Commercial tea bags release microplastics, entering human cells
medicalxpress.com
medicalxpress.com
When I boil some vegetables, do they leach microplastics into the cooking liquid, or is that something different from what this study is describing?
(Edit: on looking to the study itself, it seems like this was more about developing a methodology than asserting anything in particular about the paper teabag, which they described as a random pick stripped from some green teabags from the store.
Specifically I didn’t understand it to suggest that synthetic microplastics had gotten bound up in the paper matrix somehow and THAT was what was being released… so maybe it was, after all, just “model intestines absorb cellulose but not super well.”
Maybe practitioners would understand the cellulose results to be used like a control here?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352... )
Are there other processes that work out cheaper than paper for teabag kind of applications these days?
I don't think they called cellulose microplastic anywhere. The issue is that commercial teabags these days often aren't using pure paper teabags:
> The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose
I believe the polymers are usually coming from the glue keeping the bag together. This is a known issue going back years [0].
0 - https://www.implasticfree.com/why-you-should-switch-to-plast...
They've since reformulated the bags - can't find any statement about the new flat bags.
Edit: Also some tea bags for loose leaf tea like t-sac or finum brands have that crimp on the edge. However, t-sac confirms they use glue, but finum specifically claims to not use glues, so maybe it is jumping to conclusions that all bags of these sort do.
> Following, ATR-FTIR analysis was performed in the teabags as well as in the leached mixture of nanoparticles plus fibers (Fig. 3). Both teabags and the leachate suspension matched their polymer composition being two of them petroleum-based polymers like nylon-6 (NY6, sample 1) and polypropylene (PP, sample 2), the third one (from the supermarket) being cellulose (CL, sample 3), a bio-based polymer.
I didn't see any mention of plastic binders or other material in the cellulose sample, just references to cellulose.
On the other hand, it was curious that they purchased the synthetic bags empty, but cellulose bags filled with tea, when it is pretty easy to find empty paper tea bags, so maybe there is something particular about the specific type of cellulose tea bag they chose?
> To such end, three teabags of different chemical compositions were used in this study: (1) empty nylon-6 (NY6) teabags (as a model of polyamide), (2) empty polypropylene (PP) teabags, and (3) commercially available teabags containing tea, and cellulose as the polymer composition.
Sometimes, the top fold is closed over with a small metal staple, but that’s not the only place the bag is sealed.
The different teabag composition materials were from separate types of teabags, not composition materials of the same teabag.
> To such end, three teabags of different chemical compositions were used in this study: (1) empty nylon-6 (NY6) teabags (as a model of polyamide), (2) empty polypropylene (PP) teabags, and (3) commercially available teabags containing tea, and cellulose as the polymer composition.
They don't care. This is a junk paper that cites a bunch of other junk papers. It's published in the same junk journal that gave us the junk paper on black plastic kitchen utensils. I can't really say more without risking a defamation suit, but what you're looking at has nothing to do with science.
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/12/18/journal-that-publishe...
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/05/13/publisher-slaps-60-pa...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494733 ("Journal that published faulty black plastic study removed from science index (arstechnica.com)", 63 comments)
You get nice news headlines with no tangible issues to health are found and it's easy to just prove a bunch of microplastics in all the things.
If I wanted an easy PhD I'd likely do the same due to how shitty academic hustle is in today's world...
The White House, taking microplastics seriously: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Mobili...
The White House pdf suggests a scientific consensus of some form, stating: “Researchers are sounding alarm bells over the growing presence of microplastics in the human body, and are concerned that the ingestion of microplastics and exposure to plastic-related pollution are posing a growing risk to public health.”
Not even the part about how you know it's junk? Is that based on your own critical analysis of the content, or just on what Retraction Watch has to say about Chemosphere?
You have a mistaken understanding of paper teabags. They are made of paper, but during manufacturing the paper bag is sprayed with plastic to finish it
(And no, I’m not talking about the silky plastic pyramid style ones. Just the cheap paper ones)
> To such end, three teabags of different chemical compositions were used in this study: (1) empty nylon-6 (NY6) teabags (as a model of polyamide), (2) empty polypropylene (PP) teabags, and (3) commercially available teabags containing tea, and cellulose as the polymer composition.
