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

Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

motherjones.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 167 posts

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#131

Post by cmrdporcupine »

motohagiography wrote: post #86

Even as someone who doesn't think highly of this admin or mo'jones, plastics are the crack cocaine of manufacturing, and of all the empty gestures this government has made, this is probably the most useful thing they could do. It's regressive in the sense that it will cause a hedonic hit to people who buy cheap things for comfort, but the majority of plastics begin and end their lives as disposable garbage. Let's jus…

The problem with these kinds of things from this particular gov't is that they are spoken about and press releases are issued.... but they never actually happen.

Electoral reform, indigenous reconciliation (or even just clean water for reserves), CO2 reductions, you name it...

Ok, we did get cannabis legalization.

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#132

Post by cmrdporcupine »

MarkLowenstein wrote: post #92
cronix wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than that. It's showing up in rain and snow, and our water supply because most filtration systems don't catch micro/nanoplastics. It's in our bodies. I think we will eventually find it's also largely responsible for the tremendous drop off in birth rates and reproductive health that the world has been experiencing the last 10+ years and possibly other neurological and "brain" issues that have increased in…

Sorry but I can't abide the scientific ignorance being displayed all over this conversation. (1) The first article you cite "Microplastic particles now discoverable in human organs" only announces that some scientists made a technique to discover such particles. The only ones they found were ones they inserted on purpose to verify their technique. That headline leads people strongly to incorrect conclusions like you…

I upvoted you because I want you to come back and tell us how the lego tasted.

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#133

Post by redisman »

kibwen wrote: post #124
dataflow wrote: post #13

It's such a pleasant surprise to me how effectively and quickly people have become concerned about this issue. The recent WWF report came out less than 2 years ago [1]. Microplastics were obviously known for a long time, but that's when conversations about microplastics re-ignited. And now we can see an entire country declaring plastics toxic and restricting them. If you'd asked me an hour ago, I'd have predicted it'…

Environmental action can be taken relatively quickly when nation-state-level corporate interests aren't funding campaigns to oppose it. The premier example is the banning of CFCs in the 1980s in defense of the ozone layer: "The discovery of the hole [over Antarctica] was evidence that the magnitude of the problem was far greater than scientists had originally predicted. International alarm at the ozone layer’s thinni…

Plastic is a magically useful and durable material with many orders of magnitude more uses than CFC. I hope you’re right but looking around the world, there are very few objects that aren’t at least partially made out of some polymer.

Another question is what to do with all the existing plastic. From what I understand there’s not really anything other than high temperature burning that will safely get rid of it without turning it to micro plastic eventually

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#134

Post by perl4ever »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #130
perl4ever wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>hoarding vaccines If you have any prescription meds, check who it's made by and where it was manufactured.

I just did, and they're generics made here in Canada. I'm not sure what your point is meant to be, but I'll just mention that the main COVID vaccines (other than Moderna) all had their research and development in the EU. BioNTech is in fact headquartered in the town my father is from (Mainz, Germany).

Out of three (generic) medications I have at the moment, they're all made by Indian companies, although one has the name of an American subsidiary on it.

(Aurobindo, Lupin, Heritage/Emcure)

My point is just in a very general way, I think of drugs as coming from India in the way consumer products come from China, and I get cognitive dissonance from people talking as though everyone knows they all come from the US.

There was something in the news not long ago about a covid vaccine related factory in India that had a fire while under construction, so I'm pretty sure they are making vaccines.

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#135

Post by redisman »

pedalpete wrote: post #31
karaterobot wrote: post #9

If there are restrictions, I hope they target major microplastic sources like tires and textiles, rather than easily scapegoated but very minor sources, like plastic bags and drinking straws. Based on precedent, I am not holding my breath, but I hope so.

Have you got a source for this concern? Tires are rubber, not plastic as far as I know, and though many textiles are polyester, and fleece is mostly recycled plastics (if I recall) where is the mass use of plastic in the textile industry?

Polymers make up about 50% of textile fibers globally. They’re light, cheap, durable.

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#136

Post by userbinator »

perl4ever wrote: post #122
droopyEyelids wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor Chemically pure hydrocarbon polymers may be inert and generally nonreactive, however pure polymers like nylon or polyester are virtually useless. Plastics only become useful when they're mixed with a vast array of plasticizers, conditioners, chain extenders and other industrial chemicals. And those chemicals absolutely leach out of the materials we laypeople refer to…

I'm not an expert or a chemist, but I have the impression that the leaching of chemicals from plastics should generally be in proportion to how soft and flexible they are. The first thing that comes to mind as full of "squishy" plastics is a typical automobile today, hence the "new car smell". People are also conditioned to think that more soft plastics means higher quality. But clothes and other things that don't sm…

The most widely used plastic, polyethylene, does not require plasticisers at all; indeed it is in (soft) PVC that plasticisers are used the most:

https://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/multimedia/multimedia_pub/mul...

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#137

Post by redisman »

mediaman wrote: post #78
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #14

Many people might think something as massive as the ocean is basically unlimited and that there's no way us humans could screw it up. Not true. Take a sample of seawater from almost anywhere right now and you'll find microplastics. Something like 80% of the world's fish stocks are also gone from overfishing.

About half of the plastic in oceans is from plastic netting used fishing. And that netting causes the vast majority of ecological damage by entangling marine animals or dragging along ocean beds. The real problem is excessive fishing and plastic waste from fishing, far more than using plastic for a cup or shopping bag.

What’s the other half then? I agree that industrial fishing is a giant problem

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#138

Post by redisman »

userbinator wrote: post #99

"toxic"? My BS detector is off the scale on that one. Plastics are used precisely because they are inert and nonreactive. If you burn them you can definitely create toxins, but then why not declare wood toxic too.

Toxic on a long timescale. Plastic won’t stay inert forever and it “decomposes” to toxic to the ecosystem particles

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#139

Post by Jarwain »

mediaman wrote: post #91

There is a lot of misleading and false statements in this article. They claim plastic recycling doesn't work. It's true that most plastic isn't recycled, but that's because of lackluster government involvement, not some technological barrier. British Columbia has the most sophisticated recycling equipment in North America. Two plants there first use lasers to identify different types of plastic (PP, HDPE, PET, etc) i…

Re: plastic netting, couldn't we also try encouraging the use of other materials for making fishnets? I wonder if that would be an easier target than shifting consumer behavior and illegal activity

Re: Canada declares plastics toxic, paving the way for restrictions

#140

Post by redisman »

perl4ever wrote: post #127
lstamour wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that can be made from paper, should be. Primarily bags, shipping containers, product packaging, etc. I've seen Amazon replace plastic bubble wrap with paper-based bubble wrap, for example. They use really fine bits of paper and presumably glue to create the "bubbles". Instead of using plastic to wrap shipping containers, you could use a more re-usable material. Or perhaps we could come up with cardboard "rin…

I wonder if tiny bits of solidified glue (plus paper, wood fibers, etc) in the environment are much better than tiny bits of plastic?

Yes. Nature has evolved ways to dispose of those (unless it’s a synthetic glue that doesn’t decompose)
Post reply on HN