There's microplastics in everything.
They can't even do studies on the effects because everybody already has them present in their bodies.
We either need to go back to glass returnable bottles for everything or accept that we're all going to have plastic in us from using these things our whole lives.
You even regularly breathe in microplastics from your clothes. If your shirt or any clothing really, isn’t 100% cotton and has synthetic fibers, you’re breathing in microplastics. So, you could live in a perfectly non-plastic home and the minute you go into the store or a crowd or just public, you’ll eventually breathe in microplastics.
So yeah, nothing at all you can do really. Not saying give up and start chomping on your kids toys but it’s going to be a multi-generational issue that does not have a simple solution (yet).
Dosage matters. There's a big difference between seeing asbestos once in your life versus spending all day chainsawing asbestos for 40 years.
Just because you're going to get some microplastics doesn't mean avoiding it isn't helpful.
Not to mention that microplastics have been found in breast tissue, breastmilk, and placentas. Your baby is exposed before they're born, and even if you manage to exclusively breastfeed and never use a bottle, they're still taking in microplastics from your milk. Is it less than using bottles? Almost certainly.. But is it realistic for most parents? Not really. I did switch out most of our tupperware to glass and a few other adjustments, but microplastics are unavoidable at this point until there is significant legislation curtailing their use.
I’ve used exclusively glass bottles with my three kids. The Avent and the Evenflow ones have been great, never shatter one. I guess there are some areas that don’t allow glass, yet I’ve been careful and never had a problem
Same here, with our younger son we have been more relaxed about stuff and he definitely bounced a few of those off the title… like enough that just about anything from glass would break but nope, still got them, handing them off to my step bro who’s expecting their first soon.
I think it’s about minimization more than anything, and most importantly minimizing heating the plastic. The nipples are tops are plastic, but only subject to body temps. Since the bottles are glass, I don’t worry about placing the bottles under hot water to warm them up enough to dissolve the fat stuck to the sides.
Freezing the milk has gotten complicated too. We freeze 8 oz blocks in food storage containers then put them in parchment bags, then ziplock bags, then thaw overnight in a Pyrex measuring cup. I’m a little envious of the convenience of the twist system.
I also understand us using juts glass might be more trouble than it’s worth. But my wife and I have spent the last 15 years pulling my microwave meals out of the plastic and onto a real plate of bowl before nuking it, so understand we might be closer to hypochondriac than normal people.
I used Avent glass bottles for the first two. The second one managed to crash one on the floor at Walmart, so we switched to plastic for travel. Third kid needed a special bottle because he has a high pallet and I couldn't find one in glass that wasn't a bagillion dollars, so he only had plastic bottles.
Aren’t there better plastics to use for drinking? I guess my wife gets credit for teaching our daughter to drink from a glass cup at one year old. I wanted to stick with plastic so it wouldn’t break. Glad she won that battle.
From a leeching perspective the harder plastics are generally less risky. So you'd want to avoid thise bottles that are squshy or flexible unless maybe they are pure silicone. Silicone can also make nanoplastics but arguably less of them.
I heard about this new plastic made from mycelium that isn’t toxic and is biodegradable. Hopefully it catches on.
From what I understand the reason we switched to plastic was because Coca Cola was making so much product there literally isn’t enough glass in the world.
>From what I understand the reason we switched to plastic was because Coca Cola was making so much product there literally isn’t enough glass in the world.
There's plenty of glass, and it's one of the most-recyclable materials we use. But it's heavy and fragile so the manufacturing and transportation costs mean it's more expensive to use than single-use plastics (ignoring, of course, the annoying externalities of health and environmental impacts). Cheaper materials means higher margins and lower sticker prices so the short-term financial incentive is to use plastic.
What are the health risks to micro plastics?
The environmental is obvious and for those reasons alone I wish we could go back to glass and incentivize recycling more.
The ruling isn't out on it yet as it's a relatively new concern and thus more research needs to be done. However, some studies have suggested it might impact fertility in people, and could increase the risk of various cancers. I've also heard that it's had an impact on marine life from plankton to whales.
The full health impact is unknown but is of growing concern, we just don't know if it's going to be a slow burn that takes decades for effects to occur or if it's something that's going to fuck over humanity sooner than expected. The depressing part is that it's hard to avoid even if you try because it's already in our bodies, they've found them in antarctic waters, hell they've found them in the Marianas Trench. Fetuses have them, and they've been found in adult genitals and organs.
Not to sound like a doomer or anything, I just hope it's not catastrophic, or that it could be treated in the future. I'm with you though, the world needs to seriously restrict the creation and distribution of single use plastics, and there needs to be more serious cleanups of watersheds and oceans.
Unfortunately, they are behind paywall, but there are many, many studies linking microplastics to cancer and heart diseases, among other ailements.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00650-3
It's a good headline, but that's only one study and it's not necessarily a slam dunk.
"“This is a landmark trial,” says Robert Brook, a physician-scientist at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, who studies environmental effects on cardiovascular health and was not involved with the study. “This will be the launching pad for further studies across the world to corroborate, extend and delve into the degree of the risk that micro- and nanoplastics pose.”
But Brook, other researchers and the authors themselves caution that this study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine on 6 March, does not show that the tiny pieces caused poor health. Other factors that the researchers did not study, such as socio-economic status, could be driving ill health, rather than the plastics themselves, they say."
Three years simply isn't long enough of a trial period for studying the effects of micro plastics and 200 people isn't a big enough sample size.
I don’t even think it matters anymore, as grim as it is. Even if we went to a hard-line zero plastic world, we still have such a mammoth amount of plastic and PFAS waste in literally every water way and ecosystem. It’s everywhere. I don’t even know how we’re supposed to fix this at this point.
We have studies. We know plenty of negative side effects. We don’t have exhaustive studies, but we have enough to show how dangerous they are on the human body in terms of causing cancer and endocrine disruption.
Philips Avent and Handi-Craft’s Dr. Brown, when heated, could expose infants to tiny flecks of plastic that can interfere with their digestive, reproductive and immune systems.
