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91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#181

Post by nip180 »

chubot wrote: post #164
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fregan for environmental reasons, among others. I get much of my food out of dumpsters. I don't buy any clothes, like, ever, only hand-me-downs. I don't ride in a car unless it's already going that way. Several years ago, I paid a couple hundred bucks to get my municipal water (large U.S. city) tested in a lab. After seeing the results, I almost never drink tap water, and I buy a gallon of spring water (in clear…

Why not use a water filter and glassware? That's what I've done at home for 15+ years. I think many workplaces also have filtered water, including every place of worked at (although not everyone uses it). The "water cooler" was a really good solution!

I’m not the parent comment, but many undesirable things are not caught by the common carbon water filters.

Specifically it does very little for bacteria, viruses, and other organic compounds.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#182

Post by forgotmypw17 »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #155
chubot wrote: post #42

I still don't get how bottled water became a thing. It wasn't a thing when I was a kid, and somehow the industry convinced us to buy huge quantities of an inferior product for more money, and it pollutes the environment to boot. Insane. The least you can do is use a refillable container. 10+ years ago Google switched from bottle water to giving everyone a container. And that was a great move. Yet people complained, a…

I am fregan for environmental reasons, among others. I get much of my food out of dumpsters. I don't buy any clothes, like, ever, only hand-me-downs. I don't ride in a car unless it's already going that way. Several years ago, I paid a couple hundred bucks to get my municipal water (large U.S. city) tested in a lab. After seeing the results, I almost never drink tap water, and I buy a gallon of spring water (in clear…

Also, many things are made with tap water, and I avoid those too.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#183

Post by spodek »

makecheck wrote: post #33
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #19

The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. Governments and consumers need to get serious with these lobbies: - Ban ALL single-use plastic (except for medical supplies). - Heavily tax plastic packaging - Tax breaks for glass and paper packaging - Force plastic return deposit schemes at supermarkets _payed for by manufacturer…

I’m not against these ideas but you do have to zoom out a bit to fully realize the impact of each alternative. It’s not as simple as replacing a “bad” one with a “good” one, because there are side effects. (I haven’t added up the total impacts of every option either; this is just something to consider.) For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of b…

> hauling millions of bottles around the world

I haven't used a bottle of any sort for water for at least ten years. Not everyone has access to safe water, but billions do and billions more would if by not thinking we can fall back on bottles and therefore maintained cleaner water supplies.

We don't need alternatives for many things. Paper or plastic? Neither. I've shopped with the same bag since the 90s. Most beverages are marketing gimmicks we'd be happier, safer, and less polluting without -- same with most packaged food, children's toys, fast fashion, and so on.

Our sense of entitlement and disconnect with healthy living, nature, and how we used to live is killing us.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#184

Post by liability »

lightgreen wrote: post #140
lm28469 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had people visiting from Greece, Poland and Spain asking me if my tap water (Berlin) was safe to drink. You don't have to go to uncivilized parts of the world to get bad tap water.

There are different levels of "safe". For example, in London it's "safe" to drink tap water, it does not contain toxic checmicals of bacteria, but it is calcium rich, and drinking it constantly may be harmful for kidneys.

That's what water softeners are for.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#185

Post by decasteve »

makecheck wrote: post #33
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #19

The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. Governments and consumers need to get serious with these lobbies: - Ban ALL single-use plastic (except for medical supplies). - Heavily tax plastic packaging - Tax breaks for glass and paper packaging - Force plastic return deposit schemes at supermarkets _payed for by manufacturer…

I’m not against these ideas but you do have to zoom out a bit to fully realize the impact of each alternative. It’s not as simple as replacing a “bad” one with a “good” one, because there are side effects. (I haven’t added up the total impacts of every option either; this is just something to consider.) For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of b…

Why keep shipping bottles around? Leave them where they are. Ship the liquid in tanker trucks and fill the bottles at the destination.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#186

Post by TylerE »

decasteve wrote: post #185
makecheck wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not against these ideas but you do have to zoom out a bit to fully realize the impact of each alternative. It’s not as simple as replacing a “bad” one with a “good” one, because there are side effects. (I haven’t added up the total impacts of every option either; this is just something to consider.) For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of b…

Why keep shipping bottles around? Leave them where they are. Ship the liquid in tanker trucks and fill the bottles at the destination.

That is what happens.

The scale is just so immense.

Coca Cola, for instance, is produced and bottled in at least 68 separate plants in the US alone.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#187

Post by gfxgirl »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #19

The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. Governments and consumers need to get serious with these lobbies: - Ban ALL single-use plastic (except for medical supplies). - Heavily tax plastic packaging - Tax breaks for glass and paper packaging - Force plastic return deposit schemes at supermarkets _payed for by manufacturer…

I am curious how this would work in Japan. Walking through a grocery store or a convenience store most tea and soda is in plastic. I suppose that could be glass but carrying home several litters of liquid is already heavy enough with out adding glass. (most people walk to the grocery story so they have to carry stuff home).

