alwa a day ago

I’m surprised to see them characterize the cellulose from a paper teabag as releasing “microplastics.” I get that cellulose is a polymer, but do practitioners not distinguish between naturally-occurring polymers and synthetic plastics in this kind of microplastic/nanoplastic research?

When I boil some vegetables, do they leach microplastics into the cooking liquid, or is that something different from what this study is describing?

(Edit: on looking to the study itself, it seems like this was more about developing a methodology than asserting anything in particular about the paper teabag, which they described as a random pick stripped from some green teabags from the store.

Specifically I didn’t understand it to suggest that synthetic microplastics had gotten bound up in the paper matrix somehow and THAT was what was being released… so maybe it was, after all, just “model intestines absorb cellulose but not super well.”

Maybe practitioners would understand the cellulose results to be used like a control here?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352... )

  • jdietrich a day ago

    >do practitioners not distinguish between naturally-occurring polymers and synthetic plastics in this kind of microplastic/nanoplastic research?

    They don't care. This is a junk paper that cites a bunch of other junk papers. It's published in the same junk journal that gave us the junk paper on black plastic kitchen utensils. I can't really say more without risking a defamation suit, but what you're looking at has nothing to do with science.

    https://retractionwatch.com/2024/12/18/journal-that-publishe...

    https://retractionwatch.com/2024/05/13/publisher-slaps-60-pa...

    • zahlman 7 hours ago

      >I can't really say more without risking a defamation suit

      Not even the part about how you know it's junk? Is that based on your own critical analysis of the content, or just on what Retraction Watch has to say about Chemosphere?

    • notTooFarGone 8 hours ago

      Microplastics really are the new shit magnet of science papers.

      You get nice news headlines with no tangible issues to health are found and it's easy to just prove a bunch of microplastics in all the things.

      If I wanted an easy PhD I'd likely do the same due to how shitty academic hustle is in today's world...

      • Mo3 7 hours ago

        Not only of science papers, I recently bought new shampoo and it has a "0% microplastics" label, on its plastic bottle.. it's milking people's emotions for money, like usual

    • bnetd 6 hours ago

      > I can't really say more without risking a defamation suit

      Nobody gives a shit what you say so you might as well give us something fun to read.

  • odyssey7 a day ago

    Thankfully they break down the results per material, so you can care about the other materials and ignore the cellulose results if you like. So, yes, the different types of material are distinguished from one another.

    > The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose. The study shows that, when brewing tea, polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers.

    • nativeit a day ago

      That’s also the materials from each type of tea bag, not a list of materials found in a single bag:

      > To such end, three teabags of different chemical compositions were used in this study: (1) empty nylon-6 (NY6) teabags (as a model of polyamide), (2) empty polypropylene (PP) teabags, and (3) commercially available teabags containing tea, and cellulose as the polymer composition.

      • odyssey7 a day ago

        Yes, to the rebuttal of: "do practitioners not distinguish between naturally-occurring polymers and synthetic plastics in this kind of microplastic/nanoplastic research"

        The quote you provided explains clearly, they measured three different types of teabags, distinguished by the different material that each was made of. "three teabags of different chemical compositions"

        Edit: to indicate agreement

  • hammock a day ago

    >the cellulose from a paper teabag

    You have a mistaken understanding of paper teabags. They are made of paper, but during manufacturing the paper bag is sprayed with plastic to finish it

    (And no, I’m not talking about the silky plastic pyramid style ones. Just the cheap paper ones)

    Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10389239/

    • Eduard 17 hours ago

      > Most paper tea bags also have plastic fibers used in the sealant in addition to these nylon and PET plastic tea bags. Even paper tea bags have an unsettling substance called epichlorohydrin added to them in order to keep them from bursting.

      this is such garbage paper you are referencing, and in particular the claim "most paper tea bags contain unsettling amounts of bad plastics" screams for citations and testing method.

      I guess the authors only took into consideration some bad quality local trash brand.

    • nativeit a day ago

      The paper states:

      > To such end, three teabags of different chemical compositions were used in this study: (1) empty nylon-6 (NY6) teabags (as a model of polyamide), (2) empty polypropylene (PP) teabags, and (3) commercially available teabags containing tea, and cellulose as the polymer composition.

      To me, that suggests there were bags included containing no PP or Nylon-6.

    • wiml 20 hours ago

      The paper talks about looking for cellulose particles, though, not siloxane or PLA or whatever.

    • moffkalast a day ago

      Yorkshire Tea claims "most of the bag is made from natural fibres like wood pulp and the seal is made with PLA - an industrially compostable, plant-based plastic"

      > In environments above 60°C, such as in hot liquids or high-heat exposure, PLA can begin to leach additives or degrade into its lactic acid monomers

      Why the fuck are these sodding tic tacs putting 3D printer plastic into tea bags that will be thrown into boiling water?!

      https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/our-packaging

      • wiml 20 hours ago

        Because it's literally a polymer of lactic acid? It's safe enough that they use it for medical implants because its degradation products already exist in the body?

        (Or is this a sarcastic response along the lines of "didn't you know it contains dihydrogen monoxide, a chemical widely used in nuclear reactors and military applications!"?)

      • perihelions 20 hours ago

        - "degrade into its lactic acid monomers"

        Pretty sure this is benign. Apparently they use this polymer for medical implants, for a type designed to slowly dissolve:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid#Medical

        • moffkalast 3 hours ago

          Well that's interesting, I presumed the so called biodegradability of PLA was more of a joke since you need to compost it, but the body is fairly warm I suppose.

          Regardless the problem is not the plastic itself, but the plasticizers and other additives that leech out once you decompose it from what I understand. For medical use I would expect it's fairly stringent on what goes into it, but for something like tea bags I'm less sure.

      • cyberpunk a day ago

        Challenge accepted; I will endeavour to include the phrase “sodding tic tacs” into a Christmas dinner conversation.

        Top marks.

      • leptons 19 hours ago

        >Why the fuck are these sodding tic tacs putting 3D printer plastic into tea bags

        PLA was around long before 3D printers became known to everyone under 30 years of age. It was first discovered in the 1920s by Wallace Carothers.

  • Suppafly a day ago

    I suspect this is something like Tazo that has the little pyramids make of a nylon type material vs the basic Lipton type tea bag that's just a paper product.

    • nativeit a day ago

      According to the comment just above you, that’s not the case, it’s talking about plain paper bags that are then treated. They link to an NIH page as their source.

      • nativeit a day ago

        That said, the paper states:

        > To such end, three teabags of different chemical compositions were used in this study: (1) empty nylon-6 (NY6) teabags (as a model of polyamide), (2) empty polypropylene (PP) teabags, and (3) commercially available teabags containing tea, and cellulose as the polymer composition.

    • SoftTalker a day ago

      I also wonder about those re-usable Keurig pods that are typically a plastic frame with plastic mesh.

  • zahlman 7 hours ago

    It doesn't seem like the study adds very much over the "See also" link from 2019 (https://phys.org/news/2019-09-plastic-teabags-microscopic-pa...).

    Anyway, it comes across like they're trying to warn about nylon or polypropylene being unexpectedly found in disposable tea bags that appear to be made of paper; but in the details you read that the microplastics are "derived from several types of commercially available tea bags" - a category which certainly includes bags very openly and obviously made of nylon (reusable, pyramid-shaped ones). There are tons of places reporting on this new study, but the idea doesn't seem to be new at all. (It also seems like common sense to me that immersing a fine plastic mesh in your food, and allowing it to reach close to 100 degrees Celsius, might be a risk for this sort of thing.) It wasn't new in 2019, either: see e.g. https://ratetea.com/topic/nylon-tea-bags/30/ .

    But then, a bit of searching suggests that the disposable paper bags may indeed contain a significant amount of plastic (see e.g. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10389239/ , although the tone of the writing here seems rather fear-mongering). The reporting would be much better if it made this sort of thing clear.

  • LegitShady a day ago

    there are cellulose bioplastics maybe thats what they were testing?

    • alwa a day ago

      It sounded from the methods section like a random paper teabag from the store. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the manufacturing world had moved from paper to some kind of engineered cellulose bioplastic… but I always thought of those more in the context of rayon, and those horrible “bamboo” textiles and foams. (Versus linen made from bamboo fibers, which is lovely :)

      Are there other processes that work out cheaper than paper for teabag kind of applications these days?

  • mandmandam a day ago

    > I’m surprised to see them characterize the cellulose from a paper teabag as releasing “microplastics.”

    I don't think they called cellulose microplastic anywhere. The issue is that commercial teabags these days often aren't using pure paper teabags:

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

    I believe the polymers are usually coming from the glue keeping the bag together. This is a known issue going back years [0].

    0 - https://www.implasticfree.com/why-you-should-switch-to-plast...

    • pavon a day ago

      I'm not a chemist, but skimming the paper it certainly sounds like the cellulose itself is what they are measuring:

      > Following, ATR-FTIR analysis was performed in the teabags as well as in the leached mixture of nanoparticles plus fibers (Fig. 3). Both teabags and the leachate suspension matched their polymer composition being two of them petroleum-based polymers like nylon-6 (NY6, sample 1) and polypropylene (PP, sample 2), the third one (from the supermarket) being cellulose (CL, sample 3), a bio-based polymer.

      I didn't see any mention of plastic binders or other material in the cellulose sample, just references to cellulose.

