NoSpotOfGround

Glass bottles found to contain more microplastics than plastic bottles

https://lemmy.world/post/31879198

Glass bottles found to contain more microplastics than plastic bottles - Lemmy.World

> The researchers found an average of around 100 microplastic particles per liter in glass bottles of soft drinks, lemonade, iced tea and beer. That was five to 50 times higher than the rate detected in plastic bottles or metal cans. > > “We expected the opposite result,” Ph.D. student Iseline Chaib, who conducted the research, told AFP. > > “We then noticed that in the glass, the particles emerging from the samples were the same shape, color and polymer composition—so therefore the same plastic—as the paint on the outside of the caps that seal the glass bottles,” she said. > > The paint on the caps also had “tiny scratches, invisible to the naked eye, probably due to friction between the caps when there were stored,” the agency said in a statement. > > This could then “release particles onto the surface of the caps,” it added.

Jun 23, 2025 at 7:17pmWeb
Show threadFenderStratocasterJun 23, 2025
Anyone drinking beer or soft drinks out of glass bottles probably isn’t worried about micro-plastics.
Show threadcattywampasJun 23, 2025
Why?
Show threadNateNate60Jun 23, 2025
OP implies that people who consume soft drinks or alcohol aren’t concerned about their health because these beverages are not healthy
Show threadFenderStratocasterJun 24, 2025
That’s the implication, yes. Seems to have really hurt some feelings.
Show threadFenderStratocasterJun 24, 2025
Alcohol/sugar contribute significantly to heart disease. Heart disease kills more people than anything. If you’re sucking down beer and pop all the time, microplastics aren’t likely your concern.
Show threadprotistJun 23, 2025
I like beer and would definitely prefer my beer not contain microplastics
Show threadFenderStratocasterJun 24, 2025
I agree. I’m just saying that the top 10% of drinkers account for 60% of alcohol sales in the US. It’s not likely that people who consume alcohol on a regular basis are concerned about microplastics.
Show threadshooJun 24, 2025

Nonsense take. What if I told you alcoholics 1000% never buy glass bottles? That top 10% is cheap aluminum cans and plastic liquor bottles.

Or that glass bottles can be used for things besides beer and soda (iced tea and water for example).

You’re making unfounded generalizations about people’s health concerns.

Show threadFenderStratocasterJun 25, 2025
Get off the internet and get a hobby.
Show threadshooJun 25, 2025
Keep incorrectly stereotyping people for …checks notes… what container they drink from? Very weird hill to die on.
Show threadNutinButNetJun 23, 2025
You’re forgetting all the kombucha and juices that use glass bottles, and more so those than plastic. Though I think kombucha does that because the kombucha will eat through the plastic.
Show threadFenderStratocasterJun 24, 2025
No one sits down with a 6 - 12 pack of Kombucha.
Show threadBlueLineBaeJun 23, 2025
What about kombucha? Ice tea? Water?!?! Would be nice to know that anything you consume regardless of how healthy or not doesn’t contain micro plastics or other contaminants.
Show threadEmpricornJun 24, 2025

Ooo, we have a contender for Worst Take!

🏆

Show threadFenderStratocasterJun 24, 2025
I don’t understand why people are butthurt. I’m not saying we should add microplastics. I’m saying that it’s not likely that alcoholics or daily pop drinkers are likely to care about microplastics when they already don’t care about the damaging effects of the beverage. Why is that a bad take?
Show threadbe_gtJun 23, 2025
So nothing coupled to the glass but rather the cap having a extra plastic layer on the wet side.
Show threadMrQuallzinJun 23, 2025
Sounds like we found the issue, now it’s just a matter of producers improving the caps
Show threadieatpwnsJun 23, 2025
Only if it doesn’t cut it to record profits
Show threadlemerchandJun 24, 2025
Only if it somehow increases profit. FTFY
Show threadSigntistJun 23, 2025
Ha! Good one.
Show threaddontbelievethisJun 24, 2025
Just use the plasticbottlecaps.
Show threadfluxionJun 24, 2025
Nah ill just spend $50 to have a Congress member introduce a bill to make regulating microplastics illegal
Show threadSwedneckJun 24, 2025
meanwhile in the EU we’ll move back to cork
Show threadՈրբունիJun 25, 2025
Don’t worry the cork will still be filled with microplastics from the soil used to grow it to the adhesive used to bind it.
Show threadInfiniteJun 23, 2025
No, the paint on the outside.
Show threadNoSpotOfGroundJun 24, 2025
So many people are misunderstanding this article… The microplastics are on the inside, in the drink, and they are bits of the paint from the exterior of bottle caps that stuck to the inside of other caps when the caps were all jumbled together in big bags before they were placed on the bottles.
Show threadforrgottJun 23, 2025
That would be far more intuitive, but it’s not that - it’s the painted logo on the outside.
Show threadBoshtJun 23, 2025
Man on the surface this reeks of inside payoffs. I guess the technicality is plastic caps on glass bottles?? Which seems weird and nothing I’ve ever seen. Unless they’re referencing the seal on the inside of some metal caps on glass bottles? Either way, seems suspect. I’d assume that overall drinking from glass is safer, as with plastic on any timeline you’re dealing with the plastic breaking down and leaching chemicals and micro plastics into the liquid, which wouldn’t be an issue with glass.
Show threadInfiniteJun 23, 2025
Not plastic caps, plastic paint. The printing on bottlecaps is a polymer and it gets scuffed.
Show threadNateNate60Jun 23, 2025

Odd. I would have thought that the paint, being on the exterior, wouldn’t leak into the beverage contained inside the glass.

