U.S. imposes first-ever national drinking water limits on PFAS

IDK about the cell phone radiation but given the trickle/torrent of bad indicators about our biology and plastic, my rule is no plastic near food, at least at home where I can control it. Definitely no freezing, heating, or microwaving plastic near food. Feels like one of the many accepted facets of space-age modern life that is too convenient to examine closely for most people, and I think it retrospect it will be viewed somewhat as we view lead in paint and fuel, asbestos in buildings, smoking in public, etc.

Cell phones use a variety of wavelengths to communicate, topping out in the gigahertz range for things like Wifi. It's impossible for light in that range cannot to cause cancer. It's literally less possible for it to cause cancer than visible light. (Which is in the terahertz range)

It's hard to find water filtration without plastic involved, hopefully other options will come to the market, but their offering is pretty good so far.

What about distillation as a filtration method?

Are the micro/nano plastics filtered by distillation?

Interesting what method of filtration the chip factories use, as they need 100% pure water for the cpu making process.

Simply putting the comment text in Perplexity [1] leads to the following result:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/scientists-find-about-a...

[1] https://www.perplexity.ai/

Thats how I use it. In theory the waste could be used for irrigation or mixed into shower water but that requires more plumbing to deal with an external cost (in areas where water is limited).

Premiere H2O has a system that dumped the water into the hot water line, similar to a hot water loop, but in reverse. There’s a lot of caveats with that arrangement (doesn’t really work with a tankless water heater, for example).

When you say brine is that in seawater desalination RO or are you using that to include non-seawater RO reject water?

You could definitely use it as gray water but if you are filtering for contaminants, that water would have a higher concentration and if you were pushing it out as gray water, would those areas of the yard have higher levels potentially of contaminants?

The domestic RO systems put pressure on the clean water output and don't have recovery systems for brine pressure? What? My only experience with RO systems are on sailboats, where a brine pressure recovery system is the only way to get the power down, and the water trickles into the tank under low pressure from where it is pumped out.

They don't boost the feed pressure, just isolate the output permeate line from the back pressure of the storage tank. Instead of the membrane output pushing against the increasing pressure of tank as it fills (decreasing output) it produces into a void in pump body which the pump periodically pushes into the tank from spring mechanism wound by the output waste water.

They work pretty well to reduce waste but do add complexity to what is already a somewhat complicated device under the sink. They will also create bad TDS creep if used without an auto-shutoff valve installed in the RO.

Well, the only real change that’s not easily reversible one might make when installing most of these units is if you don’t already have a hole to mount the faucet in. A renter definitely shouldn’t drill a hole in a countertop and most r/o units would require one. Any house built in the last few decades would probably have a built in dish soap dispenser you could pop out, but if not, no luck.

Other than that just basic hand tools are involved. I would have no problem installing one in a rental but I’m also comfortable with plumbing. It’s definitely a job that seems a lot more intimidating than it is.

That is a nice looking unit. I think as usual USA has more options! Might import something like this!

If it did cold water too would be awesome.

That countertop unit looks great.

Question - how do you deal with countertops that have storage tanks made out of plastic?

Are there no concerns with microplastics at all with these units? I know the plastic is not the Polypropylene stuff, but still.

This is the kind of annoying "more cynical than thou" comment which sounds insightful and meant to grasp at upvotes, but is really a self-fulfilling defeatist prophecy that leads us to a place nobody wants to be. We can and should expect better, but we also have to work for it instead of shrugging and giving up.

Like the article says, Joe Biden is doing something about this, catering to all Americans. It's hard for me to see how you're offering a negative spin in light of this story. If you like this, vote in more people with the similar policies. Call your reps and potential reps and tell them you like this and you want to see more of this. Donate to their campaigns if you have the cash. This is how you give positive feedback. Don't vote for people who run on policies about deregulation.

I don't think it's good to have toxins on our lawns (where our pets roll around) or in our shower water either though?

I do the same (gloves, n95, plastic glasses to protect the eyes) plus honestly I’ve always been very bothered by any sort of artificial fragrances.

There are smog masks from Asia where it's almost needed to be outside in many major metro areas; they use a cloth carrier with a laminated inlay of N95-like particle and activated carbon VOC filtering.

Unfortunately N95s don’t stop VOCs in the slightest, as VOCs aren’t particulates.

The best option is to turn on the bathroom fan and open a window, or use activated carbon.

