• Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    Stapleton said she now relies more on filtered water at her home in New Jersey.

    But study co-author Beizhan Yan, a Columbia environmental chemist who increased his tap water usage, pointed out that filters themselves can be a problem by introducing plastics.

    “There’s just no win,” Stapleton said.

    Oh, man.

    • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
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      10 months ago

      I’ve been saying this to people for a long time. Here in my country, most water filters are based on charcoal and a final filtering element. That element used to be made of cellulose and other organic materials, but in the last decade, they started coming with that element made of polypropylene, until all the cellulose ones disappeared from the market. Just imagine your water passing though a porous layer of plastic, like a rigid sponge… this is a serious microplastic source.

      • ripcord@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        You’re talking like .01% as much plastic use per liter as plastic bottle water packs. Is that not…much much better?

        • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
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          10 months ago

          I’m not sure how much microplastics are released in that way. It can be better than bottles, but if we used non plastic materials for so long, and it worked fine, I see no reason to put plastic in there.

          • ripcord@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            It’s like it in that this is true, but there’s a big, big, big difference in how big a deal a given amount being in our systems is.

        • porkins@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          Not necessarily. It just requires excitation at a molecular level. You can get creative with your source. They have been playing around with low energy methods like LED or even just using the sun, geothermal, etc.

          • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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            10 months ago

            Yes, I’m aware of different way to distill, but if this were to work in a home/commercial setting, it needs to be accessible/affordable.

            I’d personally love to get a home distiller, but I read they were very expensive to run :(

            • porkins@sh.itjust.works
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              10 months ago

              I was about to write back that we are not far off the advances to make these affordable and then did a google search and found that you can get a distilled unit on Amazon for $180 that is capable of making a gallon in 5 hours for about $.45 worth of electricity. That is far less than what it costs to buy distilled water at the store, which is around $1 a gallon. If you look at this from a break-even analysis, you technically start to reap the rewards of ownership after about 800 uses since the first 400 uses basically cost you $1.45 per gallon, then the next 400 costs you $.45 per gallon, but you are recouping that extra cost over the $1 retail price, so by the 800th use, you are getting water at less than half the price of the store.

              • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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                10 months ago

                A gallon is not much though, not for a family. If you have to double or triple that amount, the electricity costs will really add up. If you’re talking European electricity costs, you might as well drink expensive wine instead 😂

                If cost was more in line with traditional filters, then it may be a more accessible option. But electricity costs are only going up.

                • porkins@sh.itjust.works
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                  10 months ago

                  Even with fission, nuclear is a panacea of energy with almost no waste for modern reactors. I can see there being an initial rise in energy costs to get those projects built out though. If they are phasing out nuclear, that would be dumb.

                  Additionally, researchers at MIT recently found that you can evaporate water without heat, so that should hopefully be a thing in the near future.

  • mouserat@discuss.tchncs.de
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    10 months ago

    ”The International Bottled Water Association said in a statement: “There currently is both a lack of standardised [measuring] methods and no scientific consensus on the potential health impacts of nano- and microplastic particles. Therefore, media reports about these particles in drinking water do nothing more than unnecessarily scare consumers.”

    Fuck capitalism - “no don’t be too cautious, just consume until we can finally prove what tiny particles accumulated in your organs can do. How bad can it be?”

    • TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz
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      10 months ago

      This is the same attitude the US Food and Drug administration takes. A product can only be scrutinized if a new ingredient is proven to be harmful.

    • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I guess. It seems like it doesn’t matter tho because it’s not just bottled water. It’s literally everything.

      All the food you eat. Anything you drink. The air you breathe. The clothes you wear. Literally everything you interact with has some amount of plastic that you’re consuming.

      You can put down the bottled water but the alternatives aren’t much better. Either way you’re being bombarded by microplastics.

      • cerulean_blue@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Oh, How I long for the olden days… I would literally die for a fresh glass of water plucked from a local stream. The copious amounts of lead and mercury combine with the rich abundance of feces, microbacteria and other organic matter, to create a pure, natural live giving elixir.