But apparently, they found that blowing air over the caps reduced the amount of detected contamination by 60 per cent. So it seems like an easy fix that manufacturers can implement inexpensively (literally just an electric fan)

Show threadMotoAshJun 23, 2025
Or just not paint the caps, at least not with plastic.
Show threadNateNate60Jun 23, 2025
There is a real reason that the caps are painted. Glass beverage bottles are usually stored in a crate and grabbed from the top, so the design on the lid is what restaurant or store employees used to distinguish what drink is contained within it. This allows employees to distinguish similar-coloured drinks (e.g. Coca-Cola vs Pepsi or two different brands of beer) just from looking down at the top of the bottle.
Show threadmonogramJun 24, 2025
Then stamp/engrave the caps paint isn’t needed
Show threadNateNate60Jun 24, 2025
Which is easier? Squatting down to count how many caps say “Coca-Cola” or counting the number of bottles with red caps?
Show threadMotoAshJun 24, 2025
Wholly and entirely dependent on the designs. Even barely two-tone patterns (as in low contrast) can be easily distinguishable.
Show thready0kaiJun 24, 2025
Put a sticker on it after it’s sealed.
Show threadRivalarrivalJun 25, 2025

The reason for paint is because the cheap, mild steel they use for bottle caps will begin to rust in minutes - literally minutes - if it is not protected from the oxygen in the air. The paint is necessary to keep the caps from oxidizing and leaving rust marks on everything they touch.

The color and logo on the caps are simply for marketing purposes.

Show threadscrionJun 24, 2025

Unfortunately, it’s probably not going to be an electric fan, but compressed air. Even more unfortunately, compressed air turns out to be a major cost factor due to the cost of running compressors, which might prevent adoption.

The original paper mentions blowing the caps out with an “air bomb”, which I’m pretty sure is a mistranslation stemming from the French term “Bombe d’Air Comprimé”, i. e. an air duster, a can of compressed air. In an industrial setting, you’d use a compressor for this, naturally.

Show threadSaltySalamanderJun 23, 2025
How exactly would that happen if the cap is ON the bottle?
Show threadchuymattJun 23, 2025

You make a lot of them. They are flat. They get painted, they get punched out, (this is where the ‘magic’ happens) they get shuffled around to load into machines to put them on the bottles, they go through the machine and they get clamped to the bottles.

There! Instant plastics!

Show threadCawifreJun 23, 2025
The paint itself on the outside of the bottle cap. The ultra thin layer of (apparently polymer a.k.a. plastic) paint that make the cap not just metal colored.
Show threadfinitebanjoJun 24, 2025
I thought they were talking about the seal.
Show threadKaryoplasmaJun 23, 2025

Step 1: Invent plastic bottles

Step 2: Pocket the cash

Step 3: Things got bad? Outsource the clean-up to the end user in the form of recycling

Step 4: Increase prices to account for recycling

Step 5: Laugh as the idiots actually recycle your shit

Step 6: Throw the whole shebang in the ocean or in landfills

Step 7: Pocket some more cash

Step 8: Pat yourself on your shoulder. You’ve done some capitalism.

Show threadLedivinJun 23, 2025
…do plastic bottles not have caps? I’m confused.
Show threadBaron Von JJun 23, 2025
their caps are fully plastic, not painted metal. The non-screwtop metal caps need to be bent to release their grip on the bottle. That scrapes the paint off the metal cap.
Show threadDamageJun 23, 2025
it’s more likely that paint is scratched off by other caps, idk about metal caps but plastic ones are usually handled in bags, thrown into a cap feeder that aligns them and loads them into the capper. I expect metal caps to go through a similar process, and all that movement is bound to scratch it and send particles everywhere.
Show threadneedankeJun 24, 2025
So this study only applies to glass bottles with plasticcpainted metal caps? Not unpainted metal caps or full plastic ones?
Show threadBaron Von JJun 24, 2025
That is my impression. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a glass bottle with a plastic cap. And I can’t really recall seeing what looked like unpainted metal caps except for homebrew stuff (and even then, it might be painted to what we think unpainted should look like).
Show threadneedankeJun 24, 2025

Had those standing around, although I am not enirely sure the metal one isn’t coated.

Show threadBaron Von JJun 24, 2025
Ok, I seemed to have forgotten about the existence of non-beverage glass bottles when looking at this post. I was only thinking of like soda, beer, and wine glass bottles.
Show threadneedankeJun 24, 2025
Those are beverages (cider snd water respectively), I am unsure how you got to non-beverages?
Show threadBaron Von JJun 24, 2025
I don’t recognize either brandings and they looked like sauce bottles (like varieties of vinegar, seed oils, marinades, etc). 🤷
Show threadDarkCloudJun 23, 2025
But the plastic bottle can still create a lot more, surely.
Show threadMTKJun 23, 2025
Lets go back to corks
Show threadDonjuanmeJun 23, 2025
As someone in a cork industry, you really don’t want that.
Show threadpiranhacondaJun 23, 2025
Care to expand on why? I’ve had corks dissolve and break if I didn’t finish the drink quickly enough, just on liquor bottles that went unused for a year or so. Any other reason?
Show threadramielroweJun 24, 2025
Slightly educated guess. True organic cork is produced by cutting the bark off specific trees. There are limited climates it grows. I would guess the scale with which we produce bottled drinks would require significantly more trees and labor that we currently have. And thus cork prices would skyrocket.
Show threadNatanaelJun 24, 2025
And you can’t really close them again.
Show threadAnon518Jun 23, 2025
Why?
Show threadMTKJun 23, 2025
What is this teasing? Elaborate.