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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

#291

Post by AlecSchueler »

ddoeth wrote: post #285
AlecSchueler wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some plastics can go in the organic waste bins, such as the organic waste bin bags.

While they can go in the organic waste bins, they still get sorted out at the end because they don't degrade fast enough. Study from Australia: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X2... Article from California: https://www.siliconvalley.com/2024/11/21/when-compostables-a... German Trash Company: https://www.zakb.de/keine-fremdstoffe-im-bioabfall

Sure and it might be that the teabags are also being sorted out.

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

#292

Post by JTbane »

loopdoend wrote: post #217
jajko wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road to hell is paved with good intentions... I wonder how many here even notice the most important comment here from you and just keep repeating how plastic bags are worse. Yes they are terrible, but we shouldn't just blindly replace them with anything and call it a day but do the (continuous) investigation for best solution, poisons are these days everywhere.

Wouldn't the best solution be ensuring they all end up in an appropriate landfill rather than a river? It seems people are so against landfills that they're happy to sort their plastic and sent it on an epic journey of fraud where it ends up in a river in India. Meanwhile it could have been buried with their other trash and appropriately managed.

IMO most plastics should be incinerated. This reduces the amount of waste that needs to be landfilled immensely and generates electricity as a bonus.

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

#293

Post by parineum »

odie5533 wrote: post #118
parineum wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations don't do things that people don't want to pay for. The entire purpose of their existence is to provide products to customers that want them. The miraculous thing is people eschewing responsibility by putting blaming the person selling products to the people that want them. If ot weren't for all those drug dealers, we wouldn't have any addicts.

Your explanation assumes that 1) people have full knowledge of everything corporations do and 2) corporations aren't hiding what they do. Corporations actively use addiction and psychological manipulation. They're not just passively filling consumer wants. Your drug dealer analogy actually proves the opposite: we hold dealers responsible precisely because we recognize supply drives addiction. That's exactly why we ha…

> Corporations actively use addiction and psychological manipulation. They're not just passively filling consumer wants.

Are you suggesting people have a plastic bag addiction? What exactly are the plastic bag manufacturers doing that is unethical? Let's use real examples instead of vague accusations. I'm not going to start with your assumptions that corporations are all evil and are definitely doing bad stuff so you're going to need to cite examples about this specific case.

> By your analogy, drug dealing should be legal because it gives the people what they want.

How much of the harm of drugs comes from the illegality of the market? What of the drugs that are legal, why aren't they so harmful? There's a great case study about the effects of black markets when the US banned alcohol, caused a massive surge in organized crime, then reversed the ban and solved the problem they created.

Drugs cause harm. So do cars, so do plastic bags, so do knives, so do guns, etc. Harm to users/consumers sometimes a good reason, sometimes not, to make things illegal.

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

#294

Post by fractallyte »

lentil_soup wrote: post #195
fractallyte wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been down this road before, and been brutally downvoted, but I'll say it again: - corporations are responsible for creating products which can be recycled; - the consumer is responsible for proper disposal of their waste, and also for electing officials who have actual policies on reducing or eliminating pollution; - local government is responsible for setting up recycling centers, and for enforcing correct beha…

ok, but I find this simplification to be what is lazy. Obviously the world isn't as clear cut as only those 3 groups as if they're not intertwined. And what does "directly responsible for polluting the environment" even mean? If I pay someone to take my trash out and throw it in the ocean am I all of a sudden excempt because I'm not the one "directly" polluting? Pollution comes from a complex system so it has to be s…

I'm furious because I see a non-stop behavior of consumers dumping their garbage, either in nature, or in municipal waste sites next to bins because they're too goddamned lazy to literally lift up their arms - let alone not sorting garbage for recycling.

And this is in a major city in middle Europe, one of the centers of "civilization".

If it's this bad here, what must it be like in countries with less developed social and economic systems?

This is the core of consumer responsibility, and it's a dismal failure.

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

#295

Post by troyvit »

sitharus wrote: post #245
forgotusername6 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any washing you do to the produce at home has basically zero chance of killing/removing anything. It's hygiene theatre. People typically don't wash their produce in bleach or soap.

I’m pretty sure I’d rather remove the dirt from my vegetables, but you do you. You can also read the studies that show mechanical action (brushing, rubbing) under running water effectively reduces the bacteria count https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362028X2... It’ll never be sterile, but it doesn’t need to be for a healthy human. Probably shouldn’t be either.

That link makes my day and confirms so much I wondered about food cleanliness theater.

It's gross but I tend to leave a tiny bit of dirt on my potatoes. I think it's an emotional callback to your point that it might not be great for our food to be completely sterile.

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

#296

Post by SoftTalker »

mcv wrote: post #152
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…

Yeah, I still don't understand why brown paper bags aren't more standard for everything. I do see some manufacturers reducing plastic, fortunately. For example, my box of tea bags used to come wrapped in plastic, and now it suddenly doesn't, and I'm wondering why it ever needed plastic. But there's still so much stuff that comes wrapped in plastic, and often multiple layers of it. Just ban it. There are excellent alt…

Brown paper bags were the standard grocery store bag up until sometime in the 1980s. The transition to plastic was pushed by environmentalists with a "save the trees" message focused on how many trees were used to make the paper bags.

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

#297

Post by hliyan »

SoftTalker wrote: post #296
mcv wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I still don't understand why brown paper bags aren't more standard for everything. I do see some manufacturers reducing plastic, fortunately. For example, my box of tea bags used to come wrapped in plastic, and now it suddenly doesn't, and I'm wondering why it ever needed plastic. But there's still so much stuff that comes wrapped in plastic, and often multiple layers of it. Just ban it. There are excellent alt…

Brown paper bags were the standard grocery store bag up until sometime in the 1980s. The transition to plastic was pushed by environmentalists with a "save the trees" message focused on how many trees were used to make the paper bags.

Can you back that last claim up?

The push was from plastic manufacturers.

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/birth-ban-histor...

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

#298

Post by SoftTalker »

darkwater wrote: post #244
upcoming-sesame wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't it add significant weight to the price ?

They simply adjust the tare weight in the scale and that's it. They do it anyway with their own 1-use plastic boxes or sheets.

I've never seen a meat counter employee re-zero the scale after putting a container or wrap on it. I do occasionally see them reading -0.1oz or something initially, presumably to avoid the need for the employees to zero it out each time they weigh something.

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

#299

Post by SoftTalker »

hliyan wrote: post #297
SoftTalker wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brown paper bags were the standard grocery store bag up until sometime in the 1980s. The transition to plastic was pushed by environmentalists with a "save the trees" message focused on how many trees were used to make the paper bags.

Can you back that last claim up? The push was from plastic manufacturers. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/birth-ban-histor...

Not really. It's just my memory of the times. "Save the trees" was a very big thing for a while, in arguments for avoiding paper and cardboard packaging.

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

#300

Post by yesfitz »

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…

I'd like to address your last point because there's another thread about the larger amounts of plastic being easier to police:

Not all pollution is fungible.

Greenhouse gas emissions and the microplastic epidemic are two related, but separate issues.

There is no amount of fuel efficiency that would stop a plastic bag from blowing into a stream or tree and shedding microplastics as it breaks down.

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