Holy fuck this is bad. “One in four people will develop cancer” is not the best way to sell an alternative fuel.
“EPA faces questions over plastic-based fuel with huge cancer risk”
@feloneouscat: They're desperate a) for recycling because they've been finding out for many years that not few recycling companies don't recycle but just toss everything into landfills and b) to find alternative fuels.
There were concerns decades ago over high fructose corn syrup and then later over livestock steroids and hormones, but... 🤷♂️
Actually, high fructose corn syrup was pushed for consumers. Consumers demanded fructose, not sucrose. Industry responded. The history of this is very long and, sadly, is the result of the American consumer wanting “healthy” sugar.
@feloneouscat: I wasn't addressing the demand for the stuff but the concerns raised by some quarters over its safety, concerns which were ignored.
HFCS was cheap because of the sheer absurd volume of corn that farmers produced and left to rot in silos, and it was the product of "new, modern technology", not to mention federal and state corn subsidies. Consumers wanted it because it was cheap and was figured to keep prices down, and it was widely but not entirely seen as a healthy alternative.
@feloneouscat: The stuff was back then a fascinating bit of chemistry, which back then could really send things into the public mind as "safe", which was seen for decades as a synonym for "modern" and "improved". It was new and awesome, and the naysayers and the cautioneers were just standing in the way of progress, being worry warts. Alas, such attitudes continue to persist.
The late Crichton put it well.