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Single-use plastic waste is good. It sequesters carbon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wait-plastic-can-be-good-for-the-environment/ https://www.s

Single-use plastic waste is good. It sequesters carbon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wait-plastic-can-be-good-for-the-environment/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wait-plastic-can-...

ComputerGuru 5y ago
False dichotomy. No one is using less gas because we are using single-use plastics. It’s not like gasoline anywhere in the developed world is so expensive (taxes aside, as they are not a matter of supply-and-demand) that if there were less contention from single-use plastics it would be cheaper and people would be buying/burning more.
- nondave 5y ago
  Counterexample: when I used to own a car in the UK, I would absolutely minimise fuel consumption due to cost.
- qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
  The entire field of economics is based on the idea that if you increase the price of something, people will buy less of it. If we increase the demand for plastic, that increases demand for fossil fuels (since fossil fuels are needed to make plastic), which makes the price go up, which means people will buy a bit less fossil fuel to burn in their vehicles etc. Just search for "gas prices" on Google News and you'll see that people are very concerned about the price of gas. Much more than most commodities, actually.
layla5alive 5y ago
We emit >40 Gigatons of CO2 per year. This article is talking about sequestering 10 Gigatons over 30 years inside non-biodegradable plastic waste. That's like trying to plug a fist-sized leak with a toothpick. It's not nothing, but it's not a good excuse to waste more single-use plastic (as you're implying here saying "Single-use plastic waste is 'good'")
- waheoo 5y ago
  There is no silver bullet to solve the CO2 problem but there are many small initiatives that can, in aggregate, make progress. So while this won't solve it on its own, neither will anything else. We need to start doing what we can and stop worrying about whether it will be enough in isolation.
- qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
  >It's not nothing, but it's not a good excuse to waste more single-use plastic (as you're implying here saying "Single-use plastic waste is 'good'") Suppose I get upset about all the fossil fuel which is being burned and decide to do something about it. I buy up fossil fuel and instead of burning it, I sequester it underground in such a way that it can't be used by drilling companies. This seems clearly good for the environment, no? "Wasting" plastic does exactly this. If you buy ordinary non-biodegradable plastic, and dispose of it in the garbage so it goes to the landfill, you are effectively buying up fossil fuel which could have been burned, paying someone to transform it into solid form so it can't easily be used as fuel, and sequestering it underground. Of course it is not a complete solution to global warming. But it is something we should encourage people to do.
  - layla5alive 5y ago
    It costs CO2 to manufacture and transport that plastic. Did you not pay attention to the numbers I quoted for why this isn't a "solution?"
Flashtoo 5y ago
As the linked article admits, it only sequesters carbon if it is plant-based, although I would wager that the production of single use plant-based plastics still results in net positive carbon emissions. Nearly all plastic is not plant-based. Even then, plastic waste is not collected and stored in a responsible manner. It is dumped in whichever way is cheapest and easiest, usually finding its way into nature. The environmental impact of a thing is more than just its carbon footprint.
- qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
  >As the linked article admits, it only sequesters carbon if it is plant-based At the very top: "It’s usually made from petroleum, which is better in a landfill than in a tank of gasoline" "It" being plastic. The common non-plant-based kind. And later: "If we're going to extract carbon from the ground at all, far better that it ends up in a soda bottle that will last 400 years than in the combustion chamber of your car." It's good if there is more demand for non-plant-based plastic, because then we burn less fossil fuel. >It is dumped in whichever way is cheapest and easiest The most common way plastic is disposed of is in a landfill. The carbon is being sequestered underground, in other words.
  - Pfhreak 5y ago
    "It's better dumped in a landfill" is miles away from "sequesters carbon". Pumping oil into a landfill wouldn't be sequestering carbon, so I'm not sure why pumping oil, processing it into plastics, shipping it all over, and then dumping it in a landfill would be.
    - qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
      Global warming is an emergency. Ultimately what matters is minimizing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. You could do that by pumping oil into a landfill in a way that it can't be burned (note that it could be burned in its original state, that's why it was extracted for fuel!), or you could do it by taking CO2 out. CO2 is CO2. You should do whichever will reduce atmospheric CO2 most effectively.
technocratius 5y ago
Your paraphrasing of the source you reference is slightly incomplete/misleading, as the claim pertains to non-biodegradeable bioplastics only. Keep in mind that still significant portions of (fossil based) plastic waste are incinerated as well. And scale matters: in the country where I live roughly 30kg of plastic waste is per person per year. That's in the order of magnitude of a single tank of gas of a small vehicle. In other words: the sustainability problem with current-day plastics is not so much in it's carbon footprint, but more the damaging effect to various ecosystems and human health.
- qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
  >the claim pertains to non-biodegradeable bioplastics only. That's most plastic though. Your average soda bottle is not biodegradable on any meaningful timescale. As the article puts it: "If we're going to extract carbon from the ground at all, far better that it ends up in a soda bottle that will last 400 years than in the combustion chamber of your car."
flukus 5y ago
It sequesters carbon that was already sequestered. Probably emits a non-trivial amount during the extraction, transportation and re-sequestering stages too.
_Microft 5y ago
Storing plastic waste is better than burning it, carbondioxide-wise (not taking into account additives or whatelse can leak out of them). Not making plastics from fossil carbon sources at all is better. Making plastics from non-fossil sources even sequesters carbon but as far as I know, this amount is almost negligible at the moment.