      On the other hand, it was curious that they purchased the synthetic bags empty, but cellulose bags filled with tea, when it is pretty easy to find empty paper tea bags, so maybe there is something particular about the specific type of cellulose tea bag they chose?

      • nativeit a day ago

        For the bags made of cellulose, yes, for the PP and Nylon-6 bags, no:

        > To such end, three teabags of different chemical compositions were used in this study: (1) empty nylon-6 (NY6) teabags (as a model of polyamide), (2) empty polypropylene (PP) teabags, and (3) commercially available teabags containing tea, and cellulose as the polymer composition.

    • alwa a day ago

      Oh my. I hadn’t thought about the adhesives. And just at a gander at the study’s figures, their various microplastic signals from the cellulose bag are hard to distinguish from the pure nylon and polypropylene ones. That’s a sobering thought…

    • 42lux a day ago

      I’ve never seen glued teabags in Europe it’s usually just a metal staple holding them together.

      • d1sxeyes a day ago

        I don’t know where you are in Europe, but I’ve been to enough of Europe to say that that pretty much everywhere uses teabags that look like this: https://images.app.goo.gl/ZKonRKNqTvfi1qd38.

        Sometimes, the top fold is closed over with a small metal staple, but that’s not the only place the bag is sealed.

      • shreddit a day ago

        How do these “new” pyramid teabags stay in form? I don’t think they use staples…

      • seabass-labrax a day ago

        The United Kingdom has a mixture of both types for sale in supermarkets.

    • TeaBrain a day ago

      "To such end, three teabags of different chemical compositions were used in this study: (1) empty nylon-6 (NY6) teabags (as a model of polyamide), (2) empty polypropylene (PP) teabags, and (3) commercially available teabags containing tea, and cellulose as the polymer composition."

      The different teabag composition materials were from separate types of teabags, not composition materials of the same teabag.

    • r00fus a day ago

      So that's what I remember hearing this years ago: those silky looking teabags diffuse microplastics. Easy to avoid those.

      • mandmandam a day ago

        Er, no. Those silky ones were likely worse, but a lot of the regular looking paper ones have polymer glues releasing microplastic as well.

        • TeaBrain a day ago

          Do you have any brands in mind? In the bagged tea with cellulose tea bags that I've bought, they are typically held together by just a staple. I've found this to be the case since I occasionally empty the tea from the teabags into my percolator.

          • pavon a day ago

            Pillow style tea bags are fully enclosed paper tea bags with no string or tags, and have a crimp around the rim. I never thought about them using glue, but it makes sense. Some brands I know of that use them are Taylors of Harrogate, Celestial Seasonings, Republic of Tea.

            Edit: Also some tea bags for loose leaf tea like t-sac or finum brands have that crimp on the edge. However, t-sac confirms they use glue, but finum specifically claims to not use glues, so maybe it is jumping to conclusions that all bags of these sort do.

crazygringo a day ago

I find it impossible to put this into any kind of meaningful context.

First of all, what's with the focus on tea bags? How does that compare with microplastics entering our food and drink from the plastic-lined paper cups we drink hot tea and coffee out of, from the cling wrap that covers our food as we heat it in the microwave, from the Tupperware and other plastic containers we heat our food up in, from the bottled water that sits inside plastic for months, from all of the plastic bowls and utensils we use in our kitchens, from the disposable serrated plastic knife we might use at an event to cut our chicken, and so forth? Why tea bags?

Second, how do "microplastics" compare to micro-everything else? Surely if you brew tea in a wooden container, "microwood" particles are entering the drink. Surely when you scrape your stainless steel spatula against your stainless steel skillet making scrambled eggs, "microsteel" particles are embedded in your eggs. How does the body deal with micro-everything? Is there any reason to think plastic is more harmful? Is there any specific supposed health consequence, like a specific type of cancer or increased aging or something?

  • lukeschlather a day ago

    "Microwood" is basically just cellulose, aka insoluble fiber, which naturally exists in our food. "Microsteel" is just elemental iron which is a necessary nutrient.

    Microplastics are novel hydrocarbons that don't exist in nature. They're similar to cellulose but no organisms exist that eat them. They're believed to be nonreactive and therefore harmless but they might bioaccumulate which could be bad, or they might react with things in our bodies in unknown circumstances. We have limited experience with these molecules so it is hard to say.

    • dbingham a day ago

      Missing from this answer is the early evidence that they may be _very_ harmful. Early evidence suggests they are not non-reactive. They disrupt many of the body's systems in ways we're only beginning to understand.

      > Various examples of damage caused by microplastics have been reported, such as microplastic accumulation in the bodies of marine and aquatic organisms (leading to malnutrition), inflammation, reduced fertility, and mortality. The threats that microplastics present to the human body have not yet been clearly identified. However, previous reports have shown that ultrafine microplastic absorption resulted in complex toxicity in zebrafish,2 and that microplastics under 100 nm in size can reach almost all organs after entering the human body.3 Therefore, concerns exist regarding the negative effects of continuous microplastic accumulation in the human body.

      https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10151227/

      > Microplastics have been found in a variety of organisms and multiple parts of the human body. We emphasize the potential impact of microplastics on the early exposure of infants and the early development of embryos. At present, the toxicity research on microplastics show that the exposure will cause intestinal injury, liver infection, flora imbalance, lipid accumulation, and then lead to metabolic disorder. In addition, the microplastic exposure increases the expression of inflammatory factors, inhibits the activity of acetylcholinesterase, reduces the quality of germ cells, and affects embryo development. At last, we speculate that the exposure of microplastics may be related to the formation of various chronic diseases.

      https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/envhealth.3c00052

      • brokegrammer a day ago

        > Almost all the studies on the toxicity of microplastics use experimental models, and the harm to the human body is still unclear.

        You missed this part, which is the most important one.

        • therealcamino a day ago

          So...perhaps worthy of further study, maybe including to understand where exposure comes from, and whether the particles are absorbed? Like this study.

        • zug_zug a day ago

          Unclear doesn't mean safe, it just means hard to quantify. Your child could be in a car accident and their survival odds could be unclear, scientifically speaking. Doesn't mean "totally safe."

          • brokegrammer a day ago

            This is the wrong analogy because the article states that there's only theoretical harm. It could mean that one has to drink from 100 tea bags a day to get any adverse effects.

            I'd wait for more research before freaking out.

            • mjmahone17 a day ago

              It’s reasonable for people to take either approach: are microplastics more like asbestos or are they more like cellulose in terms of harm?

              The answer being unclear means it makes sense to treat them, from a regulatory standpoint, closer to asbestos. It also makes sense to treat them as an unknowable and not regulate, because any alternative might be worse.

              But it does point to there being a dearth in research and answers, and we should solve that as quickly as possible and maybe limit our exposure when viable, known to be non-toxic alternatives exist.

              • Suppafly a day ago

                >The answer being unclear means it makes sense to treat them, from a regulatory standpoint, closer to asbestos.

                I'm not sure the follows logically, it ignores a bunch of known facts about biology to imagine that there is a pathway for these to cause major issues.

          • schmidtleonard a day ago

            Damage that is bad enough becomes easy to quantify, so no, "unclear" actually does put a bound on it.

            Survival odds in car crashes demonstrate this nicely: count the outcomes and divide. If "the survival odds were unclear, scientifically speaking" then car accidents would have to be orders of magnitude more rare and less lethal than they are.

            • whatshisface a day ago

              Sudden damage that is bad enough is easy to quantify. You should take a look at the decades long struggle to prove that cigarettes are harmful to see what it is like when the harm is chronic.

          • thayne a day ago

            It doesn't mean unsafe either.

        • lowbloodsugar a day ago

          In what way is it the most important one?

          Was the most important part of all the tobacco research the bits that said “Smoking tobacco is healthy”? Or the studies of lead in gasoline the caveats that said “These are small samples”?

          • brokegrammer a day ago

            It removes the possibility of fear mongering. I'm not aware of any modern research where smoking anything is claimed to be healthy, nor anything about lead in gasoline being too insignificant to pose a health risk.

            I prefer fact over fear based science.

            • aziaziazi a day ago

              > I prefer fact over fear based science

              What is that supposed to mean? Most science is based on theories but you don’t wait for the Theory of Everything to take learnings of science. Fear is a very useful emotion and you shouldn’t fear it.

              • Yizahi 8 hours ago

                You are mistaking "theories" and "hypotheses". Theory in science is not some wild shot in the dark, imagined by some random guy in the eureka moment. And neither it is a something yet unproven. Theories in sciences are usually sufficiently proven and stand on the other previously proven theories. Like for example evolution of species is a theory, despite it having more than a century of research and hard proofs. So yeah, science is based on theories, but not on a collection of lucky guesses.

                Now hypothesis is what you were probably mistaking a theory with. A hypothesis is something unproven and may or may not be a real thing.

                • aziaziazi 7 hours ago

                  I did mistaken those, thank you for pointing that out. My point remains that science operates in the real world, where decisions often have to be made based on incomplete evidence, rather than waiting for certainty.

      • stevenAthompson a day ago

        [flagged]

        • homebrewer a day ago

          I won't speak for the whole world, but the amount of plastic things around me increased by a couple orders of magnitude in the last 15-20 years. What used to be made of stainless steel, wood or paper is now often made of plastic: tea kettles, dishes, water pipes, food bags, etc. etc. We'll see what effects it has in another 15-20 years when it will be too late to do anything.

