8 ms·

This is a good thing. I had no idea we weren't recycling our plastic and just shipping it across the world, only to get dumped in a forest or into the ocean. W

This is a good thing. I had no idea we weren't recycling our plastic and just shipping it across the world, only to get dumped in a forest or into the ocean. We need to stop producing so much plastic. We need laws to standardize plastics so that only purely recyclable plastics exist and no more single-use plastics, or compostable containers. Anything else should be banned. I don't care if it runs some companies out of business because the costs are too high. I would rather those companies fail than keep piling up with all this sickening useless and ultimately poisonous garbage from single-use plastics. We should also make it illegal to ship our garbage outside of the country. That will force us to deal with our own problems.

JulianMorrison 7y ago
Also it seems likely at this point that the danger has been wildly underestimated. The rallying cry against plastic used to be that "it takes hundreds of years to break down". But now we know that when it breaks down, it gets worse. Microplastics are suspected to be bioaccumulating, carrying poisons and bacteria, and possibly could get into cells like asbestos. And the only way to dispose of the stuff that won't eventually become microplastic is incineration - putting all that carbon into the atmosphere, along with other unpleasant combustion products.
- docker_up 7y ago
  Yes, as usual those of us that told us the risk was low or non-existent were wrong again. How often do we have to be duped by so-called experts before we realize that the "experts" have actually no idea how to calculate risk, and that we can't rely on their "assurances"? It goes both ways, where scientists told us that salt and high fat diets were causing heart disease and now both of those have been walked back.
  - JulianMorrison 7y ago
    The experts were working with the facts as they were known at the time. Microplastic wasn't obvious. Most things, when they break down, aren't harmful. This isn't a problem of experts. This is a problem of hubristically creating a never seen before material and assuming it would have no impact.
    - yeahitslikethat 7y ago
      Hubris will ultimately kill all of us. We've known that for at least thousands of years, yet still neglect it. Look at all the praise for capitalism despite the fact it has destroyed the planet.
      - lopmotr 7y ago
        > it has destroyed the planet. Using a hyperbole to justify another claim doesn't support that claim, it just sounds poetic to people who already believe it. What evidence do you have that hubris will ultimately kill all of us? Do you have a time frame for that prediction? If not, then it's a meaningless claim.
        yeahitslikethat 7y ago
        I rest my case.
      - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
        > Look at all the praise for capitalism despite the fact it has destroyed the planet. Please, oh please, show me a system that has increased the quality of life for more people than "capitalism" has. I'm not saying that we shouldn't conserve- we should- I do- but there are limits, and things take time. If humanity had never built fires because they pollute, we wouldn't be here today. If coal had been prohibited, people would probably still be burning trees as the main source of their energy.
        yeahitslikethat 7y ago
        If we weren't here, that'd be a good thing.
        mooseburger 7y ago
        If we weren't here, there would be no such thing as 'good', as that is an entirely human construct.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - guelo 7y ago
    Which experts are you talking about? Before 10 years ago or so I don't remember ever seeing a discussion about plastics in the environment one way or the other.
  - jeromegv 7y ago
    Problem is that you're putting all "experts" in one bucket. There has been "experts" talking against the use of plastic and single-use for a very long time, but by attacking all experts like you're doing, you make it sound that they are the same people. Clearly, environmentalist were not the ones promoting plastic?
- shawnz 7y ago
  > and possibly could get into cells like asbestos To be clear, there is no current evidence that microplastics might share any mechanisms with asbestos/CNTs/etc, right?
