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Plastic recycling seems heavily motivated by emotion and virtue signaling. In reality, only about 5% of our crude oil use goes towards plastic. If we rolled o
by ArkanExplorer 6y ago
Plastic recycling seems heavily motivated by emotion and virtue signaling.
In reality, only about 5% of our crude oil use goes towards plastic.
If we rolled out EVs, and then just burned all the plastic trash (using waste-to-energy plants), we would still be far ahead.
The biggest challenges with plastics are hormone disruption, and microplastics (particularly in the 3rd world without sufficient landfill or W2E infrastructure or societal environmental concern). If these new plastics are less molecularly stable, these issues may actually be worsened.
- jariel 6y ago? Oil being used to make plastics was never a problem. Oil is not evil. It's the Co2 bit that's a problem. The problem you missed was at least to some extent recycling: we can't reuse the material at all, and while theoretically burning is practical, we still don't separate everything and burning still leaves a byproduct that has to be buried. I suggest the alternative is going to have to be something that truly disintegrates, i.e. more organic.
- 8note 6y agoBurying it as is makes it a carbon sink. If we take plant, turn them to plastic that doesn't regards quickly, then bury them, we're sequestering that co2
- jariel 6y agoOil for plastic use just is not a CO2 issue, it has nothing to do with sequestration. Oil for plastics is more akin to the use of any other natural resource in a product or good. The above commenter indicated 'issues with extraction', well yes, but we have the same issues with extracting everything else. Also, frankly, most oil extraction is not very damaging directly - if we were only using oil for plastics, we'd probably only use the easiest to access oil, like from the Middle East where we pop a straw in the ground and that's it aside from refining. Burned 'anything' that we put in landfills is actually better than raw garbage as it's considerably reduced and more dense - but it's still landfill. We should strive for a solution that doesn't require landfill.
- gbear605 6y agoOil on its own is still not great, because of the extraction methods that cause environmental harm, but it’s definitely better than the CO2-related issues from burning it.
- AtlasBarfed 6y agoPlastic disposal is a clear example of the failure of current economics. It's clearly bad for the environment and has long term costs, but there basically isn't any way economics to calculate that or incent it to not be done. So IMO, recycling is an exploratory exercise in seeing if we can socially engineer behavior that is "better". The cynic would say "it doesn't", but I could argue civilization is built on short term economic calculations and resulting social/behavioral engineering that makes that impossible. If there was any way to know, I'd be fascinated to see if there are real measurements in the drop in altruism, either from the psychological conditioning of our society, or making altruistic people less able to procreate.
- orev 6y agoThere definitely is a way to deal with this in economics: taxes. If you tax the companies making the plastics, the price will go up, and they have an incentive to do things differently. Taxes are a crucial pillar of even a purely capitalist society, it’s just that they are not easy to implement politically.
- hntrader 6y agoPigovian taxes are my favourite response to environmental damage. In theory, everyone should be on board. The fiscal conservatives should want it, since negative externalities are a violation of the non-aggression principle, and taxes are the least intrusive way to encourage change, it's basically delegating the specifics of the change to the market. It is consistent with their principles to want it. It seems like the easiest way to potentially get the most people on board. I also genuinely believe it's the best solution most of the time. The market is ingenious as long as prices accurately reflect costs and benefits.
- specialist 6y agoI read u/AtlasBarfed's point being that we don't have a proper way to put a price on the externalities. To your point, onerously high taxes could largely remove plastics from the waste stream, mooting the need to determine the cost. I'd like to go even further. Incentives and prizes and grants and whatever-it-takes to find alternatives. eg Bulk pills in plant-based baggies, instead of monthly oversized labeled bottles and caps. Nudge the culture and expectations. Every little bit would help. Because better is better.
- Aunche 6y agoI wish there were more charities focused on building proper waste management infrastructure in developing countries. People don't want to support landfills and incineration, so they would rather support "clever" methods of collecting plastic in the ocean instead, which often end up in landfills anyways.
- ehnto 6y agoMaybe I am just cynical, but I don't believe we will stop polluting the oceans in my life time, so remediation technology is a necessary place to focus.
- cjblomqvist 6y agoDo you have any source for the 5% stat? I don't mistrust you, but it would be nice to "see it with my own eyes" to be confident enough to use it in conversations with others.
- lionsdan 6y ago"Plastics production accounts for about 4 percent of global oil production. That’s according to figures for 2012, so now it may well be higher." https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/How-Much-Crude-Oil-Does-Plastic-Production-Really-Consume.html https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/How-Much-Crude-Oi...
