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If the goals are to cut fossil fuel consumption and/or dispersal of waste into the natural environment, it ain't that simple. The best option by far is to not
by tuatoru 6y ago
If the goals are to cut fossil fuel consumption and/or dispersal of waste into the natural environment, it ain't that simple.
The best option by far is to not consume things. Don't buy stuff. That's working out really well for us, isn't it?
Next best in many places is single use followed by incineration for district heating and electricity.
Third, in many places, is single use with well managed collection and disposal to a well managed landfill.
When you dig into the numbers, things like reusable glass containers, cotton bags, and so on are harmful virtue signaling. Karens get to shame other people who harming the world less than the Karens are by a long way.
- WA 6y agoYou surely have a source for this right?
- tuatoru 6y agoDammit, I knew you would ask that. I'll have to dig back through my paper notebooks going back over about 20 years. (My ex-wife was a virtue signaler, and I had started to be sceptical. I used a university library, but I don't live near a university any more.) Probably there's a lot better research to be had now, refined! Updated! With 20% lower error bounds! But I doubt very much the conclusions have changed, especially given the world's dependence on Chinese manufacturing and China's dependence on coal.
- jlmorton 6y agoHere's [0] a write-up from NPR, with links to several studies comparing the life cycle costs of plastic and alternative materials, and noting that from a climate change perspective, plastic comes out ahead in most analyses, but that plastic has much larger cleanup costs: [0] https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/735848489/plastic-has-a-big-carbon-footprint-but-that-isnt-the-whole-story https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/735848489/plastic-has-a-big-c...