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85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

worldwildlife.org

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Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#211

Post by kragen »

tedunangst wrote: post #204
kragen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thousands, really? that seems unlikely; it certainly isn't thousands of times cheaper

I assume the cost of plastic is about zero, and what you're paying for is shipping, storage, markup, all the middle stuff. Using numbers provided, 1000 sqft of plastic is $10.00, which could be $9.99 logistics and $0.01 material. 1000 sqft of foil is $50.00, with the same $9.99 shipping cost, and $40.01 in material. So that's 4000x. Numbers are kinda fake, but you get the idea.

wholesale plastic is surprisingly expensive, typically several dollars a kilogram. (even fairly raw petroleum distillates like gasoline cost about a dollar a kilogram at retail.) it's not like gravel and sand where shipping costs are most of the cost of the material; petroleum is precious enough to be routinely shipped intercontinentally, and plastic is an added-value product on top of that, requiring several capital- and energy-intensive purification and processing steps

to take an especially cheap example, polyethylene, as i understand it, is made by polymerizing ethylene (with so, using slightly less fake numbers, if we multiply four dollars a kilogram for the plastic, 50-micron thickness, and one gram per cc, we derive 20¢ per square meter (or, in medieval units, 1.9¢ per square foot). this is actually twice the retail price given upthread, so it's reasonable to think that nearly all the cost of the plastic wrap is the actual materials. also probably the plastic is thinner than my guess

(i'd be delighted to hear from ars what kind of plastic their plastic wrap is and if they can fold it in half six times to measure 64 layers of it with some calipers)

we can get more accurate numbers for aluminum; https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2024/mcs2024-aluminum.p... says 130¢ per pound last year (287¢/kg in modern units) and it's 2.699g/cc and typically 10μm thick. this works out to 7.75¢ per square meter, giving a raw materials cost estimate that's actually lower than my estimate for the plastic. the higher finished product cost is probably because of the cost of operating the rolling mills

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#212

Post by GeoAtreides »

dumbo-octopus wrote: post #85
lowkey_ wrote: post #41

I was skeptical of whether it was representative of 85% of the global population, or just the first-world. I've often thought (and heard that) environmental concerns are secondary to economic, and that people in less prosperous countries don't care as much about environmental concerns as people in first-world countries who are secure in most areas of their lives. Surprisingly, this data says the opposite! Sample size…

The response rate is so low as to be entirely meaningless. If you're content with sampling only 0.000001% of the population, you can get any results you want by simply selecting for the people who care the most by taking a bunch of time to lecture the individual if they seem like they'd vote the other way (oh no, you have to leave? but we didn't even have time to submit your vote yet... :( ), and wording the question…

> The response rate is so low as to be entirely meaningless.

This calculator says you need a 385 sample size for a billion (or infinite) population: https://www.calculator.net/sample-size-calculator.html?type=...

Please check the theory presented below the calculator, it explains why such a low number is enough for a confidence level of 95% that the real value is within ±5% of the measured/surveyed value.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#213

Post by kragen »

AlexandrB wrote: post #167
ars wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I exaggerated. Plastic wrap: $1.97/200sf = $0.00985 Foil: $3.78/75sf = $0.05040 Looks like it's a bit over 5 times as much. However used foil can't be recycled, while used plastic wrap can be burned for energy. But that depends on the disposal options you have available locally.

Use foil can be trivially recycled - it's metal: https://www.calgary.ca/waste/what-goes-where/metal-aluminum-...

most recyclers don't want it because most of its weight is rotting food; the aluminum is ten times thinner than a sheet of paper, a human hair, or (most relevantly here) a beer can

but yes, there's no technical difficulty in recycling it; it isn't like greasy paper where the grease messes up the recycling process

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#214

Post by kragen »

legitster wrote: post #108
ars wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You use foil instead of cling wrap? And you do this for environmental reasons? I'm struggling to understand here, why in the world would you do that? Foil consumes thousands of times more resources than plastic wrap.

Also, most foils are coated on at least one side with a petroleum-based wax anyway.

perhaps that is true in some sense of 'most foils', but i have never in my life seen a roll of aluminum foil sold in a grocery store with petroleum-based wax on it, and i've bought grocery store aluminum foil on something like four continents

maybe you're thinking of some other use of aluminum foil which vastly outweighs common household use, and uses a different kind of foil that does come with wax on it?

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#216

Post by kragen »

ganzuul wrote: post #127
skrebbel wrote: post #82

Can anyone explain to me how this works in practice? Eg if i now buy meat or cheese or pre-cut vegetables or bread at the supermarket, it’s in plastic packaging. What do legislators propose we replace that by? I understand (and use) reusable shopping bags but keeping sliced ham fresh sounds less practical. For clarity, I’m not skeptical, I’m all for the strictest plastic ban that’s remotely practical. But I don’t get…

Glass jars and tin cans were the old solution. Perhaps some modern deep eutectic chemistry can improve on the old energy economy of glass.

deep eutectic systems seem a lot more likely to help with synthesizing organic plastics than with synthesizing glass

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#217

Post by kragen »

quantified wrote: post #80
Skytram wrote: post #16

Yes yes instead of single use bags at the store I now get more durable plastic bags that I throw away after using once. Well done.

How much do you pay for them? For bags, there is no reason for a store to give them out. You had to pay for a wallet to hold your cash and cards, a purse to hold them if you don'f have pockets. No need for bags to be a cost center for a store.

$40 per bag here, too little to worry about

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#218

Post by kragen »

aunty_helen wrote: post #158
orhmeh09 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think is a good sample size? How would you arrive at one?

There isn’t one. Some things are not measurable by this standard and the stats relatively meaningless. 3000 people from a whole continent? Cmon

please see the introduction to statistical methods linked above at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40590633

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#219

Post by kragen »

lokar wrote: post #109
blackle wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree, however if you're the kind of person who orders groceries, then what ends up happening is that you start collecting reusable bags that you have no way of reusing. I hope that someone starts some kind of "reusable bag recycling" system so I can give the scores of bags I have to a good home

What’s wrong with paper?

making paper is much more environmentally damaging than making plastic

i'm not joking, look it up

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#220

Post by kragen »

Carrok wrote: post #175
ars wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I typically keep the containers until I order next time Don't them smell? If you wash them by hand you end up using more resources than if you had disposable. If you put them in a dishwasher then, I guess that would work, but seems like a lot of effort for takeout. > I'm more concerned about trash in the rivers/oceans, and microplastics Are you dumping things in the street? I suspect you are not. River/Ocean trash…

> Don't them smell? If you wash them by hand you end up using more resources than if you had disposable. No. There is absolutely no way that rinsing out a container uses more resources than creating and transporting new disposable containers. > Are you dumping things in the street? I personally am not. I see plenty of people who are. I see plenty of trash in my local rivers and streams, so I'm not sure what you're ba…

> There is absolutely no way that rinsing out a container uses more resources than creating and transporting new disposable containers.

that's what i thought, too, until i did the math, and it turns out that i was wrong. rinsing out a bottle with hot water uses several times more energy than manufacturing a brand new plastic bottle from petroleum and transporting it (they're generally transported as preforms until the bottling plant, which keeps the costs down). in most cases, though, rinsing it out with cold water does use less

the high bit here, though, is not that you should stop using hot water to wash your dishes, or using reusable dishes. it's that the resource usage of food packaging is an irrelevant distraction from the real environmental devastation that's going on all around you

(actually no, the high bit is that you should base your beliefs and actions on objectively verifiable information and rational analysis rather than superstition)

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