23 ms·

A historian unpacks the origins of our plastic addiction

124 points by molteanu 7y ago

kuu 7y ago
Cheap, lightweight, resistant... The plastic has really good properties, it's normal that we like it. The environmental impact was not that easy to foresee...
- behnamoh 7y ago
  Every time I have to buy or use something with unnecessary plastic in it I just feel extreme disgust. There's just too much plastic around us that it would take decades to recycle or decompose them even if we discover the way to do that right now. First rule of engineering I learnt was: there are always trade-offs. You can't have it both ways. You're right, plastic is cheap, lightweight, resistant, etc. But shouldn't we have asked: "Ok, but what's the catch?"
  - deleted 7y ago
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- deleted 7y ago
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- Brakenshire 7y ago
  Plastic itself isn’t the problem. However, there are a lot of manufactured items which are the right shape, but made of absurdly inappropriate materials, like toys. Spatulas that melt in contact with a frying pan, or chrome foil on plastic for the edge of a phone, which scratches and flakes at at the merest touch. That’s not to say that you can’t design a heat resistant spatula, or a phone with plastic edges which will be resilient and won’t mark. The problem is the temptation that plastic provides to sell something which looks just about right but doesn't work at all in the long run. If designed properly plastic materials can last for a long time.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Plastic means you can design in obsolescence, if we take off the metal hinge support here then this bin will break in 24 months and we can sell a new one. Look at something like the handle on a paint roller. A wooden handle will probably last a lifetime, plastic handle - with carefully measured amount of plastic - can be designed to break the second time you use it: At which point we go to the shop and buy another cheap piece of crap that will do the same. Honestly I think a cm more metal in the handle, and a few grams more plastic and they'd last a lifetime ... but what capitalist company wants to make goods that last a lifetime, that harms profits.
    - organsnyder 7y ago
      I think there are very few cases of companies actually doing planned obsolescence intentionally. It's always about the price: if I can get a paint roller frame on the shelf for 50¢ less than my competitor's product, I'm going to capture some market-share—even if my product will last half the time as theirs.
      - geggam 7y ago
        The difference in cost cutting and planned obsolescence seems to be semantics. If you go the cheapest route its obvious you arent planning on the product lasting and you will get to sell another to replace it.
        j2bax 7y ago
        I have no doubt that both are large factors in the boardroom. Easy sale, easy repeat sale. It would be un-capitalistic to do anything else?! Consumers will probably choose the cheap option for the few jobs they have. Professionals will choose the high end option. How else would Harbor Freight exist?! I think a good system of borrowing high end equipment within your local community would be far more environmentally friendly, but that doesn’t really fit the macho all American DIY persona very well.
        7y ago
- xorfish 7y ago
  It all depends on the local waste management. In most of western Europe, plastic is either recycled or burned in a waste management facility to recycle energy. The impact of plastic bottles is probably lower than for alternatives like glass. Glass is heavier and causes more CO2 emissions because of the increased energy use for transporting them.
  - mamikonyana 7y ago
    > The impact of plastic bottles is probably lower than for alternatives like glass. Glass is heavier and causes more CO2 emissions because of the increased energy use for transporting them. I'm curious about this, any chance you have references?
    - tjansen 7y ago
      According to this paper, glass bottles need to be recycled 20 times in order to reach the same CO2 footprint as a PET bottle (UK, assuming a 60% recycling rate for PET): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257679872_Life_cycle_environmental_impacts_of_carbonated_soft_drinks https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257679872_Life_cycl...
      - ttkari 7y ago
        60% recycling rate for PET bottles sounds very low compared to the 90% in Finland [1]. The deposit we have on plastic bottles ranges from 0.10€ to 0.40€ depending on the bottle size (the most common 0.5 ltr bottle has a deposit of 0.20€). Cans are recycled at an even higher rate of 95%. [1] https://www.palpa.fi/beverage-container-recycling/deposit-refund-system/#return-rates https://www.palpa.fi/beverage-container-recycling/deposit-re...
      - justin66 7y ago