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I do know that people with cystic fibrosis have a bad habit of dying of infections from microorganisms that are usually not deemed infectious for most humans. When you google the names of the microorganisms in question, some of them are used by scientists for bioremediation of petrochemical spills. In other words, they eat petrochemicals. They also think people with CF are tasty as hell while not much caring for "normal" humans, which looks rather suspect to me. So I suspect that the defect in the CFTR allows plastics and petrochemicals generally, plus metals, to accumulate at higher than normal rates in the CF population. I have run this hypothesis past a guy with a PhD in Biology who suggested that it was not simply straight up crazy talk. He said the function of the CFTR should have some implication for how the body processes metals, IIRC. (He's a member of HN and is more than welcome to chime in for accuracy's sake if he happens to see this remark, realizes DoreenMichele used to post as Mz and I am talking about him -- hello, nice person with PhD in Biology, and thank you for the awesome feedback.) Our oceans are getting increasingly polluted with plastic and we increasingly see, for example, dead whales on beaches who are full of plastic and these two things are deemed not unrelated, from what I gather. So it seems that there comes a point past which "normal" humans with a normal CFTR who do not have CF may be unable to avoid similar bioaccumulation of plastics/petrochemicals and other toxic chemicals as I am hypothesizing drive some deadly infections in the CF population. So, perhaps we can extrapolate from the experiences of the CF community that as our world gets increasingly toxic, it will negatively impact human health generally, including, but not limited to, making us more prone to infection from microogranisms that were never a problem before. Arguably, this is probably already happening and may be contributing to the rise of Super Bugs. It may not be merely overuse of antibiotics causing this problem. It may also be widespread environmental changes, including but not limited to the increasing prevalence of microplastics across the entire world.
    - 7y ago
- technofiend 7y ago
  Serious question: based on what we now know, does it make sense to revisit incineration of plastics particularly if we can update the stacks to do a better job of scrubbing?
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Probably gasification instead, which is much cleaner but more energy intensive. Incineration still produces tons of ash and chemical waste. Then some more thinking on how to handle resulting gases.
    - distances 7y ago
      Nordic countries incinerate almost all non-recycled municipal waste, to the point that they import waster from other countries to keep the incinerators well fed. Any insights how this is handled there? They are pretty famous for having some of the strictest environmental and health regulations, so I assume these issues have solutions.
    - JulianMorrison 7y ago
      I wonder if it could be low-oxygen burned to non-poisonous charcoal? That could be put into the environment without toxicity. (Such as making Terra Preta soil.)
- siruncledrew 7y ago
  Plastic is our new collective "Chernobyl".
  - fourier_mode 7y ago
    One HBO show and boom: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chernobyl https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chernobyl
cityzen 7y ago
If the US actually cared about any of this, sure. Unfortunately recycling is a burden placed on consumers to allow corporations to maximize profits.
Loic 7y ago
> We should also make it illegal to ship our garbage outside of the country. That will force us to deal with our own problems. This is what all the countries should do. The new EU parliament is turning green so I hope we can get such regulation to prevent trash to leave the EU.
snarf21 7y ago
The main reason it was done was because all the manufacturing is in China. All those ships bring things here and it was intended to make the trip back more efficient economically by shipping them back full as well. I'm all for less plastic but this is also just a larger issue of consumerism. We need to buy and ship less but that is a cultural change that seems unlikely (unfortunately).
- satya71 7y ago
