Is plastic bottles manufacturing safe for human health?

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Hi guys!

I'm asking you about one specific manufacturing, the one of plastic bottles.
This is what I've found via Google:

Bottle Manufacturing
The first stage in bottle manufacturing is stretch blow molding. The PET is heated and placed in a mold, where it assumes the shape of a long, thin tube. (The process by which the plastic is forced into the mold is called injection molding.)The tube of PET, now called a parison, is then transferred into a second, bottle-shaped mold. A thin steel rod, called a mandrel, is slid inside the parison where it fills the parison with highly pressurized air, and stretch blow molding begins: as a result of the pressurized air, heat and pressure, the parison is blown and stretched into the mold, assuming a bottle shape. To ensure that the bottom of the bottle retains a consistently flat shape, a separate component of plastic is simultaneously joined to the bottle during blow molding.
The mold must be cooled relatively quickly, so that that the newly formed component is set properly. There are several cooling methods, both direct and indirect, that can effectively cool the mold and the plastic. Water can be coursed through pipes surrounding the mold, which indirectly cools the mold and plastic. Direct methods include using pressurized air or carbon dioxide directly on the mold and plastic.
Once the bottle (or, in continuous manufacturing, bottles) has cooled and set, it is ready to be removed from the mold. If a continuous molding process has been used, the bottles will need to be separated by trimming the plastic in between them. If a non-continuous process has been used, sometimes excess plastic can seep through the mold during manufacturing and will require trimming. After removing the bottle from the mold and removing excess plastic, the bottles are ready for transportation.

https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/materials-handling/plastic-bottle-manufacturing

Is a workshop/industrial unit for plastic bottles toxic?
If people work there, will they get cancer or other types of diseases?
 
Soldato
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My dad worked in an company doing injection molding for a decade. Doesn't have cancer. People have very little direct contact with the process - although there are obviously fumes. It's been going long enough for studies to be able to link it to any specific health concerns.

I am a bit confused by what you've highlighted though. Are you assuming that they're 'blown' - as in a guy blows it with his mouth? :confused:
 
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I highlighted it because I know that heat + plastic = dangerous combination. We are advised not to leave bottles with mineral water under sunlight or in our cars, because the plastic releases substances under these conditions.

If a person is a quality inspector, taking the aforementioned parisons for quality control, he might have quite a close direct contact with the process.
 
Soldato
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Does your job involve drinking or ingesting copious amounts of liquid/food that may have contain chemicals leaked from these plastics?

If the answer is no, then you are no more at risk than someone who doesnt work there.
 
Soldato
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this kind of process is likely to be almost entirely automated, i doubt workers are going to even see the bottles before they arrive at the packaging stage.

its certainly going to be no more hazardous than any other level of mass production- cars for instance with people gluing in things like windscreens on a rolling production line.
 
Soldato
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nope - polyester bottles are very safe.
even leaving them in sunlight will be fine (unless you leave them for say 10 years and then drink from them).
 
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Is a workshop/industrial unit for plastic bottles toxic?
If people work there, will they get cancer or other types of diseases?

It would be hazardous to health like any industrial process if you sat there and breathed in fumes, but these plants have massive extraction/filtration systems to remove fumes before expelling any air.

If people work there will they get Cancer and other types of disease. Why yes they will, like everyone will get Cancer and other types of diseases quite normally as part of living. That said my Father is 80 years old next May. He worked as a 'fitter' at Metal Box (odd name for a plastics company but they started making cans). It produced millions of plastic bottles and containers, for the likes of Unilever. He has good eyesight, hearing, his lungs are healthy, he has (touch wood) never had a heart attack and suffers from no medical illnesses.

It is quite amazing watching the process take place and as someone has already said, most of the systems are fully automated.
 
Soldato
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Meh the bottles are nothing compared to the dihydrogen monoxide they contain. That kills more people everyday than hot plastic fumes do in a year. Don't see you up in arms about that...
 
Soldato
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Hi guys!

I'm asking you about one specific manufacturing, the one of plastic bottles.
This is what I've found via Google:



https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/materials-handling/plastic-bottle-manufacturing

Is a workshop/industrial unit for plastic bottles toxic?
If people work there, will they get cancer or other types of diseases?
Most of us will probably get cancer or some other type of disease at some point in our lifes but as a direct consequence of making plastic bottles highly unlikely.

That's not to say plastic bottles don't have health risks attached to them, plasticised poisoning is an everyday hazard. Our local farm shop keeps large creates full bottles of fizzy drinks outside, the bottles are exposed to sunlight all day which breaks down the bottle into microscopic particles of plastic which enter the fluid which in turn get ingested when someone drinks it. Needless to say I never touch the stuff based Purley on how it's stored.
 

Deleted member 651465

D

Deleted member 651465

Meh the bottles are nothing compared to the dihydrogen monoxide they contain. That kills more people everyday than hot plastic fumes do in a year. Don't see you up in arms about that...
That stuff is lethal! :eek:



;)
 
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