Isn't this just burning plastic?
Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
121–130 of 132 posts
Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
#122Change 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.
What?
A lot of the saved weight in cars is probably plastic, but the metal parts of the care pretty obviously make up the majority of the weight.
Engine, transmission, axles, suspension, frame/unibody, frequently body panels are steel, etc.
Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
#123Change 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.
Burn it and dump it into pits. Of course while that is not really a problem when 95% of your trash is organic with a bit of random iron scrap and most people live on low density farms, it is a problem with modern materials like plastics and other hydrocarbon products and increasing population densities.
Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
#124Earlier 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.
If bottles are returned to be washed it doesn't take that much energy. An empty semi-truck doesn't consume that much less gas than one loaded with product because air resistance is the same either way. It isn't free, but it isn't very expensive or hard either.
Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
#125Earlier 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.
Probably because they don't have the infrastructure setup to wash and reuse glass due to the competition from plastic. Most glass recycling is instead just smashing it which is a huge hit to the cost effectiveness of glass.
Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
#126Earlier 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…
A couple US states have bottle deposit returns also, and they are highly effective programs. I don't understand why more places don't do it, and some places that do use it could increase deposit amounts slightly to get far better return rates.
Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
They touted the plastic as a way to protect the trees. It didn't stop the deforestation. They told us they're inert. Then we've learned about bpa, pfas and microplastics. They told us they're recyclable. Now we now that's not really the truth. They tell us it's for saving CO2. Now we have the stuff in our seas, on beaches, microplastics in rain and wind, there is no place on earth free of it (not even the most remote…
I mean, I understand the sentiment. At the same time, most of the consumers of said plastics are living longer than previous generations. I don't think it's as bad as you make it out. Granted, at some point the human race will need to act more holistically about their resource usage, but I think that will take a very long time and probably not until it has become a much more painful problem.
> most of the consumers of said plastics are living longer than previous generations
Can we say, for sure, that this is true? My grandma just died a few years ago. I couldn't tell you exactly when the plastic revolution happened, but I would say it was significantly long after she became an adult. I'm not sure we are at the point of knowing yet whether my plastic generation outlives my grandma's non-plastic generation, statistically speaking.
Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plastic wrap is also far easier than finding the correct matching lid, in my experience.
There are now silicone lids you can purchase for pyrex storage containers. As a bonus, they stay supple and don't crack. Even so, lids do not touch food as much as the container itself. Sadly, silicon freezer bags have yet to work as well as plastic ones. Give them time.
Where do you find them? I have many cracked pyrex lids.
Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, I understand the sentiment. At the same time, most of the consumers of said plastics are living longer than previous generations. I don't think it's as bad as you make it out. Granted, at some point the human race will need to act more holistically about their resource usage, but I think that will take a very long time and probably not until it has become a much more painful problem.
> most of the consumers of said plastics are living longer than previous generations Can we say, for sure, that this is true? My grandma just died a few years ago. I couldn't tell you exactly when the plastic revolution happened, but I would say it was significantly long after she became an adult. I'm not sure we are at the point of knowing yet whether my plastic generation outlives my grandma's non-plastic generatio…
Use of plastic started exploding in the 60s and 70s, so it would depend on how old your grandma was. But sixty years is a fairly substantial length of time for exposure.
Re: Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
#130Change 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 shopping bags (use textile bags
iirc you would have to use a textile bag several hundred times to have a lower impact that plastic bags, maybe reusing plastic bags is a better option. Or polyester idk.
same for cotton, water use and carbon dioxide emissions are huge and debatably polyester clothes are better environmentally (it's hard to compare as there is no conversion rate between plastic waste/microplastic pollution and carbon dioxide) emissions)