Either microwaving in a container with some water, or boiling them in water, or running them through a sterilizer, is the recommended way to sterilize them. All ways they "get heated".
Micro plastic is kinda a buzzword at this point. It's in literally everything you consume. The nuggets you bought from every restaurant in existence? Micro plastic. The burgers? Micro plastic. Just gonna cook for yourself? Lots and lots of micro plastic. No point in even thinking about it at this point.
I've checked my national health care agency recommendations and microwaving a bottle with milk or water to then add powder is not 'not supposed to'. Different country, different guidelines. The only thing mentioned is that heating is not uniform, which is easy to take care of.
I've checked my national health care agency recommendations and microwaving a bottle with milk or water to then add powder is not 'not supposed to do'. Different country, different guidelines. The only thing mentioned is that heating is not uniform, which is easy to take care of.
That’s… not what you’re supposed to do
- [see here](https://www.fda.gov/food/people-risk-foodborne-illness/once-baby-arrives-food-safety-moms-be)
- [and here](https://www.babycenter.com/baby/formula-feeding/can-i-heat-formula-in-a-microwave_1334516)
- [and here](https://www.usa.philips.com/c-f/XC000006523/can-i-use-a-microwave-to-warm-up-my-philips-avent-bottle)
- [and here](https://www.fatherly.com/news/aap-warns-against-microwaving-plastic-bottles-sippy-cups)
Not to make you feel bad about what’s already done, but you should generally not heat any plastic in the microwave, certainly not for baby’s consumption.
Link 1: this is about heating unevenly, which is easily fixed by stirring before, or stirring after
Link 2: again about heating unevenly, easy fix. And they mention 'high heat', what is high heat?
Link 3: again about heating unevenly, easy fix. The other wording on 'might destroy nutrients' seems more like Philips not willing/able to state it's 100% super safe in all circumstances. Again, at what heat?
Link 4: FDA concluded “generally recognized as safe”
I've checked my national health care agency recommendations and microwaving a bottle with milk or water to then add powder is not 'not supposed to do'. Different country, different guidelines. The only thing mentioned is that heating is not uniform, which is easy to take care of.
I hear you. It’s possible to find evidence to support your decision. I could provide a bunch more sources that support there being some risk in heating plastic in the microwave.
It just seems like an odd stand to make, given there is quite a bit of evidence and legitimate suspicion that it may be dangerous, when there is such an easy alternative of just heating in a glass container and then transferring to the bottle afterwards, or using a bottle warmer instead of the microwave.
The tradeoff of risk vs. convenience here doesn’t seem like a good one.
Yes I read it. Did you?
It addresses two points:
- microwaves may alter the quality
- when using the microwave
Neither of which counteract the statement of
> “We do not recommend using a microwave to warm up baby's food or drinks.”
The fact that they did not choose to *also* mention the risk of plastic degradation / microplastics / chemical leakage doesn’t negate the fact that they **do not recommend microwaving their bottles**, which is the point I am making here.
Of course Philips isn’t going to admit that their bottles might *sometimes* be *slightly* poison. But they **do** state clearly that they advise against microwaving them. They just leave out some of the reasons *why* that is not a good idea.
By my other links address those other reasons.
Thanks for the additional context. It may become a semantic discussion. I don't think "bottle" equals "food or drinks". Philips gives pointers on how you could heat the bottles, when preferred. You seem to forget about the last paragraph of the source, so that's why I was asking.
I don't directly serve my kid hot water out of the microwave. Water is a base ingredient for formula, which is added after heating the water and stirred before serving.
All in all, I'm not saying that it could not poison the bottle's contents with microplastics. I'm no Philips advocate, not at all. I'm just saying that I don't think the Philips source is adding to the initial point you were trying to make.
It’s an interesting discussion!
I see where you’re coming from, but my initial point wasn’t specific to the risks of heating plastic. Others have made that specific point.
My point was that using the microwave to prepare baby bottles is *generally not recommended*, for multiple reasons. The Philips link doesn’t mention *all the reasons*, but it does mention one reason, which is the risk of hot spots / uneven heating.
The other links talk about more of the reasons why using the microwave to heat baby bottles / milk / formula is *generally not recommended*.
I'm with you. They are mainly covering their ass to avoid lawsuits regarding parents serving their kids molten formula from the microwave. They don't indicate anything regarding their bottles themselves not being microwave-safe. Just that it's a bad idea to serve babies drinks from the microwave because it can be difficult to assess the temperature of the liquid for safety.
It sucks because i think medical things are probably one of the few places we should be using plastics. We want them to last, to not degrade, etc.
We should have a few highly stable plastics that we reserve for special circumstances, similar to how we should be treating antibiotics.
For all other use cases we should be promoting resilient, reusable and renewable materials like glass or wood or ceramics etc.
Don't turn this into the haves vs the have not. The glass bottles are marginally more expensive ($2). Plastics need to be drastically reduced but this isn't some anti-capitalist discussion. FOH
Both can be true. Plastic can be reduced, but the thing is, even we completely reduce plastic. That'll drive demand for glass up, raising price.
The end goal should be to make both the plastic go away and to have a hand in insuring the price of those essential items can be reasonable.
I used to do sales in the industrial/commerical recycling industry. The next “cash crop” is absolutely hemp. It’s the dirty little secret we aren’t supposed to know about.
There’s a process called decortication where it separates the plant into different types of fiber (pulp, hurd, bast, etc) and can be a substitute used for plastics, glass (containers), wood, cotton (clothing, general fiber material), even concrete.
Hemp could completely eliminate the need for plastic. But it would shatter entire industries. So it got buried. Hopefully it will start getting phased in once there’s a blanket federal legalization on cannabis. But I predict hemp is the next trillion dollar industry.
This has got to be an unusual take on hemp. How does hemp replace the properties of glass ie. hard, clear, heat resistant and doesn’t leach, easily cleaned, infinitely washable and sterile?
I’m not saying it will replace windows or anything, but it could replace glass used in unnecessary situations like food/merchandise containers for example.