Fat is calorically dense. If you're trying to lose weight, you need to be careful about eating calorically dense foods. And if you want to eat more protein to maintain muscle while losing weight, there is a zero-sum trade-off between fat and protein.

I think this is a misinterpretation of what has been debunked. Low fat diets are definitely healthier for more people because they almost always correlate with lower calorie intake. It’s not the quality of it being a fat that makes it bad (this is what recent studies revisiting fats are saying). It’s other qualities of fats that are problematic. For example, consider equal calorie intake between a protein source (like a steak) and a fat. Which do you think is going to fill you up more? Which do you think is healthier?

I think you’re misinterpreting the reevaluation of fats in recent years. I’m not demonizing fats and saying they need to be avoided entirely. But I am saying people (especially in America) need to moderate their intake of calories in general and fats specifically as well (as they’re a vehicle for calories). There are also different varieties of fats with different health effects. Using nonstick cookware is an easy way to reduce the intake of fats (and therefore calories) even if you are not banning them from your diet entirely.

Let’s take a simple example: have you tried to make a fried egg in a cast iron pan and compared it to a nonstick pan? In a cast iron, you’ll need to use a pat of butter to get the egg to slide easily (around 100 calories). In nonstick you can get away with zero butter. It adds up.

Absolutely yes people are. I'm active in weight loss communities to support my own weight loss, and yes we are careful about our fat consumption.

The health difference is large for someone trying to lose weight. A tablespoon of butter isn't that filling, but contains about 150 calories. That's equivalent to a whole pot of non-fat yogurt or two eggs, both of which are more filling and give you more protein.

When making eggs, I try to use about a teaspoon of butter, which still gives some butter flavor, but lets me save more calories for eggs.

are people out there really optimizing their diets at the level of a drizzle/spray of oil or butter

Lots of people do this, and it’s not because they’re somehow ignorant and against all fats. It’s more that people trying to be healthy make small tweaks they can live with that add up. It’s not about being an extremist but just moderating things where you are willing to. Everyone’s metabolism, dietary preferences, and lifestyle is different. If you live an active lifestyle with enough exercise or just have a higher metabolism, then it might make no difference to optimize at that level. But for lots of people it can make a big difference without making them feel like they can’t eat what they want.

Three meals a day prepared without added fat means savings of around 3-500 calories a day depending on how much fat you’re using and your portion sizes. Keep in mind as well that not all calories are equal and calories from protein sources tend to be more filling (compare eating 3 tablespoons of butter versus a chicken breast).

You’re proposing eating different foods with different recipes and flavors when you suggest that steaming, grilling, etc are alternatives. If I want to prepare similar food to what I can make in a stainless steel or cast iron pan, but with less fat, a nonstick pan is the best tool. Also since you listed frying in a seasoned cast iron pan in your list of alternatives - that requires use of additional fat. Yes, even if it is fully properly seasoned.

> The people to do like these things have a lot more money to spend to ensure these things are around for a while.

No. If these things were never invented, those people would no be asking for them. Least not very much.

The stainless steel frying pan I use was purchased about 30 years ago as part of a set that included a couple saucepans and lids. I paid less than $50 for it new. That was a lot when I was a student, but not an out of reach luxury.

If it helped me avoid eating 20 meals out it easily paid for itself.

This is true, but maintaining the seasoning is annoying. If you want to scrub your pan out and get it really clean, or leave it soaking, you will likely need to repeat the seasoning process. It gets frustrating to have to coat it in oil and fire up the oven and all of that. You also cannot cook certain foods in cast iron pans due to this. For example, if you want to make a tomato-based sauce, you will risk leeching metal into your food due to the acidity.

Personally I think each type of material has its place in the kitchen (nonstick, stainless steel, cast iron, enameled cast iron, etc)

As long as one doesn't mistake carcinogenic leftovers from previous cooking for seasoning. It's somehow common to think that seasoning means some deep umami flavor from food bits that get baked into it over time, when it only means the initial seasoning of the metal as a chemical process and still means you should wash your dishes like anything else after it's seasoned. and regular seasoning isn't stripped by washing with dish soap

If we agree that centralized, industrial agriculture has fundamental problems that can't be avoided, its a moot point whether its the only way to feed today's population. We can't kick the can down the road and throw more control at a problem hoping the system never cracks, given enough time that will *always* fail.

