[cjflog]

Currently a one-man side project: https://laboratory.love

Last year, PlasticList found plastic chemicals in 86% of tested foods—including 100% of baby foods they tested. Around the same time, the EU lowered its “safe” BPA limit by 20,000×, while the FDA still allows levels roughly 100× higher than Europe’s new standard.

That seemed solvable.

Laboratory.love lets you crowdfund independent lab testing of the specific products you actually buy. Think Consumer Reports × Kickstarter, but focused on detecting endocrine disruptors in your yogurt, your kid’s snacks, or whatever you’re curious about.

Find a product (or suggest one), contribute to its testing fund, and get full lab results when testing completes. If a product doesn’t reach its goal within 365 days, you’re automatically refunded. All results are published publicly.

We use the same ISO 17025-accredited methodology as PlasticList.org, testing three separate production lots per product and detecting down to parts-per-billion. The entire protocol is open.

Since last month’s “What are you working on?” post:

- 4 more products have been fully funded (now 10 total!)

- That’s 30 individual samples (we do triplicate testing on different batches) and 60 total chemical panels (two separate tests for each sample, BPA/BPS/BPF and phthalates)

- 6 results published, 4 in progress

The goal is simple: make supply chains transparent enough that cleaner ones win. When consumers have real data, markets shift.

Browse funded tests, propose your own, or just follow along: https://laboratory.love

[oniony]

On https://laboratory.love/faq you say: "We never accept funding from companies whose products we might test. All our funding comes from individual contributors." On https://laboratory.love/blog you say: "If you're a product manufacturer interested in having your product tested, we welcome your participation in funding."

Bit confused as to your position on funding.

[cjflog]

Thanks for pointing this out. I will clear it up!

I certainly want to avoid any weird incentive misalignment. Because the testing is done by an accredited lab that provides an official Certificate of Analysis, I think I could reasonably accept funding from manufacturers once I build out a feature that would will allow visitors to download the COA PDF.

No manufacturer has reached out directly yet, presumably because a) this project is small and still gaining trust and b) they would probably want to do testing privately and avoid publication of 'bad' results anyway.

[oniony]

No worries, definitely needs rewording.

Personally I wouldn't have problem with companies funding if it's via the normal route, i.e. via the web interface, such that they are just providing funds and then the normal testing/reporting takes place. But I fear this is idealistic. I can well imagine companies wanting to send you samples directly, wanting you to remove results and even threatening legal action if they don't like the results.

[cjflog]

yes laboratory.love will not allow samples to be sent directly

[tannedNerd]

Have zero stake in this, but I read it as they won’t accept blank checks from those companies, but if those companies want to pay for testing they can work something out. It’s poorly worded but I don’t think they are trying to be sneaky.

[neilv]

1. An example result is "https://laboratory.love/product/117", which is a list of chemicals and measurements. Is there a visualization of how these levels relate to regulations and expert recommendations? What about a visualization of how different products in the same category compare, so that consumers know which brand is supposedly "best"? Maybe a summary rating, as stars or color-coded threat level?

2. If you find regulation-violating (or otherwise serious) levels of undesirable chemicals, do you... (a) report it to FDA; (b) initiate a class-action lawsuit; (c) short the brand's stock and then news blitz; or (d) make a Web page with the test results for people to do with it what they will?

3. Is 3 tests enough? On the several product test results I clicked, there's often wide variation among the 3 samples. Or would the visualization/rating tell me that all 3 numbers are unacceptably bad, whether it's 635.8 or 6728.6?

4. If I know that plastic contamination is a widespread problem, can I secretly fund testing of my competitors' products, to generate bad press for them?

5. Could this project be shut down by a lawsuit? Could the labs be?

[cjflog]

Thank you for your questions!

1. I'm still working to make results more digestible and actionable. This will include the %TDI toggle (total daily intake, for child vs adult and USA vs EU) as seen on PlasticList, but I'm also tinkering with an even more consumer-friendly 'chemical report card'. The final results page would have both the card and the detailed table of results.

2. I have not found any regulation-violating levels yet, so in some sense, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Part of the issue here is that many believe the FDA levels are far too relaxed which is part of why demand for a service like laboratory.love exists.

3. This is part of the challenge that PlasticList faced, and additionally a lot of my thinking around the chemical report card are related to this. Some folks think a single test would be sufficient to catch major red flags. I think triplicate testing is a reasonable balance of statistically robust while not being completely cost-prohibitive.

4. Yes, I suppose one could do that, as long as the funded products can be acquired by laboratory.love anonymously through their normal consumer supply chains. Laboratory.love merely acquires three separate batches of a given product from different sources, tests them at an ISO/IEC 17025-accredited lab, and publishes the data.

5. I suppose any project can be shut down by a lawsuit, but laboratory.love is not currently breaking any laws as far as I'm aware.

[ugh123]

The UK levels are more strict and generally more up to date, which I personally follow rather than FDA. Could be nice to show those violations as a comparison to FDA.

Great site!

[cjflog]

thank you!

