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Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

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Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#61

Post by exmadscientist »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #42
analog31 wrote: post #8

Perhaps the main thing about tallow is that there's a glut of it, likewise lard. People want more and more meat, but want it to be leaner, creating a surplus of tallow. Also, its use in deep fryers, e.g., by the fast food industry, was curtailed when vegetable oil became preferable in the market. A relative of mine worked in a chemical factory in Detroit, that made lubricants for metal working. Many of them were eith…

I was curious, and found the ingredients for a 1992 bar of zest from an eBay photo. It was a mix of soap with the detergent sodium cocoglyceryl ether sulfonate. The current recipe is all soap but they added a couple of chelating agents: Pentasodium Pentetate, and Tetrasodium Etidronate. The problem with the new recipe is these chelating agents suck. The only thing that can jail Mg/Ca2+ faster than soap scum forms is…

There are a few industrial detergents which haven't been reformulated (or at least not noticeably). Alcojet [0] does a fantastic job in the dishwasher... but I don't recommend it in the laundry. Turns out modern dyes are colorfast against a lot of things, but not this stuff! It is rather expensive, but for irregular use (machine-cleaning or special-stain problems), that's not an issue.

And, yes, it's loaded with trisodium phosphate.

[0]: https://www.alconox.com/product/alcojet/

Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#62

Post by flandish »

WalterBright wrote: post #54
flandish wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything from a corporation saying “fearful” (for your wallet) things like “may cost more to produce(costing you more)” or reduce efficiency (costing you more) etc… Is just reworded excuses as to the corporation’s choosing profit. For they will never say “profit us less.”

Corporations can choose: 1. making a profit 2. going out of business If you raise the cost of doing business for a corporation, the cost of their products and services is going to rise accordingly.

This is assuming we treat profit as immutable. Which is, I suppose, “rule one” in business, no?

And in most cases - hey that’s fine. I disagree but it’s ok.

One area where I will always push back is on services that are required for life. Food. Shelter. Power (electric, etc) … healthcare.

If the service is critical, profit should be considered last, if at all. (As I write this, my elec provider has doubled its generation rate this month… yet making tons of profit for its shareholders…)

Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#63

Post by WalterBright »

flandish wrote: post #62
WalterBright wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations can choose: 1. making a profit 2. going out of business If you raise the cost of doing business for a corporation, the cost of their products and services is going to rise accordingly.

This is assuming we treat profit as immutable. Which is, I suppose, “rule one” in business, no? And in most cases - hey that’s fine. I disagree but it’s ok. One area where I will always push back is on services that are required for life. Food. Shelter. Power (electric, etc) … healthcare. If the service is critical, profit should be considered last, if at all. (As I write this, my elec provider has doubled its genera…

As history shows us, agriculture for profit is far cheaper and more effective than collective farms.

The same with healthcare.

Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#64

Post by smegger001 »

eckesicle wrote: post #30
phphphphp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say “paper” but it was a cotton blend much like USD. They’re shit talking old notes because it’s good for business. I haven’t touched cash in a while but I don’t recall any meaningful difference in the durability of “paper” GBP and USD. Edit: the additional context for this article is at the time the notes were released, there was a lot of anger when people discovered the notes contained animal products.

There's £2Bn worth of fivers in circulation. A note weighs 0.7grams and contains less than 0.05% tallow. That means that between one and three cows supplied the tallow necessary to produce the entire monetary supply of the country. This anger seems somewhat misguided considering the number of animals that are butchered for food in the UK every day.

unless your a hindu.

Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#65

Post by porknubbins »

cameronh90 wrote: post #44
phphphphp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say “paper” but it was a cotton blend much like USD. They’re shit talking old notes because it’s good for business. I haven’t touched cash in a while but I don’t recall any meaningful difference in the durability of “paper” GBP and USD. Edit: the additional context for this article is at the time the notes were released, there was a lot of anger when people discovered the notes contained animal products.

The polymer ones always look pristine, which is nice, and they're fairly difficult to tear.. however as soon as you do manage to get a nick in them, they tear right the way across almost immediately. I suspect most notes end up being replaced mainly because they get tatty rather than being torn, though, and I would bet a high denomination that by that metric, polymer notes last far longer.

Polymer notes would be yet another vector for plastics in our bodies and environment though. Especially for store clerks who already get a measurable amount of exposure from plastic receipts.

Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#66

Post by schwartzworld »

wincy wrote: post #39
rsynnott wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more pedantically, paper made from cotton and linen is paper by most definitions. Wood pulp paper is by far the most common these days, but that's surprisingly recent (mid-19th century). Before that it was mostly cotton, linen and hemp.

You can also still buy cotton resume paper, although with how digital things are these days I’m not sure how useful it would be unless you really want that Target job.

Watercolor paper is typically 100% cotton

Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#67

Post by userbinator »

mattkevan wrote: post #12

Our cat goes nuts for some plastic bags - licking and licking them like they’re the best thing ever. Granted he’s a little weirdo, but I looked into in on the off chance there was something wrong with him or the plastics could be harmful, but the only thing I could come up with was that some bags have more tallow in them than others and that was what he was reacting to. So, therefore, tallow in plastic = tasty for ca…

As the bags are made from polyethylene, it might be traces of ethylene too --- the same gas emitted by ripe fruit.

Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#68

Post by selimthegrim »

wincy wrote: post #39
rsynnott wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more pedantically, paper made from cotton and linen is paper by most definitions. Wood pulp paper is by far the most common these days, but that's surprisingly recent (mid-19th century). Before that it was mostly cotton, linen and hemp.

You can also still buy cotton resume paper, although with how digital things are these days I’m not sure how useful it would be unless you really want that Target job.

Usually it is used for PhD theses too except almost all of those are on ProQuest now these days

Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#69

Post by selimthegrim »

exmadscientist wrote: post #61
jcampbell1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious, and found the ingredients for a 1992 bar of zest from an eBay photo. It was a mix of soap with the detergent sodium cocoglyceryl ether sulfonate. The current recipe is all soap but they added a couple of chelating agents: Pentasodium Pentetate, and Tetrasodium Etidronate. The problem with the new recipe is these chelating agents suck. The only thing that can jail Mg/Ca2+ faster than soap scum forms is…

There are a few industrial detergents which haven't been reformulated (or at least not noticeably). Alcojet [0] does a fantastic job in the dishwasher... but I don't recommend it in the laundry. Turns out modern dyes are colorfast against a lot of things, but not this stuff! It is rather expensive, but for irregular use (machine-cleaning or special-stain problems), that's not an issue. And, yes, it's loaded with tris…

TSP (Na3P) is a different, very harsh cleaning product

Re: Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)

#70

Post by selimthegrim »

WalterBright wrote: post #60
jcampbell1 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sodium triphosphate. It surrounds the Mg/Ca ions so they can’t transform the soap to soap scum which makes glasses cloudy and wastes soap.

thank you. I'm glad it isn't the STP you add to your oil-burning engine. P.S. Do you mean sodium tripolyphosphate?

Yes they are the same.
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