8 ms·

Michigan asphalt company paves first US public roads containing recycled plastic

80 points by rmason 6y ago

threatofrain 6y ago
Is there discussion on the lifecycle of this plastic?
- agilob 6y ago
  Probably one winter?
chha 6y ago
They mention this as a way to recycle plastics, but for me this seems like a perfect way to get lots of tiny plastic particles out and into the environment once the road starts to wear.
- hellow0rldz 6y ago
  Breathable micro-plastics doesn't sound nice.
  - shoto_io 6y ago
    I thought that’s happening anyways because we burn most of the plastic waste?
    - kzrdude 6y ago
      In a proper incineration plant it's so hot that there is no microplastics left over
      - shoto_io 6y ago
        But where does it go then? What’s the chemical reaction? Is there only CO2 and water left then?
        leipert 6y ago
        Not an expert, but I assume remaining particles are filtered from the exhaust fumes and/or remain part of the remaining sludge. Pyrolysis seems also like a thing that hopefully becomes viable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
        Tuna-Fish 6y ago
        Mostly, yeah. Of course polyamides also produce some nitrogen compounds and PVC also produces HCl that you have to deal with, etc. But generally, plastics are very complex long-chain carbohydrates. Burning them at low temperatures produces all kinds of partially combusted horrible byproducts, but properly incinerating them results in just water and CO2.
        m4rtink 6y ago
        I visited an incineration plan once and they showed how the make really sure the temperature is over 900 degrees Celsius st all times so that plastics and biological toxins are properly destroyed. They also make sure there is lots of air available to the combustion process and thats done in an interesting way. They draw it in via the waste storage bunker solving two issues at once - the stinky air from all the waste gets effectively burned and the bunker is kept as negative air pressure so the smell doesn't get out. And of course all the exhaust gases pass via a sophisticated fikter plant.
        zo1 6y ago
        Aren't we then shooting ourselves in the foot then by being scared of burning trash/plastic waste? As an interim before solving all plastic waste, it seems like a much better solution than just stacking plastic into giant dumps.
        imtringued 6y ago
        You have to capture the CO2 and then figure out how to store it or turn it into pure Carbon and then you still have to landfill that.
- tlrobinson 6y ago
  This was my first thought as well. I’d rather discarded plastics be concentrated in dumps than thinly spread across the land.
  - imhoguy 6y ago
    Or why not use it just to make fundaments, underground insulation or just a ground water barrier. My understanding is that the underground environment causes less degradation to plastics than a one exposed to sun and constant friction.
    - canadianfella 6y ago
      What is a fundament?
    - amelius 6y ago
      But might affect ground water quality.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  Micro plastics are terrifying, but I’m trying to think why exactly. If the road is shedding plastic dust along with the ground full of insoluble things like tar, rock, pebbles and stone; what’s a tiny particle of plastic any different from a grain of sand? I’m not asserting that micro plastics aren’t bad, just trying to understand what are the risks compared to a lot of dirt around us. I think dust on microscopic scale is inorganic insoluble solid particles and we seem to breathe/eat this stuff with no issue. Are polymers any different than dust particles when it comes to risks to humans in inhaling and ingesting it? Is it something else?
  - creshal 6y ago
    Microplastics can penetrate various biological barriers that were designed to keep dust etc. out. These biological barriers are already not perfect, things like heavy metals (lead, cadmium, …) do the same and can cause massive damages, which is why our only solution is to limit their uses and prevent them from leaking into the environment as much as possible.
    - systemvoltage 6y ago
      TIL, thanks for the insight. It's remarkable already that human body can take so much abuse, and still survive.
      - nosianu 6y ago
        Multicellular organisms are highly parallel, trillions of cells in a human. Even inside a eukaryotic cell (gigantic compared to far smaller bacteria) there is a huge amount of parallelism and non-linearity like in some assembly line. The discussions about some health consequences always come up with "death" as the binary outcome measure. This is so useless. There already is an effect for tiny amounts of molecules. Functions in cells work worse, and cells work worse. This affects all of your functions. Since you are only ever exposed to tiny amounts even when it accumulates - e.g. for heavy metals - all those small problems are either not noticed or attributed to age, which of course also advances. I had the "benefit" of diagnosed mercury poisoning (gray zone - enough to warrant chelation treatment, university clinic researcher doctor who always forgot to send his - very moderate - bills unless I reminded him several times for a year each time, so no over-diagnosis for profit). From a disappearing nodule in my thyroid that I had had for decades, unchanging, that suddenly disappeared within weeks of chelation to the great amazement of an endocrinologist who had recommended surgery and who ultra-sounded me twice because he could not believe it, to a huge long list of "minor" ailments that I had increased over the decades and that I had ignored and also attributed to age (I never bothered doctors, far from hypochondriac, never thought much of it), to my returning ability for abstract thought, to digestion going from delayed and stinky to perfect (really), from sleep problems to easy and perfect sleep, to never tired, soooo much went away. With the doctors permission and supervision I chelated far longer and far beyond what would have been justified