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Plastics are poisoning us

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Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#121

Post by damnesian »

c00lio wrote: post #106
myshpa wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points. Minimalists saving the planet should add one more: 10. Eat plants. Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding... If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares (and free an area as big as Africa for wildlife/reforesting) https://ourworldindata…

11. No pets. Your pet is more harmful to the environment than your car. 12. Less or no children. All of the above, combined.

>Your pet is more harmful to the environment than your car.

as do their human companions. I mean if you're going to Modest Proposal pets, why stop there?

And here's #13: turn off your phone, your laptop, your desktop computer. Read a book if you want edification. Go talk to someone in person if you want to express your opinion.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#123

Post by EGreg »

It’s not just plastics. It’s how capitalism works around the world. I wrote about it two years ago:

https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362

Back when I wrote it, I suspected the industry intentionally worked with government to distract the public, and now in this article it is confirmed:

Under public pressure, a company like Coca-Cola or Nestlé pledges to insure that the packaging for its products gets recycled. When the pressure eases, it quietly abandons its pledge. Meanwhile, it lobbies against any kind of legislation that would restrict the sale of single-use plastics. Franklin-Wallis quotes Larry Thomas, the former president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, who once said, “If the public thinks recycling is working, then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment.”

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#125

Post by GuB-42 »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #92
GuB-42 wrote: post #89

Considering how ubiquitous plastics are, they look rather harmless to me. We are wasting hundreds of millions of tons per year, we eat it, drink it, we have been doing that for decades and we are still discussing statistical signifiance. Sure, not completely harmless, but few things are. And considering the tremendous value plastics have brought to society, I'd say the downsides are comparatively small. What worries…

If you actually read the article before commenting: > The hazards of ingesting large pieces of plastic are pretty straightforward; they include choking and perforation of the intestinal tract. Animals that fill their guts with plastics eventually starve to death. The risks posed by microplastics are subtler, but not, Simon argues, any less serious. Plastics are made from by-products of oil and gas refining; many of t…

I was actually reacting the the hyperbolic title "plastics are poisoning us". And while the article is more nuanced and rather well researched, the subtext essentially "ban plastics", and judging by most of the comments here, that's what most people took away.

My argument is essentially that while it is perfectly normal and expected that researchers study the health risks associated with plastics, and that it is just as expected that we address the issues we discover, we have to make sure the solution is not worse than the problem. And since plastics are what I believe to be relatively harmless for the massive and careless use we make of them, I think it is an important consideration.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#126

Post by altacc »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #39

It's a lot about recycling and very little about how it's poisoning human beings. I have a lot of unpopular opinions about plastic. I personally think it's not that big of a deal. Benzine compounds are naaty, but they're in your drinking water. I don't like them. But most plastic is organic compounds since it comes from oil. There are already microbes metabolizing it in the wild, and it's a rich energy source that mo…

Once you factor in the time scales involved, your justifications for why plastic isn't much of a problem disappear. There is no significant decomposition of plastic by microbes in the wild. Nature will fill niches but there's no evidence or guarantee that microorganisms will ever develop a significant and widespread enough ability to degrade plastic. There are microbes that literally eat rocks, but there are still plenty of rooks in the world. Nature developing this ability to a significant level will take a very long time. Plastics have been around for several human lifetimes and millions of microbial lifetimes and we only see hints. Even if we take an optimistic view, there will be multiple human lifetimes very badly affected by plastic pollution.

We probably also don't want a microbe that is so effective at eating plastic, seeing how much we rely on it. At the first sight of a truly plastic eating microbe, manufacturers will start making plastic immune to organic degradation and the cycle starts again.

Same with burning, you can't say it'd end up as CO2 anyway as one is an immediate effect and the other theoretical and very long term. I do agree that "energy recovery" as it is often called is better than landfill disposal but it is the lesser of evils. It's not always clear that not using plastic is a net benefit as its use might be reducing other environmental effects. In which case I agree that using minimal plastic and then using it for power generation is an option.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#127

Post by voxelghost »

c00lio wrote: post #108
voxelghost wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and although correct about coppers antimicrobial effect it only kills bacteria on contact. So I suspect a majority of any bacterial contamination in the water, will never come in close enough contact with the copper walls for it to have any real effect.

Water bottles, if not cleaned properly with a soap and brush on the inside, will be coated with a bacterial "lawn". Copper prevents that. Lots of bacteria need such a lawn to propagate, only some can multiply without a substrate. So even if the "free" water part won't be desinfected, copper has an overall positive effect on the bacterial content of your drinking water.

Do you hesitate to drink water from a normal glass or cup as well?

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#128

Post by flagrant_taco »

c00lio wrote: post #116
stef25 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my parents' house rain water was collected in a well and that was used for things like flushing toilets and watering plants. This was already in place 30+ years ago mainly cause it's "free water" (apart from the cost of building the well and the pump)

Over here, your water bill has 2 components, the price of the fresh water and the price of the waste water. Waste water is at least as expensive per m³ as fresh water, sometimes more than double. If you are using rain water, you save on the fresh water price, but you have to still pay for the waste water. And since waste water price is calculated from your fresh water consumption, you either have to have a second met…

This also depends a lot on your locality. If you live in an area where septic tanks are allowed you don't have to pay for city sewer usage.

You can also skip that entirely with a composting toilet. Again depending on your local laws, gray water can often be drained directly outside, potentially through a leech field if required. Plenty of areas allow this for specific uses like washing machines, the only reason it can't be done with standard toilets is because of the solid waste.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#129

Post by peteradio »

kashunstva wrote: post #86
pvaldes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> suffer cirrhosis …and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Wilson’s disease is surprisingly common at 1 in 30,000.

[flagged]

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#130

Post by sfpotter »

aziaziazi wrote: post #48
fodkodrasz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess not for drinking. OP is planting trees, so assumably has land where some kind of forestry/agriculture is in being carried out. That needs quite some water. (eg. freshly planted trees need irrigation to have a fair chance of survival) Also washing, showering can be done with rainwater if you are really a minimalist.

Or at least car/patio washing if you’re almost really a minimalist.

If you’re really a minimalist, you don’t own a car
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