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

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

#101

Post by thomasjb »

tfandango wrote: post #74
jnsaff2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass bottles and jars are pretty much infinitely reusable. Recycled glass saves about 40% of the original energy.

My city has stopped taking glass in the recycling saying the cost to recycle it outweigh the benefits. It makes me wonder why we don't just clean/reuse them instead like we did in the old days when we returned glass bottles to the grocery store.

In Germany they have the Pfand deposit scheme, where almost all beverage bottles and tins have a deposit charged on them, and shops have automated bottle and crate collecting machines, which you feed your bottles into and get out a receipt which entitles you to the deposit money off your next shop. You see very few stray bottles on the street, and those you do see are set neatly beside the bins for bottle collectors to pick up

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

#102

Post by nickff »

Laaas wrote: post #24
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.

You're begging the question: what is the definition of 'necessary'?

Do you mean necessary to live a risky and brutal life, or necessary to live a comfortable, long, and pleasurable one?

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

#103

Post by nradov »

CWJeff wrote: post #42
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My neighbor is in his 80s and we live in what used to be a rural area before urbanization caught up. He told me there wasn't any garbage collection, they put rubish in a small bin and just dumped everything in a hole in the garden when the bin was full. They didn't use any plastic so everything would just decompose. When the hole was full they'd dig another one and that was it.

In rural areas they commonly composted the organic garbage and burned much of the rest. Food scraps were also fed to animals so there was generally very little food waste.

My uncle used to pick up all the food scraps from a local restaurant and feed those to his pigs. It made a mess in his pickup truck, but it was a lot cheaper than commercial pig food.

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

#104

Post by selimthegrim »

PeterisP wrote: post #67
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Before wide availability of plastic bags, reusable bins/buckets were used for trash. It's not even that historic, for example, 1980s USSR did it that way if I recall it correctly.

New Orleans does it in streetside garbage cans.

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

#105

Post by corbulo »

vkou wrote: post #94
corbulo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're usually more about strongly opposing the appearance of releasing harmful chemicals. See Nuclear Energy NIMBYism, lithium/ cobalt mining, emissions and supply chain required to make solar panels, and wind turbine blade disposal. To call any of it "clean" energy is quite a stretch.

> wind turbine blade disposal How do the problems of that that stack up compared to disposal of any other industrial infrastructure?

Oh its much better (though there are still other issues with it, local ecology for one). Just don't call it clean, green or renewable.

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

#106

Post by mort96 »

corbulo wrote: post #70
mort96 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They're usually more about strongly opposing the appearance of releasing harmful chemicals. See Nuclear Energy NIMBYism, lithium/ cobalt mining, emissions and supply chain required to make solar panels, and wind turbine blade disposal. To call any of it "clean" energy is quite a stretch.

You're not far away from a very important point. There is no such thing as truly "clean" energy, and calling it "clean energy" does arguably take the focus away from the need to reduce energy consumption. Maybe it should've been called "less dirty" energy, like how we call rubber bullets and tasers "less lethal" rather than "non-lethal". And I share your concern that a sustainable solution to our energy needs can't come from unsustainable levels of cobalt and lithium consumption.

Where your argument falls down, however, is that you're making it sound like a choice between the toxic chemical pollution from "clean" energy and the greenhouse gas pollution from coal, gas and oil. It's not. Burning fossil fuels releases a huge amount of toxic chemicals as well. People are getting lung cancer and asthma from living in polluted cities. And the death toll from coal power is astronomical.

We need to get our greenhouse gas emissions under control, and we need to do it in a way which doesn't destroy other aspects of the environment. And any environmentalist will agree to that statement (even if some individuals are misguided as to how to get there).

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

#107

Post by myshpa »

VLM wrote: post #99
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…

Cars are mostly plastic by weight. Remember every extra pound means burning an extra Y gallons of fuel over the life of the car. Replacing plastic with steel would likely be a net loss environmentally speaking.

There are other materials we could use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgg0zpckGRU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx8OTH0eEM0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srgE6Tzi3Lg

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

#108

Post by tfandango »

thomasjb wrote: post #101
tfandango wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My city has stopped taking glass in the recycling saying the cost to recycle it outweigh the benefits. It makes me wonder why we don't just clean/reuse them instead like we did in the old days when we returned glass bottles to the grocery store.

In Germany they have the Pfand deposit scheme, where almost all beverage bottles and tins have a deposit charged on them, and shops have automated bottle and crate collecting machines, which you feed your bottles into and get out a receipt which entitles you to the deposit money off your next shop. You see very few stray bottles on the street, and those you do see are set neatly beside the bins for bottle collectors…

yes that is almost exactly what we used to do in the 80s/early 90s (and probably before that), minus the automated part.

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

#109

Post by jessekv »

pixl97 wrote: post #88
jessekv wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In South East Asia, you can buy a lot of different prepared foods in banana, lotus, or bamboo leaf wrappings. Additionally, corn husks are used for wrapping tamales in Mexico. I wish I knew what the equivalent would have been in Europe. I would love to see traditional packaging getting popular in supermarkets around the world.

Risk adversity in the US will pretty much never allow this to happen. The moment one of those leaves has listeria or something like that on it, they'll be back in sterile plastic wrap.

You're probably right. Its related to the question of whether to wash eggs or not.

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

#110

Post by MoreSEMI »

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…

-textiles:

I think as soon as you recommend to reduce someone’s quality of life you can forget about it. I agree with a lot of the other recommendations, but telling someone to stay home sounds a lot like dismissal. However, anything where behavior can be changed without changing QoL should be done.

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