officially, since it kept helping even though measured amounts were getting really tiny. Only because I saw the contrast, which rarely anyone ever does because for most people it's a very very gradual slope downhill, or they believe it's "genes" or age, do I even consider environmental factors. I once saw a webpage from a decades-long inner medicine clinic doctor who opened a private practice - in which she offered purely psychological bullshit "treatments" that you see from "alternative medicine". Her reasoning, explained on her (old, clinic-time) website: It's either genes or psychology in her clinical experience, meaning you can hardly ever really do anything but mitigation. Environmental factors never entered her mind. (I have no doubt any cases she diagnoses as "real" will be referred to a clinic by her right away, so not critic on her person from me.) Which make sense, because the science behind the many, many each very tiny amounts of chemicals and their influence is very hard. Diagnosing it on an individual level, and not just on a population level (the latter does not help a doctor when there is a concrete patient in front of them), is even harder. So as a public health administrator allocating funds I perfectly understand why it flies under the radar. Because individual doctors working with individual patients can't really do much of anything. That is then equated with "there is no problem" (or they would do something about it). Oh and the "they didn't die so it can't be so bad" attitude. . Oh and by the way, completely non-scientific and my opinion after watching myself through many boring cycles: - The common cold helps "getting stuff out". Significantly. I now wonder if eradicating it will have worse long-term outcomes for other issues. Also, not taking medicine to lower the symptoms for example for a good nights sleep might actually be better, the symptoms are part of that "getting stuff out". Yes it's very uncomfortable. It's horrible if you have to get up and go to work the next day. - The best treatment by far are low stress (no alarms to wake you up to go to work when you would still sleep), sleep, rest as needed (during the day, just lying down and letting the mind go off somewhere - no reading or listening, the brain has to have "free time" to do things on its own - work from home is best!), walking (needed to get things moving, from my body experience the normal blood and ECF circulation is not sufficient. - Changing sides left/right/left/right/... "I cannot find sleep" actually already is part of the brain's cleanup cycle! A lot of time spend in that phase may be an indicator that there is quite a bit. Clearly, having to get up for an early commute the next day adds stress and makes this hard to bear. But I recommend to accept it. It's a natural reaction, not something that should be suppressed. Yes it makes nights "work". - The last 1-2 hours of sleep, that some (many) people find makes them more sleepy and groggy, are essential (okay, all phases are, but that's the one people like to skip). - Being groggy after an afternoon nap is the same. Part of "getting stuff out". You can call me out on any of this and I have no way to contradict you apart from anecdotes without any scientific value (nothing was measured, for example).
- natmaka 6y ago
  Ready for another batch of "Scientists tracked down a mass killer of $SOMETHING"? See for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25431550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25431550
  - virtue3 6y ago
    yeah... you're not wrong. Plastics are basically organic compounds and they screw around with organisms very easily. Tho asphalt is already made with bitumen (a petroleum product) so it's not like it's THAT much different. Hopefully we aren't concentrating even more problematic compounds than what already existing in the asphalt.
    - gruez 6y ago
      >Tho asphalt is already made with bitumen (a petroleum product) so it's not like it's THAT much different. Plastics generate microplastics. Does bitumen generate microbitumen?
      - thatcat 6y ago
        Does bitumen bioaccumulate into food supplies? Why compare the two?
        gilbetron 6y ago
        Here's one thesis that claims it probably does not: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20366224.pdf https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20366224.pdf
        8bitsrule 6y ago
        Ran into this interesting factoid a couple days back: "Kerogen is solid, insoluble organic matter in sedimentary rocks. Consisting of an estimated 10^16 tons of carbon, it is the most abundant source of organic compounds on earth, exceeding the total organic content of living matter 10,000-fold.... Petroleum and natural gas form from kerogen. Kerogen may be classified by its origin: lacustrine (e.g., algal), marine (e.g., planktonic), and terrestrial (e.g., pollen and spores).... Kerogen is insoluble in normal organic solvents in part because of its high molecular weight of its component compounds. The soluble portion is known as bitumen." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerogen] All from the same (previously locked-up) family of goodies, it seems.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Roads already have a lot of tire dust due to tire wear, I don't think this will be a significant extra source of pollution. > The polymer solves a longstanding problem that the asphalt industry has encountered since the first attempts at using recycled plastics in roads, namely how plastic separates once it's melted into the hot asphalt.
- shoto_io 6y ago
  I knew that this sort of comment was on top when I clicked the comment section :-) PS: I’m not saying it’s wrong, it’s just fits the HN sentiment perfectly.
  - Jemm 6y ago
    The article states that there is no advantage to the paving by having plastic mixed in. This begs the question why, other than landfill diversion of plastics, replace aggregate with plastic?
    - loonster 6y ago
      Greenwashing.
- thereare5lights 6y ago
