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3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

reuters.com

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Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#161

Post by titzer »

themerone wrote: post #5

I'm not sure this is a win for the environment or human health. 3M is gifting sales to it's competition to avoid future liabilities. Chinese companies are ready to pick up the slack. 3M is certainly developing safer alternatives, but until they are as good and as cheap, companies will buy their toxins elsewhere.

This is the "someone's gonna do bad in this world, better if the most righteous person around does--hey that's me" defense.

Sigh, there is no iteration of that logic that doesn't devolve to vacuous self-justification for engaging in immoral acts.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#162

Post by oblio »

titzer wrote: post #159
runnerup wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that if our universe is actually a simulation, it's one of countless simulations trying to determine a solution to the Tragedy of the Commons. I suspect it's one of the hardest problems to solve in any universe.

Earth's ecosystems have evolved biodiversity for exactly this reason: to recycle the waste products of life forms at all levels. They've gotten really good at this. There is still geologic evidence of this having gone way, way out of control, like vast limestone deposits, coal, and fossil fuels. Those were the unrecyclable byproducts of the day. Who knows what plastic will look like in the geologic record, but at thi…

Life optimizes for the most efficient resource usage. Those deposits were not an efficient source of energy.

But life itself is incredible, we have non-oxygen using lifeforms (inefficient, the earliest lifeforms), sulphur-eating lifeforms. Life can use up almost anything, >.

If it doesn't, it just leaves it alone.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#163

Post by bboygravity »

jraby3 wrote: post #66
runnerup wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that if our universe is actually a simulation, it's one of countless simulations trying to determine a solution to the Tragedy of the Commons. I suspect it's one of the hardest problems to solve in any universe.

I try really hard not to use single use plastic. Especially plastic bags, plastic bottles, etc. This frequently means I’ll be extremely thirst throughout some days but will wait till I get home or to work to drink filtered water out of the tap. I went to Las Vegas about a year ago on a work trip and realized that the hotel I stayed at uses more plastic bottles in an hour than I would use in my lifetime with no though…

The amount of plastic ending up in oceans/nature from "The Western world" is not very significant relative to the total.

There are entire continents that essentially dump most of their (plastic) trash straight into rivers (and thus oceans). Looking at you (South East) Asia...

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#164

Post by oblio »

Retric wrote: post #152
saiya-jin wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, unfortunately the core item that more hardcore evangelists for topic XYZ seem to be unable to grasp, maybe due to being too close/deep in the subject. If I had a NFT every time somebody on HN stated 'we need to abandon cars, or abandon plastics altogether' and similar, I would be drowning in a lot of useless tokens. The thing is, the motivation for given topic is always fair and just, and so are the goals, so it…

The secret is to aim for lesser goals. Don’t try to get rid of all plastics just aim to reduce some specific kind of single use plastic etc. Setup an organization to ban cars in the central core of your city. The advantage to ‘save the whales’ over save every endangered species is it’s much easier to gain traction and you can pick the easiest targets.

Plus if you can somehow get the numbers, everything is a 80-20 deal.

80% of the bang can be gotten for 20% of the buck.

I'm reasonably sure Coca Cola and co should be the biggest targets in the anti-plastic campaign.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#165

Post by refurb »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #145
DoreenMichele wrote: post #36

3M has been facing a raft of litigation that has prompted the move Generally speaking, toxic substances are only "cheap" due to externalizing many of the costs involved, like increased healthcare costs and lost productivity. If you do a thorough analysis of the costs of using such chemicals, they aren't cheap at all. Maybe someday humans will get that.

