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An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

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Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#81

Post by munk-a »

jnmandal wrote: post #56

Yes, the US is a country that cannot process its own waste so it ships it overseas just to be rid of it. The solution is not to raise money and send it to the Philippines to build landfills. The solution is to actually recycle plastic, build circular supply chains, and use biodegradable materials as much as possible. If humans are to stay on this planet, in the long term we cannot just keep piling up garbage in landf…

An alternative solution, that this article weirdly doesn't touch on, is that the US could also shift policy to stop exporting recycling material. It'd be nice to encourage expanded recycling domestically but if that fails and if ~80% of exported material is going to end up improperly dumped then it'd be far more reasonable to just make sure it's properly dumped in the US.

Make the export of detritus illegal, send the excess to dumps, and if Americans deem this offensive then they can legislate additional subsidies for domestic recycling (even potentially becoming a net importer of detritus!).

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#82

Post by andjd »

The author is conflating two separate issues.

Their main point is at the end:

> Banning plastic straws is stupid.

They're probably right that throwing out plastic straws is better than throwing them in the recycling, assuming that plastic straws can't be efficiently recycled. That being said, many US recycling utilities typically sort the recycling on shore, and plastics that are too small to be efficiently identified and recycled (such as straws and loose bottle caps) will just be sent to the landfill regardless. How recycling is processed differs a lot across the country, so it's hard to make generalizations.

But that doesn't support their final conclusion about whether plastic straws should be banned. The author doesn't give a reason, but implicitly that they think paper straws suck, and must suck. Which a lot of the ones today do. But it's an odd hill to die on, given that basically all straws before 1960 were made of paper. Their ire should probably be directed at the establishments they frequent for buying cheap and terrible paper straws instead of spending a bit more to get good quality paper straws. Such companies probably want to get you pissed off by paper straws to demand that your government remind the ban so they can go back to using cheaper plastic straws.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#83

Post by munk-a »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #76
pg314 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but has imposed huge and everyday annoyances on everyone Not on everyone. I can't remember the last time I used a straw, I manage to drink from a glass or a cup just fine. Is it really a huge annoyance for you? I understand that for some people (e.g. people with Parkinson's or a broken jaw) straws are a necessity, but most people should be able to manage just fine without them. It's true that there are bigger contr…

Nobody's forcing you to drink from a straw if you don't want to. Chill.

In a lot of transactions straws are handed out regardless of the customer's desire - ditto for plastic cutlery with takeout/delivery.

For individual businesses the math is against conservatism. Failing to deliver cutlery and getting massive complaints (especially if they lead to politically charged boycotts) is the second most expensive option - the most expensive option is forcing customers to state their preference (and baked in preferences like those submitted by UberEats are small check boxes that users don't see and so restaurants often ignore). The cheapest option is probably just to put a straw jar somewhere on the counter, but then you'll tend to get complaints from employees/franchise owners about theft - while that theft is rare and inexpensive, it is very visible.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#84

Post by slavik81 »

aeternum wrote: post #4

A a glance, it seems to make sense that burying straws/garbage in a landfill is better than throwing it in the ocean but chemically, plastic decomposes significantly faster when exposed to UV/sunlight. It also seems as though ocean organisms are more able to consume plastic & oil. It sounds crazy, but could it be that trash in the ocean is actually a better option?

Why do we want it to decompose? It's made of carbon, so if it sits underground in a place where it doesn't break down, isn't that effectively sequestered carbon? Decomposing it into CO2 and releasing it into the global carbon cycle seems counter-productive. What's the actual benefit of doing that?

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#85

Post by cortesoft »

jnmandal wrote: post #56

Yes, the US is a country that cannot process its own waste so it ships it overseas just to be rid of it. The solution is not to raise money and send it to the Philippines to build landfills. The solution is to actually recycle plastic, build circular supply chains, and use biodegradable materials as much as possible. If humans are to stay on this planet, in the long term we cannot just keep piling up garbage in landf…

> If humans are to stay on this planet, in the long term we cannot just keep piling up garbage in landfills and building on top of it. Eventually, in hundreds or thousands of years we will have to remediate that land. Its going to be a lot better if we just make our waste as recyclable as possible in the first place.

