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An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

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Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#231

Post by 83 »

hbn wrote: post #224
newaccount74 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they banned plastic straws in the EU, all of the sudden two reusable replacement products appeared on the market: Glass straws and stainless steel straws. They are such an upgrade to plastic straws that I don't understand why we haven't been using them all along.

They're absolutely not an upgrade to plastic straws. I don't like the feeling of a hard material clanking against my teeth every time I take a sip.

I've switched entirely to glass straws, they are a huge upgrade from plastic. No sharp edges like plastic, won't collapse if you want to suck up something firm like a milkshake, takes up less storage since I only need to keep a handful around to cover various sizes. And they look much, much better to boot. Can't say I've had any issues with them clanking on my teeth, but I use straws for sipping, not chewing on.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#232

Post by Retric »

lisper wrote: post #229
Retric wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all plastics are made from fossil fuels, and photochemsyn was suggesting: “making plastics from biomass carbon sources or from direct air capture”

That's true, but it misses the point rather badly. A big reason that CO2 is a problem is that it is very stable. Getting it out of the atmosphere at scale requires vast amounts of energy. So if your goal is to reduce the amount of atmospheric CO2 (and if it's not then you've essentially given up on the future of civilization) it is much better not to let the carbon get into the atmosphere in the first place. Carbon i…

That’s perfectly reasonable in the short term. Long term however we don’t want to endlessly extract CO2 either, so eventually we will want a pure equilibrium state with zero net gain or loss in atmospheric CO2.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#233

Post by lisper »

Retric wrote: post #232
lisper wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but it misses the point rather badly. A big reason that CO2 is a problem is that it is very stable. Getting it out of the atmosphere at scale requires vast amounts of energy. So if your goal is to reduce the amount of atmospheric CO2 (and if it's not then you've essentially given up on the future of civilization) it is much better not to let the carbon get into the atmosphere in the first place. Carbon i…

That’s perfectly reasonable in the short term. Long term however we don’t want to endlessly extract CO2 either, so eventually we will want a pure equilibrium state with zero net gain or loss in atmospheric CO2.

Yes, of course. But I don't see any circumstances under which returning the carbon in plastics to the atmosphere contributes to that goal.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#234

Post by cortesoft »

83 wrote: post #231
hbn wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're absolutely not an upgrade to plastic straws. I don't like the feeling of a hard material clanking against my teeth every time I take a sip.

I've switched entirely to glass straws, they are a huge upgrade from plastic. No sharp edges like plastic, won't collapse if you want to suck up something firm like a milkshake, takes up less storage since I only need to keep a handful around to cover various sizes. And they look much, much better to boot. Can't say I've had any issues with them clanking on my teeth, but I use straws for sipping, not chewing on.

How do you carry them when you are out? Are they breakable?

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#235

Post by mrguyorama »

cortesoft wrote: post #234
83 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've switched entirely to glass straws, they are a huge upgrade from plastic. No sharp edges like plastic, won't collapse if you want to suck up something firm like a milkshake, takes up less storage since I only need to keep a handful around to cover various sizes. And they look much, much better to boot. Can't say I've had any issues with them clanking on my teeth, but I use straws for sipping, not chewing on.

How do you carry them when you are out? Are they breakable?

I don't like the taste of metal straws, so I bought glass ones. They are awesome, but like all glass things, they are incredibly hard and incredibly brittle. If you drop it, it might shatter, it might be fine. I own four, use them regularly, including occasional travel, and have only dropped one.

If that sounds like too much work for you, there are reusable plastic straws available.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#236

Post by mrguyorama »

ydant wrote: post #162
floren wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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://mel…

I really like that they give full, detailed descriptions of the ingredients. I wish home chemicals had more stringent requirements on ingredient lists, like foods do.

However that's literally just a bar of soap unfortunately, and won't get things the kind of clean I want. I bought one sprayer of caustic bathroom cleaner because they have more resistant sprayer hardware to handle the bleach, and just refill it with cheap bleach or bleach cleaner. The best option would probably be buying bulk dry chlorine at a poll supply store

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#237

Post by xtat »

gumby wrote: post #26
MarkLowenstein wrote: post #2

It's a deceptive title, but it comes straight from the blog post. It's not going to teach you about straws (thankfully...are straws that interesting?). It tells you about the sources of plastic waste in general and justifies the most efficacious solutions to avoid plastic pollution. It is a short article focused on common sense, appropriate pictures, and well-chosen data.

