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Yay, I'm also in favor of heavily taxing the horrible packaging of consumer goods shipped from overseas. I don't have any illusions we can shift mass manufactur

Yay, I'm also in favor of heavily taxing the horrible packaging of consumer goods shipped from overseas. I don't have any illusions we can shift mass manufacturing back to the US, that doesn't make any sense, but I think we should force our suppliers to use more sustainable packaging, even if the prices go up.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Well, if you start enforcing quality standards, suddenly, local products become way more competitive.
radu_floricica 5y ago
1. It's nice of you to be in favor of rising prices you can afford to pay. Wonder how people that are already at the edge of choosing cheaper processed food will feel about it. 2. What's wrong about plastic packaging, exactly? The alternative use for oil is to burn it. Having it do something useful and then get buried doesn't sound so horrible.
- zeta0134 5y ago
  2. Wouldn't the idea here be to reduce the demand for that oil, so that we can slowly work to extract / burn less of it?
  - radu_floricica 5y ago
    Why, exactly? I mean, I totally get why we wouldn't want to burn oil. We breath that air and it increases CO2. But why exactly shouldn't we extract it? After all, you can do a lot of useful things with it. Like, for example, food packaging :) Also half the device you're reading this on, most likely.
    - oneplane 5y ago
      Because it is finite and has a cycle much longer than our generations of humans has. We're essentially creating problems instead of planning ahead. That said, the same can be said for a lot of other thing like natural resources we drain faster than we replace them. Perhaps those can be classified similarly. Beyond the limited availability of resources in the forms what we can make use of them, there is processing of those resources which has its own set of problems, as well as normal use of processed resources and waste management of used resources. Example: Aluminium as we know it takes a lot of energy to get to a state where we have a use for it (parts of machines, or foil for example) but once it is in that state and we treat it properly it can be used and re-used and recycled almost infinitely with comparatively minute amounts of energy. Imagine such a process for other resources where we won't have to constantly input new raw materials and energy to get more of the stuff we want. This is really hard for oil after we have changed it to whatever form we wanted to use it for; turning it back into oil or turning used oil into usable oil isn't exactly a viable process.
- kayone 5y ago
  you do know that no one burns crude oil right? it's not an either burn it or make plastic out of it.
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Oil is extracted from the earth primarily to burn it, such as in automobile engines. The fact that it goes through a refining stage is irrelevant.
- ahevia 5y ago
  2. The alternative could be not using oil at all here. I don’t remember our ancestors needing plastic packaging to eat fruit. Plastic packaging doesn’t always get buried either. Landfills aren’t exactly a solution because of toxins they leech into the surrounding soil. It could end up in bodies of water. It could end up burned in an incinerator which releases the CO2 + volatile organic compounds stored inside it (and volatile organic compounds are quite bad for human health)
  - fouric 5y ago
    Clean incinerators have been around for at least a decade[1] - potentially longer, as the Japanese have been separating out their burnable garbage from non-burnable for years. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/science/earth/13trash.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/science/earth/13trash.htm...
    - ahevia 5y ago
      Hadn’t heard of this. Very cool! Thanks for sharing
      - fouric 5y ago
