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Just Bury Your Trash

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Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#141

Post by broken-kebab »

collabs wrote: post #139
broken-kebab wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand, you are not wrong, sands differ in qualities, but the question is what you need to make from it. Glass-grade sands aren't everywhere, but they are abundant anyway. Some industries, like solar panels production, require higher purity, and such sands reserves are way more limited.

What I left unsaid to be polite was if they missed/hand waved something that even I know, what else is missing from this analysis? It feels like a gross oversimplification of a very real, very multifaceted problem.

I don't think it's fair, while "one of the most abundant" isn't well-nuanced wording, but the argument is that glassmaking won't exhaust glass-grade sands in historically near times, and it's true.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#142

Post by somenameforme »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #121
somenameforme wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's [very] biodegradable plastics as well. I found out my local store swapped to them in a pretty amusing way. I'd collect plastic bags to use as trash bags and the like. One day I went to grab some from under my counter there was this mess of orange confetti like stuff everywhere from some of the [orange] bags that'd degraded even in just normal storage conditions.

How fast do these "[very] biodegradable plastics" degrade? Probably not as fast a wind gust can trap them in trees, or livestock can accidentally injest them.

I can only recount my experience with them. A quick search on the topic suggests it was probably starch/cellulose based and degradation can happen within days in ideal conditions - which generally means some sort of moisture. It was stored in an enclosed but outdoor type kitchen environment, so humidity was probably elevated relative to a normal indoor scenario.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#143

Post by dofm »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #121
somenameforme wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's [very] biodegradable plastics as well. I found out my local store swapped to them in a pretty amusing way. I'd collect plastic bags to use as trash bags and the like. One day I went to grab some from under my counter there was this mess of orange confetti like stuff everywhere from some of the [orange] bags that'd degraded even in just normal storage conditions.

How fast do these "[very] biodegradable plastics" degrade? Probably not as fast a wind gust can trap them in trees, or livestock can accidentally injest them.

Obviously not that fast because then they wouldn't be useful.

But fairly fast, actually — the pale green food caddy liners we use in the UK break down pretty fast in our wet environment and warm wet food starts working on them within a week. They are very likely entirely gone within six months in the open air, and much faster in the bioreactor conditions that the food waste itself goes into.

Though if you bury them it takes a lot longer, like with newspaper.

I don't think you could make a carrier bag out of that material anyway; it's potato starch and some other polymer, basically, and it is not strong.

AFAIK they are not toxic and digest in stomachs, but are not safe for ruminant animals. But then neither are waxed and printed paper bags, particularly?

There are now some PHA bags being trialled by food delivery services (though why they can't use paper I don't know): that is a stronger material that does break down fully in ordinary outdoor environments without needing "bioreactor" conditions, but again I suppose the same issues for ruminants.

The best strategy is obviously to eliminate plastic bags wherever possible and use as untreated paper as possible. I don't really understand the whining about the inconvenience of reusable shopping bags.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#144

Post by marcosdumay »

cogman10 wrote: post #115
marcosdumay wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Returned bottles have a finite lifetime after what they have to be trashed. Glass bottles tend to be reused some (small) tens of times, plastic bottles certainly last a lot less.

Google AI is saying 25->30 on average with a high of 50. That still ends up being translated to 1/2 to 1/3 (up to 1/5th) the energy of plastic. Glass is also one of the few good cases for recycling.

Granted, glass bottles are also the one good case for recycling glass. But keep in mind the article's energy number is for plastic bottles, glass uses more energy.

Returnable glass bottles are probably better than disposed plastic ones. Returnable plastic bottles (for food) probably aren't.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#146

Post by megaman821 »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #106
hamdingers wrote: post #70

Just let me buy things without forcing me to buy so much trash too. Every grocery store item is over-packaged.

Strongly agree. I wish more things came in jars, cans and sacks. I would pay a premium for this alone. The plastic liner in a tall box workflow adds so much friction to storing using and disposing groceries. I despise cereal boxes.

