Are paint-ball balls safe for the environment & the human skin?

Question

I got shot in the head & I stayed with that oily like paint quite some time till I encountered a shower ... I mean I hope that nothing bad happened to my head skin & my hair. Hope their made out of something bio degradable.

Answer 1

The dyes in paint are commercial food coloring dyes, such as you might find on a nutritional label of your favorite cola beverage, although the concentration is rather high. Wax is added to some fills to thicken the "paint" and make it more difficult to wipe. Some expensive paintballs use an iodine fill, because when iodine contacts your skin it will cause it to turn yellow/green for a few weeks, that's why the paint is called evil. Do not get iodine fill in your eyes.

Shells of paintballs are made of Gelatin based substance similar to Tylenol Gel caps, Contact, soft Vitamin pills, etc. All soft shelled ingested pills are made of the same basic gelatin compound. Different paintball manufacturers use different mixes but it is all based on the same shell technology. In fact RP Scherer is mainly a medical company, here is a quote from their site. "R.P. Scherer Corporation, a leading international developer and manufacturer of dosage forms and drug delivery systems, is the world's largest producer of soft gelatin capsules (softgels)". All paintball encapsulating machines use this same basic technology. It is not a perfect process, paintballs are not perfectly round and they all have a seam, they are larger at the seam and smaller at the poles. Paintballs will get out of round over time, just from the weight of other paintballs in a case. Softgel encapsulation is not an exact science hence paintballs can and do vary in size from batch to batch and even ball to ball. Better paint tend to be more consistent but even the best paint can have bad batches from time to time, too large too small, to hard, or too soft.

The shell of a paintball is water soluble, non toxic, environmentally safe, and completely edible! The astute reader is no doubt asking himself , so if the shell is the same as a placebo and the fill a sweetener then why does eating a paint spray taste so bad? One of the other major elements in paintball fill is Poly Ethelene Glycol (PEG), this is similar to "natural anti-freeze" and while not toxic it is not reccomended for human consumnption since it is a petroleum product the taste is unplesant.

Answer 2

Paint ball balls are extremely dangerous. If the paint ball breaks the skin, you are at risk of getting an infection or worse. I had one hit the back of my hand, broke the skin, and my thumb got so badly infected that it had to be amputated.
And the plastic coating??? Do you know how long it takes for the capsule to degrade?? It will take at least 100 yrs. for it to dissolve. This is terrible for the environment.
This game should be banned...not only is it physically dangerous, but it's teaching our precious children that it is OK to shoot at another human being. No wonder we are such a violent society.

Answer 3

A paintball is simply a hollow gelatin ball filled with a non-aqueous but harmless colored liquid. The liquid can be anything from vegetable oil to polyethylene glycol. It might be thickened with sorbitol or wax, for example

Answer 4

paintballs are actually made of a biodegadable rubber substace (the outside) and the "paint" is made entirely of fish oil and washable dye. you dont have to worry about anything.

Answer 5

Depends on what is inside the paintball.