61–70 of 351 posts
Great, just what we needed as companies are pushing even more aggressively for planned obsolescence. "Biodegradable" just means "self-destructs automatically so we can keep selling you more".
For plastic packaging that you immediately throw away? They aren't pitching making tools or car parts out of this plastic.
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.
the places around here are using compostable plastic bags. not sure what it's made of but it can be composted in municipal facilities according to the bag. one downside is they are green tinted and harder to see what is in there but if it removes some of the plastic killing the ocean then i'm for it... assuming it's not a plastic that degrades into microplastics.
Note that "according to the bag" is very different from "according to your municipality"; my understanding is that most places actually can't handle them, and they might need to divert your compost to the landfill if it has too much of those plastic bags. They can be composed under certain conditions, but whether the facility your municipality uses has those is unclear.
See also "flushable" wipes that must not be flushed down the toilet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m pretty sure 17 days is far too short for most serious uses.
Who cares. If 50% of the usage is short term stuff like takeout, grocery bags, etc then this wipes out that waste.
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.
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.
Why not use a fabric bag? Either way good on you
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it sounds like I'm just describing something like petrol in a solid form at room temperature That's what plastic IS. That's why it sounds like it, because plastic is in fact solid hydrocarbon. So not only is it not farfetched, it exists today, which is also why incinerating plastic for energy is the best possible way to dispose it. You remove the plastic from the world, you reduce the amount of oil pumped for fuel,…
Polyolefin plastics like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypropylene and even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polystyrene are "solid hydrocarbons" but most plastics are more complex than that. One reason we quit burning trash in many places is the presence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_chloride which produces HCl which eats the incinerator. [1] Sure you can bu…
In any case incinerators can handle the chlorine - it's so reactive that it's actually very easy to filter.
> You can't really "burn up" heavy metals
There are no heavy metals in plastic, and very little in consumer waste as a whole.
> are "solid hydrocarbons" but most plastics are more complex than that
But those 3 you listed are the vast majority of the thrown out plastics.