  Cultural change happens when the externalities are priced in. See Denmark and Netherlands for example. The biking and public transport culture is a direct consequence of pricing in road maintenance, congestion, and other externalities into the price of cars and gas.
  - Thlom 7y ago
    Not really. People in Denmark (Copenhagen mostly) and the Netherlands cycle and take public transport because it is the easiest and most convenient option. If it was the price of car use we should see the same effect in f.ex Norway, but we don’t.
    - munificent 7y ago
      In Denmark, new cars are taxed at 150% of the price of the tax. You pay more in taxes than the entire price of the car.
      - radicalbyte 7y ago
        In The Netherlands it's 40-50% for most cars yet big cars are still seen as a status symbol. Thankfully the cycling infrastructure here is fantastic so I can almost always use my bike :)
        WalterBright 7y ago
        > yet The more difficult to obtain something is, the more it will be seen as a status symbol. It's always been that way.
lopmotr 7y ago
The problem is not producing it but pretending to recycle it. If we just buried it in well maintained local landfills, it would effectively never get into the environment and would never be a problem. You're making a common mistake of thinking that an environmental problem must be solved at all costs. There's no point spending more to solve a problem than the cost the problem will cause. The only reason the environment is important is because it provides value to us humans. We don't need to protect it beyond that. We don't need to ban quarries for breaking ancient rocks into small pieces of gravel. They're permanently destroying the environment, but not a part of it that we have any need to preserve.
- docker_up 7y ago
  No. Microplastics are everywhere in the environment. Our fish are eating this. It's getting into our food chain and we need to stop this. We are poisoning ourselves the same way the Romans poisoned themselves with lead pipes.
  - lopmotr 7y ago
    They wouldn't be in the sea if they were in a landfill. They get into the sea from street rubbish washing into stormwater drains/rivers mostly in poor countries and from fishermen dropping their equipment overboard. Microplastics are also not known to be toxic to people. So it's not like lead.
    - docker_up 7y ago
      This attitude is completely naive. The idea we could dump all our garbage into the landfill with no loss is impossible. Better to never create it in the first place at the top of the funnel than try to deal with it at the bottom of the extremely leaky funnel.
      - lopmotr 7y ago
        Of course there will be some leakage, but if it's slower than the plastic is naturally removed from the environment, it won't get worse with time. Nature is filled with toxic things like oil, asbestos, lead, mercury, uranium, etc. It's mostly safely stored in naturally occurring "landfills" which are harmless. Why can't we do the same? It might not be better to never create it if that means crippling the world's economy and all the death and suffering that would go along with that by never using plastics. What price is worth paying? Or perhaps you see lack of technology as a good thing?
j4kp07 7y ago
> We should also make it illegal to ship our garbage outside of the country. That will force us to deal with our own problems. It should also be illegal for NYC/SF/etc to send their sewage/trash outside of the metro city limits. I don't care if it ruins their economy. It will force them to deal with their own problems instead of offloading it onto others.
cr0sh 7y ago
> We need laws to standardize plastics so that only purely recyclable plastics exist and no more single-use plastics, or compostable containers. Anything else should be banned. Do you have any idea how much this would change the world, if it were implemented? Say goodbye to many if not most medical plastics - especially those use for artificial joints and similar implantable devices. Say hello to much heavier engines in automobiles and other devices (until batteries get much, much better - which is on the horizon, and hopefully soon - the IC engine is here to stay for the foreseeable future). Oh - and those batteries also use a lot of plastic, and I am not sure you can make them with recyclable versions. Say hello to increased fuel usage and shipping costs for all kinds of products because they couldn't be made of recyclable or compostable plastics, and had to be made of other materials. Most "engineering plastics" - those plastics made for harsh environments and/or uses that have thermal cycling of the environment, or need high mechanical strength - generally tend to be made from single-use plastics; this is because when you recycle plastic - most plastics, actually - their chemical bonds are broken and reformed, in addition to the mixing of various binders and other substances that exist in various plastics - even recyclable - that are used to give the plastic various properties (ie - one manufacturer's PET may not match another manufacturer's in makeup) - this process all adds up to a plastic that, while recycled, has varying properties, generally is a weaker form of plastic, and is difficult to control those properties due to the variability of the recycled feedstock component. Even then, today, there are very few "100% recycled plastic" products; most have so-called "virgin" plastic mixed in to compensate for the variable content of the recycled materials, and to make up for the deficits caused by that. Those products that tend to be "100% recycled" are generally "low-end products" or used as filler material for other products. Think of paper recycling: Where does the recycled paper get used in 100% recycled paper? Most likely low cost paper for low-end paper books, grey paper for wrapping or other uses, maybe certain paper bags, maybe insulation. Do you recall the low-grade lined paper in grade school, that was grey, and passed out for quick quizzes, or for spelling practice? That was all 100% recycled paper pulp. It tore easily, it tended to be thin, it looked terrible. But for the use it was perfect - but you wouldn't fill a binder or other notebook with it. The reason it had those unfavorable properties had to do with the variability of paper recycling; basically the same issue behind recycling plastic. And so we see similar results with recycled plastic. Also - each time you recycle the plastic, the worse the end product gets; you can only abuse those molecules and such so much by the reformation process before it becomes completely useless... So-called compostable plastics have their own issues; they are really just as long-lived as non-compostable plastics, unless they are exposed and worked in the right environment (a landfill is not the right environment). Sadly, this is rarely done. It probably has to do with the costs or other reasons to make such a composting system for such plastics; I've never heard exactly why, I just know that the plastic doesn't really decompose unless in just the right environmental conditions which are rarely met in the real world. Do we need to do something different in regards to our plastics usage and recycling? Yes - but elimination and bans won't get us there. Switching to pure compostable or recyclable plastics isn't possible, unless you want to eliminate a ton of industries, products, and uses (especially medical).
dgzl 7y ago
> We need to stop producing so much plastic. We need laws to standardize plastics so that only purely recyclable plastics exist and no more single-use plastics, or compostable containers. Anything else should be banned. Not necessarily disagreeing, but the cost of pretty much everything would go up significantly, along with the incentive to circumvent the regulations.
- fourier_mode 7y ago
  > cost of pretty much everything would go up significantly This just includes the short term costs.
  - dgzl 7y ago
    You're kidding yourself if you don't think these significant short-term costs can become significant long-term costs.
    - fourier_mode 7y ago
      The whole point of "these alternative solutions" is to compensate long term costs by increasing short term costs.
- ezrast 7y ago
  The cost in dollars would go up significantly. The cost in dollars plus inflicted externalities would remain constant-ish, implementation failures notwithstanding.
  - dgzl 7y ago
    That cost in dollars could be enough to sink the middle class and everything under it.
    - ezrast 7y ago
      Then the cost in externalities would do the same. That's the whole point of pricing in externalities: if the paper packaging becomes cheaper after you do it, that's because the plastic packaging actually is worse for the would-be dollar-saving population in the long run. Doing the pricing accurately relies on a bunch of projections we don't have, of course, but we can certainly do better than calling it all zero.