- cjblomqvist 6y agoThank you!
- ArkanExplorer 6y agohttps://www.bpf.co.uk/press/Oil_Consumption https://www.bpf.co.uk/press/Oil_Consumption "In Europe, it is estimated that between 4–6% of oil and gas is used for producing plastics." - British Plastics Federation It varies from country to country, and in the USA natural gas is the primary input instead of oil. Some gas or oil could be consumed by the plant, not actually ending up in the final product.
- cjblomqvist 6y agoThank you!
- jvanderbot 6y agoI believe plastic recycling is not motivated by oil use primarily. I believe it is motivated by trash accumulation in oceans and the food chain (microplastics). There are a ton of areas of the world where plastic just piles up.
- joshspankit 6y agoOff-topic, but sometimes I feel like we could harvest the plastic from the ocean, make plastic bricks, and build millions of houses. Edit: Just to be clear, I’m not trying to say that this is a viable solution to anything, or that it’s a good use of resources based on our current methodologies. I’m more just trying to say that there’s so much raw material out there and that it’s better if it comes out of the ocean. Like, if suddenly we found a non-polluting method to perfectly separate out all the components, then a health-safe chemical mixture with those components that was solid and fireproof (and UV proof), there’s probably enough out there to do something significant with.
- tachyonbeam 6y agoYou certainly could, but you could also build houses out of stone and cement, like they used to do in the old days. Makes for very durable construction.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoBetter to harvest the plastic from the ocean, and power the collection system with the plastic in a plasma gasifier. The slag can be disposed of in the ocean, as its chemically inert.
- mnouquet 6y ago> [...] build millions of houses ... slowly leaching endocrine disruptors in the environment for generations to come.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoThis would also cut reproduction rates, which is not pleasant but is necessary to stop climate change.
- tachyonbeam 6y agoI think we should recycle plastic if we can, or better yet, switch to other materials that are easier to recycle. For example, glass bottles can just be sent back to the factory, washed and reused. This is already done for beer and wine AFAIK. It could be done for milk and every other kind of drinks as well. However, if we fail to recycle plastic, isn't burying plastic in a landfill, in a way, a form of carbon capture? This is that. much less carbon going into the atmosphere. Again, I think we should avoid that if we can, but IMO, not all pollution is an equally serious problem. Reducing CO2 emissions is clearly the number one priority.
- dawnerd 6y agoIf by sent back you mean crushed then yeah sure bottles are reused. Oregon for example breaks the bottles when you return them to prevent fraud.
- tachyonbeam 6y agoThankfully that's not the case everywhere: https://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/2013/06/28/the_average_beer_bottle_is_refilled_15_times_in_its_environmentallyfriendly_life_cycle.html https://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/2013/06/28/the_averag...
- dEnigma 6y agoThat's horrible, if true. Do you have a source for that? A quick Google search didn't get me anywhere. At least here in Austria the glass bottles are actually cleaned and re-used.
- anamexis 6y agoThere isn't really any systematic reuse of glass bottles in the U.S. The only such thing I've encountered is some very niche arrangements between boutique dairy companies and boutique grocery stores, where you can return your $10 quart bottle of milk for the bottle to be reused.
- 6y ago
- 29athrowaway 6y ago> The biggest challenges with plastics are hormone disruption, and microplastics (particularly in the 3rd world without sufficient landfill or W2E infrastructure or societal environmental concern). Do we live on the same planet? The biggest challenges with plastics is the proliferation of plastic pollution.
- legulere 6y agoPlastic consumption is still growing exponentially though while burning oil is declining.
- rahimiali 6y agodisposing of plastics isn't so simple. burning plastic for energy is ok for some plastics, but plastics that contain chlorides produce dangerous gases. we don't have cost effective ways to capture those gases. even if we addressed that issue, the economics of w2e are poorer than those of landfills.
- ramraj07 6y agoCitation? I was told proper incineration can take care of that l.
- chiefalchemist 6y ago> Only about 5% Perhaps. But 5% of gazillions is still bazillions. Bazillions of non-biodegradable goods - many single use - adds up. Forever. Presuming oil follows the same path as coal (i.e., demand collapses and price follows) then plastics will get even cheaper. If we don't find an alternative soon, it might never happen.
