When will carbon fiber become illegal due to the health concerns?

If it were banned they would use a different material for the plate with the same foam and probably keep most of the energy return

Last i checked the carbon was inside the shoe. Its like saying the pink home insulation should be banned because breathing it in causes lung problems.

Who is taking apart their supershoes to extract the carbon plate and then grinding or sanding it to inhale the dust? I think nobody.

Lol

…as in the gore Tex, the health issues are during the manufacturing process (not in the final product)

Wrong

10:30 :

Honest question for this thread - when people say "carbon fiber" with respect to shoes (and obviously the plates) - what are you thinking of? The layered stuff they make road bikes out of etc etc? I'd honestly like to know.

ok, I will give you that there are studies that show that skin absorption is possible when in direct contact with Gore Tex. However, I should have said, that the greater health concern (as in carbon fiber) is in the production process.

“In the C8 Project, one of the largest human health studies ever done, with nearly 70,000 participants in the area surrounding the plant, researchers found that PFOA was associated with six diseases: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia, and ulcerative colitis. While the chemical companies make obscene amounts of money, factory workers throughout the supply chain touch and inhale PFAS every day and thousands of families living downstream from the facilities drink contaminated water and breathe poisonous air“

It’s generally safe to handle carbon wheels and carbon stems (i.e. fully cured carbon fiber components) without gloves, as long as you’re not cutting, sanding, drilling, or grinding them

This hits home, because I live in an agricultural area where they depend upon herbicides. And then the high school hires a lawn care company that sprays roundup or other on the football field, and I can smell the stench of that crap for days afterward running around the track, and then the rain washes that crap right down into the groundwater. And even after multiple rains, I can still smell that crap in the air.

Sure, the grounds look nice and green, and somebody’s making money (hello multinational conglomerate BAYER), but at what longterm human expense????

IIRC, asbestos was proven to have caused either several dozen or several hundred cases of mesothelioma, nearly all of them in asbestos miners. Stephen Jay Gould got and survived it from constantly breaking rocks into dust his whole life.

Asbestos in its non-friable form is generally harmless.

This is one of a long list of occupational hazards that workers willingly accept.

Non-friable does not mean that a material is safe to handle. Over time, these materials may become crumbled or powdery. This usually occurs from normal wear-and-tear on products, accidental or weather damage, or age.

asbestos brakes, popcorn ceilings, etc.

I don’t think that anybody can beat Thomas Midgley Jr. for his contribution to destroying the planet. He created leaded gasoline (which led to widespread lead poisoning, affecting millions, especially children) and
he developed Freon, a type of CFC (which
destroys the ozone layer, contributing to the ozone hole that could have dramatically increased UV radiation reaching Earth)

Yes, it’s insane what we allow without any oversight.

…anyway, this thread is about carbon shoes.

countries with bans or restrictions on the active ingredient in Round Up include: Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Bahrain, Barbados, Brazil, Canada (8 out of 10 provinces), Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Fiji, France, Germany, India, Italy, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malta, Malawi, Netherlands, Oman, Qatar, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates

For some reason the United States is always seems to be the last country to ban anything harmful

Just to ease peoples minds on this, all the plates in these shoes aren't really "carbon fiber". They are injected nylon (polyamide) with a small amount of carbon content powder in them to increase the stiffness to weight ratio. Most plates will be 10% carbon "content" at most.

Really if you were to rip out of plate, grind it up and snort it up your nose your biggest concern would be the plastic and not the carbon.

Just thought I'd clear that up for anyone still continuing to believe the $250+ pair of super shoes they are buying has a "true" carbon fiber plate in it.

"crumbled or powdery" is precisely the opposite of "non-friable."

If you notice your ceiling getting powdery, then it is no longer non-friable. That's pretty rare, unless you deliberately start grinding it or chopping at it.

Good insight. I did not know that. If % was higher the plate would break it seems. Still wondering if carbon dust is present during the manufacturing process however.

I have been sniffing my gf's vaporflys, and appear to have inhaled carbon fibers. These fibres are now deep in my lungs, where they do not dissolve and impede my breathing.

Where can I join the lawsuit?

No, you can go as high as 25-30% CF content. The biggest issue is that when you get that much carbon powder in the matrix, it becomes really thick and difficult to inject in terms of consistent flow into the mold (a plate is like 1.5-2mm thick max).

I have multiple plate samples just sitting in a box in my basement that were injected with varying degrees of CF content ranging from 5-30% - they all function fine. The reason why you'd never seen a plate with such high percentage of carbon content in it is a) manufacturability b) cost and c) it makes no difference at all.

is carbon dust present in the manufacturing process? Of the plate it would be - not in the manufacturing of the shoe. But remember those plates all come from a third party vendor in a box and then get cemented/co-molded into the midsole. In general the level of manufacturing in Taiwan/China/Indonesia etc where those mold shops are is pretty sophisticated now - I think there are much bigger things to worry about in the process than carbon fiber dust to be honest.