        You're welcome! And, to be clear, I share many of the concerns that you pointed out in your comment - plastic going into landfills and older, unclean incinerators is a problem, and it can be really hard (if not impossible) to tell its final destination. I just wanted to clarify that (the right) incinerators are a solution for disposal - but it'd be better to not use plastic in the first place (or, at least, not in disposable packaging - long-lived goods like phone cases and Legos are slightly better than one-time-use things like plastic bottles for sodas).
    - stronglikedan 5y ago
      A city near me does this, instead of recycling. Although, they still provide recycling bins, and still ask residents to separate their trash. I presume it's because it makes it easier for them to separate the burnable trash from the "wet" trash.
- aoeusnth1 5y ago
  2. Leave the oil in the ground.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Plastic production has pretty high GHG emissions. I think it's higher than glass for comparable bottles, though I'm not sure about that. But people arguing about landfills are just idiots. Put it in a secure landfill in some geologically stable desert and stop worrying if that's really a problem.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- didntknowya 5y ago
  nothing wrong with plastic. It's an amazing material. But using one-time disposable plastic to carry a banana home from the shop, no matter how convenient, leaves a bad environmental footprint and the microplastics used will persist forever.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  For "2", the answer is "it's complicated". Properly disposed of, minimal plastic packaging can prevent damage and therefore waste, resulting in a smaller environmental footprint than alternatives, including no packaging and reusable materials. The problem is that packaging is not always disposed of properly, and is not always minimal or justified by reasons other than marketing. Also, not all plastics are the same, some are more environmentally friendly than others and you may need more or less of it.
throwaway59553 5y ago
>I don't have any illusions we can shift mass manufacturing back to the US Why do people insist that the thing that allowed the USA to become prosperous and go from a poor former colony of the British Empire to a world power wouldn't be feasible?
- zwieback 5y ago
  You'd have to turn the clock back, when we were industrializing Asia wasn't competing, shipping and communications were expensive, etc. I've heard that for many mass products China can get things onto the shelf for less than US manufacturers would have to pay for raw materials. On that extreme end I just can't imagine us producing those items. Of course it's a sliding scale, I pay a lot more for certain types of goods that are made close to where I live but it seems foolish to extend that approach to everything.
- rented_mule 5y ago
  A big part of what has changed is that much of the innovation in manufacturing has shifted from the ability to mass produce things at all in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (the US did very well at this) to cost optimization in the twenty-first century (China is doing very well at this). I'd say that it's feasible to have mass manufacturing return to the US, but not a mass of manufacturing jobs in the short to medium term. Manufacturing with automation that is cheaper than the world's cheapest labor is feasible in the US. But, until the US standard of living converges with parts of the world that have large, organized sources of cheap labor (today that mostly means Asia), the cost of US labor will not allow competitive prices on manufactured goods. There are partial exceptions to this. For example, it can make sense to do final assembly of cars in the US. This has many reasons... parts can be sourced from all over the world, there has long been investment in automation around auto assembly so the cost of labor is a smaller fraction of the consumer price, shipping cars across oceans is expensive, etc. Even in this example, far less US labor is used in the end to end production of a US assembled car than was the case decades ago.
  - marak830 5y ago
    One question that has been bugging me for a while, what if countries imposed a tax based on minimum wage difference? I realise this is quite a complex question, and I'm sure that there are many reasons why it's a bad idea. Can anyone link me to a good explanation? Economics on this scale is one of my shortfalls of knowledge