        • cbdhsjshs a day ago

          'Plastic' is a loaded term. It includes lots of different types of platic, as well as intentional (plasticizers) and unintentional (residue in recycled plastic) additives to it. Some of the formulations are fairly new, some have been in use for a long time.

          The amount of exposure has also changed. Some bakelite knobs on your armoir aren't a big deal. Sleeping with a 'fleece' blanket and inhaling polypropylene all night every night may not be fine.

          Personally, I don't have confidence in being able to be an informed consumer of plastics, and it's easier to just minimize platic use in general without trying to decide what's dangerous and what's ok.

        • stackghost a day ago

          That's overly simplistic. The negative health effects might be lagging, because when plastic was invented there were zero micro plastics in the environment and now there are lots.

          To wit, life expectancies in North America have been declining the last few years.

          • stevenAthompson a day ago

            The CDC announced yesterday or this morning that they're back to pre COVID levels. It seems they're done dropping for now.

            Also, plastics have been around for 100+ years. That would be one heck of a lag.

            *EDIT* They're not back to pre-COVID levels yet, but getting closer.

          • exe34 a day ago

            > life expectancies in North America have been declining the last few years.

            I'm sure that has nothing to do with predatory health insurance companies.

            • stackghost 17 hours ago

              Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't but the fact remains it's overly simplistic to assume that plastic production doesn't temporally lead changes in health effects by some amount.

              To suggest otherwise is clueless and asinine.

              • exe34 11 hours ago

                does the US consume a lot more plastic than elsewhere?

                • stackghost 2 hours ago

                  Probably. But frankly I don't care, because that's irrelevant. Plastic pollution is global.

        • dredmorbius a day ago

          Post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy.

          Actually, it's not even that as most of the modern increase in life expectancy / fall in mortality occurred before the invention of plastics.

          The former largely concluded by the 1920s. Plastics were largely invented during the 1930s, and were introduced as products over subsequent decades, at an ever-increasing rate.

          Which is to say: whatever lead to the increase in life expectancy was largely not plastics. Rather it was increased general hygiene, sanitation, food quality, refrigeration, waste removal, and sewerage systems.

          I'd mentioned this only a few months back, note especially my follow-up comment which similarly points out another frequently-touted factor which also fails the temporal sequencing test:

          <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41020120>

          • stevenAthompson a day ago

            I wasn't attributing the increase to plastic, I was noting the lack of sudden decrease.

        • hansvm a day ago

          Or not bad enough to overcome other benefits that came out around the same time.

        • thoroughburro a day ago

          “Accumulation” is a keyword you might want to examine.

        • Empact a day ago

          Just because smoking and exercise made you visibly fitter, doesn’t mean you should disregard the consequences of smoking.

        • littlestymaar a day ago

          This argument makes no sense, life expectancy increased a lot after the invention of leaded gasoline†, yet nobody would say it's harmless.

          [†]: Works as well for high fructose corn syrup or Fentanyl.

          • stevenAthompson a day ago

            I'm not saying it's harmless, I'm saying that even if it is harmful it's not by enough to justify the panic and sudden lifestyle changes these articles sometimes lead to.

            Remember the black spatulas a while back, and how it turned out to be a math error?

            • wonnage a day ago

              Is scooping out your food out of the crappy plastic takeout container into a bowl before microwaving an example of “panic and sudden lifestyle changes”?

              Seems like a pretty minor change to me. I’m already going out of my way to not put metal in there anyway…

            • littlestymaar 20 hours ago

              > I'm not saying it's harmless, I'm saying that even if it is harmful it's not by enough to

              Overcome the effect of antibiotics and vaccines that's just what it shows, and that's really not surprising

              > Remember the black spatulas a while back, and how it turned out to be a math error?

              The math spatula being an ill-founded crusade from a line researcher doesn't mean you can make nonsensical argument to say it's not harmful…

              • stevenAthompson 18 hours ago

                Again, I did not say it is harmless.

                Humans existed. They had an average life expectency of 'x'. Then we introduced plastic. The life expectency became x+y.

                We cannot say that plastic caused the increase, but it is clear that any decrease was small enough to be hidden by other factors.

                Am I saying that it's harmless? No. Am I saying that your effort and attention are better spent checking your fire extinguishers arent expired or that your brake pads don't need changed? Yes. Those things have significant and obvious impacts on your survival odds. This does not.

        • inglor_cz a day ago

          But fertility dropped. May be a contributing factor.

    • sillyfluke a day ago

      The reason for "why microplastics?" is because human use of everyday objects are more plastic than wood or steel. The reason for "why teabags?" is because of previous studies and because I think tea makes it to the top five of the most ingested liquid list.

      I seem to recall a recent study of microplastic levels in a general population, where people with higher microplastic levels seemed to be tea drinkers, which took some by surprise at the time. I think the population under study was from latin america, if I'm not mistaken. Since this study now has flooded the search results, I'm having trouble finding that specific study.

      Be that as it may, it's likely that there is a focus on tea because tea-drinkers scored high on microplastics in previous studies.

      • fy20 5 hours ago

        > The reason for "why microplastics?" is because human use of everyday objects are more plastic than wood or steel.

        Over the past few decades there has been a trend for plastic based materials replacing natural materials in everyday things.

        Polyester textiles: Found in most clothing, bedding, and furniture upholstery.

        Polyurethane coatings: Applied on wooden furniture to give it a glossy, durable finish.

        Vinyl flooring and tiles: Replacing traditional wood or ceramic options in many homes.

        Nylon carpets and rugs.

        Synthetic leather (PU or PVC): Found in everything from sofas to shoes, replacing genuine leather.

        It's got to a point where it's now hard to find natural materials in some categories. My wife was looking for a new sweater and most shops only had polyester or acrylic.

    • lkbm a day ago

      > "Microwood" is basically just cellulose, aka insoluble fiber, which naturally exists in our food.

      This is one thing that confused me about the first article I saw on this. The paper lists three things it detected, one being cellulose, and various articles will list them all together as if they're just three microplastics to be worried about.

      The paper seems to encourage this reading with this line: "the third one (from the supermarket) being cellulose (CL, sample 3), a bio-based polymer"[0].

      Was sample 3 completely fine? If so, why is say "Nanoplastics were obtained from three teabag brands during a standard preparation"? Are they classing cellulose as nanoplastics?

      [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352...

    • rendaw a day ago

      Can the body break down cellulose though? It can't digest it at least. And do reactions that could use naturally occurring iron compounds work with steel alloys designed to be non-reactive?

      I think something else that doesn't get mentioned is it's not just the risk of microplastics reacting, the physical non-reactive presence of particles can clog and get in the way of natural processes mechanically. So nonreactive shouldn't be taken to imply harmless.

      • skirmish a day ago

        > physical non-reactive presence of particles can clog and get in the way of natural processes mechanically

        That would mean fiber in food is harmful since it is not digested. Cellulose is just a common type of natural fiber. Meanwhile:

        USDA recommends that people consume the following amounts of fiber per day:

        -- Women ages 31–50: 25 grams

        -- Men ages 31–50: 38 grams

      • Suppafly a day ago

        >the physical non-reactive presence of particles can clog and get in the way of natural processes mechanically

        Source?

        • rendaw a day ago

          TBH I can't remember what I was looking up when I first read about that (I feel like it was metals, glass, or cellulose again), but https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2104610118 seems pertinent:

          > In general, mechanical interactions of microparticles and nanoparticles on biological membranes are vaguely studied, despite their importance for biological systems (29, 41). Hereby, we will demonstrate that these microplastics induce a mechanical stress of model cell membrane without the need of indirect assumptions about biological pathways (26, 27).

      • atombender 20 hours ago

        No, it can't. Cellulose is the main type of insoluble dietary fiber, and is in leafy vegetables, beans, peas, and many other foods. It's widely accepted as being good for digestion. Too much fiber can cause constipation and gas, but most people probably don't get enough fiber, so that's rarely a problem.

    • rcMgD2BwE72F a day ago

      And plastics are full of endocrine disruptors, which are pretty bad for human health too.

      • amanaplanacanal 6 hours ago

        My current theory is that long term plastic exposure is what is driving the obesity epidemic.

    • thayne a day ago

      > "Microsteel" is just elemental iron which is a necessary nutrient.

      Steel also contains carbon and if it is stainless steel it also has chromium and probably other metals.

      • SoftTalker a day ago

        The body does need trace amounts of chromium.

    • Zaskoda a day ago

      Elegant and pithy answer to a well asked question.

    • giantg2 a day ago

      We know that some plastics mimic hormones (eg estrogens), which can cause problems (eg estrogenic cancers).

    • llm_trw a day ago

      Wasn't asbestos non reactive?

  • JKCalhoun a day ago

    > How does that compare with ... plastic-lined paper cups .. cling wrap that covers our food as we heat ... the Tupperware and other plastic containers we heat our food up in ... bottled water that sits inside plastic for months ... plastic bowls and utensils we use in our kitchens ... disposable serrated plastic knife...

    For myself, I don't do any of the above (with the possible exception of the last one once in a while). I thought everyone knew those were a bad idea.

    I do drink tea using tea bags though — and had no reason to believe there was plastic involved.

    • semiquaver a day ago

        > and had no reason to believe there was plastic involved
      
      This is about certain tea bags which are recognizably plastic, e.g. the ones pictured in https://scitechdaily.com/warning-plastic-teabags-release-mic...
      • namuol a day ago

        The research specifically deals with cellulose bags which are often sealed with glues containing synthetic polymers.

