Social media. It wasn’t until very recently that people started to realize just how harmful it actually is.
Sugar. People don’t realize how bad it is for you and how addictive it is.
Micro plastics. We were advertising them in facial scrubs ffs.
This right here. We are undoubtedly the plastic generation. And it’s not letting up any time soon; our kids will be included in this cohort as well. Banning plastic bags in cities is next to useless when everything we eat, everything we drink, and everything we buy is wrapped in plastic.
My country is exceptionally bad about this.
Buy a plastic package of crackers? It will be filled with smaller packages of crackers all wrapped in plastic with a plastic freshener pack for each one. I am not exaggerating. I am not sure I have ever bought something that didn’t have at least two degrees of plastic wrap.
We did stop giving plastic bags out at cashiers unless requested, but that means shitall when everything you buy is triple-wrapped to begin with.
If it makes you feel better a significant amount of microplastics come from tires wearing away on the road.
i’ve definitely complained to a cashier when they put my single bag of chips inside another plastic grocery bag…
Japan?
*reads bio*
Japan.
EDIT: this was my experience in Japan as well: deny the plastic bag from the worker, to buy a plastic bag of 2 apples, individually wrapped in plastic, with the plastic foam sleeves to prevent bruising… and yet Japan still has less single-use plastic waste than America!
Yeah Japan. The argument is that the big souvenir boxes are typically left open and shared among all your coworkers (which to be fair, is usually the case in my office). It still seems excessive though.
What are people doing in the states that they actually have even more?
Banning plastic bags I could get behind. It was inconvenient, but necessary. My city just passed an ordinance that all paper bags require a $0.15 charge. As if it wasn’t already $7 for a hamburger, now you get to pay more to keep your fries from spilling all over the car seat.
I was incontinent, but necessary.
Uh, okay then…
Lol! I got your message and was like, wtf?
When you get the burger in the car, you could put the stuff into reusable containers.
Hello, Edmonton!
It’s mostly from polyester and cotton/poly blends. They dredged the ocean floor and looked at the microplastics it dug up. Sourced it from clothing mostly.
Plastic in general, except that we know and just keep doing it. I’m trying to use less plastic if I can but it’s frickin everywhere. If you want to buy an ear of corn it’s wrapped in plastic as if it isn’t already wrapped in nature’s protection. Seriously people.
I’ve seen a picture of plastic-wrapped peeled bananas…
Oh Em Gee
This, big time. Pretty much every product or package contains some plastics, including so many one-time use disposable ones. Plastics are infesting the Earth from pole to pole, they are everywhere. Clothes are made of plastic, do laundry and a bunch of microplastics go down the drain. Car tires drop microplastics as they wear. And then there’s all the large ones we can see like plastic bags, bottles, etc.
Memory unlocked: “smooth, round microscrubbers” https://youtu.be/Hn15dtxL00A
So, the movie The Graduate was prophetic.
Perfluoroalkyls aka PFAS appear to screw with all manner of body functions.
Since you mention tobacco: It’s worth noting that the smoking/cancer connection was noticed long before peak cigarette smoking in the population. Prior to WWII, lung cancer was considered a rare disease. That changed with the mass marketing of cigarettes.
Social media.
Agreed. Feels weird how normalied addictive social media behavior has become.
I think it’s because we’re social, we find it more normal to do parasocial activities than some other addictive behaviors which are often antisocial. But the reality is parasocial is just 3x antisocial in a trench coat.
Also how impossible the thought of a social media free future already is
Sadly I can’t foresee a future where social media isn’t a dominant force. Like what could possibly displace it at this point? Only dismantling GAFAM could make it work.
Yes I am aware of the irony of posting this comment on social media.
We’ll surely invent something even worse ;-)
It’s already here: social media where the “society” we’re interacting with is mostly AI bots rather than other real human beings.
When you remove the biggest company, the second biggest company becomes the biggest company. At the end of the day, nothing has changed
Social Media
Microplastics are the new lead, and screens are the new tobacco, in my opinion. Overuse of sugar in processed foods is the new version of how they’d cut food with inedible stuff like sawdust back in the day.
My mom become an avid anti-plastic person after watching videos and reading things about the damages that microplastics do to the health, nature and the planet. She does everything she can to avoid using plastic things!
