Cooking with any plastic is a dubious enterprise, because heat encourages potentially harmful plastic compounds to migrate out of the polymers and potentially into the food. But, as Andrew Turner, a biochemist at the University of Plymouth recently told me, black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid.

In 2018, Turner published one of the earliest papers positing that black plastic products were likely regularly being made from recycled electronic waste. The clue was the plastic’s concerning levels of flame retardants. In some cases, the mix of chemicals matched the profile of those commonly found in computer and television housing, many of which are treated with flame retardants to prevent them from catching fire.

  • Captain Aggravated
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    6 hours ago

    Part of the reason why I reject “retard” as an “ablest slur” you’re just outright not allowed to say. When we don’t censor idiot, stupid, moron, etc. I’m going to live to se the term “intellectually alternative” become unspeakable.

    One of my favorites of these was “salsmurfer.” On a multitool collector forum, the autocensor was set to replace bad words with “smurf.” So there was a lot of “What the smurf was Gerber thinking?” One of the banned words was “twat.” Something that multitool users are often concerned about is whether an expensive steel tool will survive service in maritime environments or indeed when used while diving in the ocean. An English teacher will tell you that “salt water” is two words, but what do they know?

    “Will a skeletool rust if exposed to salsmurfer?”