  It's already everywhere https://www.wired.com/story/plastic-rain-is-the-new-acid-rain/ https://www.wired.com/story/plastic-rain-is-the-new-acid-rai...
  - anakaine 6y ago
    Quantity and dosage also matter.
- spodek 6y ago
  Future generations will see our use of plastic like we see asbestos, HCFCs, and leaded gasoline. Nobody denies its utility. It just kills people and wildlife. Once we ban at least single-use plastic we'll recoil with horror at what we did and how long we took after realizing what we were doing to stop ourselves.
  - thathndude 6y ago
    I’ve recently come to see this truth. Like reading the vintage ads recommending cocaine to help your tooth ache. I just hope the future finds a way to undo so much of the damage.
    - freeflight 6y ago
      > Like reading the vintage ads recommending cocaine to help your tooth ache. Cocaine didn't result in large scale environmental damage, to this day it's still in widespread medical use as a local anesthetic. Imho a much more apt example would be something like "plutonium toothpaste" and the fact how humanity has irreversibly changed Earths biosphere by introducing large quantities of atmospheric plutonium 239 during the countless nuclear weapon tests [0]. Any acknowledgement of potential deadly consequences out of that mostly exist in some fringe awareness [1], and pretty much never comes up in any debates around the risks and dangers of nuclear as a source of energy generation. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0096340215581357 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0096340215581357 [1] https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civilians-on-a-scale-comparable-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/ https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civi...
    - spodek 6y ago
      > I just hope the future finds a way to undo so much of the damage. Future? We can undo it now -- just with life improvements and simplifications, I've dropped my emissions 90%, according to online calculators. I take two years to fill a load of trash at home, which used to be weekly. Many other changes. And one person changing is exactly what causes more people to change. As a result, Mayors, Congressmembers, and other politicians, CEOs, champion athletes, and more have come on my podcast, helping lead large communities. The Hacker News community is particularly recalcitrant, believing that Mars and fusion are simple and will solve everything while flying less or having fewer children is against human nature and solve nothing, but there's variation. Systemic change begins with personal transformation.
creshal 6y ago
So are we just going to ignore all the evidence on the harms of microplastics?
- tomovo 6y ago
  Where do you think your tire treads go?
  - mparlane 6y ago
    Is rubber considered a microplastic? edit: oh no, tyres use 24% synthetic rubber (which is a plastic polymer) :(
    - Sharlin 6y ago
      Yes, vehicle tires are a big source of microplastics.
    - aitchnyu 6y ago
      Is there any research how to make tires shed less plastic and carbon black?
  - detaro 6y ago
    So because roads already involve microplastics, we don't have to care about there being even more?
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
    We have an easy and better alternative to plastics road but we dont fore tire, so there's that.
terminalserver 6y ago
There’s already significant questions about playgrounds covered with recycled rubber and the suggestion that sports fields covered with such materials generate black cancerous dust. I really would not want to live in a street paved with recycled plastics being ground into dust and distributed into the local environment. All you’ll hear though about this sort of thing is how wonderful it is that use is being found for waste plastics. I’d say “who are the companies financing these initiatives? Are they plastics manufacturers?” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/25/lawmakers-concerned-chemicals-rubber-playgrounds-push-safety-rules https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/25/lawmakers-co... Plastics are being incorporated into roads everywhere. It’s the next asbestos disaster and it’s completely obvious it’s coming.
- imhoguy 6y ago
  I was playing on outdoor soccer field with artificial grass filled with lots of shredded rubber. When it got hot outside it was like plaing on tire dump and the smell made me sick.
- briefcomment 6y ago
  Repurposing things should come with high scrutiny and strict regulations. Seed oils were repurposed from varnishes to be “healthy fats” when petroleum based varnishes took market share, to likely devastating effect. “50 years ago, paints and varnishes were made of soy oil, safflower oil, and linseed (flax seed) oil. Then chemists learned how to make paint from petroleum, which was much cheaper. As a result, the huge seed oil industry found its crop increasingly hard to sell. Around the same time, farmers were experimenting with poisons to make their pigs get fatter with less food, and they discovered that corn and soy beans served the purpose, in a legal way. The crops that had been grown for the paint industry came to be used for animal food. Then these foods that made animals get fat cheaply came to be promoted as foods for humans, but they had to direct attention away from the fact that they are very fattening. The "cholesterol" focus was just one of the marketing tools used by the oil industry. Unfortunately it is the one that has lasted the longest, even after the unsaturated oils were proven to cause heart disease as well as cancer.” [1] Recycled toilet paper uses materials high in BPA. [1] https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturated-oils.shtml https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturated-oils.shtml
livinginfear 6y ago
