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Toothbrush. In one hand it scrubs food and gunk away and helps distribute fluoride toothpaste around. On the other it’s made of tiny plastic bristles that are probably disintegrating when in your mouth and growing a fun ecosystem when out of it.
Ever since I heard of microplastic, this has been on my mind quite a bit. Although it might not be "ingested" if they are micro enough, it can probably still get absorbed every time you brush. Multiple that by every day of your life and, boom, now there's plastic in my balls and I'm 3D printing on my girl's face.
boom, now there's plastic in my balls and I'm 3D printing on my girl's face.
I’m stealing it
This is a clever answer and now I completely agree with you.
the number of things growing on your toothbrush is definitely non zero but being frequently scrubbed in sodium fluoride probably inhibits a good portion of it\
related though, electronic toothbrushes are way, way better in terms of tooth care, and my understanding the last time I read through marketing bullshit a few years ago was that the rotational/mechanical ones were better than the ones that just vibrate i.e. Oral B vs Sonicare, but the fucking Oral B toothbrush heads have fucking exposed bits of the mechanism, like, there's these holes in it, so like, guess what? mold grows in there
I don't understand how that isn't like, you know, a massive design flaw that should be changed immediately, but I guess they want people to swap toothbrushes more often than mold would grow, idk
I bought a uv tooth brush sterilizer. Not sure if it's doing anything useful but it's a colourful addition to the bathroom.
UV is good at breaking down plastics ….
I work in hazardous materials handling and safety, and I studied chemistry. I've done a lot of soil remediation and I'm pretty up to date on how we (Europeans) handle the safety of our air, food and water.
So, good news: your air hasn't been cleaner since basically we started burning coal. Your drinking water hasn't been this safe since, oh, pre-agrarian times. Your food is probably less nutritious per gram thanks to faster growing food, but your diet is (potentially) better than any human has ever had (depending on your personal choices).
That said, there are some things I avoid like the plague:
Swimming in open water. It's (potentially) full of parasites, toxic algae, human and cattle feces and chemical runoff. Probably not all at once, but still. YMMV if you don't live near the sea, mountain streams are much cleaner then those at the river delta.
Home grown food from urban gardens. Your soil is probably completely untested, and the idea of "maybe I shouldn't just pour chemical waste out of the window" is barely 4 decades old. And that's counting the dubious quality of planter soil that is basically unregulated, and what people use as decoration. (Do NOT use wooden railroad ties or tires as planters for food). And of course what people use as pesticides isn't exactly closely monitored either.
Drinking water from wells, springs etc. see all the above.
Ordering anything with wish/aliexpress that comes in contact with food. You know that stuff is completely unregulated, why the hell would you lick it? Nobody knows what it's made of.
And there's one thing I don't avoid, but it's super unhealthy: wood fires. Yeah, a hearth or a campfire is awesome, but the smoke is super fucking bad for you. The carcinogens are stronger and last longer than in cigarettes, and its a hell of a lot more of them. I lie to myself and say it's worth it though, and that I don't do it every day, and other bad excuses.
Wood fires are bad? Does this have to do with the wood? What about charcoal? No more bbqs then?
Charcoal isn't as bad as wood, it creates less smoke and the most complex chemicals are already gone. Gas is better, since it burns much cleaner, and electric obviously doesn't create any gasses at all.
On the other hand, grilling and smoking red meat means dripping fat, which means smoke, meaning you create a whole new set of PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), which you breathe in and get stuck to the meat and those are carcinogens. On top of that, red meat is already not too great for you. Eating burned food (charring) is also really unhealthy.
But assuming you don't spend every day breathing mostly bbq-smoke and gasses, I wouldn't worry about this too much. If your main diet is home grilled beef over self-made charcoal, you definitely need to reevaluate your lifestyle choices though.
Plastic food containers. I mean, we already know it's pretty bad, but I would not be surprised if it ends up being way worse than we think. That, and most aerosols. Febreze, hairspray, spray tans, things of that nature
I just saw an article the other day that black plastic utensils are toxic. I'm right there with you.
A couple places near me still use styrofoam. I can't get past it.
I stopped microwaving plastic containers like 15-20 years ago. Hopefully that’s enough.
