no offense to older people in chat, but why do so many older USonians try to overuse appliances or reusable containers with worn out plastic in contact with food?
is this a worldwide issue? my hypothesis was they got introduced to them as wonder materials of the future. even plastic sponges get reused when they clearly have molecule-deep filth in every crevasse
25 y old me drinking water from a months old soda bottle
I actually had to stop after I realized it was the culprit behind my weird breathing problems, I think it was full of bacteria and gave me a chest infection and I was coughing up a bit of blood lol. I now drink out of glass
@MonkeyBanana@hexbear.net also see mfs smoking out of tin cans old people never do that (or they'd be dead at 47)
I used to smoke out of bottles too lol, not cos I couldn’t afford a bong, I kept breaking them and smoking from a large bottle produced a load of smoke
@MonkeyBanana@hexbear.net @krolden@lemmy.ml don't forget the BPA epoxy
Most of them are lined with BPA or some other plastic. Without it, the bare aluminium will react with a lot of foods/drinks.
I actually had to stop after I realized it was the culprit behind my weird breathing problems
what problems? besides the coughing up blood
I feel like they're used to things lasting longer
Also not everyone can afford (or wants to) live in a disposable way
@Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net i'm asking why older people tend to treat disposable items like they're permanent when they have plenty of money. can anyone answer that instead of assuming i was born yesterday?
Yes.
Like I said, they're used to things lasting a long time back in their day, so they don't realise they have a shelf life.
That and people generally aren't taught that plastic becomes dangerous with prolonged use.
@Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net sorry for the banter i didn't interpret this as a frugality behavior because the first people i saw doing this owned a hotel. not bragging or something, they hated me and half the time i went into that house it was thru a window. not elaborating. i appreciate everyone's input
@Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net also i must add they were reusing plastic bags which had held raw meat and marinade i found it distressing
Ok yeah that's just bad hygiene. I agree that's weird.
Why would people try to reuse something they already bought instead of buying something new? Hmm 🤔
A lot of people just don't realise that reusing disposable containers like takeout food or water/soda bottles is hazardous to their health. It's absolutely a global issue.
It's not just about the multiple known carcinogens that leach out on contact with food or water, and can do so even faster as the bottle takes unavoidable damage over time, after being washed, when exposed to heat, or with UV exposure.
All of these things result in tiny scratches and cracks in the plastic which also become bacterial breeding grounds. There is no way to clean or sterilize them, attempts to do so will only result in more damage, which means more chemical leaching and more places for bacteria to hide.
The only way to avoid this is to only put food or drink in contact with non-porous reusable materials like glass, metal, or stoneware.
Probably grew up with depression era parents, or themselves lived through the tail end of it. Thrift and reuse were a must, but today those habits... well, some people have difficulty just throwing out the daily onslaught of junk-mail, let alone soda bottles and takeout boxes.
@Wheaties@hexbear.net that makes sense to me like hyper green people or those who inherited great depression behaviors for a reason why affluent people would
some people have difficulty just throwing out the daily onslaught of junk-mail
This reminds me that I accidentally solved junk mail. Our neighborhood mailbox got destroyed and hasn't been replaced yet, it's been a few months and every time I go to get my mail from the local dispatch center I never get handed any junk mail. I asked about that and the lady said they toss all that junk for held mail, lmao. I can't imagine the box I would need to carry it all after a weeks buildup.
chemical companies have known about the health risks associated with plastics for decades, they're constantly throwing up their arms saying 'we didn't know, we'll remove the newly highly publicized chemical!!', and we're all expected to move on like the problem is gone. but anyway, the rich will kill us before the chemicals do. or not.
I was reading about forever chemicals recently, and those fluffy plastic sponges are made of very similar shit to carcinogenic fire suppression foams, anything that is 'water resistant', 'non stick', fuck i'm just so tired, I grew up drinking out of hoses, and plastic cups that stink of death, I think i'm just fucked, i've mostly given up.
I'm determined to stop smoking again though, so thats something.
@EllenKelly@hexbear.net quitting smoking was rly hard for me i just switched to vaping then tapered it with a spreadsheet and juices 😁 also caffeine will give you cravings bc of enzymatic activity, it's why the drugs synergize so b careful bout that
Their parents are from the tail end of the depression era and the frugal habits from back then are still lingering. Even I feel weird throwing away something that's not outright broken, despite knowing it's probably starting to get gross.
