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Plastic gets a bad wrap. But it's a pretty dang efficient material. It takes so little energy and material to make something very functional and resilient. I kn

Plastic gets a bad wrap. But it's a pretty dang efficient material. It takes so little energy and material to make something very functional and resilient. I know that CO2 analyses of the replacements to plastic bags and straws has not been very kind to them. I find it commendable to encourage people to consumer less stuff, but the war on plastic straws has been a huge step back - it's done relatively little to actually help, but has imposed huge and everyday annoyances on everyone. These should be the exact opposite goals of environmental reforms when there are much lower hanging fruits available.

bonestamp2 5y ago
> the war on plastic straws has been a huge step back I always find it funny when they give me a huge plastic cup with a plastic lid and then a paper straw. If straws are that big of a problem, get sippy cup style lids and skip all straws.
- dr_orpheus 5y ago
  Starbucks did this, and then people realized that the sippy cup style lids were thicker (to maintain the structure of the sippy part) and actually used more plastic than the old straw/top combo. Starbucks said that the new plastic lids were more easily recycled because they were larger than straws (which aren't normally picked up by recycling machines) so it was still a net positive. But this goes back to the articles point of "its plastic, and its probably not going to get recycled anyway" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/23/starbucks-straws-ban-2020-environment https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/23/starbucks-s...
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Plastics are cool materials but at the moment they're mostly made from fossil fuels so you're funding some really bad people by using them. They'll only use that money to convince gullible people that climate change isn't happening, that every government regulation will magically have exactly the opposite impact, that solar and wind power are scams, that recycling is bad for the planet and that science and democracy have been taken over by idiot hippies that will kill us all because they stupidly hate fossil fuels for no reason. That's a heavy price to pay.
- tptacek 5y ago
  It is probably not reasonable to select materials with worse ecological footprints than plastic purely out of concern for what people in the plastics supply chain are going to say about climate change.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    The whole point is that you don't know if its a worse ecological footprint unless you count all the impacts. If that impact includes support for some of the worst regimes on earth starting wars and undermining democracy then I think you'll find there's been a recent shift in public attitudes on this issue.
- jholman 5y ago
  I'm confused. There are people with fossil fuels. They want to make money from their access to fossil fuels. They will strive to do so, and some of them will strive without concern for the collective good. I think those things are clear. If fossil fuels are burned for energy, that contributes directly to climate change. If those fossil fuels are converted into plastics which are put in landfills, that directly contributes less to climate change. I hope that all of the above is uncontroversial. Where I get confused is this: Do you think that reducing demand for plastic will result in less fossil fuels being burned? Do you think that reducing demand for non-burning-uses of fossil fuels will result in so much less production of fossil fuels that the overall price of oil-for-burning will go up? I'm no economist, but your claim is the exact opposite of how I thought it works. Can you explain?
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Fossil fuels are complex materials and the refining process breaks crude up into several different compounds, these compounds have different uses with the base materials for most plastics being an, essentially, useless side effect of fuel production. It's less a question of taking a barrel of oil and turning it into a hunk of plastic or a can of fuel. Both are produced in the most efficient processes.
  - 5y ago
adhesive_wombat 5y ago
> bad wrap Nice. Focusing on plastic bags and straws is such a transparent "something just be done: this is a thing: it must be done" response. 90% of the time, the plastic bag in question is filled with products packed in plastic[1] and half the time, the straw is stuck into a clear plastic cup to show off the frappuccino. [1]: Fruit and veg aside, why am I expected to buy a new spray bottle for every half litre of kitchen cleaner, say? Why can't I just buy one bottle and spray and then some kind of refill?
- floren 5y ago
  > Fruit and veg aside, why am I expected to buy a new spray bottle for every half litre of kitchen cleaner, say? Why can't I just buy one bottle and spray and then some kind of refill? There's a company (whose name escapes me at the moment) which appears to be aiming for exactly this and is advertising all over the streaming services I watch. Now, clearly their ads aren't doing their job since I can't remember the name, but it's out there. More prosaically, I've been using the same Dawn dish soap bottle for months now because I bought a giant jug of dish soap at Costco and just refill the little one as needed. I assume it'll be less waste at the end... I just wish the big jug was made out of glass or aluminum instead of plastic.
  - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
    Right, but the default position is just small packs in disposable containers. As long as you have to make substantial efforts to so otherwise, like finding a special company or paying for Costco (and getting there, who lives in walking or cycling distance of one?), it will remain what 99.5% of people do. And it's not even an unreasonable position for those people. Making an enormous effort to just find a bottle of soap is not sustainable.
  - ydant 5y ago
