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Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

latimes.com

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Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#41

Post by hombre_fatal »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #20
ivankolev wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often mention hygiene and complicated logistics as the reason disposable plastic packaging was adopted. I think as with lots of other examples through history, it is hard to know beforehand the negativities of an application of technology.

Hygiene? You can safely clean glassware with the most aggressive of chemicals, then maybe run it through an autoclave for extra safety. Funny that people complain about glassware hygiene while chugging phtalate-infused beverages from plastic bottles.

Also, hard to take these concerns seriously when glass/plastic bottle deposit swaps are common in, say, Latin/South America.

How often are people getting sick drinking caguamas/garrafones?

The reality seems obvious: single-use plastic is cheapest and cheapest always wins.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#42

Post by dsfyu404ed »

tomc1985 wrote: post #37
Scoundreller wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pollution control standards make incineration expensive. It’s not like the US is going to run out of land for landfills.

Yes but can't you have a closed system that compacts the exhaust into solid matter?

It's hard to convince the upscale NIMBY crowd that the .00-whatever parts per billion of nasty stuff that get past the filter system of a modern incinerator plant isn't gonna give everyone cancer and make the frogs bi-curious. Then you have to figure out what to do with the waste and you'll face the same problem.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#43

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

skybrian wrote: post #34
layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hygiene? You can safely clean glassware with the most aggressive of chemicals, then maybe run it through an autoclave for extra safety. Funny that people complain about glassware hygiene while chugging phtalate-infused beverages from plastic bottles.

Of course you can, but there is a history: https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/penny-lick-ice-cream

You realize that we reuse cutlery, glassware and dishware each time we eat in a restaurant other than KFC, right?

Another example would be beer bottles and marmalade/peanut butter/pickles jars.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#44

Post by xyzzyz »

netfire wrote: post #21
pen2l wrote: post #6

This might be a dumb question, but: why don't we do glass-style bottles? I live in America now, but when I used to live in Pakistan 20 years ago, I remember that I would buy pepsi or coki in a glass bottle... and if I wanted to buy a second one, I would go back to the store and give them the old empty bottle, and they would compensate me a few pennies for it -- and the bottle then is presumably washed and reused. It'…

The problem with glass is that it isn’t biodegradable. If it gets broken, it can cause a hazard for humans and wildlife. If it gets thrown away, it’s not going to break down. Glass is good for the ideal case, but not great for the other use cases. For milk and juice, it’s seems like thick paper might be a better option, since it’s biodegradable and recyclable.

Glass is literally molten sand. It will break down just like the rock breaks down. It's not toxic or hazardous, except when it's freshly shattered, but these super sharp edges weather relatively quickly, after which they aren't any sharper than natural found rock. This not to say that we should just don't care and throw away glass anywhere we want, but it's really not a huge deal, unless you hate seeing glass pebbles among normal rock pebbles.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#45

Post by NeedMoreTea »

pen2l wrote: post #6

This might be a dumb question, but: why don't we do glass-style bottles? I live in America now, but when I used to live in Pakistan 20 years ago, I remember that I would buy pepsi or coki in a glass bottle... and if I wanted to buy a second one, I would go back to the store and give them the old empty bottle, and they would compensate me a few pennies for it -- and the bottle then is presumably washed and reused. It'…

The US was gearing up nicely to require deposit and reuse schemes in the 50s or 60s. Vermont was about to require drinks be in reusable bottles.

Pepsi, Coke, Budweiser, Philip Morris and others got together, conceived the idea of, funded and launched "Keep America Beautiful". Vermont was lobbied and the deposit scheme died, consumers were blamed for the whole problem via campaigns on littering, and industry could do whatever the hell they liked.

Greenwashing was born.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#46

Post by chrisanthropic »

Scoundreller wrote: post #33
chrisanthropic wrote: post #14

The first time I really started thinking about this was years ago after watching the recycling episode of "Penn & Teller: Bullshit" where they essentially warn that many recycling programs consist of shipping our waste elsewhere for someone else to deal with and that some day the countries we send our "recycling"/waste to will likely get sick of it and start rejecting it and we'll be fucked. That was almost 10 years…

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in sending materials elsewhere for cheap sorting or re-manufacturing. Especially when ships and containers are going that way empty anyway.

While I basically agree, one of the arguments in the episode (as I remember it, it's been a while) is that since we ship it away, we don't see the negative results of our lifestyle choices, making the problems created easier to ignore.

Also, they argue that modern landfills _can_ be pretty damned "green", capturing the heat/gases created and using them to generate power.

But since we've prioritized and financially incentivized recycling (shipping everything somewhere else) we haven't prioritized responsible ways to manage waste locally and once our waste gets rejected we'll likely to be playing catch-up.

I guess we'll see. Or we'll all die before then.

Shrug.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#48

Post by xyzzyz »

Scoundreller wrote: post #38
tomc1985 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but can't you have a closed system that compacts the exhaust into solid matter?

For some things (like SO2), yes. But not easy for CO2.

Yeah, it's much easier and cheaper to have someone else emit all of it (and most likely more than we would have) on your behalf on the other side of the world. Locally it wouldn't fly, because people don't like the idea of just burning it and releasing all of the pollutants, but if you ship it in the container that would otherwise go empty anyway, and then they do it for you, it's okay.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#49

Post by Reedx »

opportune wrote: post #3

As far as I can understand it, the recycling industry is a well-intentioned waste of resources. It would be much better for the environment for all this waste to be sequestered in a landfill than for people to pay to ship it around the world only for most of it to be dumped or rejected (which, even when the Asian countries in question do accept it, they are likely to do anyway). These materials (plastics) are so chea…

And with that approach it'd be easier to reclaim if/when we figure out a good way to re-use it.

Basically plastic deposits that could be conveniently mined in the future.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#50

Post by athenot »

netfire wrote: post #21
pen2l wrote: post #6

This might be a dumb question, but: why don't we do glass-style bottles? I live in America now, but when I used to live in Pakistan 20 years ago, I remember that I would buy pepsi or coki in a glass bottle... and if I wanted to buy a second one, I would go back to the store and give them the old empty bottle, and they would compensate me a few pennies for it -- and the bottle then is presumably washed and reused. It'…

The problem with glass is that it isn’t biodegradable. If it gets broken, it can cause a hazard for humans and wildlife. If it gets thrown away, it’s not going to break down. Glass is good for the ideal case, but not great for the other use cases. For milk and juice, it’s seems like thick paper might be a better option, since it’s biodegradable and recyclable.

Glass is essentially sand. Sure it may be sharp when it just broke, but it gets dull pretty fast in nature.

Of all the things that got dumped onto this beach at Ft Bragg, glass was the least problematic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Beach_(Fort_Bragg,_Calif...

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