        > According to this paper, glass bottles need to be recycled 20 times in order to reach the same CO2 footprint as a PET bottle This does not support the OP's case that "Glass is heavier and causes more CO2 emissions because of the increased energy use for transporting them." There is going to be plenty of transport taking place during those 20 cycles of use and recycle. If the main energy cost of glass is in transport, as he asserted, that's only going to make it less competitive vs. plastic as the number of cycles increases.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  You forgot "I can't believe it's not butter" mechanical properties so it lends itself well to almost every sort of manufacturing process you can think of (well, maybe not forging).
- molodec 7y ago
  The United States culture has evolved around convenience and not around excellence, and this culture spread into many parts of the world one way or another, but some places are more resistant. Cheap, lightweight, convenient, fast, easy - these are the main factors that drive peoples actions, which now manifests in environmental and also health problems (obesity). Take Americans vs. European cars as an example. European cars have always been more performant while being more fuel efficient. American car manufacturers would simply put bigger engines as a quick and easy way to make more powerful cars. This has changed in the last decade when fuel prices went up. The environmental impact is not hard to foresee if you think about it, but most people don't. Reasoning about the long term impact on the actions you do today on your health and environment has to be part of education. We have to teach kids to care about the environment from an early age. It will not be easy to change the culture of convenience because now it is almost in people's genes.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    I've heard this about European cars forever. I haven't driven many, but I haven't been impressed. My buddy had a Renault that was impossible to shift into reverse. When my parents bought a new VW, the engine failed within 5000 miles. No dealer in the state could fix it. They trailered the car to a dealer in a different state and traded it in. VW blasting its dumb "Sounds of Silence" commercial multiple times an hour led me to watching most of the Stanley Cup final on a time delay. Haha VW that joke was funny the first time. Yeah it was a real misfortune for you that you cheated on emissions tests and killed lots of urban children with your noxious diesel fumes.
    - molodec 7y ago
      Of course, you can find sloppiness and bad examples everywhere, but you don't prove the theory by a few examples. Perhaps cars was a bad example. My point was that the Japanese and European carmakers always tried to get better performance out of engines without scarifying fuel efficiency. I am not a European nor an American, but I lived on both continents. Visually ( I don't have a statical proof) Americans use much more plastic and produce more plastic garbage than Europeans. A lot of people in Europe genuinely care about the environment and are ready to sacrifice convenience for the environment, but very few people in the USA are willing to do so. Our office produces several large bags of garbage, and we don't have that many people. I am the only person on the whole floor who uses a glass cup for tea, coffee, and water. A reusable glass cup good for my hormones, good for the environment, and also much more pleasant to drink from. I have to wash it from time to time, which some people may find it inconvenient, as it is a lot easier to fill a plastic cup with water, drink it and throw it in the garbage.
- jolmg 7y ago
  Don't forget water-proof, and easy to make airtight bags with, too.
WalterBright 7y ago
I number of plastic items I have from the 60's to 90's have degraded. The plastic has become brittle and has taken on an ugly yellowish hue. I replaced a damaged shingle on my roof with a piece of plastic, thinking the plastic was indestructible. Within about 3 months, the plastic had disintegrated under the onslaught of the sun.
- behnamoh 7y ago
  I suspect the plastic has only disintegrated into smaller pieces, which BTW, could very well find their way into our drinking water, farms, etc. In fact, I fear this sort of plastic disintegration poses a greater threat than plastic not being decomposed easily. We already have difficulty coming up with ways to decompose plastic. Fighting tiny pieces of plastic would then be a nightmare.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    The sun is clearly breaking it apart, and will continue to do that down to the molecular level. Plastic isn't as persistent as most of these articles say it is, if it's out in the sunlight. Look what happens to plastic lawn furniture after a while. Clearly, though, we are producing plastic much faster than it breaks down. Stuffing it into landfills ought to work.
    - behnamoh 7y ago
      >> The sun is clearly breaking it apart, and will continue to do that down to the molecular level. You are assuming that the fabric of the plastic is consistent in all levels. In reality tho, most stuff demonstrate different characteristics in lower (molecular) levels.
- deleted 7y ago
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- agumonkey 7y ago
  Marine grade plastics maybe ? or UV coated plastics. Or maybe just no more plastics but cellulose based :)
