https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21605673/

> In 2017 the European Chemicals Agency concluded that BPA should be listed as a substance of very high concern due to its properties as an endocrine disruptor.[30] In 2023, the European Food Safety Authority re-evaluated the safety of BFA and significantly reduced tolerable daily intake (TDI) to 0.2 nanograms (0.2 billionths of a gram), 20,000 times lower than the previous TDI from 2015.

> In 2012, the United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of BPA in baby bottles intended for children under 12 months.[31] The Natural Resources Defense Council called the move inadequate, saying the FDA needed to ban BPA from all food packaging.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_Bisphenol_A

> This followed another paper in early 2024, where a group of Italian researchers identified microplastics in plaques found in the carotid arteries – a pair of major vessels which deliver blood to the brain – of people with early-stage cardiovascular disease. This linked their presence to worsening disease progression. Over the following three years, individuals carrying these microplastics in their plaques had a 4.5-fold greater risk of stroke, heart attack or sudden death.

> Then in February 2025, another group of scientists identified microplastics in the brains of human cadavers. Most notably, those who had been diagnosed with dementia prior to their death had up to 10 times as much plastic in their brains compared to those without the condition. "We were shocked," says Matthew Campen, a University of New Mexico toxicology professor who led this study.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20250723-how-do-the-mic...

If you need to filter "one and done" (like pumping air into a hospital operating room), that's where you need HEPA. Most home air purifiers mix the clean air back into the same room, so MERV is closer to the ideal sweet spot.

It's also important to buy reputable brands of MERV filter, ideally ones which have a large number of folds (surface area) like the 3M 1900 MPR. In recent testing about half of filter brands scored well below their claimed MERV rating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKAVek1YaSQ

It is not expensive to run intake fans in the spring and fall seasons when active heating or cooling are not required.

I too would like such a "shy" air purifier, but manufacturers always seem to go the other way: when occupancy is detected they increase the fan speed.

Best option IMO is just to get an air purifier with a good CADR-to-decibel ratio and then (again) size it correctly. A surprisingly good option is something called the Airfanta 3 Pro, which is basically like those wildfire filter boxes except it uses PC fans.

The exposure from food packaging is many times more prominent than polyester, which slows down leeching over time.

I would also avoid all nonstick pans and utensils, as they're lined with PFAS which is worse than plastic, and slowly it will break off into the food. Beware the industry shills on this forum, as they will have you ignore the fact that ingesting PFAS is well known to result in higher blood levels of PFAS.

There are _plastic_ tea bags? Really?

Didnt know that we reached that level of degredation already! :-D

Another example comes to my mind: In lot of European conutries, at "cheese corner/bar" in the supermarket, every time a piece of cheese is cut, they are removing the foil, cutting the cheese, and then re-packing it in new foil after that - and this for every chees bar in every supermarket: How much kilometers does just one branch waste per year?

Almost every train I know use metal wheels. We can look at the few that don’t, but something tells me people who raise that argument don’t want to look at alternative wheel composition, but rather hope to seed doubt and, in private, lobby replace one metro with thousands of cars, and I’m not sure that’s a good idea.

So, please, don’t come in here with that bullshit.