        The picture from the study of the cellulose bags show a round “pillow” style bag which is likely sealed with a glue, unlike some cellulose bags which are folded and stapled:

        https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S00456535240263...

        From the article that summarized the study:

        > The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose. The study shows that, when brewing tea, polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers.

        So while polypropylene is the worst of the three by an order of magnitude, the cellulose pillow-style bag still leaches a large number of particles.

        Here’s the study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352...

        Notably, the authors tested OEM empty teabags for polypropylene and nylon, but chose a supermarket brand of cellulose pillow-style bags with tea still inside.

    • xattt a day ago

      This discussion is complicated by the loose (ha!) definition of tea bags. There’s about a million different tea bags. Some use denser paper, some are thin. Some are stapled, some are pressed. Some are stringed and some are not. Some are single-use cotton (which I learned about when a local tea brand stopped using them due to cost).

      Lipton makes a premium brand that uses a tetrahedral shaped micro-perforated plastic bag that very much could be shedding microplastics.

      It’s hard to have a discussion without a clear definition and terminology.

      • therealcamino a day ago

        The paper describes the three kinds of tea bags tested, and how the results differ between them.

    • phatfish a day ago

      Most teabags I use now don't split (some imported brands you have to be careful with), these are just regular looking ones not the fine mesh ones used by premium brands. I can jam them against the side of the cup to squeeze out liquid before removing the bag and they almost never split.

      I'd say these extra strong bags have become common in the last 15 years in the UK. How they are strengthened I'm not sure, but my parents compost most of their food waste and they reckon worms now push teabags to the top of the compost bin, when previously they would just disappear with everything else and never be seen again.

      • BillTthree a day ago

        LOL. Worms come up to eat food, go down and poop. Poop forces remaining food and wormpoop (compost) up to the top.

        They aren't pushing the teabags to the top, they're digging to defecate.

        • quesera 17 hours ago

          Worm activity pushes the teabags to the top of the compost bin.

          You said it yourself.

    • taeric 17 hours ago

      Do you never consume canned goods? Cans for soda are lined with a plastic. Same for vegetables.

      Never mind the clothes that you wear. Or the dishwasher that cleans the dishes.

      Plastics have grown to be basically everywhere. Precautions are good. Same for studies. And we may find alternatives. But a lot of the fear around them does feel excessive.

    • stevenwoo 21 hours ago

      There was a different study earlier this year on hacker news about the storage items - cling wrap and plastic containers, those materials all leach into food at different rates depending upon the temperature, acidity of food, and length of exposure contact - hotter and more acidic and longer means more leaching. It's non-zero but the danger level is anyone's guess at this point.

    • cogman10 a day ago

      Just FYI, you can buy stainless steel loose leaf tea infusers. They don't cost a lot ($6->$15) and loose leaf tea is shockingly cheap. Just get a nice airtight container and some moister absorbing packets and you'll have great tea for a while.

      I bought like 1lbs ~2 years ago for about $20 and still haven't worked all the way through it :D.

      • prophesi a day ago

        I will also say that loose leaf is an order of magnitude better tasting than bagged tea. The crush-tear-curl process of bagged tea will elicit a bitter brew from anything that isn't black tea, and lose a lot of its flavor. Not to mention they're likely using the leftover chaff from loose leaf production.

        I like to show friends a properly brewed Dragonwell green tea and a bug-bitten oolong to convert them to the loose leaf way.

        • cogman10 a day ago

          If you've not already gotten it, this is the next purchase I'd recommend [1]. Nothing better than instant hot water at the right temp :D. Doesn't take hardly any power to run either.

          [1] https://www.zojirushi.com/app/product/cvjac

          • Suppafly a day ago

            now you'll probably get some sort of micro-something coming from the non-stick coating inside that thing.

            • cogman10 a day ago

              The inside is silicon. Plumbing might be plastic, hard to tell.

  • seabass-labrax a day ago

    I've no idea why they chose teabags to study - one has to start somewhere, presumably - but I can answer the second question. The distinctive feature of plastics is the synthetic polymers that they contain, which classically feature bonds between oxygen atoms. These are extremely difficult for any organic process to break apart. Wood, however, can even be digested in small quantities, so 'microwood' will just break down into its constituent parts in the human body. The body can cope with metals and indeed has evolved to require a small amount, for instance in hemoglobin.

    We aren't fully aware of the implications of microplastics on health, but the main cause for concern is that we have no easy way of getting them out (either naturally or medically) in the event that they are harmful.

    • cogman10 a day ago

      > I've no idea why they chose teabags to study

      I think they are a pretty reasonable thing to study. Teabags are porous plastic subjected to high heat. So the question has to be "what happens when these plastic baggies get exposed to high levels of heat? Does that liberate some of the plastic into the drink?"

      Particularly worthy because tea is one of the most common beverages consumed.

  • protonbob a day ago

    We do know that microplastics may be reducing male fertility. I know there are others but I haven't done a ton of research [1]. Wood and stainless steel are different because we have evolved with these materials in our surroundings or at least something close to them. Also, wood, and even metals, do not have the staying power of plastic. We already do know that heavy metals are bad if they stick around in your body, but we do need metals in our diets as nutrients as well.

    It should be assumed that anything that we have invented in the last 200 years should be guilty until proven innocent at this point imo. So many of the "modern marvels" have shown to have horrible health effects.

    [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9134445/

    • woleium a day ago

      The dangers of sawdust (micro wood?) vary from species of tree to tree, but are generally well known and studied. in particular Manchineel and Yew are known to be dangerous.

      Wood in its natural state is not a safe substance. African Mahogany for example is highly toxic, causing dermatitis, respiratory issues, giddiness, vomiting, boils, asthma, headaches, and nosebleeds. Has also been linked to nasal cancer.

      https://www.mountainwoodworker.com/articles/toxic_woods.pdf

      • scns a day ago

        Wenge and Oak too.

    • dylan604 a day ago

      > We do know that microplastics may be reducing male fertility.

      If we "know" something, would we still be using the word "may"? Know seems pretty strong for such a wishywashy result of "may".

      There's definitely research in fertility rates lowering. Phtalates are receiving a lot of attention as well as an example.

      • protonbob a day ago

        I didn't say that we know that they are reducing male fertility, we know that it's very possible. I could have said it probably does. But I'm not a scientist so I'm not going to.

        • dylan604 a day ago

          We know it's very possible is a very wishywashy comment though.

          Best I can say is that there are theories, but we don't know if they are true or not yet. Some people think they are, some people disagree. That's why they are not facts.

          • pfdietz a day ago

            It means "we haven't ruled it out yet". And given the difficulty of conclusively demonstrating a negative, that's a very weak claim.

  • righthand a day ago

    If you microwave your consumables in plastic that is on you. Microwavable plastic is a marketing myth. Put your food on a plate or bowl and cover it with a wet paper towel.

    • burkaman a day ago

      It is absolutely not on you. In order to function as an adult you need to be able to have some level of trust in your family, your society, and your government (depending on where you live, I guess). That doesn't mean blindly believing everything you hear, but it does mean not having to do novel scientific research to confirm everything you were ever taught.

      The majority of people alive on Earth today grew up in a world where plastic packaging and containers were a common, completely accepted part of life. Research suggesting this is harmful is very new, and still not settled. You cannot blame anyone for not picking this random ubiquitous aspect of modern life and avoiding it because it might be bad for them. Home microwaves themselves are no older than home plastics - why do you trust them?

      • adrian_b a day ago

        It is likely that most people do not pay much attention to whatever chemistry they learn in school, but at least I would have never trusted any plastic object to be in contact with food inside a microwave oven, even decades ago, when I was much less careful about contact between plastic and food at room temperature.

        There has never been any reason to not trust microwaves themselves with food, because any undesirable effects caused by them cannot be worse than when heating food is done using traditional methods, at temperatures that are normally higher and much less controlled.

        On the other hand, anyone who has some idea about the components of any usual plastic can see that it is practically certain that at temperatures not much above room temperature some of the garbage fillers included in any plastic besides the base polymer will degrade and leak.

        There may be a few plastics that could really resist in a microwave oven without degradation, e.g. PEEK, but those are very expensive and they will never be used for a cheap article like a food container.

        Already since a few decades ago, since I have first used a microwave oven, I have never used anything else but glass vessels covered with glass lids and I have always been astonished whenever I have seen or heard somewhere that there exist people who have the courage to put food in microwave oven in plastic containers, even if their vendor has the guts to say that this should be safe.

        There is really no excuse for using plastic for heating food, as the only supposed advantage is being able to dump the plastic container without washing it, but the glass vessels used for heating food in a microwave oven are very easy to wash, much easier than washing vessels that have been used for traditional cooking or food heating.

        • burkaman a day ago

          What did you learn in high school chemistry that made you suspicious of plastic? I did pay attention and I don't think I remember us covering plastic at all.

          > On the other hand, anyone who has some idea about the components of any usual plastic can see that it is practically certain that at temperatures not much above room temperature some of the garbage fillers included in any plastic besides the base polymer will degrade and leak.

          How do you know this? Even as someone actively looking into this topic I'm not sure whether this is true. I'm not challenging you, I'm genuinely asking where to learn about this.

      • righthand a day ago

        They also grew up in a world that was skeptical of plastics and chose to ignore the skepticism because not being skeptical and blindly trusting your family, society, government is a fools errand. The exact issue is people promoting this “well I shouldn’t have to think/research” way of life. That’s just nonsense and the reason we’re here. It’s a cute dream but ignorance will just kill you.