When plastics were first introduced to consumers it was sold as indestructible, it will never wear out, never degrade! People were actually concerned at the time, why anyone buy disposable products that never break down, won’t they just pile up forever?
After much lobbying the concept of recycling plastics was introduced to help consumers stop worrying about all this indestructible waste and help push the sales of cheap plastic products. Your mom has the right idea, not buying it in the first place is the only way to drive demand down.
I’m not at the point in life where I can really avoid plastic, but I aspire to get there eventually.
Care to elaborate? Always looking for new tips to cut back on my personal plastic use.
Try to stop using disposable plastic as far as possible. No cups, bags, spoons, straws. Use reusable bags when shopping, and when shopping, check how the stuff is packaged. Get as much as possible of your stuff in glass bottles, and recycle them. Use waxcloth instead of plastic wrap. Buy larger packages. If you have a cheese or meat counter, get your stuff there. The might even let you bring your own tupperware.
Your comment sums up what my mom is doing. So I don’t think that I need to reply anymore. Thank you so much!
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If I’m being real, my only knowledge of trans fats comes from that one American Dad episode where Stan tries to smuggle them across state lines to make his food taste good again after they’re banned. Would you mind educating me on what the commotion was about them?
So trans fats are unsaturated fats (which we typically associate with good fats) but because of how trans fats are structured they contribute to LDL cholesterol, the bad type of cholesterol.
Ultimately if you consumes lots of it, it gets deposited into the walls of your arteries. This is a real problem in the heart since it can lead to a heart attack.
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That sounds like BS.
I mean think about it logically, if I only eat several kg of trans fats a day I’ll die of starvation? That doesn’t pass the sniff test.
“They basically sit in your liver until you die” - so if I eat 1lb of trans fats a week at the end of a year I’ll be 52lbs heavier and my liver will be the size of a toddler?
Maybe the body can’t efficiently use them like it does other fats for hormone production and such but they definitely count as calories and they’re definitely not just chilling anywhere in your body till you die.
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They’re illegal because people ballooned up to hundreds of pounds all stored in the liver??? How’d I miss that??
Come on, they’re unhealthy and not considered safe anymore but the stuff you said just isn’t true.
Social media
Nah
Nah nah
Nana-nah naah
Hey hey hey!
Plastics.
Yes, all plastics. Even bpa free plastics leak estrogenic chemicals into food, and fpod is often stored in plastic containers. Even milk cartons are lined with plastic.
Teflon(nonstick coated pans and pots) arr similarly terrible
Shoes with a raised heel is bad for your knees. (Easily measurably bad. Especially for running)
Microplastics
I think we all know that ones bad.
sure, but no one’s doing anything about it
Vapes.
What will happen is one or another of the flavorings used will be safe to eat because of stomach acid and digestion, but inhaling it into delicate lungs will cause disease long term. Look up popcorn workers lung to see how a common butter flavoring in the past that was meant for eating on popcorn harmed factory workers breathing it in daily.
One of the existing vape flavors… or a new one… will eventually be shown to cause simular lung disease due to daily breathing it in never truly being studied. Someone with a favorite flavor will use it for years, like any smoker with a favorite brand of cigs, then probably get sick from constant long term exposure.
As somebody who vaped for a long time, I kind of disagree with this one. Of every method for quitting smoking, vaping was the easiest and most effective. It let me titrate down to eventually 0 nicotine juice, which let me stop altogether. I only very rarely vape anymore, I keep my mod around in case I am ever out drinking and get an urge, but it is definitely the reason I was able to quit smoking.
The popcorn lung thing is kind of an urban legend, there is no case of any vaper ever getting it from vaping, but diacetyl (the additive in question) has been discontinued in basically all juice just in case anyway.
The usual mantra in vaping communities was always to tell people that if you weren’t a smoker already, don’t start vaping. Is it better than smoking? Almost assuredly, but it’s still not going to be better than just breathing cleaning air. The recommendation was always as a transition away from smoking. It’s one of the few hobbies we would congratulate each other over leaving.
If you don’t vape or smoke already, don’t start though.
If it’s so effective at helping people quit, why do you still vape?
I quit smoking a decade ago. I don’t occasionally have a cigarette. I don’t EVER have a cigarette. Or vape, because I’m an adult.
