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U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#201

Post by katbyte »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #111
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about paper bags?

I seem to remember that paper bags are close to single-use plastic bags, but still use more energy to produce and also require wood pulp. Paper bags can easily be recycled, but "single-use" plastic bags can easily be re-used as household trash bags, or otherwise. So it's a toss-up.

> re-used as household trash bags

this is what i do, and if they were banned i'd be using some sort of bag and then purchasing trash bags separately using maybe twice the resources?

Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#202

Post by novok »

alienth wrote: post #121
carstenhag wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way most people in Germany would solve this (we need a potty for some months) is buying it 2nd/3rd/4th hand. Is that not common where you live (I guess USA)?

I'm in the US and tried donating our child's potty chair. The donation spots I tried refused it because they weren't allowed to take anything which a child has to sit in or on for safety reasons. I even tried Value Village, which is a private second-hand store, and got the same response. Into the garbage it went, sadly.

American safety helicopter parenting culture, ruining yet another thing again.

Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#203

Post by microsimulacro »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #77
jedberg wrote: post #27

This problem won't get fixed without legislation. Single use plastic is cheaper, so of course companies will use that if they can. Most people don't have the income to support "voting with their wallet", and even those who do don't always have the option. IF the best solution out there happens to use single use plastic, you're not going to opt for a worse solution just because it doesn't. And even if one company care…

Single use stuff seems easy enough to fix. What seems less obvious to me is what I experienced when shopping for a potty chair for our youngest there were dozens of options at just a single store for a big hunk of plastic that's only useful for a period of months. We ended up not buying one at all. I had a similar experience the last time I was at CES and was deep into the "South Hall" where there's kiosk after displ…

It’s not just for the sake of doing something, it’s to have profits growing constantly and wages been paid.

Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#204

Post by TeMPOraL »

cronix wrote: post #151
zabatuvajdka wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t you chop it up and put in recycling bin?

A lot of plastics that we "recycle" end up in landfills anyway. They are not recyclable because they are contaminated with food (need to wash food containers out before recycling) or they are labeled as "recyclable" but really are not, or are not at every recycling center in the nation. The same is true for cardboard like used greasy pizza boxes with cheese stuck to the bottom are not recyclable yet a heck of a lot o…

> need to wash food containers out before recycling (...) used greasy pizza boxes with cheese stuck to the bottom are not recyclable yet a heck of a lot of people toss them in the cardboard recycle bin.

People are not being informed about it clearly enough. Not that it would change much, except discouraging most people from sorting trash.

Beyond being a significant burden, having individuals washing their trash is just ridiculously inefficient and wasteful in terms of water and energy use, plus it would more than double the amount of detergent unloaded into the return leg of water supply loop. It kind of already defeats the point of recycling.

And that's without even getting to the whole "recycling things other than metal and maybe glass is a scam" thing.

Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#205

Post by aurizon »

amalcon wrote: post #142
zabatuvajdka wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t you chop it up and put in recycling bin?

Technically yes, but this would not cause it to be recycled.

Think!. To recycle plastic it must be as clean as new plastic and of the same type of plastic. It then needs to be processed into granular pills of the same.This may mean mixing and melting and adding color to a standard color - usually tending towards brownish = used for hidden or structural parts where color does not matter. You can not have any fiber or fiberglass reinforced plastic in the mix - a little ruins the batch. All this costs $$, usually more cost than new material. The only way to drive this is to add an input cost(refundable deposit or tax) to plastic when made or imported - to pay for the sorting and recycling. It makes sense - works with glass beer bottles, but plastics beer soda bottles etc usually have too much grunge to economically clean to the needs of recyclers. We may have to throw away the false economy of plastic by adding a realistic tax/deposit... This has eliminated much recycling.

Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#206

Post by jhgb »

scrollaway wrote: post #182
JKCalhoun wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people don't have the income to support "voting with their wallet", and even those who do don't always have the option. I am old enough to remember when there was practically no plastic in food packaging. Twinkies and its ilk were more or less the exception (and fine examples they were of that exception!). No doubt many remember glass ketchup bottles, glass mustard jars, glass peanut butter jars, glass mayonna…

Is it more ecological to use glass instead of plastic? With plastic there is trash to deal with, but glass is heavier thus will take more energy to deal with logistically. Recycling is not energy free either, and there is plenty of loss to deal with there. Plastic is very cheap to manufacture partly because its manufacture is so easy. And right now it seems like energy consumption is a far larger worry than trash at…

> With plastic there is trash to deal with, but glass is heavier thus will take more energy to deal with logistically.

My family has been using the same set of glasses for canning for decades.

Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#207

Post by andrewmcwatters »

yaitsyaboi wrote: post #163
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just have the sample. Your refusal to not consume it isn't going to change them buying the plastic, because given the choice, people aren't going to stop sampling in the aggregate. And at that point you're just signaling to other people in a really silly way. If you really care, talk to your local representatives or write to Trader Joes and Whole Foods. Anything else is posturing. Not taking a sample which costs them…

Even setting aside the importance of principles, every spoon OP doesn't use is a spoon that doesn't end up in a landfill.

And my point is that it's like saying I didn't fill up my tank with gas today: it didn't stop oil refineries from producing gasoline.

Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#208

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

throwawayboise wrote: post #199
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I disagree with both of those statements entirely. Do you have any sources? I do, but not googling at the moment. EDIT: quick Google search has many sources listing paper degrading in 2-6 weeks in landfills. Plastic in the ocean… I think you need to b by broaden your horizons if you think that doesn’t happen

Paper degrades if it is near the surface, mixed with loose dirt, and still getting oxygen. If it's packed down under feet of compacted soil and other trash it degrades much more slowly.

I thought the heat deep within landfills is intense from all sorts of things degrading.

Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#209

Post by vages »

throwawayboise wrote: post #190
acjohnson55 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the middle class and upward, it's not common, outside of folks who are particularly frugal. The post-WWII American culture is extremely consumerist / materialistic.

It's also that it's just easier to go to Walmart or Target (or Amazon) and buy one and be done with it, than to spend the time hunting around garage sales or thrift stores for something they might not have. Unless you really need to save $10, time is way more valuable than money.

According to Norwegian consumer research, people who save those ten dollars usually spend them on something else (like a travel or another product), so the environmental gain from buying used stuff is not a lot.

Unless people are willing to earn a little less, buttons used is not a solution for an individual’s environmental footprint.

Re: U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

#210

Post by rsynnott »

vipermark7 wrote: post #2

When given an option between blaming the individual and blaming multinational corporations, I tend to blame the latter

In this case, it’s the secret third option; the state. This problem can only be solved by regulation; no market force is going to make it go away.
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