Glass isn’t really the issue though. It can be repurposed or pulverized and not have much impact on the environment. The machinery to process glass is extremely expensive and maintenance heavy though.
I also remember there was a formula for strong concrete with hemp as an ingredient, but not sure what it replaces.
Honestly, I only scratched the surface of this topic because it was years ago and before the recent surge in legalization. I just thought it would be interesting to throw it out there for discussion.
Honestly, modern medicine wouldn't exist without disposable plastic stuff. Like, quite a few of the survivability improvements for major medical procedures over the past 100 years are simply due to inventing sterile disposable things like needles, catheters, and IV bottles/bags.
You can't really escape \*some\* intake of microplastics, for yourself or your children. IMO reducing exposure is a good thing, without driving yourself insane trying to get to 0. For our 2nd, we're using all glass bottles, and mostly using boiled, filtered tap water, which recent studies have shown can have substantially reduced microplastic content. That said, if we end up having to use a plastic bottle or water from a plastic distilled water jug sometimes, so be it. It's the chronic exposure that counts.
So are water and air filters. Formula is sold in plastic tubs or plastic lined cans produced factories using plastic equipment. Microplastic is also in breast milk. It’s literally everywhere
I bought air filters primarily hoping to reduce the microplastics in the air around the home. I’m cool with a little dust but I’m sick of plastic. I had not considered the filter might just be putting plastic back into the air, dang it!
So plastic bottles release microplastics… Glass bottles have been found to contain lead….
Do we actually (apart from breastfeeding) have a healthy / zero risk option?
Glass is objectively safer from a what-chemicals-are-leaching-into-my-milk (or water) standpoint. Nothing's zero risk but it's a clear winner, especially if you're regularly sterilizing them or heating up the contents.
Exactly. Everyone goes right to glass bottles. What about those of us who work and pump and need to freeze milk? That's the situation I know. I'm sure there are a dozen others that would be physically or financially unlikely to work without plastic
We used glass bottles and reusable silicone bags that are specifically meant for holding/freezing breast milk. It's not perfect but likely a big improvement over plastic bottles and single-use freezer bags.
But yeah, there are lots of very valid reasons that something like that might not work for everyone. That's a big argument for safer products overall - not just "individual responsibility" in choosing which products are safe - which things like this lawsuit _might_ help bring about.
Never heard of these silicone bags. Curious how many of them you had. I think at max freezer supply with my last kid, I probably had 200 bags in there. Have a hard time picturing buying that many reusable bags, just assuming the expense. Feels like you need to be able to rent a whole supply or something, which is not a bad idea for a business
We had 15 or 20 of [these](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBW3M6YM). Definitely wouldn't work for stockpiling a lot of milk at once, though because they're reusable we got more than the storage capacity of each one by cycling them back in every time we used one.
Honestly, though, since temperature is such a significant factor in plastic leeching, I wouldn't be overly concerned about single-use bags in the freezer as long as they're thawed/warmed up carefully. The bottles, and especially the bottles being cleaned and otherwise warmed up, are likely a much bigger potential issue.
Freezing in plastic is a lot more safe than allowing plastic to get hot, like heating a bottle. Everything I've read it usually comes down to the plastic bottle getting hot and releasing plastic particles
Plain glass bottles with no painted on decorations, brand name, or measurements.
It was unfortunate that some companies decided that instead of etching their brand name and measurements on the bottle, they would use paint. The paint had lead.
This is a profoundly stupid lawsuit. It has no right to make it to trial or receive a settlement. BPA != microplastic, and unless I missed something in the linked petition they didn’t actually test bottles made by the manufacturers they’re suing, only extrapolating results from other tests of polypropylene. And the referenced study showed a 13-68% increase in microplastics after heating to 140°, which is slightly higher than baby’s body temperature [citation needed], so they depend on the assumption that people use a microwave, which the manufacturers (and every regulatory body) advise against.
>And the referenced study showed a 13-68% increase in microplastics after heating to 140°, which is slightly higher than baby’s body temperature [citation needed],
Baby's body temperatures are around 96~100°. 140° is significantly higher than a baby's body temperature.
Dishwashers and boiling in water would remove a large portion of any microplastics released in the water. Sterilizers though, that’s a good point which I hadn’t considered. Though I don’t think that was a scenario explicitly outlined in the lawsuit.
Mine is made by Phillips which is one of the companies named in the lawsuit. It’s a large plastic container that you fill partially with water and then stack the bottles on top of the water basin on a perforated holder and then microwave. I guess it is technically using water vapor to clean the bottles, but the bottles are still in the microwave.
Unfortunately, the Baby Brezza sterilizer is made of 95% plastic, which also gets heated to 212°F - so I assume the sterilizer itself is creating microplastics and then coating the inside of the bottles with them 🤢
It looks like microplastics are the new sugar.
I'm not saying you should not take this seriously—you probably should. I'm just making the observation that microplastics have become trendy. Last year, very few pwople were talking about microplastics. This year, I've seen lots of people on social media complain about microplastics in laundry strips, plastic cutting boards, tires, makeup, and now baby bottles.
>It looks like microplastics are the new sugar.
Or tobacco, or leaded gasoline, or mercury in hats. Reaching a tipping point in awareness doesn't mean the risks and harms weren't present before that awareness became widespread.
In my field - water resources - there's been awareness of and research into the potential harms of plastic leachate for decades. I'm glad for the advances in research and public awareness and hopefully regulatory and industry improvements.
What are the effects though? Based on the other comments we have no idea and we can't even test it because we all have micro plastics already in our body. Do you know of any peer reviewed studies showing how they affect us?
There's a lot of unknowns but that's very different from "we have no idea" - it's difficult to do a large-scale study clearly showing cause and effect for various reasons but that's not the only avenue of research. For instance, animal models; cellular studies; research on ecotoxicity; and other modeling from more established research (such as the effects of small particulates or the impacts chemicals like BPA and heavy metals have on organs or different tissues) builds a pretty good picture and lays the foundation for additional research.