ComputerGuru 5y ago

False dichotomy. No one is using less gas because we are using single-use plastics. It’s not like gasoline anywhere in the developed world is so expensive (taxes aside, as they are not a matter of supply-and-demand) that if there were less contention from single-use plastics it would be cheaper and people would be buying/burning more.

nondave 5y ago
Counterexample: when I used to own a car in the UK, I would absolutely minimise fuel consumption due to cost.
qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
The entire field of economics is based on the idea that if you increase the price of something, people will buy less of it. If we increase the demand for plastic, that increases demand for fossil fuels (since fossil fuels are needed to make plastic), which makes the price go up, which means people will buy a bit less fossil fuel to burn in their vehicles etc. Just search for "gas prices" on Google News and you'll see that people are very concerned about the price of gas. Much more than most commodities, actually.

layla5alive 5y ago

We emit >40 Gigatons of CO2 per year. This article is talking about sequestering 10 Gigatons over 30 years inside non-biodegradable plastic waste. That's like trying to plug a fist-sized leak with a toothpick. It's not nothing, but it's not a good excuse to waste more single-use plastic (as you're implying here saying "Single-use plastic waste is 'good'")

waheoo 5y ago
There is no silver bullet to solve the CO2 problem but there are many small initiatives that can, in aggregate, make progress. So while this won't solve it on its own, neither will anything else. We need to start doing what we can and stop worrying about whether it will be enough in isolation.
qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
>It's not nothing, but it's not a good excuse to waste more single-use plastic (as you're implying here saying "Single-use plastic waste is 'good'") Suppose I get upset about all the fossil fuel which is being burned and decide to do something about it. I buy up fossil fuel and instead of burning it, I sequester it underground in such a way that it can't be used by drilling companies. This seems clearly good for the environment, no? "Wasting" plastic does exactly this. If you buy ordinary non-biodegradable plastic, and dispose of it in the garbage so it goes to the landfill, you are effectively buying up fossil fuel which could have been burned, paying someone to transform it into solid form so it can't easily be used as fuel, and sequestering it underground. Of course it is not a complete solution to global warming. But it is something we should encourage people to do.
- layla5alive 5y ago
  It costs CO2 to manufacture and transport that plastic. Did you not pay attention to the numbers I quoted for why this isn't a "solution?"

Flashtoo 5y ago

As the linked article admits, it only sequesters carbon if it is plant-based, although I would wager that the production of single use plant-based plastics still results in net positive carbon emissions. Nearly all plastic is not plant-based. Even then, plastic waste is not collected and stored in a responsible manner. It is dumped in whichever way is cheapest and easiest, usually finding its way into nature. The environmental impact of a thing is more than just its carbon footprint.

qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
>As the linked article admits, it only sequesters carbon if it is plant-based At the very top: "It’s usually made from petroleum, which is better in a landfill than in a tank of gasoline" "It" being plastic. The common non-plant-based kind. And later: "If we're going to extract carbon from the ground at all, far better that it ends up in a soda bottle that will last 400 years than in the combustion chamber of your car." It's good if there is more demand for non-plant-based plastic, because then we burn less fossil fuel. >It is dumped in whichever way is cheapest and easiest The most common way plastic is disposed of is in a landfill. The carbon is being sequestered underground, in other words.
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  "It's better dumped in a landfill" is miles away from "sequesters carbon". Pumping oil into a landfill wouldn't be sequestering carbon, so I'm not sure why pumping oil, processing it into plastics, shipping it all over, and then dumping it in a landfill would be.
  - qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
    Global warming is an emergency. Ultimately what matters is minimizing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. You could do that by pumping oil into a landfill in a way that it can't be burned (note that it could be burned in its original state, that's why it was extracted for fuel!), or you could do it by taking CO2 out. CO2 is CO2. You should do whichever will reduce atmospheric CO2 most effectively.

technocratius 5y ago

Your paraphrasing of the source you reference is slightly incomplete/misleading, as the claim pertains to non-biodegradeable bioplastics only. Keep in mind that still significant portions of (fossil based) plastic waste are incinerated as well. And scale matters: in the country where I live roughly 30kg of plastic waste is per person per year. That's in the order of magnitude of a single tank of gas of a small vehicle. In other words: the sustainability problem with current-day plastics is not so much in it's carbon footprint, but more the damaging effect to various ecosystems and human health.

qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
>the claim pertains to non-biodegradeable bioplastics only. That's most plastic though. Your average soda bottle is not biodegradable on any meaningful timescale. As the article puts it: "If we're going to extract carbon from the ground at all, far better that it ends up in a soda bottle that will last 400 years than in the combustion chamber of your car."

flukus 5y ago

It sequesters carbon that was already sequestered. Probably emits a non-trivial amount during the extraction, transportation and re-sequestering stages too.

_Microft 5y ago

Storing plastic waste is better than burning it, carbondioxide-wise (not taking into account additives or whatelse can leak out of them). Not making plastics from fossil carbon sources at all is better. Making plastics from non-fossil sources even sequesters carbon but as far as I know, this amount is almost negligible at the moment.