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Except you could find an alternative for asbestos. I don’t think anyone could come up with a replacement for plastic that is… not plastic like. Ideally someone

Except you could find an alternative for asbestos. I don’t think anyone could come up with a replacement for plastic that is… not plastic like. Ideally someone would make “plastic” that biodegrades over 10 years into completely harmless substances.

flangola7 3y ago
> Except you could find an alternative for asbestos. I don’t think anyone could come up with a replacement for plastic that is… not plastic like. Modern humans have walked the Earth for 300,000 years. We use plastics for 0.03% of our history and suddenly think we can't survive without them. ಠ_ಠ
- userbinator 3y ago
  Would you consider life in the mid 19th century and before to be "modern"? That's how it was before plastics.
  - scottyah 3y ago
    I'm not the person you're responding to, but it is a very interesting question. "Modern" life isn't even ubiquitous, and being in my 30s living in a large US city on the upper side of middle class definitely alters my own perspective of "modern", but I cannot imagine life without cellphones, internet, all food being grown/hunted/processed by others (unless for fun) as modern. Living in a city that has plumbing is probably not something most of the world has even now, but to think that "up until the middle of the 19th century, people were still doing their business in pits, outhouses, and, of course, chamber pots" seems crazy to me, and I would not consider it "modern" whatsoever.
  - zokier 3y ago
    They didn't have plastics, but 19th century western life was already massive trainwreck ecologically and in no way sustainable. Also mid 19th century is poor example because the modernity was extremely unevenly distributed. Sure, upper class Londoner might have lived very modern life, but that is hardly representative of the era in general
  - tokai 3y ago
    Yes. The modern era of history starts after 1500. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_era
- spockz 3y ago
  The GP wrote about replacing plastics because they are ubiquitous in our daily life. They are everywhere in manufacturing and transportation, and technology/electronics. So indeed we have survived for a long term as humankind. Most of that time we were simple hunter/gatherers. Do you want to go back to that age? Can you imagine the popularity of going back to such austerity? If not, we probably need a replacement.
  - DoingIsLearning 3y ago
    > Do you want to go back to that age? Can you imagine the popularity of going back to such austerity? Ridiculously dramatic. The main source of microplastics is single-use plastic in packaging and plastic textile both of which could be dramatically reduced and in many cases outright banned. The main barrier is not technological, the main barrier is purely economical, no company would want to foot that bill and no regulatory has the courage to enforce it.
- system2 3y ago
  We weren't 8 billion people, didn't rely on transportation, agriculture, computers, communication, etc etc. I'd personally love to have a wooden keyboard.
  - function_seven 3y ago
    Wood is a terrible choice for your keyboard. The steam will destroy it in no time!
- RF_Savage 3y ago
  Most humans to ever have lived have lived or currently live during the age of plastics. The population growth and demand for plastics has been massive. Last 15 years saw as much plastics being manufactured as all the years before it. And we are not yet even at peak plastic use, it is still increasing.
  - jwilk 3y ago
    > Most humans to ever have lived have lived or currently live during the age of plastics Nope: https://www.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived-on-earth/#section__3 https://www.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived...
    - lostmsu 3y ago
      Would make better argument if not for absurdly low life expectancies the majority of these people head.
- zokier 3y ago
  Ebony, ivory, whalebone, buffalo hide, rubber plantations, yeah, we did such a great job before modern plastics
  - flangola7 3y ago
    Those were ethics problems and comparably trivial to solve. Harvesting hides and rubber trees can performed without wanton cruelty.
    - zokier 3y ago
      Did you miss the little detail that elephants, buffalo, and whales were hunted to the brink of extinction to a degree that the populations probably will never fully recover, and same happened with logging of ebonies and other valuable tree-species, both exotic and domestic. Even back then the demand far surpassed sustainable extraxtion levels, and human population has since grown by almost an order of magnitude. There is nothing trivial in these problems.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Because we're stuck in a local optimum. We never leave any room to get out. Everything is squeezed to the max.
- DoingIsLearning 3y ago
  People are shutting down the discussion in a somewhat dishonest way. "Can't get rid of all plastics so let's do nothing!" The societal need we have is to get rid of single use-plastic and frail plastic based textiles which are the two main contributors for this microplastic degradation into our water cycle and food (and all wildlife ecosystems). Even purely from an engineering standpoint it is absolutely ridiculous to design a part that will last 450 years to then use it to carry soda around for 45 min. Apart from single-use plastic usage in laboratory work and medical applications all other uses only have a purely economic benefit and should be banned (and the companies that transition should fork the costs). They have externalized the environmental cost of packaging for decades, a market correction is overdue. The issue is not about getting ready of plastic. The ABS plastic part inside a mechanical assembly will likely do it's job for decades undisturbed. The issue really is banning single-use plastic.
  - RetroTechie 3y ago
