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Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#121

Post by lopmotr »

asdff wrote: post #117
sneak wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see the harm in this. Who or what is harmed by an inert piece of plastic sitting safely in a landfill? Edit: this isn’t rhetoric, but a legitimate inquiry.

No one, but that plastic could have been better used and as much new plastic wouldn't have to be produced. Earth is experiencing death by a thousand cuts, lets make it a hundred cuts if we can.

If it's about wasting resources (oil) then isn't that already priced into plastics? When oil prices rise higher, these near-frivolous uses of plastics will naturally reduce. Using oil in itself doesn't kill the Earth. It does nothing useful under the ground. You're falling into the common trap anthropomorphizing the Earth and applying human-like feelings to it.

Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#122

Post by lopmotr »

antisthenes wrote: post #100

Single use plastics are such a red-herring. I remember flying Lufthansa, where the crew asked us to reuse plastic cups for water in the name of being eco-friendly. The hilarious thing was that we were onboard a giant 747-8, that was 70% empty. Obviously it's not an either/or situation, but that banning single-use plastics is anywhere near even the top 10 things that we could be doing is laughable. I doubt it would ev…

It's highly visible in people's daily lives so they pressure politicians into it. It's not meant to solve any actual environmental problem, just a pointless populist policy.

Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#123

Post by catalogia »

mthoms wrote: post #114
catalogia wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the other stores near me having implemented this, I don't think I'm the one being unreasonable. Meanwhile the same store still has employees offering to bag groceries for people, which means two employees standing near you and touching your food instead of one. If these measures were anything other than theatre pandering to the fearful, they'd stop offering to bag groceries for people. And for that matter…

I have no experience with the stores in your area or what they do or don't do. I was commenting on the bagging policy . Do you have any on-topic arguments for why the bagging policy is unreasonable?

The bagging policy is ridiculous because it has about as much to do with safety as the TSA. It's theatre. That it's theatre is apparent from the fact that the store isn't operating with a skeleton crew (which would be a meaningful distancing measure.) If they haven't bothered to minimize the number of employees in close proximity to customers, why should I believe any of their other measures are rationally motivated?

Even if you think that context isn't relevant, the premise of covid spread through surface contamination is still dubious. And even if that risk were credible, I assert that banning reusable bags would still be a dubious measure. Instead of using a grocery bag touched only by myself, they'd have me using grocery bags that have been touched by employees. Employees who've also touched my food, which I touched before them. Food which was probably touched by other customers before me. If surface contamination is a serious concern, the entire premise of a self-service grocery store is fucked and they should stop letting customers inside the store (self-service grocery stores are a 20th century invention; alternative schemes exist. Notably, self-service grocery stores weren't common until years after the Spanish Flu...) Since they haven't done that, it's impossible for me to take their bag ban seriously.

Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#124

Post by zaarn »

gruez wrote: post #90
mynegation wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not dumb. It is about setting an example. We cannot fix everything everywhere, but we can move the needle. Maybe a youth living near one of those 10 rivers, reading about Canada doing it, will become a member of parliament or a minister and will do something about it. Or not. Maybe here in Canada out of necessity we come up with smart solutions to replaces single use plastics that can be copied all over the wor…

>We cannot fix everything everywhere, but we can move the needle. Maybe a youth living near one of those 10 rivers, reading about Canada doing it, will become a member of parliament or a minister and will do something about it. This kind of attitude only makes sense if it doesn't cost anything. Doubling our CO2 usage (assuming we switched to paper bags)[1], just so we can virtue signal to kids in third world countrie…

Get a cloth bag instead of a paper bag and you'll get something that will out life the single-use bag and be more environmentally friendly after using it about 100 times.

Doubling CO2 usage is only true if things remain single-use.

Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#125

Post by sneak »

novok wrote: post #113
sneak wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see the harm in this. Who or what is harmed by an inert piece of plastic sitting safely in a landfill? Edit: this isn’t rhetoric, but a legitimate inquiry.

There is a leakage issue with plastic waste, and a bunch ends up in the ocean, in the wild where animals eat it, in the water table and so on.

