Positive move. It is not like India is on a different planet. Plastic waste export limitations will force us to find better solutions including reducing plastic waste.
India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
131–140 of 206 posts
Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
#132Saw this on my feed today: A relatively painless guide to cutting plastic out of your life https://www.fastcompany.com/90312169
The article suggests glass shampoo bottles? No thanks. Plastic is a great material, it is just abused.
The article suggests glass bottles and refilling them from bulk packages. No reason you shouldn't refill plastic bottles from bulk packages if you're worried about dropping the glass.
Getting a bulk supply that doesn't use plastic (or send you to some funny store that you have to drive further to and that costs more) is presumably the hard part...
Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
#133As I read this I was reminded of how trees in prehistoric times piled up because no bacteria had evolved to eat them yet: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01... We don’t feel so bad about using paper or wood because it now biodegrades, but if those organisms hadn’t evolved, we’d be worried about wood and paper the same way we worry about plastic. This article suggests there are some bacteria…
If plastic was biodegradable that would be pretty much the same thing as burning it. We need to keep it underground in the form of oil
Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
#134The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…
What annoys me is the consistent blaming on the 'industry' and 'profit' when industries only make thins people buy. So why do people use single-use plastic? Because they are lazy, and it's convenient.
Making industries/factories/companies accountable for environmental pollution is easier, logistically/politically/financially, than making individuals accountable. So yeah, people are shit and they want this but fixing the problem is easier if you go after the industry and tax the externalities. Plus it’s not so black and white. In my neighbourhood people want to make environmentally friendly choices but when you go to the market you’ll find no options without plastic packaging, food chains refusing to serve in my own metal containers etc etc.
In a similar vein, a majority in a country can choose to oppress the minority but that doesn’t mean government should let it happen because the people made the choice.
Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don't we just sit around a campfire and sing koombayah and hopefully everybody's problems will go away? If you don't care about money, then just give it all to me. If you do, then these people do too, which is why it's about profit and loss.
I never said I didn't care about money. All I did was ask why we are looking at every problem in terms of money. There are some problems that have become so big (global warming, pollution, loss of top soil...) that looking at these only through the lens of profit/loss makes no sense. Not sure why the outburst/snark, I started my comment with "I understand commerce makes the world go around" ...
>we are looking at every problem in terms of money
Because making money by doing an activity is one well known way to do it long term, in a self-sustainable fashion. The other way is by force, which has many issues. Furthermore, in an open society (like most Western democracies), force use is very limited and cannot be sustained.
Either we find a way to make money out of fixing climate change or it won't happen, unless you're OK with global dictatorship.
Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
#136The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…
> It's all about the packaging industry and profit. Everything is about profit. The invention of the assembly line was about profit. Toothpaste is about profit. YC companies are about profit. It’s how our society works, and it’s not enough to just claim it’s about profit and call it a day. Good things are also about profit. What makes this bad? The lack of pricing in negative externalities. That is the root of all ca…
> The lack of pricing in negative externalities. That is the root of all capitalist evil.
There are lots of other kinds of market failures; markets diverge from the Efficient Market Hypothesis in certain quite common conditions, markets can produce monopolies, etc.
And even without all of those failures, markets inherently attach an unconscionably disproportionate value to the desires of the wealthy unless a serious redistribution mechanism is layered on top of them.
Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read that Singapore waste management/disposal is top notch, those plastic would most likely end up in incinerator and eventually to man-made offshore Semakau Landfill which itself is an attraction spot. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/a-rare-glimps... https://thesmartlocal.com/read/semakau-landfill
This is just throwing more (fossil fuel) energy into collecting and burning avoidable trash and into building more structures to accomodate it. How is that "top notch"? This might solve the short-term plastic pollution issue, but goes against all recommendations for climate change mitigation. It's time to start considering CO2 emissions as our transparent, unmanageable trash. Each Singaporean is generating 10 tonnes…
Incineration actually recovers energy from trash - plastics are made from fairly complex petrochemicals, and so have a decent energy content.
The climate change issue is that, when burning it, you release carbon just like when burning any other fossil fuel.
Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
A low hanging fruit in the attempt to reduce consumption (which is the only real solution) is to stop single-use items. e.g. paper napkins, straws, carry bags from the local grocery shops etc. Just assuming that it's biodegradable or being recycled doesn't take into account the amount of energy and materials that went into production which are just wasted since the items are not reused.
While being low-hanging fruit, these things are also fully irrelevant. If the entire world stopped using them tomorrow, it would barely be a blip on any climate model or ocean pollution model.
Wearing the dressings of smart people, we do nothing, while telling others to do nothing, because the something they would do would be a "blip."
Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
#139Nothing perturbs me more than the whole plastic problem we have. China and India's plastic and garbage pollution is one thing, but Japan is the place that irks me the most when it comes to plastic use. I bought bananas that were wrapped in plastic (go figure, right? ) And what did the cashier do? She wrapped it in more plastic! THEN she gave me a plastic bag to put it in! That blew my mind. Like, why? Just _why_? Go…
They are wrapped in plastic so they can source them from even farther away, where it's is even cheaper. So the entire supply chain gets longer and less efficient (pollution, energy, and sustainability-wise) because it is cheaper for producers. In short, more profit. This is capitalism.
Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like the debate on human induced climate change is a red haring. It's so abstract, it basically invites conflict and CO2 is absolutely nothing compared to issues of mass consumption. There are huge floating patches of plastic waste our oceans, being swallowed by sea life, killing fish and making its way into our food supply. There are massive lakes of sludge in Chinese and South Pacific factory cities used to…
A low hanging fruit in the attempt to reduce consumption (which is the only real solution) is to stop single-use items. e.g. paper napkins, straws, carry bags from the local grocery shops etc. Just assuming that it's biodegradable or being recycled doesn't take into account the amount of energy and materials that went into production which are just wasted since the items are not reused.
Getting rid of a lot of single-use items would OTOH conflict with hygiene rules though. That's probably why straws come in little plastic wrappers nowadays in some places.