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Comment by kornhole | Hacker News Reader

Yes those N95 and other disposable masks people have been wearing for years are made of plastic. This is a great way to ingest nanoplastics.

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N95 masks can be made from plastics, however to my knowledge there are not any masks on the market made of nanoplastic particles.

Just as air filters are not polluting the air with massive clouds of nanoparticles your face mask is not filling your lungs with them.

no - but disposed of masks decompose via UV and mechanical means to particulates and get into the food hierarchy.

'disposed of' masks don't decompose via UV. Littered masks do, but littering is a lack of disposal.

Your clothes, your phone, your keyboard, &c.

The vast majority of what you interact with is made of plastic, at least the mask is useful

This is highly reductive. Clothes are useful in ensuring I adhere to societal standards (and laws.) Keyboards help me earn my living (without which I wouldn't be able to eat.)

So are HEPA filters in all air purifiers.

Pick your battles. First you don't want to be sick/die/cause your elder relative to die by infecting them. Then once you are not dead you don't want to get into your body substances that clearly have no business being there and can make you sick slower and less noticeably.

I'm guessing you would want to run a filter/wear a mask if there's a good reason and not do it when there isn't.

Its not so much about ingesting from wearing them - they are almost single-use and disposable - how many TRILLIONS of plastic masks have been thrown into the environment in the last 3 years.

Seriously - if I had enough tinfoil - I'd say that our entire dietary ecosystem is under attack, directly, in order to reduce the healthiness of our food supply. Plus the many many food processing/farm etc plants which caught fire in the last 18 months.

Do air purifiers help with micro plastics in indoor air?

I do not think any air purifiers can fit inside your face mask. I assume in room air purifiers will capture some as they are particles like others that get caught in filters.

The disposable masks were such a shame. We ingested and breathed in the plastic. Then once discarded, it is just plastic pollution.

There's literally no evidence that they shed nano-plastic particles in regular use. Also they need to be disposable to be useful, they're filters which trap things you don't want in your lungs. Also, if you put them into the regular trash, they just go to a land fill, which is totally fine.

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