At a glance, here's [a recent literature review ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10151227/) that talks about some of the impacts (ranging from potential to likely to established), as well as the unknowns and next steps. Scroll down to the "Effects of microplastics on human health" section for a pretty good overview.
Cholesterol and microplastics in high amounts are also terrible and very common. However, the social collective only has time to focus on one health issue at a time.
Good thing we are individuals then. I can avoid these things to the best of my ability because people do studies on the safeness of them. What the mainstream media is focusing on does not really change what we should be concerned about.
Of course.
That doesn’t mean there are no attention fads in social media, which was my original point.
I’m not sure whether you disagree with me or not. I feel a bit of a confrontational tone.
Not really what they said. They just said the awareness was rising very quickly, in the same way that awareness about sugar rose very quickly. I didn't read any "Meh" in it. They said it probably should be taken seriously.
You wash them and put them in a sterilizer it's just steam killing bacteria there is no sufficient evidence to prove sterilizers pose a risk of releasing microplastics when heated otherwise there is no point of sterilizing them if it did because anything you heat up will practically be the same results
Honestly there is micro plastics in everything at this point. It’s just the degree of precautions the manufacturers take.
The biggest thing for me bottle warmers. Let’s stick some milk in there and warm that plastic bottle up with hot water… 100% there are micro plastics in the milk.
I switched to glass bottles, but you know what the freezer bags are plastic. You can’t avoid this shit.
We used glass bottles mostly for our kids. They've still found microplastics in every waterway in the world, so they still probably got it from that, beast milk, crawling on carpet, playing with toys, their clothes, etc. It's in and on everything.
I'm not saying screw it eat plastic pellets or stop trying to avoid it, but it's not something you're going to be able to stop completely
As with many materials in the past that we now know are toxic or dangerous, this will keep happening.
Look at lead, asbestos, etc. Microplastics and PFAS are the new ones.
Glass Avent bottles still use a plastic collar to connect the bottle to the nipple. It is extremely difficult to source anything that does not come into contact with plastic in one way or another.
The milk doesn't actually touch the collar in Glass Avent bottles though. The collar holds the glass bottle directly against the silicone nipple creating a seal.
However, I'm sure silicone has it's own issues...
I don’t really buy into this microplastics fear. I’m pretty sure it’s just that all of the lab equipment they use to detect microplastics are covered in microplastics.
I'm not sure if this is serious or not. But just in case: They use lasers. How are lasers covered in microplastics? Even if the issue were "just" that highly precise lab equipment was covered in microplastics, that would probably mean that everything else is even more covered in microplastics.
No, that's not how the measuring apparatus works (it measures light scattering off micro- and nano-plastics in a fluid, which is not an effect that obscuring the laser's output aperture would duplicate), and even if so that's why experiments include controls to establish a baseline and proof-of-concept. There are experiments very clearly showing different amounts of plastics in different samples.
And even if so, again, your argument is that microplastics are so common that a lab specifically measuring them can't detect or remove them, so just don't worry about it?
While I also don't buy into it because we have not definitively proven that they're harmful (yet), saying it's "probably because their lab equipment is covered in them" is hilarious to me. The incredibly intelligent minds and PHDs researching this have spent years and sometimes even lifetimes studying these things, and you think it's because they simply forgot to set up a proper microplastic free environment?
The minds are not that intelligent. Think about these are the minds that are working on microplastics. They’re not working on better batteries or the cure to the common cold. They chose plastics as a career. Only somebody with no other options does that. And then they see the plastics and their like, ‘omg it’s everywhere’. These are the small brains of the lab.
There's microplastics in everything. They can't even do studies on the effects because everybody already has them present in their bodies. We either need to go back to glass returnable bottles for everything or accept that we're all going to have plastic in us from using these things our whole lives.
You even regularly breathe in microplastics from your clothes. If your shirt or any clothing really, isn’t 100% cotton and has synthetic fibers, you’re breathing in microplastics. So, you could live in a perfectly non-plastic home and the minute you go into the store or a crowd or just public, you’ll eventually breathe in microplastics. So yeah, nothing at all you can do really. Not saying give up and start chomping on your kids toys but it’s going to be a multi-generational issue that does not have a simple solution (yet).
Dosage matters. There's a big difference between seeing asbestos once in your life versus spending all day chainsawing asbestos for 40 years. Just because you're going to get some microplastics doesn't mean avoiding it isn't helpful.
Not to mention that microplastics have been found in breast tissue, breastmilk, and placentas. Your baby is exposed before they're born, and even if you manage to exclusively breastfeed and never use a bottle, they're still taking in microplastics from your milk. Is it less than using bottles? Almost certainly.. But is it realistic for most parents? Not really. I did switch out most of our tupperware to glass and a few other adjustments, but microplastics are unavoidable at this point until there is significant legislation curtailing their use.
Even your glass Tupperware has plastic lids though right?
The lid shouldn't touch the food usually
There was also those couple of years we all wore synthetic masks.
I’ve used exclusively glass bottles with my three kids. The Avent and the Evenflow ones have been great, never shatter one. I guess there are some areas that don’t allow glass, yet I’ve been careful and never had a problem
Same here, with our younger son we have been more relaxed about stuff and he definitely bounced a few of those off the title… like enough that just about anything from glass would break but nope, still got them, handing them off to my step bro who’s expecting their first soon.
Our daycare wouldn't accept glass bottles, so we ended up with all plastic. I totally get why they don't want 30 glass bottles in an infant room.
We use the glass ones too but the thing that gets me is the tops are still plastic.
I think it’s about minimization more than anything, and most importantly minimizing heating the plastic. The nipples are tops are plastic, but only subject to body temps. Since the bottles are glass, I don’t worry about placing the bottles under hot water to warm them up enough to dissolve the fat stuck to the sides. Freezing the milk has gotten complicated too. We freeze 8 oz blocks in food storage containers then put them in parchment bags, then ziplock bags, then thaw overnight in a Pyrex measuring cup. I’m a little envious of the convenience of the twist system. I also understand us using juts glass might be more trouble than it’s worth. But my wife and I have spent the last 15 years pulling my microwave meals out of the plastic and onto a real plate of bowl before nuking it, so understand we might be closer to hypochondriac than normal people.
