3 ms·
Yeah externalities in particular, like with CFCs or tributyltin, mess up incentives. A lot of individual benefit can be derived from pushing costs onto the gene
by xoa 3y ago
Yeah externalities in particular, like with CFCs or tributyltin, mess up incentives. A lot of individual benefit can be derived from pushing costs onto the general world and when the cost is individually hard to observe and/or spread out over time/space but magnified across massive numbers in total it can go on a long time. That said sometimes it's only "temporary" (which granted can be years or decades) until R&D catches up and figures out alternatives that still work but are just plain better. Like:
>Any boat owner knows the increase in speed and fuel economy from a clean hull is massive - and now you can’t get anything nearly as effective as TBT.
As far as I know there's been a lot of interesting progress on alternatives in just the last decade, even if that's not at all evenly distributed yet. I remember reading "Fouling Release Coatings: A Nontoxic Alternative to Biocidal Antifouling Coatings" [0] a decade ago as an interesting overview, and looking around seems like there has been significant progress since then. Advances in fluoropolymer brushes [1] looks pretty promising for example. Some of these may be more costly, but again the issue with the originals being "cheaper" is that they don't actually price in their true costs.
That said it would probably be more effective if there was a solid international framework and norms so that bans could be better coupled with future capital support for transition to more effective options once they come out (or best of all of course if they already exist). Including dealing with incentives around IP. If some new non/low-toxicity coatings appear that is easy for rich country users to immediately apply but folks in the Caribbean can't afford saying not merely "TBT is banned" but "we'll arrange you to get this replacement for cheap/free" might significantly reduce/eliminate ban evasion.
0: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cr200350v https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cr200350v | https://sci-hub.st/10.1021/cr200350v https://sci-hub.st/10.1021/cr200350v
1: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.langmuir.6b00695 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.langmuir.6b00695
- jabl 3y agoNewer review of silicone based FRC's: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.langmuir.9b03926 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.langmuir.9b03926
- hedora 3y agoAt this point, there are very, very few new toxic products like this that are actually necessary. TBT was only in use for 40 years, ending in about 1980. I'm sure whatever paint naval vessels used during the run-up to WWII is still good enough for most use cases today. Similarly, I can't figure out why today's paper straws are soaked in PFAS instead of being coated in food-grade wax, as they were during the ~ 80 years before plastic straws were invented. Wax coated paper straws suck, but then, so do pfas coated paper straws, so that's not the reason.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoCould it be that the wax used (as in many food-grade items) was paraffin wax, ultimately a product of the oil industry, and PFAS proved cheaper than a hydrocarbon-based solution?
- philipkglass 3y agoI don't think that could explain it. PFAS also derive from hydrocarbons, but with more expensive chemical engineering required to get to the final product.