        • burkaman a day ago

          I am open to being convinced otherwise, but I don't agree that there was any widespread skepticism of the health impacts of plastic until very recently, maybe the last 5 years. There has certainly been broad concern about plastic trash and environmental pollution for a long time, but that's a different topic.

          I stand by my claim that you and I should not have to research the health impacts of, for example, microwaves. We should have to think about it, but if you have a basic understanding of how they work and how to use them safely, and you listen to people who might tell you if there were an issue (friends, the news, the FDA, etc.), then that is enough. And when I say "how to use them safely", I don't mean doing your own experimentation to find the limits of the device. I mean being told not to put metal in it, maybe watching a video to see what happens if you do, and accepting that it's a bad idea and you won't do it. It is not possible for me to do a medical study on the impacts of eating microwaved food, but I have enough societal trust that I continue to use them anyway.

          • c0redump a day ago

            I guess it depends on what segment of society you exist in. I (born in the early 90s) was raised in a plastic-free lifestyle, and many of the people my family associates with are the same. We are staunch environmentalists though, so I guess my experience is not typical. So, I don’t know about “widespread”, but the current of thought has been present in the zeitgeist for decades.

            • burkaman a day ago

              Was that about health concerns, or pollution and environmental concerns? Obviously health and the environment are very related, but what I mean is that even the term "microplastic" didn't exist when you were born, and I thought the idea that consumption of or close contact with plastic could cause individual health problems was relatively new. Not that literally nobody had thought of it, but my impression is that pushback against plastic for most of its history was driven by giant piles of trash that don't biodegrade, turtles getting stuck in soda packaging, stuff like that.

          • righthand a day ago

            Plastic is made from oil, you’d have to be pretty ignorant to believe people never were skeptical of plastics and that skepticism wasn’t covered up by lobbying.

            • burkaman a day ago

              Yes of course, and lobbyists can be very effective. They covered up climate change and the harms of smoking too. I'm sure there are things that (almost) nobody knows today because of corporate cover-ups that we'll discover in 10 years. Climate change didn't enter the public consciousness until the late 80s, decades after the basic science was well-established, and it took more decades for it to become something that "everyone" knew about. That's the fault of corporations and lobbyists, not individuals that were too lazy to do their own climate modeling.

              It is obvious to me that smoking is bad for you, it feels like an intuitive fact that nobody should have to be taught, but that's because I grew up in a culture absolutely saturated with that idea, and I didn't know anyone that smoked. Somebody who grew up 70 years ago in the complete opposite culture can't be blamed for not knowing at the time that smoking causes lung cancer. How could they know? Nobody can follow cutting-edge research from every field on the planet and adjust their life accordingly. Even if you could it wouldn't help - cutting edge science is often contradictory and it takes time for a consensus and convincing body of evidence to build up. I'm sure both of us hold intuitively obvious beliefs that we'll realize are wrong in 20 years.

              What is the solution? It's not helpful to wait until after a coverup is exposed and then blame every individual who didn't somehow figure it out on their own. You also can't just believe the opposite of everything you've ever been told - you'll have the same problem. Some things that corporations produce are actually good for you, lobbyists are occasionally paid to promote something useful and true. Your parents were probably right about a lot of stuff they taught you. You can and should ask questions and learn as much as you can, but life is complicated, nobody can be deeply educated about every single thing they touch.

        • jajko a day ago

          No I didnt and I dont know anybody who did. Unless you count proper nutjobs seeing conspiracies everywhere and world controlled by nanochips etc.

          • righthand a day ago

            Yes you bought right into it. New thing? It must be fine! Framing skeptics as nutjobs is exactly what caused the ignorance.

            • ssl-3 a day ago

              A broken clock can be right twice per day, but that doesn't mean that it is ever useful.

              • righthand 16 hours ago

                Then expect to remain ignorant and continuously duped.

                • hex3 16 hours ago

                  [dead]

    • imglorp a day ago

      We have a set of reusable silicone lids. They can withstand high temperature on stove or microwave and just rinse off. Hopefully they aren't found to release anything.

      Instead of a paper towel, we throw food on a plate or bowl and drop a lid on it. This also works in the fridge; one less thing to wash and nothing disposed.

      • righthand a day ago

        You may be interested in Weck jars too that are made of glass for storage and are very affordable. They have glass lids.

        • bityard a day ago

          I'm sure they are good, but you and I have quite different levels of "very affordable." On Amazon, they seem to average around $10 each depending on size. Contrast with mason jars at a little more than $1 each at my local Menards plus a bit more for reusable lids or silicone gaskets.

          • folmar 18 hours ago

            Depends on where you live, in Europe if you get the generic branded (not "the" Weck brand) ones they are $2 for small and $3-4 for bigger ones.

    • hindsightbias a day ago

      What makes you think there isn't BPA in your paper towels?

      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21939283/

      • righthand a day ago

        Because I was skeptical of paper towels too and only buy ones without.

        It is also noteworthy that the paper towel doesn’t soak in the consumable when reheating like a tea bag does.

    • dboreham a day ago

      Isn't the wet paper towel and EM reflector? I use wax paper fwiw.

      • righthand a day ago

        It would reflect under the paper towel too then, therefor serving it’s purpose.

  • bowmessage a day ago

    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.

    • brookst a day ago

      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.

      • woleium a day ago

        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.

        • Suppafly a day ago

          >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.

          • woleium 18 hours ago

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

            • brookst 14 hours ago

              That seems like something research could look at.

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

      • rc_mob a day ago

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

      • JKCalhoun a day ago

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

    • Vegenoid a day ago

      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?

      • dylan604 a day ago

        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.

      • bowmessage a day ago

        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.

        • Suppafly a day ago

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

          Do you avoid restaurants and cafeterias completely?

    • __MatrixMan__ a day ago

      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...

      • acjohnson55 a day ago

        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.

        • skirmish a day ago

          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."

    • 0-_-0 a day ago

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

      • gaoshan a day ago

        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.

      • TeaBrain a day ago

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

      • bluejekyll a day ago

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

        They aren’t pure plastic.

        • amanaplanacanal 6 hours ago

          Those were three different bags, not all in one.

      • Suppafly a day ago

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

    • nycdatasci a day ago

      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.

    • bagels a day ago

      How do you cook food?

      • marliechiller a day ago

        Cast iron pots and pans

        • bagels a day ago

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

          • fhackenberger a day ago

            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.

      • bowmessage a day ago

        Also, glass Pyrex Tupperware.

  • stevebmark a day ago

    It is well established that heating plastic in a culinary context distributes significantly more microplastic into your food.

    Microplastics are also well established endocrine disrupters.

    Microplastics cross the blood brain barrier and may also permanently stay in your body.

    To what extent are these harmful? In what dose, over how much time? I don’t think that’s established. You could be cautionary, or wait for more science about how long it takes to reduce your fertility. It may also be inescapable, plastic is likely a permanent earth pollutant now, in your clothes, dust in the air, food, water, and most things in your home, including ones you abrasives use inside your body, like toothbrushes. Maybe only very high doses (like drinking tea from teabags once a day) have a detrimental health effect. Many compounds are lethal in high doses, and healthy, benign, or required for survival in low doses.

  • glenstein a day ago

    I absolutely agree that meaningful context would be helpful, but I don't see that as disqualifying. I appreciate that research is opportunistic, as often oriented toward discovery of new things not yet understood, as much about building up our factual understanding as interpretation.

    So sure, I want context, but I think this kind of exasperation is a bit misplaced, as I don't think the article or the research itself was intended to be a comprehensive account of the broader contexts you are looking for. If it was masquerading as such a thing, I would be in full agreement. So I think it's a fair point in general, but the way you are saying it here sounds an awful lot like you're holding up a stop sign and saying "don't do any more research!"

  • __MatrixMan__ a day ago

    I think it's pretty reasonable to expect a bag made of a fine mesh of plastic to yield more tiny broken off pieces than something like plastic container.

    Also once you put your mind to it it's actually pretty easy to avoid most of the things you mentioned. There are glass or metal alternatives to pretty much everything plastic. Maybe not for creating an airtight seal over something like leftovers, but I think it's reasonable to expect that the food can sit in glass and have a plastic roof and still be relatively free of microplastics.

    More research is needed it seems pretty plausible that plastics, like asbestos, are only a hazard when friable.

    • crazygringo a day ago

      > I think it's pretty reasonable to expect a bag made of a fine mesh of plastic to yield more tiny broken off pieces than something like plastic container.

      Is it? The mesh bag goes through basically zero abrasion at less than 100°C. It just sits there in the mostly still water.

      Meanwhile, the plastic container might be in contact with fatty food way over 100°C. It gets scraped by pointy utensils. It gets abraded by a cleaning pad. It gets scratched and cloudy. It gets used hundreds of times.

      I'd be guessing the plastic container sheds orders of magnitude more microplastics.

      • __MatrixMan__ 21 hours ago

        I'd be interested in seeing this measured. Probably it depends on how much abuse the plastic container receives. I don't think mine ever come in contact with something > 50°C, and the dish scraper I use isn't very pointy, but ymmv.