Not really "secretly" bad for you, but all the plastic in our lives. I wonder how we'll ever replace it cause everything you buy at the supermarket (in developed countries) is wrapped in plastic.
wrapped in plastic
Everything you touch and use involves plastics and petrochemicals. Even stuff you wouldn’t think of like the coatings that allow street signs to reflect better and have massively improved safety. Lightbulbs? No more efficiency for you, most LEDs are on a plastic substrate. We will never get away from plastic, not at this point. You could make it so that food isn’t wrapped in plastic and that wouldn’t make a dent in our plastic use.
Our phones are probably doing something to us
We know that depending on your use it can ruin your attention span. But I agree, it's probably worse than we know.
I read somewhere that the existence of the internet massively stifles our ability to reason. For every question I have, spending a few minutes to ponder what the most plausible answer is provides a small workout for my brain. If everything I'm curious about is answered within seconds, I don't get those mental workouts.
I think that comes down to your desire to learn. One person might just repeat a google answer but another person might spend some time thinking about why it's the right answer.
Google is how people get degrees after all, it's the modern day version of hunting down books in libraries
Probably my asbestos fake snow.
But your snow is, at least, fireproof!
Not all snow can make that promise. Some is quite flammable.
Probably my vape tbh
I figure we may see documetaries in yhr next decade on how Vape industry was complicit like the tabacco industry was
I mean, that's just how capitalism works. The health of your consumers isn't relevant, unless a law mandates it.
There already are those documentaries? Jule or whatever it’s called has already been doing the exact same stuff that the tobacco industry did for literally a decade now.
Those water flavor squirts, mio or crystal light type stuff. I'll drink plain water over just about everything else (egg nog is the weakness and exception right now...), but the various lemonades or fruit flavors are always nice to have around. I wouldn't be surprised if something in their composition is not good for you.
A slightly more titillating answer would be lube. You're putting something on a mucous membrane, and it's almost guaranteed that some will be absorbed or ingested.
Air fryers.
Most of them are designed so poorly that it’s also impossible to get all grease out of them. That can’t be healthy. My sister has a ninja air fryer, you can’t remove the top grate. There is grease build up in there. A friend of mine has one he brings it over during the Super Bowl party, the moment he opens up the lid on it you can smell the old grease come out of it. That’s not an exaggeration. There’s no way in hell that can be healthy. So it won’t surprise me if years from now people go we should never have used those.
It also won’t surprise me too much if there’s some health hazard with them other than just the buildup of grease.
Sidenote, what are these companies thinking to make a product where they know there’s going to be grease that is going to build up, and make it in a way that makes it almost impossible if not completely impossible to clean said grease?
Unless their thought process is: use it three times throw it away go buy a new one.
It also won’t surprise me too much if there’s some health hazard with them other than just the buildup of grease.
It’s an electric heating element and a fan, same as a convection oven except it exhausts rather than recirculates the air. Any issues beyond the grease buildup you mention would apply to any electric oven or toaster.
I too have watched Technology Connection's video on the topic. :P
Commercial yogurt. Yeah maybe it's just a tasty and healthy probiotic. Or maybe it's a way for food conglomerates to change our gut bacteria so that we crave even more foods with cheap sugar.
Bottled water. The plastic contaminates the fluid. Just drink straight from the sink if you live in an area that allows for it!
I bet you're right. If you leave a plastic bottle in the sun, the water tastes god-awful.
It doesn't even have to change temperature, it is enough that the water remains in the bottle for few days for plastic to start "decomposing" (probably not the correct word for it). And by the time you buy the bottle, it has been long since it was filled in the first place.
Oh, and the expiration date on the water bottles? Obviously it's not the water getting stale. It's for the plastic.
The electric heating pad I sleep on. I wouldn't be surprised if some study finds that something about sleeping on wires would be kinda bad long-term. Maybe something about residual currents or the minimal magnetic field from the wires, idk
The fireproofing chemicals are pretty bad for you.
Huel. I'm just waiting for some ~~random internet person~~ doctor to tell me how exactly I'm making my already shaky health significantly worse because I'm too ~~lazy~~ tired for anything more than powder in water.
Also, the decades-old radiator in my flat is probably just spewing all sorts of hazardous particles and nobody will know until they do an autopsy on me.
The internet and all electronic equipment. I think they are doing something much more sinister than whatever is reported so far.
Flavored soda water.