    Single-use plastic would be much less of a problem if the material would be (at least somewhat) biodegradeable. Why make candy wrappers from material that lasts centuries when buried? Before plastics, a paper wrapper, or loose candy in a tin, did the job. Use biodegradeable materials for such applications, and candy wrappers, cigarette packs etc will still wind up in the environment, but not stay there forever. Easy problem application-wise, big win for the environment.
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    I just want to give an anecdote here, because I love your comment and share your views. So I live semi-rural and it's hard to fathom how much plastic comes off disintegrated blue tarpaulins. Occasionally I've tried to dispose of them if I find them abandoned, I have a technique now where I cover them with a thick polyester bag before disturbing them because oh my god, the amount of fiber that comes of them is absolutely disgusting. They should be banned and anyone selling them receives heavy fines. What's more annoying is they're often used for the most useless, superficial tasks, like covering machinery (very easy to build a small shed instead), covering firewood, covering a shed before it's knocked down etc. There are just other ways to achieve the same result, hell even using tin to cover things is pretty cheap and easy way to keep rain off wood. One of my neighbor had one covering some firewood and it was absolutely insane how polluted our field was with the shredded pieces. I hated it so I removed it with his permission and excavated the top layer of soil and had it incinerated at a proper facility so it didnt end up in nearby waterways.
- bamboozled 3y ago
  In Japan, after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the government had to do something with all the contaminated soil, do you know what they did? They got tens of thousands of huge black heavy duty nylon weave bags, filled them up with soil and incentivized or asked prefectures to take them and do things with them, so you know what many prefectures did? They created a new disaster by burying it in embankments next to rivers, build strange retaining walls from it near highways, and often, just having the plastic bags disintegrating out in the sun. It's really, really freaking bad what happened there, but no one cares or questions it, it's just there, polluting everything. We've done so much damage, it has to stop...
Euphorbium 3y ago
If most of microplastic is from tires, we could just ban cars and stick to trains.
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago
  If you ignore the entire way people live and how the world works, sure. But if you comprehend context and respect the complex relations of dependence that exist in the real world, you would aim for something more realistic, like pushing for some kind of alternative tire material and phasing out the old stuff once it becomes available.
  - Euphorbium 3y ago
    I am completely fine with ignoring the way people live, if it is terrible. And cars were a horrible idea from the start. Time for them to go.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    The Netherlands shed its car dependence. A taller order for some places yes, but definitely both a possible and potentially a necessary one (for a variety of reasons, not just this one).
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  Cars are just a problem. Everything about them from the emissions they produce during manufacturing, the wasted space for parking, through to the tire dust, the noise, even electric cars are noisy enough, I'm currently living near a main road which is concrete and it's just insane how disruptive one car can be to our sleep. I don't think self-driving cars will improve much, lost of the problems are still going to exist, traffic, noise, reduced walk ability, lost of space for roads and parking... I will admit we own a car, but I really, really think before I turn the ignition. 9/10 I can use my bike and get some exercise or order online and just wait a day or two for something to arrive.
  - jaclaz 3y ago
    I applaude to the use of the bicycle, but does the stuff you order online arrive to your place via Star Trek transporter like or is there a truck delivering it to your doorstep? The truck probably creates the same or more tire dust than your car. Now, if you had someone delivering your goods on foot or bicycle ...
switch007 3y ago
Surely for a lot of applications, alternative materials are available, they just cost more. The ‘replacement’ will be paying more (what a surprise)
- roughly 3y ago
  Except it sort of seems like the reason the materials we chose were so cheap in the first place is because we didn’t factor in all of the costs, such as the costs of removing them from the environment and the bodies of every living thing in every corner of the planet, so maybe they just Looked cheap?
  - NovaDudely 3y ago
    This is the asymmetric nature of people. The needs/wants of today out rule those of tomorrow even if it means making tomorrow worse. It is not set in stone but it is very prevalent in our societies nowadays.
    - roughly 3y ago
      This is the asymmetric nature of modern western people. This has not always been the way of people - many people at many places over many times had cultures whose decision making time horizons extended beyond their noses. It’s all we’ve known, and our grandparents and great grandparents pushed it on everyone else at the barrel of a gun so we think it’s all anyone’s ever known, but an awful lot of people lived in cultures that were aware the future existed and they were going to live there some day.
      - NovaDudely 3y ago
        Exactly, this is an atribute that comes out of societies not inherant nature.
Tozen 3y ago
That's not true. There are many natural and biodegradable alternatives for plastics that could be used, but aren't, and get blocked by oil companies and those they are paying off. Just like when action or laws against climate change are mentioned, there is a wave of opposition that traces back to oil money as well. Basically, oil companies are being allowed to wreck havoc on the planet and our health, for the sake of maintaining their profits. The problem is the clock is ticking, and one can keep their head in the sand and pretend to ignore the danger for only so long, before inevitable reality happens.

