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Comment by kurthr | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, most of the comments here are crap. The regulation for this stuff (and there are so many it's stupid) started in "the west" around 1999 and is pretty complete post 2022. Remember when polycarbonate water bottles were a thing, when they took chemicals out of kids toys and couches? That was all bad, but virgin PET, PP, silicone, and HDPE don't really leach plasticizers. That's WHY they're used. Really, this borders on a 25 year human clinical trial on South America, Africa, and SE Asia... well maybe we can measure reintroduction to the US now that corruption is a thing and regulation or rule of law is out the window. Thanks, Obama.

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> Remember when polycarbonate water bottles were a thing

They're... still a thing... https://www.google.com/search?q=polycarbonate+water+bottles

Yeah, they have "BPA Free" polycarbonate now, since that's what was regulated. I still wouldn't use it, there's many better cheaper alternatives, unless you're just importing it without testing? At least they're labeling it as PC?!?

Mostly, don't get your polycarbonate hot.

To be clear, if you're really worried about plastic, you can't use paper or aluminum containers either since they're coated. It's glass only, but no mason jars or screw caps since those have silicone seals. Seal it with wax/cork.

Silicone is likely one of the safest, though.

There's been some interesting pushes to use glass linings here.

Ex Chico in the baby bottle space (glass lined plastic bottles) Purist in the adult bottle space (glass lined stainless steel).

You can also get plenty of unlined aluminum/stainless cups/bottles (amazon is full of them).

No idea how that idea is going to play out long term.

Purist has some cool plastic bottles with a glass liner: https://www.specialized.com/us/en/purist-watergate-water-bot...

They are lightweight and flexible and supposedly have minimal plastic contact with water.

> features an amorphous silicon dioxide coating that's infused into the inner-wall of the bottle. Essentially, this forms a glass-like finish that provides a totally natural, and completely inert, solution to the problem

"glass-like" != glass

Dollars to doughnuts that coating is spray lined. Which means some sort of solvent, at a minimum. And I'm unaware of any way to fuse silica at temperatures under which plastic would survive, so it's a coating with a binder (dissolved in the solvent) which can still be damaged, scratched, leach or flake off into the water.

I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Glass, stainless steel (316 please), or ceramics for me.

Aren't steel food cans usually lined as well?

Yes, most cans are lined with plastic, but some are lined with tin, which I consider safe enough. And cans of pineapple are often lined with zinc, which I consider safe enough. Unfortunately, the only way to tell which cans have these tin and zinc linings is to buy one, open it, empty it and look at the lining.

Also, Eden Foods uses cans linings free of phthalates:

https://www.edenfoods.com/about/values.php

The PDF from NIH suggests that PP number 5 in the recycling code is the safest?

https://www.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/research/suppo...

Another article says vinyl flooring including luxury vinyl may also leach off plasticizers?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4540696/

FYI:

"These recent regulatory measures reflect a growing awareness of the harmful effects of DEHP. However, it is notable that many of these regulations were not in place at the time of data acquisition for the present study and their effect is not reflected in our results." (pg 11)

We are seeing results from pre-regulation era in this data.

>virgin PET, PP, silicone, and HDPE don't really leach plasticizers.

True but most people don't know what those are, and they also don't/can't currently cover all plastic in the household / daily life.

Obama's administration passed regulations on the most well-known endocrine disrupters in 2016. They wanted to include more on the list of regulated chemicals, but the chemical industry's GOP buddies blocked that.

So basically you're blaming Obama for not managing to do something perfectly. Are you part of the "all or nothing" camp of policymaking?

They should have included "/s" at the end of that, to avoid confusion. It was a joke.

Based on his followup comment, and other comments in this thread, it doesn't appear to have been a joke.

The follow-up comment definitely was a joke, and if you didn't think so, then you really don't understand sarcasm.

No I'm blaming the decline of American Civilization on Obama, because he didn't run for a 3rd term. Easily, the best Republican candidate since Nixon.

The U.S. Constitution, as amended in the wake of FDR, does not permit someone to run for a 3rd term. As a constitutional scholar, Obama had no interest in creating a constitutional conflict that could tear this country apart.

It's nonsensical to blame him for something he couldn't, and wouldn't, do.

If Michelle Obama ran for election, I believe she would have/ will win the presidency easily.

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