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Tallow in plastics – why? (2016)
- andylynch 4y agoThis piece avoids mentioning why it was written- around this time, it came to light that new UK bank notes contain beef tallow so are problematic for Hindu and vegan people who rightly have problems with these replacing old paper notes.
- 100pctremote 4y agoThis controversy is mentioned at the conclusion of the article
- krisoft 4y agoI remember when I visited my friend in Cambridge (UK) we ate at a quite cool vegetarian restaurant. I was surpised at the time that they had a policy of not accepting 5 pound banknotes. Later I learned that this was a protest against the tallow content of those notes. https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/03/vegetarian-rainbow-cafe-cambridge-5-note-animal-by-product https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/03/vegetarian-r...
- meindnoch 4y ago>rightly have problems with these replacing old paper notes. Rightly?
- urfullofsht 4y ago[dead]
- andylynch 4y agoQuite so if you hold cows sacred or are otherwise opposed to using animal products - I’m neither it’s not that different to McDonald’s not disclosing that their french fries contained beef flavouring. I’m neither and it can sound trivial, but a lot of people are and really care about this kind of thing.
- b1ue64 4y ago"This process of using fatty acids derived from animal fats has become headline news as different groups have protested against the use of animal products in the production of the new £5 note."
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoI did an internship at a plastics manufacturer and the shopping bags with tallow left a thin and acrid smoke in the air.
- progbits 4y agoThe explanation is quite disappointing: Using an alternative "might" be worse in few ways. OK, so where is the data, pros and cons comparison?
- maxerickson 4y agoThe likely reality is that shifting to a replacement will just result in the animal product being dumped. It's likely a byproduct of meat consumption that is inexpensive to use because there is lots of meat consumption. Another 'huh?' product that contains animal derived ingredients are various dryer sheets (they don't all, but many do).
- flumpmaster 4y agoAn alternate (and growing) use of Tallow is as a feedstock for renewable diesel / sustainable aviation fuel production. Tallow is a traded commodity. It is unlikely to get dumped.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- stadt 4y agoPlease add year [2016]
- krisoft 4y agoWhy? Did anything change regarding the content of the article?
- analog31 4y agoPerhaps the main thing about tallow is that there's a glut of it, likewise lard. People want more and more meat, but want it to be leaner, creating a surplus of tallow. Also, its use in deep fryers, e.g., by the fast food industry, was curtailed when vegetable oil became preferable in the market. A relative of mine worked in a chemical factory in Detroit, that made lubricants for metal working. Many of them were either formulated directly from tallow and lard, or were soaps. The materials were cheap, they worked, and were considered to be relatively non-toxic. One thing I've noticed is that detergent based "soap" has disappeared from the market. It used to be that you could get detergent bars that contained no soap. They also didn't produce soap scum in hard water areas. Remember, "You're not really clean until you're Zestfully clean." Well, Zest was a detergent bar. Today, looking for detergent "soap" at the store, it's gone. Even Zest is made from lard or tallow, last time I looked at the ingredients. I've banned soap from my house because I hate cleaning up the soap scum. We use liquid body wash instead. /rant
- giantg2 4y agoIsn't Dove a detergent?
- analog31 4y agoWell that's a nice surprise. Thanks for the tip.
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- mastazi 4y ago> soap scum in hard water areas I have a question, I live in a soft water area so I'm not familiar with the problem. Would you have the same issue if you were using vegetable oil-based soap (e.g. Marseille soap, Castile soap etc.)? Or is any type of "fat" going to cause the same issue?
- ccooffee 4y agoThis submission claims that "traditional banknotes which are based on special and expensive paper suffer from poor tear properties and they have limited life", and touts tallow-dependent plastics as a solution. US currency is made of a cotton-linen blend, so (pedantically) it is not paper. Per US Currency Education Program [1], "it would take 4000 double folds, forwards and backwards, to tear a banknote". Is this insufficient for UK uses? In my wallet I currently have a couple hundred in US currency from years 2003 to 2014. None of them are falling apart. (The US Federal Reserve [2] estimates that US currency lasts between 4.7 and 22.9 years, depending on denomination.) Given the societal shift to digital payments, cards, etc, is the UK hoping to create banknotes that last until the end of time or something? (If so, plastics are probably a great choice. But I'm guessing that indestructible bills will eventually become quite economical to counterfeit, so you'll still want to cycle through security measures every few years.) [1] https://www.uscurrency.gov/about-us/currency-facts https://www.uscurrency.gov/about-us/currency-facts [2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/how-long-is-the-life-span-of-us-paper-money.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/how-long-is-the-life-spa...
- kwhitefoot 4y ago> US currency is made of a cotton-linen blend, so (pedantically) it is not paper Perhaps it isn't paper in the US but rag paper is quite definitely paper in the UK.
- Tagbert 4y agoRag paper is paper in the US, too.
- phphphphp 4y agoThey say “paper” but it was a cotton blend much like USD. They’re shit talking old notes because it’s good for business. I haven’t touched cash in a while but I don’t recall any meaningful difference in the durability of “paper” GBP and USD. Edit: the additional context for this article is at the time the notes were released, there was a lot of anger when people discovered the notes contained animal products.
- kwhitefoot 4y agoOn not in.
