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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

#201

Post by Spooky23 »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #197
Spooky23 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In other words, ignore the problem and do something else that gives a warm fuzzy feeling. Replacing milk with a more expensive, processed alternative has nothing to do with a plastic bottle.

The global solution to reducing plastic packaging is to reduce the use of plastic packaging, mostly by using cardboard and glass instead. That's driven by manufacturing, not consumer action.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#202

Post by smu »

olliej wrote: post #5

Eventually those of us in America and Europe will have to start actually recycling rather than just saying we are while shipping it to other countries. Obviously part of the solution is going to necessarily require companies stop putting so much waste packaging on products.

I hear this often. Are there any studies/articles that would help me understand the global recycling industry?

Background: I would like to start or buy a recycling business because I want to be part of the solution instead of the problem (and if it can make a profit, I'm not independently wealthy). Yes, I know we need to reduce and reuse first, but we're now also sitting in a mountain of plastic and given inertia, it's not going to go away anytime soon.

I did read this one already [1], which I recommend to get a basic understanding of the various forms of recycling and the profitability.

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1569906769/ref=ppx_yo_dt...

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#203

Post by KozmoNau7 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #201
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In other words, ignore the problem and do something else that gives a warm fuzzy feeling. Replacing milk with a more expensive, processed alternative has nothing to do with a plastic bottle. The global solution to reducing plastic packaging is to reduce the use of plastic packaging, mostly by using cardboard and glass instead. That's driven by manufacturing, not consumer action.

You were specifically asking from a personal perspective, so I gave answers from the same perspective. That does not mean that I discount the impact from corporations, in any way whatsoever.

Lifestock farming is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. By choosing alternatives, this contribution can be lessened. I very specifically said not to buy nut milks, because they're also rather bad for the environment, especially in terms of water usage. Soy and oat milks have lower impacts than dairy and nut milks.

Just because your individual action doesn't make much of a difference in and of itself, that does not mean we should just give up. Obviously it shouldn't be a case of ignoring the big polluters just because you did a small thing, but by changing our habits, we can use consumer demand to change the production and packaging practices of corporations.

Individual action does make a difference. Everything counts.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#204

Post by tsimionescu »

titzer wrote: post #138
tsimionescu wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While being low-hanging fruit, these things are also fully irrelevant. If the entire world stopped using them tomorrow, it would barely be a blip on any climate model or ocean pollution model.

Wearing the dressings of smart people, we do nothing, while telling others to do nothing, because the something they would do would be a "blip."

If we want to avoid the worse effe ts of climate change, we need to do something at the level of industry, not consumers. As individuals, that means we must focus on political efforts, much more than personal efforts: vote for a 'green' candidate even if you stand to lose from their financial policies; convince your friends to do the same. Call your representatives when green laws are voted on.

I'm not saying it's bad to do the small things. But it is bad to assume that if only everyone did the small things, the world would be better without having to do the big things as well - it wouldn't. As long as industry continues to be as wasteful as it is, as long as we continue to transport goods over the huge distances that we do, as long as we still grow the huge amounts of animals that go to waste, we are heading for catastrophe regardless of our everyone's individual actions.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#205

Post by tsimionescu »

stuaxo wrote: post #149
tsimionescu wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While being low-hanging fruit, these things are also fully irrelevant. If the entire world stopped using them tomorrow, it would barely be a blip on any climate model or ocean pollution model.

Getting people to do something means we start to solve these problems. Plastic in the ocean and food chain is not nothing. Same for climate change, start fixing small things build awareness and move onto bigger things. Alternately tell people to stop doing anything.

That could work, but it is painfully slow,and it might as well backfire - making people live worse lives so that they might be politically motivated to make industry take some of the brunt is not an obvious next step.

Also, any reasonable changes to your personal buying behavior, and absolutely everyone on the planet's as well, assuming 0 changes in, say, industrial fishing dumping practices, will produce about a 0% change in ocean plastic pollution.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#206

Post by leggomylibro »

Razengan wrote: post #26
sydd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy a machine for $300 that recycles plastic at home for your 3D printer. https://www.filastruder.com/collections/filastruders-accesso...

In the game FTL, the universal currency is "scrap", presumably because of 3D printers/fabricators/replicators that can turn it into anything else. [0] https://subsetgames.com/ftl.html

Haha, yeah - if I ever get to make a game in the apocalypse/hoarder genre, 'polyethylene' is going to be a core resource.

It doesn't lend itself to 3D printing because it is similar to Teflon/PTFE in not wanting to stick to anything, but it is still astonishing stuff. You can melt/press it into molds, and if you toss it in a toaster oven you can even knead it like putty through welding gloves if you're careful. Metal tools will chew through it like butter with hardly any wear, and it is very light for its strength. You can even melt down the shavings. And if you need to, you can often "glue" it to things with anything from a soldering iron to a blowtorch.

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