yourapostasy 7y ago
Medical use of plastic is convenient for infection control. Alternatives [1] were sought-after even back when plastic was introduced into the medical field. It was thought back then we would "figure it out before it becomes a problem". I think our mental model around the deployment of plastic is flawed. The logistical tail of plastics use falls upon an externalized public commons, while much of that logistical tail cost is embedded into alternatives like glass. No one accounts for the cost of disposal management of plastic syringes to the point that microplastics don't end up in our biosphere, while autoclaving glass syringes and recycling chipped glass syringes is tallied up against glass. An apples-to-apples cost comparison can be more closely approached if mostly-closed loop systems were built for all uses, and some kind of target virgin feedstock utilization percentage was set, and microplastics as an acceptable outcome was denied the plastics industry. [1] https://www.standard.co.uk/futurelondon/theplasticfreeproject/singleuse-plastic-in-medicine-and-how-we-can-cut-it-down-a4020416.html https://www.standard.co.uk/futurelondon/theplasticfreeprojec...
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  There's a fairly credible argument that changing accounting (and possibly tax) standards miht addres many present flaws of market economics. Externalities, and zero-basis natural resource inputs, are not presently accounted for. Most economic theory fails to even consider them.
  - notfromhere 7y ago
    Tragedy of the commons is a very common topic in economics
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Rule of Capture and Hotelling's rule aren't ToC, strictly.
sans-serif 7y ago
> Most Americans’ daily routines depend on single-use items and throwaway plastic packaging, much of it flowing into streams and oceans, polluting our ecosystems. This is unsubstantiated sensational bs. Plastics do end up in landfill or incinerator, but the US does not have waterway pollution problem.
- DanBC 7y ago
  There are microplastics in every US waterway. https://owi.usgs.gov/vizlab/microplastics/ https://owi.usgs.gov/vizlab/microplastics/
  - cannedslime 7y ago
    Sure there is, but there is a huge difference between dumping plastic waste into rivers like it happens in India, Africa etc and then being able to measure trace amounts of microplastics in the environment. Of course plastics left in nature will eventually find its way into the water streams.
    - notfromhere 7y ago
      I mean its still a problem. "We're not as bad as the third world" isn't really an argument
    - DanBC 7y ago
      You might want to read up on that thing about plastic coming from a few chines and indian rivers, because it's wrong.
- vanderZwan 7y ago
  And do you have a source for that or is your assertion just as unsubstantiated?
  - scottlocklin 7y ago
    No, he's quite right: https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution Most American and European plastic waste finds its way into landfills. "In the chart below we see the global distribution of mismanaged plastic waste aggregated by world region. The East Asia and Pacific region dominates global mismanaged plastic waste, accounting for 60 percent of the world total. There is a wide gap between East Asia and the other regions — South Asia ranks second but contributes around 5 times less with 11 percent of the total. This is followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (9 percent); Middle East & North Africa (8.3 percent); Latin America (7.2 percent); Europe and Central Asia (3.6 percent) and North America (1 percent). If we aim to address the ocean plastic problem, an understanding of this global picture is important. It highlights the fundamental role of waste management in preventing ocean pollution; whilst countries across North America and Europe generate significant quantities of plastic waste (particularly on a per capita basis), well-managed waste streams mean that very little of this is at risk of ocean pollution. "
battletested 7y ago
> our plastic addiction I didn't know I have a plastic addiction. But industry and governments do, because of the easy money it generates. They are addicted to money, I can see that.
- manmal 7y ago
  Let's call it our plastic habit, or convenience. We do tend to forget reusable bags at home, and then have to take groceries home in a plastic bag. We do prefer plastic straws over reusable ones out of metal or other materials, because they have a number of benefits. We are used to furniture that's durable and easy to clean. Etc. It's convenient to use plastics. Either lawmakers make it more inconvenient, or someone invent a comparable alternative that's biodegrading or unproblematic. Else, I think nothing will change.
smackay 7y ago
The articles in The Guardian have little to do with fact and instead are primarily a vehicle for environmental / moral hand-wringing and virtue signalling by their readers. If the effort put into generating all this angst was directed to more concrete action other than getting feel-good bans on token issues like plastic drinking straws we and the world would be a lot better off. How about some articles on generating real change in the way the packaging industry works? No, didn't think so. Apologies for the rant.