To me, that suggests there were bags included containing no PP or Nylon-6.
so 3-20% of the cellulose fiber could be hydrophobic additives
> In environments above 60°C, such as in hot liquids or high-heat exposure, PLA can begin to leach additives or degrade into its lactic acid monomers
Why the fuck are these sodding tic tacs putting 3D printer plastic into tea bags that will be thrown into boiling water?!
Top marks.
(Or is this a sarcastic response along the lines of "didn't you know it contains dihydrogen monoxide, a chemical widely used in nuclear reactors and military applications!"?)
Pretty sure this is benign. Apparently they use this polymer for medical implants, for a type designed to slowly dissolve:
Regardless the problem is not the plastic itself, but the plasticizers and other additives that leech out once you decompose it from what I understand. For medical use I would expect it's fairly stringent on what goes into it, but for something like tea bags I'm less sure.
PLA was around long before 3D printers became known to everyone under 30 years of age. It was first discovered in the 1920s by Wallace Carothers.
PLA has been around for a while, its not new with 3D printers, its just commonly used for 3D printers because it has excellent properties for 3D printing.
this is such garbage paper you are referencing, and in particular the claim "most paper tea bags contain unsettling amounts of bad plastics" screams for citations and testing method.
I guess the authors only took into consideration some bad quality local trash brand.
https://www.implasticfree.com/why-you-should-switch-to-plast...
> The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose. The study shows that, when brewing tea, polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers.
> To such end, three teabags of different chemical compositions were used in this study: (1) empty nylon-6 (NY6) teabags (as a model of polyamide), (2) empty polypropylene (PP) teabags, and (3) commercially available teabags containing tea, and cellulose as the polymer composition.
The quote you provided explains clearly, they measured three different types of teabags, distinguished by the different material that each was made of. "three teabags of different chemical compositions"
Edit: to indicate agreement
Anyway, it comes across like they're trying to warn about nylon or polypropylene being unexpectedly found in disposable tea bags that appear to be made of paper; but in the details you read that the microplastics are "derived from several types of commercially available tea bags" - a category which certainly includes bags very openly and obviously made of nylon (reusable, pyramid-shaped ones). There are tons of places reporting on this new study, but the idea doesn't seem to be new at all. (It also seems like common sense to me that immersing a fine plastic mesh in your food, and allowing it to reach close to 100 degrees Celsius, might be a risk for this sort of thing.) It wasn't new in 2019, either: see e.g. https://ratetea.com/topic/nylon-tea-bags/30/ .
But then, a bit of searching suggests that the disposable paper bags may indeed contain a significant amount of plastic (see e.g. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10389239/ , although the tone of the writing here seems rather fear-mongering). The reporting would be much better if it made this sort of thing clear.
https://www.implasticfree.com/why-you-should-switch-to-plast...
First of all, what's with the focus on tea bags? How does that compare with microplastics entering our food and drink from the plastic-lined paper cups we drink hot tea and coffee out of, from the cling wrap that covers our food as we heat it in the microwave, from the Tupperware and other plastic containers we heat our food up in, from the bottled water that sits inside plastic for months, from all of the plastic bowls and utensils we use in our kitchens, from the disposable serrated plastic knife we might use at an event to cut our chicken, and so forth? Why tea bags?
Second, how do "microplastics" compare to micro-everything else? Surely if you brew tea in a wooden container, "microwood" particles are entering the drink. Surely when you scrape your stainless steel spatula against your stainless steel skillet making scrambled eggs, "microsteel" particles are embedded in your eggs. How does the body deal with micro-everything? Is there any reason to think plastic is more harmful? Is there any specific supposed health consequence, like a specific type of cancer or increased aging or something?
They aren’t pure plastic.
That’s what a lack of context does. No harm in just avoiding anything any study has found to be potentially harmful (especially tea bags, which are a crime against good tea and easily replaced). But… it’s impossible to know if this is the equivalent of stopping smoking, or of brushing teeth three times a day instead of two.
I'm not sure that's even clear since they seem to be conflating cellulose with microplastics.
The problem is context. Lack of it. Good research contextualizes its findings.
Do you avoid restaurants and cafeterias completely?
A second infusion with bags always just ends up kinda watery and sad. Something about the leaves being smaller...