    The heavily advertised commercial refill options want to lock you into their system, so they sell refills made of plastic that only fit into their bottles. It's just pandering to a certain crowd without really helping the problem. If you search a lot harder, there are some other options. Like for cleaning sprays, there are dry refills that add no plastic and require adding your own liquid, like this one - https://meliorameansbetter.com/collections/homecleaning/products/all-purpose-home-cleaner-tablet?variant=31969647624307 https://meliorameansbetter.com/collections/homecleaning/prod... - there are others out there, but I've been pretty happy with this product.
roughly 5y ago
I think the core problem is that there's a whole raft of things that get bucketed under "environmentally friendly" - for example: - CO2 - Lifespan of materials - Ecological impact of material extraction/creation - Ecological impact of the materials themselves - Energy cost of transport/etc. In this case, plastic is concerning because of the lifespan of the materials and the ecological impact of the materials - it may be energetically cheaper to produce & transport a plastic bag as opposed to a paper bag, but presumably the paper bag degrades faster and with fewer side effects.
- Ma8ee 5y ago
  Plastic that is recycled or even incinerated to produce energy is often better than the alternatives. There are many environmental problems much bigger than plastic that ends up in landfills. I always thought that the problems with straws in particular was that a disproportionate amount ended up in the oceans. But even then I still suspect that it just was a way to distract people who care from the real problem of climate change so that the oil companies can make more money a bit longer. Edit: no, I didn't read the article before I commented. I did now. I live in Sweden and put all our plastics in the recycle bin (one specifically for plastics). They are building better and bigger sorting and recycling facilities for plastic, but I think about 80% still is incinerated. Which of course releases greenhouse gases. But the plastic we throw away in a week corresponds to less CO2 than one trip back and fourth to work for my wife in our Prius.
frankfrankfrank 5y ago
The straw event was not organic.
pg314 5y ago
> but has imposed huge and everyday annoyances on everyone Not on everyone. I can't remember the last time I used a straw, I manage to drink from a glass or a cup just fine. Is it really a huge annoyance for you? I understand that for some people (e.g. people with Parkinson's or a broken jaw) straws are a necessity, but most people should be able to manage just fine without them. It's true that there are bigger contributors to plastic pollution, but it's hard to argue that plastic straws in the oceans or nature are a good thing.
- brian-armstrong 5y ago
  Nobody's forcing you to drink from a straw if you don't want to. Chill.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    In a lot of transactions straws are handed out regardless of the customer's desire - ditto for plastic cutlery with takeout/delivery. For individual businesses the math is against conservatism. Failing to deliver cutlery and getting massive complaints (especially if they lead to politically charged boycotts) is the second most expensive option - the most expensive option is forcing customers to state their preference (and baked in preferences like those submitted by UberEats are small check boxes that users don't see and so restaurants often ignore). The cheapest option is probably just to put a straw jar somewhere on the counter, but then you'll tend to get complaints from employees/franchise owners about theft - while that theft is rare and inexpensive, it is very visible.
    - Uehreka 5y ago
      >handed out regardless of the customer’s desire This, but for paper receipts! It blows my mind that the default everywhere I go is to print a receipt, then ask me if I want it. I never do. I am not expensing these two slices of pizza. I will not need to deduct this bottle of shampoo when I file my taxes. And then the merchant prints a receipt for themself! As if the computer that printed the receipt couldn’t just save a record of the purchase to a database! The miles and miles of receipts that probably get printed and then thrown away probably adds up to something nontrivial, it’d be such an easy win to only print receipts on request.
jopsen 5y ago
> but the war on plastic straws has been a huge step back Yeah, the straw is a prime example of bike-shedding. So much talk and energy spent on something so unimportant. Everybody can have an opinion about straws. Worse it makes reasonable people argue against what is intended to be regulation to save the environment. Thus, fracturing what should otherwise be a strong public opinion that we can and must protect the environment.
- sjtindell 5y ago
  I think it's wildly optimistic to say there's a strong public opinion we should protect the environment. What people mean when they say they support that, in my opinion, is that we shouldn't cut down some trees far away that don't matter. Stop killing polar bears. But as soon as you tell them they'll pay more taxes, or pay more for lumber, or pay more for every product that used to be plastic, whatever it is, they vehemently vote against it.
charles_f 5y ago
The problem of plastics is that you're outputting a significant portion of the carbon that composes it as CO2 as part of the production process. Since that carbon is moved from fossil, solid/liquid reserves into the atmosphere, it shifts the balance towards more carbonic gaz. While it is efficient as a manufacturing process, typical lifetime is lower than that of more durable material such as the metal or glass it replaces. The very qualities that make it a good manufacturing material makes it a poor(er) long-term use substitute. It makes sense to use plastic capitalisticaly speaking, and in some cases it also makes sense to manufacture plastic as an affordable solution (I don't drill nearly enough to justify owning a metal), and the smelting process is far from better than manufacturing the equivalent plastic components. But when manufacturing disposable garbage, as a species, factoring in the environmental cost, it is not efficient at all. The example of straws is interesting cause the actual substitute to straws is the absence of a straw. No-one actually need a straw. It is a minor convenience with a ridiculous environmental cost.

