A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
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.
Yeah after some time every plastic is biodegradable, but that could be millions of years...
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.
So have I, and I understand why they would have chosen this approach. My issue isn’t their bench technique per se, it’s in their calling equivalence to tea brewing at home and articulating conclusions based on that.
Your objection to my describing it as “blending” is fair. However, it would absolutely not be plain swirling. With such a low ratio of liquid to teabags the physical agitation will be quite significant. Most people do not have multiple teabags in their teapot all colliding with and abrading each other while steeping.
However, the biggest cause for retraction is their failure to report accurate volumetric ratios. They used 2ml water per teabag and then reported their findings as particles/ml. It should be immediately obvious that this cannot be equated to the particles/ml that would have been derived from using 350ml per teabag, and yet they never make that conversion. I’m not going to speculate as to whether this was a result of intent to mislead or a simple mistake, but it utterly obliterates their talking point of “billions of particles”.
Yeah that all makes a lot of sense!
Either way, loose leaf is just better.
.
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.
.
I think you might have skimmed over the methods, but think what the OP was trying to say is:
Concentration: 300 tea bags / 600mL = 1 teabag per 2mL (175 tea bags in one 350mL cup of tea, doesnt appear typical?)
Mixing: 750rpm × [1m/60s] = 12.5 rotations a sec (Awfully fast to be stirring tea, constantly)
Incubation time: Not specified. (They could have left boiling overnight?)
There seems to be many points about the methodology that raise eyebrows. Maybe it's ok if you want to use this method to purify particles for structural analysis or test toxicity on cells, but it doesn't seem fair to present this as "release of micro/nanoplastics (MNPLs) from polymer-based teabags into the aqueous phase during typical usage", as the amounts seem exaggerated.
.
Yeah, if you increase concentration until it's visible you will get high concentration solution. By the same principle water is a deadly poison because scientists forse fed a bunch of rats liters of water until they died.
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.
So can I still have my tea or what? I’m inclined to trusting you over some barcelonians
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.
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?
The square with crimped edges bags have plastic in the paper so that the edges will fuse closed.
Cool, now do coffee pods.
How many micro plastics are released when I cry?
You can still cry? I’m jealous.
I sell the tears on Etsy, it's the only way I can support my Nestle milk addiction
You should start an OnlyFans where you post videos of yourself crying into tiny bottles.
Take this down rn and stop spreading my $1000 idea. My lawyers will be in touch
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?
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.