5 ms·

Let's not fall all over ourselves defending the manufacture of plastics.. it's a self-justifying dinosaur industry. We can go a lot farther with cellulose and c

Let's not fall all over ourselves defending the manufacture of plastics.. it's a self-justifying dinosaur industry. We can go a lot farther with cellulose and chitin and friends, polymers made in factories aren't particularly special from a chemical structure/function standpoint-- unlike PFAS type stuff, their bioincompatibility is just due to our laziness. The big advantage with plastics is that we're good at making/shaping/customizing them quickly and cheaply. It can very much all be done with biocompatible/harmless chemicals. That it isn't, is an accident of history: the early Chemistry research that produced the synthetic polymers used today made no attempt whatsoever to be biocompatible.. everything since has built on that, and not enough collective fuck has been given to dismantle and rebuild that infrastructure. And just to get out ahead of it-- can we also not blame plastic consumers, who after all are just trying to eat, and probably don't want to poison themselves.

justshowpost 5y ago
I actually loved the suggestion for "us"[1] to eat bugs. [1] Quite typical rhetorics for such kind of shilling.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
Plastic food packaging is intentionally not biological; that's what keeps the food from rotting.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  That's really only part of the story, after all, it only has to keep food from rotting over a period of time and in certain conditions. [edit] We're not trying to set the food in epoxy for all eternity - like this hot dog for instance [1] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/epoxyhotdog https://www.reddit.com/r/epoxyhotdog
- rawoke083600 5y ago
  What about "banana peels" once the "packing start to rot" it's a good indication the food is gone/off. Why have packaging that last x10 as long as the food inside ?
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    You can pretty much blame wars and the US military for that. (I’ll dig up sources when I get on my computer) The gist is that the military funded R&D in preservatives and packaging still used today. Stores took advantage of it because it meant they could carry more inventory without worrying about rotting.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      I'm not sure I'd use blame here - that's like blaming the inventors of the Internet for teen suicide because of Facebook... If you're going to blame someone/something (in addition to the very consumers who demand this): > Stores took advantage of it because it meant they could carry more inventory without worrying about rotting.
  - Dma54rhs 5y ago
    Because banana peel is not very good packaging, or compared to man made. Good enough for its own purpose. I've vacume sealed bananas with plastic and they stay fresh for maybe even a year, that's the difference.
    - smorgusofborg 5y ago
      This line of reasoning is often used to defend individually wrapped cucumbers, etc. I watched a documentary recently that compared frozen food to internationally shipped food and found significant nutritional loss in the shipped "fresh" food. As such, I think plastic preserved apparently fresh food could be an explanation for part of the obesity rise. One potentially consumes more calories to get the other nutritional factors that have broken down compared to eating food that can only be delivered actually fresh. (Given that improved shipping life also turns the market for a vegetable global, I also think more people are priced out of buying produce that once had to be sold locally than are helped by less produce waste in the richest market the produce can now reach.)
- ansible 5y ago
  No, it really just needs to prevent oxygen and moisture from getting to the food. If it is just moisture, wax paper works reasonably well.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    "wax" paper hasn't been made of wax for decades. It's now typically coated in PTFE or some other non-stick surface which normally isn't great for health.
    - DemocracyFTW 5y ago
      If that was meant as a counter-argument, it's not. Because it's not about 'wax paper', its about '"wax" paper', as you correctly write.
onkoe 5y ago
I love the term "collective fuck." Also, thanks for feeding my curiosity. I gotta look this up now.
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
Package everything in beeswax. So now we're motivated to save the bees, and shitcan plastic. So many ends served.
hanselot 5y ago
Anyone wanna put together the infographic of Plastics vs Covid? I would like to know when we are locking down for plastic, automobile deaths, suicide and all other leading causes of death.

justshowpost 5y ago

I actually loved the suggestion for "us"[1] to eat bugs. [1] Quite typical rhetorics for such kind of shilling.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

Plastic food packaging is intentionally not biological; that's what keeps the food from rotting.

arcticbull 5y ago
That's really only part of the story, after all, it only has to keep food from rotting over a period of time and in certain conditions. [edit] We're not trying to set the food in epoxy for all eternity - like this hot dog for instance [1] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/epoxyhotdog https://www.reddit.com/r/epoxyhotdog
rawoke083600 5y ago
What about "banana peels" once the "packing start to rot" it's a good indication the food is gone/off. Why have packaging that last x10 as long as the food inside ?
- withinboredom 5y ago
  You can pretty much blame wars and the US military for that. (I’ll dig up sources when I get on my computer) The gist is that the military funded R&D in preservatives and packaging still used today. Stores took advantage of it because it meant they could carry more inventory without worrying about rotting.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    I'm not sure I'd use blame here - that's like blaming the inventors of the Internet for teen suicide because of Facebook... If you're going to blame someone/something (in addition to the very consumers who demand this): > Stores took advantage of it because it meant they could carry more inventory without worrying about rotting.
- Dma54rhs 5y ago
  Because banana peel is not very good packaging, or compared to man made. Good enough for its own purpose. I've vacume sealed bananas with plastic and they stay fresh for maybe even a year, that's the difference.
  - smorgusofborg 5y ago
    This line of reasoning is often used to defend individually wrapped cucumbers, etc. I watched a documentary recently that compared frozen food to internationally shipped food and found significant nutritional loss in the shipped "fresh" food. As such, I think plastic preserved apparently fresh food could be an explanation for part of the obesity rise. One potentially consumes more calories to get the other nutritional factors that have broken down compared to eating food that can only be delivered actually fresh. (Given that improved shipping life also turns the market for a vegetable global, I also think more people are priced out of buying produce that once had to be sold locally than are helped by less produce waste in the richest market the produce can now reach.)
ansible 5y ago
No, it really just needs to prevent oxygen and moisture from getting to the food. If it is just moisture, wax paper works reasonably well.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  "wax" paper hasn't been made of wax for decades. It's now typically coated in PTFE or some other non-stick surface which normally isn't great for health.
  - DemocracyFTW 5y ago
    If that was meant as a counter-argument, it's not. Because it's not about 'wax paper', its about '"wax" paper', as you correctly write.

onkoe 5y ago

I love the term "collective fuck." Also, thanks for feeding my curiosity. I gotta look this up now.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

Package everything in beeswax. So now we're motivated to save the bees, and shitcan plastic. So many ends served.

hanselot 5y ago

Anyone wanna put together the infographic of Plastics vs Covid? I would like to know when we are locking down for plastic, automobile deaths, suicide and all other leading causes of death.