JulianMorrison 7y ago

Also it seems likely at this point that the danger has been wildly underestimated. The rallying cry against plastic used to be that "it takes hundreds of years to break down". But now we know that when it breaks down, it gets worse. Microplastics are suspected to be bioaccumulating, carrying poisons and bacteria, and possibly could get into cells like asbestos. And the only way to dispose of the stuff that won't eventually become microplastic is incineration - putting all that carbon into the atmosphere, along with other unpleasant combustion products.

docker_up 7y ago
Yes, as usual those of us that told us the risk was low or non-existent were wrong again. How often do we have to be duped by so-called experts before we realize that the "experts" have actually no idea how to calculate risk, and that we can't rely on their "assurances"? It goes both ways, where scientists told us that salt and high fat diets were causing heart disease and now both of those have been walked back.
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  The experts were working with the facts as they were known at the time. Microplastic wasn't obvious. Most things, when they break down, aren't harmful. This isn't a problem of experts. This is a problem of hubristically creating a never seen before material and assuming it would have no impact.
  - yeahitslikethat 7y ago
    Hubris will ultimately kill all of us. We've known that for at least thousands of years, yet still neglect it. Look at all the praise for capitalism despite the fact it has destroyed the planet.
    - lopmotr 7y ago
      > it has destroyed the planet. Using a hyperbole to justify another claim doesn't support that claim, it just sounds poetic to people who already believe it. What evidence do you have that hubris will ultimately kill all of us? Do you have a time frame for that prediction? If not, then it's a meaningless claim.
      - yeahitslikethat 7y ago
        I rest my case.
    - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
      > Look at all the praise for capitalism despite the fact it has destroyed the planet. Please, oh please, show me a system that has increased the quality of life for more people than "capitalism" has. I'm not saying that we shouldn't conserve- we should- I do- but there are limits, and things take time. If humanity had never built fires because they pollute, we wouldn't be here today. If coal had been prohibited, people would probably still be burning trees as the main source of their energy.
      - yeahitslikethat 7y ago
        If we weren't here, that'd be a good thing.
        mooseburger 7y ago
        If we weren't here, there would be no such thing as 'good', as that is an entirely human construct.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- guelo 7y ago
  Which experts are you talking about? Before 10 years ago or so I don't remember ever seeing a discussion about plastics in the environment one way or the other.
- jeromegv 7y ago
  Problem is that you're putting all "experts" in one bucket. There has been "experts" talking against the use of plastic and single-use for a very long time, but by attacking all experts like you're doing, you make it sound that they are the same people. Clearly, environmentalist were not the ones promoting plastic?
shawnz 7y ago
> and possibly could get into cells like asbestos To be clear, there is no current evidence that microplastics might share any mechanisms with asbestos/CNTs/etc, right?
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I do know that people with cystic fibrosis have a bad habit of dying of infections from microorganisms that are usually not deemed infectious for most humans. When you google the names of the microorganisms in question, some of them are used by scientists for bioremediation of petrochemical spills. In other words, they eat petrochemicals. They also think people with CF are tasty as hell while not much caring for "normal" humans, which looks rather suspect to me. So I suspect that the defect in the CFTR allows plastics and petrochemicals generally, plus metals, to accumulate at higher than normal rates in the CF population. I have run this hypothesis past a guy with a PhD in Biology who suggested that it was not simply straight up crazy talk. He said the function of the CFTR should have some implication for how the body processes metals, IIRC. (He's a member of HN and is more than welcome to chime in for accuracy's sake if he happens to see this remark, realizes DoreenMichele used to post as Mz and I am talking about him -- hello, nice person with PhD in Biology, and thank you for the awesome feedback.) Our oceans are getting increasingly polluted with plastic and we increasingly see, for example, dead whales on beaches who are full of plastic and these two things are deemed not unrelated, from what I gather. So it seems that there comes a point past which "normal" humans with a normal CFTR who do not have CF may be unable to avoid similar bioaccumulation of plastics/petrochemicals and other toxic chemicals as I am hypothesizing drive some deadly infections in the CF population. So, perhaps we can extrapolate from the experiences of the CF community that as our world gets increasingly toxic, it will negatively impact human health generally, including, but not limited to, making us more prone to infection from microogranisms that were never a problem before. Arguably, this is probably already happening and may be contributing to the rise of Super Bugs. It may not be merely overuse of antibiotics causing this problem. It may also be widespread environmental changes, including but not limited to the increasing prevalence of microplastics across the entire world.
  - 7y ago
technofiend 7y ago
Serious question: based on what we now know, does it make sense to revisit incineration of plastics particularly if we can update the stacks to do a better job of scrubbing?
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Probably gasification instead, which is much cleaner but more energy intensive. Incineration still produces tons of ash and chemical waste. Then some more thinking on how to handle resulting gases.
  - distances 7y ago
    Nordic countries incinerate almost all non-recycled municipal waste, to the point that they import waster from other countries to keep the incinerators well fed. Any insights how this is handled there? They are pretty famous for having some of the strictest environmental and health regulations, so I assume these issues have solutions.
  - JulianMorrison 7y ago
    I wonder if it could be low-oxygen burned to non-poisonous charcoal? That could be put into the environment without toxicity. (Such as making Terra Preta soil.)
siruncledrew 7y ago
Plastic is our new collective "Chernobyl".
- fourier_mode 7y ago
  One HBO show and boom: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chernobyl https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chernobyl

cityzen 7y ago

If the US actually cared about any of this, sure. Unfortunately recycling is a burden placed on consumers to allow corporations to maximize profits.

