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points by countWSS 2 days ago | 0 comments

Its going to be next few decades version of asbestos x100, The difference with asbestos is plastic is basically everywhere, industrial plastic coatings in many "non-plastic" surface to reduce wear or damage, since plastic resists acids/chemicals better "allegedly". This paper is going to upend most dogmatic ideas on "non-reactive plastic" soon. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-11141-y

[–] scratcheee 2 days ago

I can believe that 100x the exposure is a lowball estimate, but surely the danger is much much lower? Like it’s low enough we still struggle to define it, compared to asbestos which was incredibly deadly just on a 2 decade delay compared to most deadly things.

We’d know by now if plastic was anything like asbestos, it’s been around for long enough.

[–] countWSS 2 days ago

> surely the danger is much much lower

It depends on what chemicals the plastic reacts with. Its more of class of pollutants like aromatic hydrocarbons, randomly forming when the plastic reacts with something in environment, the paper has this explained:plastic is "conditionally inert" material until it gets some electric charge. Then it suddenly a chemical factory floor.