bonestamp2 5y ago

> the war on plastic straws has been a huge step back I always find it funny when they give me a huge plastic cup with a plastic lid and then a paper straw. If straws are that big of a problem, get sippy cup style lids and skip all straws.

dr_orpheus 5y ago
Starbucks did this, and then people realized that the sippy cup style lids were thicker (to maintain the structure of the sippy part) and actually used more plastic than the old straw/top combo. Starbucks said that the new plastic lids were more easily recycled because they were larger than straws (which aren't normally picked up by recycling machines) so it was still a net positive. But this goes back to the articles point of "its plastic, and its probably not going to get recycled anyway" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/23/starbucks-straws-ban-2020-environment https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/23/starbucks-s...

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

Plastics are cool materials but at the moment they're mostly made from fossil fuels so you're funding some really bad people by using them. They'll only use that money to convince gullible people that climate change isn't happening, that every government regulation will magically have exactly the opposite impact, that solar and wind power are scams, that recycling is bad for the planet and that science and democracy have been taken over by idiot hippies that will kill us all because they stupidly hate fossil fuels for no reason. That's a heavy price to pay.

tptacek 5y ago
It is probably not reasonable to select materials with worse ecological footprints than plastic purely out of concern for what people in the plastics supply chain are going to say about climate change.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  The whole point is that you don't know if its a worse ecological footprint unless you count all the impacts. If that impact includes support for some of the worst regimes on earth starting wars and undermining democracy then I think you'll find there's been a recent shift in public attitudes on this issue.
jholman 5y ago
I'm confused. There are people with fossil fuels. They want to make money from their access to fossil fuels. They will strive to do so, and some of them will strive without concern for the collective good. I think those things are clear. If fossil fuels are burned for energy, that contributes directly to climate change. If those fossil fuels are converted into plastics which are put in landfills, that directly contributes less to climate change. I hope that all of the above is uncontroversial. Where I get confused is this: Do you think that reducing demand for plastic will result in less fossil fuels being burned? Do you think that reducing demand for non-burning-uses of fossil fuels will result in so much less production of fossil fuels that the overall price of oil-for-burning will go up? I'm no economist, but your claim is the exact opposite of how I thought it works. Can you explain?
- munk-a 5y ago
  Fossil fuels are complex materials and the refining process breaks crude up into several different compounds, these compounds have different uses with the base materials for most plastics being an, essentially, useless side effect of fuel production. It's less a question of taking a barrel of oil and turning it into a hunk of plastic or a can of fuel. Both are produced in the most efficient processes.
- 5y ago

adhesive_wombat 5y ago

> bad wrap Nice. Focusing on plastic bags and straws is such a transparent "something just be done: this is a thing: it must be done" response. 90% of the time, the plastic bag in question is filled with products packed in plastic[1] and half the time, the straw is stuck into a clear plastic cup to show off the frappuccino. [1]: Fruit and veg aside, why am I expected to buy a new spray bottle for every half litre of kitchen cleaner, say? Why can't I just buy one bottle and spray and then some kind of refill?

floren 5y ago
> Fruit and veg aside, why am I expected to buy a new spray bottle for every half litre of kitchen cleaner, say? Why can't I just buy one bottle and spray and then some kind of refill? There's a company (whose name escapes me at the moment) which appears to be aiming for exactly this and is advertising all over the streaming services I watch. Now, clearly their ads aren't doing their job since I can't remember the name, but it's out there. More prosaically, I've been using the same Dawn dish soap bottle for months now because I bought a giant jug of dish soap at Costco and just refill the little one as needed. I assume it'll be less waste at the end... I just wish the big jug was made out of glass or aluminum instead of plastic.
- adhesive_wombat 5y ago
  Right, but the default position is just small packs in disposable containers. As long as you have to make substantial efforts to so otherwise, like finding a special company or paying for Costco (and getting there, who lives in walking or cycling distance of one?), it will remain what 99.5% of people do. And it's not even an unreasonable position for those people. Making an enormous effort to just find a bottle of soap is not sustainable.
- ydant 5y ago
  The heavily advertised commercial refill options want to lock you into their system, so they sell refills made of plastic that only fit into their bottles. It's just pandering to a certain crowd without really helping the problem. If you search a lot harder, there are some other options. Like for cleaning sprays, there are dry refills that add no plastic and require adding your own liquid, like this one - https://meliorameansbetter.com/collections/homecleaning/products/all-purpose-home-cleaner-tablet?variant=31969647624307 https://meliorameansbetter.com/collections/homecleaning/prod... - there are others out there, but I've been pretty happy with this product.

roughly 5y ago

I think the core problem is that there's a whole raft of things that get bucketed under "environmentally friendly" - for example: - CO2 - Lifespan of materials - Ecological impact of material extraction/creation - Ecological impact of the materials themselves - Energy cost of transport/etc. In this case, plastic is concerning because of the lifespan of the materials and the ecological impact of the materials - it may be energetically cheaper to produce & transport a plastic bag as opposed to a paper bag, but presumably the paper bag degrades faster and with fewer side effects.

