Hacker News Reader

I am really excited by the broadband consumer label the FCC is working on [0]. I think we need to see more government enforced highly-standardized labeling of products and packaging. I'd ideally like to see such labeling be expanded to food packaging, food processing facilities, cosmetics, soaps/detergents, clothing/clothing processing, jewelry, wearable tech, furniture, bedding, tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, vape liquid, vape devices, housing materials and essentially anything that comes into prolonged contact with the human body or is designed to be ingested by the human body. Some of these already have labeling provided, but I find it to be mostly inadequate for the type of information I want to know before consuming.

We should have a "inform consumer first" attitude for product ingredients, packaging, and manufacturing conditions. Trade secrets should being a distant second concern with increased liability for undisclosed information.

In regard to PFAS and general plastic concerns, I've started limiting my exposure to plastic products. This process started 5+ years ago. It is essentially impossible to eliminate plastic. I am focusing on food packaging, textiles, housing finishes, and computer input devices.

Edit: Exact information that would adjust my consuming behavior: "Which pesticides were used in growing this food", "what is the exact type of plastic this bottle is made out of", "was this beverage or it's primary ingredients stored in plastic before being bottled in glass"

[0] https://www.fcc.gov/broadbandlabels

Same government that pushed the food pyramid? Where you’re encouraged to eat lots of grains. Basically the opposite of a healthy diet.

Same government that pushed nutritional labeling. Where you can even know whether something does or doesn’t include grains.

I lived in Germany for a year around 1999 and one thing I noticed was that, at the time, European food labels were strikingly uninformative compared to US food labels.

I've never seen meat get labelled with animal ate antibiotics. The labeling is useful and useless all at once

Does imperfect labeling mean we should abolish labeling or push to make it better?

the libertarian approach: it's not perfect, therefore it shouldn't exist

I've always assumed that if doesn't say there was no antibiotics, then there was.

> computer input devices

Are you saying like having some keyboard and mouse being made out of metal? Maybe ceramics or glass?

Wow. Ceramic keys sound really nice tbh. Damn.

Until they inevitably shatter as something ever so slightly sharp hits them, that it. Sure hope you're not working with a metal watch.

Did you know that the back of the Apple Watch is made from ceramics? There are robust forms — it seems you are not aware.

The back of the Apple watch is also spending most of its time snug against your wrist, or down against a charger, while being relatively thick and uniform. It's not a 60cm wide, 20cm tall target for anything that falls on your desk, it's not made of 100 different, tiny little caps that all need to be light enough to not trigger automatically.

The conditions are _slightly_ different, and knowing your apple watch uses ceramics doesn't make you a materials engineer.

Back of iPhone 13 which is one of the toughest iPhones yet is also ceramic.

> computer input devices.

Is this a wishlist item or something you've actually found? I wasn't aware of any non-plastic computer mice or keycaps.

With the popularity of DIY mechanical keyboards I have to imagine that at some point some dedicated individual(/crazy person) has machined individual keycaps from stainless or aluminum.

There are titanium, steel and zinc anode keycaps floating around. I know because I've owned some for about a decade :)

You can probably replace every component on a keyboard, today, with metal with the exceptions being limited to the switches and PCB.

I've reduced, not eliminated. Custom keyboard, titanium case and wooden keycaps. Plastic still in switches, wires, and pcb. Normal mouse, I've tried alternatives but nothing fits my expectation.

I suppose I should have known the costom keyboard community would provide on that front! Wood keycaps sound nice, I will have to look into that.

This phaseout may be entirely useless or actively counterproductive, exactly as one might expect when one phases out specific chemicals as opposed to the entire family. Manufacturers replace it with something fairly similar!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GenX

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8571496/

Yes, that's another highly fluorinated compound that may well be worse.

yah I always wondered about that, all this BPA free stuff always made we ponder "well what replaced the BPA and do we know anything about it?" Seems like it would have served some role and some substitute would have to have been found otherwise it would have been a useless functionless addition to begin with and therefore an extraneous cost.

It’s exactly like it says. BPA free. Carcinogen free? Who knows!

hey now, I can cut out tumors, I can't cut out endocrine disruptions

I made the move to using glass, ceramic, metals, and cast iron for most of my daily uses regarding food and beverage.

Same here. I just wish I could convince my parents too as well. They're still using beat up 20 year old tupperware

Plastic food storage bins are sooooo much nicer. And wildly cheaper. And all the glass alternatives I've seen/owned had plastic lids anyway, so, I guess just be very careful not to let it touch food and hope that's OK? Plus the risk of plasticizers is nebulous and invisible, so, easy to disregard.

Not saying glass isn't better, just... I definitely get it.

You pay for that convenience over time in other ways?

I love glass and use a lot at home, but one of its huge drawbacks is that its incredibly heavy and obviously breakable. Makes takin glass stuff on the road challenging. I wonder if someone could make reinforced glass drinking wares much like you see with security windows, eg https://www.grainger.com/product/45AE15

This is not meant in a mean way, but ChatGPT will give you super easy to understand answers for those questions:

What is BPA for in plastic?

What are the alternatives to BPA in plastic?

The answers are too long to post.

See

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/dan...

fast food wrappers contain PFAS, it could be fast food makes you fat not from the food but from the packaging!

If pfas from fast food packaging is involved in this, wouldn’t it seem more likely that it’s the fast food that’s making people fat and the pfas is just correlating?

Recently found out they’re in my dental floss (glide). They’re everywhere.

No, they are not. Glide is made from PTFE which is not the same as those described above. It's in a similar category, but not the same.

PTFE is made using using a process that uses PFOA or another, similar fluorosurfactant. There are likely trace amounts of these fluorosurfactants left behind in the PTFE, which might be enough to cause issues.

Not anymore, the current process does not use PFOA anymore. I think maybe 10 or 20 years now.

Right, it uses other, similar flourosurfactants.

Err sorry but to quote Wikipedia:

    Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that has numerous applications. It is one of the best-known and widely applied PFAS. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon

Remember Teflon coated pans? And how you are supposed to throw them out if they're scratched?

I see that quote, and it's Wikipedia being overly technical. PTFE is not in the same category as the other PFAS.

PTFE is missing the reactive tail that makes the other ones so problematic. It's in the same chemical family, yes, but is very different in its properties.

> Remember Teflon coated pans?

I have plenty of them.

> And how you are supposed to throw them out if they're scratched?

That's not true now, and has never been true. (Other than perhaps the scratches making your food stick.)

Yeah, teflon is inert. You only need to throw them away once you've burned the teflon, turning it toxic. Which happens at quite a low temperature. Btw the fumes that come off a burned teflon pan are incredibly toxic and will kill pet birds.

Remarkably safe (for display purposes).

You would have to heat the teflon so hot that oil in the pan would burst into flame.

If you cook in such temperatures you must like eating charcoal.

I'm regularly heating pans to 650f and above for searing steaks, verified with a infrared thermometer. Also necessary for good stir fry.

You start with such high temps because unless cooking with an extremely high btu heat source, the temp of that pan drops dramatically once food is added. This is also why you don't add oil until right before placing your food item in. Otherwise, yes, even high temp oils would ignite before reaching 650f.

I've switched to silk floss (silk + wax). No plastic, no PFAS. Just a better product (it captures detritus better), and marginally more expensive. You can also find on amazon.

https://madebyradius.com/products/natural-biodegradable-silk...

Pizza boxes, tampons, microwave popcorn.