> thankfully...are straws that interesting? I clicked on the link specifically because I thought it might be about straws themselves. I agree straws don’t sound that interesting but I don’t really know much about them and for all I know there’s something interesting about their manufacture, perhaps the difference in sizes, or something else. OTOH I am already well aware of plastic pollution problem and straws’ relati…

same

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#238

Post by tdehnel »

Syonyk wrote: post #139
playpause wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your implied plan (doing less of what made the problem in the first place) seems like more of a stretch to me. It would be nice, but I can’t see many countries giving up plastic. It’s too useful. I think focusing international collaboration efforts on better waste/pollution management (eg getting more waste plastic into properly managed landfills) seems a lot more plausible.

I may not have explicitly stated it in the parent comment, but it's quite explicit other places. Either a system is sustainable or it's not. If it is, it can continue forever. And, if it's not, it won't. One way or another, it won't, though you can pick the method early on, and later, reality will force it on you. The history of civilization collapse is the history of this reality being forced on groups of people who…

> Either a system is sustainable or it's not. If it is, it can continue forever. And, if it's not, it won't. One way or another, it won't, though you can pick the method early on, and later, reality will force it on you.

The mistake you are making is thinking the plastic system is a closed system. It is not. The plastic system is part of the universe, which is populated by people who constantly create new knowledge to solve problems. And we never know which new knowledge will be created which will affect this system.

For example, when nuclear power was invented one might have predicted that cheap, clean power would be available to all. But you probably wouldn’t have predicted the environmentalist backlash to it and resultant continued dependence on fossil fuels.

Or Malthus predicting worldwide food shortages and starvation as the population grew. He had no way of predicting the invention of fertilizer.

There are a million examples of this but the takeaway is: people solve problems and create new knowledge that is constantly redefining what is possible.

> The history of civilization collapse is the history of this reality being forced on groups of people who thought it didn't apply to them.

On the contrary, the history of civilization collapse is rife with people who insisted on thinking about things as closed systems and stifling open ended progress (e.g. ancient Sparta).

It is actually hard to think of an example of a civilization which couldn’t have been saved if only they had the right knowledge. Say the cure for a disease or a piece of military technology.

I believe that is the point the other person is trying to make. That humans continually solve problems, create new ones, and rapid progress means a higher likelihood of developing the new solutions needed.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#239

Post by munk-a »

MisterMower wrote: post #200
munk-a wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned - silicon straws are also available which are far safer than the plastic ones. I, personally, have a metal straw since it looks pretty - but I don't use it all that often while walking... even while using disposable straws I generally didn't drink while walking.

Do you use a straw while driving? Most people do. If silicon straws are better, why don’t more people use them? I would posit that they’re not actually better, otherwise we’d see more widespread adoption.

Personally I don't drive so that doesn't really apply to me.

> If silicon straws are better, why don’t more people use them? I would posit that they’re not actually better, otherwise we’d see more widespread adoption.

This is a very poor argument, it's essentially the same as an appeal to the natural "X is older than Y thus X must be better than Y" - in this thread we're discussing straw usage from an American perspective where disposable plastics is the norm - stating that disposable plastics should continue to be the norm because they're currently the norm isn't very interesting. It's similar to the argument that we should never have switched off of leaded gasoline since everyone was fine with using leaded gasoline.

Re: An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)

#240

Post by mpalczewski »

munk-a wrote: post #138
mpalczewski wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

coffee is an everyday thing for many people. Bubble tea is a 1-4 times a year thing for me. I prefer not to carry a bag. carrying around a straw is less practical than just not having bubble tea.

I think that's totally reasonable yea - reusable items aren't environmentally sane for infrequent purchases - if you drink coffee a few times a year it'd be silly to get a travel mug, similar to bubble tea straws. So, on the other hand, if the straw came with a 5cent disposal fee it probably wouldn't significantly impact your purchase.

That's a good idea, a very reasonable way of doing it.

Would be totally fine with an even higher(25cent) disposal fee. Makes no difference to the 4 times a year user, the frequent user gets a reusable straw.

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