Landfill space is not the issue at all. Landfills do not take up that much physical space, and we have plenty of empty space to use.

The issue is around the greenhouse gases released creating all of those disposable products and the resources going into their production.

If it was just landfill space, we would be totally fine.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#86

Post by bko »

jnmandal wrote: post #56

Yes, the US is a country that cannot process its own waste so it ships it overseas just to be rid of it. The solution is not to raise money and send it to the Philippines to build landfills. The solution is to actually recycle plastic, build circular supply chains, and use biodegradable materials as much as possible. If humans are to stay on this planet, in the long term we cannot just keep piling up garbage in landf…

> If humans are to stay on this planet, in the long term we cannot just keep piling up garbage in landfills and building on top of it. Eventually, in hundreds or thousands of years we will have to remediate that land. Its going to be a lot better if we just make our waste as recyclable as possible in the first place.

From the article linked below:

If you took all the trash that the United States would generate in 100 years and piled it up in the shape of the Great Pyramid, it would be about 32 times bigger. So the base of this trash pyramid would be about 4.5 miles by 4.5 miles, and the pyramid would rise almost 3 miles high.

That's a big landfill but its just not true that its unsustainable. That's ignoring all the advancements we'll make over the 100 years to harvest that garbage or further increase efficiency of landfills.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-scienc...

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#87

Post by anamax »

andjd wrote: post #82

The author is conflating two separate issues. Their main point is at the end: > Banning plastic straws is stupid. They're probably right that throwing out plastic straws is better than throwing them in the recycling, assuming that plastic straws can't be efficiently recycled. That being said, many US recycling utilities typically sort the recycling on shore, and plastics that are too small to be efficiently identifie…

> But it's an odd hill to die on, given that basically all straws before 1960 were made of paper.

The fact that all pre-1960 straws were paper does not imply that paper straws, let alone paper straws today, do not suck.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#88

Post by munk-a »

jholman wrote: post #80
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastics are cool materials but at the moment they're mostly made from fossil fuels so you're funding some really bad people by using them. They'll only use that money to convince gullible people that climate change isn't happening, that every government regulation will magically have exactly the opposite impact, that solar and wind power are scams, that recycling is bad for the planet and that science and democracy…

I'm confused. There are people with fossil fuels. They want to make money from their access to fossil fuels. They will strive to do so, and some of them will strive without concern for the collective good. I think those things are clear. If fossil fuels are burned for energy, that contributes directly to climate change. If those fossil fuels are converted into plastics which are put in landfills, that directly contri…

Fossil fuels are complex materials and the refining process breaks crude up into several different compounds, these compounds have different uses with the base materials for most plastics being an, essentially, useless side effect of fuel production. It's less a question of taking a barrel of oil and turning it into a hunk of plastic or a can of fuel. Both are produced in the most efficient processes.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#89

Post by munk-a »

anamax wrote: post #87
andjd wrote: post #82

The author is conflating two separate issues. Their main point is at the end: > Banning plastic straws is stupid. They're probably right that throwing out plastic straws is better than throwing them in the recycling, assuming that plastic straws can't be efficiently recycled. That being said, many US recycling utilities typically sort the recycling on shore, and plastics that are too small to be efficiently identifie…

> But it's an odd hill to die on, given that basically all straws before 1960 were made of paper. The fact that all pre-1960 straws were paper does not imply that paper straws, let alone paper straws today, do not suck.

Ivory combs are pretty sweet apparently, they're a lot nicer to use than wooden or plastic combs... I'm not seeing much outrage over the fact that we're being forced not to use them in the modern world.

People adjust - paper straws are servicable for most purposes, for things like bubble tea reusable straws are a reasonable investment (if you're having it often).

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#90

Post by seadan83 »

andjd wrote: post #82

The author is conflating two separate issues. Their main point is at the end: > Banning plastic straws is stupid. They're probably right that throwing out plastic straws is better than throwing them in the recycling, assuming that plastic straws can't be efficiently recycled. That being said, many US recycling utilities typically sort the recycling on shore, and plastics that are too small to be efficiently identifie…

The straw is not the main point of the article but to demonstrate a larger point that plastics are better off in a landfil (according to the article).. discussing straws in specific (the title is clickbait), is missing the point
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