I have really been wanting to create a YouTube channel that tests products for phthalates. To actually test for them yourself you need a Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer. These machines cost >50k though so it’s prohibitively expensive.
Not easily no. LC-UV could be a solution if you have good standards. Sample prep depending on how you do it can run in the tens of dollars per sample be it for GC or LC.
It is not just about throwing a sample in a machine, you need to make calibration curves, and take matrix effects into account etc... Not a trivial problem and pretty time consuming.
There are several companies that do mass spec for the pharmaceutical industry, running large numbers of samples for drug discovery, clinical trials, etc. I'm not sure how much they cost but you might be able to work out a relatively cheap price per sample if you do all the sample prep yourself before sending it to them. Maybe they'd want the promotion.
Most "paper" tea bags these days are lined with harmful plastics, e.g. PLA (polylactic acid). It is used to prevent them from tearing apart, but it's disastrous for the body. This week I decided to stop using all tea bags, switching to loose leaf.
That is a polymer industry lie. It is a bioplastic which still is a plastic. Bioplastics have the benefit that they may degrade faster into nanoplastics in the environment rather than remain as bigger solids, but this hardly makes them safer in any way.
In fact, these works show PLA to be harmful:
1. [PMID: 38354814] Are bioplastics safe? Hazardous effects of polylactic acid (PLA) nanoplastics in Drosophila
2. [doi: 10.1007/s11783-024-1779-4] A potential threat from biodegradable microplastics: mechanism of cadmium adsorption and desorption in the simulated gastrointestinal environment
3. [PMID: 37354720] The release of polylactic acid nanoplastics (PLA-NPLs) from commercial teabags. Obtention, characterization, and hazard effects of true-to-life PLA-NPLs (This shows barrier disruption.)
Moreover, the tea bags were causing me neurological reactive symptoms which disappeared after I switched to loose leaf. (All brands were Organic.)
I bet next decade we will all know that this was our generation's leaded gasoline.
enjoy your friday.
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