I care very deeply about the degree of harm done to living creatures by the exposure to toxic chemicals used in everyday products. Recycling plastic waste is indeed a good thing, however it's more pressing that we reconsider the safe use of plastics entirely. The road surface is subject to all manner of environmental exposure, and is a very direct vector into our drinking water.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  > Recycling plastic waste is indeed a good thing Is it? It seems increasingly like it isn't, it's just that we've now got entire generations of people for whom this idea is an article of faith. We were raised on a steady diet of greenwashing. We've been hearing it on a regular basis, from authoritative sounding sources, for so long - perhaps since before we can remember - that it's hard to imagine it not being true.
  - livinginfear 6y ago
    I'll further qualify my statement: "Recycling plastic waste _would be_ a good thing if it existed in some feasible, safe form".
throwaway932234 6y ago
I assume everyone is correct with their justification about microplastic fears. Every once in a while I wonder how much better everyones health would be if society greatly restricted automobiles and public transport including the structure of where everyone lives was being better engineered to handle multiple trains stopping periodically at walking distance of businesses and homes.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  > Every once in a while I wonder how much better everyones health would be if society greatly restricted automobiles and public transport The only large scale test of this I know of has been covid lockdowns, and, to an extent, 11 September 2001 air travel pauses. The effects were striking and the environment benefitted. There are plenty of downsides too, but it sure got me thinking.
anfilt 6y ago
What's wrong with asphalt it's already quite recyleable
- Black101 6y ago
  cracks and potholes form very quickly... unlike the plastic version according to this article: https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-kilometre-india-20274/ https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-ki...
tomovo 6y ago
Quote in the article: “It was neat to be on the forefront of something new” Wikipedia: "In December 2019, India has built 21,000 miles of roads using plastic waste" Different technology?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ejb999 6y ago
the bike trail nearest me, when it first opened, proudly proclaimed about all the recycled glass that was used to make the trail....until - surprise surprise - cyclists started getting flat tires from the pavement. Who could have predicted that?
- terminalserver 6y ago
  It’s not the epic stupidity that bothers me - it’s the fact that it’s self evident - that’s what really bothers me. It’s blindingly obvious this is a really bad idea. What is so great about putting waste in surfaces that is driving this foolish rush to environmental disaster? When something obviously stupid is happening and you just can’t see why, sniff to smell who’s money is behind it. Actually the epic stupidity does bother me.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  This is quite funny, thanks for sharing. Part of me thinks this comes from the juvenile way that recycling is taught in our schools. Kids don’t leave with a good understanding of the conservation of mass/energy; everything we have around us is made from the earth, our goal has to be getting it back into the earth in as gentle a way as possible.
msravi 6y ago
India has been doing this since Nov-2015, when the central government made it mandatory for road-layers to use plastic waste. As of Oct-2018, 100,000 kms of roads had been constructed using plastic waste. https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-kilometre-india-20274/ https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-ki...
nachteilig 6y ago
This really drives me nuts. How can it possibly be a good idea to introduce plastic in to the environment, even in the name of “recycling”? And it’s not like Dow has the world’s best record with environmental topics.
layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
Holy crap, this is a pretty stupid idea considering the UV damage and abrasion that road surfaces have to endure.
spodek 6y ago
Want a great green infrastructure project? Start taking down highways and roads. Don't build new ones or put plastic on old ones. Building roads leads people to adjust and fill them with congestion. People will adjust to fewer roads too. The project will produce short-term jobs and long-term savings.
peanut_worm 6y ago
I fully expect millenials and zoomers to all die at 50-60 years old from all the plastic we consume
- terminalserver 6y ago
  They won’t die, they’ll solidify into mannequins.
egberts1 6y ago
Roman workers with no degree made the roads last longer than 2,000 years, until the engineers came along. (No puns, no sarcasm, just being sardonic)
- amelius 6y ago
  Yes, we should pave our highways with cobblestones. It might help reduce traffic :)
- pixl97 6y ago
  Right and at 20 million per roadway mile we couldn't afford a billion miles of them. This also ignores all the Roman roads that no longer exist.
williesleg 6y ago
The news here is michigan actually paving a road! Now there's a story!
whalesalad 6y ago
As a resident of Michigan this road will be destroyed and needing replacement in approximately 8 months.
- Black101 6y ago
  Apparently they are more durable then traditional pavements (if similar to https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-kilometre-india-20274/ https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-ki...)
  - whalesalad 6y ago
    I was being a little sarcastic, based on how horrible the roads are here. I wish they were engineered for longevity - if the plastic helps I’m all for it.
stevespang 6y ago
Perfect way for car tires to wear down the road, accelerating the grinding of those plastic particles to micro-plastics. "Ignorance is bliss".
meristohm 6y ago
> It used to be that when dead animals were incinerated, the resulting black ash was mixed with bitumen and used as road surfacing. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/13/the-knacker-the-toughest-job-in-british-farming https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/13/the-knac...

