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

Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 132 posts

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#21

Post by myshpa »

Change my mind: 90%+ of plastic is not necessary.

Not necessary:

- plastic bottles (good only for coca-cola's profits etc., 90% of bottled drinks contain microplastics, use glass)

- food wrappers (use paper & natural wax, not pfoas)

- plastic shopping bags (use textile bags like our grandma's did)

- eshop packages (ever received goods in plastic bags wrapped in insane amounts of additional plastic?)

- tea bags made with plastic (yes, they're there, not biodegradable, lots of microplastics in your tea)

- tooth brushes (what's wrong with wood/bamboo ?)

- textiles ( cotton / hemp / flax. you think you need to run in modern textiles because it's raining ? stay home, i don't need your pfoas in my water )

- polystyrene for home insulation (why not support plant based alternatives, like hemp / hempcrete)

- fishing nets (70% of macro plastic at sea comes from fishing gear, just eat plants people, there are not that many fish left anyway)

Necessary:

- health care

- what have i forgot?

Better to stop producing the crap, than to have to find ways how to utilize it without harming everything and everybody. It's good only for the packaging industry, nobody else.

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#22

Post by kevviiinn »

myshpa wrote: post #21

Change my mind: 90%+ of plastic is not necessary. Not necessary: - plastic bottles (good only for coca-cola's profits etc., 90% of bottled drinks contain microplastics, use glass) - food wrappers (use paper & natural wax, not pfoas) - plastic shopping bags (use textile bags like our grandma's did) - eshop packages (ever received goods in plastic bags wrapped in insane amounts of additional plastic?) - tea bags made w…

A lot is used in bio research labs as well

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#23

Post by hammock »

myshpa wrote: post #21

Change my mind: 90%+ of plastic is not necessary. Not necessary: - plastic bottles (good only for coca-cola's profits etc., 90% of bottled drinks contain microplastics, use glass) - food wrappers (use paper & natural wax, not pfoas) - plastic shopping bags (use textile bags like our grandma's did) - eshop packages (ever received goods in plastic bags wrapped in insane amounts of additional plastic?) - tea bags made w…

>natural wax The only commercially viable wax is paraffin, which is petroleum derived

>bamboo All of the bamboo products for sale are glued together with petroleum derived adhesives and often finished with petroleum based products like mineral oil

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#24

Post by Laaas »

myshpa wrote: post #21

Change my mind: 90%+ of plastic is not necessary. Not necessary: - plastic bottles (good only for coca-cola's profits etc., 90% of bottled drinks contain microplastics, use glass) - food wrappers (use paper & natural wax, not pfoas) - plastic shopping bags (use textile bags like our grandma's did) - eshop packages (ever received goods in plastic bags wrapped in insane amounts of additional plastic?) - tea bags made w…

Change my mind: 95%+ of what we consume/use isn't necessary.

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#25

Post by hammock »

consumer451 wrote: post #4

> according to agency records obtained by ProPublica and The Guardian, the production of one of the fuels could emit air pollution that is so toxic, 1 out of 4 people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer > That risk is 250,000 times greater than the level usually considered acceptable by the EPA division that approves new chemicals.

I know it’s not disclosed, but which toxin do we think this would be?

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#26

Post by pubby »

myshpa wrote: post #21

Change my mind: 90%+ of plastic is not necessary. Not necessary: - plastic bottles (good only for coca-cola's profits etc., 90% of bottled drinks contain microplastics, use glass) - food wrappers (use paper & natural wax, not pfoas) - plastic shopping bags (use textile bags like our grandma's did) - eshop packages (ever received goods in plastic bags wrapped in insane amounts of additional plastic?) - tea bags made w…

Plastic is useful for being an insulator so it's used in electronics a lot.

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#27

Post by mort96 »

myshpa wrote: post #21

Change my mind: 90%+ of plastic is not necessary. Not necessary: - plastic bottles (good only for coca-cola's profits etc., 90% of bottled drinks contain microplastics, use glass) - food wrappers (use paper & natural wax, not pfoas) - plastic shopping bags (use textile bags like our grandma's did) - eshop packages (ever received goods in plastic bags wrapped in insane amounts of additional plastic?) - tea bags made w…

On the other hand, what would the the environmental impact of stopping plastic use? I have to assume that producing a plastic bottle requires a minuscule fraction of the energy (and has a fraction of the greenhouse emissions) of creating a glass bottle?

Not that single use plastic items isn't an issue; it clearly is. But I'm guessing that the solution isn't generally to replace the single use plastic item with a single use wood/glass/textile item.

I could also be wrong. If producing plastic stuff has a much larger impact than what I'm assuming here, please do correct me.

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#28

Post by rootusrootus »

mort96 wrote: post #27
myshpa wrote: post #21

Change my mind: 90%+ of plastic is not necessary. Not necessary: - plastic bottles (good only for coca-cola's profits etc., 90% of bottled drinks contain microplastics, use glass) - food wrappers (use paper & natural wax, not pfoas) - plastic shopping bags (use textile bags like our grandma's did) - eshop packages (ever received goods in plastic bags wrapped in insane amounts of additional plastic?) - tea bags made w…

On the other hand, what would the the environmental impact of stopping plastic use? I have to assume that producing a plastic bottle requires a minuscule fraction of the energy (and has a fraction of the greenhouse emissions) of creating a glass bottle? Not that single use plastic items isn't an issue; it clearly is. But I'm guessing that the solution isn't generally to replace the single use plastic item with a sing…

> creating a glass bottle?

Not to mention transporting it. I wonder where the breakeven point is on energy costs.

Soda did come in glass bottles when I was young. I don't know precisely why we stopped, but my guess is because people didn't like getting new drinks in beat up old glass.

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#29

Post by mort96 »

bigodbiel wrote: post #12

Plastic based fuels sounds like petro fuel with extra steps! As for the plastic waste, instead of dumping it into the ocean, we blow it into the atmosphere.

Well, as long as we're blowing fuel combustion byproducts into the atmosphere anyways, the fuel might as well be recycled from garbage. If it was really possible to convert plastic waste into a fuel that's no worse than normal fuel, it would've been a good thing (at least if it didn't require additional energy to produce compared to normal fuel), even though the overall goal is to cut down or eliminate the need for fuel over time.

Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health

#30

Post by mort96 »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #17
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #10

Thank goodness that some of these projects coincidentally got funded via something that could be tied to environmentalism, or it would just be business as usual, and no one would care. Now there's at least some small chance that the "see, green stuff kills you too" response may cause enough fuss for the US to do what most other developed nations would do as a matter of course in terms of protecting their citizens fro…

Here's my cynical take: Sounds like the environmentalists will soon advertise their campaigns with "Get cancer to save the climate!".

Why's that? Do you often see a trend of environmentalists championing releasing a bunch of toxic chemicals into the environment? Aren't they usually the group most strongly opposed to releasing harmful chemicals into the environment?
Post reply on HN