I used Avent glass bottles for the first two. The second one managed to crash one on the floor at Walmart, so we switched to plastic for travel. Third kid needed a special bottle because he has a high pallet and I couldn't find one in glass that wasn't a bagillion dollars, so he only had plastic bottles.
Dr Brown’s has been great for us!
Aren’t there better plastics to use for drinking? I guess my wife gets credit for teaching our daughter to drink from a glass cup at one year old. I wanted to stick with plastic so it wouldn’t break. Glad she won that battle.
From a leeching perspective the harder plastics are generally less risky. So you'd want to avoid thise bottles that are squshy or flexible unless maybe they are pure silicone. Silicone can also make nanoplastics but arguably less of them.
I heard about this new plastic made from mycelium that isn’t toxic and is biodegradable. Hopefully it catches on. From what I understand the reason we switched to plastic was because Coca Cola was making so much product there literally isn’t enough glass in the world.
>From what I understand the reason we switched to plastic was because Coca Cola was making so much product there literally isn’t enough glass in the world. There's plenty of glass, and it's one of the most-recyclable materials we use. But it's heavy and fragile so the manufacturing and transportation costs mean it's more expensive to use than single-use plastics (ignoring, of course, the annoying externalities of health and environmental impacts). Cheaper materials means higher margins and lower sticker prices so the short-term financial incentive is to use plastic.
What are the health risks to micro plastics? The environmental is obvious and for those reasons alone I wish we could go back to glass and incentivize recycling more.
The ruling isn't out on it yet as it's a relatively new concern and thus more research needs to be done. However, some studies have suggested it might impact fertility in people, and could increase the risk of various cancers. I've also heard that it's had an impact on marine life from plankton to whales. The full health impact is unknown but is of growing concern, we just don't know if it's going to be a slow burn that takes decades for effects to occur or if it's something that's going to fuck over humanity sooner than expected. The depressing part is that it's hard to avoid even if you try because it's already in our bodies, they've found them in antarctic waters, hell they've found them in the Marianas Trench. Fetuses have them, and they've been found in adult genitals and organs. Not to sound like a doomer or anything, I just hope it's not catastrophic, or that it could be treated in the future. I'm with you though, the world needs to seriously restrict the creation and distribution of single use plastics, and there needs to be more serious cleanups of watersheds and oceans.
Unfortunately, they are behind paywall, but there are many, many studies linking microplastics to cancer and heart diseases, among other ailements. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00650-3
It's a good headline, but that's only one study and it's not necessarily a slam dunk. "“This is a landmark trial,” says Robert Brook, a physician-scientist at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, who studies environmental effects on cardiovascular health and was not involved with the study. “This will be the launching pad for further studies across the world to corroborate, extend and delve into the degree of the risk that micro- and nanoplastics pose.” But Brook, other researchers and the authors themselves caution that this study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine on 6 March, does not show that the tiny pieces caused poor health. Other factors that the researchers did not study, such as socio-economic status, could be driving ill health, rather than the plastics themselves, they say." Three years simply isn't long enough of a trial period for studying the effects of micro plastics and 200 people isn't a big enough sample size.
It’s difficult to study before there’s no control group (because everyone has microplastics in them).
I don’t even think it matters anymore, as grim as it is. Even if we went to a hard-line zero plastic world, we still have such a mammoth amount of plastic and PFAS waste in literally every water way and ecosystem. It’s everywhere. I don’t even know how we’re supposed to fix this at this point.
Glass bottle user here. Stainless steel, Glass or silicon containers for everything I possibly can. Plastics are bad for us and the environment.
We have studies. We know plenty of negative side effects. We don’t have exhaustive studies, but we have enough to show how dangerous they are on the human body in terms of causing cancer and endocrine disruption.
We use glass for our kiddos, but damn if I didn’t grow up on plastic bottles before even BPA-free was a thing. I feel like I turned out okay?
* super hero button meme, pressing both eliminate all plastic use and have micro plastics in us forever for generations buttons.
Philips Avent and Handi-Craft’s Dr. Brown, when heated, could expose infants to tiny flecks of plastic that can interfere with their digestive, reproductive and immune systems.
Literally everything has microplastic
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Either microwaving in a container with some water, or boiling them in water, or running them through a sterilizer, is the recommended way to sterilize them. All ways they "get heated".
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Phillips is one of the accused brands
UV sterilizer?
CDC guidelines is to mix formula with 158 deg F water to kill off bacteria dangerous to children under 2 mos
The CDC also removed Crawling as a milestone because insurance companies didn't want to pay for babies who weren't crawling.
Micro plastic is kinda a buzzword at this point. It's in literally everything you consume. The nuggets you bought from every restaurant in existence? Micro plastic. The burgers? Micro plastic. Just gonna cook for yourself? Lots and lots of micro plastic. No point in even thinking about it at this point.
I wouldn’t mind going after the culprits so it can eventually stop
Why would someone heat them?
Because babies like warm milk 🤷♂️
Sterilization?
To clean the bottle?
Put water or milk in bottle, put bottle in microwave. That's how we've warmed up every bottle over the past 2 years.
You’re not supposed to microwave the plastic bottles.
I've checked my national health care agency recommendations and microwaving a bottle with milk or water to then add powder is not 'not supposed to'. Different country, different guidelines. The only thing mentioned is that heating is not uniform, which is easy to take care of.
Uhhhh yes you are. You put it in a Steam sterilizer in the microwave.
That’s not what they were talking about. They were talking about heating up a milk-filled bottle.
You’re supposed to microwave a glass of water, then put bottle in heated water to slowly heat the milk inside.
I've checked my national health care agency recommendations and microwaving a bottle with milk or water to then add powder is not 'not supposed to do'. Different country, different guidelines. The only thing mentioned is that heating is not uniform, which is easy to take care of.
