Plastics are poisoning us
newyorker.com
Plastics are poisoning us
1–10 of 528 posts
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#2Yes? At this point, it's hopeless - plastics are expanding like never before, Shell expanding several new enormous factories right in the US. No politician is interested in stopping it either, since the lobbying industry for plastics is also going strong. The only legislation passed in modern time is against single-use plastics, which is just a tiny drop in the ocean (!!) of plastic.
And also, the clothes industry is massive and went from an already cheap source like cotton, to plastic.
Consider the forces here that push plastics - influensers, marketers and huge brands. It's hard to find consumers or manufacturers willing to pay several times more for the better alternative..
EDIT:
In the end, it's up to consumers. Personally, I'm using glass, it's infinitely re-usable. I use hemp clothes, it lasts many times longer and I don't own a car, I bike everywhere.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#3Something I recently learned is that PFAS, which might be a carcinogen and probably isn’t good for you, are in compostable take-way containers.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/pfas-compostable-food-packag...
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#4There are plastic rocks forming. Those aren't rocks with plastic melted on top of them. They are literally plastic rocks formed via the same processes alongside normal rocks. We could ban plastics tomorrow, and it wouldn't be enough. We've screwed over the entire Earth.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#5Yes? At this point, it's hopeless - plastics are expanding like never before, Shell expanding several new enormous factories right in the US. No politician is interested in stopping it either, since the lobbying industry for plastics is also going strong. The only legislation passed in modern time is against single-use plastics, which is just a tiny drop in the ocean (!!) of plastic. And also, the clothes industry is…
Not sure how the "it's to late to do anything about it" is supposed to contribute to this debate. It's also factually wrong. The production of new plastics could be drastically reduced through regulation of both the production itself and its use cases. Most food and drink containers could be made from non-plastic materials. I've built a house that uses maybe 5% of the plastic that is common in construction where I live. You could pull out the cables, window seals, roof cover and switches and basically leave the rest of the house to compost. The government could mandate that producers of plastics must offer a convenient and financially attractive way to hand in old plastics. There are a thousand ways to drastically improve this problem, fatalism only contributes to it.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#6People consider it a shocking or impossible policy to ban single use plastics, but future generations will look back on plastics the same way we do at lead paint or asbestos. We're poisoning ourselves and our planet.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#7Yes? At this point, it's hopeless - plastics are expanding like never before, Shell expanding several new enormous factories right in the US. No politician is interested in stopping it either, since the lobbying industry for plastics is also going strong. The only legislation passed in modern time is against single-use plastics, which is just a tiny drop in the ocean (!!) of plastic. And also, the clothes industry is…
Not sure how the "it's to late to do anything about it" is supposed to contribute to this debate. It's also factually wrong. The production of new plastics could be drastically reduced through regulation of both the production itself and its use cases. Most food and drink containers could be made from non-plastic materials. I've built a house that uses maybe 5% of the plastic that is common in construction where I li…
> The government could mandate that producers of plastics must offer a convenient and financially attractive way to hand in old plastics.
We already have this. It's called trash can. How would letting the producers handle this instead would change anything? The plastic was still produced and will end up in a landfill or the ocean.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#8Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#9Yes? At this point, it's hopeless - plastics are expanding like never before, Shell expanding several new enormous factories right in the US. No politician is interested in stopping it either, since the lobbying industry for plastics is also going strong. The only legislation passed in modern time is against single-use plastics, which is just a tiny drop in the ocean (!!) of plastic. And also, the clothes industry is…
Not sure how the "it's to late to do anything about it" is supposed to contribute to this debate. It's also factually wrong. The production of new plastics could be drastically reduced through regulation of both the production itself and its use cases. Most food and drink containers could be made from non-plastic materials. I've built a house that uses maybe 5% of the plastic that is common in construction where I li…
Most people have microplastics in their body, and even babies in the womb are being exposed (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...). The most remote, otherwise pristine environments have microplastics due to atmospheric transport (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36868287/). It is too late.
Re: Plastics are poisoning us
#10Much of the 80's recycling movement was funded as greenwashing by the plastics industry. The lie was that plastic was a "closed cycle" and "infinitely reusable." In the late 90's/early 00's, "biodegradable plastic" was another lie.
We need to ban all materials that persist with poisonous degradation products. Most bottles should then transition back to glass or to enamel-lined (not BPA) cans. Glass persists for thousands of years but isn't much different from rock. There's no need to worry about glass pollution because fragments quickly weather.