[Timothy055]

What a wonderful idea! I sincerely hopes this moves the market. And I backed a study.

[cjflog]

you rock!

[pbronez]

I think this concept has legs to be much bigger than just foods. There are lots of influencer types who focus on testing.

For example, there are two individuals who own the same $100k machine for testing the performance of loudspeakers.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/

Both of them do measurements and YouTube videos. Neither one has a particularly good index of their completed reviews, let alone tools to compare the data.

I wish I could subscribe to support a domain like “loud speaker spin tests” and then have my donation paid out to these reviewers based on them publishing new high quality reviews with good data that is published to a common store.

[nonethewiser]

This is very cool.

Here is something I'm struggling with as a user. I look at a product (this tofu for example [0]) and see the amounts. And then I have absolutely no clue what it means. Is it bad? How bad? I see nanograms one place and μg in an info menu - is μg a nanogram? And what is LOQ? Virtually 0? Simply less than the recommended amount?

I think 99% of people will have the same reaction. They will have no idea what the information means.

I clicked on some info icons to try and get more context. The context is good (explains what the different categories are) but it still didnt help me understand the amounts. I went to "About" and it didnt help with this. I went to the FAQ and and the closest I can find is:

>What makes a result 'concerning'? We don't make safety judgments. Instead, we compare results to established regulatory limits from FDA, EPA, and EFSA, noting when products exceed these thresholds. We also flag when regulatory limits themselves may be outdated based on new research.

I understand that you don't want to make the judgement and it's about transparency and getting the information. But the information is worthless if people dont know what it meant.

[0] - https://laboratory.love/product/118

[daheza]

Exactly my thoughts when I went through it.

I want to see the results of the test compared to the EU/US/Whoever recommendations. I want explanations of what the different chemicals are and preferably linked to peer reviewed studies explaining side effects.

Once even more tests are ran I want comparisons between product brands.

Overall still great but very much an engineer presentation to complex data. Not that its a bad thing, being transparent with data is important, but we aren't all experts.

[cjflog]

Thanks, and yes these improvements are on my roadmap!

I'm working to make results more digestible and actionable. This will include the %TDI toggle (total daily intake, for child vs adult and USA vs EU) as seen on PlasticList, but I'm also tinkering with an even more consumer-friendly 'chemical report card'. The final results page would have both the card and the detailed table of results.

[cjflog]

Thanks, and yes these improvements are on my roadmap!

I'm working to make results more digestible and actionable. This will include the %TDI toggle (total daily intake, for child vs adult and USA vs EU) as seen on PlasticList, but I'm also tinkering with an even more consumer-friendly 'chemical report card'. The final results page would have both the card and the detailed table of results.

[hxorr]

This is actually a topic I'm interested in

What bugs me is that plastics manufacturers advertise "BPA-free", which is technically correct, but then add a very similar chemical from the same family that has the same effect on the plastic - which is good - but also has the same effect on your endocrine system

[linsomniac]

Where can I subscribe to pay $20/mo to whatever happens to be the current leader unfunded product?

[cjflog]

Thanks for your interest!

Here is a Stripe link: https://donate.stripe.com/9B614o4NWdhN83l9r06c001

I'll add subscriptions as a more formal option on laboratory.love soon!

Disclaimer: I don't think I can have a 365-day refund with a recurring donations like this. The financial infrastructure would add too much complexity.

[cjflog]

Update: a donation page with both recurring and one-time donations is now live!

Donated funds are pooled and allocated to the leading unfunded product anytime the pool can get that product to its funding goal.

https://laboratory.love/donate

[linsomniac]

Very cool, $20/mo incoming!

[ebbi]

It's sad that it's come to this on needing to test these things, but amazing initiative! Would love something like this where I am.

[gcanyon]

Serious question: around 1900 meat was often preserved using formaldehyde, and milk was adulterated with water and chalk, and sometimes with pureed calf brains to simulate cream.

I hope we can agree that we are better off than that now.

What I'm curious about is whether you think it's been a steady stream of improvements, and we just need to improve further? Or if you think there was some point between 1900 and now where food health and safety was maximized, greater than either 1900 or now, and we've regressed since then?

[abdullahkhalids]

Trying to collapse high dimensional, complex phenomena onto a single axis usually gives one a fake sense of certainty. One should avoid it as much as possible.

[gcanyon]

And yet we report gun deaths per year, smoking rates, sea warming, etc. etc. The error isn't in producing or considering an aggregate result, but in ignoring where it came from. Since this is an internet forum and not a policy think tank I think that error is largely moot.

Or put another way: it was a simple question that the ggp can answer or not as they choose. I was just curious for their perspective.

[cjflog]

I don't know, but I do know there is room for improvement from where we are now, and I think we should strive to do better.

[gcanyon]

For sure! Turnabout for the goose etc.:

My instinct is that things have largely gotten better over time. At a super-macro level, in 1900 we had directly adulterated food that e.g. the soldiers receiving Chicago meat called "embalmed". In the mid-20th century we had waterways that caught fire and leaded gas.