        The reason I'm sticking with the tea-bag as the greater contributor is that I expect that the likelihood of a given region of plastic detaching and being washed into food/drink is related to:

        - how closely the overall piece resembles a sphere and how large that sphere is (e.g. whiskers are likely to be knocked off, whereas the center of a sphere is unlikely to be dug out

        - whether it has ever gone through this kind of treatment before

        Sort of like how when eating a donut covered in powered sugar 95% of the mess happens within the first second of handling it.

  • ugh123 a day ago

    >First of all, what's with the focus on tea bags? >Second, how do "microplastics" compare to micro-everything else?

    Not sure I understand your criticism. I think choosing tea bags and microplastics in particular is a way to 'ground' a study and experiments into something practical, rather than something too broad, abstract, and/or un-relatable to consumers.

  • Reason077 a day ago

    > ”from the cling wrap that covers our food as we heat it in the microwave, from the Tupperware and other plastic containers we heat our food up in”

    You shouldn’t really be doing either of those things. Plastic tupperware will get damaged from heat if you use it in the microwave frequently, potentially contaminating your food.

    It’s best to transfer food to a heat-safe container (glass or ceramic) before microwaving. And definitely don’t use cling film in the microwave!

  • evrenesat a day ago

    I eat processed, ready-to-eat stuff at home, heavily use microwave for heating, but I don't do/use any of the things you mentioned. I generally prefer loose leaf tea, but sometimes tea bags are easier, so I only buy brands that use natural tea bags. It's possible to reduce exposure to pollutants if you're willing to sacrifice some convenience.

  • JoeAltmaier a day ago

    There is no evidence of harm. Your body continually rids itself of them. This is a lot of passion and angst over what may be nothing.

  • wyxz a day ago

    > First of all, what’s with the focus on tea bags?

    Well, lucky for you, there's an entire scientific study detailing why they chose to study it and the methodologies they used. You know, the one linked in the article. It states:

    > Among the different food containers releasing MNPLs, teabags stand out. Recent investigations have elucidated that teabags significantly contribute to the release of millions of MNPLs, adding to their daily ingestion by humans.

    And this is just a snippet! Much more detail and context available within! The wonders of original sources.

  • lkbm a day ago

    >First of all, what's with the focus on tea bags?

    According to the paper[0]:

    > Among the different food containers releasing MNPLs, teabags stand out. Recent investigations have elucidated that teabags significantly contribute to the release of millions of MNPLs, adding to their daily ingestion by humans (Banaei et al., 2023).

    The cited Banaei et al., 2023[1] says "At this point, special attention should be paid to the release of MNPLs from the herbal/teabags, since during the soaking and steering processes, some MNPLs inevitably detach and migrate to the water solution", citing [2]...which is retracted with this explanation: "2 of the reviews for this manuscript were fictitious. 2 reviews were submitted under the name of known scientists without their knowledge."

    So, yeah. Sometimes it's interesting to follow citation chains a few steps.

    [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352... [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...

  • sharpshadow a day ago

    One should avoid all the things which you mentioned and using a microwave at all.

    The context is a comparison between good old paper tea bags.

    • yreg a day ago

      > using a microwave at all

      Why?

    • hindsightbias a day ago
      • sharpshadow a day ago

        This study does not specifically mention paper tee bags. It mentions food contact paper but that’s something different.

        In Germany paper tea bags are made out of natural fiber without glue.

        But I would really like to know if this paper tea bags also release hefty amounts of microplastics, if somebody has a study please link. That those plastic tea bags are microplastic hell should have been obvious from the start. The first time I saw them until forever I will avoid them.

  • tonygiorgio a day ago

    Agreed. While some people are nit picking the comment here as “well don’t do any of those things,” it still doesn’t quantify the danger.

    Recently read from “Made to Stick”: “Don’t just say popcorn has 40g of trans fats. Everyone knows trans fats are bad, but how bad is bad? Say popcorn has more trans fats in one serving than a whole day of greasy junk food”

  • vasco a day ago

    I mean, why not? I get your point but before wide encompassing studies and meta studies, a lot of things will be looked at because we can look at them. It's like asking why investigate dolphin language instead of all animal communication.

  • 14 a day ago

    If one had to study the entirety of a subject it would be impossible to do so in many cases. It is entirely reasonable for a researcher to pick one piece of the puzzle and study that. No it does not give the entire picture but it may help us understand the greater picture.

    Lastly if this was anywhere else besides HN there is a microwood entering you joke to be made.

  • mandmandam a day ago

    These are all questions that are pretty easy to answer these days; perfectly appropriate for asking to an LLM or search engine.

    Long story shot - yes, this is a major problem. Yes, you're getting it from bottled water and plastic utensils and plastic lined cups. No, it's not like microwood.

    This shit is being found in every organ of our bodies from our sex organs to our brains. It's found in most wild animal samples, it's found in rain, it's found on Everest's peak and in the Mariana Trench. And every indication is that it's getting rapidly worse, scaling up with our ever-increasing plastic production.

    And there are perfectly good alternatives for the vast majority of this use, but the costs are a bit higher (since they're not being externalized onto the planet and our organs as much).

  • jasonlotito a day ago

    From the study linked in the article: "Overall, our findings contribute to a growing body of evidence on the pervasive nature of plastic pollution and its potential implications for human health. As the usage of plastics in food packaging continues to rise, scientific research and policymaking must address the challenges posed by MNPL contamination to ensure food safety and consumer well-being."

    > I find it impossible to put this into any kind of meaningful context.

    So? Your inability to find meaningful context in something is not important. Who are you and why should this article or study cater to you? Are you in the business of doing research on this topic? Or are you just an HN commenter?

    Your ignorance is not a sign of anything other than you being ignorant, and your inability to do something is just that: lack of skill.

    > First of all, what's with the focus on tea bags?

    Because you can't just assume. You test. That's science. Just assuming (your suggestion) is anti-science. And something we should NOT base our science off of.

    > Second, how do "microplastics" compare to micro-everything else?

    That's not what this study is trying to determine. It set out to determine how much microplastics came from tea bags. Why increase the scope. Other people are studying that.

    You really don't seem like someone who understands how this works. You don't put the puzzle together all at once, you put it together one piece at a time.

    • wyxz a day ago

      I find it quite ironic how many people on HN have a superiority complex to sites like Reddit, yet suffer the same pitfalls. Not reading the source material and going off of headlines or snippets.

      Asking for “context” and “why did they study this” is quite interesting, considering the scientific study whose entire purpose is to introduce this context is directly linked within the article.

    • therealcamino a day ago

      Exactly. This is a study about the exposure and absorption parts of the equation. The science is ongoing. People who can't deal with anything less than total certainty don't understand the process.

  • brokegrammer a day ago

    [flagged]

    • xandrius a day ago

      Just for your information, the attitude in this comment makes it hard to actually engage it in a serious conversation. It does have "conspiracy uncle" vibes and so people might avoid replying.

      Maybe that's your goal all along but if not, try to reread your comments before posting them, as they might not reflect how you actually want to come across with others.

      • brokegrammer a day ago

        What did you find offensive about my comment?

        • icanhelp 21 hours ago

          The fact that you believe conspiracies are real, of course. Duh. Every Smart Person knows that powerful people never conspire. Also the definition of 'conspiracy' given in Black's Law Dictionary is a fiction; there is no such thing as conspiracies. At all.

          /s

jakub_g a day ago

Talking tea bags, this is a rabbit hole as a few sibling commenters pointed out already:

- most tea bags contain plastic themselves

- pretty much every bakery / small coffee place place serves tea in paper cups lined up with plastic, it's very difficult to get a tea in a proper ceramic cup those days

- waters heaters often have plastic lids

- pretty much every insulated thermos also has at least a plastic cover

For the last one, a friend has recently found some plastic-free thermos: https://www.kleankanteen.com/collections/plastic-free

Please share if you know others.

  • xandrius a day ago

    I think for most places in the world, tea is an activity done at home with own cups/glasses.

    Or at least, say in China/Taiwan, the heated tea gets made cold in steel containers and then served cold in plastic cups (e.g. For milk tea) else all is ceramic.

    The main point is that even who doesn't go to buy a tea elsewhere get in contact with microplastic. So, now many people might have to switch to loose leaf to avoid getting another source of microplastics in their daily lives.

    • jajko a day ago

      Loose leaves are more inconvenient compared to tea bags. All else equal dont expect major adoption just for yet another health scare. People in general are lazy.

      • xandrius 21 hours ago

        Not really interested in what others do with themselves, lifestyle is a personal choice. Although things like these, if found to have an impact, should be out of reach from the general public.

        I find it interesting how for many (except for things like MSG and fats) previously thought "health scares", especially regarding plastic and the likes, have been found to be detrimental to our health and still people sneer at these initial studies. Given that, I'd personally rather err on the side of caution, especially when the change is so minute to be frivolous.

        If someone told to stop eating, say, pizza then that would be a whole other story. But not using plastic with hot food/beverages? Not a big deal for me.

    • warkdarrior a day ago

      > So, now many people might have to switch to loose leaf to avoid getting another source of microplastics in their daily lives.

      Doesn't this study show that cellulose releases microplastics as well? I assume tea leaves have cellulose in them, so best to avoid tea altogether.

      • skirmish a day ago

        If you are afraid of cellulose then you should stop eating any vegetables and fruits. They contain large amounts of cellulose also called "dietary fiber", which USDA says you need large amounts of: about 30 grams per day.