Not-cleaning the coffee maker or kettle isn't unique to old people unfortunately, out of sight out of mind.
Because we've been around a very long time.
You know the shit never breaks down... You know the shit probably never gets recycled... You know there aren't enough proper incinerators to adequately destroy the shit properly... You know that when you throw it away it just winds up in back in the air or water or food... You know that the thing is bad but it still works toward some function... You know that when you replace it you will just be replacing it with the same exact horrible thing... You know that if you try to replace them with newer things it will cost money you don't have... You know that manufacturers make things that are shitty and will break quickly with regular use and it will cost you more to get it replaced than just keeping the old thing that "still works" even though it looks fucking disgusting...
counterpoint: the red water cup has a faint odor of tires and fruit snacks
@D61@hexbear.net MILK!!! i swear it soes something to certain lined paper cups that destroys them really really fast. it's so weird
i do this. freezer's full of old yogurt containers and plastic tupperware with soup and stuff. Idk what else to do
Mason jars, pyrex, and hermetic jars with the glass & wire lids are all good options.
You can often find them super cheap at thrift stores, and some people keep used glass pasta jars for food storage. There's a reason most tomato sauce comes in glass instead of plastic.
I think it depends but they used to all be made out of borosilicate glass and now it’s something cheaper that is more prone to thermal expansion or whatever. Other companies still make good stuff but you have to look hard
@fart@hexbear.net I think tupperware isn't as bad bc it's less likely to rely on some epoxy spray. ppl put way too much trust in those sprays including can manufacturers who will wait for the can itself to degrade to give a shit but it does happen
@flan@hexbear.net i guess we'll need to do studies on you and the other person taking advantage of probiotics
I would advise you to be less rude and hostile to people who answer your question, no matter what you think about the answer.
@SexUnderSocialism@hexbear.net how is anything i posted here "rude and hostile" lmao
I received a report from people who thought you were being a bit hostile. I'm just relaying the message. Other than that, you do you. I don't care.
@SexUnderSocialism@hexbear.net okay well transparency appreciated. i'll try not to be sarcastic again 😉 especially not to anyone fishing for reports
especially not to anyone fishing for reports
I really don't think you understand our community here.
@charlie@hexbear.net i get the feeling "this community" only understands "this community" bc i'm now being treated like a crazy person for doing courtesy replies which are standard microblogging style. i guess the posting style here is to needle people for posting too much or being sassy but i'm staying open-minded
Plastic-punk is a product of growing up poor in the 70s and 80s.
it's still in tbqh we can buy plastic ceramics that try to be lowkey and have 1,000 negative "this scratched immediately wtf" reviews from people who tried to treat it like a real cooking material
I couldn't tell you but my friends notice it with their parents and it seems to get worse with age like they form an emotional attachment to their non stick pan which leaches a healthy dose of teflon into their food. I think a lot of people are acutely aware that waste is bad ut don't go the extra mile and get non disposable things like glass containers, steel/iron pans, user servicable devices.
I want to keep things for a long time but i make sure to get things that will actually last long. I replaced all my dissolving plastic tupperware with glass because it just makes more sense for longevity. Although it took me a long time to realise my half dissolved, stained sticky plastic containers were probably not good. The worst offenders were the two I had since i moved out, absolutely reeked but I found them hard to get rid of cos we'd been through so much together. Me and my stinky plastic box.
My parents don't seem to horde old rotting shit but they have the opposite problem and generate absurd amounts of waste instead.
@Gorb@hexbear.net my mom is like this abt many things other than teflon (which is good bc the factory fumes caused birth defectd and parkinson's) which she knows fancy chefs complain abt being easy to scratch or overheat
My great uncle had a gas cooker leaking gas into the house. Just walking in the front door you could smell a leak and no matter how many people told him to get it replaced or he'll blow up half the street the answer always was "Well nothings happened yet" and "it still works" he'd then proceed to demonstrate it working while everyone bolted for the front door.
Its brain bending. Like the inanimate object is valued more than life of both themselves and others.
Toxic Midwesterninity and the cult of moralised frugality.
