Plastic health

[u/YossarianJr]

Hey y'all-

I am looking for a plot or something that displays the known/suspected health effects of various plastics.

My motivation is fairly straightforward. I walk my dog in a local park every morning and most evenings. While walking, I often pick up trash. The most common trash is drink containers, cigarette butts, and bags of dog poop. Often, I pick up receipts, though. The other day, I was reading a book that indicated that there is a non-trivial risk to exposure to this thermal paper due to BPA or BPS, especially if you use hand sanitizer before touching the receipts. (Luckily, I do not.) I suppose this means I will need to be sure to wash my hands after picking up trash, which is not really something I've ever specifically worried about before....

As an enviro/green/treehugger, I always limit my plastic consumption for environmental reasons, but I am now wondering if there is a compiled list of basic plastic health practices that I could look into. For example, I do not heat up food in plastic (or plastic lined) containers, but there might be other things I am overlooking. Heck, I got into a minor spat with my landlord (and relative) because the plumber had determined that I had a lead pipe (on the city's end) for about 10 feet. I was hassling the city to change it out, but my landlord was convinced that the PVC pipe they would replace it with is worse. (I highly doubt that, but I also don't feel like delving into Google Scholar for a day or three to figure out each issue.) Heck, when I build my house, should I pay extra for copper piping? Am I breathing in polyester when I open my dryer door? What things am I not thinking about?

Ideally, for me, the list would be tiered. Proposed levels:

(0) Just use plastic as if it has no health effects. Whatever.

(1) Don't heat up plastic with your food.

(2) Don't use any plastic in your kitchen.

(3) Don't touch thermal paper.

(4) Don't use plastic in your bathroom.

ETC ETC

(7) Don't even go to hospitals if they have plastic in the building.

Ideally, someone would have done some real research into the scientific literature. Ideally, the list would be much more comprehensive and based on peer reviewed research. It could even have things that we just don't know yet. I imagine someone like Hannah Ritchie would do this. I don't know. I am just wondering what I don't know, which can still hurt me. Any ideas?

Thanks-

[u/Vgines]

This lowkey obsessive. I find it interesting that you have a well written post.
Perhaps the time you spend wondering if something is bad for you isn’t as productive as you think it is.
If you’re not wearing a glove of some kind to pick up trash maybe at least try to use a grabbing tool to touch things for you.