  • highfrequency a day ago

    Doesn’t the first product (bamboo topped lid) have a rubber ring to seal it?

nikolayasdf123 a day ago

other big overlooked area — paper cups are covered inside with hydrophobic film that is made of plastic, and given extra hot water makes plasticisers get off substance, chances are all those paper cups are releasing lots of microplastics into hot water. ask for mugs folks.

  • julianeon a day ago

    The alternative for me isn't to ask for a mug, it's an argument for skipping all that and making it at home.

    • JKCalhoun a day ago

      Yeah, coffee served in a paper cup even tastes like jank. When I can make coffee at home that is better than the cafes — why drink out?

  • saas_sam a day ago

    Just make sure the mugs weren't washed with Jet Dry...

    Avoiding toxic and questionable substances really does get exhausting after awhile. It's everywhere. I'm able to draw a reasonable line (for me) without getting too nuts about it. Hoping AI ends up helping with this.

    • gosub100 a day ago

      what would AI do that human intelligence couldn't? Is it not a linear cause-and-effect relationship? more plastics cause more illness? (yes | no). If plastics are toxic, wouldn't we see for ourselves (thus NOT requiring AI) a proportionate increase in sickness in samples (people or animals) with higher plastic in their bodies? Why is the message more profound if AI tells you versus a human team of college researchers?

      • saas_sam 5 hours ago

        "What would seeing information on a computer screen do for you that a book couldn't?"

        Reducing friction of access to information, friend. That's what. Taking a label in a supermarket and immediately seeing what's good and bad about it. Increasing competitive pressure on companies who still use toxic ingredients. I could go on here but it seems like you just take issue with "AI" as a concept because it is trivial to come up with many ways in which AI would help here.

        • gosub100 an hour ago

          if humans cant figure out a causal link between microplastics and health issues, they shouldn't be working in that field. they already publish enough false information as-is, for those sweet juicy government "research" bucks. Last thing we need is a legion of retarded AI parrots saying "MuH AI aLgO sAiD sO!!!" without having the slightest clue what they are talking about.

      • relaxing a day ago

        > If plastics are toxic, wouldn't we see for ourselves (thus NOT requiring AI) a proportionate increase in sickness in samples (people or animals) with higher plastic in their bodies?

        Yeah man I notice microplastics in tissue samples from my sick friends all the time. Haven’t you?

  • double0jimb0 a day ago

    Or are they coated with wax/parafin?

    • pavon a day ago

      Growing up, paper cups were all coated in wax, but I can't remember the last time I'd seen one coated in wax in the US, it's been at least a decade. Back then I remember being cautioned against using paper cups for hot drinks as it would melt the parafin (which wasn't great to drink) and then the paper would get soggy. Hot drinks to go were mostly served in styrofoam back then, while they are mostly plastic coated paper now. So that was probably a small step forward, although reusable ceramic or metal is better than either.

    • JKCalhoun a day ago

      I remember encountering those — meant for cold beverages. When you hit them with hot water a kind of wax film floats to the top.

  • DoneWithAllThat a day ago

    “Chances are” is not science, it’s just obsessing over the current Scary Thing. You’re just making things up.

    • HPsquared a day ago

      Your own comment is also not science. Scientific results (particular testing conditions and results) need to be interpreted and actions decided on in the real world. Policy is not science either.

    • nikolayasdf123 a day ago

      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03043...

      > Several studies in the past have shown that harmful chemicals and substances can leach from paper and paperboard-based food packaging into the food meant for human consumption (Choi et al., 2002, Hansen et al., 2013, Schaider et al., 2017, Trier et al., 2011, Trier et al., 2018, Deshwal et al., 2019, Vandermarken et al., 2019).

      https://youtu.be/i5611OvTFGM?feature=shared&t=5289

      > "BPA, phthalates, plasticisers etc. are not chemically bound to substance they added too, and under heat they come out [...] you don't want to mix these with your food, but the worst thing to do is to put it in the heated environment" — Dr. Shanna Swan, Ph.D

hyperific a day ago

To all those who are asking "Why teabags?", it's in the introduction section of the study.

> Among the different food containers releasing MNPLs, teabags stand out. Recent investigations have elucidated that teabags significantly contribute to the release of millions of MNPLs, adding to their daily ingestion by humans (Banaei et al., 2023).

malfist a day ago

At this point the question might be, what doesn't release micro plastics.

I don't use tea bags, all my tea is loose leaf, but I'm sure it's still got micro plastics somewhere in it

  • mrspuratic a day ago

    If you home-compost you get used to finding tea bag skeletons in the compost. For years I used to rip open the used tea bag, compost the tea and discard the bag.

    In the last few years the largest two brands here (Ireland: Lyons and Barrys) have gone somewhere between "plastic free" and "biodegradable" (but not home-compostable). 95% of tea is sold in the form of tea bags here. https://livinglightlyinireland.com/2021/02/12/plastic-free-t... (article is from 2021, I think the title is suffering from a Wordpress date placholder)

    • kjkjadksj a day ago

      I throw the whole teabag, rope and all, into the compost and the mealworms make it into incomprehensible brown slush along with the rest of the pile in a few days. It’s always way more productive using insects in the compost.

    • selimthegrim a day ago

      Thanks for this; have been buying Barry’s lately in US

  • seniortaco a day ago

    Watch out who you shake hands with, you might absorb micro plastics from them if they use a lot of Tupperware.

timthelion a day ago

Is celulose a 'microplastic' though? Obviosly most tea bags are not made of plastic, at least historically...

  • mandmandam a day ago

    These days many tea bags use polymers in their glue; and I don't think this article implied anywhere that cellulose is microplastic:

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

  • LegitShady a day ago

    cellulose on its own is not a plastic but they make bioplastics out of cellulose that are plastics.

acidburnNSA a day ago

What materials do different brands of tea make their tea bags out of, I wonder?

NooneAtAll3 a day ago

fascinating how one piece of bad journalism disqualifies whole research - we already have 2 comments (and I was about to post the 3rd) here about "why cellulose is in the list of microplastics?"

in my case I opened the news story with a question "what microplastics even are there in a paper bag??", then saw the sentence "The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose."

  • amanaplanacanal 5 hours ago

    I think it's just worded badly. They were testing three different bags.

apt-apt-apt-apt 15 hours ago

One day, I happened to watch a Starbucks worker make my iced Americano.

Imagine my surprise after a decade of feeling safe from microplastics by ordering iced, when they dripped 93C coffee straight into the venti plastic cup. Ice and water were then added, resulting in the perfect crime– an ice cold drink with no sign that it was made with hot water in disposable plastic.

Suffice it to say, my trust in corporations regarding our health is not high anymore. When ordering, I now ask for water before espresso.

keepamovin a day ago

I can taste and feel the chemicals in tea bags, so I always wash the bags with cold water, then a first draw of boiling water, then I fill it up. Feels much cleaner.

When dealing with our highly processed factory food products that come to you direct from a factory, a first wash with clean water is usually a good bet.

ok654321 15 hours ago

Use glassware, a metal filter, and loose tea leaves / herbs, "issue" solved. I don't get the affinity of people to ready-made tea in bags anyway; to me, that's not tea but "industrial dust"...

Oh, and you'll not need to put tea in "boiling water", 60-80°C are suitable.

blueflow a day ago

> The paper is published in the journal Chemosphere.

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494733

> The publisher of a high-profile, now-corrected study on black plastics has been removed from a critical index of academic journals after failing to meet quality criteria, according to a report by Retraction Watch.

>On December 16, Clarivate—a scholarly publication analytics company—removed the journal Chemosphere from its platform, the Web of Science, which is a key index for academic journals.

leobg a day ago

Curiously, it seems the best way to reduce (though not avoid) micro plastic exposure from tea bags is to switch from cellulose tea bags to plastic ones – nylon:

> polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers.

  • amanaplanacanal 5 hours ago

    I'll take the micro cellulose particles. I already get cellulose in my food and I know my gut bacteria can digest small quantities.

  • vinckr a day ago

    or use a small metal or ceramic bowl to hold the tea -> zero plastic involved.

  • marcosdumay a day ago

    The nylon strength and stability making for counterintuitive trade-offs yet again. It's a ridiculously underrated material. (Does it fare worse or better if reused? I don't have a clue, but there are reusable nylon bags.)

    Anyway, particle size probably matters, and I'm not sure it wins on that count.

    Also anyway, you can get a steel tea holder, so the best way is to completely avoid plastics here. You can also probably get your leaves much cheaper in 200g or 1kg bags.

    • leobg a day ago

      Sure. I use whole leaf, brew it in a glass cup, and pass it through a stainless steel sieve. Bags seem wasteful on so many levels.

  • mandmandam a day ago

    Well, no, because those measurements are per ml. A nylon bag uses many more mls than a paper bag using plastic glue.

nycdatasci a day ago

In this study, they placed 300 tea bags in 1 liter of near-boiling water. For those asking "why tea bags?" they're widely used and easy to research. Putting 300 tea bags into a container is much easier than sequentially microwaving a liter of water in 300 different plastic containers to measure the impact of microwaving food in plastic.

Beijinger a day ago

I don't know about tea bags, but guys, do yourself, your health and your finances a favor and buy this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DF1ZHXPG

It works surprisingly well, the coffee tastes better and it is not messy.

  • ysleepy a day ago

    I just use a French Press.

    • bdcravens a day ago

      We did for years, and even have a pretty cool one with dual filtration that prevented almost all grit. (the Espro) However, I didn't enjoy the wasted coffee and cleanup, and found that using refillable pods used less coffee and mess for the same product.