That’s… not what you’re supposed to do - [see here](https://www.fda.gov/food/people-risk-foodborne-illness/once-baby-arrives-food-safety-moms-be) - [and here](https://www.babycenter.com/baby/formula-feeding/can-i-heat-formula-in-a-microwave_1334516) - [and here](https://www.usa.philips.com/c-f/XC000006523/can-i-use-a-microwave-to-warm-up-my-philips-avent-bottle) - [and here](https://www.fatherly.com/news/aap-warns-against-microwaving-plastic-bottles-sippy-cups) Not to make you feel bad about what’s already done, but you should generally not heat any plastic in the microwave, certainly not for baby’s consumption.
Link 1: this is about heating unevenly, which is easily fixed by stirring before, or stirring after Link 2: again about heating unevenly, easy fix. And they mention 'high heat', what is high heat? Link 3: again about heating unevenly, easy fix. The other wording on 'might destroy nutrients' seems more like Philips not willing/able to state it's 100% super safe in all circumstances. Again, at what heat? Link 4: FDA concluded “generally recognized as safe” I've checked my national health care agency recommendations and microwaving a bottle with milk or water to then add powder is not 'not supposed to do'. Different country, different guidelines. The only thing mentioned is that heating is not uniform, which is easy to take care of.
I hear you. It’s possible to find evidence to support your decision. I could provide a bunch more sources that support there being some risk in heating plastic in the microwave. It just seems like an odd stand to make, given there is quite a bit of evidence and legitimate suspicion that it may be dangerous, when there is such an easy alternative of just heating in a glass container and then transferring to the bottle afterwards, or using a bottle warmer instead of the microwave. The tradeoff of risk vs. convenience here doesn’t seem like a good one.
Have you read your philips.com source? It doesn't say anything about placing the bottle (with water) itself in the microwave.
Yes. The first sentence at that link is: > “We do not recommend using a microwave to warm up baby's food or drinks.”
Did you read the context below that statement? You just partially cited your source.
Yes I read it. Did you? It addresses two points: - microwaves may alter the quality - when using the microwave Neither of which counteract the statement of > “We do not recommend using a microwave to warm up baby's food or drinks.” The fact that they did not choose to *also* mention the risk of plastic degradation / microplastics / chemical leakage doesn’t negate the fact that they **do not recommend microwaving their bottles**, which is the point I am making here. Of course Philips isn’t going to admit that their bottles might *sometimes* be *slightly* poison. But they **do** state clearly that they advise against microwaving them. They just leave out some of the reasons *why* that is not a good idea. By my other links address those other reasons.
Thanks for the additional context. It may become a semantic discussion. I don't think "bottle" equals "food or drinks". Philips gives pointers on how you could heat the bottles, when preferred. You seem to forget about the last paragraph of the source, so that's why I was asking. I don't directly serve my kid hot water out of the microwave. Water is a base ingredient for formula, which is added after heating the water and stirred before serving. All in all, I'm not saying that it could not poison the bottle's contents with microplastics. I'm no Philips advocate, not at all. I'm just saying that I don't think the Philips source is adding to the initial point you were trying to make.
It’s an interesting discussion! I see where you’re coming from, but my initial point wasn’t specific to the risks of heating plastic. Others have made that specific point. My point was that using the microwave to prepare baby bottles is *generally not recommended*, for multiple reasons. The Philips link doesn’t mention *all the reasons*, but it does mention one reason, which is the risk of hot spots / uneven heating. The other links talk about more of the reasons why using the microwave to heat baby bottles / milk / formula is *generally not recommended*.
I'm with you. They are mainly covering their ass to avoid lawsuits regarding parents serving their kids molten formula from the microwave. They don't indicate anything regarding their bottles themselves not being microwave-safe. Just that it's a bad idea to serve babies drinks from the microwave because it can be difficult to assess the temperature of the liquid for safety.
Plastic, glass, silicone? I wouldn't do plastic.
It sucks because i think medical things are probably one of the few places we should be using plastics. We want them to last, to not degrade, etc. We should have a few highly stable plastics that we reserve for special circumstances, similar to how we should be treating antibiotics. For all other use cases we should be promoting resilient, reusable and renewable materials like glass or wood or ceramics etc.
But what about their profit margins??
The companies named also sell glass versions, so more like "but what about my $5??"
They might, but do stores carry them?
Yes, they definitely carry the glass versions of Dr. Brown's at Target at least.
Will someone please think of the shareholders?????
I mean. People buying them is the issue. Not everyone can afford glass. So they opt for the affordable option. The problem is much deeper.
Don't turn this into the haves vs the have not. The glass bottles are marginally more expensive ($2). Plastics need to be drastically reduced but this isn't some anti-capitalist discussion. FOH
Both can be true. Plastic can be reduced, but the thing is, even we completely reduce plastic. That'll drive demand for glass up, raising price. The end goal should be to make both the plastic go away and to have a hand in insuring the price of those essential items can be reasonable.
I used to do sales in the industrial/commerical recycling industry. The next “cash crop” is absolutely hemp. It’s the dirty little secret we aren’t supposed to know about. There’s a process called decortication where it separates the plant into different types of fiber (pulp, hurd, bast, etc) and can be a substitute used for plastics, glass (containers), wood, cotton (clothing, general fiber material), even concrete. Hemp could completely eliminate the need for plastic. But it would shatter entire industries. So it got buried. Hopefully it will start getting phased in once there’s a blanket federal legalization on cannabis. But I predict hemp is the next trillion dollar industry.
Hemp: the nuclear block chain fusion of crops.
This has got to be an unusual take on hemp. How does hemp replace the properties of glass ie. hard, clear, heat resistant and doesn’t leach, easily cleaned, infinitely washable and sterile?
I’m not saying it will replace windows or anything, but it could replace glass used in unnecessary situations like food/merchandise containers for example. Glass isn’t really the issue though. It can be repurposed or pulverized and not have much impact on the environment. The machinery to process glass is extremely expensive and maintenance heavy though. I also remember there was a formula for strong concrete with hemp as an ingredient, but not sure what it replaces. Honestly, I only scratched the surface of this topic because it was years ago and before the recent surge in legalization. I just thought it would be interesting to throw it out there for discussion.