        Now all of that has been removed and replaced with modern plastic. No thanks

  • variants@possumpat.io
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    10 months ago

    I wonder how the refillable plastic 5 gallons are with plastic, we need to go back when they were made of glass

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Someone needs to invent soft glass that doesnt break so easily. Surely it cant be that hard.

      • Bocky@lemmy.today
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        10 months ago

        It’s not too hard, but it’s more costly, and consumers want a cheap as possible.

      • saigot@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        Borosilicate glass fits the ticket (what pyrex is made of) but is quite expensive.

  • The_Mike_Drop@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    So plastic is made from oil, right? And oil is made from Dinosaurs. So we’re just surrounded by Dinosaurs. Even micro-Dino’s.

    Is this their revenge?

  • Spitfire@pawb.social
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    10 months ago

    Oh boy I sure do love plastic with my water.

    Realistically though, is there any way to really filter out these?

  • jagungal@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I’ve seen a lot of reporting on finding microplastics in new places and new quantities, but is there reliable evidence that it actually does damage? Genuinely asking, can someone please send me the papers?

    • TammyTobacco@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      I think it’s still a bit early for us to know how it’s affecting us. It’s the kind of data that takes a lifetime of micro plastics to see how it will kill us. But knowing how much cancer various plastics already give us, it’s safe to assume this is a bad thing.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        This isn’t like smoking or drinking. There isn’t any control group. We have no population to compare a lifetime of microplastic exposure against. It isn’t like lead, either. Plastics pollution to date guarantees a continuous supply of microplastics for decades/centuries.

        • NotSoCoolWhip@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          You’re right, I assume that even at the very best, an uncontacted tribe would still be contaminated to some extent

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Well I mean how awesome am I going to get plastic in my system? It’s not like that stuff just grows on trees.

  • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    I don’t care at all. You can take plastic from my cold dead hands hippies !

    First it was micro plastics, now it’s nano plastics, next they’re going to make number go up by counting individual plastic molecules.

    • taanegl@beehaw.org
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      10 months ago

      Alright, old man Carlin. Settle down. Units are used for measurements, indeed. Very post-woke indeed.

      One must hate the machine, the machine that feeds you GMOs, the machine that feeds you plastic, the machine that enslaves you go willing subservience, for it is of bullshit and should go the way of the dodo.

      Don’t me a lil bitch trell.

      • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        You follow his dumb with your own dumb by thinking there’s anything wrong with GMOs.

        • taanegl@beehaw.org
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          10 months ago

          With all GMO’s? No. But certain pesticides, certain over uses of antibiotics, yee olde teflon.

          I’m not a big fan of throwing chemicals at the wall to see what sticks.

          • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            I’m confused. Pesticides are not GMOs. Teflon is not a GMO. Antibiotics are not GMOs. They might all be used alongside GMOs, but they aren’t themselves GMOs, which are perfectly safe and rigorously tested.

      • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        You can easily supercede plastics by inventing a better material. But no I’m not going to carry water in fucking clay pots.

        And if individually wrapped fruits means fewer of them end up in the dumpster then anti-plastic ideology would end up worse for the environement.

        If you want to do somethibg to reduce plastic, just end the fishing industry instead of forcing us all to use disgusting paper straws for symbolic reasons.

          • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            Metal bottles need plastic liners not to conraminate and spoil their contents.

            Glass containers waste tons of energy from extra transport, to needing so much water and remelting when the inevitably chip and and break.

            We’re using plastic because it’s by a wide margin the best packaging material we have.

            • Ben Hur Horse Race@lemm.ee
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              10 months ago

              I was talking about a resuable glass water bottle. this is what I use, I’ve had the same one for five years now, just saying

        • taanegl@beehaw.org
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          10 months ago

          just end the fishing industry instead of forcing us all to use disgusting paper straws for symbolic reasons.

          Why? That industry scrapes the bottom of the ocean floor, literally lol them fishies gonna die out, so don’t worry about that. Some salmon have revolted though and decide to have their spawn on the ocean floor, which made it so that many fucking countries had to rewrite their nature curriculum, because generally salmon spawn upstream…

          But they won’t make that journey anymore. They getting the fuck away from humans. Hopefully the orcas will keep attacking boats though.

          It’s maybe their own way of protesting against plastic lol

          Stupid ass human, GTFO the ocean.