Ma8ee 5y ago
Plastic that is recycled or even incinerated to produce energy is often better than the alternatives. There are many environmental problems much bigger than plastic that ends up in landfills. I always thought that the problems with straws in particular was that a disproportionate amount ended up in the oceans. But even then I still suspect that it just was a way to distract people who care from the real problem of climate change so that the oil companies can make more money a bit longer. Edit: no, I didn't read the article before I commented. I did now. I live in Sweden and put all our plastics in the recycle bin (one specifically for plastics). They are building better and bigger sorting and recycling facilities for plastic, but I think about 80% still is incinerated. Which of course releases greenhouse gases. But the plastic we throw away in a week corresponds to less CO2 than one trip back and fourth to work for my wife in our Prius.

frankfrankfrank 5y ago

The straw event was not organic.

pg314 5y ago

> but has imposed huge and everyday annoyances on everyone Not on everyone. I can't remember the last time I used a straw, I manage to drink from a glass or a cup just fine. Is it really a huge annoyance for you? I understand that for some people (e.g. people with Parkinson's or a broken jaw) straws are a necessity, but most people should be able to manage just fine without them. It's true that there are bigger contributors to plastic pollution, but it's hard to argue that plastic straws in the oceans or nature are a good thing.

brian-armstrong 5y ago
Nobody's forcing you to drink from a straw if you don't want to. Chill.
- munk-a 5y ago
  In a lot of transactions straws are handed out regardless of the customer's desire - ditto for plastic cutlery with takeout/delivery. For individual businesses the math is against conservatism. Failing to deliver cutlery and getting massive complaints (especially if they lead to politically charged boycotts) is the second most expensive option - the most expensive option is forcing customers to state their preference (and baked in preferences like those submitted by UberEats are small check boxes that users don't see and so restaurants often ignore). The cheapest option is probably just to put a straw jar somewhere on the counter, but then you'll tend to get complaints from employees/franchise owners about theft - while that theft is rare and inexpensive, it is very visible.
  - Uehreka 5y ago
    >handed out regardless of the customer’s desire This, but for paper receipts! It blows my mind that the default everywhere I go is to print a receipt, then ask me if I want it. I never do. I am not expensing these two slices of pizza. I will not need to deduct this bottle of shampoo when I file my taxes. And then the merchant prints a receipt for themself! As if the computer that printed the receipt couldn’t just save a record of the purchase to a database! The miles and miles of receipts that probably get printed and then thrown away probably adds up to something nontrivial, it’d be such an easy win to only print receipts on request.

jopsen 5y ago

> but the war on plastic straws has been a huge step back Yeah, the straw is a prime example of bike-shedding. So much talk and energy spent on something so unimportant. Everybody can have an opinion about straws. Worse it makes reasonable people argue against what is intended to be regulation to save the environment. Thus, fracturing what should otherwise be a strong public opinion that we can and must protect the environment.

sjtindell 5y ago
I think it's wildly optimistic to say there's a strong public opinion we should protect the environment. What people mean when they say they support that, in my opinion, is that we shouldn't cut down some trees far away that don't matter. Stop killing polar bears. But as soon as you tell them they'll pay more taxes, or pay more for lumber, or pay more for every product that used to be plastic, whatever it is, they vehemently vote against it.

charles_f 5y ago

The problem of plastics is that you're outputting a significant portion of the carbon that composes it as CO2 as part of the production process. Since that carbon is moved from fossil, solid/liquid reserves into the atmosphere, it shifts the balance towards more carbonic gaz. While it is efficient as a manufacturing process, typical lifetime is lower than that of more durable material such as the metal or glass it replaces. The very qualities that make it a good manufacturing material makes it a poor(er) long-term use substitute. It makes sense to use plastic capitalisticaly speaking, and in some cases it also makes sense to manufacture plastic as an affordable solution (I don't drill nearly enough to justify owning a metal), and the smelting process is far from better than manufacturing the equivalent plastic components. But when manufacturing disposable garbage, as a species, factoring in the environmental cost, it is not efficient at all. The example of straws is interesting cause the actual substitute to straws is the absence of a straw. No-one actually need a straw. It is a minor convenience with a ridiculous environmental cost.