Loic 7y ago

> We should also make it illegal to ship our garbage outside of the country. That will force us to deal with our own problems. This is what all the countries should do. The new EU parliament is turning green so I hope we can get such regulation to prevent trash to leave the EU.

snarf21 7y ago

The main reason it was done was because all the manufacturing is in China. All those ships bring things here and it was intended to make the trip back more efficient economically by shipping them back full as well. I'm all for less plastic but this is also just a larger issue of consumerism. We need to buy and ship less but that is a cultural change that seems unlikely (unfortunately).

satya71 7y ago
Cultural change happens when the externalities are priced in. See Denmark and Netherlands for example. The biking and public transport culture is a direct consequence of pricing in road maintenance, congestion, and other externalities into the price of cars and gas.
- Thlom 7y ago
  Not really. People in Denmark (Copenhagen mostly) and the Netherlands cycle and take public transport because it is the easiest and most convenient option. If it was the price of car use we should see the same effect in f.ex Norway, but we don’t.
  - munificent 7y ago
    In Denmark, new cars are taxed at 150% of the price of the tax. You pay more in taxes than the entire price of the car.
    - radicalbyte 7y ago
      In The Netherlands it's 40-50% for most cars yet big cars are still seen as a status symbol. Thankfully the cycling infrastructure here is fantastic so I can almost always use my bike :)
      - WalterBright 7y ago
        > yet The more difficult to obtain something is, the more it will be seen as a status symbol. It's always been that way.

lopmotr 7y ago

The problem is not producing it but pretending to recycle it. If we just buried it in well maintained local landfills, it would effectively never get into the environment and would never be a problem. You're making a common mistake of thinking that an environmental problem must be solved at all costs. There's no point spending more to solve a problem than the cost the problem will cause. The only reason the environment is important is because it provides value to us humans. We don't need to protect it beyond that. We don't need to ban quarries for breaking ancient rocks into small pieces of gravel. They're permanently destroying the environment, but not a part of it that we have any need to preserve.

docker_up 7y ago
No. Microplastics are everywhere in the environment. Our fish are eating this. It's getting into our food chain and we need to stop this. We are poisoning ourselves the same way the Romans poisoned themselves with lead pipes.
- lopmotr 7y ago
  They wouldn't be in the sea if they were in a landfill. They get into the sea from street rubbish washing into stormwater drains/rivers mostly in poor countries and from fishermen dropping their equipment overboard. Microplastics are also not known to be toxic to people. So it's not like lead.
  - docker_up 7y ago
    This attitude is completely naive. The idea we could dump all our garbage into the landfill with no loss is impossible. Better to never create it in the first place at the top of the funnel than try to deal with it at the bottom of the extremely leaky funnel.
    - lopmotr 7y ago
      Of course there will be some leakage, but if it's slower than the plastic is naturally removed from the environment, it won't get worse with time. Nature is filled with toxic things like oil, asbestos, lead, mercury, uranium, etc. It's mostly safely stored in naturally occurring "landfills" which are harmless. Why can't we do the same? It might not be better to never create it if that means crippling the world's economy and all the death and suffering that would go along with that by never using plastics. What price is worth paying? Or perhaps you see lack of technology as a good thing?

j4kp07 7y ago

> We should also make it illegal to ship our garbage outside of the country. That will force us to deal with our own problems. It should also be illegal for NYC/SF/etc to send their sewage/trash outside of the metro city limits. I don't care if it ruins their economy. It will force them to deal with their own problems instead of offloading it onto others.