By the late 20th we had clean(er) air (this is all from a U.S. perspective) and largely safe food. I think if we were to claim a regression, the high point would have to be around 2000, but I can't point to anything specific going on now that wasn't also going on then -- e.g. I think microplastics were a thing then as well, we just weren't paying attention.

[cjflog]

Where are you? This project is not necessarily limited to products that are available in the United States. Anything that can be shipped to the United States is still testable.

[ebbi]

In New Zealand, but just thinking about some of the items that wouldn't be able to be shipped to the US.

[ejo4041]

This is really cool and I was hoping something similar existed earlier this year when looking into protein powders following the Clean Label Transparency Project report [1]. Basically they said about half of protein powders tested showed signs of heavy metals, but did not disclose which brands. I would be interested in funding testing for some specific brands as I am sure others would as well. I did a bit of digging on a few brands and found lawsuits against them for violating prop 65, sometimes multiple [2][3] from the same brand.

Some testing has been done on https://labdoor.com/ where they basically fund the testing with affiliate links, which I think could be another revenue source for your site. I did contact them in January and they said they would add the brands I requested to the list, it's just not crowdsourced the same way your site is. They received some form of backing from Mark Cuban [4].

(edit) To make this more clear - If you are looking for expansion or making it a little wider, allowing users to request other types of testing besides the plastics would be cool.

[1] - https://www.texashealth.org/areyouawellbeing/Eating-Right/Le... [2] - https://www.erc501c3.org/settlements/6f2zxji0o3m2k4jhcwgg7hd... [3] - https://www.erc501c3.org/settlements/k7p29rie5whpc5qek5kdha2... [4] - https://markcubancompanies.com/companies/labdoor/

[cjflog]

Awesome, thanks for the feedback. I will look into Labdoor and their funding models. I'm definitely open to expanding to other types of testing if/when this project grows. I'm actually already able to test for nearly everything you'd want to check for in a consumable, I'm just keeping the focus of the public website on plastic chemicals for now to avoid feature creep and scope management issues.

I have considered creating specific ad-hoc campaign pages for folks with special interests and let them drive people to the page (like a more focused Kickstarter or GoFundMe with a lab on the back end).

If anyone has a special interest I'm happy to mock up what funding targets would be.

[ashdnazg]

First of all, really cool initiative!

It's interesting that a bunch of the funded products have been funded by a single person.

Do you know if it's the producers themselves? Worried rich people?

[cjflog]

Given the current reach of the project (read: still small!), I suspect for awhile yet the majority of successfully funded testing will be by concerned individuals with expendable income. It is cheaper and much faster to go through laboratory.love than it would be to partner with a lab as an individual (plus the added bonus that all data is published openly).

I've yet to have any product funded by a manufacturer. I'm open to this, but I would only publish data for products that were acquired through normal consumer supply chains anonymously.

[mrieck]

This is great, but I wouldn't consider a food to be "clean" just from this testing.

At a minimum it needs glyphosate testing. I suspect the avocado oil has no plastics but high glyphosate, it's one of the many reasons I only use high-quality olive oil and coconut oil in cooking.

[gxs]

If I were a billionaire, one of my many pet projects would basically be a 100% privately-funded-by-me organization that does nothing but test consumer products - either directly or by third party

It would be so boring - no funding accepted, everything would be freely available, no political initiatives, no recommendations, nothing. Just a treasure trove of data

A man can dream - kudos to you for actually making it a reality - great inspiration

Question for you: in general, how much does this stuff cost? what if you wanted to expand to testing beyond plastic, e.g., verifying the potency of ingredients in supplements, verifying cleaning product ingredients, etc., is that possible?

[cjflog]

For an individual acting on their own, single tests for phthalates and BPA/BPS/BPF normally cost ~$500. Laboratory.love tests three samples from different lots to ensure reliability (as PlasticList found variation of up to 59% between lots of identical products). Thanks to volume pricing and operational efficiency, we're able to target $425 per sample ($1,275 for triplicate testing). This covers not just the chemical analysis but also product acquisition, shipping, and operational costs. Right now there is only about 10% margin left as breathing room.

My partner lab specifically offers 300+ unique tests across the following categories: Contaminants, Elemental, Allergen, Preservatives and Additives, Microbial, and Phytochemical, Vitamin, and Actives"

So yes, expansion is definitely possible! If a billionaire wanted to fund a project like this it could certainly convert dollars into data, it's just a matter of choosing which products and contaminants to start chewing through first to ensure the data creates positive change in the real world.

[sotix]

FYI your website seems to trigger a filter/search every time I type a character. However, this causes the keyboard on iOS to collapse, which makes typing a tough task!

[cjflog]

oh dear I'll look into this, I thought this bug was fixed. if you see this please lmk your mobile browser in case that matters.

[sotix]

I'm using the latest safari from an iPad

[tribeca18]

this looks so cool! I wish it told me if the levels found for tested products were good/bad - I have no prior reference so the numbers meant nothing to me

[cjflog]

Coming soon. Thanks for the feedback!