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

31–40 of 132 posts

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

#31

Post by Wowfunhappy »

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…

One use that comes to my mind are trash bags. I'm almost embarrassed to ask this, but what did people use for trash bags before plastic was invented? I've tried Googling this a few times with unsatisfying results. Trash bags by definition need to be disposable.

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

#32

Post by postalrat »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #31
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…

One use that comes to my mind are trash bags. I'm almost embarrassed to ask this, but what did people use for trash bags before plastic was invented? I've tried Googling this a few times with unsatisfying results. Trash bags by definition need to be disposable.

I assume they just threw the trash into the bin and probably kept it outside.

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

#33

Post by consp »

rootusrootus wrote: post #28
mort96 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They stopped using hard-PET plastics here for the same reason as glass: Higher cost (even environmentally) for maintaining and cleaning the bottles (min temp of 60c water is required afaik). The plastic is now separated and recycled as-is instead of reused. It's also one of the main reasons they want to get rid of glass beer bottles (as well as that cans do a better job of sealing it) but that is somewhat more difficult culturally.

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

#34

Post by sdenton4 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #31
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…

One use that comes to my mind are trash bags. I'm almost embarrassed to ask this, but what did people use for trash bags before plastic was invented? I've tried Googling this a few times with unsatisfying results. Trash bags by definition need to be disposable.

Trash burning is still pretty common in some parts of the world.

It's incredibly bad when plastics and disposable batteries start getting burnt, as is inevitable when burning is the primary trash disposal strategy.

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

#35

Post by postalrat »

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…

Plastics and acids don't get well together? Is there some science behind this? Very strong acids are often stored in plastic.

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

#36

Post by mort96 »

consp wrote: post #33
rootusrootus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They stopped using hard-PET plastics here for the same reason as glass: Higher cost (even environmentally) for maintaining and cleaning the bottles (min temp of 60c water is required afaik). The plastic is now separated and recycled as-is instead of reused. It's also one of the main reasons they want to get rid of glass beer bottles (as well as that cans do a better job of sealing it) but that is somewhat more diffic…

> but that is somewhat more difficult culturally.

Also, changing the material changes the experience of drinking something. At least I find the experience of drinking from glass to be very different to drinking from plastic or drinking from aluminium cans, even if the properties of the liquid itself is completely unchanged.

(I dislike drinks with straws for the same reason; cold glass touching lips and liquid running out from it is a different and better experience than putting plastic in the mouth and letting liquid shoot up into the palate.)

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

#38

Post by rcme »

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…

You're ignoring pretty much all industrial use of plastic, which is a huge contributor to plastic use.

All your other points are essentially "If you paid way more, then plastic wouldn't be necessary." However, if you paid more, then you'd have less money for other stuff. So clearly plastic is necessary for our current levels of consumption.

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

#39

Post by rockostrich »

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…

Sorry for the very kitchen focused comment but the kitchen is where I used the most plastic.

Polycarbonate is a very useful plastic for food containers ("cambros") because it's lightweight, durable, and can be transparent. Sure, glass could work but it's a lot more fragile, especially if you were to try to constantly stack/unstack them in a commercial kitchen.

To a lesser extent the same argument could be made for polypropylene deli containers (for food storage and kitchen prep, not as disposable food containers).

I use plastic wrap probably more than I should in the kitchen (when baking) which could obviously be replaced by lids that fit whatever containers I'm putting the plastic wrap on but in some applications I can't imagine plastic wrap being replaced without some special lid (proofing a bread loaf that you want to proof out of the top of the container).

I think that's it though. In general, I agree that single-use plastics (or "re-use for a while and eventually throw out") are unnecessary but if something can be used indefinitely (I've had my cambros for something like 5 years at this point and they still look new) then I don't see it as an unnecessary plastic.

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

#40

Post by nsm »

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…

Modern waterproof textiles are used by lots and lots of people that keep your basic infrastructure running, that allows you to stay in your warm, insulated, dry house. So they can stay reasonably comfortable while doing jobs like keeping the power running in a snowstorm, or keeping the roads clear for emergency vehicles.
Post reply on HN