cr0sh 7y ago

> We need laws to standardize plastics so that only purely recyclable plastics exist and no more single-use plastics, or compostable containers. Anything else should be banned. Do you have any idea how much this would change the world, if it were implemented? Say goodbye to many if not most medical plastics - especially those use for artificial joints and similar implantable devices. Say hello to much heavier engines in automobiles and other devices (until batteries get much, much better - which is on the horizon, and hopefully soon - the IC engine is here to stay for the foreseeable future). Oh - and those batteries also use a lot of plastic, and I am not sure you can make them with recyclable versions. Say hello to increased fuel usage and shipping costs for all kinds of products because they couldn't be made of recyclable or compostable plastics, and had to be made of other materials. Most "engineering plastics" - those plastics made for harsh environments and/or uses that have thermal cycling of the environment, or need high mechanical strength - generally tend to be made from single-use plastics; this is because when you recycle plastic - most plastics, actually - their chemical bonds are broken and reformed, in addition to the mixing of various binders and other substances that exist in various plastics - even recyclable - that are used to give the plastic various properties (ie - one manufacturer's PET may not match another manufacturer's in makeup) - this process all adds up to a plastic that, while recycled, has varying properties, generally is a weaker form of plastic, and is difficult to control those properties due to the variability of the recycled feedstock component. Even then, today, there are very few "100% recycled plastic" products; most have so-called "virgin" plastic mixed in to compensate for the variable content of the recycled materials, and to make up for the deficits caused by that. Those products that tend to be "100% recycled" are generally "low-end products" or used as filler material for other products. Think of paper recycling: Where does the recycled paper get used in 100% recycled paper? Most likely low cost paper for low-end paper books, grey paper for wrapping or other uses, maybe certain paper bags, maybe insulation. Do you recall the low-grade lined paper in grade school, that was grey, and passed out for quick quizzes, or for spelling practice? That was all 100% recycled paper pulp. It tore easily, it tended to be thin, it looked terrible. But for the use it was perfect - but you wouldn't fill a binder or other notebook with it. The reason it had those unfavorable properties had to do with the variability of paper recycling; basically the same issue behind recycling plastic. And so we see similar results with recycled plastic. Also - each time you recycle the plastic, the worse the end product gets; you can only abuse those molecules and such so much by the reformation process before it becomes completely useless... So-called compostable plastics have their own issues; they are really just as long-lived as non-compostable plastics, unless they are exposed and worked in the right environment (a landfill is not the right environment). Sadly, this is rarely done. It probably has to do with the costs or other reasons to make such a composting system for such plastics; I've never heard exactly why, I just know that the plastic doesn't really decompose unless in just the right environmental conditions which are rarely met in the real world. Do we need to do something different in regards to our plastics usage and recycling? Yes - but elimination and bans won't get us there. Switching to pure compostable or recyclable plastics isn't possible, unless you want to eliminate a ton of industries, products, and uses (especially medical).

dgzl 7y ago

> We need to stop producing so much plastic. We need laws to standardize plastics so that only purely recyclable plastics exist and no more single-use plastics, or compostable containers. Anything else should be banned. Not necessarily disagreeing, but the cost of pretty much everything would go up significantly, along with the incentive to circumvent the regulations.

fourier_mode 7y ago
> cost of pretty much everything would go up significantly This just includes the short term costs.
- dgzl 7y ago
  You're kidding yourself if you don't think these significant short-term costs can become significant long-term costs.
  - fourier_mode 7y ago
    The whole point of "these alternative solutions" is to compensate long term costs by increasing short term costs.
ezrast 7y ago
The cost in dollars would go up significantly. The cost in dollars plus inflicted externalities would remain constant-ish, implementation failures notwithstanding.
- dgzl 7y ago
  That cost in dollars could be enough to sink the middle class and everything under it.
  - ezrast 7y ago
    Then the cost in externalities would do the same. That's the whole point of pricing in externalities: if the paper packaging becomes cheaper after you do it, that's because the plastic packaging actually is worse for the would-be dollar-saving population in the long run. Doing the pricing accurately relies on a bunch of projections we don't have, of course, but we can certainly do better than calling it all zero.