How toxic is the plastic of a ping-pong ball?

[constanze]

Are you sure that ping pong balls are made from nitrocellulose? Because I’ve only read* that billard balls were made from it before discovering film, but wiki warns

Nitrocellulose (also: cellulose nitrate, flash paper) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to nitric acid or another powerful nitrating agent. When used as a propellant or low-order explosive, it is also known as guncotton. Nitrocellulose plasticized by camphor was used by Kodak, and other suppliers, from the late 1880s as a film base in photograph, X-ray films and motion picture films; and was known as nitrate film. After numerous fires caused by unstable nitrate films…

(Bolding mine)

So if the plastic melted instead of burning or exploding, it probably wasn’t nitrocellulose. Wiki says that ping pong balls are made from celluloid … ah, which is a compound from nitrocellulose and camphor to reduce flammability.

I don’t know about the actual side effects of melted ping pong balls (and I doubt there are many studies done into that), but how much alcohol is ingested during beer pong? That will have detrimental health effects without heat and surely.

• in one of the annotations for Discworld, where the Guild of alchemists keeps blowing things up before discovering film