Local food doesn't have to mean growing it for yourself in your own yard. Buying local food is a huge improvement. When the food is grown in your area and doesn't have to be processed or packaged to handle national infrastructure challenges the plastics and PFAS aren't necessary.

When buying locally you can also have the ability to actually see where and how the food is grown, an option that is never possible when the food is grown across the country, shipped overseas for processing/packaging, and shipped back before eventually hitting shelves at your local chain store.

That's totally reasonable, though I assume that means you also accept, and don't complain about, environmental damage, global warming, or any of the health conditions related to environmental contaminants from plastics and their manufacturing.

I'd also assume that you don't see EVs as a practical solution, or any non-petroleum engine, since plastics can't be made without oil and it'd be crazy to drill enough oil to keep our post-industrial lives without using the refined gas and diesel that we'd be creating anyway.

What you're describing is a fundamental problem of centralization at scale. Consumers shouldn't need to test their food for lead because their food is grown locally and isn't highly processed. Consumers shouldn't be tricked by companies lying about and hiding damages causes by them because consumers should be dealing with companies at a scale they can actually understand.

We don't need big governments to save us from cigarette companies because people don't know better. We need consumers saying to hell with cigarettes because they just need to roll a bit of dried tobacco leaves if that's what they're going for.

We lost the scale of our lives in favor of convenience, marketing, and greed. Governments can't fix that.

Yeah we need a government takeover of the Better Business Bureau. Only government bureaucrats are qualified to test things. Credit scores, too. Has to be government. Let's throw in a social credit score too so that consumers know who to trust on an individual basis

You absolutely can chose to not add any if those chemicals into your life. Of course you can't control the rain, though you can control your food to a great extent.

If people care enough to decide not to use products that contain PFAS, the environmental exposures would disappear pretty quickly. More importantly, if its even possible for governments to effectively coordinate a cleanup process that job would be much easier if consumers pitched in by first using their individual power to drastically reduce the contaminants being added into the system.

I'd say lets have a vote. Do you want to risk autism, cancer, infertility and whatnot for nonstick pans and all the other wonders of PFAS? If the majority doesn't, it will get a global ban.

That doesn't require a vote at all. Bans are only useful when we have to leverage the power of the state to force people to do something they don't want to do. If consumers agree that nonstick pans have all those risks and they aren't worth it, they stop buying nonstick pans and companies stop making them.

Even if we wanted the ban route, who enforces it? The UN? Some new global government? Or a unanimous agreement by every government in the world, including those who's economies are partly supported by producing the nonstick pans?

From your article:

"Distillation removes all minerals from water. This results in demineralised water, which has not been proven to be healthier than drinking water. The World Health Organization investigated the health effects of demineralised water in 1982, and its experiments in humans found that demineralised water increased diuresis and the elimination of electrolytes, with decreased serum potassium concentration.[citation needed] Magnesium, calcium, and other nutrients in water can help to protect against nutritional deficiency. Recommendations for magnesium have been put at a minimum of 10 mg/L with 20–30 mg/L optimum; for calcium a 20 mg/L minimum and a 40–80 mg/L optimum, and a total water hardness (adding magnesium and calcium) of 2–4 mmol/L. At water hardness above 5 mmol/L, higher incidence of gallstones, kidney stones, urinary stones, arthrosis, and arthropathies have been observed.[citation needed] For fluoride the concentration recommended for dental health is 0.5–1.0 mg/L, with a maximum guideline value of 1.5 mg/L to avoid dental fluorosis.[17]"

I have gotten used to the taste of my Zerowater filter and so I got worried when I saw your comment. Maybe its better to drink the clean water and supplement with electrolytes and vitamins/minerals. That way you control all the parameters vs leaving it up to chance.

I would be worried only if on some obscure long term diet of minimal food and excessive amounts of such water. Imagine how much stuff you are getting with all your regular meals into your stomach, it mixes immediately all up and makes that rather pure water much less pure.

I feel comfortable getting all my calcium, magnesium, and iron through my daily amount of vegetables. I don't think I'm lacking in any of those that the trace amounts added to drinking water will help me.

Do you mean 7 minutes? Taking 70 min to boil only 1 Gal of water sounds extremely long.

Electric stoves get dedicated high-power circuits, these things plug into a regular wall socket. They just don't have the same power.

I'm using one of these https://www.h2olabs.com/p-54-white-baked-enamel-model-300-wa...