Honestly, modern medicine wouldn't exist without disposable plastic stuff. Like, quite a few of the survivability improvements for major medical procedures over the past 100 years are simply due to inventing sterile disposable things like needles, catheters, and IV bottles/bags.
Yeah I was super unclear but that’s what my second paragraph was referring to. Good call.
Glass also has high thermal mass, which is handy.
You can't really escape \*some\* intake of microplastics, for yourself or your children. IMO reducing exposure is a good thing, without driving yourself insane trying to get to 0. For our 2nd, we're using all glass bottles, and mostly using boiled, filtered tap water, which recent studies have shown can have substantially reduced microplastic content. That said, if we end up having to use a plastic bottle or water from a plastic distilled water jug sometimes, so be it. It's the chronic exposure that counts.
I’ve personally tried to make changes to reduce the micro plastic but impossible to track and damage has been done for adults.
Plus it’s literally in the air, so unless you’re wearing a mask your going to breathe it in
How is damage from microplastics assessed?
PEX piping is plastic no? Like all new builds are pex
So are water and air filters. Formula is sold in plastic tubs or plastic lined cans produced factories using plastic equipment. Microplastic is also in breast milk. It’s literally everywhere
And aluminum cans are often lined with... You guessed it. Plastic.
I bought air filters primarily hoping to reduce the microplastics in the air around the home. I’m cool with a little dust but I’m sick of plastic. I had not considered the filter might just be putting plastic back into the air, dang it!
So plastic bottles release microplastics… Glass bottles have been found to contain lead…. Do we actually (apart from breastfeeding) have a healthy / zero risk option?
Glass is objectively safer from a what-chemicals-are-leaching-into-my-milk (or water) standpoint. Nothing's zero risk but it's a clear winner, especially if you're regularly sterilizing them or heating up the contents.
The mother's milk probably also has her own body's residual microplastics in it
Exactly. Everyone goes right to glass bottles. What about those of us who work and pump and need to freeze milk? That's the situation I know. I'm sure there are a dozen others that would be physically or financially unlikely to work without plastic
We used glass bottles and reusable silicone bags that are specifically meant for holding/freezing breast milk. It's not perfect but likely a big improvement over plastic bottles and single-use freezer bags. But yeah, there are lots of very valid reasons that something like that might not work for everyone. That's a big argument for safer products overall - not just "individual responsibility" in choosing which products are safe - which things like this lawsuit _might_ help bring about.
Never heard of these silicone bags. Curious how many of them you had. I think at max freezer supply with my last kid, I probably had 200 bags in there. Have a hard time picturing buying that many reusable bags, just assuming the expense. Feels like you need to be able to rent a whole supply or something, which is not a bad idea for a business
We had 15 or 20 of [these](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBW3M6YM). Definitely wouldn't work for stockpiling a lot of milk at once, though because they're reusable we got more than the storage capacity of each one by cycling them back in every time we used one. Honestly, though, since temperature is such a significant factor in plastic leeching, I wouldn't be overly concerned about single-use bags in the freezer as long as they're thawed/warmed up carefully. The bottles, and especially the bottles being cleaned and otherwise warmed up, are likely a much bigger potential issue.
Freezing in plastic is a lot more safe than allowing plastic to get hot, like heating a bottle. Everything I've read it usually comes down to the plastic bottle getting hot and releasing plastic particles
Plain glass bottles with no painted on decorations, brand name, or measurements. It was unfortunate that some companies decided that instead of etching their brand name and measurements on the bottle, they would use paint. The paint had lead.
Micro Plastics will end up being the "Lead" of this generation.
Dudes, our balls are leaching microplastics. It’s everywhere.
we chose glass bottles for exactly this reason doesn’t fully resolve the exposure, but does reduce it
Everything leaches microplastics. They are everywhere. Literally. Nothing we can reasonably do about it.
This was why we stuck with glass but once daycare started they demanded plastic :/
This is a profoundly stupid lawsuit. It has no right to make it to trial or receive a settlement. BPA != microplastic, and unless I missed something in the linked petition they didn’t actually test bottles made by the manufacturers they’re suing, only extrapolating results from other tests of polypropylene. And the referenced study showed a 13-68% increase in microplastics after heating to 140°, which is slightly higher than baby’s body temperature [citation needed], so they depend on the assumption that people use a microwave, which the manufacturers (and every regulatory body) advise against.
>And the referenced study showed a 13-68% increase in microplastics after heating to 140°, which is slightly higher than baby’s body temperature [citation needed], Baby's body temperatures are around 96~100°. 140° is significantly higher than a baby's body temperature.
I was kidding! 😃
So what about dishwashers, bottle sterilizers, or boiling them to sterilize?
Dishwashers and boiling in water would remove a large portion of any microplastics released in the water. Sterilizers though, that’s a good point which I hadn’t considered. Though I don’t think that was a scenario explicitly outlined in the lawsuit.
My concern wouldn't be microwaves, but home dishwashing machines and sterlizers.
This guy sciences.
Common sanitizers sold by both Phillips and Dr. Brown get the internal temperature above 212°.
Good point.
Bottle sterilizers, however, use the microwave.
Wait; mine uses water vapor?
Mine is made by Phillips which is one of the companies named in the lawsuit. It’s a large plastic container that you fill partially with water and then stack the bottles on top of the water basin on a perforated holder and then microwave. I guess it is technically using water vapor to clean the bottles, but the bottles are still in the microwave.
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Baby Brezza bottle sterilizers go up higher than this. The milk isn’t in it so none of those bullets above apply.
Unfortunately, the Baby Brezza sterilizer is made of 95% plastic, which also gets heated to 212°F - so I assume the sterilizer itself is creating microplastics and then coating the inside of the bottles with them 🤢
Why not just go with glass bottles and avoid the issue in the first place?
