yes laboratory.love will not allow samples to be sent directly
593 karma · joined December 18, 2020
I have considered creating specific ad-hoc campaign pages for folks with special interests and let them drive people to the page (like a more focused Kickstarter or GoFundMe with a lab on the back end).
If anyone has a special interest I'm happy to mock up what funding targets would be.
Donated funds are pooled and allocated to the leading unfunded product anytime the pool can get that product to its funding goal.
I'm working to make results more digestible and actionable. This will include the %TDI toggle (total daily intake, for child vs adult and USA vs EU) as seen on PlasticList, but I'm also tinkering with an even more consumer-friendly 'chemical report card'. The final results page would have both the card and the detailed table of results.
I'm working to make results more digestible and actionable. This will include the %TDI toggle (total daily intake, for child vs adult and USA vs EU) as seen on PlasticList, but I'm also tinkering with an even more consumer-friendly 'chemical report card'. The final results page would have both the card and the detailed table of results.
I certainly want to avoid any weird incentive misalignment. Because the testing is done by an accredited lab that provides an official Certificate of Analysis, I think I could reasonably accept funding from manufacturers once I build out a feature that would will allow visitors to download the COA PDF.
No manufacturer has reached out directly yet, presumably because a) this project is small and still gaining trust and b) they would probably want to do testing privately and avoid publication of 'bad' results anyway.
did you do any math around predicting if 'donating' this gold to a treasure hunter would yield an even greater amount to hurricane relief?
Here is a Stripe link: https://donate.stripe.com/9B614o4NWdhN83l9r06c001
I'll add subscriptions as a more formal option on laboratory.love soon!
Disclaimer: I don't think I can have a 365-day refund with a recurring donations like this. The financial infrastructure would add too much complexity.
1. I'm still working to make results more digestible and actionable. This will include the %TDI toggle (total daily intake, for child vs adult and USA vs EU) as seen on PlasticList, but I'm also tinkering with an even more consumer-friendly 'chemical report card'. The final results page would have both the card and the detailed table of results.
2. I have not found any regulation-violating levels yet, so in some sense, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Part of the issue here is that many believe the FDA levels are far too relaxed which is part of why demand for a service like laboratory.love exists.
3. This is part of the challenge that PlasticList faced, and additionally a lot of my thinking around the chemical report card are related to this. Some folks think a single test would be sufficient to catch major red flags. I think triplicate testing is a reasonable balance of statistically robust while not being completely cost-prohibitive.
4. Yes, I suppose one could do that, as long as the funded products can be acquired by laboratory.love anonymously through their normal consumer supply chains. Laboratory.love merely acquires three separate batches of a given product from different sources, tests them at an ISO/IEC 17025-accredited lab, and publishes the data.
5. I suppose any project can be shut down by a lawsuit, but laboratory.love is not currently breaking any laws as far as I'm aware.
I've yet to have any product funded by a manufacturer. I'm open to this, but I would only publish data for products that were acquired through normal consumer supply chains anonymously.
Last year, PlasticList found plastic chemicals in 86% of tested foods—including 100% of baby foods they tested. Around the same time, the EU lowered its “safe” BPA limit by 20,000×, while the FDA still allows levels roughly 100× higher than Europe’s new standard.
That seemed solvable.
Laboratory.love lets you crowdfund independent lab testing of the specific products you actually buy. Think Consumer Reports × Kickstarter, but focused on detecting endocrine disruptors in your yogurt, your kid’s snacks, or whatever you’re curious about.
Find a product (or suggest one), contribute to its testing fund, and get full lab results when testing completes. If a product doesn’t reach its goal within 365 days, you’re automatically refunded. All results are published publicly.
We use the same ISO 17025-accredited methodology as PlasticList.org, testing three separate production lots per product and detecting down to parts-per-billion. The entire protocol is open.
Since last month’s “What are you working on?” post:
- 4 more products have been fully funded (now 10 total!)
- That’s 30 individual samples (we do triplicate testing on different batches) and 60 total chemical panels (two separate tests for each sample, BPA/BPS/BPF and phthalates)
- 6 results published, 4 in progress
The goal is simple: make supply chains transparent enough that cleaner ones win. When consumers have real data, markets shift.
Browse funded tests, propose your own, or just follow along: https://laboratory.love
It just needs to be a product that's available for purchase.
Blueprint Quantified, which is linked in the below comments, went live after these conversations. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
I'm not technically limited to US products, but I can (currently) only test products that can be shipped TO the United States.
LLMs wrote 99% of the code.
Last year PlasticList discovered that 86% of food products they tested contain plastic chemicals—including 100% of baby food tested. The EU just lowered their "safe" BPA limit by 20,000x. Meanwhile, the FDA allows levels 100x higher than what Europe considers safe.
This seemed like a solvable problem.
Laboratory.love lets you crowdfund independent testing of specific products you actually buy. Think Consumer Reports meets Kickstarter, but focused on detecting endocrine disruptors in your yogurt, your kid's snacks, whatever you're curious about.
Here's how it works: Find a product (or suggest one), contribute to its testing fund, get detailed lab results when testing completes. If a product doesn't reach its funding goal within 365 days, automatic refund. All results are published openly. Laboratory.love uses the same methodology as PlasticList.org, which found plastic chemicals in everything from prenatal vitamins to ice cream. But instead of researchers choosing what to test, you do.
The bigger picture: Companies respond to market pressure. Transparency creates that pressure. When consumers have data, supply chains get cleaner.
Technical details: Laboratory.love works with ISO 17025-accredited labs, test three samples from different production lots, detect chemicals down to parts per billion. The testing protocol is public.
So far a couple dozen products have received some funding, six products have been fully funded (five product results published, the sixth is at the lab as I write this!)
You can browse products, add your own, or just follow specific items you're curious about: https://laboratory.love