4 ms·

And of course if it doesn't help people who are currently alive only our children we should never do it and it's too late to bother?

swalling 3y ago
Plastic replacement isn’t like leaded gasoline or ozone-depleting substances where you had just a few applications to design alternatives for. It’s in fucking everything. Even just finding a realistic replacement for plastic in shoes is not being productized seriously. It’s going to take generations for it to be fixed, and it probably won’t happen until humans and other animals get much much sicker.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  >Even just finding a realistic replacement for plastic in shoes is not being productized seriously. We can just go back to the material we used to use for shoes: leather. If there isn't enough cow skin for shoes for 8 billion people, we can just vastly increase the amount of cow farming we do. Oh wait...
  - mrob 3y ago
    Leather shoe soles have worse grip than plastic ones. Switching will increase the number of deaths and serious injuries from people slipping and falling on hard surfaces. Leather soles also wear out much faster.
    - tfourb 3y ago
      Are you kidding me? Even if that were true there are probably 500 ways of making leather soles equally grippy to plastic soles that would either eliminate or drastically reduce the use of these materials. There are also other biodegradable alternatives to plastic that could be used. Most plastic-based shoes are worn out much quicker than quality leather shoes would be. These are cheap excuses that are quite transparent in the attempt to justify simply changing nothing.
      - mrob 3y ago
        I'm talking about synthetic elastomer soles specifically, not the tops and sides of shoes. They last for decades and have excellent grip. There's no way to make leather soles anywhere close to as good.
        tfourb 3y ago
        That may be the case, but the last few pairs of "normal" shoes I bought had to be discarded after a year or so, not sure if the sole was still ok, but it didn't matter: they were done and because of their construction you couldn't fix them. My last pair of quality leather shoes held up nicely for about three years and it's now relegated to construction and garden work. My current pair is spotless after two years. The soles on these are synthetic, but they degrade about as quickly as the tops. Not sure where you draw your experience from, they don't match with mine. EDITED TO ADD: Of course quality shoes can be refurbished with new soles, so even if a leather sole would only last a couple of years, you could simply get a new sole slapped on.
      - midoridensha 3y ago
        If there some reasonable way to make leather soles grippy, it would have been done ages ago I think. Instead, back in the old days, leather shoes that needed grip were probably made with rubber soles. >Most plastic-based shoes are worn out much quicker than quality leather shoes would be. True, but there's tradeoffs here. For hiking boots, for instance, some people swear by "sturdy" hand-made leather boots, but the problem with these is they're much heavier than modern boots made with synthetic materials. For a lot of hiking, you don't want heavy weights on your feet, and the shorter-life tradeoff is worth the performance improvement. I'm sure the same goes for most other sports. Just look at the shoes that professional athletes wear: they're probably plastic-based, and it's not because of cost, it's because it's better to have something that's as lightweight as possible and performs as well as possible, even if that means throwing them away after one competition.
        tfourb 3y ago
        The "good old way" of making leather soles grippy is nails, just to give one example. Even using synthetic materials instead of hobnails would reduce plastic consumption quite a bit for these use cases. I've hiked quite a bit in various types of boots and yes, It's nice to have lighter shoes, but for most people most of the time a kg more or less won't make the damndest bit of difference. Only a fraction of all hikers are attempting trails under circumstances that require top-notch performance gear.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
  All the more we should start ASAP then. It’s too late to have zero adverse consequences but you’ve got to be a defeatist (who ironically is engaging in debate) to choose to do nothing.

swalling 3y ago

Plastic replacement isn’t like leaded gasoline or ozone-depleting substances where you had just a few applications to design alternatives for. It’s in fucking everything. Even just finding a realistic replacement for plastic in shoes is not being productized seriously. It’s going to take generations for it to be fixed, and it probably won’t happen until humans and other animals get much much sicker.

midoridensha 3y ago
>Even just finding a realistic replacement for plastic in shoes is not being productized seriously. We can just go back to the material we used to use for shoes: leather. If there isn't enough cow skin for shoes for 8 billion people, we can just vastly increase the amount of cow farming we do. Oh wait...
- mrob 3y ago
  Leather shoe soles have worse grip than plastic ones. Switching will increase the number of deaths and serious injuries from people slipping and falling on hard surfaces. Leather soles also wear out much faster.
  - tfourb 3y ago
    Are you kidding me? Even if that were true there are probably 500 ways of making leather soles equally grippy to plastic soles that would either eliminate or drastically reduce the use of these materials. There are also other biodegradable alternatives to plastic that could be used. Most plastic-based shoes are worn out much quicker than quality leather shoes would be. These are cheap excuses that are quite transparent in the attempt to justify simply changing nothing.
    - mrob 3y ago
      I'm talking about synthetic elastomer soles specifically, not the tops and sides of shoes. They last for decades and have excellent grip. There's no way to make leather soles anywhere close to as good.
      - tfourb 3y ago
        That may be the case, but the last few pairs of "normal" shoes I bought had to be discarded after a year or so, not sure if the sole was still ok, but it didn't matter: they were done and because of their construction you couldn't fix them. My last pair of quality leather shoes held up nicely for about three years and it's now relegated to construction and garden work. My current pair is spotless after two years. The soles on these are synthetic, but they degrade about as quickly as the tops. Not sure where you draw your experience from, they don't match with mine. EDITED TO ADD: Of course quality shoes can be refurbished with new soles, so even if a leather sole would only last a couple of years, you could simply get a new sole slapped on.
    - midoridensha 3y ago
      If there some reasonable way to make leather soles grippy, it would have been done ages ago I think. Instead, back in the old days, leather shoes that needed grip were probably made with rubber soles. >Most plastic-based shoes are worn out much quicker than quality leather shoes would be. True, but there's tradeoffs here. For hiking boots, for instance, some people swear by "sturdy" hand-made leather boots, but the problem with these is they're much heavier than modern boots made with synthetic materials. For a lot of hiking, you don't want heavy weights on your feet, and the shorter-life tradeoff is worth the performance improvement. I'm sure the same goes for most other sports. Just look at the shoes that professional athletes wear: they're probably plastic-based, and it's not because of cost, it's because it's better to have something that's as lightweight as possible and performs as well as possible, even if that means throwing them away after one competition.
      - tfourb 3y ago
        The "good old way" of making leather soles grippy is nails, just to give one example. Even using synthetic materials instead of hobnails would reduce plastic consumption quite a bit for these use cases. I've hiked quite a bit in various types of boots and yes, It's nice to have lighter shoes, but for most people most of the time a kg more or less won't make the damndest bit of difference. Only a fraction of all hikers are attempting trails under circumstances that require top-notch performance gear.
rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
All the more we should start ASAP then. It’s too late to have zero adverse consequences but you’ve got to be a defeatist (who ironically is engaging in debate) to choose to do nothing.