Most yogurt is in plastic. Putting that in ceramic or glass seems out or similar reasons.

All bread products are wrapped in plastic. There used to open bins in the "bakery" area but because of covid-19 every pastry, bagel, croissant, etc is not individually wrapped in plastic. All chips and crackers are in plastic. I'm not 100% sure they can be wrapped in paper given how humid it is. Maybe wax paper?

Milk is almost universally in cardboard though 80-90% have a plastic cap. I'm not sure that the cardboard isn't plastic coated though. It certainly feels like it is but maybe that's some kind of wax?

All meat is in styrofoam trays (plastic) wrapped in plastic. I don't know if they could wrap it in anything else as people want to see it before buying (paper is opaque) and having a butcher counter would be much slower having to wait in line for the butcher.

All cheese products are in plastic. Same as the butcher, I can imagine a cheese counter where they wrap the cheese in paper but no one wants to wait in line and plastic wrapped cheese lets me see the cheese.

Japanese pumpkin is often sold in quarters because a single pumpkin is too much for one. Those are wrapped in plastic. Not sure what else you could wrap them in and leave them on the counter for a day. I suppose you could require to people to buy whole pumpkins.

All tofu is sold in plastic.

I'm also not sure what to do for garbage. Japan, or at least my area, requires garbage to be put in vinyl bags. It arguably helps putting out a bunch of food stuffs to not just be open and lure for rats and bugs so I'm not sure what we could switch to there.

Well, there is definitely lots of room for improvement. At least in July they finally made stores require to charge for plastic bags and ask if you want one (not just auto charge you). I'm not sure how affective it is but it did manage to change my behavior. I carry a reusable bag now.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#188

Post by waterhouse »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #44
noxer wrote: post #28

PENN & TELLER: BULLSHIT S02EP05 Recycling https://www.bitchute.com/video/j0Hd6UfA4MKo/ Yes its old but not much has changed.

And here's their equally scientifically accurate take on climate change from the same time period. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fWt2Rir8OQk Big fan of both Penn and Teller but libertarian bullshit is still bullshit and they proved that even smart people fall for it if they hang in the wrong circles too much.

Did we watch the same video?

"Every tingly spidey sense, every sniff, every whiff, smells like global warming—which they now call climate change, in case they want to go the other way and say it's colder—but it just reeks of fuckin' bullshit to me. And yet, in good conscience, we can't really come out and say it's bullshit, because there isn't enough information to really refute it completely. And there is some information that it might be real.

So—the high-dea is not to go with your gut, the idea is to go with your head, and our heads can't say that global warming is complete and utter bullshit. So we're doing—again, this is like our third show that's kind of sort of on global warming—we're kind of picking out one area that we're sure is bullshit, and that is the carbon credits, the spending money so that your guilt goes away. Buying a forgiveness."

I see proper intellectual restraint about the science, and criticism of one particular policy proposal.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#189

Post by agotterer »

Skunkleton wrote: post #86
makecheck wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not against these ideas but you do have to zoom out a bit to fully realize the impact of each alternative. It’s not as simple as replacing a “bad” one with a “good” one, because there are side effects. (I haven’t added up the total impacts of every option either; this is just something to consider.) For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of b…

> For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of bottles around the world, it will take more energy to move glass bottles. This is true, but it (mostly) not an externalized cost. By forcing environmental costs to be internalized by industry, the market should guide industry away from damaging the environment. Of course that would require honest, compl…

Where I live the local government told us to stop putting glass in our recycling bin and to throw it out instead. The reason I’ve heard is that the glass is breaking and making it harder to recycle it or the things it contaminates.

This is unfortunate because I don’t think most people are taking their glass to the supermarket to be recycled and instead a highly recyclable good is ending up in a plastic garbage bag at the landfill.

Re: 91% of plastic isn't recycled (2018)

#190

Post by TheRealSteel »

makecheck wrote: post #33
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #19

The Plastic recycling process as a whole is an incredibly succesful cost externalization for the petro-chemical and packaging industries. Governments and consumers need to get serious with these lobbies: - Ban ALL single-use plastic (except for medical supplies). - Heavily tax plastic packaging - Tax breaks for glass and paper packaging - Force plastic return deposit schemes at supermarkets _payed for by manufacturer…

I’m not against these ideas but you do have to zoom out a bit to fully realize the impact of each alternative. It’s not as simple as replacing a “bad” one with a “good” one, because there are side effects. (I haven’t added up the total impacts of every option either; this is just something to consider.) For example, glass is much heavier than the plastic used for bottles. If you have trucks/etc. hauling millions of b…

Is there any good reason we can't start putting damn near every liquid into huge aluminium (or tin?) cans?

It uses alot of power to smelt originally but it recycles forever with no degradation. Aluminium at least.

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