- mattkevan 4y agoOur cat goes nuts for some plastic bags - licking and licking them like they’re the best thing ever. Granted he’s a little weirdo, but I looked into in on the off chance there was something wrong with him or the plastics could be harmful, but the only thing I could come up with was that some bags have more tallow in them than others and that was what he was reacting to. So, therefore, tallow in plastic = tasty for cats.
- bee_rider 4y agoThat can’t be good news, ecologically.
- c7DJTLrn 4y agoWhat currency out of interest? If it's pounds it's probably not the tallow the cat's after ;)
- Engineering-MD 4y agoIs this a reference to the small bit significant traces of cocaine found on £ notes?
- userbinator 4y agoAs the bags are made from polyethylene, it might be traces of ethylene too --- the same gas emitted by ripe fruit.
- ipsum2 4y agoStearic acids are used everywhere, including detergents, shampoos, soaps, etc. TIL they're made from tallow.
- ggm 4y agoBanana oil is waiting outside. Castrol wishes to be remembered to you. Meanwhile, whales are breathing a sigh of relief
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI think they mean feed stock animal fats not whales. When you eat that hamburger there’s a ton of left over animal fats. Given the animal is dead, the worst you could do is not use its remains in the most productive way possible. Otherwise why did it die?
- actionfromafar 4y agoObviously it wanted to die as profitable a death as possible so there will be an incentive to add more of its brethren in death!
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI didn’t say anything about it’s preference. I said what we should do about it’s death. Finally profit is a way of measuring marginal utility in a market based decision system. There’s nothing moral or immoral about it. That’s not to say usury is amoral, but profit it.
- samwillis 4y agoAnother interesting additive in many plastics is glass fibres or beads, they are often used to strengthen the plastic and give it slightly different mechanical properties. The downside of the glass fillers is that they erode the tools much more quickly (glass is very abrasive), kind of the opposite of Tallow which helps to keep the plastic flowing over the surfaces better. On glass filled parts you will often see a small ring around the "gate" (gates are where the plastic is injected). The gate is under enormous pressure and has a very high flow rate through it, so it tends to erode significantly more quickly. To counter that the gate is often an inserted part that can be changed out easily when servicing the tool, or made from a higher toughened grade of steel. Hence a small ring, a witness mark of where the join is.
- doubleg72 4y agoWhich is why it's only used in certain parts that would benefit from having glass filling, like tools for instance. You also pay for it anyways; I would be surprised if any of the consumer grade Ryobis from Home Depot had glass fiber reinforced polymer cases, while a Hilti almost surely does if not metallic.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hammock 4y agoDo you have an example?
- BoorishBears 4y agoyour car's pedals if they're made of a polymer, are probably made of glass filled nylon
- klipt 4y agoDoes handling these plastic banknotes expose you to PFAS?
- autoexec 4y agoI'm sure either way they all end up as microplastics in our environment and, ultimately, our blood and organs.
- tbalsam 4y agoThe phrase "There are alternative options such as non-animal fats and hydrocarbon waxes, but these might increase the cost of production, reduce efficiency, affect recyclability and finally negatively affect the environment.".... ....is such a semi-randomly grab-bagged set of statements similar to a set of nigh-unverifiable closing statements made as a desperate last-ditch attempt at proving a point in a debate that I feel it significantly weakens the article's stance, not strengthens it. For example, with people with religious and moral objections to using animal products along governmentally-supervised transactional lines, whataboutism involving other parts of the supply chain/where animal products are used don't really serve to prove the point -- again. In turn, if we were to use this bit of what I'd consider to be somewhat faulty logic, the bank notes could be used as leverage in the future as the example in a list of products that uses animal products, just as other items in that list are being used as leverage today. As for my position -- sometimes I eat meat, sometimes I don't, but I'd like to please avoid flesh in my money, however miniscule.
- flandish 4y agoAnything from a corporation saying “fearful” (for your wallet) things like “may cost more to produce(costing you more)” or reduce efficiency (costing you more) etc… Is just reworded excuses as to the corporation’s choosing profit. For they will never say “profit us less.”
- dwighttk 4y agoI dunno… it isn’t always a sliding scale… sometimes a change actually switches a product to too expensive to sell.
- WalterBright 4y agoCorporations can choose: 1. making a profit 2. going out of business If you raise the cost of doing business for a corporation, the cost of their products and services is going to rise accordingly.
- flandish 4y ago
- Redoubts 4y ago> Contact a member of our team today to learn more. I feel as tho the article ended right when it got to the question at hand.
- realworldperson 4y ago[dead]
- jasonhansel 4y agoFor obvious reasons, the use of beef tallow has been particularly offensive to some Hindus. Some have even banned the new banknotes from temples: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-38195265 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-38195265
- hamilton987 4y ago[dead]
- oldgradstudent 4y agoI wonder about the religious implications. Is this Kosher? Halal? What about the implications for Hindu or Vegans? It might seem silly for the rest of us, but for them is a matter of life and death.
- Eleison23 4y ago[dead]
- Maursault 4y agoI'm the only one that is horrified by tallow? Why do they have to stick animal parts in everything? fsck animal products. Just hunting them, raising them in deplorable conditions, eating them, wearing them and causing global pandemics with them is not good enough? I'd only accept the use of tallow if it was derived entirely from non-virgin human fat, humans that died naturally, of course, and were allowed to sit in hot and humid conditions until fully rancid but before desiccation. Maybe now you know how I feel.