Having your cereal crushed and then not eating it is more wasteful than dozens of cardboard boxes. Increasing food waste to decrease packaging waste doesn't make sense; food is way more energy intensive to create than packaging.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#147

Post by hamdingers »

megaman821 wrote: post #146
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly agree. I wish more things came in jars, cans and sacks. I would pay a premium for this alone. The plastic liner in a tall box workflow adds so much friction to storing using and disposing groceries. I despise cereal boxes.

Having your cereal crushed and then not eating it is more wasteful than dozens of cardboard boxes. Increasing food waste to decrease packaging waste doesn't make sense; food is way more energy intensive to create than packaging.

The cardboard isn't the problem, the plastic is. Looking at energy use of packaging alone is myopic as other comments in this thread have already pointed out.

I can go to a bulk store like re_grocery with my own reusable airtight container and buy fresh uncrushed cereal with zero packaging. This should be an option in every grocery store.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#148

Post by cogman10 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #144
cogman10 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google AI is saying 25->30 on average with a high of 50. That still ends up being translated to 1/2 to 1/3 (up to 1/5th) the energy of plastic. Glass is also one of the few good cases for recycling.

Granted, glass bottles are also the one good case for recycling glass. But keep in mind the article's energy number is for plastic bottles, glass uses more energy. Returnable glass bottles are probably better than disposed plastic ones. Returnable plastic bottles (for food) probably aren't.

I dug into the linked article because I think the short blurb was a bit vague. This was it's conclusion.

(R-PET -> Recycled polyethylene)

> Results show that R-PET bottle has the lowest impact for all the selected LCA categories, followed by PET bottle, returnable glass bottle with 8 use cycles, and finally non-returnable bottle. This is due to the savings of virgin materials, its low weight and its lower energy consumption in the production phase and transports. The most impactful solution is the non-returnable glass bottle, while better results are obtained using returnable glass bottles: using many times the same bottle, there is only a production and disposal phase, then the majority of the impacts are connected to the cap, label and washing and transport phase. However, even considering 30 use cycles before the glass bottle disposal, its impact is not comparable to the R-PET bottle. Perhaps, reducing the glass bottle weight as much as possible and modifying the cap, its environmental impact could be reduced, but there are still some researches to do for ensuring a bottle shock resistance. According to the MLI proposed, non-returnable glass bottles are the worst material option, followed by PET, R-PET and finally returnable glass bottles. As far as this indicator is concerned, investing on glass bottles reuse and augmenting the incentives of the bottle restitution will help to reduce the marine litter. Furthermore, from a methodological point of view, possible changes could be made to this indicator, such as the adding of other factors or the use of specific weight for each parameter, as already expected but not applied in this study. [1]

The study argues that glass bottles shouldn't be used beyond 8 times mainly because of the other environmental factors around washing and relabeling. I'm not actually sure where the OP got 10 from.

I guess the only additional defense I'd offer over reusing glass is the chemicals used in washing get removed in water treatment and glass doesn't ultimately turn into microplastics (Although... the lid does which is unfortunate and could potentially be fixed [2]).

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-020-01804-x

[2] https://www.anses.fr/en/content/caps-glass-bottles-contamina...

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#149

Post by joquarky »

throwawaypath wrote: post #60
lolcatzlulz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a debate in Texas politics a few years ago because livestock were dying from consumption of littered plastic bags. The state government response was to ban the ban of plastic bags.

>The state government response was to ban the ban of plastic bags. Anything to own the libs.

They also banned fracking bans in Denton. Then on other occasions they tout politics of "local voters know what's best for themselves".

Apparently they want to have it both ways, like spoiled children.

Re: Just Bury Your Trash

#150

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #121
somenameforme wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's [very] biodegradable plastics as well. I found out my local store swapped to them in a pretty amusing way. I'd collect plastic bags to use as trash bags and the like. One day I went to grab some from under my counter there was this mess of orange confetti like stuff everywhere from some of the [orange] bags that'd degraded even in just normal storage conditions.

How fast do these "[very] biodegradable plastics" degrade? Probably not as fast a wind gust can trap them in trees, or livestock can accidentally injest them.

[deleted]
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