this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 66 points 8 months ago (17 children)

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

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

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

Oh, man.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Plastic is like lead, there shouldnt be any in our systems

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

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

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