The trick was to use a lot of tea and steep it for only 30 seconds. One of the advantages was how quick it was to get my next cup.
It is also noteworthy that the paper towel doesn’t soak in the consumable when reheating like a tea bag does.
Instead of a paper towel, we throw food on a plate or bowl and drop a lid on it. This also works in the fridge; one less thing to wash and nothing disposed.
The majority of people alive on Earth today grew up in a world where plastic packaging and containers were a common, completely accepted part of life. Research suggesting this is harmful is very new, and still not settled. You cannot blame anyone for not picking this random ubiquitous aspect of modern life and avoiding it because it might be bad for them. Home microwaves themselves are no older than home plastics - why do you trust them?
I stand by my claim that you and I should not have to research the health impacts of, for example, microwaves. We should have to think about it, but if you have a basic understanding of how they work and how to use them safely, and you listen to people who might tell you if there were an issue (friends, the news, the FDA, etc.), then that is enough. And when I say "how to use them safely", I don't mean doing your own experimentation to find the limits of the device. I mean being told not to put metal in it, maybe watching a video to see what happens if you do, and accepting that it's a bad idea and you won't do it. It is not possible for me to do a medical study on the impacts of eating microwaved food, but I have enough societal trust that I continue to use them anyway.
It is obvious to me that smoking is bad for you, it feels like an intuitive fact that nobody should have to be taught, but that's because I grew up in a culture absolutely saturated with that idea, and I didn't know anyone that smoked. Somebody who grew up 70 years ago in the complete opposite culture can't be blamed for not knowing at the time that smoking causes lung cancer. How could they know? Nobody can follow cutting-edge research from every field on the planet and adjust their life accordingly. Even if you could it wouldn't help - cutting edge science is often contradictory and it takes time for a consensus and convincing body of evidence to build up. I'm sure both of us hold intuitively obvious beliefs that we'll realize are wrong in 20 years.
What is the solution? It's not helpful to wait until after a coverup is exposed and then blame every individual who didn't somehow figure it out on their own. You also can't just believe the opposite of everything you've ever been told - you'll have the same problem. Some things that corporations produce are actually good for you, lobbyists are occasionally paid to promote something useful and true. Your parents were probably right about a lot of stuff they taught you. You can and should ask questions and learn as much as you can, but life is complicated, nobody can be deeply educated about every single thing they touch.
There has never been any reason to not trust microwaves themselves with food, because any undesirable effects caused by them cannot be worse than when heating food is done using traditional methods, at temperatures that are normally higher and much less controlled.
On the other hand, anyone who has some idea about the components of any usual plastic can see that it is practically certain that at temperatures not much above room temperature some of the garbage fillers included in any plastic besides the base polymer will degrade and leak.
There may be a few plastics that could really resist in a microwave oven without degradation, e.g. PEEK, but those are very expensive and they will never be used for a cheap article like a food container.
Already since a few decades ago, since I have first used a microwave oven, I have never used anything else but glass vessels covered with glass lids and I have always been astonished whenever I have seen or heard somewhere that there exist people who have the courage to put food in microwave oven in plastic containers, even if their vendor has the guts to say that this should be safe.
There is really no excuse for using plastic for heating food, as the only supposed advantage is being able to dump the plastic container without washing it, but the glass vessels used for heating food in a microwave oven are very easy to wash, much easier than washing vessels that have been used for traditional cooking or food heating.
> On the other hand, anyone who has some idea about the components of any usual plastic can see that it is practically certain that at temperatures not much above room temperature some of the garbage fillers included in any plastic besides the base polymer will degrade and leak.
How do you know this? Even as someone actively looking into this topic I'm not sure whether this is true. I'm not challenging you, I'm genuinely asking where to learn about this.
The context is a comparison between good old paper tea bags.
Why?
In Germany paper tea bags are made out of natural fiber without glue.
But I would really like to know if this paper tea bags also release hefty amounts of microplastics, if somebody has a study please link. That those plastic tea bags are microplastic hell should have been obvious from the start. The first time I saw them until forever I will avoid them.
Long story shot - yes, this is a major problem. Yes, you're getting it from bottled water and plastic utensils and plastic lined cups. No, it's not like microwood.
