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Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

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Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#181
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"resemble tasteless Cheese puffs" Resemble in looks or taste?

Both. They're made of corn starch, which is what puffy Cheetos are made of, and manufactured literally the same way, except without the cheese flavor powder mixed in. They taste like "nothing" (well, they probably taste like pure corn starch but I've never eaten that so I don't have a reference.) Source: a member of my immediate family worked at a company that manufactured them and brought home many samples. We'd fre…

I used to work in shipping/receiving. Everyone there ate them at least once on a lark. They don't taste like nothing, but they really don't taste like much. Not as crunchy as cheetos, but i'd honestly rather eat them than cheetos.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#182
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. They're made of corn starch, which is what puffy Cheetos are made of, and manufactured literally the same way, except without the cheese flavor powder mixed in. They taste like "nothing" (well, they probably taste like pure corn starch but I've never eaten that so I don't have a reference.) Source: a member of my immediate family worked at a company that manufactured them and brought home many samples. We'd fre…

Out of curiosity, do you risk rodent infestations using those? I would imagine rodents/bugs happily eat most human food, cheese puffs included, so if this is literally the same won't it suffer rodent risk?

The warehouse I worked in had a rodent infestation, they didn't eat the edible packing peanuts as far as I could tell though. -- never saw any with bites out of them and they didn't noticeably disappear.

As an aside, don't drink from beer/pop cans without washing the tops.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#183
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's definitely a huge shift to reducing plastic packaging. On the consumer side. You now no longer see the packaging as it arrives to your house. Do an image search for Pallet Deliveries (I don't want to point fingers) and look at just how much plastic wrap comes on the "reduced waste" packaging, when it's delivered to your supermarket/department store. It's utterly astonishing.

Do you know how many pallets you can wrap with one roll of stretch wrap? I bet there is a teaspoon of oil in the stretch wrap for an entire pallet of goods. It’s like 6 miles down the plastic use chart.

It doesn't invalidate your point, but quantity of oil used was never the problem with plastic packaging - plastic is a minuscule part of oil demand, and doesn't get burned at that. The problem is and always has been the plastic entering the environment, where it doesn't biodegrade and causes all kinds of problems. That's why eliminating the very light plastic grocery bags is a win, even if the replacement bags are just heavier ones you have to pay for, and even if total plastic consumption increases - the heavy bags are less likely to blow away into the environment. It's also the reasoning behind cutting down on plastic straws - it's not that plastic straws represent a large quantity of plastic, they just represent a disproportionately large percentage of harm caused by plastic pollution.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#184
post #74
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was struggling with your use of "opportunistic". That word typically implies unethical behavior. Is that what you meant?

Had the opportunity to and acted on it. Parent mentioned UN, but she also visited other places in the US like the Congress.

You probably wanted the word “opportune” instead, then.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#185
post #181
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. They're made of corn starch, which is what puffy Cheetos are made of, and manufactured literally the same way, except without the cheese flavor powder mixed in. They taste like "nothing" (well, they probably taste like pure corn starch but I've never eaten that so I don't have a reference.) Source: a member of my immediate family worked at a company that manufactured them and brought home many samples. We'd fre…

I used to work in shipping/receiving. Everyone there ate them at least once on a lark. They don't taste like nothing, but they really don't taste like much. Not as crunchy as cheetos, but i'd honestly rather eat them than cheetos.

I wonder if they would be like stale cheetos, that would make sense, ha. I agree with your statements.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#186
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, do you risk rodent infestations using those? I would imagine rodents/bugs happily eat most human food, cheese puffs included, so if this is literally the same won't it suffer rodent risk?

The warehouse I worked in had a rodent infestation, they didn't eat the edible packing peanuts as far as I could tell though. -- never saw any with bites out of them and they didn't noticeably disappear. As an aside, don't drink from beer/pop cans without washing the tops.

Oh that last sentence brought too many imaginative images of me drinking from cans. I will forget i ever read that.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#187
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are paper straws the wrong solution? Even if they take a little more energy to produce they at least don't leave long-term waste behind.

At least plastic straws are multi-use. It's rare that a paper straw makes it through a single drink.

Same goes for plastic straw. Except maybe home use which is not very common.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets loads of attention, not least as both India and China have developed way beyond the free "developing nation" pass they got in previous climate agreements. Which plenty said was a big mistake at the time, but we are where we are. No doubt if the climate movement in China and India invite her, she might well go. Well, perhaps not China as they lack freedom of association and speech. There have been protests in…

If you were a rising country coming up from behind in a world where the US dominates, would you want to reduce your growth to ensure you don't catch up to the rest of the world as quickly?

The original idea was meant to avoid that. Many of the developed nations expected to contribute some sort of levy or subsidy, and try to help developing nations short cut their way past simply repeating all of our fossil-centric development trajectory. The earliest pre-Kyoto UN talks often seemed to be thinking along those lines. Sadly some nations - especially the US - weren't willing.

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#189
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, do you risk rodent infestations using those? I would imagine rodents/bugs happily eat most human food, cheese puffs included, so if this is literally the same won't it suffer rodent risk?

The warehouse I worked in had a rodent infestation, they didn't eat the edible packing peanuts as far as I could tell though. -- never saw any with bites out of them and they didn't noticeably disappear. As an aside, don't drink from beer/pop cans without washing the tops.

please elaborate on why not? I would think they'd have to be relatively sterile. Boxes are stacked flat, can tops must be in a pringles style stack until they're assembled into a can.

Where are they contaminated?

Re: Ocean plastic waste probably comes from ships, report says

#190

I spend a day or two every year cleaning up a beach on a island off the coast of China. Its location relative to local sea currents makes it a natural garbage trap. It has been a radicalizing experience but maybe not in the way you would think. Anecdotally about a third of the trash I pick up is fishing related - some nets, some buoys, but mostly thousands of small plastic sardine sized fishing net floats. About a th…

Paper is an amazing technology.

Were I king, I'd massively fund R&D to bring new sources of fiber to market. Make them competitive with wood pulp.

Hemp, bamboo, sugar cane, feed corn. Maybe even invasive (noxious) weeds like kudzu. Two birds, one stone.

Extra credit for non till harvesting techniques. Just mow those hemp fields. Then do it all again in three months.

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