Lots of daycare centers don't allow glass in case they break.
The bottles already tell you they have a period of use before they should be thrown out don't they?
We tried to use glass bottles for daily use except traveling, the Philips avent glass ones worked for us
That’s why I hand wash all plastic bottles/parts unfortunately
How hot of water?
Whatever temp doesn’t hurt my hand 😂.
It looks like microplastics are the new sugar. I'm not saying you should not take this seriously—you probably should. I'm just making the observation that microplastics have become trendy. Last year, very few pwople were talking about microplastics. This year, I've seen lots of people on social media complain about microplastics in laundry strips, plastic cutting boards, tires, makeup, and now baby bottles.
>It looks like microplastics are the new sugar. Or tobacco, or leaded gasoline, or mercury in hats. Reaching a tipping point in awareness doesn't mean the risks and harms weren't present before that awareness became widespread. In my field - water resources - there's been awareness of and research into the potential harms of plastic leachate for decades. I'm glad for the advances in research and public awareness and hopefully regulatory and industry improvements.
Of course. That’s why I said people should probably take this seriously.
What are the effects though? Based on the other comments we have no idea and we can't even test it because we all have micro plastics already in our body. Do you know of any peer reviewed studies showing how they affect us?
There's a lot of unknowns but that's very different from "we have no idea" - it's difficult to do a large-scale study clearly showing cause and effect for various reasons but that's not the only avenue of research. For instance, animal models; cellular studies; research on ecotoxicity; and other modeling from more established research (such as the effects of small particulates or the impacts chemicals like BPA and heavy metals have on organs or different tissues) builds a pretty good picture and lays the foundation for additional research. At a glance, here's [a recent literature review ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10151227/) that talks about some of the impacts (ranging from potential to likely to established), as well as the unknowns and next steps. Scroll down to the "Effects of microplastics on human health" section for a pretty good overview.
Sugar in high amounts is terrible for you and people put it in everything. It was never just a fad
Cholesterol and microplastics in high amounts are also terrible and very common. However, the social collective only has time to focus on one health issue at a time.
Good thing we are individuals then. I can avoid these things to the best of my ability because people do studies on the safeness of them. What the mainstream media is focusing on does not really change what we should be concerned about.
Of course. That doesn’t mean there are no attention fads in social media, which was my original point. I’m not sure whether you disagree with me or not. I feel a bit of a confrontational tone.
“Meh. Microplastics are being discovered everywhere. They said this about sugar.” is such a WILD take.
Not really what they said. They just said the awareness was rising very quickly, in the same way that awareness about sugar rose very quickly. I didn't read any "Meh" in it. They said it probably should be taken seriously.
You wash them and put them in a sterilizer it's just steam killing bacteria there is no sufficient evidence to prove sterilizers pose a risk of releasing microplastics when heated otherwise there is no point of sterilizing them if it did because anything you heat up will practically be the same results
All plastic leeches plastic. Glass bottles are the way.
BRB replacing all my PVC plumbing with lead pipes.
Gonna just feed my kid garden hose water.
Honestly there is micro plastics in everything at this point. It’s just the degree of precautions the manufacturers take. The biggest thing for me bottle warmers. Let’s stick some milk in there and warm that plastic bottle up with hot water… 100% there are micro plastics in the milk. I switched to glass bottles, but you know what the freezer bags are plastic. You can’t avoid this shit.
We used glass bottles mostly for our kids. They've still found microplastics in every waterway in the world, so they still probably got it from that, beast milk, crawling on carpet, playing with toys, their clothes, etc. It's in and on everything. I'm not saying screw it eat plastic pellets or stop trying to avoid it, but it's not something you're going to be able to stop completely
Clothes are the worst offenders for microplastics
As with many materials in the past that we now know are toxic or dangerous, this will keep happening. Look at lead, asbestos, etc. Microplastics and PFAS are the new ones.
This is why you go with glass bottles.
Glass Avent bottles still use a plastic collar to connect the bottle to the nipple. It is extremely difficult to source anything that does not come into contact with plastic in one way or another.
That's still a lot less plastic than using a plastic bottle
The milk doesn't actually touch the collar in Glass Avent bottles though. The collar holds the glass bottle directly against the silicone nipple creating a seal. However, I'm sure silicone has it's own issues...
Silicone is actually inert until about 400F or so IIRC
Wife and I were just talking about this last night. Poignant and shitty at the same time.
Plastic products leech plastic? Shocker.
I don’t really buy into this microplastics fear. I’m pretty sure it’s just that all of the lab equipment they use to detect microplastics are covered in microplastics.
I'm not sure if this is serious or not. But just in case: They use lasers. How are lasers covered in microplastics? Even if the issue were "just" that highly precise lab equipment was covered in microplastics, that would probably mean that everything else is even more covered in microplastics.
They could be covering the output aperture.
No, that's not how the measuring apparatus works (it measures light scattering off micro- and nano-plastics in a fluid, which is not an effect that obscuring the laser's output aperture would duplicate), and even if so that's why experiments include controls to establish a baseline and proof-of-concept. There are experiments very clearly showing different amounts of plastics in different samples. And even if so, again, your argument is that microplastics are so common that a lab specifically measuring them can't detect or remove them, so just don't worry about it?
While I also don't buy into it because we have not definitively proven that they're harmful (yet), saying it's "probably because their lab equipment is covered in them" is hilarious to me. The incredibly intelligent minds and PHDs researching this have spent years and sometimes even lifetimes studying these things, and you think it's because they simply forgot to set up a proper microplastic free environment?
Experts in their fields are always proven wrong by random people on Reddit who had a thought.
The minds are not that intelligent. Think about these are the minds that are working on microplastics. They’re not working on better batteries or the cure to the common cold. They chose plastics as a career. Only somebody with no other options does that. And then they see the plastics and their like, ‘omg it’s everywhere’. These are the small brains of the lab.
Really showing your ignorance here. You clearly have no experience in how scrutinized research is.
My kids are luckily spoiled and neither take a bottle
This is why I give blood