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The "bottle" part is pretty bad. I heard somewhere a water bottle will last 400 years. I don't know for certain that that's true, but if it is, I can only wonde

The "bottle" part is pretty bad. I heard somewhere a water bottle will last 400 years. I don't know for certain that that's true, but if it is, I can only wonder just who thought it would make an ideal container for someone to use for a few minutes and then throw away?

bunderbunder 8y ago
There are so many ways to frame pollution. Taking 400 years to biodegrade is a big problem if you're worried about litter, or microplastics. On other hand, if you're more worried about things like climate change or smog, then turning it into something you bury and forget about might actually be the least harmful thing we could be doing with all this oil we've been pumping out of the ground lately. If it biodegrades, then it becomes a source of atmospheric CO2 just about as efficiently as if you were instead to burn it to make cars go.
- baroffoos 8y ago
  I can't believe I have never read this point before. This seems absolutely critical to the discussion.
- 3chelon 8y ago
  Yes, I agree, and I'd go so far as to saying burning it is in one way better than it ending up in the sea, but clearly very bad in another sense. Just another example of how different facets of the "environmental" argument can be in conflict with one another. Nuclear power vs coal/oil power is similar dilemma.
njarboe 8y ago
If the average failure rate is 400 years and the failure rate is close to Gaussian, how many coke bottles can you store in your warehouse for a month and expect not to have one leak? Not having a bottle leak is the whole point of a bottle. It might not matter to you if every once in a while a bottle you are handling leaks, but if you are shipping millions of them around in harsh conditions it would be nice not to have your truck covered in sticky corn syrup when you get to the store to off load.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  Well, it depends. Is the standard deviation on that distribution ~400 years, or ~400 microseconds?
  - njarboe 8y ago
    True, but I imagine that at the start they kept changing the bottles so they were made with as little plastic as practical while still not bursting very often while shipping and in storage. One burst per million over 3 months? Wonder what kind of mean time to burst that would give the group?

bunderbunder 8y ago

There are so many ways to frame pollution. Taking 400 years to biodegrade is a big problem if you're worried about litter, or microplastics. On other hand, if you're more worried about things like climate change or smog, then turning it into something you bury and forget about might actually be the least harmful thing we could be doing with all this oil we've been pumping out of the ground lately. If it biodegrades, then it becomes a source of atmospheric CO2 just about as efficiently as if you were instead to burn it to make cars go.

baroffoos 8y ago
I can't believe I have never read this point before. This seems absolutely critical to the discussion.
3chelon 8y ago
Yes, I agree, and I'd go so far as to saying burning it is in one way better than it ending up in the sea, but clearly very bad in another sense. Just another example of how different facets of the "environmental" argument can be in conflict with one another. Nuclear power vs coal/oil power is similar dilemma.

njarboe 8y ago

If the average failure rate is 400 years and the failure rate is close to Gaussian, how many coke bottles can you store in your warehouse for a month and expect not to have one leak? Not having a bottle leak is the whole point of a bottle. It might not matter to you if every once in a while a bottle you are handling leaks, but if you are shipping millions of them around in harsh conditions it would be nice not to have your truck covered in sticky corn syrup when you get to the store to off load.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bunderbunder 8y ago
Well, it depends. Is the standard deviation on that distribution ~400 years, or ~400 microseconds?
- njarboe 8y ago
  True, but I imagine that at the start they kept changing the bottles so they were made with as little plastic as practical while still not bursting very often while shipping and in storage. One burst per million over 3 months? Wonder what kind of mean time to burst that would give the group?