
To replace the additive BPA, a chemical company teams up with unlikely allies - laurex
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/replace-controversial-plastic-additive-bpa-chemical-company-teams-unlikely-allies
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Vaslo
For those interested, this video actually shows someone remove cans from the
coating, which sounds backwards but if you watch you will understand.

[https://youtu.be/X1pB6O6AYMU](https://youtu.be/X1pB6O6AYMU)

One other note - often the coating is put on the can to protect the metal from
the liquid inside and not the other way around. There are stories of poorly
coated cans packed together where one becomes damaged, leaks onto nearby cans,
damages them and so on. Quite a mess.

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castratikron
Do all aluminum cans have a lining? Or is it only needed for acidic drinks
like cola?

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kazinator
Tin cans are lined with epoxy. So "BPA" is actually BPA-derived epoxy resin,
and so most likely formed from bisphenol A diglycidyl ether, not BPA _per se_.
Since BPA diglycidyl ether is made by reacting BPA with epichlorohydrin.

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unhashable
Avoid plastics. Any move away from BPA is merely rebranding.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bpa-free-
plastic-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bpa-free-plastic-
containers-may-be-just-as-hazardous/)

~~~
Polylactic_acid
I wonder if there are any alternatives for sports drink bottles. Glass and
metal bottles sound safest but you can't compress them to easily drink single
handed.

~~~
a_imho
Never mind sport drinks, what about water? All sold in plastic bottles.

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unhashable
Good mineral water is bottled in glass (and has beneficial minerals).

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mjevans
As a consumer, how can I even tell if a can is using a coating and/or this
coating? I had no idea the INSIDE wasn't aluminum with the 'usual' hydrogen
ion layer.

"... sell its coating in the United States, branded as valPure V70. It has
been used in 22 billion cans since 2017. That’s a modest fraction of the
estimated 350 billion aluminum beverage cans and 100 billion steel food cans
produced each year worldwide."

I'd prefer to use these cans over the BPA alternative.

~~~
ghastmaster
I cannot find my source, but even BPA free means they just coat it with BPS
which is structurally and functionally similar. I suspect the toxicity studies
just have not been done yet.

I have a friend who used to work in the coatings lab for PPG circa 2007. He
had a handful of chemicals to choose from that he would blend and test until
the outcome fit the manufacturing requirements. It was not tested for toxicity
before it was sent on to manufacturers and into your soda/veggie can.

~~~
James_Henry
This article is about TMBPF, a BPF, not a BPS. It is also structurally similar
to BPA and the article is all about the struggle to effectively determine
whether it is safe (and how this struggle has been very open which according
to the article is not common for chemical companies). Many toxicity studies
have been done and seem promising.

~~~
OnlineGladiator
> Many toxicity studies have been done and seem promising.

The article implies a bit more of a mixed bag than that. Some were promising
and some were troubling. I'm not a chemist but I think the most generous
stance to give would be "cautiously optimistic" and I still think that's
overselling it based on what I just read.

~~~
James_Henry
The only negative findings I recall were here:

"Outside researchers didn’t deliver uniformly good news, however. Valspar
approached scientists at Baylor Medical School, who found that TMBPF blunted
estrogen’s effect on test cells and that a polymer made from the molecule had
a similar effect on testosterone, according to a 2017 paper in PLOS ONE. Adam
Szafran, a molecular biologist who helped lead the research, says the findings
weren’t conclusive and could be specific to the prostate cells they tested.

"Mallen acknowledges that those results raise questions about the compound.
But he says company-sponsored research showed that changes in test cells don’t
translate into effects on an entire organism. That study, published online in
Food and Chemical Toxicology in October 2019, showed no endocrine-related
effects on rats fed TMBPF for 3 months."

The chance that this is a fairly safe chemical (or at the very least, a safer
substitute for BPA) seems pretty promising so far. Of course, more studies
should be and are planned to be done.

~~~
OnlineGladiator
It's really hard to ignore the conflict of interest here. All of the company's
research suggest it works, and the only other research mentioned in the
article raises flags.

Call me skeptical.

~~~
James_Henry
> All of the company's research suggest it works, and the only other research
> mentioned in the article raises flags.

That's not true. Soto, Maier, Maffini and Zoeller, all outside researchers,
had findings in favor of TMBPF. I suppose it's fine to be skeptical though.

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adrr
I don’t understand the fear of BPA. It’s issues is that it’s a xenoestrogen
and mimics estrogen in the body. Soy has the exact same property. We removed
BPA from infant bottles but still allow soy based formula.

~~~
Mike8435
There has been a severe population-level decline in testosterone levels since
the environment was flooded with xenoestrogens. This is a major global
problem.

[https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434](https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434)

Soy is optional and consumed voluntarily, but BPA and other such chemicals
have a significantly more potent long term effect, and contaminates everything
it touches.

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grabbalacious
Yes, BPA accumulates in body fat. However, the environment has also been
flooded with _pornography_ which could also be responsible for the decline in
testosterone/sperm counts, no?

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Mike8435
No. This is not a trivial matter. The decline starts around the mid 20th
century, is occurring globally, and levels have reduced by standard deviations
from the old norm. Read up on it. It's way more serious than you think.

~~~
grabbalacious
You're right, it isn't a trivial matter. However, neither has it been well
explained. For example, how exactly has porn been ruled out? Porn also grew
steadily since mid 20th C...

~~~
Mike8435
Correlation is not causation. Computing performance has also increased
significantly since the mid 20th. Should we blame Intel for the drop in T
levels? Where the hell do you get the idea that porn reduces testosterone?
Research shows that watching porn increases testosterone levels in men
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2799222/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2799222/)

~~~
cies
And then it remains silent.