I’ve never thought vapes were not-dangerous. Do people really think that? I assume they’re safer than cigarettes but less-bad doesn’t mean good.
Yeah the sentiment surrounding vapes generally is that they’re better than cigarettes. Most people still want to entirely quit vaping, quit nicotine altogether.
Unfortunately, vapes are super enticing to younger people. Even ignoring the underage market entirely, young people love vaping. I’m in the army, so maybe my demographics are skewed, but EVERYBODY is vaping super high nicotine disposable vapes these days.
When I first started vaping, nicotine concrentations were commonly 3 or 6 mg/ml, now 50mg/ml is common.
Tremedous amount of lung damage in the near future. At the most common sense level it makes zero sense to inhale shit into your lungs.
I think it depends on the vape (and ingredients) in question. Cannabis vapes from dispensaries are required to not have additives. They’re all tested thoroughly. So those would be “safer” than things with added oils or flavoring. I’m not sure if they’re better than vaporizing the actual plant flower instead of concentrate.
Nicotine based vapes, I can only assume use some interesting ingredients since it’s not just a compressed/heated/iced tobacco plant. I’ve never used one, but I’ve also never seen someone ask for test results of a nicotine vape (or have them provided).
When I was vaping I always mixed my own juice, so was very sure of what went in. There’s always the chance of buying from a sketchy vendor and getting something weird in your mixes, but most were fairly benign. Vaping liquid is actually pretty simple in composition.
Just curious, what’s you definition of vaping liquid? And was your vendor reputable or someone you knew from elsewhere?
A base of vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol with additional additives for nicotine and flavour.
I bought my VG and PG from a local vendor, but those are readily available basically anywhere because they have a lot of uses outside vaping. I ordered pure liquid nicotine (in a PG suspension) online. Flavour additives also ordered online from a fairly reputable vendor that was well known in . I have no idea what policies about sharing vendors are here, but I am happy to give recommendations to anyone if they are looking to make their own juice to save money/be safer.
I mostly made fairly simple flavours, nothing too fancy. I had a friend who actually just vaped VG/PG with nicotine and no flavours at all.
Microplastics and plastic related byproducts, like phtalates (which are connected with a decreased fertility in mammals)
I’m positive that the long term effects of these substances, that can be found in every link of the food chain nowadays, will be discussed a lot in the futureTiktok.
You said product, and I mean this legitimately. Not because of meme hate or hating on what is trendy, but because it is and has been a tool of the CCP. This isn’t really in question, and it was one of the first large platforms to entirely erase the idea of a timeline and fully devote itself only to a algorithm feed. One that bytedance has put their finger on the scales of many times.
The effect this has is hard to quantify, but the postmortem on it is going to be incredible as we unpack exactly how much this influenced the trends and politics among zoomers, and to what extent.
Automobiles. Especially in the USA they are causing a public health crisis, environmental crisis, qualify of life crisis. I grew up loving them and they have uses but I’m fully convinced in the future they should be a luxury used for specific tasks or trips rather than the only form of transportation available.
Plastic and sugar are good answers, but cars are right there in terms of harm and way more acceptable despite that.
PFAS, which are needed to produce teflon and other nonstick materials. It currently begins to attack attention, but wasn’t really an issue a few years ago. It doesn’t decay naturally so it will be forever in the environment. The EU is even planning to ban all PFAS.
Yeah I switched to all stainless steel clad pots and pans a few years ago to avoid all that shit.
Could you tell me what brand you bought, if that’s not too personal? Wanting to do the same but unsure which is best.
People swear by All-Clad (because their stuff is really good), but if you want to save a considerable amount of money, you can get similar quality tri-ply clad stuff from Tramontina.
Thank you very much!
Some PFAS have already been banned indeed. Unfortunately, it’s loke fighting the Hydra - everytime some PFAS gets banned the industry comes up with at least three new ones…
That’s why blanket bans are beeing considered
Adam Ragusea did a pretty decent video on the topic a while ago.
Even if you convinced me that PFAS are 100% safe and benign and absolutely never make it from the pan into our food…I’d still support banning them because of how nuclear they are to everybody involved with or living near, wherever they’re manufactured. Seems like a lot of unnecessary risk just for a slightly more convenient non-stick layer.
A new era of the carbon steel skillet dawns.
