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Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

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Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#131

Post by cycomanic »

formvoltron wrote: post #84
epistasis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop driving. Drastically reduce the amount of vehicle miles travelled. Shift even more freight to train. Much stricter weight limits on vehicles, maybe? Higher quality tires that wear more slowly may also improve this.

The rail idea is good. It's too bad rail is so expensive to make compared to roads. Imagine if all roads were instead rail lines, computer controlled. Would make self driving a lot easier to solve. No tire dust... Maybe if robots could lay the tracks down. OK this idea is out there, but it doesn't seem too crazy tbh.

> The rail idea is good.

> It's too bad rail is so expensive to make compared to roads.

Is that actually true? I mean, by what measure is rail more expensive? In comparison to rail road travel is massively subsidised. If we break down cost it would be interesting to see how they actually stack up against each other.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#132

Post by toast0 »

ggreer wrote: post #100
triceratops wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't get the point of straws, other than for handicapped people or small children (who have washable sippy bottles and cups anyway). Are people that bad at drinking from cups and glasses?

It's the straw + lid combo that is most advantageous. It lets you drink in a vehicle without worrying about spilling. Reusable options like sippy cups are a non-starter for any sort of takeout or fast food. I recently spent a week in Texas and I must say, the disposable plastic bags and plastic straws were a big improvement in quality of life. I'd gladly pay some extra fees to offset the environmental damage. Banning…

> Reusable options like sippy cups

Sippy cup lids like they've got at Starbucks now aren't too bad. Enough height that you get most of the spill control from a flat lid plus a straw. Sometimes I miss drinking from the bottom up, but it's ok enough for me. Certainly better than a paper straw, yuck.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#133

Post by grapeskin »

Invictus0 wrote: post #94
grapeskin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars don’t get a free pass. But literally any time someone says X is a big source of pollution, someone always screams that Y is worse so let’s stop focusing on X. Then when people talk about Y, forget it, here’s Z and it’s the real problem. They’re all bad. It’s not like there’s one single person on earth who only has time to focus on one single problem. There’s billions.

Ok, let's plug in X Y and Z. Suppose X is pollution due to letters-in-a-bottle thrown in the sea, Y is pollution due to humans peeing in it, and Z is pollution due to oil spills. Which problem should we focus on?

Did you respond to the wrong post?

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#134

Post by jrajav »

hnick wrote: post #127
jrajav wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are trucks an unavoidable reality of transportation? I don't think so. If there are ways to transport those staples aside from using trucks, it seems like an effective tax on using trucks would just be an optimization that encourages alternatives that don't spread as much damage onto general infrastructure.

For the last miles, delivering parcels to people and pallets to commerce, they are for sure. Rail just won't work well at that level of granularity. Between cities is probably another story where rail makes more sense but I'd guess it's much easier to schedule a truck at the last minute and you're not beholden to whoever operates the rail network(s).

I assumed we were talking about the high-tonnage 18-wheeler semis in context, not last-mile delivery.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#135

Post by petre »

causality0 wrote: post #112
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people that don’t know the math behind this, it is astounding. >when you double the weight per axle, you increase the road damage by 16 times >For example, while a truck axle carrying 18,000 pounds is only 9 times heavier than a 2,000-pound automobile axle, it does 5,000 times more damage.

This is why arguments that road-maintenance taxes should be applied to BEVs and bicycles are horseshit. Everything lighter than 4,000 pounds is essentially a rounding error as far as damage to road surface goes.

It's not horseshit, it's socialising the costs while privatising the profits to be more precise.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#136

Post by petre »

julianlam wrote: post #58
causality0 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really weird how cars get a pass for so much. It's really weird how trucks get a pass from people who don't give cars a pass. If tire wear is proportional to road wear, the majority of tire-originating microplastics is from semi trucks, not commuter sedans.

That's a whataboutism. Many countries cannot survive without long haul trucking. Many individuals can survive without a car given the right municipal commitment.

Yes, Algeria, which is like 90% desert. Not the US though. Instead, US individuals can't survive without a car due to how your cities are built.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#137

Post by [deleted] »

julianlam wrote: post #60
Waterluvian wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that flawed logic? If you’re proposing that one of these issues can be fixed with more infrastructure, then couldn’t either? Rail is nice.

Sure! Rail is nice, when the volume permits it. How would we supply the supermarket, though? A rail line would be unfeasible.

[deleted]

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#138

Post by ch4s3 »

toast0 wrote: post #132
ggreer wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the straw + lid combo that is most advantageous. It lets you drink in a vehicle without worrying about spilling. Reusable options like sippy cups are a non-starter for any sort of takeout or fast food. I recently spent a week in Texas and I must say, the disposable plastic bags and plastic straws were a big improvement in quality of life. I'd gladly pay some extra fees to offset the environmental damage. Banning…

> Reusable options like sippy cups Sippy cup lids like they've got at Starbucks now aren't too bad. Enough height that you get most of the spill control from a flat lid plus a straw. Sometimes I miss drinking from the bottom up, but it's ok enough for me. Certainly better than a paper straw, yuck.

Those tall lids use more additional plastic than a straw, so I don’t see much advantage there personally.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#139

Post by eru »

maxerickson wrote: post #121
noahtallen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely different scenarios, right? The rainy parts of the Midwest aren’t in a drought which makes water consumption important to track. California is. Anyways, they do use in freshwater differently. Where I grew up in NW Ohio, there is practically no irrigation. It rains enough there’s no need. Freshwater use is passive, in other words. Out west, farms have to actively pump water to irrigate since there’s not eno…

They are both consuming some of the natural growth/agricultural capacity of the planet.

But that capacity is localised.

Me preserving water here in rainy Singapore doesn't help anyone in Spain, nor vice versa.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#140

Post by eru »

hnick wrote: post #120
causality0 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why arguments that road-maintenance taxes should be applied to BEVs and bicycles are horseshit. Everything lighter than 4,000 pounds is essentially a rounding error as far as damage to road surface goes.

Wouldn't this in effect add a regressive tax to staple products like bread and flour, which are transported by trucks and would require raised prices to be passed on? I'd be interested in seeing the numbers and what price rise if any would be expected.

Why regressive?

Are you arguing that making people pay for bread at all is 'regressive'?

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