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Comment by ssijak | Hacker News Reader

Why are we not considering banning plastics in most household items?

Only certain plastics contain phthalates.

There aren't any in polypropylene plastic, polyethylene plastic or polycarbonates.

I'm sympathetic, less plastic is probably good - it does have to be a well thought through change. If the change reduces safety, or if it gets manufacturers to switch to a worse risk profile product, we could be net worse off.

Sadly I found a study at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3222987/ saying that many polypropylene polyethylene products release estrogenic chemicals (IDK if it's the same as phthalate) likely from additives, including when bent/deformed. And polycarbonates are infamously made of polymerized BPA and similar chemicals (usually endocrine disruptors).

Thanks for sharing the study. I will say the made-from argument is less compelling since table salt is made from sodium (explosive) and chlorine (chemical warfare agent) and yet it's pretty yummy. So long as it doesn't degrade, that's not super problematic. However the study I will read.

Polycarbonates have been known to leach from BPA (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/bpa-chemica...), I don't know if they've tightened up manufacturing or switched to non-estrogenic or non-bioactive chemicals since then.

Just following up! Yeah that's really interesting, I read both of your links. Again thank you for sharing. To be clear my reaction was just to the "made of scary components" thing, I was not dismissing your suggestion that harmful chemicals may leach from the final product.

Sadly it's not only about (intentional) additives.

Plastics — including those listed — act as chemical sponges, soaking up and concentrating toxins present in the ambient environment. For example in a household the airborne dust absorbs brominated fire retardants and formaldehydes. The total quantity of toxins in these tiny particles can exceed the gaseous concentration in the air by thousands of times, so microplastics act like a billion tiny Trojan horses for toxins to enter the body.

So when modelling these risks, it could be less about the equilibrium amount of microplastics in the body at any one time (the stock), so much as the constant re-introduction of new microplastics into the body (the flow).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02697...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/plastics-and-ch...

"They [phthalates] are used primarily to soften polyvinyl chloride (PVC). " [1]

PVC is used in water pipes, bottles, packaging films, blister packs, cling wraps, and seals on metal lids.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalates [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_chloride#Application...

Also quite commonly used as a fragrance enhancer.

That’s horrifying. But thanks for pointing that out, now I’ve got a real reason to dislike artificial odors (“air fresheners”)

PVC is also commonly used in 3D printing, with very pungent fumes.

Professional 3D printing, perhaps. I imagine it's a common engineering plastic.

Home 3D printing fortunately uses mostly PLA, which is biodegradable. Though I'm unsure how degradable it'd be inside your lungs.

>PVC water pipes

This is the most relevant one IMO. You can buy glass cups and jars, it doesn't matter if the water you put into them comes through PVC pipes! Even if you buy BPA-free phthalate-free bottled water, I think it's safe to assume that at one point that water went through several meters of PVC pipes to get to that bottle!

PVC water pipes must be ubiquitous nowadays, and are certainly better than the older copper alternative, which in turn is better than the older lead alternative!

Maybe the next step is special PVC for water piping. Until then I guess we're better than we have ever been, water piping-wise.

Water pipes are made from rigid, unplasticized PVC. It's only flexible PVC (e.g. cable insulation) that contains plasticizers.

Well, great, then!

Yeah as long as you're not chewing or extension cords you should be good.

The most common water pipe in new construction is cross linked polyethylene. XLPE. It is stable, inert, and contains no plasticizers. PVC is often used for sewage drain pipes. Like the parent said it is the rigid crystalline kind typically containing minimal plasticizers tightly bound within the crystal matrix.

It depends. Leaching from cold water passing through a pipe for a few seconds is a lot different from a water bottle that might be in a backpack or warm car most of a day.

Just about any kind of flexible or soft-ish plastic you encounter as a consumer that is not PET (soda bottles, plastic bags, polyester) is going to have phthalates in it.

