alt Hacker NewsCurrently a one-man side project:
Last year PlasticList discovered that 86% of food products they tested contain plastic chemicals—including 100% of baby food tested. The EU just lowered their "safe" BPA limit by 20,000x. Meanwhile, the FDA allows levels 100x higher than what Europe considers safe.
This seemed like a solvable problem.
Laboratory.love lets you crowdfund independent testing of specific products you actually buy. Think Consumer Reports meets Kickstarter, but focused on detecting endocrine disruptors in your yogurt, your kid's snacks, whatever you're curious about.
Here's how it works: Find a product (or suggest one), contribute to its testing fund, get detailed lab results when testing completes. If a product doesn't reach its funding goal within 365 days, automatic refund. All results are published openly. Laboratory.love uses the same methodology as PlasticList.org, which found plastic chemicals in everything from prenatal vitamins to ice cream. But instead of researchers choosing what to test, you do.
The bigger picture: Companies respond to market pressure. Transparency creates that pressure. When consumers have data, supply chains get cleaner.
Technical details: Laboratory.love works with ISO 17025-accredited labs, test three samples from different production lots, detect chemicals down to parts per billion. The testing protocol is public.
You can browse products, add your own, or just follow specific items you're curious about: https://laboratory.love
Replies
Is the identity of those who make donations protected in any way? Could a company seek legal damages against all or some crowdfunders for what they might deem as libel (regardless of merit)? I doubt people who donate $1 here or $2 there have the capability of warding off a lawsuit.
This is a great idea! It could also expand to testing non-food items for dangerous chemicals (lead, heavy metals, etc). Many products keep a certification on-hand confirming that the product has been tested and found not to exceed the threshold, but I always am suspicious of (1) how thorough the initial testing actually is and (2) how well these results hold up as manufacturing continues. I realize I'm just plugging my pet-peeve though, not sure if others are as concerned about this.
Seems odd that two different flavors of the same product would have different phthalate content? Would that mean that shelf life could have an impact?
Vanilla (high): https://laboratory.love/plasticlist/59 Strawberry (medium): https://laboratory.love/plasticlist/60
>All results are published openly.
Where can I find the link? Do I need to submit my email to see the "openly published results"?
Great initiative! Would it not be cheaper to produce home testing kits that can consumers can purchase?
Super compelling project. When I saw PlasticList, my first thought was how to get the results to create pressure on the food companies. The interactivity and investment of your project might do that. Best of luck.
Any connection/collaboration with https://www.plasticlist.org/ ?
I think this would integrate well with Yuka
Really cool, definitely donating to a few products!
> the FDA allows levels 100x higher than what Europe considers safe
I thought it was an exaggeration so I checked. It's actually even worse:
EU is 0.2 ng/kg body weight and US is 50 µg/kg body weight. So the US limit is 250,000 times higher.
How do you hold the money for up to 1 year? Does it go into escrow until the project is funded?
Incredible.
Often desired something like this so thank you for making this happen.
this is cool, if you'd like some help on the web UI stuff, I'd love to contribute.
wow! all the best to you.
This is really cool - it'd be great to test for other chemicals like heavy metals.
Specifically, rice seems to contain a good deal of arsenic (https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-muc...) and I've been interested for a while in trying to find some that has the least, as I eat a lot of rice.