Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know whether this applies to clothing that uses recycled plastic? I know Patagonia uses lots of recycled polyester: https://www.patagonia.com/shop/collections/recycled-polyeste...

View on HN

The study doesn't go into how these plastics are harmful to your health. I doubt something like plastic in your clothing would harmful since it's not necessarily being absorbed through your skin. The most harm is likely in plastic containers that hold liquids or food which tend to be the primary source of microplastic ingestion. The article also mentions that this isn't exclusive to recycled plastic, since making virgin plastic requires tons of chemicals itself.

BPA has been shown to be absorbed transdermally [1]. Patagonia was recently found to have high levels of BPA, along with other brands [2].

Bluesign and Oeko-tex certifications test for BPA. You can find recycled polyester without this (if you have kids, Hanna Andersson's polyester lines claim to be BPA and PFAS free, most Cat and Jack clothing is Oeko-tex certified and Mamavation puts out good information on PFAS in things like children's clothing, backpacks, lunch kits [3]).

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33313651/

2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/05/18/worri...

3. https://www.mamavation.com/product-investigations

Reply on news.ycombinator.com