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How do you even reduce it without completely removing plastic from everyday use. Even a long term reusable thing will shade plastic from what it seems like. Wha
by tmd83 6y ago
How do you even reduce it without completely removing plastic from everyday use. Even a long term reusable thing will shade plastic from what it seems like. What happens with other materials that we use like metal, wood, glass, concrete do they shave off particles too or not?
- HPsquared 6y agoIt's all about the waste processing stream, I think. The problem is, nobody treats plastic waste as hazardous.
- neverartful 6y agoWell said, although labeling it as 'hazardous' can be tricky since we don't really understand some of the long-term effects yet.
- falcolas 6y agoThe results from California's prop 65 cancer labels should be kept in mind when trying to label broad classes of objects as hazardous. That is to say, it will be ignored.
- XorNot 6y agoIt's all about dust to dust product design. What is made of what is not clearly marked, not able to be collected as the necessary waste streams to enable proper disposal and recycling.
- abdullahkhalids 6y agoEverything shaves off particles in varying amounts. The question is whether those particles decay on their own, make their way into our food supplies, and how toxic are they. I don't know the quantitative answers to any of these. But I would hazard that wood decays fast; and glass and concrete particles are inert, very similar to soil and not very harmful in the amounts they make into our food supplies. Plastics on the other hand, don't decay, float in water (so easier to spread) and empirically make it into our food supplies. The fear is that they are carcinogenic and cause unwanted hormonal changes.
- amedvednikov 6y agoJust remove it completely. We somehow survived without it 60 years ago.
- umvi 6y agoYeah and 60 years ago we didn't have the robust food supply chain we have now. Plastic is a cheap way to package, transport, and store foods. Without it your options are... glass, metal, wood, ceramic, etc. So "get rid of all plastic" means "jack up the price of all food". This would put us in another situation where the cure is worse than the ill. X people die every year due to microplastics, but abolishing all plastic will probably push hundreds of millions into poverty.
- titzer 6y agoBut mah dollarzes! > but abolishing all plastic will probably push hundreds of millions into poverty. Citation needed. The very poorest people on Earth living subsistence farming and getting all their food from local sources. Plastic packaging is a way of extending the life of food so that supply chains can be lengthened and food can be sourced farther away: read: nice tomatoes in winter. Long supply chains increase industrialization of farming, push the quality of food down, and profits up. Plastic packaging is a western luxury that allows us to live in a smorgasborg of food oversupply uninterrupted by season. While western societies' main health problems stem from obesity, you argue about food packaging, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of plastic waste in the ocean is from one-time use plastics for goodies like Coke bottles, chip bags, candy bar wrappers, straws, etc.
- st1x7 6y agoEven this oversimplification is wrong. Back then we had a bit over a third of the current world population and a much worse standard of living across the globe. Progress is about making good tradeoffs, not about picking perfect solutions. Otherwise your logic could get rid of any innovation by ignoring its benefits and saying "it has some problems so let's get rid of it altogether, we somehow survived without it in the past".
- azornathogron 6y ago
- taneq 6y agoI imagine there’s sand/dust in most tissues to some degree.
- titzer 6y agoLet's start by banning single-use plastics. I know it sounds crazy, but tupperware is a thing. We had ways to distribute, dairy, meat, and all types of food before plastic. But even if we do make use of plastic in the future, we need to rethink how distribution happens instead of just slapping everything in its own plastic bag/box for its entire lifetime. It is entirely thinkable that you bring your own tupperware to the grocery store and fill it up, then bring it home. I've been doing this for years with takeout. People are just lazy and can't plan ahead.
- mekkkkkk 6y agoI agree on single use plastic, but I think paper/cellulose could be used to a much larger extent. People will never adapt to bringing their own containers for everything, but replacing single use plastic with single use (lightly treated) paper would go a long way and seems reasonable.