4 ms·

there is an additional complication. while glass requires more energy to "recycle" than plastic, you actually get the original product back. when you recycle gl

there is an additional complication. while glass requires more energy to "recycle" than plastic, you actually get the original product back. when you recycle glass bottles, you can keep making new bottles from the same material indefinitely. what we do with plastic might be better described as "downcycling"; every cycle outputs lower quality plastic and eventually you end up with unusable material that needs to be disposed of.

mytailorisrich 6y ago
That's absolutely fine depending on what disposal means and how the various cycles look like. What is not useful is to put a blanket 'bad' label on plastics. This is not a simple issue and it requires comprehensive studies on a case by case basis.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  Relatedly this came up in a recent discussion I had with someone about plastic straws. Metal straws are more dangerous (stories of impaling the rough of one's mouth, to worse "accidental lobotomies from underneath"), glass straws are inconvenient to carry without breakage and underperform in drinking situations where flexibility is handy. Plastic straws hit a very sweet spot of performance and function fit, the biggest problem of them is that their "cheap as free" ubiquity has created the mindset that they are disposable single use items. For the most part they are no less cleanable and reusable than what we are seeing of metal and glass straws, it's just the deep old psychological trick that they are cheap and disposable keeping them cheap and disposable.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    I think in addition to "plastics are bad" another issue we're having now is that "single use is bad". That's also simplistic and I suspect that quite a few of the alternatives being pushed are in fact worse overall. A single-use item can be made very cheaply, and that includes amount of material, weight, etc. which can be a very efficient use of material and energy overall on the condition (big one) that recycling/disposal is also efficient. For example, in supermartkets single-use plastic bag were very thin (not much plastic used). They are gone and now if you need a bag they'll give you one (here in the UK) that uses much more plastic/material. It would have been much better to keep those flimsy bags in case you need one, but to charge you enough for them to encourage you to bring your own as much as possible.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

That's absolutely fine depending on what disposal means and how the various cycles look like. What is not useful is to put a blanket 'bad' label on plastics. This is not a simple issue and it requires comprehensive studies on a case by case basis.

WorldMaker 6y ago
Relatedly this came up in a recent discussion I had with someone about plastic straws. Metal straws are more dangerous (stories of impaling the rough of one's mouth, to worse "accidental lobotomies from underneath"), glass straws are inconvenient to carry without breakage and underperform in drinking situations where flexibility is handy. Plastic straws hit a very sweet spot of performance and function fit, the biggest problem of them is that their "cheap as free" ubiquity has created the mindset that they are disposable single use items. For the most part they are no less cleanable and reusable than what we are seeing of metal and glass straws, it's just the deep old psychological trick that they are cheap and disposable keeping them cheap and disposable.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  I think in addition to "plastics are bad" another issue we're having now is that "single use is bad". That's also simplistic and I suspect that quite a few of the alternatives being pushed are in fact worse overall. A single-use item can be made very cheaply, and that includes amount of material, weight, etc. which can be a very efficient use of material and energy overall on the condition (big one) that recycling/disposal is also efficient. For example, in supermartkets single-use plastic bag were very thin (not much plastic used). They are gone and now if you need a bag they'll give you one (here in the UK) that uses much more plastic/material. It would have been much better to keep those flimsy bags in case you need one, but to charge you enough for them to encourage you to bring your own as much as possible.