80 points by rmason 6y ago

threatofrain 6y ago

Is there discussion on the lifecycle of this plastic?

agilob 6y ago
Probably one winter?

chha 6y ago

They mention this as a way to recycle plastics, but for me this seems like a perfect way to get lots of tiny plastic particles out and into the environment once the road starts to wear.

hellow0rldz 6y ago
Breathable micro-plastics doesn't sound nice.
- shoto_io 6y ago
  I thought that’s happening anyways because we burn most of the plastic waste?
  - kzrdude 6y ago
    In a proper incineration plant it's so hot that there is no microplastics left over
    - shoto_io 6y ago
      But where does it go then? What’s the chemical reaction? Is there only CO2 and water left then?
      - leipert 6y ago
        Not an expert, but I assume remaining particles are filtered from the exhaust fumes and/or remain part of the remaining sludge. Pyrolysis seems also like a thing that hopefully becomes viable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
      - Tuna-Fish 6y ago
        Mostly, yeah. Of course polyamides also produce some nitrogen compounds and PVC also produces HCl that you have to deal with, etc. But generally, plastics are very complex long-chain carbohydrates. Burning them at low temperatures produces all kinds of partially combusted horrible byproducts, but properly incinerating them results in just water and CO2.
        m4rtink 6y ago
        I visited an incineration plan once and they showed how the make really sure the temperature is over 900 degrees Celsius st all times so that plastics and biological toxins are properly destroyed. They also make sure there is lots of air available to the combustion process and thats done in an interesting way. They draw it in via the waste storage bunker solving two issues at once - the stinky air from all the waste gets effectively burned and the bunker is kept as negative air pressure so the smell doesn't get out. And of course all the exhaust gases pass via a sophisticated fikter plant.
        zo1 6y ago
        Aren't we then shooting ourselves in the foot then by being scared of burning trash/plastic waste? As an interim before solving all plastic waste, it seems like a much better solution than just stacking plastic into giant dumps.
        imtringued 6y ago
        You have to capture the CO2 and then figure out how to store it or turn it into pure Carbon and then you still have to landfill that.
tlrobinson 6y ago
This was my first thought as well. I’d rather discarded plastics be concentrated in dumps than thinly spread across the land.
- imhoguy 6y ago
  Or why not use it just to make fundaments, underground insulation or just a ground water barrier. My understanding is that the underground environment causes less degradation to plastics than a one exposed to sun and constant friction.
  - canadianfella 6y ago
    What is a fundament?
  - amelius 6y ago
    But might affect ground water quality.
systemvoltage 6y ago
Micro plastics are terrifying, but I’m trying to think why exactly. If the road is shedding plastic dust along with the ground full of insoluble things like tar, rock, pebbles and stone; what’s a tiny particle of plastic any different from a grain of sand? I’m not asserting that micro plastics aren’t bad, just trying to understand what are the risks compared to a lot of dirt around us. I think dust on microscopic scale is inorganic insoluble solid particles and we seem to breathe/eat this stuff with no issue. Are polymers any different than dust particles when it comes to risks to humans in inhaling and ingesting it? Is it something else?
- creshal 6y ago
  Microplastics can penetrate various biological barriers that were designed to keep dust etc. out. These biological barriers are already not perfect, things like heavy metals (lead, cadmium, …) do the same and can cause massive damages, which is why our only solution is to limit their uses and prevent them from leaking into the environment as much as possible.
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    TIL, thanks for the insight. It's remarkable already that human body can take so much abuse, and still survive.
    - nosianu 6y ago
      Multicellular organisms are highly parallel, trillions of cells in a human. Even inside a eukaryotic cell (gigantic compared to far smaller bacteria) there is a huge amount of parallelism and non-linearity like in some assembly line. The discussions about some health consequences always come up with "death" as the binary outcome measure. This is so useless. There already is an effect for tiny amounts of molecules. Functions in cells work worse, and cells work worse. This affects all of your functions. Since you are only ever exposed to tiny amounts even when it accumulates - e.g. for heavy metals - all those small problems are either not noticed or attributed to age, which of course also advances. I had the "benefit" of diagnosed mercury poisoning (gray zone - enough to warrant chelation treatment, university clinic researcher doctor who always forgot to send his - very moderate - bills unless I reminded him several times for a year each time, so no over-diagnosis for profit). From a disappearing nodule in my thyroid that I had had for decades, unchanging, that suddenly disappeared within weeks of chelation to the great amazement of an endocrinologist who had recommended surgery and who ultra-sounded me twice because he could not believe it, to a huge long list of "minor" ailments that I had increased over the decades and that I had ignored and also attributed to age (I never bothered doctors, far from hypochondriac, never thought much of it), to my returning ability for abstract thought, to digestion going from delayed and stinky to perfect (really), from sleep problems to easy and perfect sleep, to never tired, soooo much went away. With the doctors permission and supervision I chelated far longer and far beyond what would have been justified officially, since it kept helping even though measured amounts were getting really tiny. Only because I saw the contrast, which rarely anyone ever does because for most people it's a very very gradual slope downhill, or they believe it's "genes" or age, do I even consider environmental factors. I once saw a webpage from a decades-long inner medicine clinic doctor who opened a private practice - in which she offered purely psychological bullshit "treatments" that you see from "alternative medicine". Her reasoning, explained on her (old, clinic-time) website: It's either genes or psychology in her clinical experience, meaning you can hardly ever really do anything but mitigation. Environmental factors never entered her mind. (I have no doubt any cases she diagnoses as "real" will be referred to a clinic by her right away, so not critic on her person from me.) Which make sense, because the science behind the many, many each very tiny amounts of chemicals and their influence is very hard. Diagnosing it on an individual level, and not just on a population level (the latter does not help a doctor when there is a concrete patient in front of them), is even harder. So as a public health administrator allocating funds I perfectly understand why it flies under the radar. Because individual doctors working with individual patients can't really do much of anything. That is