I just fill it like a coffee maker at night and run it while I'm asleep. Fresh water in the morning, then I'll fill it again after breakfast and run it during the day.

iirc, it's not clear what filters were used commercially, based on this article and how exactly it translated to residential system where filters working under much lower pressures

Concerns yes but the better of two evils. I have not tested this consistently but I have leaned towards rather having the plastic contaminants from the RO system than whatever was upstream of the RO. It might be the wrong choice but after living the Bay Area I became too aware of how easy it is for contaminated water to show up from local hot spots.

Edit: What I would add is I often ponder how much additional nanoplastics are getting added compared to what is being removed. I know some of the test suggest RO is adding more but I am not sure if it accounts for the complete life cycle in a bottling plant. For the near term I have just settled that nanoplastics are the lesser evil to me than PFAS and other chemicals within the water. It is scare mongering but I look at how that town in Oregon I believe had has wide spread PFAS contamination in ground water from the airport fire foam.

I'm not too worried. They were looking at bottled water. My home system isn't the same one they were testing. It's similar, it might have similar problems. But I also don't know how often those filters are changed. My filters last 6 months, I would imagine it sheds most of the plastic right away, and you are suppose to drain the first couple gallons. The other components are rarely switched out, only when they break. Overall, I would think a home system sheds less. Also strung out through that entire article is the fact that all water has plastics. So at this point we are sorta screwed. Pick your poison, chemicals and plastic in your water, or mostly plastic...

Right, the source of the water is clean but the destinations are not. The Bay Area is dotted with a large number of super fund sites due to the historical chemical, semiconductor/circuit board industry. Even a larger number of sites that are not deemed superfund but are similar. All these electronic companies were more or less dumping their various solvents and de-greasers into the ground. Impacting both ground water and soil. Most of those chemicals penetrate both water pipes and in vapor form come up through the slab of the homes/offices built on top.

Often as these business shutdown they built offices and homes on top of the property, for the ones that happened in the 70s there was no remediation until much later. For the ones that happened in the 90s-00s there was a level of remediation but I am still not trustworthy of it 1) lasting and 2) the developers doing the best work.

So its not a "in short" story unless you are completely ignoring the large amounts of trichloroethylene contamination that is in still so much of the ground soil in the bay area. Sure if you live inside of SF proper you are probably fine in most of the residential areas as there was no manufacturing but areas like Bayview can be just as bad and you have the radioactive contamination on top of chemical. If you live anywhere in the south bay or east bay, you probably should at the very least get an idea of what was built near your office/home. Maybe test your water or just throw an RO on it. So many of these companies were dumping trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene in the south/east bay and we just built homes on top of them. They are indeed generally localized hot spots but when I realized how many were near me it opened my eyes. I remember years ago this was an issue at one of the google campus offices because it too had significant ground contamination.

https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/superfund-sites-... - Even the homes built in later years have had problems with vapors contamination even though it was built with prevention in mind. You can see the other super fund sites there.

I cannot find the map now but there are even a larger number of DTSC cleanup projects from the bay area. Kind of surprising someone would ask where is the contamination when it literally is dotting the whole bay area.

https://mytapscore.com/

I've used them and been happy with the report. Happy to share if requested.

This isn't common or as much of a concern at all. I'm talking about drinking water for consumption. It's a $200 expense, an extra 20 gallons of water a month at most (out of 3000).

This is outdated as most of the mfgs have gotten better at it. Mine is 1:1 drinking:waste and my monthly water consumption is barely affected as it's indiscernible in the noisy variation. First 4 links on Amazon I'm seeing 2:1, 2:1, 3:1, 3:1

Sorry I was not meaning to be as snarky as that came off. I’m an avid backpacker and have been in situations where I had to drink unfiltered stream water - while I know it’s possible to do so and not suffer ill effects, there are also a ton of super bad effects, and our bodies are far removed from the environment we evolved in 100k+ years ago. I don’t know the research on this but I’d wager our gut biome is much different than it was a million years ago as well.

since sugar is more expensive in Europe, they add less of it to the products

I guarantee you that we can afford to spend 90 cents of Euro for 1 Kg of sugar.

Everybody here with a normal income use as much sugar on the kitchen as they want, plus a lot of fructose also.

Would it help if I edited Wikipedia to clarify things?

Yes! that's the whole point of Wikipedia!