• Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      21 hours ago

      On average, disposable plastic bottles shed microplastics much more prolifically than plastic water piping.

      • Rookwood@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        21 hours ago

        That would seem to be the explanation on the face of it. Piping is made from heavier duty plastic. But I’ve heard that PVC can start leaking some nasty chemicals over the decades. Is that better or worse than microplastics?

        • kitnaht@lemmy.world
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          21 hours ago

          PVC fell out of use in the 2000s, most buildings use PEX now; but I don’t know how that compares.

          • Rookwood@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            5 hours ago

            I believe I’ve heard that PEX actually breaks down and starts leeching chemicals into the water faster than PVC. It’s also a cheaper material. Most of the houses I’m familiar with are still installing PVC.

    • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works
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      21 hours ago

      You have to remember that plastic containers aren’t washed before they are filled with product. That’s often where much of the micro/nano plastics come from.

        • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works
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          5 hours ago

          It’s been no secret for years now that nanoplastics are lurking in bottled water and in products packaged or wrapped in other kinds of plastic. But new research has called attention to just how big an issue these particles may be.

          A study published in January 2024 used new methods to analyze just how many nanoplastic particles really are floating around in the average plastic bottle of water. They found that a liter of bottled water can contain as many as 240,000 tiny plastic fragments. That number is 10 to 100 times more than previous estimates.

          https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300582121