This shit is being found in every organ of our bodies from our sex organs to our brains. It's found in most wild animal samples, it's found in rain, it's found on Everest's peak and in the Mariana Trench. And every indication is that it's getting rapidly worse, scaling up with our ever-increasing plastic production.
And there are perfectly good alternatives for the vast majority of this use, but the costs are a bit higher (since they're not being externalized onto the planet and our organs as much).
It should be assumed that anything that we have invented in the last 200 years should be guilty until proven innocent at this point imo. So many of the "modern marvels" have shown to have horrible health effects.
Wood in its natural state is not a safe substance. African Mahogany for example is highly toxic, causing dermatitis, respiratory issues, giddiness, vomiting, boils, asthma, headaches, and nosebleeds. Has also been linked to nasal cancer.
If we "know" something, would we still be using the word "may"? Know seems pretty strong for such a wishywashy result of "may".
There's definitely research in fertility rates lowering. Phtalates are receiving a lot of attention as well as an example.
Best I can say is that there are theories, but we don't know if they are true or not yet. Some people think they are, some people disagree. That's why they are not facts.
Microplastics are novel hydrocarbons that don't exist in nature. They're similar to cellulose but no organisms exist that eat them. They're believed to be nonreactive and therefore harmless but they might bioaccumulate which could be bad, or they might react with things in our bodies in unknown circumstances. We have limited experience with these molecules so it is hard to say.
> Various examples of damage caused by microplastics have been reported, such as microplastic accumulation in the bodies of marine and aquatic organisms (leading to malnutrition), inflammation, reduced fertility, and mortality. The threats that microplastics present to the human body have not yet been clearly identified. However, previous reports have shown that ultrafine microplastic absorption resulted in complex toxicity in zebrafish,2 and that microplastics under 100 nm in size can reach almost all organs after entering the human body.3 Therefore, concerns exist regarding the negative effects of continuous microplastic accumulation in the human body.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10151227/
> Microplastics have been found in a variety of organisms and multiple parts of the human body. We emphasize the potential impact of microplastics on the early exposure of infants and the early development of embryos. At present, the toxicity research on microplastics show that the exposure will cause intestinal injury, liver infection, flora imbalance, lipid accumulation, and then lead to metabolic disorder. In addition, the microplastic exposure increases the expression of inflammatory factors, inhibits the activity of acetylcholinesterase, reduces the quality of germ cells, and affects embryo development. At last, we speculate that the exposure of microplastics may be related to the formation of various chronic diseases.
You missed this part, which is the most important one.
Was the most important part of all the tobacco research the bits that said “Smoking tobacco is healthy”? Or the studies of lead in gasoline the caveats that said “These are small samples”?
I prefer fact over fear based science.
What is that supposed to mean? Most science is based on theories but you don’t wait for the Theory of Everything to take learnings of science. Fear is a very useful emotion and you shouldn’t fear it.
Now hypothesis is what you were probably mistaking a theory with. A hypothesis is something unproven and may or may not be a real thing.
I'd wait for more research before freaking out.
The answer being unclear means it makes sense to treat them, from a regulatory standpoint, closer to asbestos. It also makes sense to treat them as an unknowable and not regulate, because any alternative might be worse.
But it does point to there being a dearth in research and answers, and we should solve that as quickly as possible and maybe limit our exposure when viable, known to be non-toxic alternatives exist.
I'm not sure the follows logically, it ignores a bunch of known facts about biology to imagine that there is a pathway for these to cause major issues.
Survival odds in car crashes demonstrate this nicely: count the outcomes and divide. If "the survival odds were unclear, scientifically speaking" then car accidents would have to be orders of magnitude more rare and less lethal than they are.
I think something else that doesn't get mentioned is it's not just the risk of microplastics reacting, the physical non-reactive presence of particles can clog and get in the way of natural processes mechanically. So nonreactive shouldn't be taken to imply harmless.
Source?
> In general, mechanical interactions of microparticles and nanoparticles on biological membranes are vaguely studied, despite their importance for biological systems (29, 41). Hereby, we will demonstrate that these microplastics induce a mechanical stress of model cell membrane without the need of indirect assumptions about biological pathways (26, 27).
