DiyPresso: DIY Espresso Machine

To chime in on the litany of reasons why this is not a good idea--sifting boiling water through plastic is not safe for consumption as plastic nano and micro-particles will leech from the plastic into the liquid. This happens by design when using these pods, meaning you are getting a small serving of plastic every morning, alongside your coffee. What a moronic design.

Nespresso cups (even the aftermarket ones these days) are aluminium, not plastic.

The cup itself may be aluminum, but there is a plastic lining on the inside of the cup and on the inside of the lid that keeps the coffee from coming into direct contact with the aluminum--just like in canned foods

While it's likely not wrong that these things produce a bunch of suspended microplastics in your drink, we actually still don't know how unsafe microplastics are so I don't think you can outright state it is unsafe (not saying we shouldn't be worried about microplastics, I certainly am looking forward to more research on the topic to determine their impact because I am also worried, but it's just fear mongering to call it "unsafe")

Espresso machines are made from copper, brass, and chrome. The chrome plating typically comes off quickly from the filter handles, exposing the bare brass to the coffee. All that stuff ends up in your coffee (where else should it go?). This means that espresso is pretty much guaranteed to contain copper, zinc, lead, chrome, nickel.

I'm not sure that is safer than the microplastics or aluminium from coffee capsules.

Fully stainless steel machines are probably the best option, but there are very few of those around (and they would probably still leak nickel).

I hate to defend Nestlé, but they claim that the coating is shellac.

https://easytoespresso.com/are-nespresso-pods-safe/

I hate to defend Nestlé, but they claim that the coating is shellac.

https://easytoespresso.com/are-nespresso-pods-safe/

> we actually still don't know how unsafe microplastics are

That's the problem though. We're all test subjects for a worldwide experiment to put microplastices everywhere and see what happens. It seems incredibly unlikely that they don't disrupt various mechanisms in the environment and our bodies.

>We're all test subjects for a worldwide experiment to put microplastices everywhere and see what happens.

Honestly, I think if you think about it and look around, we are test subjects for a whole swathe of worldwide experiments of various kinds. At some point you have to just realise that it's the cost of progress.

I am not saying that microplastics are harmless, but statements like: "It seems incredibly unlikely that they don't disrupt various mechanisms in the environment and our bodies." are baseless. It's unlikely that it does nothing, but it's more than likely (all things considered) that it's potentially worth the cost.

I wish I had a better reply than "deal with it" but you live on a planet with lots of other people and that includes dealing with pollutants you have no control over. All we can do is demand research be done on these things so we can progress while mitigating the risks as they come up. It would truly be wrong to just ignore microplastics and assume they're safe. But it is also alarmist to assume they must have a significant negative impact without any evidence for such a negative impact.

Think of it this way, while we don't fully understand how microplastics affect us, if they were shortening our lifespan by a significant amount we would probably already know about it.

> I am not saying that microplastics are harmless, but statements like: "It seems incredibly unlikely that they don't disrupt various mechanisms in the environment and our bodies." are baseless. It's unlikely that it does nothing, but it's more than likely (all things considered) that it's potentially worth the cost.

I don't see how you can evaluate the cost of using plastics everywhere when the biggest benefit is simply to increase profits for huge corporations that don't have to worry about cleaning up after themselves.

> But it is also alarmist to assume they must have a significant negative impact without any evidence for such a negative impact.

I don't think it is alarmist to decry putting microplastics with unknown effects, into literally everywhere, including people's brains and mothers' breast milk. It's an obviously stupid thing to do - "we don't know what this does, let's pollute the entire planet with it and see what happens".

> if they were shortening our lifespan by a significant amount we would probably already know about it.

That seems overly optimistic to me. There's plenty of nasty chemicals/products that were sold for long periods of time before we eventually realised the damage that we were doing. e.g. lead in fuel, asbestos in buildings, tobacco usage etc. We have already noticed the direct harm that PFAs cause to human development and yet you seem happy to carry on spreading microplastics everywhere without requiring any evidence that they are safe.

I stand corrected!

Safety is a social determinant, risk is an objective measure. We have not been able to adequately quantify the risk associated with the ambient level of microplastics in the environment and in our bodies. But we have an overwhelming amount of data that risk does indeed exist:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-024-01727-1