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Comment by __alexs | Hacker News Reader

Lead is so obviously bad for that we have known it for thousands of years.

And it wasn't until the 1970s that the US banned lead paint in houses. 200 years after Ben Franklin wrote that it was bad.

Like, clearly plastics are bad. And yet, humans like the convenience, the utility.

"Plastic is bad" is the current fad. There is nothing clear about it. Sure Macroplastic causes well documented damage. I don't know of any proven effects of Microplastics in large animals/humans. The argument seems to be more "it can't be good". I'm not at all invested in plastic and I'm all for protecting our environment, but I sense some sort of mass hysteria going on here again. Good that people are documenting the spread of man-made stuff and look for negative effects, no need for the permanent fearmongering. Also plastics are very different, some are rather bad (pvc,epoxy) others quite harmless (pe,pp).

I remember, about 1968-1972, my parents replacing the dishes we ate off of. The old ones were some kind of glazed pottery-type stuff. I didn't at all understand at the time, but I'm fairly sure now that they replaced them because of concern for lead in the glaze.

Then there’s also the radioactive glow in the dark cookware that used to trend.

And the profits! Why would someone exchange a personal short term profit for the society health? :-)

What profits? Cardboard wrapping is cheaper than plastic. Plastic is chosen because it’s better.

But then people on the internet can't rant about a cartoon caricature of what capitalism actually is.

I think that's more because we don't have better options than anything else.

Also, as a reminder, leaded gas (avgas) is still used all over the United States pumping lead into the environment. If you live near an airport you are especially at increased risk of lead exposure in the environment.

The FAA finally approved 100UL gas for small airplanes. I'm not sure how widely it's available now.

This is just for general aviation though. Jet fuel has no lead in it. Not that this means it’s healthy, just that jet exhaust pollution does not include appreciable amounts of lead.

Also also, shit tons of poor folk all over the country live in homes full of lead pipes and paint that their landlords are too cheap to fix.

Asbestos too, though that's less threatening as long as it's not being actively fucked with.

Generally speaking, it's better to cover up asbestos than it is to remove it. Remediation attempts can easily go wrong, moving the asbestos from "hidden and staying put under tiles" to "free floating dust in the air and your lungs". One of my parents' friends got mesothelioma from doing just that.

yet as late as the 19th century lead was in make up

The time it takes us from finding out something is dangerous to finally doing something about it is astonishingly long. Lead, Asbestos, CFCs, PFAS, etc

And we have a President currently trying to bring back clean, beautiful asbestos (it's still used in a few places actually). A wonder material, good for protecting against hot stuff.

Yes. Humans in general are very bad at dealing with delayed consequences.

Typically because there are entrenched financial interests incentivized not to change.

And because our brains evolved in very different environments - where serious hidden delayed consequences were very rare, and life was short & cheap.

The EPA is currently reviewing its ban on asbestos.

It's not uncommon for the pipe supplying mains water to (older) houses in the UK to still be lead.

We live in an older house in the US. We got a note in the mail from the city that pipe from the main to the house might be lead. They looked at building plans/ permits. The length is (15ft) so the impact is minimal if it’s actually lead. The piping inside is copper and pvc for drains. But we had the water tested anyway. Lead isn’t good for you.

https://www.wgbh.org/news/health/2024-11-19/thousands-of-mas...

Its not really common either. much as been replaced. In areas where it is common the pipes are often old enough that the lead is covered with limescale sealing it off from the water (lead pipes would now be many decades old), and I have read that water supplies in some areas have additives to seal off lead too. You can also have your supply tested (free AFAIK).

Water pipes are plastic now, funnily enough.

WIth the right mix of minerals in water it's generally safe, but like in Flint municipalities can screw up that content of ions/minerals in water and leach it out (remove the protective patina)

Does lead leach into the water like plastic pipes do ?

Old lead pipes had hard untreated water flowing through them. The lead pipes would internally (normally) be coated with salts, and the lead did not (normally) leach into water. But soft water does not have calcium or magnesium in high enough quantities. Also, even with hard water, pressure changes could loosen the scale deposits.

Microplastic risk is not anywhere close to lead, we should not even be discussing these two things in the same paragraph.

Lead is bad because it mimics calcium and iron in our body, binding to proteins, sneaking into bones, causes anemia, disrupts brain function...

Plastic is inert, it is made of long chains of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. These long chains do not break down easily. Microplastic, while it does not pass through the body, and can accumulate in organs, its impact is still under study. We aren't ingesting high doses.

BUT, bad pipes may leach other stuff. Some additives in certain plastics seem to mimic hormones and potentially disrupt them. Some additives are carcinogenic. (but only in high doses I guess). Certified modern pipes are safer.

Thanks for that.

Our whole town is basically running on plastic pex pipe, always freaked me out.

Yes, depending on alkalinity and so forth --- see Flint, Michigan in the news a while back, or on-going efforts to remove solder containing lead from the plumbing aisle.

Yes, the only reason we are ok with some old lead pipes left is because they're coated in scale build up. As long as that's not disturbed it's not dangerous anymore.

Clean, beautiful lead.

I can hear him saying it, shit.

I’ve been joking he’s going to try and bring back leaded gas.

> Lead is so obviously bad

Yeah, though I’m much more concerned about those that are not so obviously bad, that we still don’t know how terrible they are. You know, the unknown unknows.

…and yet we actively used it in water pipes, painted our walls with it, and poisoned the air by putting it in gasoline—all in the 20th-century.

It's almost like the net benefit of lead was actually quite high or something.

How does this obvious badness manifest, exactly?

I can drink water from a lead pipe all day and suffer not even a headache.

EDIT I'm serious. What is the obvious manifestation? Because the manifestations I've heard of aren't so obvious.

If you do it for decades (or have low pH water?), you will slowly get dumber and probably get dementia or something.

Yes. But that isn't obvious. I asked for obvious.

Obvious is "every time I do it I get a headache".

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