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India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

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Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#191

Post by kevin_b_er »

andrewstuart wrote: post #4

The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…

Corporations can make and ship plastic trash more cheaply than reusable containers. The populace likes it because its less time to toss something than to something actually reusable or actually recyclable.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#192

Post by PaulHoule »

Pristina wrote: post #129
akudha wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said I didn't care about money. All I did was ask why we are looking at every problem in terms of money. There are some problems that have become so big (global warming, pollution, loss of top soil...) that looking at these only through the lens of profit/loss makes no sense. Not sure why the outburst/snark, I started my comment with "I understand commerce makes the world go around" ...

Name the way to create incentives that doesn't involve money then. Many have tried, non is successful. Pricing, supply, demand, are ways consumers indicate their interest in products and services, and recycling is very low value, because nobody cares.

It is not low value, it is just variable value.

In the late 1970s there was a a panic over energy and Aluminum prices were sky high. With no bottle deposit at all my dad and I picked Aluminum can out of dumpsters all over Manchester, NH and made enough money in a few weeks to buy a new Aluminum bicycle.

Later on the price collapsed and it was not worth doing.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#193

Post by bunderbunder »

vict00ms wrote: post #180
bunderbunder wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to stop plastic polluttion now, or im afraid the earths ecosystem will collapse sooner or later. I'm afraid that if we hurry into it, there will be all sorts of unintended consequences. I also suspect that it's harder than we realize to keep track of what building houses the nuclear reactor and which one is the bike shed. Going from plastic soda bottles back to glass ones, for example, would probably be an…

> Going from plastic soda bottles back to glass ones, for example, would probably be an environmental disaster. This is only true if said glass bottles were not reusable (and their reuse wasn't compelled in some fashion).

Yup. That's the catch right there - practically speaking, and on a commercial scale, glass bottles aren't reusable. At least, not anymore. Over the past couple decades, a lot of barriers have been put up to prevent the re-use of glass containers: Local bottling facilities have consolidated into regional ones, the number of different brands of beverage available on store shelves has increased enormously, many areas have passed laws that outright ban the reuse of glass containers, glass containers are no longer manufactured to be durable enough for repeated use, they now come in far too wide a variety of shapes to work well with sanitization equipment, etc etc.

A simple ban on plastic bottles would address none of this. You'd have to look at the big picture to be sure you can achieve good results.

I'd wager that we'd get much better results by instead introducing a tax on, say, every beverage container that enters the waste stream. Or, maybe easier to enforce, that cannot be proven not to have entered the waste stream. That would be a single legislative string to pull that would give the industry a strong economic incentive to address all (or at least most) of the real causes of the problem.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#194

Post by linuxftw »

dragonwriter wrote: post #190
linuxftw wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shampoo should be illegal. That stuff is crazy toxic, we shouldn't be systematically dumping all those chemicals into the water supply. Natural soap does work well on hair.

> Natural soap Soap occurs in nature?

In small quantities, sure.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#195

Post by therealdrag0 »

xfitm3 wrote: post #47
elchief wrote: post #28

Saw this on my feed today: A relatively painless guide to cutting plastic out of your life https://www.fastcompany.com/90312169

The article suggests glass shampoo bottles? No thanks. Plastic is a great material, it is just abused.

Aren't these sort of bottles the kind of plastic that recyclers actually make a profit from anyway?

Plastic avoidance should first target plastics that can't be recycled.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#196

Post by immernerstheime »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #117
djsumdog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the debate on human induced climate change is a red haring. It's so abstract, it basically invites conflict and CO2 is absolutely nothing compared to issues of mass consumption. There are huge floating patches of plastic waste our oceans, being swallowed by sea life, killing fish and making its way into our food supply. There are massive lakes of sludge in Chinese and South Pacific factory cities used to…

A low hanging fruit in the attempt to reduce consumption (which is the only real solution) is to stop single-use items. e.g. paper napkins, straws, carry bags from the local grocery shops etc. Just assuming that it's biodegradable or being recycled doesn't take into account the amount of energy and materials that went into production which are just wasted since the items are not reused.

