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Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

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Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#111

Post by kingkawn »

fenwick67 wrote: post #97
bamboozled wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkout organic cotton and hemp. Much lower environmental footprint. You can get some really durable, long lasting, organic cotton and hemp blended clothing which is way more durable, breathable and comfortable than you might imagine. Patagonia (brand) is an easy place to buy organic cotton Tshirts and pants.

Does it really have a smaller footprint? I'd love to see numbers

Not adding eternally polluting particles to the environment seems like it must have smaller footprint

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#113

Post by dcbadacd »

NotQuantum wrote: post #90
asteli wrote: post #79

Re: microfibers making it into water systems: This is a con to synthetic fibers that I hadn't been considering before. Recently I learned that cotton has a pretty high environmental footprint (land use, highest pesticide use of any crop, high water consumption) [1], and thus started moving some of my clothing purchases toward polyester-blends (trades the cons of cotton for petrochemical and energy use). Does anyone h…

There's this same argument with recycling, reuse, etc. I.E how many times do I have to use my cloth bag before the resources it took is less than that of a normal paper bag. Recycling is the same way, IIRC, aluminum is the only thing that's cheaper to recycle, energy wise. I really wish more studies would look into the Energy per Ton for creating our consumer products.

That's one thing to consider, but it's ignoring a major aspect - biodegradability. Yes, a plastic bag is in some ways more efficient per ton than a cloth bag but doesn't decompose safely and fast, cloth usually does.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#114

Post by lomnakkus »

seanalltogether wrote: post #29
wffurr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No high quality source of hydrocarbons goes unexploited for long.

The carboniferous period lasted 60 million years. We probably have some time to work with.

I think you mean the "biosphere" rather than "we". Modern humans have existed anywhere from 50k-200k years. Just to put the time scales into context.

EDIT: Just to clarify: As long as disasters happen slowly enough and there are actually local maxima for the species to evolve "into", everything may be fine for "humans"... but those assumptions may be overly optimistic.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#115

Post by balls187 »

nostromo wrote: post #109

A small number of countries are responsible for the majority of plastic in the ocean. China is far and away the worst offender: https://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_12211_... https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Calendar_2011_03_...

Where does the chain of responsibility end?

Do the domestic waste management companies that profited from collecting plastics, only to send waste to China bear any responsibility?

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#116

Post by skybrian »

erulabs wrote: post #104
c3534l wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxes don't work to work to change behavior This is absolute nonsense and flies in the face of established economic theory backed up by empirical evidence. I don't understand why there are so many people in this thread pulling assertions out of their ass like this. HackerNews is better than that.

Unfortunately the planet Earth is not a laboratory, and correlation is not causation. If a tax is added to cigarettes, and the tax is passed by elected officials, and the elected officials are responding to the attitude of the populace, how do we know it was the tax, and not _the attitude of the populace_ that lead to lower cigarette usage? A classic example of this is the Civil Rights Act. Did racism become abhorren…

You're confusing the issue by comparing it with something much more complicated.

A tax is another kind of price increase and we do know, empirically, how to study changes in supply and demand. You can get good datasets for it and any company can do experiments by changing prices.

Logic is helpful in understanding how to analyze data but you can't get very far without data.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#117

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

erulabs wrote: post #104
c3534l wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxes don't work to work to change behavior This is absolute nonsense and flies in the face of established economic theory backed up by empirical evidence. I don't understand why there are so many people in this thread pulling assertions out of their ass like this. HackerNews is better than that.

Unfortunately the planet Earth is not a laboratory, and correlation is not causation. If a tax is added to cigarettes, and the tax is passed by elected officials, and the elected officials are responding to the attitude of the populace, how do we know it was the tax, and not _the attitude of the populace_ that lead to lower cigarette usage? A classic example of this is the Civil Rights Act. Did racism become abhorren…

They passed a tax on plastic bags in Boulder (CO).

You go to the supermarket without your reusable bags, suddenly you're _paying_ for the bags.

You better believe that disposable plastic bag usage went _way_ down. People don't like to pay for what they're used to getting for free. It makes them unreasonably angry, in fact.

Angry enough to remember to bring their reusable bags, or to buy some on the spot.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#118

Post by dcbadacd »

Xylakant wrote: post #100
wellboy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He kind of has a point. There are mutations in microbes all the time that allow plastic digestion, probably millions every day. Only needs one that really punches through.

And then spreads to eat all the plastic food containers in my kitchen.

And we'll create plastics that are plastic-eater resistant...

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#119

Post by skh »

erulabs wrote: post #104
c3534l wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxes don't work to work to change behavior This is absolute nonsense and flies in the face of established economic theory backed up by empirical evidence. I don't understand why there are so many people in this thread pulling assertions out of their ass like this. HackerNews is better than that.

Unfortunately the planet Earth is not a laboratory, and correlation is not causation. If a tax is added to cigarettes, and the tax is passed by elected officials, and the elected officials are responding to the attitude of the populace, how do we know it was the tax, and not _the attitude of the populace_ that lead to lower cigarette usage? A classic example of this is the Civil Rights Act. Did racism become abhorren…

It’s hard for me to understand how an increase in price - in this case through taxation - wouldn’t adversely affect demand. I’m talking in general. If this were the case then sellers would have infinite pricing power and they clearly don’t have that. Whether the price increase comes as a result of taxation or from the seller increasing prices makes no difference to the buyer. Not even monopolies and cartels have infinite pricing power.

Re: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere

#120

Post by dflock »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #105
Johnny555 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple. Raise the tax to a point that glass bottles, perhaps with deposit-return schemes, or cotton clothing is cheaper for the consumer than the synthetic equivalents But first, make sure you understand all of the environmental costs of alternatives to be sure you're not forcing people into an environmentally worse choice. Farming is not exactly a clean industry.

Too true. Honestly at this point I wish there was a labelling requirement of the environmental and sustainability consequences of everything. Or that it was priced in to everything somehow. It's far too easy to make a very bad choice with the best of intentions.

A carbon tax is exactly that.
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