this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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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?

@[email protected]

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

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 7 months ago (2 children)

25 y old me drinking water from a months old soda bottle side-eye-1

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

@[email protected] also see mfs smoking out of tin cans old people never do that (or they'd be dead at 47)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Theyre made of aluminum now

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Most of them are lined with BPA or some other plastic. Without it, the bare aluminium will react with a lot of foods/drinks.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I feel like they're used to things lasting longer

Also not everyone can afford (or wants to) live in a disposable way

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] 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?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago

Why would people try to reuse something they already bought instead of buying something new? Hmm 🤔

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago

Thriftiness+Being Poor.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

@[email protected] that makes sense to me like hyper green people or those who inherited great depression behaviors for a reason why affluent people would

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

@[email protected] 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

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

They developed a taste for microplastics

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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...

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

i do this. freezer's full of old yogurt containers and plastic tupperware with soup and stuff. Idk what else to do

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

IIRC pyrex got bought out so all their new stuff is bad now?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

@[email protected] 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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I would advise you to be less rude and hostile to people who answer your question, no matter what you think about the answer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] how is anything i posted here "rude and hostile" lmao

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Keeps our immune system strong

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

@[email protected] i guess we'll need to do studies on you and the other person taking advantage of probiotics

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Plastic-punk is a product of growing up poor in the 70s and 80s.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] 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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Toxic Midwesterninity and the cult of moralised frugality.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh shit is that bad? Now that I think about it that doesn’t seem good

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] i'm open to arguments about the durability of polycarbonate if i'm being too anal-retentive

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Sounds like a recipe for anally-retaining some microplastics tbh

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

You'll have to be more specific, either I haven't seen this or I'm old and don't notice it. How do you "overuse" an appliance or reusable container? Do you mean past the point that it's broken or degraded?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I really think a lot of it is that people aren’t aware of how dangerous this stuff is. And when they are aware, they often write it off as “fear-mongering”.

I think a lot of older US Americans don’t want to acknowledge how shitty everything is right now largely thanks to capitalism. Admitting that this whole system sucks - a system that they have benefited tremendously from their whole lives - probably feels akin to renouncing a religion to them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

i'm going to find a way to get this thought in there with my inlaws like Inception but it will make sense like if John Woo directed it. i know nothing where it's like i'm correcting other people's behavior will work i just insisted i knew how & when to clean polycarbonate coffee machines and dispensers from working in kitchens

@[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The Ball jar company is also a defense contractor. Just throwing that out there

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] also, I just looked up how I've been using the word crevasse. it only refers to giant crevices??

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

crevasse is a crack in a glacier

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