That would mean fiber in food is harmful since it is not digested. Cellulose is just a common type of natural fiber. Meanwhile:
USDA recommends that people consume the following amounts of fiber per day:
-- Women ages 31–50: 25 grams
-- Men ages 31–50: 38 grams
I seem to recall a recent study of microplastic levels in a general population, where people with higher microplastic levels seemed to be tea drinkers, which took some by surprise at the time. I think the population under study was from latin america, if I'm not mistaken. Since this study now has flooded the search results, I'm having trouble finding that specific study.
Be that as it may, it's likely that there is a focus on tea because tea-drinkers scored high on microplastics in previous studies.
Over the past few decades there has been a trend for plastic based materials replacing natural materials in everyday things.
Polyester textiles: Found in most clothing, bedding, and furniture upholstery.
Polyurethane coatings: Applied on wooden furniture to give it a glossy, durable finish.
Vinyl flooring and tiles: Replacing traditional wood or ceramic options in many homes.
Nylon carpets and rugs.
Synthetic leather (PU or PVC): Found in everything from sofas to shoes, replacing genuine leather.
It's got to a point where it's now hard to find natural materials in some categories. My wife was looking for a new sweater and most shops only had polyester or acrylic.
This is one thing that confused me about the first article I saw on this. The paper lists three things it detected, one being cellulose, and various articles will list them all together as if they're just three microplastics to be worried about.
The paper seems to encourage this reading with this line: "the third one (from the supermarket) being cellulose (CL, sample 3), a bio-based polymer"[0].
Was sample 3 completely fine? If so, why is say "Nanoplastics were obtained from three teabag brands during a standard preparation"? Are they classing cellulose as nanoplastics?
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352...
Steel also contains carbon and if it is stainless steel it also has chromium and probably other metals.
They are short-chain hydrocarbons, which most definitely exist in nature.
We aren't fully aware of the implications of microplastics on health, but the main cause for concern is that we have no easy way of getting them out (either naturally or medically) in the event that they are harmful.
I think they are a pretty reasonable thing to study. Teabags are porous plastic subjected to high heat. So the question has to be "what happens when these plastic baggies get exposed to high levels of heat? Does that liberate some of the plastic into the drink?"
Particularly worthy because tea is one of the most common beverages consumed.
> I find it impossible to put this into any kind of meaningful context.
So? Your inability to find meaningful context in something is not important. Who are you and why should this article or study cater to you? Are you in the business of doing research on this topic? Or are you just an HN commenter?
Your ignorance is not a sign of anything other than you being ignorant, and your inability to do something is just that: lack of skill.
> First of all, what's with the focus on tea bags?
Because you can't just assume. You test. That's science. Just assuming (your suggestion) is anti-science. And something we should NOT base our science off of.
> Second, how do "microplastics" compare to micro-everything else?
That's not what this study is trying to determine. It set out to determine how much microplastics came from tea bags. Why increase the scope. Other people are studying that.
You really don't seem like someone who understands how this works. You don't put the puzzle together all at once, you put it together one piece at a time.
Asking for “context” and “why did they study this” is quite interesting, considering the scientific study whose entire purpose is to introduce this context is directly linked within the article.
For myself, I don't do any of the above (with the possible exception of the last one once in a while). I thought everyone knew those were a bad idea.
I do drink tea using tea bags though — and had no reason to believe there was plastic involved.
Lipton makes a premium brand that uses a tetrahedral shaped micro-perforated plastic bag that very much could be shedding microplastics.
It’s hard to have a discussion without a clear definition and terminology.
I bought like 1lbs ~2 years ago for about $20 and still haven't worked all the way through it :D.
I like to show friends a properly brewed Dragonwell green tea and a bug-bitten oolong to convert them to the loose leaf way.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/ljudloes-tea-infuser-stainless-...
> and had no reason to believe there was plastic involved
The picture from the study of the cellulose bags show a round “pillow” style bag which is likely sealed with a glue, unlike some cellulose bags which are folded and stapled:
https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S00456535240263...
From the article that summarized the study:
> The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose. The study shows that, when brewing tea, polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers.
So while polypropylene is the worst of the three by an order of magnitude, the cellulose pillow-style bag still leaches a large number of particles.
Here’s the study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352...
Notably, the authors tested OEM empty teabags for polypropylene and nylon, but chose a supermarket brand of cellulose pillow-style bags with tea still inside.
