4 ms·

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...

by kuu 7y ago

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
[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.
        wool_gather 7y ago
        FWIW, these exist in some places: https://localtools.org/find/ https://localtools.org/find/ Though they don't necessarily have high-end stuff; the one here has mostly middle-of-the-road items.
      - Kluny 7y ago
        It still doesn't make sense though. You buy a spatula, it breaks immediately, and you go out and buy the same one again? Nah, I don't think so. You buy a better one, or if you're poor, you buy one from a charity shop. Not many people will be repeat customers of stuff that breaks.
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.

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...

by 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.
      - wool_gather 7y ago
        FWIW, these exist in some places: https://localtools.org/find/ https://localtools.org/find/ Though they don't necessarily have high-end stuff; the one here has mostly middle-of-the-road items.
    - Kluny 7y ago
      It still doesn't make sense though. You buy a spatula, it breaks immediately, and you go out and buy the same one again? Nah, I don't think so. You buy a better one, or if you're poor, you buy one from a charity shop. Not many people will be repeat customers of stuff that breaks.

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.