then equated with "there is no problem" (or they would do something about it). Oh and the "they didn't die so it can't be so bad" attitude. . Oh and by the way, completely non-scientific and my opinion after watching myself through many boring cycles: - The common cold helps "getting stuff out". Significantly. I now wonder if eradicating it will have worse long-term outcomes for other issues. Also, not taking medicine to lower the symptoms for example for a good nights sleep might actually be better, the symptoms are part of that "getting stuff out". Yes it's very uncomfortable. It's horrible if you have to get up and go to work the next day. - The best treatment by far are low stress (no alarms to wake you up to go to work when you would still sleep), sleep, rest as needed (during the day, just lying down and letting the mind go off somewhere - no reading or listening, the brain has to have "free time" to do things on its own - work from home is best!), walking (needed to get things moving, from my body experience the normal blood and ECF circulation is not sufficient. - Changing sides left/right/left/right/... "I cannot find sleep" actually already is part of the brain's cleanup cycle! A lot of time spend in that phase may be an indicator that there is quite a bit. Clearly, having to get up for an early commute the next day adds stress and makes this hard to bear. But I recommend to accept it. It's a natural reaction, not something that should be suppressed. Yes it makes nights "work". - The last 1-2 hours of sleep, that some (many) people find makes them more sleepy and groggy, are essential (okay, all phases are, but that's the one people like to skip). - Being groggy after an afternoon nap is the same. Part of "getting stuff out". You can call me out on any of this and I have no way to contradict you apart from anecdotes without any scientific value (nothing was measured, for example).
natmaka 6y ago
Ready for another batch of "Scientists tracked down a mass killer of $SOMETHING"? See for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25431550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25431550
- virtue3 6y ago
  yeah... you're not wrong. Plastics are basically organic compounds and they screw around with organisms very easily. Tho asphalt is already made with bitumen (a petroleum product) so it's not like it's THAT much different. Hopefully we aren't concentrating even more problematic compounds than what already existing in the asphalt.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >Tho asphalt is already made with bitumen (a petroleum product) so it's not like it's THAT much different. Plastics generate microplastics. Does bitumen generate microbitumen?
    - thatcat 6y ago
      Does bitumen bioaccumulate into food supplies? Why compare the two?
      - gilbetron 6y ago
        Here's one thesis that claims it probably does not: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20366224.pdf https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20366224.pdf
      - 8bitsrule 6y ago
        Ran into this interesting factoid a couple days back: "Kerogen is solid, insoluble organic matter in sedimentary rocks. Consisting of an estimated 10^16 tons of carbon, it is the most abundant source of organic compounds on earth, exceeding the total organic content of living matter 10,000-fold.... Petroleum and natural gas form from kerogen. Kerogen may be classified by its origin: lacustrine (e.g., algal), marine (e.g., planktonic), and terrestrial (e.g., pollen and spores).... Kerogen is insoluble in normal organic solvents in part because of its high molecular weight of its component compounds. The soluble portion is known as bitumen." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerogen] All from the same (previously locked-up) family of goodies, it seems.
deleted 6y ago
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raverbashing 6y ago
Roads already have a lot of tire dust due to tire wear, I don't think this will be a significant extra source of pollution. > The polymer solves a longstanding problem that the asphalt industry has encountered since the first attempts at using recycled plastics in roads, namely how plastic separates once it's melted into the hot asphalt.
shoto_io 6y ago
I knew that this sort of comment was on top when I clicked the comment section :-) PS: I’m not saying it’s wrong, it’s just fits the HN sentiment perfectly.
- Jemm 6y ago
  The article states that there is no advantage to the paving by having plastic mixed in. This begs the question why, other than landfill diversion of plastics, replace aggregate with plastic?
  - loonster 6y ago
    Greenwashing.
thereare5lights 6y ago
It's already everywhere https://www.wired.com/story/plastic-rain-is-the-new-acid-rain/ https://www.wired.com/story/plastic-rain-is-the-new-acid-rai...
- anakaine 6y ago
  Quantity and dosage also matter.
spodek 6y ago
Future generations will see our use of plastic like we see asbestos, HCFCs, and leaded gasoline. Nobody denies its utility. It just kills people and wildlife. Once we ban at least single-use plastic we'll recoil with horror at what we did and how long we took after realizing what we were doing to stop ourselves.
- thathndude 6y ago
  I’ve recently come to see this truth. Like reading the vintage ads recommending cocaine to help your tooth ache. I just hope the future finds a way to undo so much of the damage.
  - freeflight 6y ago
    > Like reading the vintage ads recommending cocaine to help your tooth ache. Cocaine didn't result in large scale environmental damage, to this day it's still in widespread medical use as a local anesthetic. Imho a much more apt example would be something like "plutonium toothpaste" and the fact how humanity has irreversibly changed Earths biosphere by introducing large quantities of atmospheric plutonium 239 during the countless nuclear weapon tests [0]. Any acknowledgement of potential deadly consequences out of that mostly exist in some fringe awareness [1], and pretty much never comes up in any debates around the risks and dangers of nuclear as a source of energy generation. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0096340215581357 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0096340215581357 [1] https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civilians-on-a-scale-comparable-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/ https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civi...
  - spodek 6y ago
    > I just hope the future finds a way to undo so much of the damage. Future? We can undo it now -- just with life improvements and simplifications, I've dropped my emissions 90%, according to online calculators. I take two years to fill a load of trash at home, which used to be weekly. Many other changes. And one person changing is exactly what causes more people to change. As a result, Mayors, Congressmembers, and other politicians, CEOs, champion athletes, and more have come on my podcast, helping lead large communities. The Hacker News community is particularly recalcitrant, believing that Mars and fusion are simple and will solve everything while flying less or having fewer children is against human nature and solve nothing, but there's variation. Systemic change begins with personal transformation.

