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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)

#231

Post by johannes1234321 »

pharmakom wrote: post #124
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)?

The problem with 2nd hand is convenience. Maybe I can save a few bucks browsing eBay etc. but it’s not worth the time spent compared to ordering new. I hate doing it though.

If you just happen to need a potty now, then browsing is a lot of work.

If you know "oh, we will need larger cloths and a potty and some toys soon and that bed will be to small in a bit" you can monitor relevant sites on the side and see when the opportunity comes up.

Not to mention the social circle with parents a bit older and a bit younger. "Hey, we don't need this anymore. Do you?" - "oh it's a bit early, but I take it already thanks!"

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

#232

Post by brandmeyer »

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…

A handful of items are difficult to get second-hand commercially for either safety or hygiene reasons. But we both bought and sold tons of stuff through local consignment stores.

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

#233

Post by edoceo »

yesenadam wrote: post #216
edoceo wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using standard units: - 1589g of trash per day! - 4767 cm3 to store it (3cm3/gram) - 130 m3 per lifetime (75yr) - 300,000,000 lifetimes. - 78 km3 storage allocated - 39 km3 required ~~We're gonna need a bigger boat.~~ Neat!

> - 39,000,000,000 km3 required I think something went very wrong there! 4767 x 75 x 365 = I get 130,500,000 cm³/person/lifetime. You got 130,000,000,000,000,000. There are 10¹⁵ cubic centimetres in a cubic kilometre, not 10⁶. I think all your numbers are for m³, not km³, a factor of a billion out, so your final figure should be 39 km³.

Thanks, I've edited (working from mobile, some copy paste issues with long numbers). I think it's right now? (How do you get the 3?)

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

#234

Post by johannes1234321 »

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…

I don't have the studies at hand, but the answer is a big "it depends"

If you have local production and re-use of glass it can be more energy efficient to use the more heavy glass. The further the transport, the worse it becomes.

But there is a second factor to it, besides energy use: microplastics are a problem and most plastics can only be used for "energetic usage" - being burned in a power plant, which causes probelmatic gases needing filtering and then disposal of those filters ... re-use of broken glass is elementary in glass production and even if not recycled less of a problem for the environment.

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

#235

Post by [deleted] »

soperj wrote: post #220
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If enough people do it, it adds up. If you continuously tried to push it at least a couple more days before using your car, over a year that would add up to a couple less tanks of gas. In a nation of 280 million cars, that uses about 340 million gallons of gasoline a day, you could easily carve off a couple of weeks there. Might not seem like a lot, but that's 56 million tons of CO2 not released into the atmosphere.

[deleted]

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

#236

Post by frosted-flakes »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #188
frosted-flakes wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should never end up in the ocean, and nothing really biodegrades in landfill, especially not paper.

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

You think plastics should end up in the ocean? Why? It definitely should not, and if waste is managed correctly, it doesn't.

And I'm not saying decomposition doesn't happen at all in landfills; it very clearly does, but the sort of decomposition that takes place is incomplete and slow, because landfills aren't ideal places for decomposition to occur. But that doesn't matter. Once it's buried, who cares if it takes 300 years to decompose?

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

#238

Post by loa_in_ »

edoceo wrote: post #174
Causality1 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could restrict yourself to dry lake beds that don't flood in winter, which are nearly as lifeless as Mars, and still have enough landfill area for centuries of waste. The average American produces 3.5 pounds of trash per day at an average one third of a gram per cubic centimeter. Assuming that holds steady, and we use a normal landfill depth of 400 feet, and the US population doubles over the next century, we nee…

Using standard units: - 1589g of trash per day! - 4767 cm3 to store it (3cm3/gram) - 130 m3 per lifetime (75yr) - 300,000,000 lifetimes. - 78 km3 storage allocated - 39 km3 required ~~We're gonna need a bigger boat.~~ Neat!

should be 39km2 not km3

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

#239

Post by alkonaut »

bserge wrote: post #145
alkonaut wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised every time I hear the concept of "land fill" in conjunction with trash. As if the natural thing to do with waste is... put it in a hole in the ground? It feels like some 50's conception of environment policy to me. Shouldn't things be either recycled as much as possible, and the rest incinerated for energy?

Surprisingly, no - just dumping shit in a big hole is the most environmentally friendly thing to do - least energy used, least pollution created. The problem is having the space in some place where neither flora nor fauna will be affected.

That’s the problem though isn’t it. Assuming trash will never be without electronics, batteries etc, it will end up in water. As far as I understand, burning in decent facilities should keep most nasty stuff out of the atmosphere and ground water (e.g heavy metals)

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

#240

Post by loa_in_ »

goatlover wrote: post #230
pessimizer wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no ethical consumption under capitalism, which is why I'm going to keep my slaves but vote really hard against slavery.

Is there ethical consumption under any system?

We can't look for the homework to copy, we must study ourselves.
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