Because they are very useful. And in general have great properties. You known weight, resiliency, price and so on.

Look at all of the bottles/containers in your bath/shower. Would you really want glass in a wet slippery area? Metal containers?

I mean, you could make a simple and cheap bottle out of aluminum probably? We had shampoo before the widespread usage of plastic bottles, though you are right that they used to come in glass. Perhaps we could use that fancy unbreakable soviet glass.

Sounds like a good business idea actually..

Edit: Actually thinking about it, that really is a good business idea. If anyone wants to build that business with me, email me at the address in my bio.

These exist for cosmetics[1], though the pump is still plastic. Would work fine for other shower products too.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Calvin-Klein-one-Skin-Moisturizer/dp/...

You just have to convince the vast majority of people that the extra expense of the container is worth it to them.

I have taken a very unscientific poll, and a very few number of people would want glass containers. You have to realize that people commenting on HN are not the mass public. The polls I've done were just asking during specific skincare product related conversations. The vast majority were onboard for paraben/phthalate free products made from plant based ingredients, but the no plastic issue was not something people felt strongly about at all.

You mean like perfume and cosmetics? Sturdy glass with carpets near the bathroom sink and the shower will do the trick. I'll take a few cuts through my life over cancer and chronic diseases.

>carpets near the bathroom sink and the shower

Now every spillage is a potential mold growth problem, which is also bad to inhale.

I use bar soaps for everything. Ethique is an amazing brand. https://ethique.com/

yes, I would. thick glass is great and cant break easily if it is smaller container. there is also stainless steel and other materials.

plastic was invented 100 years ago. people did just fine in the house without it.

People also survived without antibiotics and electricity in past. Electricity generation is a far bigger environmental load than plastic. By your logic we should revert to burning candles. Even windmills and solar panels are made from toxic chemicals. Everything in life has its tradeoffs. It is not responsible to use a one sided mass hysteria to impose a lower standard of living on people when it is not clear what the quantifiable harm the technological innovation that is plastics is to justify doing so. Many things are toxic in the right dose but the dose makes the poison. Making policy without considering tradeoffs is the road to Idiocracy and watering plants with Brawndo.

Electricity generation if it is from right sources is not killing me or us. Plastic is and we have it everywhere around, or inside, even in our brains.. So, what has bigger priority?

bar soaps and shampoos exist. They just aren’t popular. They also weigh MUCH less when transported than a plastic bottle full of liquid.

plastic containers for perfume and cosmetics don’t bother me. beauty products tend to last much longer than soap anyway.

see "Green Chemistry" in the USA about 20 years ago.. science was well-developed.. also "Body Burden" search term.. largely stone-walled at the politics level.

"Product liability is a third-rail in American politics" yes

We should also ban plants while we are at it, since there are only a few letters of difference.

In other words: Banning certain types of plastics makes sense and we do that all the time. Banning "plastics" is about as sensible as banning dihydrogenmonoxide.

Because it would drive prices of basic household goods up 400% and make low and middle income families vastly poorer.

I'm all for pushing back on chemicals wherever possible, especially in food packaging, but let's be real.

I try to avoid reheating things in plastic containers. It's about the only thing I can think of I can do as a consumer to reduce the risk of chemicals leeching into the food.

There are "bulk" stores that have no packaging and you fill up what you need into reusable containers that you either buy or bring yourself. They generally have common bulk items like flour but also lots of options for typical grocery store fare. The prices at those stores generally aren't 400% of what they are at a regular grocery store, and if they are higher I'm sure a large part is that this is a niche kind of store rather than how everyone gets their groceries.

That's obviously not the whole supply chain, and I'm sure many goods still arrive at that kind of store in plastic, but these tend to be run by the types that avoid plastic anyway so whatever they can get in reusable packaging I'm sure they are getting wrapped in something other than plastic. Anyway, if plastic is going to be used, the exposure from a single 100lbs bag of something that you refill into a container is probably vastly lower than from 100 individually wrapped 1lbs bags

That kind of thing only works in a high trust society. Given the choice, I'm not going to buy food from bulk bins where some stranger could have contaminated them, whether by malice or incompetence.

