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Comment by bowmessage | Hacker News Reader

I don’t do anything in that list you just mentioned, and I will probably stop drinking tea from a bag now. This is helpful research.

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But is it? How confident are you that this is your greatest exposure? Odds are there is something else in your life at least 100x as bad. And what does it mean that cellulose, a naturally occurring compound, releases 15x more microplastics than nylon? Or does iy? This study didn’t measure nanoplastics.

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 think we're simply responding to the list the OP gave — which many of us do not do.

how do we find the 100x as bad thing if we do not do research like this. The authors did not write this to provide you with a guide for life, they are instead trying to increase our collective knowledge. I wonder sometimes if folks understand how science works.

>they are instead trying to increase our collective knowledge

I'm not sure that's even clear since they seem to be conflating cellulose with microplastics.

i believe the bags are made from a mix of cellulose and plastic

That seems like something research could look at.

The problem is context. Lack of it. Good research contextualizes its findings.

context is audience dependent.

Have to start somewhere with avoiding plastics. This is as good a place to start as any other.

You never have food or drink that was stored or served via plastic containers? How? I ask seriously - how do you live your life to entirely avoid this, while also not living a life so separate from society that you are drinking tea made from tea bags?

I never eat or drink anything heated in plastic when I can control it. Sure it may have been stored in plastic at some point, but not heated.

>I never eat or drink anything heated in plastic when I can control it.

Do you avoid restaurants and cafeterias completely?

Restaurants, etc use stainless steel for heating, not plastic. To-go containers often have plastic and should be avoided but should not get to their melting point.

Many people drink tea not from tea bags to the point that "many" isn't really descriptive enough. If you're a tea aficionado, you definitely don't. Which means there's an entire market of people doing things like an aficionado even if they are not; see audiophiles. Only mass market large brands push the tea bag. Good tea comes packaged as loose leaf meant to be used in whatever strainer you have.

Lose leaf tea is much better anyway. You can get multiple infusions out of it which is nice if you don't need the caffeine the second time around (it's quite water soluble and mostly all goes in the first infusion).

A second infusion with bags always just ends up kinda watery and sad. Something about the leaves being smaller...

Yep. I used to regularly drink high-grade ti guan yin (a.k.a. iron goddess), and I could often get 8 steeps and still have plenty of flavor.

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.

Look up "gongfu steeping", it is a well established method, e.g. "15 to 30 seconds for the first infusion, then add 10 seconds to each subsequent infusion. If it seems a bit weak, leave it for longer."

Where do you find plastic tea bags? I don't think I've ever seen one.

Mesh tea bags, like are used at Starbucks, are plastic.

“The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose.”

They aren’t pure plastic.

Those were three different bags, not all in one.

Most tea bags that you purchase anywhere use some level of plastics in their component materials and/or binding (especially this latter). The only safe options are metal strainers that you filter the tea with (and that hopefully don't have coatings on them that are harmful... boiling a new one would not be a bad idea before first use) or just loose leaf.

bourgie brands of tea come in little nylon pyramids instead of the normal paper/cloth bag.

In the study, they put 300 nylon/plastic bags into 1L of near-boiling water. Many bags are paper derivatives and not plastic. No need to completely stop enjoying tea.

How do you cook food?

It's not hard to cut out the exposure listed in the comment with a little effort and time, except for the steel thing which is a bit over the top.

it’s actually needed, see lucky fish: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_iron_fish

Debatable efficacy.

Cast iron pots and pans

Not concerned about the chromium and vanadium present in most cast iron?

I'm not deeply into that topic, but the pan I use that's made of iron was 'burned-in' using linseed oil several times to create a non-sticky surface. Whatever that has as negative side-effects aside, that layer might trap the iron additives quite effectively.

Chromium is a nutrient. Unclear if it is necessary or not.

Also, glass Pyrex Tupperware.

Steel and glass

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