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An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

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Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#91

Post by Uehreka »

munk-a wrote: post #83
brian-armstrong wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>handed out regardless of the customer’s desire

This, but for paper receipts! It blows my mind that the default everywhere I go is to print a receipt, then ask me if I want it. I never do. I am not expensing these two slices of pizza. I will not need to deduct this bottle of shampoo when I file my taxes.

And then the merchant prints a receipt for themself! As if the computer that printed the receipt couldn’t just save a record of the purchase to a database!

The miles and miles of receipts that probably get printed and then thrown away probably adds up to something nontrivial, it’d be such an easy win to only print receipts on request.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#92

Post by cortesoft »

pg314 wrote: post #74
legitster wrote: post #34

Plastic gets a bad wrap. But it's a pretty dang efficient material. It takes so little energy and material to make something very functional and resilient. I know that CO2 analyses of the replacements to plastic bags and straws has not been very kind to them. I find it commendable to encourage people to consumer less stuff, but the war on plastic straws has been a huge step back - it's done relatively little to actua…

> 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…

We could play this game with almost every product... I am sure there are many things that you use and like to use that I never use, but it isn't fair for me to just say, "Well it isn't important to me so that means it isn't important to anyone". Almost every product we produce, people could 'manage just fine' without... we can always just point to a time before the thing was invented and say, "Look, people managed just fine without computers... they aren't a necessity, let's not waste resources making them" Unless a product has outsized environmental costs relative to other luxury items, I don't think we should get in the habit of having governments pick and choose which items are 'necessity' or 'luxury'.

If we are concerned about plastic waste, let's put a general tax on plastics to reduce their consumption across the board and let the market decide how to do that reduction, instead of picking and choosing which plastic products to ban.

While I don't think people need to justify using straws, I will go ahead and say straws are very important to me. I like cold drinks with ice in them, but I have cold sensitive teeth that hurt when I drink from a cup with ice and no straw. It is way easier to drink in a car with a cup, lid, and straw.

I simply prefer using a straw. Do you want to go through a similar exercise where you justify every single one of your consumption practices?

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#93

Post by anamax »

bko wrote: post #86
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…

> So the base of this [100 years] 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 is NOT a big landfill. That volume could be easily hidden in all but a couple of US states.

Moreover, it is a concentrated supply of many useful materials. It might not be profitable to mine it today, but if the "earth is running out of resources" people are correct, it will be. (And, if they're not, generating trash isn't a problem.)

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#94

Post by mattacular »

Interesting but what exactly is the point of this and who is it for? The continued focus on something as myopic as drinking straws and proposed "solutions" to the straw problem that depend on individual choices is actually insane given the point we are at in the battle against climate catastrophe.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#95

Post by Fricken »

I have a friend who is a quadruple amputee. For him straws are pretty good. For the rest of us, the solution to plastic straws is not straws. They aren't necessary.

Of course, it's all bike shedding anyhow. The real problems are big and complex and overwhelming, so we argue about straws instead.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#96

Post by thebean11 »

munk-a wrote: post #89
anamax wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

> for things like bubble tea reusable straws are a reasonable investment

You're suggesting people bring their own straws to bubble tea? That's very impractical.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#97

Post by munk-a »

thebean11 wrote: post #96
munk-a wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> for things like bubble tea reusable straws are a reasonable investment You're suggesting people bring their own straws to bubble tea? That's very impractical.

I don't see why - we've managed it fine and I've got a terrible memory. I've got a messanger bag and usually just keep a metal straw in it for whenever we want some.

A fair number of people carry around reusable coffee travel mugs and those are far more of a pain in terms of size and weight.

I'd clarify, I'm living in Canada so there might be some cultural differences here.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#98

Post by thaumasiotes »

cortesoft wrote: post #85
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 hav…

Also...

> Eventually, in hundreds or thousands of years we will have to remediate that land.

Over that time scale the land automatically remediates itself. There's a hill in Rome made of a big pile of Roman garbage. The hill is more useful than the pots were.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#99

Post by ioseph »

thebean11 wrote: post #96
munk-a wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> for things like bubble tea reusable straws are a reasonable investment You're suggesting people bring their own straws to bubble tea? That's very impractical.

How is carrying a straw (even a heavy stainless steel one) in any way shape or form impractical?

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#100

Post by dvtrn »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #98
cortesoft wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hav…

Also... > Eventually, in hundreds or thousands of years we will have to remediate that land. Over that time scale the land automatically remediates itself. There's a hill in Rome made of a big pile of Roman garbage. The hill is more useful than the pots were.

Boston as well, iirc. And parts of Chicago (a city that was built ontop of an actual swamp)
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