This issue is actually not isolated to just barbecues and barbecue brushes although the fact that it gets into your food does make it worse.
A few weeks ago my friend invited me to their high class HOA pool that had a sand beach. Wading around in about a foot of water I felt something pierce my foot when I took a step. When I pulled my foot out of the water to see what it was I could see it was a thin piece of metal and it had gone in all the way to my bone.
That's when I realized that these types of metal brushes are a huge environmental hazard in general. They should probably be illegal in certain settings -- sand beaches being one of them.
I reached down to grab a piece of wood to place into my campfire years ago and felt this unbelievably jarring pain go through my thumb (considering how gently I had placed my hand down to grab the piece of wood, the level of pain was immense).
There was a very tiny piece of something stuck in my thumb, which I was able to remove but not able to inspect very closely as it was pitch black outside and I was working with a flashlight.
I wrote it off as most likely being a splinter of glass from somebody's smashed beer bottle that had gone straight through my skin.
Reading this, however... it was much more likely a metal bristle from somebody's cheap camping brush that they used to clean their camping grill.
A few weeks ago my friend invited me to their high class HOA pool that had a sand beach. Wading around in about a foot of water I felt something pierce my foot when I took a step. When I pulled my foot out of the water to see what it was I could see it was a thin piece of metal and it had gone in all the way to my bone.
I concluded it probably came off a metal brush they use around the pool. Maybe something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-W1148-Stainless-3-Pi...
That's when I realized that these types of metal brushes are a huge environmental hazard in general. They should probably be illegal in certain settings -- sand beaches being one of them.