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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

#71

Post by strogonoff »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #50
strogonoff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Instead it is very energy intensive to produce and transport, much more so than plastic.

Have you checked how much energy it takes to produce plastic? You can start with sourcing and refining oil. Economies of scale help it be cheaper, but so they would for glass.

Have you checked recyclability of plastic? It can only be recycled a few times, and it degrades every time becoming unsuitable for use in, say, food packaging much earlier. Glass, on the other hand, has virtually infinite uses, which if factored into the cost brings it down even further.

For transportation, sure. I have made the same argument, if it is more expensive to transport then it will cost more. However, many products are not transported large distances and are made somewhat locally, and even if I only look at products (e.g., drinks) made in the same (pretty small) country still 99% of them are bottled in plastic.

> broken glass is a mess to clean up

You beat me here, (micro/nano) plastic definitely isn’t a mess to clean up.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#72

Post by strogonoff »

constantcrying wrote: post #35
strogonoff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>which are perfectly replaced by glass ones Are you kidding? No. Glass bottles aren't a suitable replacement. Plastic bottles are far superior in basically every aspect.

> Plastic bottles are far superior in basically every aspect.

The only way in which plastic is better than glass is thicker margins for manufacturers. In every other way glass is better for me as a consumer.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#73

Post by strogonoff »

vidarh wrote: post #53
strogonoff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inconvenient, and only becomes better once a sufficient proportion of your energy comes from clean sources. It's a discussion worth having again as renewables rates increases, but it's not a straightforward tradeoff.

Banning avoidable plastic would drastically reduce demand for oil, accelerating move to renewables.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#74

Post by vidarh »

strogonoff wrote: post #73
vidarh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass is inconvenient, and only becomes better once a sufficient proportion of your energy comes from clean sources. It's a discussion worth having again as renewables rates increases, but it's not a straightforward tradeoff.

Banning avoidable plastic would drastically reduce demand for oil, accelerating move to renewables.

Reducing demand for oil would reduce it's price, which might well slow the move to renewables. It's rarely so simple.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#75

Post by strogonoff »

vidarh wrote: post #74
strogonoff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning avoidable plastic would drastically reduce demand for oil, accelerating move to renewables.

Reducing demand for oil would reduce it's price, which might well slow the move to renewables. It's rarely so simple.

If you are making and selling something that is falling in demand, you are forced to sell it cheaper, which eats at your margins. As the price falls, eventually you sell at a loss, but you are motivated to wrap that business up and start making something else long before.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#76

Post by surgical_fire »

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…

> But with the requirement to give people money for returning those to be recycled

Statiegeld! I really liked this scheme there for beer bottles.

When I lived there most milk came in tetra pak though. I thought it was recyclable?

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#77

Post by vidarh »

strogonoff wrote: post #75
vidarh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing demand for oil would reduce it's price, which might well slow the move to renewables. It's rarely so simple.

If you are making and selling something that is falling in demand, you are forced to sell it cheaper, which eats at your margins. As the price falls, eventually you sell at a loss, but you are motivated to wrap that business up and start making something else long before.

The gap down to where most oil fields are no longer profitable is huge, so while that would eventually happen, reduced plastic use is not likely to bring us there.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#78

Post by eesmith »

constantcrying wrote: post #68
eesmith wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think userbinator was perplexed? Instead of the slavery example, consider how a white man in the 1950s could be perplexed that another white man would want to share civil rights equally with women and blacks. After all, both white men were brought up in a system which benefited them over others - why change? Or how a native born citizen could want to allow more immigration, when another native born citizen…

No idea. I am still perplexed why you don't seem to understand that your argument is totally invalid, since the comparison does not make sense.

My argument concerns the reasoning behind the perplexity. Since you don't understand the perplexity in the first place, you must not understand the reasoning either, which means your comments have no bearing on the topic, why is why you think I'm not making sense.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#79

Post by strogonoff »

vidarh wrote: post #77
strogonoff wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are making and selling something that is falling in demand, you are forced to sell it cheaper, which eats at your margins. As the price falls, eventually you sell at a loss, but you are motivated to wrap that business up and start making something else long before.

The gap down to where most oil fields are no longer profitable is huge, so while that would eventually happen, reduced plastic use is not likely to bring us there.

The amount of plastic used for packaging that can be replaced with something else is also huge. Case in point: this article. Also, it is probably not an exaggeration that every item in every supermarket that I personally lay my eyes on uses plastic, a lot of it avoidable.

As oil becomes less in demand as fuel, we should be aware that manufacturers would do their best effort to promote any other uses of it they can find, including plastic packaging, vinyl records, etc. To not do that would be stupid on their part.

Re: What I learned about a plastic-free life

#80

Post by diffeomorphism »

strogonoff wrote: post #71
diffeomorphism wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Instead it is very energy intensive to produce and transport, much more so than plastic. Have you checked how much energy it takes to produce plastic? You can start with sourcing and refining oil. Economies of scale help it be cheaper, but so they would for glass. Have you checked recyclability of plastic? It can only be recycled a few times, and it degrades every time becoming unsuitable for use in, say, food pack…

> have you checked

Yes, and plastic wins: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230427-glass-or-plastic...

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