      • ysleepy a day ago

        The annoying cleanup and wasted coffee seems specific to the espro. Cleaning a normal one is really quick and I don't mind the remainder of fines as they quickly settle at the bottom of the cup.

  • bdcravens a day ago

    We've used refillable pods for years now.

    • Beijinger a day ago

      Yeah. Same shit with water. https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2024/1/10/stu...

      Currently, I buy Pellegrino at Costco. But probably I just should get a sodastream with a glass bottle and filter my tap water.

      Shipping water from Italy. Fucking insane. Maybe I should open my own bottling company with glass bottles.

      • ssl-3 a day ago

        I filter my tap water because the water where I live tastes like mud sometimes. (No, I'm not making that up. And yeah, they've been working on it.)

        I use an inexpensive carbon block filter that sits on my countertop and connects to the faucet with a little diverter valve. It works OK at reducing the taste issue here.

        But I'm in no way under the impression that doing so somehow reduces the water's exposure to plastics. The pipes in the house are plastic. The pipes under the street, if recent, are plastic. The filters themselves are plastic.

        I could get fancy and put in a nice reverse osmosis system, but that's just layers of differently-shaped plastic.

        For me, the solution is to simply not worry about the things I cannot change.

        (Although I guess I could go off the deep end and built a still... But sheesh.)

        • Beijinger 20 hours ago

          The carbon filter should get rid of microplastics.

          What is your setup? Can you post Amazon links?

          • ssl-3 18 hours ago

            Eh? It's a carbon filter wrapped in plastic mesh, and the carbon part itself is a block that is bound together with plastics. :)

            But if you want one, it is an iSpring CKC1C. Sets up quick, takes generic/COTS replacement filters.

            (I used to use a Pur filter on the faucet and that also worked well, but it was filtering a lot of stuff that isn't an issue with my tap water, and the razor blade business model of vendor lock-in was more expensive to support than I preferred.)

      • bdcravens 18 hours ago

        We do filter all of our water our coffee maker uses through a Zero Water Filter, which supposedly removes a significant amount.

  • cbdhsjshs a day ago

    Cafelat Robot

    Nothing but metal and silicone.

righthand a day ago

There are tons of companies that have tea bags made out of biodegradable materials such as tree bark. Or if you don’t have access, consider a metal steeper and loose tea. Unbelievable the stuff people just shove in their gullet with no inspection.

  • mmh0000 a day ago

    To be fair, if you live in a developed country, you have organizations like the FDA which "should" be vetting the "food" on store shelves as "safe".

    Now whether or not they actually do a good job at that task is a different question.

    It's unfortunate that you'd expect millions of people to individually "do research" (i.e. consult their crystal-stroking astrologist nutjob friend on Facebook). There is no reasonable way for individuals to make informed decisions regarding each individual item they may eat.

    The Good Place has a great little clip about just the difficulty of buying a tomato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8m_5HDZF7w

    • righthand a day ago

      I don’t expect millions of people to do research, I expect people to look at the thing in front of them and think, “wait what is this made of? It looks like plastic, maybe I should be skeptical.”

      However if the country is going to be based on lobbying efforts you better damn well be able to do a little research.

      There is a reasonable way to make informed decisions. It starts with skepticism and not just shoving food into your face because it’s popular.

      • cbdhsjshs a day ago

        Why should the average consumer be concerned about plastic? Plastic food packaging has been the norm my whole life.

        You're asking a consumer to do what a regulatory institution should do.

        • righthand a day ago

          A regulatory institution that’s constantly politicized and lobbied for corporations to have profits maximized will do the right thing. You are asking to be treated like cattle at that point.

          • cbdhsjshs a day ago

            You're expecting cattle not to act like cattle.

            We all are cattle to institutions. Maybe you're someone that fact-checks the FDA's science, but do you also fact-check the Dept of Ed's pedagogy, or the federal reserve's fiscal policy?

            We need strong institutions that act in the interests of the average citizen. You're right that we don't have that now, but fixing broken institutions is more realistic than everyone becoming genius polymaths with infinite free time for research.

            • righthand 21 hours ago

              I’m just suggesting ways for people to help themselves. All this “but the government should do it for me” talk while ideal isn’t something that can be accomplished today. Furthermore a consumer reports subscription is very valuable to bridge the gap and they’re entirely donation based publication (and impressively thick with information). HN readers may be interested in this article on microplastics in General Mills products:

              https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the...

      • wumeow 13 hours ago

        > I expect people to look at the thing in front of them and think, “wait what is this made of? It looks like plastic, maybe I should be skeptical.”

        They’ve done that in this case, and have reasonably concluded that the tea bags are made of paper and are therefore safe. Fuck them for being wrong I guess?

      • jajko a day ago

        Good luck meeting that expectation with people doing their weekly grocwries.

        Dreamy looks in the distance while difficult questions are being answered, precise estimations based on looks and tons of furious googling happening among the isles for each of the 113 items bought that day. And then realizing 109 of those are somehow interacting with plastics anyway, and there is nothing better in the shop.

        People have too much on their plate to grind their lives to halt for 1 out of too many worries just for groceries.

        • righthand a day ago

          Yes it’s tragic but that’s the world you’re asking for, people not to have to think because it’s hard. You’re validating that with some ridiculous scenario. Let’s simplify it: is the consumable touching plastic? It’s got plastic in or on it. Is it processed food? It’s got plastic in or on it.

          If you want to take the approach where you buy a bunch of stuff and then sit down for hours auditing everything you spent money on, then that’s on you. Consider that if the issue is so extensive you can do the analysis piecemeal if paranoia of it all causes you to be exhausted.

          Or don’t wait for reports like this and a politicized regulatory agency in the age of hysteria to make the decisions for you.

  • frankus a day ago

    If you buy tea from Starbucks in North America you're getting a nylon teabag. Maybe I should be more paranoid about microplastics but I avoid them because I can't just toss them in the compost like I can with paper- or silk-based ones.

AwaAwa a day ago

Cellulose is microplastic? I wonder what paper straws shed?

  • kccqzy a day ago

    Cellulose is supposed to be dietary fiber. For which there is a recommended daily intake amount.

bithead 20 hours ago

>A study by the Mutagenesis Group of the UAB Department of Genetics

If I drink this tea will I gain latent mutant powers?

javier_e06 a day ago

One solution is cut the bags with scissors and use the leaves. I remember those metal pods with a chain. Before tea bags became a thing.

raffraffraff 21 hours ago

I must be damn near made out of micro plastics by now. I shouldn't stand close to the fire.

darrensharm a day ago

That's why most tea bags in Germany are made from starch. Land of high tech engineering, I guess.

  • leobg a day ago

    It’s just one of those areas where we weren’t quite fast enough to catch up with the U.S. in copying their mistakes. Though I think it is true that the tea bag used to be a German idea.

giantg2 a day ago

I switched to tea balls simply because I could taste the bags. I guess this is an added bonus.

bruce343434 a day ago

Why don't people just use stainless steel tea eggs??

solnyshok a day ago

hopefully, they did find some traces of tea in those tea-bags

slowmovintarget 21 hours ago

This is why we switched back to loose leaf tea + high quality porcelain (Chinese porcelain has too much lead in it) + stainless steel strainers. When you do this, all of sudden the quality of the tea makes a huge difference. You learn what "second flush Assam" means, for example.

jaequery 20 hours ago

damn, i've been drinking bagged green tea 3x a day ...

29athrowaway 16 hours ago

Just get a tea infuser, open the bag and put it in the infuser.

canadiantim a day ago

Not surprising. I’ve always assumed this was the case.

api a day ago

This is probably the lead of the 21st century, something all over that we have kind of known is bad but haven’t paid attention to. Add endocrine disruptors along with microplastics since the origin is similar.

In 50 years there will probably be a lot less plastic used in contact with food, and what is used will be formulated differently. It will be similar to the gradual removal of lead from everything.

  • ahartmetz a day ago

    So we know that microplastics are everywhere. The thing that doesn't really seem clear yet is whether microplastics are actually harmful. Polyethylene, for example, seems quite harmless. (There are also generally harmless substances that become harmful in the right shape, e.g. quartz as fine dust or fibers)

  • jjtheblunt a day ago

    Maybe in the "western world", but look up asbestos use and mining and export in brazil, china, russia and you may be horrified.

  • gen220 a day ago

    Yeah and similar to lead (and asbestos as someone else mentioned), once you see it you can't really un-see it.

    The idea of re-heating food by microwave in a plastic storage container, or purchasing anything acidic or liquid from the grocery store that's stored in a plastic or plastic-lined container elicits a similar feeling in my brain to sleeping under popcorn ceilings or drinking water from a house with lead pipe plumbing.

    Yet, in the U.S. at leaste, people have been doing this literally for decades without thinking twice :/

  • toss1 a day ago

    Yup. Seems like a great idea at the time, until it is both such a great idea that it becomes ubiquitous and we start looking at it more closely.

    Kind of a proverbial 'boiling the frog' problem. A little bit of handling lead pipes or pumping leaded gasoline or inhaling or ingesting microplastics won't do anything. But when modern life gets so we're all bathing in the stuff all the time, the big problems are revealed.

formvoltron 20 hours ago

when i try to warn friends about this they think i'm just a complete screwball.

exabrial a day ago

Absolute garbage study. Leave this on reddit and tiktok.