I'd say these extra strong bags have become common in the last 15 years in the UK. How they are strengthened I'm not sure, but my parents compost most of their food waste and they reckon worms now push teabags to the top of the compost bin, when previously they would just disappear with everything else and never be seen again.
They aren't pushing the teabags to the top, they're digging to defecate.
You said it yourself.
Never mind the clothes that you wear. Or the dishwasher that cleans the dishes.
Plastics have grown to be basically everywhere. Precautions are good. Same for studies. And we may find alternatives. But a lot of the fear around them does feel excessive.
Also once you put your mind to it it's actually pretty easy to avoid most of the things you mentioned. There are glass or metal alternatives to pretty much everything plastic. Maybe not for creating an airtight seal over something like leftovers, but I think it's reasonable to expect that the food can sit in glass and have a plastic roof and still be relatively free of microplastics.
More research is needed it seems pretty plausible that plastics, like asbestos, are only a hazard when friable.
Is it? The mesh bag goes through basically zero abrasion at less than 100°C. It just sits there in the mostly still water.
Meanwhile, the plastic container might be in contact with fatty food way over 100°C. It gets scraped by pointy utensils. It gets abraded by a cleaning pad. It gets scratched and cloudy. It gets used hundreds of times.
I'd be guessing the plastic container sheds orders of magnitude more microplastics.
The reason I'm sticking with the tea-bag as the greater contributor is that I expect that the likelihood of a given region of plastic detaching and being washed into food/drink is related to:
- how closely the overall piece resembles a sphere and how large that sphere is (e.g. whiskers are likely to be knocked off, whereas the center of a sphere is unlikely to be dug out
- whether it has ever gone through this kind of treatment before
Sort of like how when eating a donut covered in powered sugar 95% of the mess happens within the first second of handling it.
So sure, I want context, but I think this kind of exasperation is a bit misplaced, as I don't think the article or the research itself was intended to be a comprehensive account of the broader contexts you are looking for. If it was masquerading as such a thing, I would be in full agreement. So I think it's a fair point in general, but the way you are saying it here sounds an awful lot like you're holding up a stop sign and saying "don't do any more research!"
Lastly if this was anywhere else besides HN there is a microwood entering you joke to be made.
Well, lucky for you, there's an entire scientific study detailing why they chose to study it and the methodologies they used. You know, the one linked in the article. It states:
> Among the different food containers releasing MNPLs, teabags stand out. Recent investigations have elucidated that teabags significantly contribute to the release of millions of MNPLs, adding to their daily ingestion by humans.
And this is just a snippet! Much more detail and context available within! The wonders of original sources.
According to the paper[0]:
> Among the different food containers releasing MNPLs, teabags stand out. Recent investigations have elucidated that teabags significantly contribute to the release of millions of MNPLs, adding to their daily ingestion by humans (Banaei et al., 2023).
The cited Banaei et al., 2023[1] says "At this point, special attention should be paid to the release of MNPLs from the herbal/teabags, since during the soaking and steering processes, some MNPLs inevitably detach and migrate to the water solution", citing [2]...which is retracted with this explanation: "2 of the reviews for this manuscript were fictitious. 2 reviews were submitted under the name of known scientists without their knowledge."
So, yeah. Sometimes it's interesting to follow citation chains a few steps.
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352... [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...
You shouldn’t really be doing either of those things. Plastic tupperware will get damaged from heat if you use it in the microwave frequently, potentially contaminating your food.
It’s best to transfer food to a heat-safe container (glass or ceramic) before microwaving. And definitely don’t use cling film in the microwave!
Recently read from “Made to Stick”: “Don’t just say popcorn has 40g of trans fats. Everyone knows trans fats are bad, but how bad is bad? Say popcorn has more trans fats in one serving than a whole day of greasy junk food”
Microplastics are also well established endocrine disrupters.
Microplastics cross the blood brain barrier and may also permanently stay in your body.
To what extent are these harmful? In what dose, over how much time? I don’t think that’s established. You could be cautionary, or wait for more science about how long it takes to reduce your fertility. It may also be inescapable, plastic is likely a permanent earth pollutant now, in your clothes, dust in the air, food, water, and most things in your home, including ones you abrasives use inside your body, like toothbrushes. Maybe only very high doses (like drinking tea from teabags once a day) have a detrimental health effect. Many compounds are lethal in high doses, and healthy, benign, or required for survival in low doses.
