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What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. In reality, humanity has been washing spoons since the dawn of...spoons. Humanity has been

by titzer 4y ago

What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. In reality, humanity has been washing spoons since the dawn of...spoons. Humanity has been making plastic spoons for ~60 years. "Because it scales [1]" is no argument whatsoever for doing something unsustainable. [1] Right now, with cheap oil, that is.

JoeAltmaier 4y ago
So spoons are unsustainable? Not sure I follow. It's more sustainable to throw away a plastic spoon that wash it. That's pretty plain - an individual has not optimized their process for cost and resource usage - they're just squirting randomly like 100X the soap it would take in a large industrial washer to get that spoon clean. Efficiencies of scale are massive and irresistible. You cannot grow vegetables in your back yard at the same level of efficiency that big ag can, not even close. You can't drive your individual car at anywhere the efficiency of a bus or train - we should all get on board that one, it makes sense to people. While somehow the other efficiencies don't. They just get mad when you point that out.
- aflag 4y ago
  Industrially washing the spoon may be more efficient than someone washing it by hand. However, that's not really the comparison here. Even if the step of washing the newly created plastic spoons (if that exists at all) is more efficient, there's still a lot more going on.
  - JoeAltmaier 4y ago
    Yes, sure. But manufacturing a plastic trinket is similarly cheap, to the point of vanishing small cost.
    - aflag 4y ago
      It is cheap now, but think of it more as a loan. The price of being so wasteful will come for future generations who will have to deal with all our rubbish and all sort of environmental issues we've been causing in the past century or so.
      - JoeAltmaier 4y ago
        All true. I think of it as a spaceship. We can argue about how expensive maintenance of the food recyclers, water purifiers and oxygen systems are, but that's really moot: we maintain those things or die. We'd have to make the decision to stop the oil industry etc. before it matters though. Until then the marginal cost of 1 spoon is vanishing small, and fussing over it is spending time and effort on foolishness.
- titzer 4y ago
  > It's more sustainable to throw away a plastic spoon that wash it. I'm not sure what planet you live on, but I live on one with a finite amount of oil. It also happens to be a planet with beaches where I've picked up hundreds, if not thousands of these "sustainable" plastic spoons, and forks and knives and bottle caps and bottles, toothbrushes, straws, bags, and one-use containers of all kinds. So when people talk about it being "sustainable", I admit, I fantasize about dumping a few hundred bags of this junk right on their front lawn and seeing how much they enjoy it. In contrast, I have not once--not once--picked up a metal spoon off a beach.
reedf1 4y ago
What an astounding string of assertions. Maybe you should heed your own advice?

by titzer 4y ago

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

So spoons are unsustainable? Not sure I follow. It's more sustainable to throw away a plastic spoon that wash it. That's pretty plain - an individual has not optimized their process for cost and resource usage - they're just squirting randomly like 100X the soap it would take in a large industrial washer to get that spoon clean. Efficiencies of scale are massive and irresistible. You cannot grow vegetables in your back yard at the same level of efficiency that big ag can, not even close. You can't drive your individual car at anywhere the efficiency of a bus or train - we should all get on board that one, it makes sense to people. While somehow the other efficiencies don't. They just get mad when you point that out.

aflag 4y ago
Industrially washing the spoon may be more efficient than someone washing it by hand. However, that's not really the comparison here. Even if the step of washing the newly created plastic spoons (if that exists at all) is more efficient, there's still a lot more going on.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Yes, sure. But manufacturing a plastic trinket is similarly cheap, to the point of vanishing small cost.
  - aflag 4y ago
    It is cheap now, but think of it more as a loan. The price of being so wasteful will come for future generations who will have to deal with all our rubbish and all sort of environmental issues we've been causing in the past century or so.
    - JoeAltmaier 4y ago
      All true. I think of it as a spaceship. We can argue about how expensive maintenance of the food recyclers, water purifiers and oxygen systems are, but that's really moot: we maintain those things or die. We'd have to make the decision to stop the oil industry etc. before it matters though. Until then the marginal cost of 1 spoon is vanishing small, and fussing over it is spending time and effort on foolishness.
titzer 4y ago
> It's more sustainable to throw away a plastic spoon that wash it. I'm not sure what planet you live on, but I live on one with a finite amount of oil. It also happens to be a planet with beaches where I've picked up hundreds, if not thousands of these "sustainable" plastic spoons, and forks and knives and bottle caps and bottles, toothbrushes, straws, bags, and one-use containers of all kinds. So when people talk about it being "sustainable", I admit, I fantasize about dumping a few hundred bags of this junk right on their front lawn and seeing how much they enjoy it. In contrast, I have not once--not once--picked up a metal spoon off a beach.

reedf1 4y ago

What an astounding string of assertions. Maybe you should heed your own advice?