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Food Packaging

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Re: Food Packaging

#51

Post by colordrops »

darawk wrote: post #47
colordrops wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be blunt your argument for polluting our environment doesn't feel like it's in good faith when you blame wood for being a pollutant until a fungus showed up hundreds of millions of years ago. I absolutely loathe the term "whataboutism" but this seems like a real example - "what about the fact that wood was a pollutant hundreds of millions of years ago? We should be able to dump plastic now".

His point is that nature adapts to these things and learns to consume them eventually. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with storing plastic in the earth, as long as it isn't disrupting ecosystems.

"Nature" is arbitrarly defined. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with anything. "Wrong" is a human definition. "Nature" is perfectly fine with wood and plastic piling up for eternity without decomposition if no organism happens to evolve to do so. "Nature" is fine with human genocide. "Nature" is fine with a nearby supernova or asteroid destroying all life on earth.

The point is that from a human perspective, and from the perspective of most multicellular organisms, plastics discarded into the environment are a really bad thing for our health.

Re: Food Packaging

#52

Post by wlesieutre »

_moof wrote: post #11
adewinter wrote: post #10

It's weird that CT scans cost hundreds (thousands?) of dollars when used in medicine but at the airport everyone's baggage is routinely scanned for approx. $free. Is the hardware and software needed for CT scans really that expensive or not?

Airport baggage scanners are nowhere near the complexity of CT machines. Not even the same kind of device. They also don't have to be designed and certified for human subjects.

> The CT scanner can create 3-D images of the contents of a bag, allowing TSA officers to rotate the images to better analyze the contents. In the future, the CT scanner may allow passengers to leave laptops and liquids inside of their carry-on bags, TSA officials say.

https://www.courant.com/la-fi-ct-scanners-20180730-story.htm...

Re: Food Packaging

#53

Post by Traubenfuchs »

adewinter wrote: post #10

It's weird that CT scans cost hundreds (thousands?) of dollars when used in medicine but at the airport everyone's baggage is routinely scanned for approx. $free. Is the hardware and software needed for CT scans really that expensive or not?

A private full body cancer search MRT (the most expensive diagnostic I could find) costs 1340€ in Germany, many common use cases much less (340 for a joint).

Naturally it‘s free if a doctor decides you need one.

Re: Food Packaging

#54

Post by markdown »

ramraj07 wrote: post #23
adewinter wrote: post #10

It's weird that CT scans cost hundreds (thousands?) of dollars when used in medicine but at the airport everyone's baggage is routinely scanned for approx. $free. Is the hardware and software needed for CT scans really that expensive or not?

People are saying it’s not the same but counterpoint: An MRI scan in a state of the art facility in Chennai India in at least 50 different facilities costs 2000-4000 Rupees or $26. The machines cost the same if not more here due to import duties. Labor is cheap but these labs truly compete with each other and that’s what drives the price down. So please acknowledge that the healthcare system in the US and other place…

> US and other places

Is there really another "first-world" country on earth with healthcare broken like it is in the US?

Re: Food Packaging

#55

Post by gorgoiler »

adewinter wrote: post #10

It's weird that CT scans cost hundreds (thousands?) of dollars when used in medicine but at the airport everyone's baggage is routinely scanned for approx. $free. Is the hardware and software needed for CT scans really that expensive or not?

Of the two applications you describe, one is a super serious life or death situation where a single mistake could harm human life.

The other is an institutional monopoly that, while initially set up with lofty goals to save lives, has devolved into a suppressive tool that works against the common man.

Re: Food Packaging

#56

Post by mike256 »

markdown wrote: post #54
ramraj07 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are saying it’s not the same but counterpoint: An MRI scan in a state of the art facility in Chennai India in at least 50 different facilities costs 2000-4000 Rupees or $26. The machines cost the same if not more here due to import duties. Labor is cheap but these labs truly compete with each other and that’s what drives the price down. So please acknowledge that the healthcare system in the US and other place…

> US and other places Is there really another "first-world" country on earth with healthcare broken like it is in the US?

Here in Switzerland healthcare is pretty much broken when it comes to prices. Everything is pretty expensive. But is it broken like in the US? No way! Our healthcare works very well and its prices are okay ;-)

Re: Food Packaging

#57

Post by Semaphor »

ramraj07 wrote: post #23
adewinter wrote: post #10

It's weird that CT scans cost hundreds (thousands?) of dollars when used in medicine but at the airport everyone's baggage is routinely scanned for approx. $free. Is the hardware and software needed for CT scans really that expensive or not?

People are saying it’s not the same but counterpoint: An MRI scan in a state of the art facility in Chennai India in at least 50 different facilities costs 2000-4000 Rupees or $26. The machines cost the same if not more here due to import duties. Labor is cheap but these labs truly compete with each other and that’s what drives the price down. So please acknowledge that the healthcare system in the US and other place…

A pure CT Scan in Germany (paid for by public health insurance unless you do one for fun), without anything else (consultation, contrast materials, etc.) is billed 110-170 € (USD 120-190). Considering labor is more expensive here, that sounds comparable.

Re: Food Packaging

#58

Post by ornornor »

thetinguy wrote: post #36
aldebran wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human manufactured Wooden objects are not found in remote places on earth. Tiny specs of wood are definitely not found in bodies/blood of humans including infants. Single use wooden items don’t cause flooding and damage wildlife. These are not the same. They don’t have the same problems.

Tetra Pak is primarily paper.

So much so that it has to be recycled using a separate process that many places refuse to adopt in Switzerland. I believe it’s either because it’s too complicated or because you have to license it from tetrapak and it’s too costly.

AFAIK its paper, sure but laminated with aluminum and plastic so good luck separating the layers into recyclable stuff.

Not that recycling is a panacea in the first place… more like a gimmick to make us feel good about wasting so much instead of questioning the methods of the industries producing all the waste in the first place.

Re: Food Packaging

#59

Post by ornornor »

Semaphor wrote: post #57
ramraj07 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are saying it’s not the same but counterpoint: An MRI scan in a state of the art facility in Chennai India in at least 50 different facilities costs 2000-4000 Rupees or $26. The machines cost the same if not more here due to import duties. Labor is cheap but these labs truly compete with each other and that’s what drives the price down. So please acknowledge that the healthcare system in the US and other place…

A pure CT Scan in Germany (paid for by public health insurance unless you do one for fun), without anything else (consultation, contrast materials, etc.) is billed 110-170 € (USD 120-190). Considering labor is more expensive here, that sounds comparable.

For contrast (pun!), Switzerland just across the border charges 6–7 times as much for the same thing. And medication too, it costs multiples more for the same medicine in CH than anywhere else in Europe just because.

Re: Food Packaging

#60

Post by ornornor »

mike256 wrote: post #56
markdown wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US and other places Is there really another "first-world" country on earth with healthcare broken like it is in the US?

Here in Switzerland healthcare is pretty much broken when it comes to prices. Everything is pretty expensive. But is it broken like in the US? No way! Our healthcare works very well and its prices are okay ;-)

I think it could be much cheaper in CH if we had public insurers instead of private for profit ones.
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