Not sure I understand your criticism. I think choosing tea bags and microplastics in particular is a way to 'ground' a study and experiments into something practical, rather than something too broad, abstract, and/or un-relatable to consumers.
- most tea bags contain plastic themselves
- pretty much every bakery / small coffee place place serves tea in paper cups lined up with plastic, it's very difficult to get a tea in a proper ceramic cup those days
- waters heaters often have plastic lids
- pretty much every insulated thermos also has at least a plastic cover
For the last one, a friend has recently found some plastic-free thermos: https://www.kleankanteen.com/collections/plastic-free
Please share if you know others.
Or at least, say in China/Taiwan, the heated tea gets made cold in steel containers and then served cold in plastic cups (e.g. For milk tea) else all is ceramic.
The main point is that even who doesn't go to buy a tea elsewhere get in contact with microplastic. So, now many people might have to switch to loose leaf to avoid getting another source of microplastics in their daily lives.
I find it interesting how for many (except for things like MSG and fats) previously thought "health scares", especially regarding plastic and the likes, have been found to be detrimental to our health and still people sneer at these initial studies. Given that, I'd personally rather err on the side of caution, especially when the change is so minute to be frivolous.
If someone told to stop eating, say, pizza then that would be a whole other story. But not using plastic with hot food/beverages? Not a big deal for me.
Doesn't this study show that cellulose releases microplastics as well? I assume tea leaves have cellulose in them, so best to avoid tea altogether.
Avoiding toxic and questionable substances really does get exhausting after awhile. It's everywhere. I'm able to draw a reasonable line (for me) without getting too nuts about it. Hoping AI ends up helping with this.
Yeah man I notice microplastics in tissue samples from my sick friends all the time. Haven’t you?
Reducing friction of access to information, friend. That's what. Taking a label in a supermarket and immediately seeing what's good and bad about it. Increasing competitive pressure on companies who still use toxic ingredients. I could go on here but it seems like you just take issue with "AI" as a concept because it is trivial to come up with many ways in which AI would help here.
> Several studies in the past have shown that harmful chemicals and substances can leach from paper and paperboard-based food packaging into the food meant for human consumption (Choi et al., 2002, Hansen et al., 2013, Schaider et al., 2017, Trier et al., 2011, Trier et al., 2018, Deshwal et al., 2019, Vandermarken et al., 2019).
https://youtu.be/i5611OvTFGM?feature=shared&t=5289
> "BPA, phthalates, plasticisers etc. are not chemically bound to substance they added too, and under heat they come out [...] you don't want to mix these with your food, but the worst thing to do is to put it in the heated environment" — Dr. Shanna Swan, Ph.D
> Among the different food containers releasing MNPLs, teabags stand out. Recent investigations have elucidated that teabags significantly contribute to the release of millions of MNPLs, adding to their daily ingestion by humans (Banaei et al., 2023).
I don't use tea bags, all my tea is loose leaf, but I'm sure it's still got micro plastics somewhere in it
In the last few years the largest two brands here (Ireland: Lyons and Barrys) have gone somewhere between "plastic free" and "biodegradable" (but not home-compostable). 95% of tea is sold in the form of tea bags here. https://livinglightlyinireland.com/2021/02/12/plastic-free-t... (article is from 2021, I think the title is suffering from a Wordpress date placholder)
> The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose
> made from natural fibres like wood pulp and the seal is made with PLA - an industrially compostable, plant-based plastic
> ... so we're following WRAP's advice and avoiding the phrase "plastic free"
https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/our-packaging
https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/brew-news/plastic-in-tea-bags...
Imagine my surprise after a decade of feeling safe from microplastics by ordering iced, when they dripped 93C coffee straight into the venti plastic cup. Ice and water were then added, resulting in the perfect crime– an ice cold drink with no sign that it was made with hot water in disposable plastic.
Suffice it to say, my trust in corporations regarding our health is not high anymore. When ordering, I now ask for water before espresso.
in my case I opened the news story with a question "what microplastics even are there in a paper bag??", then saw the sentence "The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose."
When dealing with our highly processed factory food products that come to you direct from a factory, a first wash with clean water is usually a good bet.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494733
> The publisher of a high-profile, now-corrected study on black plastics has been removed from a critical index of academic journals after failing to meet quality criteria, according to a report by Retraction Watch.
