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What I learned about a plastic-free life

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Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#11

Post by shiroiushi »

dyauspitr wrote: post #8
johnklos wrote: post #2

It's practically impossible to avoid plastic without great effort. I think even if we collectively don't do much towards that goal, each of us should think about it while we go about our daily lives. For instance, there are times where the choice is wholly ours. Eggs, for instance, often come in plastic or cardboard, so aside from taking a few extra seconds to consider the kind of eggs we want, that's easy. If we wan…

Plastic is too perfect to stop using. Honestly we need to find some miracle plastic that is completely biodegradable after say 10 years. The byproducts of the biodegradation process should be completely harmless as well. I know people are going to say that we already have biodegradable plastic but the key point here is degrade more or less around 10 years, not earlier.

Just implement better recycling programs, and develop better technology for recycling (so "contamination" isn't a problem, etc.). This might not work so well for societies where it's socially acceptable to just throw your trash on the ground and have trash littering the landscape though.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#12

Post by lozenge »

shiroiushi wrote: post #11
dyauspitr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic is too perfect to stop using. Honestly we need to find some miracle plastic that is completely biodegradable after say 10 years. The byproducts of the biodegradation process should be completely harmless as well. I know people are going to say that we already have biodegradable plastic but the key point here is degrade more or less around 10 years, not earlier.

Just implement better recycling programs, and develop better technology for recycling (so "contamination" isn't a problem, etc.). This might not work so well for societies where it's socially acceptable to just throw your trash on the ground and have trash littering the landscape though.

If no new plastic was available, maybe we could recycle better, but at a very high energy cost. Even Japan, famous for its recycling where end users clean and sort their plastic in great detail, burns a lot of their plastic for energy.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#13

Post by jillesvangurp »

johnklos wrote: post #2

It's practically impossible to avoid plastic without great effort. I think even if we collectively don't do much towards that goal, each of us should think about it while we go about our daily lives. For instance, there are times where the choice is wholly ours. Eggs, for instance, often come in plastic or cardboard, so aside from taking a few extra seconds to consider the kind of eggs we want, that's easy. If we wan…

Cardboard and glass packaging used to be a lot more common. The key to reducing to use of plastic is fiddling with the economics. It's cheap for companies to use plastic as long as they don't have to worry about cleanup or recycling. As soon as you start charging them for the privilege of mass polluting our world with their cost savings, they can adapt pretty rapidly.

In the Netherlands, there are some discussions about going back to using cardboard packaging for dairy products. That was basically all there was when I grew up. Before cardboard, glass was very common for this stuff. But In recent years, a lot of plastic bottles were used for milk. But with the requirement to give people money for returning those to be recycled, that just got a lot less attractive. Plastic is only convenient if you don't have to recycle it.

Same with plastic bags. At some point those stopped being free (in most of Europe at least). And then people started pushing for paper bags. Problem solved. There are a lot less plastic bags now. I actually carry a nice foldable plastic bag made out of recycled plastic in my backpack these days. Fits behind the laptop compartment. So, I rarely need to buy paper bags.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#14

Post by FredPret »

shiroiushi wrote: post #11
dyauspitr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic is too perfect to stop using. Honestly we need to find some miracle plastic that is completely biodegradable after say 10 years. The byproducts of the biodegradation process should be completely harmless as well. I know people are going to say that we already have biodegradable plastic but the key point here is degrade more or less around 10 years, not earlier.

Just implement better recycling programs, and develop better technology for recycling (so "contamination" isn't a problem, etc.). This might not work so well for societies where it's socially acceptable to just throw your trash on the ground and have trash littering the landscape though.

Recycling is hard because different plastic molecules don’t always play nice together - and the same goes for metal.

So you need to sort everything carefully. This is hard, slow, and way too imperfect.

I wonder if a better approach could one day be to burn it and then use some future catalyst or reaction to convert the smoke into something useful, or to chop the raw plastic up and feed it to a vat ful of special bacteria.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#15

Post by nullindividual »

shiroiushi wrote: post #11
dyauspitr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic is too perfect to stop using. Honestly we need to find some miracle plastic that is completely biodegradable after say 10 years. The byproducts of the biodegradation process should be completely harmless as well. I know people are going to say that we already have biodegradable plastic but the key point here is degrade more or less around 10 years, not earlier.

Just implement better recycling programs, and develop better technology for recycling (so "contamination" isn't a problem, etc.). This might not work so well for societies where it's socially acceptable to just throw your trash on the ground and have trash littering the landscape though.

Not all plastics can be recycled and there may not be any financial incentive to do so. Most paper in my state that goes into the curbside recycle bin ends up in the trash.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#16

Post by tjpnz »

Having toddlers I've thrown out multiple larger plastic items over the years - think things like diaper bins and stools. I now look towards the plastic slide they've since grown out of and feel only despair. For some items there are opportunities for donation, but everything else gets walked down to our building's trash room and I fucking hate it. Companies who bring such items into the world should bear some of the responsibility for their disposal and certainly shouldn't get to walk away as they currently do.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#18

Post by shiroiushi »

FredPret wrote: post #14
shiroiushi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just implement better recycling programs, and develop better technology for recycling (so "contamination" isn't a problem, etc.). This might not work so well for societies where it's socially acceptable to just throw your trash on the ground and have trash littering the landscape though.

Recycling is hard because different plastic molecules don’t always play nice together - and the same goes for metal. So you need to sort everything carefully. This is hard, slow, and way too imperfect. I wonder if a better approach could one day be to burn it and then use some future catalyst or reaction to convert the smoke into something useful, or to chop the raw plastic up and feed it to a vat ful of special bact…

Yeah, that's why I said we should develop better recycling technology, because what we have today isn't that good. The bacteria idea is a good one I think. We already have microorganisms that can eat plastic, so it seems like it should be possible to genetically-engineer better plastic-eating bacteria for this purpose.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#19

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

robertclaus wrote: post #17

We have done a lot of work trying to price the societal cost of carbon emissions into the cost of doing business... Why haven't we done the same with things like plastic waste?

Have we? Gas is still only 4 USD per gallon and broadly considered a thing the President controls

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#20

Post by SECProto »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #13
johnklos wrote: post #2

It's practically impossible to avoid plastic without great effort. I think even if we collectively don't do much towards that goal, each of us should think about it while we go about our daily lives. For instance, there are times where the choice is wholly ours. Eggs, for instance, often come in plastic or cardboard, so aside from taking a few extra seconds to consider the kind of eggs we want, that's easy. If we wan…

Cardboard and glass packaging used to be a lot more common. The key to reducing to use of plastic is fiddling with the economics. It's cheap for companies to use plastic as long as they don't have to worry about cleanup or recycling. As soon as you start charging them for the privilege of mass polluting our world with their cost savings, they can adapt pretty rapidly. In the Netherlands, there are some discussions ab…

Note that cardboard for liquid packaging often has a plastic lining, aluminum cans have plastic/epoxy lining, glass containers have plastic seals in the lids, etc.
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