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Plastics are poisoning us

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Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#71

Post by mrob »

midoridensha wrote: post #51
swalling wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic replacement isn’t like leaded gasoline or ozone-depleting substances where you had just a few applications to design alternatives for. It’s in fucking everything. Even just finding a realistic replacement for plastic in shoes is not being productized seriously. It’s going to take generations for it to be fixed, and it probably won’t happen until humans and other animals get much much sicker.

>Even just finding a realistic replacement for plastic in shoes is not being productized seriously. We can just go back to the material we used to use for shoes: leather. If there isn't enough cow skin for shoes for 8 billion people, we can just vastly increase the amount of cow farming we do. Oh wait...

Leather shoe soles have worse grip than plastic ones. Switching will increase the number of deaths and serious injuries from people slipping and falling on hard surfaces. Leather soles also wear out much faster.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#72

Post by Gigachad »

reaperman wrote: post #58
com2kid wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I inherited my fabric shopping bags from my grandmother, she made some of them 30 years ago. They are also many times thicker than the cotton bags you can buy in stores, so they might very well need another couple generations before they are carbon neutral!

Yeah much of the problem is that people aren't currently willing to change their lifestyle to embrace the "reduce" and "reuse" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle" triad. They only know two options: "Paper or plastic?" because the vast majority of people don't want to bring their own bags from home to the store. Or their own cup to Starbucks. Or their own to-go food box to the pizza place. I'm trying to imagine how DoorD…

Australia banned single use plastics ages ago, some states decades ago. At the start you get the complainers telling you that they will just buy new bags every time, but theses days almost everyone brings their bags with them. People just have to be dragged kicking and screaming but they eventually do move.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#73

Post by krembo »

realshadow wrote: post #11

I became a minimist to save the planet as much as i could. Its easier than any one could think you know. Here is what i have been doing for a decade and would receommend 1. Reusing plastic bags (i love cotton bags but not ideal). Fold and keep one or two in your pocket before you leave home 2. Support and use light software so you dont need to upgrade your gadgets (12y laptop i use) 3. Prepare and eat home cooked mea…

As for 6 - dead people also have less waking hours. Just saying...

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#74

Post by Gigachad »

bmitc wrote: post #4

There 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.

It's basically the same situation as lead. It's been spread all over the place and doesn't break down. Thank god we at least managed to stop adding to the problem though.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#75

Post by reaperman »

Gigachad wrote: post #72
reaperman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah much of the problem is that people aren't currently willing to change their lifestyle to embrace the "reduce" and "reuse" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle" triad. They only know two options: "Paper or plastic?" because the vast majority of people don't want to bring their own bags from home to the store. Or their own cup to Starbucks. Or their own to-go food box to the pizza place. I'm trying to imagine how DoorD…

Australia banned single use plastics ages ago, some states decades ago. At the start you get the complainers telling you that they will just buy new bags every time, but theses days almost everyone brings their bags with them. People just have to be dragged kicking and screaming but they eventually do move.

Oh wow. Okay. This[0] is...exactly the model I gave actually. $6 deposit apparently. Amazing - I'm actually blown away that this is already implemented across a large country.

0: https://concreteplayground.com/sydney/design-style/returnr-a...

Edited to remove a second link that I failed to double-check before posting.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#76

Post by yasman »

Gigachad wrote: post #70
yasman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO anything that is heated and plastic or plastic-adjacent is suspect. Not to mention the fact a lot of these “eco” things need special equipment to process which isn’t available everywhere

The eco cups are PLA. They are derived from a completely different source from the petrochemical plastics. While that doesn't on it's own make them completely safe, they likely have massively different properties from other plastics.

Thank you for sharing this - an interesting rabbit hole to go down.

Found this with some quick googling: https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1541-4337.12...

Seems like the risk comes from additives to PLA? Seems exhausting to try and stay informed.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#77

Post by veave »

Gigachad wrote: post #68
mjamesaustin wrote: post #6

People 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.

My city banned single use plastics ages ago. Plastic bags banned over a decade ago now. Plastic cutlery and containers banned in 2020. People freak out at the start and complain but no one cares and life continues on. Personally I bring my own bags to the supermarket since the paper ones are a bit annoying, but its trivial to just stuff one in my pocket before I leave.

>People freak out at the start and complain but no one cares and life continues on.

And what are we supposed to do against this, raise in arms?

In my country we have two big parties but they are in cahoots (practically have the same progressive opinions on everything) so we can't even vote to have these authoritarian policies removed. There obviously are other parties but it would take something big, or reaching a tipping point, to break this cycle. It's not as easy as "no one cares". Many of us care but are powerless.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#78

Post by sliken »

realshadow wrote: post #11

I became a minimist to save the planet as much as i could. Its easier than any one could think you know. Here is what i have been doing for a decade and would receommend 1. Reusing plastic bags (i love cotton bags but not ideal). Fold and keep one or two in your pocket before you leave home 2. Support and use light software so you dont need to upgrade your gadgets (12y laptop i use) 3. Prepare and eat home cooked mea…

> 4. Prefer walking over any other transporation

Sure, for walkable destinations. Having a bike is more efficient (calories per mile) and hugely increases the practical range. Commuting, even grocery shopping, and being social is hugely more practical on a bike then walking.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#79

Post by pvaldes »

realshadow wrote: post #11

I became a minimist to save the planet as much as i could. Its easier than any one could think you know. Here is what i have been doing for a decade and would receommend 1. Reusing plastic bags (i love cotton bags but not ideal). Fold and keep one or two in your pocket before you leave home 2. Support and use light software so you dont need to upgrade your gadgets (12y laptop i use) 3. Prepare and eat home cooked mea…

8 -> copper is toxic. People with some genetic traits will suffer cirrhosis and shouldn't use it for water storage. Cooking on copper pots specially should be avoided. Iron and Aluminum are safer.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#80

Post by mrob »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #49
iforgotpassword wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I couldn't speak for other brands, but Brother will give you a free shipping label so you can send your empty toner cartridge back to them. It's not charity, they want it back because they can reuse most of it in ways that a melt-and-remold style recycling scheme can't. I see no reason the same couldn't be true of most packaging, in addition to things like TV's. If you built it, you ought to be uniquely positioned to…

I think we should be subsidizing plastics that end up in landfill. It's the best place for it, as it's both safely contained and impractical to take out again, making it a reliable form of carbon sequestration.
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