flangola7 3y ago

> Except you could find an alternative for asbestos. I don’t think anyone could come up with a replacement for plastic that is… not plastic like. Modern humans have walked the Earth for 300,000 years. We use plastics for 0.03% of our history and suddenly think we can't survive without them. ಠ_ಠ

userbinator 3y ago
Would you consider life in the mid 19th century and before to be "modern"? That's how it was before plastics.
- scottyah 3y ago
  I'm not the person you're responding to, but it is a very interesting question. "Modern" life isn't even ubiquitous, and being in my 30s living in a large US city on the upper side of middle class definitely alters my own perspective of "modern", but I cannot imagine life without cellphones, internet, all food being grown/hunted/processed by others (unless for fun) as modern. Living in a city that has plumbing is probably not something most of the world has even now, but to think that "up until the middle of the 19th century, people were still doing their business in pits, outhouses, and, of course, chamber pots" seems crazy to me, and I would not consider it "modern" whatsoever.
- zokier 3y ago
  They didn't have plastics, but 19th century western life was already massive trainwreck ecologically and in no way sustainable. Also mid 19th century is poor example because the modernity was extremely unevenly distributed. Sure, upper class Londoner might have lived very modern life, but that is hardly representative of the era in general
- tokai 3y ago
  Yes. The modern era of history starts after 1500. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_era
spockz 3y ago
The GP wrote about replacing plastics because they are ubiquitous in our daily life. They are everywhere in manufacturing and transportation, and technology/electronics. So indeed we have survived for a long term as humankind. Most of that time we were simple hunter/gatherers. Do you want to go back to that age? Can you imagine the popularity of going back to such austerity? If not, we probably need a replacement.
- DoingIsLearning 3y ago
  > Do you want to go back to that age? Can you imagine the popularity of going back to such austerity? Ridiculously dramatic. The main source of microplastics is single-use plastic in packaging and plastic textile both of which could be dramatically reduced and in many cases outright banned. The main barrier is not technological, the main barrier is purely economical, no company would want to foot that bill and no regulatory has the courage to enforce it.
system2 3y ago
We weren't 8 billion people, didn't rely on transportation, agriculture, computers, communication, etc etc. I'd personally love to have a wooden keyboard.
- function_seven 3y ago
  Wood is a terrible choice for your keyboard. The steam will destroy it in no time!
RF_Savage 3y ago
Most humans to ever have lived have lived or currently live during the age of plastics. The population growth and demand for plastics has been massive. Last 15 years saw as much plastics being manufactured as all the years before it. And we are not yet even at peak plastic use, it is still increasing.
- jwilk 3y ago
  > Most humans to ever have lived have lived or currently live during the age of plastics Nope: https://www.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived-on-earth/#section__3 https://www.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived...
  - lostmsu 3y ago
    Would make better argument if not for absurdly low life expectancies the majority of these people head.
zokier 3y ago
Ebony, ivory, whalebone, buffalo hide, rubber plantations, yeah, we did such a great job before modern plastics
- flangola7 3y ago
  Those were ethics problems and comparably trivial to solve. Harvesting hides and rubber trees can performed without wanton cruelty.
  - zokier 3y ago
    Did you miss the little detail that elephants, buffalo, and whales were hunted to the brink of extinction to a degree that the populations probably will never fully recover, and same happened with logging of ebonies and other valuable tree-species, both exotic and domestic. Even back then the demand far surpassed sustainable extraxtion levels, and human population has since grown by almost an order of magnitude. There is nothing trivial in these problems.
globular-toast 3y ago
Because we're stuck in a local optimum. We never leave any room to get out. Everything is squeezed to the max.
DoingIsLearning 3y ago
People are shutting down the discussion in a somewhat dishonest way. "Can't get rid of all plastics so let's do nothing!" The societal need we have is to get rid of single use-plastic and frail plastic based textiles which are the two main contributors for this microplastic degradation into our water cycle and food (and all wildlife ecosystems). Even purely from an engineering standpoint it is absolutely ridiculous to design a part that will last 450 years to then use it to carry soda around for 45 min. Apart from single-use plastic usage in laboratory work and medical applications all other uses only have a purely economic benefit and should be banned (and the companies that transition should fork the costs). They have externalized the environmental cost of packaging for decades, a market correction is overdue. The issue is not about getting ready of plastic. The ABS plastic part inside a mechanical assembly will likely do it's job for decades undisturbed. The issue really is banning single-use plastic.
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  Single-use plastic would be much less of a problem if the material would be (at least somewhat) biodegradeable. Why make candy wrappers from material that lasts centuries when buried? Before plastics, a paper wrapper, or loose candy in a tin, did the job. Use biodegradeable materials for such applications, and candy wrappers, cigarette packs etc will still wind up in the environment, but not stay there forever. Easy problem application-wise, big win for the environment.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  I just want to give an anecdote here, because I love your comment and share your views. So I live semi-rural and it's hard to fathom how much plastic comes off disintegrated blue tarpaulins. Occasionally I've tried to dispose of them if I find them abandoned, I have a technique now where I cover them with a thick polyester bag before disturbing them because oh my god, the amount of fiber that comes of them is absolutely disgusting. They should be banned and anyone selling them receives heavy fines. What's more annoying is they're often used for the most useless, superficial tasks, like covering machinery (very easy to build a small shed instead), covering firewood, covering a shed before it's knocked down etc. There are just other ways to achieve the same result, hell even using tin to cover things is pretty cheap and easy way to keep rain off wood. One of my neighbor had one covering some firewood and it was absolutely insane how polluted our field was with the shredded pieces. I hated it so I removed it with his permission and excavated the top layer of soil and had it incinerated at a proper facility so it didnt end up in nearby waterways.
bamboozled 3y ago
In Japan, after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the government had to do something with all the contaminated soil, do you know what they did? They got tens of thousands of huge black heavy duty nylon weave bags, filled them up with soil and incentivized or asked prefectures to take them and do things with them, so you know what many prefectures did? They created a new disaster by burying it in embankments next to rivers, build strange retaining walls from it near highways, and often, just having the plastic bags disintegrating out in the sun. It's really, really freaking bad what happened there, but no one cares or questions it, it's just there, polluting everything. We've done so much damage, it has to stop...