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

Well, if you start enforcing quality standards, suddenly, local products become way more competitive.

radu_floricica 5y ago

1. It's nice of you to be in favor of rising prices you can afford to pay. Wonder how people that are already at the edge of choosing cheaper processed food will feel about it. 2. What's wrong about plastic packaging, exactly? The alternative use for oil is to burn it. Having it do something useful and then get buried doesn't sound so horrible.

zeta0134 5y ago
2. Wouldn't the idea here be to reduce the demand for that oil, so that we can slowly work to extract / burn less of it?
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  Why, exactly? I mean, I totally get why we wouldn't want to burn oil. We breath that air and it increases CO2. But why exactly shouldn't we extract it? After all, you can do a lot of useful things with it. Like, for example, food packaging :) Also half the device you're reading this on, most likely.
  - oneplane 5y ago
    Because it is finite and has a cycle much longer than our generations of humans has. We're essentially creating problems instead of planning ahead. That said, the same can be said for a lot of other thing like natural resources we drain faster than we replace them. Perhaps those can be classified similarly. Beyond the limited availability of resources in the forms what we can make use of them, there is processing of those resources which has its own set of problems, as well as normal use of processed resources and waste management of used resources. Example: Aluminium as we know it takes a lot of energy to get to a state where we have a use for it (parts of machines, or foil for example) but once it is in that state and we treat it properly it can be used and re-used and recycled almost infinitely with comparatively minute amounts of energy. Imagine such a process for other resources where we won't have to constantly input new raw materials and energy to get more of the stuff we want. This is really hard for oil after we have changed it to whatever form we wanted to use it for; turning it back into oil or turning used oil into usable oil isn't exactly a viable process.
kayone 5y ago
you do know that no one burns crude oil right? it's not an either burn it or make plastic out of it.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Oil is extracted from the earth primarily to burn it, such as in automobile engines. The fact that it goes through a refining stage is irrelevant.
ahevia 5y ago
2. The alternative could be not using oil at all here. I don’t remember our ancestors needing plastic packaging to eat fruit. Plastic packaging doesn’t always get buried either. Landfills aren’t exactly a solution because of toxins they leech into the surrounding soil. It could end up in bodies of water. It could end up burned in an incinerator which releases the CO2 + volatile organic compounds stored inside it (and volatile organic compounds are quite bad for human health)
- fouric 5y ago
  Clean incinerators have been around for at least a decade[1] - potentially longer, as the Japanese have been separating out their burnable garbage from non-burnable for years. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/science/earth/13trash.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/science/earth/13trash.htm...
  - ahevia 5y ago
    Hadn’t heard of this. Very cool! Thanks for sharing
    - fouric 5y ago
      You're welcome! And, to be clear, I share many of the concerns that you pointed out in your comment - plastic going into landfills and older, unclean incinerators is a problem, and it can be really hard (if not impossible) to tell its final destination. I just wanted to clarify that (the right) incinerators are a solution for disposal - but it'd be better to not use plastic in the first place (or, at least, not in disposable packaging - long-lived goods like phone cases and Legos are slightly better than one-time-use things like plastic bottles for sodas).
  - stronglikedan 5y ago
    A city near me does this, instead of recycling. Although, they still provide recycling bins, and still ask residents to separate their trash. I presume it's because it makes it easier for them to separate the burnable trash from the "wet" trash.
aoeusnth1 5y ago
2. Leave the oil in the ground.
exporectomy 5y ago
Plastic production has pretty high GHG emissions. I think it's higher than glass for comparable bottles, though I'm not sure about that. But people arguing about landfills are just idiots. Put it in a secure landfill in some geologically stable desert and stop worrying if that's really a problem.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
didntknowya 5y ago
nothing wrong with plastic. It's an amazing material. But using one-time disposable plastic to carry a banana home from the shop, no matter how convenient, leaves a bad environmental footprint and the microplastics used will persist forever.
GuB-42 5y ago
For "2", the answer is "it's complicated". Properly disposed of, minimal plastic packaging can prevent damage and therefore waste, resulting in a smaller environmental footprint than alternatives, including no packaging and reusable materials. The problem is that packaging is not always disposed of properly, and is not always minimal or justified by reasons other than marketing. Also, not all plastics are the same, some are more environmentally friendly than others and you may need more or less of it.

throwaway59553 5y ago

>I don't have any illusions we can shift mass manufacturing back to the US Why do people insist that the thing that allowed the USA to become prosperous and go from a poor former colony of the British Empire to a world power wouldn't be feasible?

zwieback 5y ago
You'd have to turn the clock back, when we were industrializing Asia wasn't competing, shipping and communications were expensive, etc. I've heard that for many mass products China can get things onto the shelf for less than US manufacturers would have to pay for raw materials. On that extreme end I just can't imagine us producing those items. Of course it's a sliding scale, I pay a lot more for certain types of goods that are made close to where I live but it seems foolish to extend that approach to everything.
rented_mule 5y ago
A big part of what has changed is that much of the innovation in manufacturing has shifted from the ability to mass produce things at all in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (the US did very well at this) to cost optimization in the twenty-first century (China is doing very well at this). I'd say that it's feasible to have mass manufacturing return to the US, but not a mass of manufacturing jobs in the short to medium term. Manufacturing with automation that is cheaper than the world's cheapest labor is feasible in the US. But, until the US standard of living converges with parts of the world that have large, organized sources of cheap labor (today that mostly means Asia), the cost of US labor will not allow competitive prices on manufactured goods. There are partial exceptions to this. For example, it can make sense to do final assembly of cars in the US. This has many reasons... parts can be sourced from all over the world, there has long been investment in automation around auto assembly so the cost of labor is a smaller fraction of the consumer price, shipping cars across oceans is expensive, etc. Even in this example, far less US labor is used in the end to end production of a US assembled car than was the case decades ago.
- marak830 5y ago
  One question that has been bugging me for a while, what if countries imposed a tax based on minimum wage difference? I realise this is quite a complex question, and I'm sure that there are many reasons why it's a bad idea. Can anyone link me to a good explanation? Economics on this scale is one of my shortfalls of knowledge