[decasteve]

Clothing is mostly plastic fibre nowadays. Upholstery fibres too. Walls are painted with acrylic paint. Flooring is often made of various plastics. I assume the dust in our homes that we breathe in contains relatively a lot of plastic. Containers for food are almost entirely plastic.

I’m interested in these sorts of studies on the topic.

[funstuff007]

> Clothing is mostly plastic fibre nowadays.

I think that's true primarily for athleisure. That being said, it's a very large segment of the market. I was recently in Banana Republic and it was quite hard to find a pair of pants one would want to wear outside of the house.

Some what related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU55auqDD28

[SpodGaju]

"I think that's true primarily for athleisure."

It is not. Go into any Walmart (and I bring up Walmart because that is where most people shop who are just going about their daily lives) and try to find clothing with no petroleum based material in it.

And then try to look on Amazon. Most of the clothing sold there you cannot even find the material list for the product. It will say "cotton" but it is usually only the major material, not 100% cotton.

Here is a good example: https://www.amazon.com/Fruit-Loom-Cotton-100-Sleeve/dp/B001C...

100% cotton preshrunk jersey but...????? Ash is 98/2 cotton/poly Athletic Heather is 90/10 cotton/poly Black Heather, Neon Green, Neon Pink, Safety (Green, Orange) - 50/50 cotton/poly

And then it's Amazon, so you have shipping and every other climate destroying feature of that distribution system.

[moonchrome]

>clothing with no petroleum based material in it.

That's a far cry from the claim "Clothing is mostly plastic fibre". Having 5%-20% polyester is not the same as being "mostly plastic".

[pessimizer]

The person you're replying to said that clothing marketed as cotton is 5-20% polyester.

[chrismeller]

Which annoys me as well… yoga pants aren’t meant to be normal attire.

[amelius]

They should test the blood of, say, Amish people for comparison.

[DoingIsLearning]

I can't find the quote now but that is actually one of the issues with PFAS studies. They couldn't find people they could use as a control group.

Literally everyone has it in their body, even in very remote regions.

[semi-extrinsic]

Sure, why would we not? It is widely used in consumer products. We cook our food in Teflon.

But I'm very far from convinced that PFOA will turn out to be any health risk at all, at the levels the general population is exposed to.

Even for the mid-Ohio valley cohorts, where you have tens of thousands of people who had occupational exposure over decades at up to 1000x the dose any of us will receive, it has been very challenging to clearly demonstrate any adverse health effects.

In the end, we are talking about an extremely inert chemical substance. If it doesn't react with anything, it's hard to see how it should cause significant harm.

[elil17]

The EPA has put out a health advisory about PFOA and PFOS:

> EPA’s health advisories are based on the best available peer-reviewed studies of the effects of PFOA and PFOS on laboratory animals (rats and mice) and were also informed by epidemiological studies of human populations that have been exposed to perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). These studies indicate that exposure to PFOA and PFOS over certain levels may result in adverse health effects, including developmental effects to fetuses during pregnancy or to breastfed infants (e.g., low birth weight, accelerated puberty, skeletal variations), cancer (e.g., testicular, kidney), liver effects (e.g., tissue damage), immune effects (e.g., antibody production and immunity), thyroid effects and other effects (e.g., cholesterol changes).

https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking...

I’m no chemist but this seems like there’s at least a good bit of scientific evidence that supports the idea that some PFAS are dangerous.

[stjohnswarts]

I've been using ceramic based everything in my kitchen for a while. I honestly don't know anyone who uses those old nonstick teflon pots, pans, skillets anymore. Just ceramic coated and cast iron like me.

[DoingIsLearning]

Most people don't realize that many waterproofing coatings in jackets, boots and even waterproof makeup have PFAS's.

Same goes for lubricants, from bicycle gears to door hinges to any manufactured good with moving parts.

Just about anything in modern industry will have, by now, already contaminated you with PFAS.

[aaaaaaaaaaab]

Or Ötzi.

[chrismeller]

I’m sorry, but where is it mostly plastic? Sure I can buy a completely polyester T-shirt, but that doesn’t mean it’s mostly plastic.

And for the record, in the EU, it lists the contents of shell/lining differently for things like coats. If you’re buying anything with elastic it’s obvious where the 5% of non-natural materials are, even if it’s not broken out separately.

Plastic containers are also increasingly non-existent here. Vegeware has been used here for years for takeout, and most people use glass containers at home.

Ironically a company just started that sells reusable plastic containers to restaurants and you pay a €1 deposit on each one, which you can then return to some collection point just like your recycling. Seems stupid to me, given the climate impact of producing the plastic (and the inevitable amount of waste involved) and then transporting it to a collection point, but whatever.