creshal 6y ago

So are we just going to ignore all the evidence on the harms of microplastics?

tomovo 6y ago
Where do you think your tire treads go?
- mparlane 6y ago
  Is rubber considered a microplastic? edit: oh no, tyres use 24% synthetic rubber (which is a plastic polymer) :(
  - Sharlin 6y ago
    Yes, vehicle tires are a big source of microplastics.
  - aitchnyu 6y ago
    Is there any research how to make tires shed less plastic and carbon black?
- detaro 6y ago
  So because roads already involve microplastics, we don't have to care about there being even more?
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
  We have an easy and better alternative to plastics road but we dont fore tire, so there's that.

terminalserver 6y ago

There’s already significant questions about playgrounds covered with recycled rubber and the suggestion that sports fields covered with such materials generate black cancerous dust. I really would not want to live in a street paved with recycled plastics being ground into dust and distributed into the local environment. All you’ll hear though about this sort of thing is how wonderful it is that use is being found for waste plastics. I’d say “who are the companies financing these initiatives? Are they plastics manufacturers?” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/25/lawmakers-concerned-chemicals-rubber-playgrounds-push-safety-rules https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/25/lawmakers-co... Plastics are being incorporated into roads everywhere. It’s the next asbestos disaster and it’s completely obvious it’s coming.

imhoguy 6y ago
I was playing on outdoor soccer field with artificial grass filled with lots of shredded rubber. When it got hot outside it was like plaing on tire dump and the smell made me sick.
briefcomment 6y ago
Repurposing things should come with high scrutiny and strict regulations. Seed oils were repurposed from varnishes to be “healthy fats” when petroleum based varnishes took market share, to likely devastating effect. “50 years ago, paints and varnishes were made of soy oil, safflower oil, and linseed (flax seed) oil. Then chemists learned how to make paint from petroleum, which was much cheaper. As a result, the huge seed oil industry found its crop increasingly hard to sell. Around the same time, farmers were experimenting with poisons to make their pigs get fatter with less food, and they discovered that corn and soy beans served the purpose, in a legal way. The crops that had been grown for the paint industry came to be used for animal food. Then these foods that made animals get fat cheaply came to be promoted as foods for humans, but they had to direct attention away from the fact that they are very fattening. The "cholesterol" focus was just one of the marketing tools used by the oil industry. Unfortunately it is the one that has lasted the longest, even after the unsaturated oils were proven to cause heart disease as well as cancer.” [1] Recycled toilet paper uses materials high in BPA. [1] https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturated-oils.shtml https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturated-oils.shtml

livinginfear 6y ago

I care very deeply about the degree of harm done to living creatures by the exposure to toxic chemicals used in everyday products. Recycling plastic waste is indeed a good thing, however it's more pressing that we reconsider the safe use of plastics entirely. The road surface is subject to all manner of environmental exposure, and is a very direct vector into our drinking water.

