Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
impact-solutions.co.uk
Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
1–10 of 97 posts
Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
#2This piece avoids mentioning why it was written- around this time, it came to light that new UK bank notes contain beef tallow so are problematic for Hindu and vegan people who rightly have problems with these replacing old paper notes.
Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
#3This piece avoids mentioning why it was written- around this time, it came to light that new UK bank notes contain beef tallow so are problematic for Hindu and vegan people who rightly have problems with these replacing old paper notes.
This controversy is mentioned at the conclusion of the article
Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
#4I did an internship at a plastics manufacturer and the shopping bags with tallow left a thin and acrid smoke in the air.
Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
#5The explanation is quite disappointing: Using an alternative "might" be worse in few ways. OK, so where is the data, pros and cons comparison?
Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
#6Please add year [2016]
Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
#7The explanation is quite disappointing: Using an alternative "might" be worse in few ways. OK, so where is the data, pros and cons comparison?
The likely reality is that shifting to a replacement will just result in the animal product being dumped. It's likely a byproduct of meat consumption that is inexpensive to use because there is lots of meat consumption.
Another 'huh?' product that contains animal derived ingredients are various dryer sheets (they don't all, but many do).
Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
#8Perhaps the main thing about tallow is that there's a glut of it, likewise lard. People want more and more meat, but want it to be leaner, creating a surplus of tallow. Also, its use in deep fryers, e.g., by the fast food industry, was curtailed when vegetable oil became preferable in the market.
A relative of mine worked in a chemical factory in Detroit, that made lubricants for metal working. Many of them were either formulated directly from tallow and lard, or were soaps. The materials were cheap, they worked, and were considered to be relatively non-toxic.
One thing I've noticed is that detergent based "soap" has disappeared from the market. It used to be that you could get detergent bars that contained no soap. They also didn't produce soap scum in hard water areas. Remember, "You're not really clean until you're Zestfully clean." Well, Zest was a detergent bar.
Today, looking for detergent "soap" at the store, it's gone. Even Zest is made from lard or tallow, last time I looked at the ingredients. I've banned soap from my house because I hate cleaning up the soap scum. We use liquid body wash instead.
/rant
Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
#9This submission claims that "traditional banknotes which are based on special and expensive paper suffer from poor tear properties and they have limited life", and touts tallow-dependent plastics as a solution.
US currency is made of a cotton-linen blend, so (pedantically) it is not paper. Per US Currency Education Program [1], "it would take 4000 double folds, forwards and backwards, to tear a banknote". Is this insufficient for UK uses? In my wallet I currently have a couple hundred in US currency from years 2003 to 2014. None of them are falling apart. (The US Federal Reserve [2] estimates that US currency lasts between 4.7 and 22.9 years, depending on denomination.)
Given the societal shift to digital payments, cards, etc, is the UK hoping to create banknotes that last until the end of time or something? (If so, plastics are probably a great choice. But I'm guessing that indestructible bills will eventually become quite economical to counterfeit, so you'll still want to cycle through security measures every few years.)
[1] https://www.uscurrency.gov/about-us/currency-facts [2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/how-long-is-the-life-spa...
Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
#10On not in.