How does my garbage end up in the ocean?

Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#126

Post by catalogia »

lopmotr wrote: post #120
catalogia wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) Landfills are on scarce land which will run out oneday, making waste disposal more expensive. Case 2 is an interesting case, it's a startlingly widespread fear yet seems ridiculous when you think about it for more than a few seconds. Slate Star Codex concluded it's alarmism sparked in the 80s by the media's coverage of the Mobro 4000 trash barge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobro_4000 Point 5 ("5. More And Mor…

Oh, I've never heard of drowning in rubbish! With 5) I'm referring to geological effects causing landfill land to collapse and get washed away. That happened recently in New Zealand and a river ended up full of rubbish from a disused landfill.

Sorry, I mean Slate Star Codex's point 5 addresses your point 2. I communicated that poorly.

Incidentally a nice (rather amusing) example from pop culture of the "landfills are filling up and we'll soon drown in trash" meme is Futurama episode 'A Big Piece of Garbage'* (S01E08) It's essentially a parody of that NYC trash barge incident and the movie Armageddon.

Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#127

Post by ollo »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #57

This movement is really dumb. Plastic pollution in the ocean is a problem, but it’s not the western countries causing it. There are 10 rivers that cause 90% of plastic pollution, and they are in Africa and Asia. Plastic in a landfill harms nobody. The worst part is that people somehow have this linked in thier mind with climate change, as in fixing plastic pollution is going to help with that. Well if anything, it’s…

This. Thank you. Don't forget that there is no proof that plastic in oceans harms humans. On top of that, the infamous Great Pacific Garbage patch is actually made of fishing gear rather than of the despised plastic bottles.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/03/great-pacifi...

Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#128

Post by tomp »

refurb wrote: post #75
jl6 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those polluting countries are making stuff that the West consumes, so if we want to stop them polluting we just have to stop buying all this stuff that requires pollution to make. So it is absolutely within our gift to put an end to it.

Go to Asian and see how much plastic is domestically used. It’s far more pervasive (in my experience) than the west. Everything goes into a plastic bag.

> Everything goes into a plastic bag.

This needs to be expanded upon. During my recent trip to Japan (mostly Tokyo, not sure if that's representative of the rest of the country), everything was packed in a plastic bag. Pretty much each individual item (when we were e.g. shopping for ready-made food), was already packed in plastic, then was put into individual plastic bags, and then all of those were again put into a plastic bag to carry. I probably used more plastic bags in a few days than I would have in a few months in the West (UK)!

Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#129

Post by tomp »

multiplegeorges wrote: post #89
Negitivefrags wrote: post #57

This movement is really dumb. Plastic pollution in the ocean is a problem, but it’s not the western countries causing it. There are 10 rivers that cause 90% of plastic pollution, and they are in Africa and Asia. Plastic in a landfill harms nobody. The worst part is that people somehow have this linked in thier mind with climate change, as in fixing plastic pollution is going to help with that. Well if anything, it’s…

The first country/company to develop properly biodegradable plastics with similar properties to existing ones will be very rich. But the market won't create that solution unless regulations create the problem to be solved: no more single-use non-biodegradable plastics.

Taxation (or in this case, just internalizing the negative externalities) is almost always the better solution than outright bans.

Re: Canada aims to ban single-use plastics by 2021

#130

Post by minerjoe »

wolco wrote: post #93
raverbashing wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not cotton, it's Cellulose Acetate. Not very bio-degradable usually

10 years maximum. https://uhs.berkeley.edu/tobaccofacts Which is reasonanable. Styrofoam cup's are not. How quick do other things take to breakdown? Vegetables 5 days –1 month Paper 2–5 months Cotton T-shirt 6 months Orange peels 6 months Tree leaves 1 year Wool socks 1–5 years Plastic-coated paper milk cartons 5 years Leather shoes 25–40 years Nylon fabric 30–40 years Tin cans 50–100 years Aluminium cans 80–100 year…

Just because dog-shit breaks down fast, does not give even a single dog the right to drop it on my lawn.
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