- proaralyst 7y ago
  > The articles in The Guardian have little to do with fact That's a very strong claim that I don't believe is made in good faith.
  - smackay 7y ago
    It's definitely not made in good faith but I did say that generating angst was more important than facts not that the articles were based on lies though clearly being economical with the truth clearly helps push the writer's agenda. Take the quote from the parent comment: > Most Americans’ daily routines depend on single-use items and throwaway plastic packaging, What purpose does singling out Americans here serve? 1. It makes readers of The Guardian feel superior? 2. The paper wants to attract more American readers who want to feel they are concerned and environmentally conscious? It's pushing a sense of 'holier than thou' with a readership who live in countries and cultures whose economic systems make widespread use of single-use plastic on a very large scale. It's a sanctimonious attitude that's great for consumers of these articles but never the driver of real change.
    - arethuza 7y ago
      Given that the author is "Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, and Richards Professor of American History Emerita at the University of Delaware" it's perhaps not surprising that the article has a focus on the US?
    - dev_north_east 7y ago
Merrill 7y ago
It all goes back to Christian Friedrich Schönbein, who invented nitrocellulose in 1845. This became celluloid, used in photography as well as other things like billiard balls. It was the first real plastic. The other application was nitrocellulose as guncotton, which led to the development of smokeless gunpowder and the family of high explosives, such as TNT. Christian Friedrich Schönbein also discovered ozone and the electrochemical effects leading to the fuel cell. 150th Anniversary: Death of Christian Friedrich Schönbein https://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/11085246/150th_Anniversary_Death_of_Christian_Friedrich_Schonbein.html https://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/11085246/150th_...
yogthos 7y ago
TLDR: consumerism
blue_devil 7y ago
So the irony is people started using plastic for its indestructibility, yet we make disposable stuff out of it?
pessimizer 7y ago
It's not a "throwaway culture" that's the problem, that's blaming the victim. It's governments who shield business from dealing with externalities, and the fact that if you're not going to be responsible for the ultimate disposition of those plastics as a business, your only concern is for margin. We don't have a nuclear waste problem because we have some cultural nuclear addiction, or chrome in the soil because we have a chrome addiction. What we have are weak governments where if their regulatory agencies weren't captured, they wouldn't exist at all; the only regulations that get passed are ones that force small operators out of the market, or allow massive companies to offload liability to subcontractors. edit: How about stopping all of the sin taxes (which are done because they simultaneously bring in revenue and theoretically cut government health care costs), and introduce some environmental taxes. They'll get passed down to the consumer anyway, and they can make the choice with their wallet. Cutting sin taxes in proportion to environmental taxes would make it revenue neutral, but it certainly wouldn't be environmentally neutral.
carapace 7y ago
(I apologize for re-posting a comment from a week ago, but I feel these technologies are important enough to warrant more exposure.) Two promising technologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization Heat and pressure turn plastic back into oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_oxidation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_oxidation Oxidize plastic in a molten salt bath, exothermic reaction, produces synthesis gas. "... destroys all organic materials while simultaneously retaining inorganic and hazardous components in the melt."
8bitsrule 7y ago
The terms 'single-use' and 'throwaway' often confuse the discussion. For example, some plastic components -- those in in a car, in a refrigerator, in a sound-system, in a thick plastic rope -- are 'single-use', but are useful over a long period. Some short-term forms of plastic use are a very poor energy investment. That's a problem because energy is finite, waste is a long-term threat. This is in part a design problem, in part a problem of ignorance, in part a problem of ignoring/hiding externalities for lower costs and quick profits ... etc. etc. It's unfortunate that plastic has often become the only available option. I'd be glad to pay more (money, time) for some containers that I don't -have- bring home and -have- to toss into the recycling bin knowing their fate. It looks as though until enough people are willing to make that choice, this ongoing energy waste (being charged to the accounts of future generations) will never end.