>On December 16, Clarivate—a scholarly publication analytics company—removed the journal Chemosphere from its platform, the Web of Science, which is a key index for academic journals.
> polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers.
Anyway, particle size probably matters, and I'm not sure it wins on that count.
Also anyway, you can get a steel tea holder, so the best way is to completely avoid plastics here. You can also probably get your leaves much cheaper in 200g or 1kg bags.
In 50 years there will probably be a lot less plastic used in contact with food, and what is used will be formulated differently. It will be similar to the gradual removal of lead from everything.
Kind of a proverbial 'boiling the frog' problem. A little bit of handling lead pipes or pumping leaded gasoline or inhaling or ingesting microplastics won't do anything. But when modern life gets so we're all bathing in the stuff all the time, the big problems are revealed.
The idea of re-heating food by microwave in a plastic storage container, or purchasing anything acidic or liquid from the grocery store that's stored in a plastic or plastic-lined container elicits a similar feeling in my brain to sleeping under popcorn ceilings or drinking water from a house with lead pipe plumbing.
Yet, in the U.S. at leaste, people have been doing this literally for decades without thinking twice :/
It works surprisingly well, the coffee tastes better and it is not messy.
Currently, I buy Pellegrino at Costco. But probably I just should get a sodastream with a glass bottle and filter my tap water.
Shipping water from Italy. Fucking insane. Maybe I should open my own bottling company with glass bottles.
I use an inexpensive carbon block filter that sits on my countertop and connects to the faucet with a little diverter valve. It works OK at reducing the taste issue here.
But I'm in no way under the impression that doing so somehow reduces the water's exposure to plastics. The pipes in the house are plastic. The pipes under the street, if recent, are plastic. The filters themselves are plastic.
I could get fancy and put in a nice reverse osmosis system, but that's just layers of differently-shaped plastic.
For me, the solution is to simply not worry about the things I cannot change.
(Although I guess I could go off the deep end and built a still... But sheesh.)
What is your setup? Can you post Amazon links?
But if you want one, it is an iSpring CKC1C. Sets up quick, takes generic/COTS replacement filters.
(I used to use a Pur filter on the faucet and that also worked well, but it was filtering a lot of stuff that isn't an issue with my tap water, and the razor blade business model of vendor lock-in was more expensive to support than I preferred.)
Nothing but metal and silicone.
Now whether or not they actually do a good job at that task is a different question.
It's unfortunate that you'd expect millions of people to individually "do research" (i.e. consult their crystal-stroking astrologist nutjob friend on Facebook). There is no reasonable way for individuals to make informed decisions regarding each individual item they may eat.
The Good Place has a great little clip about just the difficulty of buying a tomato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8m_5HDZF7w
However if the country is going to be based on lobbying efforts you better damn well be able to do a little research.
There is a reasonable way to make informed decisions. It starts with skepticism and not just shoving food into your face because it’s popular.
Dreamy looks in the distance while difficult questions are being answered, precise estimations based on looks and tons of furious googling happening among the isles for each of the 113 items bought that day. And then realizing 109 of those are somehow interacting with plastics anyway, and there is nothing better in the shop.
People have too much on their plate to grind their lives to halt for 1 out of too many worries just for groceries.
If you want to take the approach where you buy a bunch of stuff and then sit down for hours auditing everything you spent money on, then that’s on you. Consider that if the issue is so extensive you can do the analysis piecemeal if paranoia of it all causes you to be exhausted.
Or don’t wait for reports like this and a politicized regulatory agency in the age of hysteria to make the decisions for you.
You're asking a consumer to do what a regulatory institution should do.
We all are cattle to institutions. Maybe you're someone that fact-checks the FDA's science, but do you also fact-check the Dept of Ed's pedagogy, or the federal reserve's fiscal policy?
We need strong institutions that act in the interests of the average citizen. You're right that we don't have that now, but fixing broken institutions is more realistic than everyone becoming genius polymaths with infinite free time for research.
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the...
They’ve done that in this case, and have reasonably concluded that the tea bags are made of paper and are therefore safe. Fuck them for being wrong I guess?
If I drink this tea will I gain latent mutant powers?