We get it, but we don't care because capitalism / free market / small government / money / competition. Competition goes beyond just companies too, countries compete with each other, to the point of starting wars over e.g. natural resources, territory, and access to infrastructure. And one future scenario is wars over more basic resources like food and water, as climate change will cause droughts and famines. At the…

I doubt it’s capitalism when communist countries were some of the worst polluters to date.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#166

Post by anonkogudhyfhhf »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #145
DoreenMichele wrote: post #36

3M has been facing a raft of litigation that has prompted the move Generally speaking, toxic substances are only "cheap" due to externalizing many of the costs involved, like increased healthcare costs and lost productivity. If you do a thorough analysis of the costs of using such chemicals, they aren't cheap at all. Maybe someday humans will get that.

We get it, but we don't care because capitalism / free market / small government / money / competition. Competition goes beyond just companies too, countries compete with each other, to the point of starting wars over e.g. natural resources, territory, and access to infrastructure. And one future scenario is wars over more basic resources like food and water, as climate change will cause droughts and famines. At the…

Not really. Countries define property rights and solve problems. Domestic overfishing is countries removing externalities and making them part of the market

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#167

Post by 2000UltraDeluxe »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #111
runnerup wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that if our universe is actually a simulation, it's one of countless simulations trying to determine a solution to the Tragedy of the Commons. I suspect it's one of the hardest problems to solve in any universe.

Look out mother mature in general. It is brutal. Can we socially evolve like the Vulcans?

Evolving into a culture of totalitarian rationalism like the Vulcan, would require irrational parties to be at an evolutionary disadvantage. That rules out any modern democracy from ever doing it, since discriminating anyone acting on instinct or feelings won't ever get a majority vote.

Totalitarian regimes might succeed, though.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#168

Post by oblio »

runnerup wrote: post #90
standardUser wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing government regulations with decent enforcement couldn't stop. We just need to elect governments that pass those regulations. The thing is, the majority of voters in most societies don't want those regulations.

Actually the tragedy of the commons cannot be stopped by one government. If USA chooses to tax all externalities perfectly, both our production capacity and consumption will be a tiny sliver of its current quantities. By GHG alone we'd lose 80% of our economy, but that doesn't take into account the potential cost of removing dioxin and PFAS from our groundwater, remediating lithium mines, cleaning our air of fly ash,…

> Actually the tragedy of the commons cannot be stopped by one government.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

The US could focus on lower cost - high impact externalities taxing.

It could persuade, cajole, bully its partners and allies to agree to a treaty doing the same. It did it for FATCA, for sure it can do it for climate change and general environmental destruction.

Once you have such an international treaty in place, most of the rest of the world would follow. US partners and allies are probably 70% of the world economy, and the countries with the most slack, economically, that can best afford this.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#169

Post by citrin_ru »

Reason077 wrote: post #113
SoftTalker wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stainless steel containers are often lined with plastic, since people don't like the metallic taste that the steel imparts.

In general there is nothing wrong with long-life plastic products. Plastic is a really useful and important material when used appropriately! It's the insane amount waste and environmental pollution that single-use plastic generates that is the problem.

Nothing wrong unless it is used to store food or water and contains some BPA-like compound (AFAIK it includes most plastic produces nowadays even so called BPA-free).

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#170

Post by pigsty »

missedthecue wrote: post #135
pigsty wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iron pans are ridiculously cheap these days and they last forever if you bother to read the 3 line instructions included with them. Teflon isn’t as great as people were deceived into believing. Even if you’re absolutely meticulous with care, it’ll have a noticeable lack in non-stick abilities within months and be noticeably sticky after 2 years, and rapidly degrading into useless territory. An iron pan starts out abo…

I mean pans are only one thing. PFAS are used in many products. Yes you can make inferior substitutions but again this reduces standard of living. This is not to mention its widespread use in military applications. There is already concern about China's lock on the global supply of rare earths and other raw materials like silicon and magnesium (80%+ market share). What happens when the US can't make fighter jets beca…

Generally, matters of national security are exempt from consumer goods safety regulations.

A typical company also can’t easily handle, say, plutonium, but if the military needs it, an exemption is granted.

The typical consumer gets by without lead, asbestos, and so on. The consumer market will adapt.

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