Euphorbium 3y ago

If most of microplastic is from tires, we could just ban cars and stick to trains.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago
If you ignore the entire way people live and how the world works, sure. But if you comprehend context and respect the complex relations of dependence that exist in the real world, you would aim for something more realistic, like pushing for some kind of alternative tire material and phasing out the old stuff once it becomes available.
- Euphorbium 3y ago
  I am completely fine with ignoring the way people live, if it is terrible. And cars were a horrible idea from the start. Time for them to go.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  The Netherlands shed its car dependence. A taller order for some places yes, but definitely both a possible and potentially a necessary one (for a variety of reasons, not just this one).
ChatGTP 3y ago
Cars are just a problem. Everything about them from the emissions they produce during manufacturing, the wasted space for parking, through to the tire dust, the noise, even electric cars are noisy enough, I'm currently living near a main road which is concrete and it's just insane how disruptive one car can be to our sleep. I don't think self-driving cars will improve much, lost of the problems are still going to exist, traffic, noise, reduced walk ability, lost of space for roads and parking... I will admit we own a car, but I really, really think before I turn the ignition. 9/10 I can use my bike and get some exercise or order online and just wait a day or two for something to arrive.
- jaclaz 3y ago
  I applaude to the use of the bicycle, but does the stuff you order online arrive to your place via Star Trek transporter like or is there a truck delivering it to your doorstep? The truck probably creates the same or more tire dust than your car. Now, if you had someone delivering your goods on foot or bicycle ...

switch007 3y ago

Surely for a lot of applications, alternative materials are available, they just cost more. The ‘replacement’ will be paying more (what a surprise)

roughly 3y ago
Except it sort of seems like the reason the materials we chose were so cheap in the first place is because we didn’t factor in all of the costs, such as the costs of removing them from the environment and the bodies of every living thing in every corner of the planet, so maybe they just Looked cheap?
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  This is the asymmetric nature of people. The needs/wants of today out rule those of tomorrow even if it means making tomorrow worse. It is not set in stone but it is very prevalent in our societies nowadays.
  - roughly 3y ago
    This is the asymmetric nature of modern western people. This has not always been the way of people - many people at many places over many times had cultures whose decision making time horizons extended beyond their noses. It’s all we’ve known, and our grandparents and great grandparents pushed it on everyone else at the barrel of a gun so we think it’s all anyone’s ever known, but an awful lot of people lived in cultures that were aware the future existed and they were going to live there some day.
    - NovaDudely 3y ago
      Exactly, this is an atribute that comes out of societies not inherant nature.

Tozen 3y ago

That's not true. There are many natural and biodegradable alternatives for plastics that could be used, but aren't, and get blocked by oil companies and those they are paying off. Just like when action or laws against climate change are mentioned, there is a wave of opposition that traces back to oil money as well. Basically, oil companies are being allowed to wreck havoc on the planet and our health, for the sake of maintaining their profits. The problem is the clock is ticking, and one can keep their head in the sand and pretend to ignore the danger for only so long, before inevitable reality happens.