Engineering360: "Study: More than 4,000 chemicals found in common plastic packaging"

The optimist says the cup is half full, the pessimist says it's half empty, but the scientist says How much is in the cup? Numbers matter.

The world is critical of plastics because they are science-based (chemistry in this case) and science says there are no miracles. Mystery OK, magic No. Plastics are nontoxic molecules; some additives and residues are suspect, but that's also true for paper and wood. They can be made degradable, but I prefer inert and harmless, as degradation doesn't happen instantly and devalues recycle. Plastics don't support bacteria, they preserve food, they save lives in hospitals, and their light weight saves fuel and protective packaging (as needed for glass). Their use as irrigation pipe and mulch film, as well as food preservation, leads to lower food prices. All wire/cable insulation is plastic now, also most drain pipe, insulation, some roofing, and non-rotting replacements for wood in building. All this won't matter, though, as the need to resist and fear science/chemistry is too strong. Plastics won't go away; they will continue their use but be seen as a necessary evil, despite their positive effect on health and environment.

Griffex,

Your very short first paragraph ends with "numbers matter". I agree with that. Expand that to include chemical formulas and all else. We have well over a million chemicals in our daily environment but have studied less than 10% regarding their biological side effects (both positive and negative). Some chemicals are biologically active at surprisingly low concentrations (consider the urushiol family which on allergic people creates the poison oak/ivy rash at levels in the sub-milligram range).

I prefer to have an open mind regarding what we do and am hoping for more understanding about how we are affecting the environment around us.

--JMM

Then there are quite a number of individuals who prefer we study all of these chemicals for 40 to 50 years to be sure there are no adverse health effects on humans yet decry the use of animals as human analogs.

I wonder what kind of world we would live in had the anti-chemicals group been around back when the Dows, DuPonts, Union Carbides and the rest of the petrochemical giants first cracked crude oil.