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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

#41

Post by saagarjha »

vbezhenar wrote: post #24
vidarh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with deposit schemes for recycling of plastic as well , the industry prefers plastic as it's cheaper to recycle than reuse of glass bottles. So you still need to dictate or tax plastic use extra. There are also environmental tradeoffs until renewable use for transport and industrial use are at sufficient levels.

If the plastic recycled properly, why is it a problem?

Is it energy/waste effective? Washing a glass bottle might be more expensive (due to unpriced negative externalities) but still be better for the environment or human health. (I genuinely have no idea, to be clear.)

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#42

Post by xiconfjs »

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…

For yogurt, milk and so on there is glass - no need for plastics.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#43

Post by Iulioh »

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…

>If we want yogurt, though, we basically have little choice beyond considering the packaging that wastes the least plastic.

Ceramic and glass containers are quite available in my area, i just think that's really big waste.

It they were reusable it would be one thing but we are talking about 4g of plastic vs 100g of glass...

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#44

Post by kvark »

chrismcb wrote: post #29
kvark wrote: post #4

It’s a bit ridiculous that we’ve built a system to motivate change by distributing money, and that system fails flat when it comes to plastic use. In a healthy society, avoiding plastic would be both cheaper and more convenient.

It is interesting you complain about money distribution and then your next statement talks about being cheaper. The reason paid is so prevalent is because it is cheaper and more convenient. I'm not sure what you mean by "healthy society" but the reason money is distributed is to try to make something else cheaper and more convenient. But that takes time and money.

I think you missed my point. The high level role of money is to direct people’s energy to activities beneficial for society. You come to work and help someone achieve their goals, you get paid back. If we collectively agree that plastic production and waste needs to stop, we ought to reflect this decision in our money distribution. In practice, it could mean government incentives and penalties.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#45

Post by vidarh »

vbezhenar wrote: post #24
vidarh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with deposit schemes for recycling of plastic as well , the industry prefers plastic as it's cheaper to recycle than reuse of glass bottles. So you still need to dictate or tax plastic use extra. There are also environmental tradeoffs until renewable use for transport and industrial use are at sufficient levels.

If the plastic recycled properly, why is it a problem?

Because not all of it will be.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#46

Post by numpad0 »

SECProto wrote: post #20
jillesvangurp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, otherwise they don't work. Cardstocks don't hold milk, sterile. Pure aluminum cans dissolve into food contents. Glass lids can't seal tight enough.

Food producers and public health authorites has food poisoning lawsuit and human safety at higher priorities than environmentalism. So they just make it all packaged up in plastics.

Doesn't mean some sort of waterproof inner wall coatings can't be made in the future, though. Maybe if we substitute PE with engineered PLA made from agri wastes and made sure to burn it, that could make sense someday.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#47

Post by eesmith »

constantcrying wrote: post #38
eesmith wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> owe their entire existence to plastics I think that's fundamentally untrustable argument since a very similar one was used to justify slavery. "It's perplexing to see people jump on this stupid 'anti-slavery' mentality bandwagon when they probably own their entire existence to slavery and other forms of forced labor. Abolishing slavery will lead to societal collapse." Just because it's true - much of modern life is…

How disingenuous. The argument against slavery wasn't that it is economically non-viable and has long term negative consequences. The objection was purely on moral grounds, which should completely supersede economic or environmental factors. Plastic use should be weighed between harm and gain at each occasion of use. The same just isn't true for slavery, the analogy is terrible. There is appropriate use for plastics,…

And you are being obtuse.

One of the arguments for slavery is the correct observation that even the abolitionists "probably owed their entire existence to slavery", and the correct observation that abolition would collapse society.

As such, any argument along similar lines, like "you owe your existence to [single-use] plastics" and "society would collapse" should they disappear, is inherently incomplete and untrustworthy.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#48

Post by numpad0 »

vidarh wrote: post #21
jillesvangurp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even with deposit schemes for recycling of plastic as well , the industry prefers plastic as it's cheaper to recycle than reuse of glass bottles. So you still need to dictate or tax plastic use extra. There are also environmental tradeoffs until renewable use for transport and industrial use are at sufficient levels.

Glass bottles weigh as much as its content. Aluminums and plastics are more like few percent.

Tripling energy expended for transport of liquids don't make sense. That's one of reasons why glass bottles are on a long phaseout.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#49

Post by constantcrying »

eesmith wrote: post #47
constantcrying wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How disingenuous. The argument against slavery wasn't that it is economically non-viable and has long term negative consequences. The objection was purely on moral grounds, which should completely supersede economic or environmental factors. Plastic use should be weighed between harm and gain at each occasion of use. The same just isn't true for slavery, the analogy is terrible. There is appropriate use for plastics,…

And you are being obtuse. One of the arguments for slavery is the correct observation that even the abolitionists "probably owed their entire existence to slavery", and the correct observation that abolition would collapse society. As such, any argument along similar lines, like "you owe your existence to [single-use] plastics" and "society would collapse" should they disappear, is inherently incomplete and untrustwo…

The argument is incorrect for slavery and correct for plastic. That is what you don't get.

Slavery is wrong whether or not it benefits people, because it is immoral as such. Plastic use is not immoral and therefore you need to weigh the benefits of plastics against the issues with it. The comparison is just idiotic.

Also, plastics are far more widely used, far more useful and far more beneficial than slavery ever was. Abolishing plastics as a whole means the total collapse of industrial society, every single production process somewhere depends on it. And again plastic use isn't inherently immoral, so the argument is categorically different from slavery as you can not object to the use of plastics on purely moral grounds.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#50

Post by diffeomorphism »

strogonoff wrote: post #34
kvark wrote: post #4

It’s a bit ridiculous that we’ve built a system to motivate change by distributing money, and that system fails flat when it comes to plastic use. In a healthy society, avoiding plastic would be both cheaper and more convenient.

I have been wondering why do some governments ban single-use utensils, straws, shopping bags, but not plastic bottles. They are perfectly replaced by superior (fully recyclable, etc.) glass, and yet not only are they not banned but, in fact, water or drinks in glass are so difficult to find in supermarkets. There can be an argument that banning avoidable use of plastic would mean more expensive packaging, and unless…

Glass is massively inferior. It is much heavier, broken glass is a mess to clean up and it does not just magically come into existence. Instead it is very energy intensive to produce and transport, much more so than plastic.
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