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Because plastic is not a significant pollutant. What's next, we're going to remove soil from the environment? Soil is full of, mold, bacteria, virus, metals, mi
by BenoitEssiambre 7y ago
Because plastic is not a significant pollutant. What's next, we're going to remove soil from the environment? Soil is full of, mold, bacteria, virus, metals, minerals, fungi, urine, feces, decomposed insects, thousands of chemicals like rust, alumina, silica, heavy metals, many carcinogens, lung irritants etc. It can give you "Farmer ’s Lung" and it's _everywhere_ in nature. Plastic is quite clean and tame by comparison.
- computerphage 7y agoCan someone substantively reply instead of just downvoting this comment?
- hinkley 7y agoAttempted.
- Fjordbored 7y agoNo
- modwest 7y agoLook man anyone trying to convince you in 2020 that "plastic is not a significant pollutant" is not arguing in good faith. Please, for the love of god, learn about the climate and the impact of human industry on it.
- BenoitEssiambre 7y agoI honestly believe the anti-plastic movement as well as the recycling movement are at best mass confusion and at worst a way for corporations to divert environmentalists energy away from focus on reducing consumption, reducing travel and reducing human sprawl which would have actual environmental benefits but would hit business growth much more than "buying reusable containers". This whole, I travel thousands of miles every year but that's ok because I bought a reusable bag shows a complete lack of proportion and perspective. On top of this, the reusable bags take more resources to produce and often they aren't machine washable so they're thrown out anyways once they're soiled, but that doesn't matter because both carrying options have insignificant impact to the environment compared to most forms of consumption.
- hinkley 7y agoEverything is killing us, but some things faster than others and so we have to prioritize, but hedge. Woodworkers have dust collection systems, air exchangers, and occasionally respirators, so they don’t get something akin to asbestosis from sawdust. What escapes gets processed by soil fungi so not a big problem. Microplastics have a possibility to do bad things to us over the long run by accumulating in our soils, and playing out like a slow train wreck. I have my fingers crossed that saprophytic fungi are already on the case. But it’d be good if someone gave Paul Stamets a research grant. The water situation is of more immediate concern, and feels more hopeless to a two-rungs-above-armchair environmentalist like myself.
- blattimwind 7y agoA lot of plastics are pretty much chemically inert under a wide variety of conditions though.
- hinkley 7y agoProbably true by themselves, although we just don’t know how many PBAs we haven’t figured out yet. Plastics have a habit of accumulating some pretty bad chemicals like petrochemicals, PCBs, and possibly dioxins but don’t quote me on that one. So ingesting plastic in a lab setting and plastic in the environment may have quite different outcomes.