alt Hacker NewsIs there any specific evidence that they are a risk to human health?
I mean, I get the instinct that foreign-entity can't exactly be good for me, but the same instinct applied to GMOs, and as far as I know organic foods have never yielded any sort of statistically visible health impacts.
Plastics earn their keep in general by being non-reactive and 'durable', so it's not entirely shocking if they can pass through (or hang around inside) the body without engaging in a lot of biochemical activity.
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Plastics aren't just plastic, unfortunately.
Plastics are chemical "sponges" that will soak up pollutants over time from the environment (brominated fire retardants, bisphenols, PBCs, pesticides, phthalates, heavy metals, etc) and deliver them in a concentrated dose into the body.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942...
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Verla-Wirnkor-2/publica...
Yeah, they gum up cellular workings. Kind of like how macro plastics will gum up turtle stomaches.
I have seen zero evidence that they are bad in very small quantities, but the dose can make the poison and they are out there in increasingly alarming quantities.
I get your point that plastics are relatively inert and may not cause noticeable harm (depending on quantity?), but I think it'd be wise to be cautious. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic#Bisphenol_A_(BPA) .
I'd also consider plastic, and their additives, to be a lot bigger and longer lasting unknown than GMOs.