Ok good one my friend

firstly I prefer to talk about plastic and think about napkins and paper bags slowly and well

something eXtremely important you mention and I forgot sorry mother nature shows me I forgot is about straws for soda pop at the beach coconut water at the beach oh my you name it or no name straws made of plastic , well...

so this is the classical example of something that could even be banned , and banning things is against my principles by principle , mind you , but straws are not like plastic bags yeah an old lady want to carry her fruits in a plastic bag and come on is her freewill and we have to respect by principle and be well and think and straws at the beach at least is something that could be ultimetely if not banned at least controlled with a lot of trashbins colorful for everyone to See with straws painted on them for people to trow the straws in the bin and overall find a replacement even if made of plastic but something easier and better to recycle because straws are ... well...

not really necessary...at least at the beach...

lets say we are recicling mineral water PET (I know and knew and know it right, lets say I know a little bit more than most humans about permeability of Nitrogen and specially oxygen on membrane barriers of different plastics in the food packing industry...and...of course...about Aluminium) so suposedly we are recicling PET water little bottles...

lets supose no labels only thermofoming brands on the the inflation step of the plastic bottle thermoforming/inflating making or similar yeah so only PET suposedly righ and the recicling needs energy and some other chemicals who knows what kind of who know how to name these things, so , well...these things are replaced by substitute processes without that kind of shit, ok, lets name it and say it, chemicals added to the recicling steps of the recicling process these could be banned in theory hipotetically speaking but supose we have PET recicling with spent Energy but no spending added shit chemicals colaterally in the process...

So we still spend the energy right, so, we get energy from sun light so we are clean, I think in my opinion humble as in a federal court, Your Honor

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#197

Post by KozmoNau7 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #175
Pristina wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What annoys me is the consistent blaming on the 'industry' and 'profit' when industries only make thins people buy. So why do people use single-use plastic? Because they are lazy, and it's convenient.

Because they don't have a choice. Scenario: I need to buy some water or milk. I go to the market... what are my options? My grocer does not provide water in plastic or metal bottles, and no longer provides cardboard milk cartons. Scenario: I need a quart of oil for my car. Packaging options are: 32oz PET bottle. Scenario: I need a laptop computer. I order it online. There is no way for me to tell what packaging is us…

Short answer: buy less stuff.

Longer answer: reduce your buying habits. Keep your laptop/phone around for longer before replacing it. Buy second hand or refurbished devices.

Do you need to buy water, or could you drink (filtered) tap water? Do you need to buy milk, or can you replace it with an alternative? Soy and oat "milks" are different, but serviceable replacements. Avoid almond and other nut "milks".

Sometimes you can't really avoid the packaging, but you can make sure the product in that packaging has a smaller environmental impact.

As for motor oil, most cars only one oil change per year, so that bottle of oil isn't the worst item in your example. But you should probably drive less.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#198

Post by darkpuma »

dragonwriter wrote: post #190
linuxftw wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shampoo should be illegal. That stuff is crazy toxic, we shouldn't be systematically dumping all those chemicals into the water supply. Natural soap does work well on hair.

> Natural soap Soap occurs in nature?

It's hypothesized that soaps originally formed accidentally when basic rain runoff from expired camp fires chemically interacted with animal fats. Roman sources certainly document the production of soap from tallow and ash, which is a circumstance that could conceivably arise by chance in aftermath of a camp fire. Perhaps that's not natural, or maybe we can theorize some sort of wildfire scenario causing the same circumstance.

Regardless, I think his point is that shampoo as we know it today is very much a product of the modern marketing/industrial complex.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#199

Post by andrekandre »

CptFribble wrote: post #101
arvinsim wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially, we need a better system than capitalism.

That's too broad. We can have almost any system, as long as the incentives are aligned correctly. We don't make companies pay for externalities, and we should. Maybe we could tax companies that sell plastic packaged things to pay for recovery costs, or make them recover it themselves. There's lots of options and many of them could exist in a world where private interests make profit. We just can't let profit be the g…

seems difficult as long as capital is raised in a top down manner, since its those who hold the leash are the ones who demand compound annual growth (which is the real root of the problem imo)

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#200

Post by 205guy »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #178
triplewipeass wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic is a great material for some uses, but it’s also a very durable material. I’d love to purchase shampoo in the form of a refill of the plastic shampoo bottle I’ve already purchased some months ago. Why buy a new bottle every time? That’s the part which doesn’t make sense.

What would the refill package look like?

A large vat at the store, with a spigot to refill the bottle you brought with you. I've seen this for cooking oils and honey, not sure it exists for cosmetic products.
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