Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

sierraclub.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 148 posts

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#121

Post by eru »

willguest wrote: post #48
eru wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need 'more' regulation, but probably different regulation. So eg instead of having lots of piecemeal regulation that bans straws and plastic bags and Kinder Surprise eggs etc, you can have a single relatively simple tax on plastic garbage. The total amount of regulation would go down, but effectiveness would go up. (You can give companies who collect and deal with their plastic trash a discount on the tax,…

I agree with your abstraction of the problem, but I think you stopped half-way. Regulators, producers and consumers are all following the same interconnected incentive structures, many of which have been designed with efficient production and an exponential increase of consumption in mind, not environmental concern. It makes sense for these companies to operate, following their obligation to shareholders. They are, b…

And yet, the cap-and-trade for sulfur-dioxide worked really, really well. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program

Our traffic congestion charging program here in Singapore also works really well (and was famously adopted by London later).

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#122

Post by blitzar »

throwaway03312 wrote: post #107
XorNot wrote: post #41

I don't actually care at all about plastic waste anymore. Landfill it and we're good: it started off as oil in the ground, it can end up as oil in the ground. Plastic not going into stable landfill is the real issue : so actually consumer plastic is kind of bad like that, whereas industrial plastic basically fine (i.e. infrastructure plastics like pipes).

I'm not an engineer, so I may be wrong, but is it actually possible to build a stable landfill? Wouldn't the micro plastics risk leaking into the ground when it is broken down eventually? When it rains, the water has to go somewhere and unless you invest in expensive filtration systems, this does not seem economically viable. The micro plastics may even leak into the ground water and spread far beyond the land fill.…

The Engineering of Landfills - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41436642

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#123

Post by PittleyDunkin »

gadders wrote: post #113
PittleyDunkin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. There are no alternatives consumers can buy. Try it and you'll find it's virtually impossible. A globalized economy has effectively destroyed the idea of voting with your wallet to reduce waste and production of trash.

They were all tried in the past - glass, metal etc - and were largely replaced. If you think there is a new material out there that we are prevented from using, I'd be interested to hear what it is.

Glass, metal, etc. You forgot paper, actually. All are better than the plastic crap forced down our throats.

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#124

Post by Molitor5901 »

Why would a tariff on plastic bottling and packaging not help to reduce this? I understand that prices will be passed on to consumers, but money from the tariff can be used to fund state municipal recycling programs. Similar to the national highway trust fund.

I do not see congress ever agreeing to limit plastic due to the outsized influence of the industries and companies involved. Regulatory action has been almost non-existent, regardless of which administration was in power. No federal agency has the legal authority to limit the flow of plastic into America, and as stated, it is unlikely congress will ever give them that authority; not to mention a decade of litigation ahead.

The only thing that can be done to have some impact is a high tariff on plastics, including packaging and as a percentage of the product. At the same time, there should be no tariff on replacements for plastics such as aluminum and glass bottling.

Short of a strong tariff, I do not see the government ever having meaningful impact on plastic waste.

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#125

Post by Molitor5901 »

gadders wrote: post #28
strogonoff wrote: post #5

Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.

>>Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them Consumers like plastic because it is better than the alternatives.

Consumers like plastic because it is better than the alternatives.

They like it because it's cheap, both in manufacturing raw materials, production, and weight advantages in shipping.

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#126

Post by Molitor5901 »

olejorgenb wrote: post #12
strogonoff wrote: post #5

Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.

> Plastic recycles very poorly. While I'm sure this is true in general, my impression is that the PET used in drink-bottles recycle well. For drink bottles I don't think we have a good option either? Glass is too heavy, aluminum is more energy intensive (I assume) even when it's recycled. Reusable bottles is unlikely to be realistic.

Even Legos will not use recycled plastic, although maybe that is changing?

Lego drops plans to make bricks from recycled plastic bottles https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/25/business/lego-abandons-re...

Lego plans to make half the plastic in bricks from renewable materials by 2026 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/aug/28...

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#127

Post by Molitor5901 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #81

Plastic and glass bottle and can recycling is pretty common in most of Europe. You pay a deposit when you buy a can or bottle. And you get it back when you return it. If you leave your empty bottle on the street, some homeless person will return it for you. This is actually a pretty common form of charity in Berlin and it's not considered littering to leave your empty bottle for someone to collect it. It's not a perf…

Unfortunately there is not enough funding for American municipal recycling programs. After China stopped buying American recyclables, most programs shut down nationwide. Then the pandemic, which I do not believe has led to a resurgence.

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/18/18271470/us-cities-s...

I completely agree with you that a national beverage tax, refundable, would be a fantastic idea. The problem I see will be in how the program is administered. There will be tension between federal and state over who gets part of the money, who funds the program, maintains it, etc. How to get retailers to put the machines in their store which takes away inventory space? Pay them? Require it?

So many questions. Probably a federal tax that then redistributes the money equally to each state to fund local recycling programs would be easier.

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#128

Post by strogonoff »

dagw wrote: post #118
strogonoff wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screw-on-cap aluminium bottles and glass bottles both exist.

Never seen drinks sold in screw-on-cap aluminium bottles. In what country or what type of drinks use them?

Seen them in probably every convenience store in South Korea and some other East/South East Asian countries. Coffee, juice.

Not sure if they have the inner plastic container aluminium cans have.

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#129

Post by darkwater »

gadders wrote: post #113
PittleyDunkin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. There are no alternatives consumers can buy. Try it and you'll find it's virtually impossible. A globalized economy has effectively destroyed the idea of voting with your wallet to reduce waste and production of trash.

They were all tried in the past - glass, metal etc - and were largely replaced. If you think there is a new material out there that we are prevented from using, I'd be interested to hear what it is.

They were replaced because the immediate cost for the selling company was way lower, because they just externalized the environmental cost on the the rest of the world.

But plastic was never "better". Remember that we had PVC all the places until we found out it was made with a carcinogen.

Re: Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

#130

Post by DoctorOetker »

What would be the environmentally AND commercially aware desiderata for food and beverage containers?

Reusable: strong, durable but also easy to clean, both for hydrophillic and hydrophobic goods. Can synthetic corundum or diamond ever become a viable alternative? A standardized symbol could indicate that the box is intended for hydrophobic or hydrophillic goods. Is UV-C transparency a desiderata for easy sterilization after cleaning?

Transparent: so people can see the food they are buying, transparent and reusable seems to imply scratch and minimal corrosion resistance as well.

Storable & transportable: a 3D equivalent to the paper sizes used in Europe: 2 A5-sheets side by side are the same dimension as an A4 sheet, 2 A4-sheets side by side are the same dimensions as an A3 poster size paper. Can a similar scheme be made for 3D boxes instead of 2D sheets? For 2D Ax system: the long side has a constant ratio to the short side, so perhaps side lengths L x W x H such that L / W = W / H = cube root 2 ?

There will always be a cost to cleaning containers, and while we can optimize the properties of the boxes for cleaning, there will always be some cost to cleaning, and a cleaning facility will feel financial pressure to clean less thoroughly but also a financial / legal / reputational pressure to clean more thoroughly. Having unique QR codes for individual boxes means any spoilt product brought back by consumers can be traced to its last cleaning, and the previous meal it contained, so a cleaning facility can then adjust the cleaning parameters for the type of previous meal, previous sale date, return date etc to understand if it would benefit from longer soaking, more percusive water jetting etc...

Post reply on HN