124 points by molteanu 7y ago

kuu 7y ago

Cheap, lightweight, resistant... The plastic has really good properties, it's normal that we like it. The environmental impact was not that easy to foresee...

behnamoh 7y ago
Every time I have to buy or use something with unnecessary plastic in it I just feel extreme disgust. There's just too much plastic around us that it would take decades to recycle or decompose them even if we discover the way to do that right now. First rule of engineering I learnt was: there are always trade-offs. You can't have it both ways. You're right, plastic is cheap, lightweight, resistant, etc. But shouldn't we have asked: "Ok, but what's the catch?"
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Brakenshire 7y ago
Plastic itself isn’t the problem. However, there are a lot of manufactured items which are the right shape, but made of absurdly inappropriate materials, like toys. Spatulas that melt in contact with a frying pan, or chrome foil on plastic for the edge of a phone, which scratches and flakes at at the merest touch. That’s not to say that you can’t design a heat resistant spatula, or a phone with plastic edges which will be resilient and won’t mark. The problem is the temptation that plastic provides to sell something which looks just about right but doesn't work at all in the long run. If designed properly plastic materials can last for a long time.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Plastic means you can design in obsolescence, if we take off the metal hinge support here then this bin will break in 24 months and we can sell a new one. Look at something like the handle on a paint roller. A wooden handle will probably last a lifetime, plastic handle - with carefully measured amount of plastic - can be designed to break the second time you use it: At which point we go to the shop and buy another cheap piece of crap that will do the same. Honestly I think a cm more metal in the handle, and a few grams more plastic and they'd last a lifetime ... but what capitalist company wants to make goods that last a lifetime, that harms profits.
  - organsnyder 7y ago
    I think there are very few cases of companies actually doing planned obsolescence intentionally. It's always about the price: if I can get a paint roller frame on the shelf for 50¢ less than my competitor's product, I'm going to capture some market-share—even if my product will last half the time as theirs.
    - geggam 7y ago
      The difference in cost cutting and planned obsolescence seems to be semantics. If you go the cheapest route its obvious you arent planning on the product lasting and you will get to sell another to replace it.
      - j2bax 7y ago
        I have no doubt that both are large factors in the boardroom. Easy sale, easy repeat sale. It would be un-capitalistic to do anything else?! Consumers will probably choose the cheap option for the few jobs they have. Professionals will choose the high end option. How else would Harbor Freight exist?! I think a good system of borrowing high end equipment within your local community would be far more environmentally friendly, but that doesn’t really fit the macho all American DIY persona very well.
        7y ago
xorfish 7y ago
It all depends on the local waste management. In most of western Europe, plastic is either recycled or burned in a waste management facility to recycle energy. The impact of plastic bottles is probably lower than for alternatives like glass. Glass is heavier and causes more CO2 emissions because of the increased energy use for transporting them.
- mamikonyana 7y ago
  > The impact of plastic bottles is probably lower than for alternatives like glass. Glass is heavier and causes more CO2 emissions because of the increased energy use for transporting them. I'm curious about this, any chance you have references?
  - tjansen 7y ago
    According to this paper, glass bottles need to be recycled 20 times in order to reach the same CO2 footprint as a PET bottle (UK, assuming a 60% recycling rate for PET): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257679872_Life_cycle_environmental_impacts_of_carbonated_soft_drinks https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257679872_Life_cycl...
    - ttkari 7y ago
      60% recycling rate for PET bottles sounds very low compared to the 90% in Finland [1]. The deposit we have on plastic bottles ranges from 0.10€ to 0.40€ depending on the bottle size (the most common 0.5 ltr bottle has a deposit of 0.20€). Cans are recycled at an even higher rate of 95%. [1] https://www.palpa.fi/beverage-container-recycling/deposit-refund-system/#return-rates https://www.palpa.fi/beverage-container-recycling/deposit-re...
    - justin66 7y ago
      > According to this paper, glass bottles need to be recycled 20 times in order to reach the same CO2 footprint as a PET bottle This does not support the OP's case that "Glass is heavier and causes more CO2 emissions because of the increased energy use for transporting them." There is going to be plenty of transport taking place during those 20 cycles of use and recycle. If the main energy cost of glass is in transport, as he asserted, that's only going to make it less competitive vs. plastic as the number of cycles increases.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
You forgot "I can't believe it's not butter" mechanical properties so it lends itself well to almost every sort of manufacturing process you can think of (well, maybe not forging).
molodec 7y ago
The United States culture has evolved around convenience and not around excellence, and this culture spread into many parts of the world one way or another, but some places are more resistant. Cheap, lightweight, convenient, fast, easy - these are the main factors that drive peoples actions, which now manifests in environmental and also health problems (obesity). Take Americans vs. European cars as an example. European cars have always been more performant while being more fuel efficient. American car manufacturers would simply put bigger engines as a quick and easy way to make more powerful cars. This has changed in the last decade when fuel prices went up. The environmental impact is not hard to foresee if you think about it, but most people don't. Reasoning about the long term impact on the actions you do today on your health and environment has to be part of education. We have to teach kids to care about the environment from an early age. It will not be easy to change the culture of convenience because now it is almost in people's genes.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  I've heard this about European cars forever. I haven't driven many, but I haven't been impressed. My buddy had a Renault that was impossible to shift into reverse. When my parents bought a new VW, the engine failed within 5000 miles. No dealer in the state could fix it. They trailered the car to a dealer in a different state and traded it in. VW blasting its dumb "Sounds of Silence" commercial multiple times an hour led me to watching most of the Stanley Cup final on a time delay. Haha VW that joke was funny the first time. Yeah it was a real misfortune for you that you cheated on emissions tests and killed lots of urban children with your noxious diesel fumes.
  - molodec 7y ago
    Of course, you can find sloppiness and bad examples everywhere, but you don't prove the theory by a few examples. Perhaps cars was a bad example. My point was that the Japanese and European carmakers always tried to get better performance out of engines without scarifying fuel efficiency. I am not a European nor an American, but I lived on both continents. Visually ( I don't have a statical proof) Americans use much more plastic and produce more plastic garbage than Europeans. A lot of people in Europe genuinely care about the environment and are ready to sacrifice convenience for the environment, but very few people in the USA are willing to do so. Our office produces several large bags of garbage, and we don't have that many people. I am the only person on the whole floor who uses a glass cup for tea, coffee, and water. A reusable glass cup good for my hormones, good for the environment, and also much more pleasant to drink from. I have to wash it from time to time, which some people may find it inconvenient, as it is a lot easier to fill a plastic cup with water, drink it and throw it in the garbage.
jolmg 7y ago
Don't forget water-proof, and easy to make airtight bags with, too.