I think furniture and carpet would get it worse than most stuff. The alternatives to plastic (largely glass) in other cases are more like 20-50% more expensive, but furniture? Carpet? Solid wood and wool, leather—god, I dunno what you’d even use for cushion fill that’d last anywhere near as long. Those are closer to 400% the price of synthetic stuff. Or more.

Pine. Oak. Jute. Bamboo.

FYI, bamboo is usually actually:

1. Some actual bamboo that has been processed to remove starches and sugars

2. Mixed with incredible amounts of chemical glues (some of which include BPA)

Most bamboo products are at least as suspicious to me as plastic.

All the bamboo flooring products are engineered (in other words). Oak is great for flooring, but it's impractically heavy for the furniture.

> I dunno what you’d even use for cushion fill that’d last anywhere near as long. Those are closer to 400% the price of synthetic stuff. Or more.

AFAIU natural latex is an alternative to the ubiquitous polyurethane foam, and lasts longer. Quite pricey though.

> I'm all for pushing back on chemicals wherever possible, especially in food packaging, but let's be real.

The devil is that food that comes pre-packed under vacuum or inert atmosphere in plastics lasts much, much longer than food that gets stored in anything else - including tin cans by the way, they're all lined with plastics because acidic food would otherwise literally eat away the can.

Jars can be refilled. I think things would actually get cheaper.

> would drive prices of basic household goods up 400%

Glass is nominally more expensive and works. Our go-to food storage is mason jars. $12/dozen, probably cheaper by volume than the plastic crap on the shelves at Target or Walmart.

A bottle of wine by mass is ballpark 50% glass and 50% wine. A one liter glass jar of olives around 300 grams of glass.

So it's not merely packaging cost but also about convenience of shipping it around.

That said we still manage to ship both of those all over the world despite the unfavorable mass and relative sensitivity of their packaging.

The jar of olives however have plastic liner in the jar lid, so you're not escaping plastics anyway. The solution as I see it is to use the right plastics in the right way and ensure proper disposal of the waste.

Wine and olives also cost more than milk and eggs. You can package milk in glass bottle 5 percent of the weight of the product made at thousands of degrees from burning fossil fuels or you can package it in an inert HDPE container, that is processed at several hundred degrees and weighs say 0.5% of the product contained within. lighter packaging means less fuel burned to ship it. Lower processing temperatures means less fuel burned to make it. Ethylene polymerized into plastic for milk jugs doesn't end up in the air as CO2. Plastic feed stocks directly compete with fuel feed stocks. The less fuel we need to burn to ship things the more carbon is kept out of the atmosphere and the more carbon made into plastic that is stable when buried for thousands of years the less ends up in the air. You can make a lighter foam egg carton for less cost, that better protects the eggs than a paper one. Paper is no more a natural material than plastic. The manufacturing process releases hydrogen sulfide, contaminates water and when the paper rots the toxic dyes in ink printed on it is unbound and free to leach into the environment. Paper cups are coated with persistent waxed and plastics that migrate once the cup that supported them is gone. White paper products are bleached and brown paper is produced with harmful chemicals including even flame retardants at times. What is cheapest, lightest and most stable is usually also the most environmentally friendly thing.

Maybe go for the low-hanging fruit first, so to speak. When I was a free range kid back in the late 70’s, long before CA Redemption Value was conceived, all soft drinks were in deposit bottles. Thick, heavy reusable bottles. You’d pay a dime for the bottle and yeah you brought it back. The truck would go back to the warehouse with a load of empties. The retailer sorted them by brand and flavor. The bottling plant washed them and refilled them. Way more ecological than our current “pretend to recycle” regime we have in the U.S.

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