You mean because you can’t believe they can resist reading them? If they look interesting, you can usually find a cheap paperback copy you’re not afraid to soak in the tub with.
Old books are beautiful, but the glue may have dried out, they’re too heavy to lug around, and they probably have 50 - no, 75 - years of allergens hiding in them.
(I have a set of encyclopedia. How else do you research if you lose electricity?)
Buy them, display them like the work of a skilled crafter, and read the paperbacks you’re not afraid to beat up or lose on the bus.
And avoid drinking water that phthalates might have been leaching into for a quarter-centuary.
To test if the water is ok to drink, place 2 goldfish into it and leave overnight. If both are dead, the water is bad to drink. If only one is dead, it may be that the fish died of natural casues. If both fish are alive - your water is safe to drink.
A bit OT, but Flann O’Brien wrote a great bit about this kind of practice and offered a service that would make it look like these books were actually read. Things like slightly damaging them, dog eared pages, margin notes, tickets to other cultural events for bookmarks and the like. Of course everything was on a sliding scale, so the more you paid, the more “class” you could pretend to have.
Could it be that there’s actually some money to be made on such a scheme?
That part is easy to fix. The water just needs to be aerated before drinking it. Pour it back and forth between two containers a few times, creating as many bubbles in the process as possible. That should improve the flavor.
Water will also need to be aerated before trying MarcinCiez’s goldfish test, or the fish will die of oxygen deprivation.
Unless the water was exposed to sunlight, there shouldn’t be any algal growth. since there would be no nutrients in the water, bacteria shouldn’t be a problem. In short, the water should be fine. No different from water that’s been underground in an aquifer from time immemorial.
Mineral water companies make a big deal out of the fact their water has been filtered through rock for thousands of years. An extra 20 years in a sealed bottle makes zero difference.
I hate to break it to ya, but I don’t believe you will ever encounter so much as a cup of water anywhere on earth that isn’t at least 4 billion years old.
If it is the only water you have because you are using it in an emergency and have access to no other resources, it is safe relative to your other options.
But given the uncertainty over the plastic, I’d pass on it.
I haven’t seen anything but vague claims of “chemicals” and “leaching”, both of which are pretty unlikely to be a health hazard. I guarantee that you eat food and drink water that has been in contact with plastic every day.
If there was a real problem caused by leaching we would have strong evidence of it, as people would be exposed to these “chemicals” from nearly everything, especially acidic beverages which would presumably speed up this mysterious process. It’s just like all the other crank science claims about EM causing cancer or about cat piss curing cancer or whatever else. Show us some evidence instead of just saying “uncertainty”. Especially in GQ.
Everyone knows that… The problem is, is that the 20 year old garage water is STILL water. If it’s sealed, no access to sunlight, it should be fine, but as others have mentioned, plactic is probably not the safest (compared to glass) storage material and it will leach out toxins into the water.
"Unfortunately, those fabulous colourful hard plastic lexan bottles made with polycarbonate plastics and identified by the #7 recycling symbol, may leach BPA. Bisphenol A is a xenoestrogen, a known endocrine disruptor, meaning it disturbs the hormonal messaging in our bodies. Synthetic xenoestrogens are linked to breast cancer and uterine cancer in women, decreased testosterone levels in men, and are particularly devastating to babies and young children. BPA has even been linked to insulin resistance and Type 2 Diabetes. "
Except that none of the scientific articles cited actually show a statistically significant health risk due to microdoses, nor do they demonstrate a leaching mechanism (none of them even talk about plastic except one that is entirely theoretical). Its also crank-worthy in that it talks about microdoses of bioaccumulators, and is written by a personal trainer (but hey, she did graduate top of her class!). There is also the range of problems it supposedly causes.
Finally, why is it ok to drink water out of the bottle once, but then not reuse it? That is exactly backwards. And it still doesn’t address how the water will have been tainted, whereas your normal intake is not.
While this is true; there is a difference between the acute case of eating a plastic bottle & passing most of it undigested, & the matter of leachates accumulating over 20 years in a plastic bottle which may be chemically degrading.
Yes, compared to the exposure people accumulate from soda bottles & bottled water, this shouldn’t be much at all, nor cause a long-term health problem. It might make someone sick, though; there are allergies & sensitivities to chlorinated polymers. And it might be an exceptionally high dose due to the concentration of leachates.
It depends on the kind of plastic, & we don’t have great studies on this, because no one’s holding plastic bottles underground for twenty years & then making subjects drink from them.
Hey… I drink form plastic bottles. But do an easy experiment. Take a few plastic bottles (from varying plastics), fill up with water , leave under he seat of your car for a week and then reopen… drink. While you’re drinking, see if there are any artificial smells. That smell will be from the plastics leaching something. I’m NOT saying it will kill you, but there is something there. ie The environment will heat/cool the plastic bottle and that will cause it to have certain hemical reactions - (my understanding)
The same is with teflon. Teflon is safe to cook on, however, if you heat it too extreme temperatures (ie start burning food on it), it, the teflon, not the food, will release chemicals. This isn’t the best example, becasuse you aren’t heating the plastic bottle to extreme temperatures, but with its lower melting point, over an extended period in the environment, it will warm up, releasing “something”
I took tours of several English stately houses, and the guides said illiterate aristos of Shakespeare’s day would buy leatherbound books by the yard in order to look cultured.
You’ve helped make it clear why there is uncertainty. Lacking any real controlled studies, yet knowing about that chemicals that could leach into the water and what they could do to the body leads to uncertainty. Further, ‘uncertainty’ is a perception of the user. If the user (the potential water drinker) determines that the only way to be certain that the water is safe is to refer to studies on the chemicals that might leach into said water and their health risks, then the user could remain uncertain.
At no point did I state the water was unsafe. If I were to do that, I’d have to site the proper sources that led me to my conclusion. I am under no obligation to do any such thing when I declare something “uncertain”. Questions have been raised, I have determined they have merit and would hope for meaningful studies that could clear up any uncertainty.
Uncertainty implies ‘questioning’, which prompts observation, hypothesis and the rest of the scientific method. Uncertainty leads to more rigorous conclusions.
Where is this lack of controlled testing? There have been ongoing studies for years, using the scientific method and everything, trying to pin down the dangers of plastics and their assorted chemical components. I’ve still yet to see anything negative that adds up to more than scaremongering. Phthalates Bisphenol
If someone can point me to factual evidence of health related harm from plastics, I’d be interested in reading it. I will admit that my exposure is slanted to the side of the chemical manufacturers.
