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Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

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Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#301

Post by bacon_waffle »

J-dawg wrote: post #255
bacon_waffle wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wool is a great material to consider as well.

I want to believe that materials like wool are the answer, but I fear they're not. Raising animals is carbon intensive, and all those sheep need somewhere to graze. If people switched to wool clothing on a big scale, it would probably lead to mass deforestation.

I agree that it's not the answer, but I think one of the main lessons we should be learning is that monocultures are not the answer either.

Here in New Zealand, much of our agriculture has shifted from sheep to dairy cows. There's a growing fear (I don't know how justified it really is) that synthetic milk, or even meat, will become a reality and wreck the traditional dairy industry. So, in our situation, maybe more wool use would be a good thing.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#302

Post by kingkawn »

tylerhou wrote: post #146
kingkawn wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not adding eternally polluting particles to the environment seems like it must have smaller footprint

Organic != pollutes less. For example, some organic farms use more than an order of magnitude more (~20x) organic pesticides than regular farms use regular pesticides (by weight). Many of these organic pesticides have the potential for serious health risks. One organic pesticide, Rotenone, which was banned in the US in 2005 but reapproved in 2010, causes "Parkinson's Disease-like symptoms in rats, and has the potenti…

Perhaps the organic farmers I know are true edge case radicals, but they don’t use any pesticides at all. All soil and weed management tactics.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#303

Post by dflock »

Johnny555 wrote: post #125
dflock wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A carbon tax is exactly that.

A carbon tax only taxes one small part of the full environmental impact of a product. A synthetic shirt might have less carbon impact than a cotton shirt, but its plastic waste may be poisoning the oceans. Or, as a made up example, coconut fiber shirt may have environmentally friendly organic degradable waste and a low direct carbon impact, while the demand for coconut caused millions of acres of native forest to be…

Very true.

However, it's _also_ true that "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little."

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#304

Post by annamargot »

annamargot wrote: post #286
Regardsyjc wrote: post #279

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but microplastics aren't only in our fish but it's also in American tap water. There is no water filter that I know of available to the consumer public that is fine enough to filter out microplastics of under 3 microns or something like that. As some commenters have mentioned, these microplastics come from laundry, and more. I'm currently working on developing disposable…

I bought a 5-stage RO (reverse osmosis) filter on Amazon. This review of my filter [1] says the RO stage filters down to .0001 microns. "Stage four is a high quality .0001 micron reverse osmosis membrane. This is where most of the hazardous contaminants such as arsenic, lead, and barium are removed." Does this mean I'm safe from microplastics? [1] http://www.yourwaterfilterguide.com/apec-roes-50-review/

Update from Manufacturer.

I emailed them earlier. Here’s their response:

“Thank you for contacting APEC Water Systems and I am happy to help!

We aren't for sure if it does remove plastic fibers as the presence have not yet been studied, but since the plastic in water is larger then atomical size the RO membrane should remove it due its 0.0001 micron filter.”

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#305

Post by apta »

Regardsyjc wrote: post #279

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but microplastics aren't only in our fish but it's also in American tap water. There is no water filter that I know of available to the consumer public that is fine enough to filter out microplastics of under 3 microns or something like that. As some commenters have mentioned, these microplastics come from laundry, and more. I'm currently working on developing disposable…

> but microplastics aren't only in our fish but it's also in American tap water

What about Canada and Europe?

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#306

Post by 8rye »

woogiewonka wrote: post #151

As an individual who wants to make the biggest impact on this issue, what are my options? I am a UX/UI designer and I wonder what I could do to help rid the world of microplastics. I was thinking off the top of my head: 1. Write a letter to every company that uses exorbitant amount plastic in it's product or packaging (tons of them here in Japan) and try to make them aware of the issue (appeal through emotions - thei…

Donella Meadows 12 points of leverage in a system is worth reading to map out the system and figure out at which point to try to shift to create the biggest change. I also think UX/UI designers have useful skills to design better systems/experiences.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#307

Post by ethiclub »

CptFribble wrote: post #42
dmritard96 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. There should be a mitigation cost associated with all plastics. Nothing more frustrating than buying a container for some food that will last for millennia meanwhile the food was consumed in a couple minutes... More generally, I hope more will push for taxes on all things we want to discourage as means of weening off. Oil, coal, plastic, high impact animal products. All of them have huge external costs, none…

If we began taxing externalities to reflect actual total cost to society, consumer behavior would change real quick. My only concern is that we are too far down to rabbit hole with cheap, ubiquitous, damaging materials that if the true cost was reflected in the price no one could afford anything.

It is lovely to see the phrase "taxing externalities" in use.

This surely is the answer - The issue is getting government to take a scientific and 'holistic' stance on legislating.

The issue is the delay between need becoming known, and governmental action (and, said governmental action is often watered down from internal debate and compromise).

One wonders which will mature first - Government or Consumer atttidues & action. If consumer demands are quicker than the state, then Capitalism will solve this problem (people vote with wallets, and purchase items from organisations that identify and offset externalities) If the state is quicker, then government will solve this problem (Identifying externalities and taxing).

Governmental solving of the problem appears preferable. It is an ideal entity for accountability and governance (by definition of course).

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#308

Post by code_duck »

PeterisP wrote: post #270
code_duck wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean, is natural gas extraction and processing more harmful than agriculture and recycling?

It seems plausible that a cloth bag requires a comparable amount of petrochemicals to make than a plastic bag, agriculture is quite fuel intensive and uses a bunch of other nasty chemicals in large amounts, while a few grams of plastic require just a few grams of oil - for me it's hard to tell whether growing sufficient cotton for a single bag (which is quite a bunch of cotton plants) can be done with a few grams of…

Thankfully, this is studied by experts for their entire lives and we don’t have to learn the answers by speculating on Hacker News.

I’ll note that what you’re comparing petroleum based manufacturing to is the most pointlessly intensively harmful and wasteful form of agriculture – growing conventional cotton.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#309

Post by code_duck »

marcosdumay wrote: post #289
code_duck wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean, is natural gas extraction and processing more harmful than agriculture and recycling?

Even without considering the amount of mining required by agriculture, the answer is still non-obvious.

I agree.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#310

Post by real_cost »

dmritard96 wrote: post #27
WalterBright wrote: post #8

Plastics should be taxed.

Agreed. There should be a mitigation cost associated with all plastics. Nothing more frustrating than buying a container for some food that will last for millennia meanwhile the food was consumed in a couple minutes... More generally, I hope more will push for taxes on all things we want to discourage as means of weening off. Oil, coal, plastic, high impact animal products. All of them have huge external costs, none…

This is called a Pigovian tax. I believe that Pigovian taxes are not a good solution for plastics and other multifaceted environmental issues because of the complexity in calculating the total environmental cost of all the externalities of a product.

I think consumers would change their buying behavior if they knew the real cost of their purchases.

For that reason I believe there is a big opportunity (and chance to save the planet) for a startup to calculate this real cost in an automated way and influence buying behavior by making the consumers aware of it.

If the above does not sound like a crazy idea let's connect at http://eepurl.com/dEOz3n (I'm using this list to keep your email private)

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