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Plastics are poisoning us

newyorker.com

491–500 of 528 posts

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#491

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[flagged]

Incredible, "do fascism" is your only solution?

If you've read Dune, you would get it.

I welcome you to propose a better solution than eco-fascism. I would be genuinely interested in hearing any other suggestions that could work.

Just saying "Let's all stop being nasty and live in peace" doesn't work, unfortunately.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#492

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Steel is mostly recycled. Pet is very much not. Pet does leach (as microplastic). No point in buying plastic bottles unless they're pla. Just reuse a water/soda bottle you bought on a whim.

Steel is not recycled by consumers. You cannot put steel in a recycling bin. You _ may_ be able to take steel to a resource recovery centre. However if the travel uses oil or electricity that comes from coal, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up being worse for the environment than a PET bottle. With regards to leaching, the FDA has declared PET bottles safe for repeated use.

Oh and a note I neglected to make: the recycling failure scenarios are wildly different for steel and PET: steel is easily disposed of by the environment, and doesn't really cause any problems, in fact it's a great oceanic fertilizer.

PET is a horror show in the failure scenario.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#493

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Good luck trying to convince Russia or China to stop exploiting other countries, abandon fossil fuels or stop animal agriculture. Here is the unsolvable problem of the climate activism. They can't save the climate, but they are capable of destroying their own homeland, playing right into the hands of those authoritarian monsters.

Well then you didn’t understand the point of climate activism. It’s not about “saving the climate” but instead “keeping our home habitability”. You can choose to: - keep packing more fellow on your homeland, our children with them. Don’t change anything but wish them good luck, the Science and Industry will solve everything as it always did anyway, right ? Guess what, it won’t make the two giants stop being authorita…

I absolutely agree on trying to become a better person in terms of producing less waste. My point it, little effort won't work. We need radical solutions that could work on the global scale.

I want people to think big. Instead of carrying a water bottle and use paper bags focus on how you can help a whole country like India or China or even a whole continent like Africa.

Set goal of stopping Coca-Cola from dumping their plastic waste in Afrika. This would include much more effort than just carrying a water bottle or sleeping 8h.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#494
post #79

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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.

no cooking with Aluminum - contributor to Alzheimer's Disease.. low- room temperature use is different

Oh?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/23/fac...

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#495
post #351

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Not OP but increasingly cardboard with minimal plastic for lids or seals. Unfortunately few biodegradable products.

Cardboard is biodegradable, but not air/water tight. So not useful for most food. You would still need something like plastics.

Wax sealed cardboard is certainly viable. And regular cardboard is fine for fruit and vegetables.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#496
post #160

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I'm curious, where do you plan trees? Do you have land on your own, or is there some public land where you can plant trees?

The elites don't want you to know this, but you can put seeds anywhere you like

Putting a seed somewhere has a pretty low chance of producing a tree some years on. Conditions need to be good enough, and there's fierce competition in the plant world, as well as animals and lawn mowers that curb growth.

Which is why I asked, what OP actually did.

I know folks who have planted trees on public land and on land owned by corporations, which seems cool but also kinda stressful.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#497
post #485
post #337

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Here’s a direct quote from your link: “Health Risks of Teflon Coating Teflon is generally safe, but heating it to above 300 degrees Celsius or 570 degrees Fahrenheit poses a danger to your health.” Note they didn’t say Teflon was safe at 299C, the risk is chemical breakdown not a phase transition like water which boils at a specific temperature and pressure. When used properly pans shouldn’t get anywhere close to tha…

> When used properly pans shouldn’t get anywhere close to that temperature range What frying pan when used properly doesn't get near 300 C? A pan surface temp of 200-250 C is nothing strange when frying a steak.

250C is quite a long way from 300C.

It’s the same gap was walking outside into 25f and 115f Aka below freezing to punch you in the face hot.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#498

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Pallets are often treated with chemicals, so keep that in mind.

That's why I wrote that they are clean, I keep that in mind, but thanks for noticing.

You said "mostly clean" and I assumed that this was about dirt and debris, and the stuff they're treated with is not visible. There is a stamp on the side which shows how they have been treated, though.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#499
post #483

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Not who youre responding to (but probably who you thought you were responding to) but where I live is not Hawaii or the pacific northwest, it's not all roses. It gets hot and it gets cold, not Montana cold and not Arizona hot but still a bit extreme. And very, very humid. There's always a reason to say you can't do it, but I do what I can and if it's important to you you can too. It's a change in habit and lifestyle,…

> Live lighter and don't rely on comfort like you'll die without it. While for some people it's a comfort issue there are lots of people that will literally die without cooling during heatwaves. Besides that, you can't expect people to be productive (especially in jobs where you're supposed to make use of your brain) when they are slowly cooked in a hot office.

Brain work is the most privileged about working conditions, imagine how many kitchen workers would drop dead from hwat exhaustion if their managers weren't freezing them towels every summer.

Re: Plastics are poisoning us

#500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that the list from less toxic to more toxic is: silica -> iron -> aluminum -> copper With a logarithmic scale unit between each step or so. We ingest and tolerate much more aluminum than copper in our daily journey and we could drink water with much more iron oxide dissolved on it than aluminum oxide without suffering permanent problems

You should be careful of leaded glass, I've read research that shows it leaches into the liquid it contains (this is a problem in e.g. decanters where the acidic wine sits for several days).

How careful? Everything is a trade-off, without numbers on the quantities, extraction rates, and what levels are tolerable for short or long-term exposure we can't make a reasoned choice.
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