mumblemumble 6y ago
> Recycling plastic waste is indeed a good thing Is it? It seems increasingly like it isn't, it's just that we've now got entire generations of people for whom this idea is an article of faith. We were raised on a steady diet of greenwashing. We've been hearing it on a regular basis, from authoritative sounding sources, for so long - perhaps since before we can remember - that it's hard to imagine it not being true.
- livinginfear 6y ago
  I'll further qualify my statement: "Recycling plastic waste _would be_ a good thing if it existed in some feasible, safe form".

throwaway932234 6y ago

I assume everyone is correct with their justification about microplastic fears. Every once in a while I wonder how much better everyones health would be if society greatly restricted automobiles and public transport including the structure of where everyone lives was being better engineered to handle multiple trains stopping periodically at walking distance of businesses and homes.

lostlogin 6y ago
> Every once in a while I wonder how much better everyones health would be if society greatly restricted automobiles and public transport The only large scale test of this I know of has been covid lockdowns, and, to an extent, 11 September 2001 air travel pauses. The effects were striking and the environment benefitted. There are plenty of downsides too, but it sure got me thinking.

anfilt 6y ago

What's wrong with asphalt it's already quite recyleable

Black101 6y ago
cracks and potholes form very quickly... unlike the plastic version according to this article: https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-kilometre-india-20274/ https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-ki...

tomovo 6y ago

Quote in the article: “It was neat to be on the forefront of something new” Wikipedia: "In December 2019, India has built 21,000 miles of roads using plastic waste" Different technology?

deleted 6y ago
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ejb999 6y ago

the bike trail nearest me, when it first opened, proudly proclaimed about all the recycled glass that was used to make the trail....until - surprise surprise - cyclists started getting flat tires from the pavement. Who could have predicted that?

terminalserver 6y ago
It’s not the epic stupidity that bothers me - it’s the fact that it’s self evident - that’s what really bothers me. It’s blindingly obvious this is a really bad idea. What is so great about putting waste in surfaces that is driving this foolish rush to environmental disaster? When something obviously stupid is happening and you just can’t see why, sniff to smell who’s money is behind it. Actually the epic stupidity does bother me.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
This is quite funny, thanks for sharing. Part of me thinks this comes from the juvenile way that recycling is taught in our schools. Kids don’t leave with a good understanding of the conservation of mass/energy; everything we have around us is made from the earth, our goal has to be getting it back into the earth in as gentle a way as possible.

msravi 6y ago

India has been doing this since Nov-2015, when the central government made it mandatory for road-layers to use plastic waste. As of Oct-2018, 100,000 kms of roads had been constructed using plastic waste. https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-kilometre-india-20274/ https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-ki...

nachteilig 6y ago

This really drives me nuts. How can it possibly be a good idea to introduce plastic in to the environment, even in the name of “recycling”? And it’s not like Dow has the world’s best record with environmental topics.

layoutIfNeeded 6y ago

Holy crap, this is a pretty stupid idea considering the UV damage and abrasion that road surfaces have to endure.

spodek 6y ago

Want a great green infrastructure project? Start taking down highways and roads. Don't build new ones or put plastic on old ones. Building roads leads people to adjust and fill them with congestion. People will adjust to fewer roads too. The project will produce short-term jobs and long-term savings.

peanut_worm 6y ago

I fully expect millenials and zoomers to all die at 50-60 years old from all the plastic we consume

terminalserver 6y ago
They won’t die, they’ll solidify into mannequins.

egberts1 6y ago

Roman workers with no degree made the roads last longer than 2,000 years, until the engineers came along. (No puns, no sarcasm, just being sardonic)

amelius 6y ago
Yes, we should pave our highways with cobblestones. It might help reduce traffic :)
pixl97 6y ago
Right and at 20 million per roadway mile we couldn't afford a billion miles of them. This also ignores all the Roman roads that no longer exist.

williesleg 6y ago

The news here is michigan actually paving a road! Now there's a story!

whalesalad 6y ago

As a resident of Michigan this road will be destroyed and needing replacement in approximately 8 months.

Black101 6y ago
Apparently they are more durable then traditional pavements (if similar to https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-kilometre-india-20274/ https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/plastic-waste-roads-one-lakh-ki...)
- whalesalad 6y ago
  I was being a little sarcastic, based on how horrible the roads are here. I wish they were engineered for longevity - if the plastic helps I’m all for it.

stevespang 6y ago

Perfect way for car tires to wear down the road, accelerating the grinding of those plastic particles to micro-plastics. "Ignorance is bliss".

meristohm 6y ago

> It used to be that when dead animals were incinerated, the resulting black ash was mixed with bitumen and used as road surfacing. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/13/the-knacker-the-toughest-job-in-british-farming https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/13/the-knac...