WalterBright 7y ago

I number of plastic items I have from the 60's to 90's have degraded. The plastic has become brittle and has taken on an ugly yellowish hue. I replaced a damaged shingle on my roof with a piece of plastic, thinking the plastic was indestructible. Within about 3 months, the plastic had disintegrated under the onslaught of the sun.

behnamoh 7y ago
I suspect the plastic has only disintegrated into smaller pieces, which BTW, could very well find their way into our drinking water, farms, etc. In fact, I fear this sort of plastic disintegration poses a greater threat than plastic not being decomposed easily. We already have difficulty coming up with ways to decompose plastic. Fighting tiny pieces of plastic would then be a nightmare.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  The sun is clearly breaking it apart, and will continue to do that down to the molecular level. Plastic isn't as persistent as most of these articles say it is, if it's out in the sunlight. Look what happens to plastic lawn furniture after a while. Clearly, though, we are producing plastic much faster than it breaks down. Stuffing it into landfills ought to work.
  - behnamoh 7y ago
    >> The sun is clearly breaking it apart, and will continue to do that down to the molecular level. You are assuming that the fabric of the plastic is consistent in all levels. In reality tho, most stuff demonstrate different characteristics in lower (molecular) levels.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
agumonkey 7y ago
Marine grade plastics maybe ? or UV coated plastics. Or maybe just no more plastics but cellulose based :)

