5 ms·

Goddammit. I've been buying the plastic bags of Tide Pods because I just assumed it was less waste than getting a plastic tub every time. Definitely less space

Goddammit. I've been buying the plastic bags of Tide Pods because I just assumed it was less waste than getting a plastic tub every time. Definitely less space taken up in my recycle bin. Blergh. It's not like it's 1953 and the world is just discovering the wonders of plastic. We should be doing better. I don't understand why it's even legal to produce disposable plastic containers today that are not 100%, easily recyclable - without some sort of express permit for exceptional needs.

BitwiseFool 7y ago
Or at the very least, tax them.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Taxation enough to matter would be tantamount to a ban, with exception of a few specialty uses.
  - repiret 7y ago
    Exactly. But it has the advantage that nobody at the government needs to figure out what the exceptional cases are.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      But they have to figure the amount, and it's lobbied down or out. So it won't be an effective measure.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
ars 7y ago
> I don't understand why it's even legal to produce disposable plastic containers today that are not 100%, easily recyclable It's because it's completely harmless to landfill them. Litter is bad. Full stop. Landfill however is not. I've noticed a trend in these types of articles that conflates the two things as if they were the same. Then they tend of mix in info (plastic in the ocean) that applies to countries that dispose of trash in their local rivers.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed? Groundwater and rain runoff. Drinking partially degraded plastic is not exactly neutral to health. Poisoning wildlife with the added colorings or plastics themselves, neither. Especially insidious are plastic fibres - partially synthetic textiles. These should all be burned clean at very high temperatures first. Litter is easy to remove and even burn, micrometer level plastic dust is not. Standard water treatment at best can sediment some kinds of microplastics but not all. The cutoff levels that are safe for health for some plastics are miniscule for chronic intake. (Urethanes especially - kidney toxicity and cancer, probably others too. BPA is a joke compared to base PET stock at micrometers chronically.)
  - ars 7y ago
    > You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed? So then don't do that? And realistically, are landfills in the US and Europe leaking or not?
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      Water runoff and sludge from landfills is treated, however only final very time consuming steps of biological sedimentation and treatment can remove most of them. Or very fine reverse osmosis or treatment with micron level filters, very energy intensive. So they do tend to end up in clean drinking water. There are many sources and no norms. Sometimes even metals bordering on norms can be detected near landfills. Sample efficiency ranges: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135418310686 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00431... I had a link with site in Sweden barely keeping norms for lead and cobalt... due to organic decomposition and incomplete runoff collection. Bad enough that I wouldn't build a well within some 10 km radius. Read up on what happens to all this thing called leachate. This is a main reason why European Commission wants the landfills to remain as exception.
    - jfeser 7y ago
      > And realistically, are landfills in the US and Europe leaking or not? Yes, they are. See https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-040-03/ https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-040-03/. A key quote: > The USEPA has concluded that all landfills eventually will leak into the environment We can minimize the amount of material that leaks, but it seems that all landfills will eventually leak at least some of their contents.

BitwiseFool 7y ago

Or at the very least, tax them.

AstralStorm 7y ago
Taxation enough to matter would be tantamount to a ban, with exception of a few specialty uses.
- repiret 7y ago
  Exactly. But it has the advantage that nobody at the government needs to figure out what the exceptional cases are.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    But they have to figure the amount, and it's lobbied down or out. So it won't be an effective measure.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

ars 7y ago

> I don't understand why it's even legal to produce disposable plastic containers today that are not 100%, easily recyclable It's because it's completely harmless to landfill them. Litter is bad. Full stop. Landfill however is not. I've noticed a trend in these types of articles that conflates the two things as if they were the same. Then they tend of mix in info (plastic in the ocean) that applies to countries that dispose of trash in their local rivers.

AstralStorm 7y ago
You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed? Groundwater and rain runoff. Drinking partially degraded plastic is not exactly neutral to health. Poisoning wildlife with the added colorings or plastics themselves, neither. Especially insidious are plastic fibres - partially synthetic textiles. These should all be burned clean at very high temperatures first. Litter is easy to remove and even burn, micrometer level plastic dust is not. Standard water treatment at best can sediment some kinds of microplastics but not all. The cutoff levels that are safe for health for some plastics are miniscule for chronic intake. (Urethanes especially - kidney toxicity and cancer, probably others too. BPA is a joke compared to base PET stock at micrometers chronically.)
- ars 7y ago
  > You know where landfill ends up in when not properly sealed? So then don't do that? And realistically, are landfills in the US and Europe leaking or not?
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Water runoff and sludge from landfills is treated, however only final very time consuming steps of biological sedimentation and treatment can remove most of them. Or very fine reverse osmosis or treatment with micron level filters, very energy intensive. So they do tend to end up in clean drinking water. There are many sources and no norms. Sometimes even metals bordering on norms can be detected near landfills. Sample efficiency ranges: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135418310686 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00431... I had a link with site in Sweden barely keeping norms for lead and cobalt... due to organic decomposition and incomplete runoff collection. Bad enough that I wouldn't build a well within some 10 km radius. Read up on what happens to all this thing called leachate. This is a main reason why European Commission wants the landfills to remain as exception.
  - jfeser 7y ago
    > And realistically, are landfills in the US and Europe leaking or not? Yes, they are. See https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-040-03/ https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-040-03/. A key quote: > The USEPA has concluded that all landfills eventually will leak into the environment We can minimize the amount of material that leaks, but it seems that all landfills will eventually leak at least some of their contents.