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Plastics are poisoning us

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Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#471

Post by friend_and_foe »

maccard wrote: post #60
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…

> But most plastic is organic compounds since it comes from oil. It being an organic compound doesn't mean it's safe or something we should ignore. Asbestos is an organic compound with wildly useful properties. > Additionally, I think there's too much of an aversion to burning it. At home, its a terrible idea - it's super duper toxic a d leave a horrific nasty waste to dispose of. In a commercial setting maybe, but I…

I'm talking about how it will degrade into carbon dioxide and what not as microbes learn to decompose it, so long term it's no worse than burning.

In rural places a lot of people burn their trash in pits. Just don't stand over it while it's burning and you'll be fine. Id argue this is significantly less bad than it piling up in the ocean.

I'm comparing to Europeans and Americans. I don't drink tap water, I refill 5 gallon jugs.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#472

Post by friend_and_foe »

altacc wrote: post #126
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 pl…

There's no significant microbe decomposition yet. Fact is, there are microbes that do it, it is an abundant energy source, and so you'd expect these microbes to fill that niche quickly. Failing that, we will engineer some. I think the current common wisdom timelines for plastic decomposition are wildly wrong and based on old evidence and understanding, I think within 100 years lack of durability of plastics due to decomposition is actually going to become a problem. I would hope someone would engineer plastics that can resist it, the reason single use plastics are so ubiquitous is because they're cheap, not because theyre long lasting, you don't need grocery bags to last a thousand years, so long lasting plastics for durable applications and plastics for which microbes exist to decompose them for single use would be ideal.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#473

Post by friend_and_foe »

okeuro49 wrote: post #50
friend_and_foe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its all still greenwashing. "You can save the world without even getting up from your chouch!" is the sales pitch of the day. I'm far from what you'd consider an environmentalist in the sense of the current vernacular and I have a ridiculously low carbon footprint (my electric bill 9 months out of the year is $2 a month to give you an idea) and very low rate of disposal of plastics. All it takes is a handful of lifes…

> All it takes is a handful of lifestyle changes I don't think this for a second. I think the only way it will stop if equivalent biodegradable materials can be made to replace single use plastic.

This is an apathetic mindset and is part of the problem. "I can't do anything! The whole world has to change or it can't be done!" It's not healthy to disempower yourself with respect to your own life. I do it, so it can be done. Everyone will be different everyone has tolerances, but it can be done. People make the problem larger than life so that they have am excuse not to do anything. The only thing you can change is your own behavior.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#474

Post by milkytron »

mrweasel wrote: post #55
aziaziazi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You shouldn't be washing your car in the driveway. Even if you use environmentally friendly soap, or no soap, the water coming of the car isn't exactly clean. Professional car wash places are required (depending on location) to collect and dispose of their waste water in a safe way. When you wash the car in the driveway, the waste water will either go into the ground or the storm drains, neither of which will ensure…

Yup, I worked at a car wash and the water coming off of cars is absolutely disgusting. Had to wear some sort of hazmat type suit to clean the trench as we called it.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#475

Post by dllthomas »

anigbrowl wrote: post #419
irrational wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like those "WARNING: This product can expose you to [name of chemical], which is known to the State of California to cause cancer. For more information, go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov." stickers. Fortunately I don't live in California.

Yes, they're so ubiquitous as to be useless. I don't know what I'm being exposed to or in what concentrations, so most of the time I just ignore them.

Am I being exposed to worrying quantities of lead, or do they sometimes serve coffee in the break room? No way to tell!

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#477

Post by DoingIsLearning »

ericpauley wrote: post #414
mrybczyn wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. Biking - way more energy efficient - you'll get more MPG (Miles-Per-Gnocci).

Depending on the carbon footprint of the food you eat to power that bicycle the effective MPG may actually be quite poor. A e-bike has lower emissions than a cyclist powered by lentils.

Wait what's wrong with lentils?

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#478

Post by friend_and_foe »

guerrilla wrote: post #240
friend_and_foe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its all still greenwashing. "You can save the world without even getting up from your chouch!" is the sales pitch of the day. I'm far from what you'd consider an environmentalist in the sense of the current vernacular and I have a ridiculously low carbon footprint (my electric bill 9 months out of the year is $2 a month to give you an idea) and very low rate of disposal of plastics. All it takes is a handful of lifes…

> my electric bill 9 months out of the year is $2 a month to give you an idea How do you do that? I can't get mine under 20EUR/month. Do you never cook at home?

I answered it above, but I almost always cook at home. I use gas though, so maybe not fair comparison since heating elements draw a lot of power. Through 9 months out of the year I probably use $50 worth of gas strictly for cooking, so still lower in cost in the end than you're doing, but I'd say if you're cooking on an induction stove and living in a larger space than me you're doing pretty good at €20 a month. You could probably do a little better, I don't know if you have a TV or a desktop PC or a lot of little electronics plugged in taking phantom draw (I have none of those things), or what your electric rates are, how big of a refrigerator you have, etc. €20 is really good for almost anyone.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#479

Post by yetihehe »

namaria wrote: post #439
yetihehe wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I solved this problem in minimalist way - I wash my car maybe twice a year. It sits in my driveway in rain anyway because my garage is waiting for some spare time so that I can finally reuse all that pallets I collected since last year (mostly clean pallets I've already made some nice yard furniture for myself and family, all those pallets already have planned use but I don't have enough time).

If you have a whole half ton of energy guzzling metal machine just to move you around town, are you minimalist?

For moving around town i just walk, maybe sometimes I use my 20yr old bike. My car is used only to travel from my town to nearest city, because it takes 3x more time to go with bus->train->taxi to where I need to go and is a little more expensive. Then it sits idle 5 days. It's more like 1.2tons and is not that guzzling, 7L/100km. Diesel or hybrid would be guzzling even less, but they break more and/or are more expensive. I'm not a eco freak, I do what I can, but some people really do need to own some transport. In Poland, if I see someone with a big pickup, it typically means he actually DO uses it to pick up various things otherwise it would be too inconvenient to own such a big car.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#480

Post by yetihehe »

lukas099 wrote: post #458
literalAardvark wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really something you can reasonably address.

I disagree, you can address it by keeping your car cleaned regularly at a car washing business that filters and recycles wash water.

Meh, there's a big gap in your problem/solution - driving in rain.
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