71–80 of 190 posts
From the paper( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19440049.2023.2... ): > PFAS were detected in almost all paper-based straws, with highly variable concentrations between brands, ranging from Is this a lot? What do these levels mean? "Detectable" isn't really a useful threshold for many chemicals. Also, how much of these chemicals am I likely to ingest? Does it depend on the type of drink, it's temperature…
when I see the words "forever chemicals" in some writing I assume the use of emotive language is simply there to try to manipulate me and so whatever the opposite of what the article says is likely the truth
Why are aluminum cans cheap and disposable but we can't have cheap aluminum straws?
All I can say is.. Garbage collection, and memory management ("recycling"), are hard, lol.
My uncle has Parkinson's disease attributed (in part) by Veterans Affairs due to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. He can only drink out of a cup using a straw due to the trembling and shakes. Also, straws are fun.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When drinking particularly acid drinks, juice, soda, etc., a straw significantly reduces the amount of erosion of your teeth.
Do we as a society even need acid drinks?
Maybe not. But I refuse to believe that you asked that question in good faith, because we're obviously going to have all of them. People should be free to live as healthily or as unhealthily as they choose.
From the paper( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19440049.2023.2... ): > PFAS were detected in almost all paper-based straws, with highly variable concentrations between brands, ranging from Is this a lot? What do these levels mean? "Detectable" isn't really a useful threshold for many chemicals. Also, how much of these chemicals am I likely to ingest? Does it depend on the type of drink, it's temperature…
[deleted]
i think the bigger issue is probably that the paper straws are about an order of magnitude higher in mass, virtually 100% organic chemicals, and so represent about an order of magnitude higher resource consumption the bigger issue than that is that disposable straws, even after that order-of-magnitude increase in impact, are an absolutely insignificant issue in ecological terms and yet have somehow become a political…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When people wear lipstick and are drinking something, a straw helps keep it on. If society's going to have lipstick and people go out, I think society sorta has to have straws! See e.g. https://stylecaster.com/beauty/makeup/468366/how-to-make-lip...
I can’t help asking weather do we as a society need lipstick ?
That’s a long way of saying that there are a lot of things we don’t need, but that eliminating them makes relatively little sense. We should instead develop compensating systems based on those needs (such as disincentivizing single-use straws, and normalizing reusable ones in the ways that reusable bottles and bags have been normalized.)
i think the bigger issue is probably that the paper straws are about an order of magnitude higher in mass, virtually 100% organic chemicals, and so represent about an order of magnitude higher resource consumption the bigger issue than that is that disposable straws, even after that order-of-magnitude increase in impact, are an absolutely insignificant issue in ecological terms and yet have somehow become a political…
Even with the order of magnitude increase in resources used it’s still insignificant, as you touch on.
What’s not insignificant is that in the contexts where straws are used.. fast food and coffee shops and such, they’re all too likely to be just thrown out into nature rather than being properly disposed of.
Any material in that category needs to be biodegradable. That’s just a hard requirement in my opinion. So plastics is just not a suitable material.
Yes, there are other sources of plastic pollution that are much worse in volume. Though they tend to end up in other places. We need to work on all the sources of plastic pollution in parallel.
(Unless we go the other route and do massive bioengineering of microorganisms to let them break down plastics)