- rmason 6y agoI remember a time when everything was paper bags. Groceries and retailers went with plastic because it was cheaper. But with plastic there was a hidden cost. Now we're told we must pay a premium for recyclable plastic. Personally I'd rather pay a premium for paper because it's made from a renewable resource. Plus paper will decompose within two months in nature. The only drawback I can find is that paper bags take more water to produce than plastic. Sitting in a Great Lakes state that problem doesn't bother me.
- JulianMorrison 6y agoPaper bags also turn to mush and spill your groceries when wet.
- rmason 6y agoApparently you've never had a plastic bag break dumping your groceries on the ground. Try chasing rolling bottles of pop going under cars when it's below zero out. Never had that happen with a paper bag.
- JulianMorrison 6y agoI've had both break. Plastic bags tear when overloaded or structurally unsound. Previously sound paper bags become structurally unsound when soaked, and it doesn't take much wet to soak them. (And unhelpfully, the things that could make a paper bag waterproof also make it non biodegradable).
- ramraj07 6y agoAlso not everything can be paper. A coffee cup can never be fully paper, it needs a plastic lining and can thus never be recyclable. Not without it being extremely crappy. No food item can be enclosed in a fully paper enclosure and expected to have a shelf life. And for all the Portlanders saving a plastic bag there's a Texan buying all their drinking water as pallets of disposable single use plastic bottles. I think we should just take the japan route - use plastic, try your best to be judicious and then just incinerate it.
- john_moscow 6y agoEVs still heavily depend on non-recyclable batteries. A much better option would be to get biodiesel to a practical state. So whatever carbon your car releases will get trapped back into another portion of fuel.
- edanm 6y agoBesides all the other great points commenters have raised, I'd like to address this: > If we rolled out EVs, and then just burned all the plastic trash (using waste-to-energy plants), we would still be far ahead. Well yes. But... we're probably not going to just "rolled out EVs" so easily. Every step will most likely seem small, because it will be, because that's the only thing we can realistically, politically do. But that doesn't make it not worth doing. We may as well say "if we just stopped using electricity we'd be way ahead". Not a good basis for comparison, and even if it were, it's still only like 20%-30% percent of oil use (off the top of my head), so even that won't unilaterally solve all problems.
- enchiridion 6y agoI get your point, but no. This is the type of thinking that led to the stagnation of the auto industry. Why not roll out EVs that easily? The most profitable case company is doing it.... why would anyone go anything else?
- edanm 6y ago> I get your point, but no. This is the type of thinking that led to the stagnation of the auto industry. I'm sorry, I don't follow. In what way? > Why not roll out EVs that easily? The most profitable case company is doing it.... why would anyone go anything else? I'm all in favor of rolling out EVs. I'm in favor of new technical innovations. I'm in favor of better regulations. In short, I'm in favor of doing many things at once to combat one of our biggest emergencies.
- TedShiller 6y agoHave you seen what lithium mining does to the earth? If you haven’t, I suggest you check it out. EV cars are not the answer.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jbay808 6y agoHow does it compare with other types of mining, such as coal mining, uranium mining, or the Alberta tar sands?
- TedShiller 6y agoGood question. It may be hard to quantify. The only thing that's clear is you wouldn't want to physically live near any of those areas.
- pozazumi 6y agoWould this be a better use of plastics? https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-bricks-in-kenya-2650645441.html https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-bricks-in-kenya-2650645441....
- globular-toast 6y agoHave you never come across an area with heavy plastic pollution during your explorations? Seeing it makes me sad and motivates me to reduce my own plastic usage. I also actively pick up waste as part of my civic duty. Having said that, plastic recycling is bullshit. You can't recycle plastic. You can recycle steel and glass. A can can be turned into a new can. But the plastic around meat will never be turned into a new plastic around meat. That's not recycling. Glass is even better as it can be reused. No need for expensive recycling. Plastic can't be recycled so it just needs to be reduced. There are so many easy ways to do this that don't take a genius to figure out. It's just a matter of forcing the supermarkets etc to care about it.
- hannob 6y ago> In reality, only about 5% of our crude oil use goes towards plastic. This is such a dangerous take, and so popular. If we want to fix climate change we need to get rid of emissions in all sectors (and yes, plastic does create emissions, both in the refinery process and later on landfills and in incinerators). It's not a reasonable strategy to only focus on the large and easy to fix emission sources. Plastic is a hard to fix sector, and it's unfortunate that developments to decarbonize it have barely started.
- Sonnen 6y agoSo? Peopel should start stopping research on plastic alternatives? Probably not right? I don't think you can translate their research to saving oil through ev cars. And i think we should just do both. I'm able to advocate for less production of plastic and EV use and less driving around for nothing.