Okay - newsflash. Microplastics are everywhere already. In the water you drink from tap. In the wild caught (or farmed) fish you eat. Soon we’ll be told they are also present in the fruits and vegetables we eat, maybe even in milk and eggs! Pretty sure meat and chicken already contain them to varying degrees.
So yeah, sure, there are microplastics in drinks in glass bottles. But to say they contain “more” microplastics than plastic containers sounds like the BS concocted by packaging lobby.
Here’s a fun fact: did you know that a good RO system can filter out most microplastics from the tap water, but it also releases some (of its own) into the filtered water! We really dug ourselves into a big hole by using plastics for just about everything.
sva_ · 5h ago
> Soon we’ll be told they are also present in the fruits and vegetables
The comforts of modern life will take a very significant hit if we really want to undo our polluting way of life. It can be done, but many people will vote with their wallets to keep those comforts as long as possible, and companies will fight to earn that profit as long as they can.
I think nothing short of a global catastrophe will change people's minds.
sheepscreek · 4h ago
Or a really solid better-in-every-way yet ecologically sound alternative. Then again, the battle is not on one turf - we need alternatives for a whole host of plastics and synthetic plastic like compounds (nylon, rayon, Teflon and friends…). Think PVC pipes, the rubbery insulation on wires, tires (which can have nylon and other synthetic materials other than rubber), high quality ropes/harnesses, nets, clothing of-course - the list is endless and each use case is unique.
So what we might see is - an early adoption in some industries and use-cases and a slower adoption in others while better materials are invented/discovered.
On a brighter note, with all the kick-ass compute we’ll have in triple digit billion dollar AI facilities, that opens up scope for new discoveries in science. Hopefully, accelerating its pace.
zo1 · 4h ago
We can buy ourselves a huge amount of time if we just stopped letting countries dump metric millions of tonnes of plastic into bodies of water for them to be endlessly ground-down into micro-sizes. As it is now, we're watching like deer in headlights, as the third-world pollutes the entire world with plastic.
Micro-plastics and forever chemicals will be this century's Lead.
Loughla · 5h ago
The nice things about micro plastic is that it'll be slow and steady. So there's not a good chance of a catastrophe! Pretty sweet!
grugagag · 4h ago
Im sure the concentration of microplastics is going to go up. Right now we’re talking just about microplastics but soon we’ll see stats showing how steady it’s accumulating everywhere.
wpollock · 5h ago
> I think nothing short of a global catastrophe will change people's minds.
You mean like global warming and how the climate change catastrophe we are experiencing has changed human behavior to stop polluting? <sarcastic mode>
I can't imagine that anything will change the minds of the majority of people to the point where they drastically change their lifestyles.
sorcerer-mar · 5h ago
This is why we make governments, to solve coordination problems.
card_zero · 4h ago
It's not usually an option, whether to have a government or not. And when it's deliberate, the motivation is invariably protection from somebody else's government.
chneu · 5h ago
>We really dug ourselves into a big hole by using plastics for just about everything.
We should be moving to ban plastics in consumer goods but because they have become so ubiquitous there is basically zero chance of that ever happening
grafmax · 5h ago
A long as we continue to prioritize industry over general well-being, then yes.
davidcox143 · 5h ago
> a good RO system can filter out most microplastics from the tap water, but it also releases some (of its own) into the filtered water
Home distillation is cheaper than RO (esp. if you have solar) and doesn't release microplastics. Just remineralize with a high-quality salt
sheepscreek · 4h ago
You bet - I’m sure it’s the only fool proof way to get rid of all microplastics. Cumbersome though. But realistically, I no longer think they can be avoided. Probably already lodged all the way up in my brain waiting to cause some nuisance as I get older :-/
Our best hope is nanotechnology and bots or maybe even bioengineered cells or microorganisms that can get in there and eat them or at least reroute them out of the human body through natural pathways.
scheme271 · 2h ago
Home distillation probably only works if you have all copper plumbing instead of the PVC or PEX plumbing that a lot of homes have. But copper plumbing is probanly going to leach various metals into the water.
soramimo · 4h ago
Yeah, reverse osmosis systems adding microplastics themselves is a scary fact I also learned on hacker news a few months ago.
