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

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

#261

Post by ctm92 »

cm2012 wrote: post #104
mrmincent wrote: post #26

I would kill for this for when I’m buying fresh produce at the shops. Right now I just raw dog the produce into my basket as putting 4 apples into a plastic bag to ease the weighing and transport home seems like a selfish thing to do to the environment, but something that starts to break down soon after that sounds great.

People dramatically over weight how bad plastic is for the environment. The impact of a 10 min car ride = 10,000+ plastic bags of emissions. And in first world countries almost no household plastic ends up in the environment.

it's not about CO2 emissions, it's about plastic waste that eventually degrades to microplastics

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

#262

Post by mapt »

nandomrumber wrote: post #238
DownGoat wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the same problem with plastic. Recycled plastic may not be food safe, and have contamination from whatever it was used for before recycling.

New plastic doesn’t have that problem and is incredibly cheap. Take price as a proxy for resource / energy input and see that new plastic is also incredibly lite on inputs. New plastic may have some off-gassing / contact contamination concerns though. Last time I checked, energetically we’re better off using plastic over paper or recycled plastic, and burying the waste… if we could do that reliably, which we don’t se…

There are several separate problems here.

One is "People don't like bags stuck in the branches of trees and clogging waterways in their parks". Lightweight plastic shopping bags are so thin that a light breeze can pick them up and loft them up into the air easily. They cost approximately nothing - incredibly expensive by comparison to pay someone to remove them from tree branches and riparian zones - tens of dollars in wages, equipment, and liability insurance. This is a pragmatic reason why municipalities passed bag taxes or bans. Forcing people to use paper or heavier-weight plastic bags that don't blow in the wind, even if they're not in practice "reusable", solves this one. Taxing them 5 cents or 10 cents or 25 cents per bag nudges a high percentage away.

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

#263

Post by potato3732842 »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #225
mcv wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative cost? Why? It still needs to be produced and transported, right? I don't understand the business case behind this.

The way it was explained to me isv that there are so many plastic feedstocks produced by fuel production that it's often most efficient to pay someone just to take it away.

That's basically the economic equivalent of having to pay to get rid of a fallen tree despite that tree then going on to be chipped and sold in bulk to whatever the nearest local place buying chips is.

The feed stock is basically worth nothing, it's the labor and energy investment that you add to it at every step that adds the value.

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

#265

Post by throwawayffffas »

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…

Plastic bags are making a comeback.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/plastic-bags...

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

#266

Post by throwawayffffas »

nandomrumber wrote: post #246
foobar1962 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm old enough to remember when supermarkets only had brown paper bags. They were weak and the handles tear off easily, and anything cold will make the bag wet and it will fall apart usually from the bottom. Supermarkets must have spent a lot of money replacing customer's broken items when bags failed even before leaving the store. So when doing the calculus for brown paper bags don't forget to include the cost goods…

Australian supermarkets have excelled at replicating this paper bag fiasco. The white plastic bags they replaced are magnitudes of order more durable and able to carry, I should test this, at a guess ten times the weight. Basically you can fill a white plastic bag with 1.25 litre water bottles to the extent no more can physically fit in the bag and it will be safe to carry and reuse 50 times. Fortunately the white pl…

> Basically you can fill a white plastic bag with 1.25 litre water bottles to the extent no more can physically fit in the bag and it will be safe to carry and reuse 50 times.

Yeah that's not good, the way they do that is with more plastic in the bags. A single bag weighs as much as 5-10 old timey single use bags.

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

#267

Post by throwawayffffas »

ahartmetz wrote: post #202
fy20 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a cupboard full of bags at home I can reuse. It's right next to my door. Really easy to get to. 75% of the time I forget to take a bag to my car. As well as all the single use bags (paper and plastic) I bought, I also have jute bags that I got years ago and are still holding up. I like them better as they are bigger and stronger. Even if I managed to get a bag, the other 75% of the time I forget to take it int…

The trick is to always have them where you will need them. I always have one or two in my backpack, in my car, in my luggage when I travel... Their size and weight is almost nothing and the only effort is putting them back after use. Which is where it occasionally fails, sure.

The trick is to not bother, just make sure your bag ends recycled not in the street or in the ocean.

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

#268

Post by eptcyka »

elric wrote: post #259
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…

I doubt that's made any kind of environmental/ecological impact at all. The cheap, flimsy plastic carrier bags contain orders of magnitude less material than the reusable kind, and had a second life as a bin liner. Now I need to buy bin liners, which are usually made out of sturdier plastic on top of having to get a reusable bag. Most of the plastic involved in getting food from farm to home isn't the carrier bag or…

There are significantly less palettes being delivered and handled by significantly less people, thus it is far easier to ensure that the plastic used in the delivery process is disposed of properly. Whereas with the abundance of cheap plastic bags that are available on tap to the masses, disposal turns into a mess. I generally agree with you that we should focus on the whole chain and there's lots of easy wins to be had, but decreasing the amount of plastic that gets stuck in trees or otherwise lost in the *environment* is still a good thing.

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

#269

Post by oniony »

elric wrote: post #259
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…

I doubt that's made any kind of environmental/ecological impact at all. The cheap, flimsy plastic carrier bags contain orders of magnitude less material than the reusable kind, and had a second life as a bin liner. Now I need to buy bin liners, which are usually made out of sturdier plastic on top of having to get a reusable bag. Most of the plastic involved in getting food from farm to home isn't the carrier bag or…

Where I live there are entire fields of crops grown under plastic sheeting, and I do not mean reusable plastic greenhouses, I mean sheeting pegged to the ground. And then the produce is boxed up in plastic, stuck on a palette, wrapped in plastic and delivered to the supermarkets.

Then, when I'm in town I see building projects where the entire building is wrapped in plastic sheeting: eight story buildings wrapped like a parcel in plastic. Even the ground-level hoarding that used to plywood boards is now typically covered in plastic sheeting printed with branding.

And the roadworks: what used to be reusable metal signs and barriers have recently switched to plastic signs and plastic barriers. I get these get battered and broken quickly but at least the steel ones would typically get melted down and reused at their end-of-life. I imagine the plastic ones just end up in landfill or incinerated.

It does kinda make my home recycling efforts seems futile when commercial enterprises are moving in the opposite direction towards more plastic.

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

#270

Post by AlecSchueler »

trallnag wrote: post #249
AlecSchueler wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cycle to the supermarket and every bush I pass on the way is full of plastic.

How is that the fault of plastic wrappings and not the fault of people throwing trash onto the side of the road?

Where did I say that? I was only responding to the assertion "in first world countries almost no household plastic ends up in the environment" pointing out that I see it everywhere.
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