yourapostasy 7y ago

Medical use of plastic is convenient for infection control. Alternatives [1] were sought-after even back when plastic was introduced into the medical field. It was thought back then we would "figure it out before it becomes a problem". I think our mental model around the deployment of plastic is flawed. The logistical tail of plastics use falls upon an externalized public commons, while much of that logistical tail cost is embedded into alternatives like glass. No one accounts for the cost of disposal management of plastic syringes to the point that microplastics don't end up in our biosphere, while autoclaving glass syringes and recycling chipped glass syringes is tallied up against glass. An apples-to-apples cost comparison can be more closely approached if mostly-closed loop systems were built for all uses, and some kind of target virgin feedstock utilization percentage was set, and microplastics as an acceptable outcome was denied the plastics industry. [1] https://www.standard.co.uk/futurelondon/theplasticfreeproject/singleuse-plastic-in-medicine-and-how-we-can-cut-it-down-a4020416.html https://www.standard.co.uk/futurelondon/theplasticfreeprojec...

dredmorbius 7y ago
There's a fairly credible argument that changing accounting (and possibly tax) standards miht addres many present flaws of market economics. Externalities, and zero-basis natural resource inputs, are not presently accounted for. Most economic theory fails to even consider them.
- notfromhere 7y ago
  Tragedy of the commons is a very common topic in economics
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Rule of Capture and Hotelling's rule aren't ToC, strictly.

sans-serif 7y ago

> Most Americans’ daily routines depend on single-use items and throwaway plastic packaging, much of it flowing into streams and oceans, polluting our ecosystems. This is unsubstantiated sensational bs. Plastics do end up in landfill or incinerator, but the US does not have waterway pollution problem.

DanBC 7y ago
There are microplastics in every US waterway. https://owi.usgs.gov/vizlab/microplastics/ https://owi.usgs.gov/vizlab/microplastics/
- cannedslime 7y ago
  Sure there is, but there is a huge difference between dumping plastic waste into rivers like it happens in India, Africa etc and then being able to measure trace amounts of microplastics in the environment. Of course plastics left in nature will eventually find its way into the water streams.
  - notfromhere 7y ago
    I mean its still a problem. "We're not as bad as the third world" isn't really an argument
  - DanBC 7y ago
    You might want to read up on that thing about plastic coming from a few chines and indian rivers, because it's wrong.
vanderZwan 7y ago
And do you have a source for that or is your assertion just as unsubstantiated?
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  No, he's quite right: https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution Most American and European plastic waste finds its way into landfills. "In the chart below we see the global distribution of mismanaged plastic waste aggregated by world region. The East Asia and Pacific region dominates global mismanaged plastic waste, accounting for 60 percent of the world total. There is a wide gap between East Asia and the other regions — South Asia ranks second but contributes around 5 times less with 11 percent of the total. This is followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (9 percent); Middle East & North Africa (8.3 percent); Latin America (7.2 percent); Europe and Central Asia (3.6 percent) and North America (1 percent). If we aim to address the ocean plastic problem, an understanding of this global picture is important. It highlights the fundamental role of waste management in preventing ocean pollution; whilst countries across North America and Europe generate significant quantities of plastic waste (particularly on a per capita basis), well-managed waste streams mean that very little of this is at risk of ocean pollution. "

battletested 7y ago

> our plastic addiction I didn't know I have a plastic addiction. But industry and governments do, because of the easy money it generates. They are addicted to money, I can see that.

manmal 7y ago
Let's call it our plastic habit, or convenience. We do tend to forget reusable bags at home, and then have to take groceries home in a plastic bag. We do prefer plastic straws over reusable ones out of metal or other materials, because they have a number of benefits. We are used to furniture that's durable and easy to clean. Etc. It's convenient to use plastics. Either lawmakers make it more inconvenient, or someone invent a comparable alternative that's biodegrading or unproblematic. Else, I think nothing will change.