Does anyone here know if they are RO systems that don't have that problem?
Gigachad · 3h ago
Microplastics are just unavoidable at this point, they all use plastic tanks and tubing. But RO will still remove heavy metals and PFAS.
userbinator · 5h ago
Just like radio waves, which had (and somewhat still has) the same fearmongering for a while.
And yet we survived -- or rather, significantly improved our living standards.
Pretty sure meat and chicken already contain them to varying degrees.
Ironically, biological structures are made of the same or very similar polymers as synthetic plastics.
sorcerer-mar · 5h ago
How much do you know about bioaccumulation and endocrine disruption as it pertains to microplastics?
userbinator · 1h ago
A century of improved living conditions.... which is going to start regressing thanks to this idiotic paranoia.
guelo · 5h ago
> BS concocted by packaging lobby
It's not BS. This is a government lab. The scientists clearly identified the source of the extra microplastics, the paint on the bottle caps.
karim79 · 6h ago
So let's use cork to plug all containers. We can then worry about microcork instead. I'm pretty sure that would be safer and more sustainable.
ASalazarMX · 5h ago
Even if cork is used, the adhesives it needs to stay in place can also be plastic, and shed microplastics.
We better evolve to tolerate some level of microplastics because they're not going away any time soon. It's mind boggling how many microplastics sources are in modern civilization, and how hard it would be to eliminate say half of them.
eszed · 5h ago
Does cork need adhesive to stay in place? I'm not doubting you, just had never heard that before. I thought the cork had enough friction with the glass on its own.
giantg2 · 5h ago
Real cork doesn't need an adhesive.
card_zero · 5h ago
Fake corks are plastic, but they're still not glued into the bottles.
grugagag · 4h ago
How about steel/aluminum caps or some other alloys? No need to go as far as using cork for everything though cork has its uses and its not dirt cheap. Ive seen wine bottles with rubber cork immittion. Not sure but could contain microplastics too.
JKCalhoun · 5h ago
I know I'm old, but I remember glass jars with metal twist off lids.
defrost · 4h ago
The article identifies the plastic paint on metal twist off lids as the source of micro plastics in glass bottles.
robcohen · 6h ago
I don't get this. If paint is causing the problem, why not just stop painting the caps.
nextos · 6h ago
By looking at the article [1], it seems that the problem is very different depending on the beverage class.
In case of water, both glass and plastic are quite clean in terms of microplastic particles. Beer (glass) seems to be heavily contaminated.
If I'm reading this correctly, it seems that glass bottles are often paired with resin or PET-coated caps, which shed quite a lot of microparticles.
Not sure we can conclude much there tbh, their own numbers and the numbers in other studies they mention show truly enormous ranges for their rather small sample sizes. Plus, if they're right and the contamination is mostly coming from cap damage, it'd vary immensely by the kind (and treatment) of the cap and luck on how much damage it got, and not the kind of bottle, even if they do currently correlate.
So a useful study to say "stop painting the insides of caps, duh" but it hardly seems like anything intrinsic to the container. And hard to extrapolate to other areas which may not paint their caps, or anything that uses corks.
card_zero · 5h ago
I don't think they're painting the insides, it sounds like the bottling machine has a hopper full of caps, and they rattle around in production and chip microscopic bits of paint off and those stick to the insides and everywhere, until washed off by the booze.
Groxx · 4h ago
Ah, yep, you're correct - I was misinterpreting the pictures in the paper. On rereading, they seem pretty clear about it being paint on the outside that somehow gets on the inner surface.
Though also:
>The results show that glass containers were more contaminated than other packaging for all beverages except wine, because wine bottles were closed with cork stoppers rather than metal caps.
So yeah. Cap differences, probably for fashion more than function, which are probably easily remedied.
zeristor · 6h ago
That’s the simple solution they were talking about.
singleshot_ · 5h ago
rust
capitainenemo · 6h ago
I suppose if the paint is the issue, glass bottles using the swing top metal hinge and rubber stopper method are fine?
kokanee · 6h ago
They said corks are fine. For grolsch tops, the kind of rubber might matter, I'd guess.
giantg2 · 5h ago
Yeah, most rubbers today are actually plastics.
nothrowaways · 5h ago
This is a misleading, half backed, and click bait "finding".
