes) to told its while juggling other items?

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