smackay 7y ago

The articles in The Guardian have little to do with fact and instead are primarily a vehicle for environmental / moral hand-wringing and virtue signalling by their readers. If the effort put into generating all this angst was directed to more concrete action other than getting feel-good bans on token issues like plastic drinking straws we and the world would be a lot better off. How about some articles on generating real change in the way the packaging industry works? No, didn't think so. Apologies for the rant.

proaralyst 7y ago
> The articles in The Guardian have little to do with fact That's a very strong claim that I don't believe is made in good faith.
- smackay 7y ago
  It's definitely not made in good faith but I did say that generating angst was more important than facts not that the articles were based on lies though clearly being economical with the truth clearly helps push the writer's agenda. Take the quote from the parent comment: > Most Americans’ daily routines depend on single-use items and throwaway plastic packaging, What purpose does singling out Americans here serve? 1. It makes readers of The Guardian feel superior? 2. The paper wants to attract more American readers who want to feel they are concerned and environmentally conscious? It's pushing a sense of 'holier than thou' with a readership who live in countries and cultures whose economic systems make widespread use of single-use plastic on a very large scale. It's a sanctimonious attitude that's great for consumers of these articles but never the driver of real change.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    Given that the author is "Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, and Richards Professor of American History Emerita at the University of Delaware" it's perhaps not surprising that the article has a focus on the US?
  - dev_north_east 7y ago

Merrill 7y ago

It all goes back to Christian Friedrich Schönbein, who invented nitrocellulose in 1845. This became celluloid, used in photography as well as other things like billiard balls. It was the first real plastic. The other application was nitrocellulose as guncotton, which led to the development of smokeless gunpowder and the family of high explosives, such as TNT. Christian Friedrich Schönbein also discovered ozone and the electrochemical effects leading to the fuel cell. 150th Anniversary: Death of Christian Friedrich Schönbein https://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/11085246/150th_Anniversary_Death_of_Christian_Friedrich_Schonbein.html https://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/11085246/150th_...

yogthos 7y ago

TLDR: consumerism

blue_devil 7y ago

So the irony is people started using plastic for its indestructibility, yet we make disposable stuff out of it?

pessimizer 7y ago

It's not a "throwaway culture" that's the problem, that's blaming the victim. It's governments who shield business from dealing with externalities, and the fact that if you're not going to be responsible for the ultimate disposition of those plastics as a business, your only concern is for margin. We don't have a nuclear waste problem because we have some cultural nuclear addiction, or chrome in the soil because we have a chrome addiction. What we have are weak governments where if their regulatory agencies weren't captured, they wouldn't exist at all; the only regulations that get passed are ones that force small operators out of the market, or allow massive companies to offload liability to subcontractors. edit: How about stopping all of the sin taxes (which are done because they simultaneously bring in revenue and theoretically cut government health care costs), and introduce some environmental taxes. They'll get passed down to the consumer anyway, and they can make the choice with their wallet. Cutting sin taxes in proportion to environmental taxes would make it revenue neutral, but it certainly wouldn't be environmentally neutral.

carapace 7y ago

(I apologize for re-posting a comment from a week ago, but I feel these technologies are important enough to warrant more exposure.) Two promising technologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization Heat and pressure turn plastic back into oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_oxidation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_oxidation Oxidize plastic in a molten salt bath, exothermic reaction, produces synthesis gas. "... destroys all organic materials while simultaneously retaining inorganic and hazardous components in the melt."

8bitsrule 7y ago

The terms 'single-use' and 'throwaway' often confuse the discussion. For example, some plastic components -- those in in a car, in a refrigerator, in a sound-system, in a thick plastic rope -- are 'single-use', but are useful over a long period. Some short-term forms of plastic use are a very poor energy investment. That's a problem because energy is finite, waste is a long-term threat. This is in part a design problem, in part a problem of ignorance, in part a problem of ignoring/hiding externalities for lower costs and quick profits ... etc. etc. It's unfortunate that plastic has often become the only available option. I'd be glad to pay more (money, time) for some containers that I don't -have- bring home and -have- to toss into the recycling bin knowing their fate. It looks as though until enough people are willing to make that choice, this ongoing energy waste (being charged to the accounts of future generations) will never end.