They didn't even identify if problem is the glass or stuff like pains around the glass.
jamessinghal · 5h ago
The paper mentions in multiple places, including the abstract, that the cause of higher microplastics readings was likely from the bottle caps, given that the found microplastics matched the color and composition of the paint on the bottle caps.
guelo · 5h ago
They absolutely did identify it.
guelo · 5h ago
This is a great finding by a public health organization which will result in simple changes in industry that benefit everybody. For us believers in government it's important to highlight public wins amid all the cynicism.
Loughla · 5h ago
Want to bet nothing changes? Cynicism becomes realism at some point.
OutOfHere · 6h ago
This article/study seems like FUD that was written squarely by the plastics industry. I think the lesson here is to use better bottle caps.
esafak · 5h ago
ANSES is the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety.
It is a public administrative body reporting to the Ministries of Health, the Environment, Agriculture, and Labour.
And? The glass has nothing to do with it. It's all about the bottle caps which can be made of plutonium for all I know. It's misleading to suggest that it has anything to do with the glass.
nerdponx · 5h ago
I can't speak specifically for this agency, but regulatory capture is very much a real thing.
So yeah, sure, there are microplastics in drinks in glass bottles. But to say they contain “more” microplastics than plastic containers sounds like the BS concocted by packaging lobby.
Here’s a fun fact: did you know that a good RO system can filter out most microplastics from the tap water, but it also releases some (of its own) into the filtered water! We really dug ourselves into a big hole by using plastics for just about everything.
Old news https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512...
> maybe even in milk
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-03458-7
https://journals.lww.com/kleu/fulltext/2024/17020/qualitativ...
> eggs
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35930965/
I think nothing short of a global catastrophe will change people's minds.
So what we might see is - an early adoption in some industries and use-cases and a slower adoption in others while better materials are invented/discovered.
On a brighter note, with all the kick-ass compute we’ll have in triple digit billion dollar AI facilities, that opens up scope for new discoveries in science. Hopefully, accelerating its pace.
Micro-plastics and forever chemicals will be this century's Lead.
You mean like global warming and how the climate change catastrophe we are experiencing has changed human behavior to stop polluting? <sarcastic mode>
I can't imagine that anything will change the minds of the majority of people to the point where they drastically change their lifestyles.
We should be moving to ban plastics in consumer goods but because they have become so ubiquitous there is basically zero chance of that ever happening
Home distillation is cheaper than RO (esp. if you have solar) and doesn't release microplastics. Just remineralize with a high-quality salt
Our best hope is nanotechnology and bots or maybe even bioengineered cells or microorganisms that can get in there and eat them or at least reroute them out of the human body through natural pathways.
Does anyone here know if they are RO systems that don't have that problem?
And yet we survived -- or rather, significantly improved our living standards.
Pretty sure meat and chicken already contain them to varying degrees.
Ironically, biological structures are made of the same or very similar polymers as synthetic plastics.
It's not BS. This is a government lab. The scientists clearly identified the source of the extra microplastics, the paint on the bottle caps.
We better evolve to tolerate some level of microplastics because they're not going away any time soon. It's mind boggling how many microplastics sources are in modern civilization, and how hard it would be to eliminate say half of them.
In case of water, both glass and plastic are quite clean in terms of microplastic particles. Beer (glass) seems to be heavily contaminated.
If I'm reading this correctly, it seems that glass bottles are often paired with resin or PET-coated caps, which shed quite a lot of microparticles.
[1] https://anses.hal.science/anses-05066642v1/file/Chaib_JFCA_2...
So a useful study to say "stop painting the insides of caps, duh" but it hardly seems like anything intrinsic to the container. And hard to extrapolate to other areas which may not paint their caps, or anything that uses corks.
Though also:
>The results show that glass containers were more contaminated than other packaging for all beverages except wine, because wine bottles were closed with cork stoppers rather than metal caps.
So yeah. Cap differences, probably for fashion more than function, which are probably easily remedied.
They didn't even identify if problem is the glass or stuff like pains around the glass.
It is a public administrative body reporting to the Ministries of Health, the Environment, Agriculture, and Labour.
https://www.anses.fr/en/content/our-identity