Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#31

Post by floatingatoll » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:08 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #22

enchiridion wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't all single use plastic eventually turn into micro plastic?

Sure, but why is that bad if it is responsibly disposed of? Sure, some landfills can leak, but that's a design flaw of landfills. Is it bad to responsibly dispose of single use plastic in a landfill where it may be reclaimed by future technology?

Yes, if landfill leak prevention fails to scale upwards in concert with production. If plastic production is to increase 30% in a single year, while landfill technology presumably will not advance leak prevention by that degree, then it takes 23% fewer landfills leaking to pollute the environment by the same amount. If plastic production incurred sufficient investment in landfill technology to shrink leakage by 23% in that year of 30% growth, then at least it would be neutral rather than bad. (Napkin math caveat applies!)

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#32

Post by lacker » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:10 AM UTC

I found this recent article from Our World In Data much more informative about plastic waste:

https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics

There's a huge difference between "plastic waste in a landfill" and "plastic waste in the ocean." It's not like landfills just leak some % into the ocean every year. Some countries just throw far, far more of their plastic waste into the ocean.

More specifically here's a chart on where ocean plastic comes from:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-emitted-to-...

The Philippines alone is putting more than 100 times as much plastic into the ocean as the United states is. And this isn't per-capita, this is total.

When it comes to plastic getting into the ocean, recycling plastic does nothing. Recycling plastic is like a religious ritual that reminds us that we need to care about the environment. It isn't actually doing anything. What needs to happen is that the countries that handle their trash badly - the Philippines, India, China, Brazil, Bangladesh - need to stop dumping so much plastic trash into the ocean.

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#33

Post by Pfhreak » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:10 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #22

enchiridion wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't all single use plastic eventually turn into micro plastic?

Sure, but why is that bad if it is responsibly disposed of? Sure, some landfills can leak, but that's a design flaw of landfills. Is it bad to responsibly dispose of single use plastic in a landfill where it may be reclaimed by future technology?

That's a very big if. "If responsibly disposed of" has an approximately zero percent chance of occurring. And even then, some things will get accidentally dropped or discarded.

It's just not a realistic starting point to build an argument around. You have to assume people will improperly dispose of it as an axiom.

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#34

Post by bbu » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:12 AM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #28

Single-use plastics aren't going away, even the "wokest" corporations use them for packaging. The problem is that in most countries and most households, they end up in residual waste where they're burned rather than recycled. Not even in modern, environmentally-conscious, high tax countries like Austria the garbage processing has been modernized to the point where plastics are separated and recycled from collected re…

only a few plastics can really be recycled. plastic recycling is hard and not worth the money as long as pumping out new stuff is way cheaper. Thus the need of taxing the production of single use stuff.

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#35

Post by lacker » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:12 AM UTC

danhak wrote: post #20

I remember growing up in the 90's and happily learning in school and on TV that it was my civic duty to recycle. One of the biggest catastrophes of environmental policy was to shift the burden of plastic waste away from corporations and onto the consumer. Corporations can pump out as much single-use trash as they wish, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the result not of their practices but of individuals' inevit…

the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the result not of their practices but of individuals' inevitable failure to be conscientious

If you live in the United States or Europe, if you throw plastic away in the trash, there is virtually zero chance that it ends up in the ocean. To get plastic into the ocean in the US you would have to throw it in a storm drain that drains to the ocean, throw it directly into the ocean, or throw it into a river. The garbage patch is almost all coming from other countries that dump trash into rivers or the ocean.

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#36

Post by sampo » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:13 AM UTC

layla5alive wrote: post #10

sneak wrote: post #6

Why is single-use plastic a bad thing? It always seemed to me that the disdain for it was more from an emotional thing than an actual harm caused by it, but admittedly I am mostly ignorant of the situation. Like, that plastic garbage island in the Pacific: why is it bad? The argument against microplastics seems pretty clear. Is there a corresponding one for bottles and such?

Where do you think microplastics come from, exactly?

Clothes, car tyres, cosmetics, fishing nets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics#Sources

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#37

Post by Pfhreak » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:14 AM UTC

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #21

Flashtoo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the linked article admits, it only sequesters carbon if it is plant-based, although I would wager that the production of single use plant-based plastics still results in net positive carbon emissions. Nearly all plastic is not plant-based. Even then, plastic waste is not collected and stored in a responsible manner. It is dumped in whichever way is cheapest and easiest, usually finding its way into nature. The env…

>As the linked article admits, it only sequesters carbon if it is plant-based At the very top: "It’s usually made from petroleum, which is better in a landfill than in a tank of gasoline" "It" being plastic. The common non-plant-based kind. And later: "If we're going to extract carbon from the ground at all, far better that it ends up in a soda bottle that will last 400 years than in the combustion chamber of your ca…

"It's better dumped in a landfill" is miles away from "sequesters carbon".

Pumping oil into a landfill wouldn't be sequestering carbon, so I'm not sure why pumping oil, processing it into plastics, shipping it all over, and then dumping it in a landfill would be.

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#38

Post by mstipetic » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:14 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #22

enchiridion wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't all single use plastic eventually turn into micro plastic?

Sure, but why is that bad if it is responsibly disposed of? Sure, some landfills can leak, but that's a design flaw of landfills. Is it bad to responsibly dispose of single use plastic in a landfill where it may be reclaimed by future technology?

Or we can stop acting like spoiled children and impulse shop prepackaged crap (a few tomatoes wrapped in plastic that lasts hundreds of years) and with a bit more effort and planning consume things in a much more sustainable way. Every time I go into a modern supermarket I get annoyed with rows upon rows of small amounts of food wrapped in plastic

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#39

Post by bbu » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

danhak wrote: post #20

I remember growing up in the 90's and happily learning in school and on TV that it was my civic duty to recycle. One of the biggest catastrophes of environmental policy was to shift the burden of plastic waste away from corporations and onto the consumer. Corporations can pump out as much single-use trash as they wish, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the result not of their practices but of individuals' inevit…

>the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the result not of their practices but of individuals' inevitable failure to be conscientious

according to Seaspiracy, almost 50% of the plastic in the garbage patch is from the fishing industry.

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#40

Post by Hnrobert42 » Tue, May 18, 2021, 6:18 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #22

enchiridion wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't all single use plastic eventually turn into micro plastic?

Sure, but why is that bad if it is responsibly disposed of? Sure, some landfills can leak, but that's a design flaw of landfills. Is it bad to responsibly dispose of single use plastic in a landfill where it may be reclaimed by future technology?

(Largely anecdotal) I live in Vietnam. The garbage collection system here consists of setting small trash bags on the curb or just throwing trash in the gutter. Each night, scavengers tear open the bags and scatter the trash looking for items of value. Later, trash collectors sweep up the mess.

As you can imagine, this process means lots of trash never makes it to the landfill. Vietnam is one long coast with several major, densely populated river deltas. All that loose trash makes it’s way to the sea, to be broken down into micro-plastics by the sun and wave action. Those micro-plastics bioaggregate in some of our favorite fish and crustaceans. I suppose it is fitting that we consume it ourselves.

Recently, I travelled to Delhi where there is a ban in single use plastic. There was a lot less litter. This could be due to different a trash collection system, culture, etc. There was some paper litter, but I didn’t see the epidemic of plastic food containers I see in VN, Thailand, and Cambodia.