Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

hwfo.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 252 posts

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#161

Post by ttyp3 »

robonerd wrote: post #147
anamax wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People adjust - paper straws are servicable for most purposes What purposes are "most purposes"? They don't work for shakes, they don't work for anything that takes more than a minute, etc. Given a choice, people pick plastic straws. Who are you to say that plastic straws aren't better?

Cardboard straws definitely work for shakes. I've been to a few retro-style icecream shops that use cardboard straws for shakes.

They weren't working when I used them--the top would gradually moisten, bend, and crack. I noticed the store switched back to plastic straws, so assume others had the same problem.

As another poster mentioned, this is with a plastic cup and lid (unfortunately).

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#162

Post by ydant »

floren wrote: post #124
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bad wrap Nice. Focusing on plastic bags and straws is such a transparent "something just be done: this is a thing: it must be done" response. 90% of the time, the plastic bag in question is filled with products packed in plastic[1] and half the time, the straw is stuck into a clear plastic cup to show off the frappuccino. [1]: Fruit and veg aside, why am I expected to buy a new spray bottle for every half litre of…

> Fruit and veg aside, why am I expected to buy a new spray bottle for every half litre of kitchen cleaner, say? Why can't I just buy one bottle and spray and then some kind of refill? There's a company (whose name escapes me at the moment) which appears to be aiming for exactly this and is advertising all over the streaming services I watch. Now, clearly their ads aren't doing their job since I can't remember the na…

The heavily advertised commercial refill options want to lock you into their system, so they sell refills made of plastic that only fit into their bottles. It's just pandering to a certain crowd without really helping the problem.

If you search a lot harder, there are some other options. Like for cleaning sprays, there are dry refills that add no plastic and require adding your own liquid, like this one - https://meliorameansbetter.com/collections/homecleaning/prod... - there are others out there, but I've been pretty happy with this product.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#163

Post by dirtyid »

Trying to find out how much recycling gets diverted to landfills anyway. I'm in a relatively interior region where shipping abroad seems prohibitive, and local recycling facilities clearly do not seem to have capacity to process recycling properly. Still going through the rigamarole of sorting and occasionally cleaning my recyclables even though it seems excessivly wasteful.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#164

Post by MisterMower »

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).

How many people do you know who have used an ivory comb? Were your grandparents even around when they were debating the ban? I find it hard to believe that people who enjoyed using ivory products 100 years ago would have supported banning them. It’s disingenuous to assume that the ban wasn’t controversial at the time just because nobody today has even heard of everyday items being made from ivory.

People adjusted because better materials came along. That’s the main reason governments were able to ban ivory: there was finally a viable alternative to piano keys and other everyday items made from ivory. Ironically, plastic was the wonder material that replaced ivory in many applications.

Few people remember what the pre-plastic world was like. It wasn’t better. It was hard to cheaply keep things sterile in hospial settings. Food spoiled faster without cheap, airtight storage containers. Everything was heavier or more flammable because wood, paper, or metal were the only comparable substitute materials.

Maybe we should be discussing how we discover the next wonder material that can make plastic obsolete instead of hand waving and saying “people will adjust” if we make it illegal to use and produce.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#165

Post by aeternum »

slavik81 wrote: post #84
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?

Hmm good point, it is basically a long hydrocarbon.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#166

Post by MisterMower »

munk-a wrote: post #144
the_lonely_road wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obligatory reminder of the lady who tripped and died by impaling her eyeball on her metal straw.

Obligatory reminder of the persons and homes hit by blobs of frozen detritus ejected from airplane toilets mid-flight. I think one-off examples of accidents are pretty unhelpful for discussions. Bamboo straws are also available alternatives and both those and disposable plastic straws can also cause fatal accidents - bubble tea straws in particular can easily break skin. There are also silicon straws available which…

That’s a trade off people should be able to make for themselves. You are arguing for a world in which the choice would not exist.

Such incidents would increase dramatically if people started using metal straws more frequently: think auto accidents while people are drinking through a metal straw.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#167

Post by lazyier »

balaji1 wrote: post #118
Syonyk wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is to actually recycle plastic, build circular supply chains, and use biodegradable materials as much as possible. This assumes that: (1) Plastic can actually be recycled. Unlike a lot of other materials, it degrades rather substantially every time you try, and plastic quality coming out of recycling isn't generally uniform enough to make anything more than the big, chunky "recycled plastic toys and be…

> You must reduce the amount of plastic shipped overseas by putting it in the regular garbage instead of the recycle bin. That's the reality. Why does the US/California make it seem like recycling is a magic trick to save the planet?

> That's the reality. Why does the US/California make it seem like recycling is a magic trick to save the planet?

Because propaganda has more impact than the truth.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#168

Post by astura »

robonerd wrote: post #147
anamax wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People adjust - paper straws are servicable for most purposes What purposes are "most purposes"? They don't work for shakes, they don't work for anything that takes more than a minute, etc. Given a choice, people pick plastic straws. Who are you to say that plastic straws aren't better?

Cardboard straws definitely work for shakes. I've been to a few retro-style icecream shops that use cardboard straws for shakes.

No, they fall apart unless you suck down your shake very quickly.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#169

Post by cortesoft »

munk-a wrote: post #140
cortesoft wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ju…

If you've used them before - how do the sippy cups tend to work for you? I've always been curious how they are for folks with sensitive teeth.

I’ve tried my kids snippy cups before, but the flow rate is way too low for an adult.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#170

Post by tkzed49 »

Syonyk wrote: post #103
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…

> The solution is to actually recycle plastic, build circular supply chains, and use biodegradable materials as much as possible. This assumes that: (1) Plastic can actually be recycled. Unlike a lot of other materials, it degrades rather substantially every time you try, and plastic quality coming out of recycling isn't generally uniform enough to make anything more than the big, chunky "recycled plastic toys and be…

Recycling sucks, but you could replace "biodegradable" with "industrially compostable" or even "ecologically safer". I'm not convinced that getting newspaper out of landfills is on the same order of importance as not littering plastics into the environment. Paper seems like a huge win over plastic and even if you have to use a "biodegradable" plastic, at least it's actually feasible to compost it.
Post reply on HN