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What isn't releasing billions of microplastic particles? We're fucked.
When someone is getting laid and he drops a load in her, he’s probably injecting microplastics.
Just a thought for next time you are in bed with someone.
And if you don't- the condom? Also releasing microplastics. That glass of water you have afterwards because you're all hot and sweaty and thirsty? Also full of microplastics.
As long as you're using latex/nitrile condoms you should be good as latex and nitrile aren't plastics. Some of the alternatives for people with latex allergies can have plastic in them though.
Smell that sheepskin condom?
You just inhaled plastics.
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My tinfoil hat theory is that we're going to find out that toothbrushes are a major source of them
Oh they are.
Vegans hate this one trick to avoid microplastics from toothbrushes; horsehair toothbrush.
Also, you guys rinse your mouths, right?
Rinse your mouth? No thank you, I swallow it all! I paid for that toothpaste and I'm getting my money's worth.
Not even micro. There is a nonzero chance you've ingested the bristles at some point
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This warning only applies to the pyramid tea bags and not the paper sachet.
It did list cellulose bags as one source, however I don't quite understand how. Additive to strengthen the material?
Plastic coating to make the bag more resistant to heat.
Oh my god. I think I'll just go back to my teapot.
Cellulose isn't plastic though, it's the sugar that makes up plant cell walls, like wood. Cotton fibers are 90% cellulose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose
I'm confused why they included cellulose without clarifying that it's not a petrochemical, unless cellulose micro and nano particles are also an issue now. Maybe I should read the original study...
What I meant to say is that the cellulose is coated with plastic. I learned this from another post in the same thread.
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They close the bags with a dot of plastic based glue so it doesn't open
The square with crimped edges bags have plastic in the paper so that the edges will fuse closed.
Consumers are advised to ...
Consumers are advised to check whether tea bags in their region are even made of these materials.
Edit: Also, "billions"? The cookie warning is borked on the foodandwine.com article so I can't read it but: https://www.dpa-international.com/trends-and-features/urn:newsml:dpa.com:20090101:250109-99-540705/ "Tea bags releasing 'millions' of microplastics into tea, study shows" - where does that difference come from?
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No it doesn’t. This study is unscientific garbage and should be retracted.
Their “simulation” of making tea involved 300 teabags boiled in 600ml of water at 95 C while being stirred at 750rpm for an unspecified amount of time. They then took counts using undiluted samples of that liquid.
It isn’t clear why they chose such an absurd methodology, but it is absolutely spurious to draw conclusions from this about teabags used under normal conditions.
I've worked in a lab before. You would do it this way for a bunch of reasons.
First it's more reliable to measure something if there's a lot than a little. The effects of your measurement uncertainties and your error professional goes down. So better to measure 300 teabags than just 1 if you can find out the same thing from doing it that way.
As others have said, 95 deg C is hot, but it is well short of a boil.
The magnetic stir bar doesn't blend the water, it just moves it around into a swirl, even at 750 rpm because it's small.
If the ideal study would be to steep 1000 teabags in teacups with just-boiled water and measure the micro plastics to see how much is released on average, I can see why they did it this way instead when their focus was on what type of plastic is released vs exactly how much. I'm not sure the food and wine journalist did a great job walking the reader through this though.
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.
I mean nothing about the methodology is even close to representing normal tea brewing behavior.
For starters, a typical cup of tea is around 300-350ml, not 2ml and certainly not 1, so the low end is already down to 23,371 particles even before accounting for the brewing technique.
Secondly, nobody holds their tea at an active boil while stirring it at 750 rpm. That’s virtually blending it. There isn’t a meaningful way to compare that to typical tea brewing behavior but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it produced 10,000x more particles.
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You can't draw any real world conclusions from this methodology.
Apples are safe to eat even though the seeds contain arsenic. Take a bunch of seeds and put them in a blender and test it. That test will show them being toxic.
I would like to see a methodology that is closer to real world use. No way to know if it's a real problem.
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So can I still have my tea or what? I’m inclined to trusting you over some barcelonians
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No it's not, because I use a stainless steel capsule and loose leaf tea, which is superior in every way (even if microplastics weren't an issue).
If you don't make your tea like this, do yourself a favor and upgrade to some quality loose leaf!
Edit: lol, I love that this is getting downvotes. Are there disposable teabag enthusiasts out there?
Your tea bag...
No, it's not, because I use something other than tea bags.
That's you. That's what you wrote.
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How many micro plastics are released when I cry?
Has anyone checked how much particles I produce when I wash my fleece jacket.
Get yourself a Guppy friend 🙂
Certainly not an expert in the field here, but I'm not sure there's much environmental benefit from laundry bags of that sort, given the collected microplastics optimistically end up - Germany excluded - collated in your local landfill.
Guppyfriend even recommends sealing them in a container for disposal to ensure they don't blow around during waste collection and transport. This assumes of course that you can successfully transfer microplastic fibres from a large bag into a small container without spillage, but that's a matter separate from my conjecture.
Guppyfriend's FAQ
While I don't think any particular company that makes similar bags is purposefully guilty of this, the marketing strategy used to promote these as environmentally responsible products just smells like greenwashing to me.
The ones I've had are also made of synthetic materials, and so eventually break down and begin releasing their own fibres.
Frankly, the true environmental benefit I see is something I've never seen advertised: I can wash groups clothes I want kept from intermingling in the same load and therefore run the machine half as often.
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No!
biodegradable tea bags
You want "compostable" or better, "home compostable". Biodegradable is a word that is completely twisted, and items that include plastics will use that word no matter how untruthful it is to the spirit of the meaning.
Even a lot of the stuff labeled as "compostable" doesn't really compost under real life conditions, if you want to avoid this (and make better tea) just use loose leaf and a reusable metal pods or pour it through a fine mesh strainer. No microplastic bullshit and it just tastes better than the stale bagged shit.
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OMG. That's a good way to start the new year. Now my daily tea is going to be filled with guilt and worry.
Just buy paper tea bags or loose leaf tea. The article is talking about those stupid nylon “pyramid” tea bags.
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You can switch to loose leaf. I thought loose leaf sucked because the tea bits always got in it. Then I found a metal filter that has like, 180nm holes in it. Extremely fine mesh.
I use it more than paper tea bags now!
This is why I simply tear open the tea bags and dump them into a fine mesh stainless steel basket and set it in the cup.
I have yet to find loose leaf tea tasty enough to repeat buy but I do have 3-4 flavors of bagged tea I always keep stocked.
The biggest downside to doing my favorite bagged teas this way is it’s a pain to clean out the metal basket when I just want another cup the next day, but to me the trade off on sidestepping the microplastic issue is worthwhile
I think the new eu bottle caps as well(even when using milk cartons) becuse when you open it they usually have a piece sticking out on the cap that catches on the threads to keep it open, and sometimes i see small plastic pieces flying everywhere when i open one of them. Presumably the plastic catch is breaking pieces of the thread off.
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Cool, now do coffee pods.
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this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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