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

Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

sdstate.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 351 posts

Re: Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

#161

Post by GuestFAUniverse »

mcv wrote: post #152
alexchamberlain wrote: post #148

The UK banned single use plastic bags at major supermarkets. We all moaned about it for a few minutes, forgot our reusable bags a couple of times and then got on with it. Even the small plastic bags you put fruit or pastries in are now gone in a few super markets - initially, they replaced them with transparent paper-based windowed bags, but then I think people realised you really don't need to see inside the bag, an…

Yeah, I still don't understand why brown paper bags aren't more standard for everything. I do see some manufacturers reducing plastic, fortunately. For example, my box of tea bags used to come wrapped in plastic, and now it suddenly doesn't, and I'm wondering why it ever needed plastic. But there's still so much stuff that comes wrapped in plastic, and often multiple layers of it. Just ban it. There are excellent alt…

Brown paper, from recycled fibers are often contaminated with mineral oil residue (e.g. from ink on paper) and other unhealthy chemicals, sadly.

There was a report in Germany, years ago, of a range of organic products that failed during testing. They discovered the packaging (recycled paper) was the issue, not the crops and the supply chain before packaging.

So, a _really_ biodegradable cellulose bag is desirable. Even if only to use it I side a brown bag (to stabilise it).

Re: Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

#162

Post by worthless-trash »

jwagenet wrote: post #133
worthless-trash wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Write down -what- result. You put the bag on the scale, it then sets this amount to 0.0 You put the product on the scale, (say 500g of apples), It shows 500g. You remove the bag, it takes off 4g, you add the bag it puts on 4g. There is no need to write down the result.

In the US, produce is rarely weighted and labeled in the produce section with the bag. Only at checkout is it weighed for sale, so no opportunity to tare the container.

Today I learned.

Re: Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

#163

Post by adastra22 »

dz0707 wrote: post #127
privatelypublic wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30mpg, 10 miles, means two pounds of gasoline, 910grams, knock off or add 100g for ethanol per your preference, a google says about 5grams per bag, so nearly 200 bags. Nowhere close to 10k, but nontrivial. And, this gets reduced and sometimes outright negated if you reuse the bag. Doesn't mean we shouldn't evaluate if plastic shopping bags are the beat choice though. I don't think replacing them with store bought dog…

I think your math is wrong. Most of modern cars do up to 150g of CO2 per 100km, there are other emissions too, but they are in way smaller numbers.

Also most of that weight is oxygen. The mass of carbon from the gasoline in an apples to apples comparison to plastic would be much lower.

It doesn't really make sense to be comparing plastic waste to CO2 emissions though. These aren't fungible.

Re: Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

#165

Post by adastra22 »

ehnto wrote: post #102
lunarboy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAME. It kills me inside when people wrap things like fruits and potatoes in plastic that have natural peel they'll remove before eating anyways

Japan is wild for this, but also pretty good at recycling plastic in general. Bananas are often wrapped individually for sale. You buy a box of biscuits and they're often individually wrapped in plastic etc.

Japan incinerates most of their plastic.

Re: Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

#166

Post by adastra22 »

gleenn wrote: post #113
ehnto wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan is wild for this, but also pretty good at recycling plastic in general. Bananas are often wrapped individually for sale. You buy a box of biscuits and they're often individually wrapped in plastic etc.

Japan recycles but also a whole bunch of their waste is incinerated. I think they super-heat it to reduce emissions but guessing that also costs energy which also secondarily causes emissions.

It is energy positive. Their incineration plants provide power.

Re: Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

#167

Post by lastdong »

It will require someone like LEGO (others) to fully adopt it and prove its effectiveness, and for the governments to mandate its usage while providing incentives for adoption. However, the plastics industry will likely resist this change strongly. There’s also the issue of monoculture, the ideal is reduction (such as re-use durable cotton bags) — I wonder if plastics bags disappeared overnight wouldn’t people adapt? Probably a few extra trips to the supermarket at the start but shortly after a reusable container wouldn’t be forgotten. There’s more to plastics pollution than plastic bags though, water bottles, fast fashion and synthetic fibers, etc.

Re: Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

#168

Post by Jweb_Guru »

lazide wrote: post #64
kortilla wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares. If 50% of the usage is short term stuff like takeout, grocery bags, etc then this wipes out that waste.

If even 5% of the time it fails, no one will buy it for those purposes.

I know that's not true because takeout containers certainly leak more than 5% of the time.

Re: Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

#169

Post by vanviegen »

alexchamberlain wrote: post #155
mcv wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I still don't understand why brown paper bags aren't more standard for everything. I do see some manufacturers reducing plastic, fortunately. For example, my box of tea bags used to come wrapped in plastic, and now it suddenly doesn't, and I'm wondering why it ever needed plastic. But there's still so much stuff that comes wrapped in plastic, and often multiple layers of it. Just ban it. There are excellent alt…

I think banning plastic completely in packaging is a much harder ask, as whether it is needed is rather nuanced (if I understand it correctly). For example, it's perfectly possible to deliver cucumbers to an end customer without them being shrinkwrapped. However, to deliver enough cucumbers to enough customers for a supermarket scale, I understand from several documentaries that plastic is still required in that case…

The way I understand it, without the wrapping a much larger percentage of cucumbers need to be thrown away before ever being sold, due to spoilage. That's not a win for the environment.

Re: Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

#170

Post by hsolatges »

Alternatives to oil based plastics have been developed for decades, sometimes with oil industries support. But astonishingly enough, we still burn oil for making unhealthy and unsustainable containers. I wonder what is that force that is pushing us backwards every time we try to tame oil industries.

Oh I got it: corruption!

Post reply on HN