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It would create infinite other forms of garbage that people throw in the trash anyway.
by SamReidHughes 8y ago
It would create infinite other forms of garbage that people throw in the trash anyway.
- outside1234 8y agoPlastic lasts essential forever - aluminum and steel do not
- cc81 8y agoIn countries with good waste management I assume they are burned if they are not recycled. Other containers such as paper might sometimes even be worse as it will cost more energy to produce them than plastic.
- NullPrefix 8y ago>paper might sometimes even be worse as it will cost more energy to produce them than plastic That's the point. Plastic is cheap to produce but costly to look after. Paper is costly to produce but cheap to look after.
- cc81 8y agoAnd my point is that it is not necessarily true in countries with good waste management. I will take Sweden as an example with plastic bags. I cannot find the quotation now but a researcher was asked about plastic bags and the environmental impact on them and the point was that it was not as clear as people think. In Sweden almost all plastic bags ends up being burned like this: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/energy-production/sweden-is-great-at-turning-trash-to-energy.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/e... That is very cheap. And the result would be that the total environmental impact for the complete life cycle might be greater if you choose a paper bag as more energy was required in creating it.
- gambiting 8y ago>>In countries with good waste management I assume they are burned if they are not recycled Those countries are so rare that it's almost not worth mentioning. Vast majority of places around the world, including most of the developed world do not have "good waste management" by this definition. Even in countries as rich as UK, Germany and France most waste goes to a landfill, not an incinerator. Sure Sweden shows a good example how it can be done, but it's like dismissing the problem of car-related pollution because there exists one hydrogen car that you can actually buy. Yes, it doesn't have those problems but in the large scheme of things it's completely irrelevant.
- barney54 8y agoI’m not seeing the problem with plastic going into landfills. That means it doesn’t result in plastic pollution in waters and the ocean and is sequestering the carbon back in the earth.
- martinald 8y agoNot true in the UK anymore. Nearly every local authority has or has under construction a 'waste to energy' plant (incinerator). Most of South London's waste has been burnt since 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SELCHP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SELCHP, for example.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago> Even in countries as rich as UK, Germany and France most waste goes to a landfill, not an incinerator. Dumping untreated waste into landfills has been illegal in Germany since 2005, so that's not a thing anymore.
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoLandfill has been falling steadily in the UK for a long time. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/607416/Digest_of_Waste_and_Resource_Statistics__2017_rev.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- xorfish 8y ago
- newnewpdro 8y agoNot all forms of garbage are equally harmful to the environment. We should enforce prioritizing producing garbage that provides nutrition to the things it passes through. Plastics do the opposite, to the extent of killing the animals mistaking it for food.
- crooked-v 8y agoSingle-used cardboard wrappings for non-perishables don't have nearly as much impact on the environment as plastic, even if just thrown away.
- bunderbunder 8y agoIt really depends on whether you value apples or oranges more highly. My understanding is that paper fares better on the litter front, since even the stuff that escapes landfills still degrades quickly, while plastic tends to fare better on the carbon footprint front, because it's lighter (which reduces fuel burned to ship things) and less energy-intensive to manufacture.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoI'm no packaging expert, however we did innovate ourselves in to this mess, it seems reasonable we may be able to innovate ourselves out of it.
- majewsky 8y agoIs that anything more than a sentiment? It's easy to come up with counter-examples. For example, it's easy for me to "innovate" myself into a 15-foot hole in the ground, and likely impossible to innovate myself out of it without outside help.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoWhat is the point of this comment? I’m not suggesting any one individual attempt to innovate themselves out of a world polluted with plastic without outside help, but I guess digging yourself a 15-foot grave could be construed as one method. It’s always easier to say why a thing can’t be done than come up with methods of doing a thing and implementing that thing. I have friends who intentionally restrict the amount of plastic-packaged items they buy, they would struggling to throw out a 200mm cube of tightly bound plastics every month or two; so we know significant reductions in plastic waste are possible on an individual scale. In the scope of, for example, landing a probe on an asteroid and returning a sample, the engineering challenges facing us in the form of reducing plastic packaging use seem to me, the non-expert, fairly trivial. I could list some possibilities I, and others, have consider, though they seem to be extensively thrashed out in the comments here and the internet at large. Was going to the moon, or being able to buy an all electric production vehicle, or the modern microchip, not a mere sentiment at some point? It seems like the primary lack in this context is the desire for collective action, which appears to be changing. Perhaps I wildely misunderstood your comment?
- SamReidHughes 8y agoRecycling has nothing to do with plastic pollution. Plastics that don't get recycled instead get buried in a hole in the ground.