3 ms·

> This is a plastic straw ban kind of issue, visible to people but pointless because the actual problem is elsewhere. Curious, would you mind expanding on wher

> This is a plastic straw ban kind of issue, visible to people but pointless because the actual problem is elsewhere. Curious, would you mind expanding on where you think the actual problem is?

chii 3y ago
if people are venting it away, it's because the people who would like to purchase it are not willing to pay the price. So the problem is that the uses of helium might not be commensurate with the cost of producing (or rather extracting) it. So therefore, the fix is to have the uses of helium pay more for it. Unfortunately, the payer of the uses of helium, such as for medical treatment recipients, do not want to pay more. As for balloons, the grade of purity is not sufficient for use in medicine, and thus is not realistically a problem (or the cost of refining it to higher purity is also costly).
colechristensen 3y ago
With a long term view we would be stockpiling way more, requiring more efforts to recover used helium, and capturing more instead of venting in natural gas wells rich in helium. All of those things cost more though and aren’t being done because helium is cheap.
spcebar 3y ago
To my recollection, plastic straws aren't anywhere near as prevalent or damaging in oceans as discarded fishing nets. That's the usual comparison here IIRC. But it seems to me it's a case of "we can do both", and in this case conservation of helium might not be a bad idea in addition to changing mining practices to capture it.
- petesergeant 3y ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics Suggests otherwise and is a fascinating read
  - bagels 3y ago
    The word "straw" do not appear in this article. The consumer plastic that is in the ocean is largely put there by large cities in Asia as the article points out. My plastic straws are going in to a landfill, not in to the ocean.
    - PlunderBunny 3y ago
      I know you’re talking about oceans, but I see straws in the grass by the side of the road, in the garden beds in the park etc. up until recently (in NZ) they were plastic straws. Now they’re paper, and they will biodegrade if no-one picks them up. That’s a win. I also haven’t seen a plastic shopping bag stuck in a tree for a few years (because they were also banned here). Another win.
- colechristensen 3y ago
  Ocean plastics primarily come from cities in less developed countries that don’t have any government waste management (and by that i mean garbage pickup) that just dump their trash in the local river. Your plastic straw doesn’t end up in the ocean unless you litter on a beach trip. Guilt tripped Americans eating fast food make up an unimaginably tiny amount of ocean plastic waste. It isn’t a “we can do both” situation for either matter. It’s a popular deception that makes people feel like they’re helping which almost entirely distracts from the actual issues. The “thoughts and prayers” response that is worse than useless.
HideousKojima 3y ago
The overwhelming majority of terrestrial plastic that makes it into the oceans originates from 10 rivers, all of them located in Asia and Africa. Plastic straws in the US generally get safely disposed of in landfills and never reach the ocean or other waterways.
- rascul 3y ago
  Where does the plastic in the rivers come from?
  - bagels 3y ago
    The people that live near the rivers. Instead of landfills, dumps, or incineration, they just discard it directly in to the rivers or on to the street where it is washed in to rivers.
otherme123 3y ago
The problem is helium cannot be contained, and it goes up until it leaves the Earth. It never binds to any element that could "anchor" it to our planet. Compare with liquid nitrogen: you can liquify air, use the nitrogen that sooner or later will go back to the atmosphere, but it rarely leaves the planet. So you have a cycle.

> This is a plastic straw ban kind of issue, visible to people but pointless because the actual problem is elsewhere. Curious, would you mind expanding on where you think the actual problem is?

chii 3y ago

if people are venting it away, it's because the people who would like to purchase it are not willing to pay the price. So the problem is that the uses of helium might not be commensurate with the cost of producing (or rather extracting) it. So therefore, the fix is to have the uses of helium pay more for it. Unfortunately, the payer of the uses of helium, such as for medical treatment recipients, do not want to pay more. As for balloons, the grade of purity is not sufficient for use in medicine, and thus is not realistically a problem (or the cost of refining it to higher purity is also costly).

colechristensen 3y ago

With a long term view we would be stockpiling way more, requiring more efforts to recover used helium, and capturing more instead of venting in natural gas wells rich in helium. All of those things cost more though and aren’t being done because helium is cheap.

spcebar 3y ago

To my recollection, plastic straws aren't anywhere near as prevalent or damaging in oceans as discarded fishing nets. That's the usual comparison here IIRC. But it seems to me it's a case of "we can do both", and in this case conservation of helium might not be a bad idea in addition to changing mining practices to capture it.

petesergeant 3y ago
https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics Suggests otherwise and is a fascinating read
- bagels 3y ago
  The word "straw" do not appear in this article. The consumer plastic that is in the ocean is largely put there by large cities in Asia as the article points out. My plastic straws are going in to a landfill, not in to the ocean.
  - PlunderBunny 3y ago
    I know you’re talking about oceans, but I see straws in the grass by the side of the road, in the garden beds in the park etc. up until recently (in NZ) they were plastic straws. Now they’re paper, and they will biodegrade if no-one picks them up. That’s a win. I also haven’t seen a plastic shopping bag stuck in a tree for a few years (because they were also banned here). Another win.
colechristensen 3y ago
Ocean plastics primarily come from cities in less developed countries that don’t have any government waste management (and by that i mean garbage pickup) that just dump their trash in the local river. Your plastic straw doesn’t end up in the ocean unless you litter on a beach trip. Guilt tripped Americans eating fast food make up an unimaginably tiny amount of ocean plastic waste. It isn’t a “we can do both” situation for either matter. It’s a popular deception that makes people feel like they’re helping which almost entirely distracts from the actual issues. The “thoughts and prayers” response that is worse than useless.

HideousKojima 3y ago

The overwhelming majority of terrestrial plastic that makes it into the oceans originates from 10 rivers, all of them located in Asia and Africa. Plastic straws in the US generally get safely disposed of in landfills and never reach the ocean or other waterways.

rascul 3y ago
Where does the plastic in the rivers come from?
- bagels 3y ago
  The people that live near the rivers. Instead of landfills, dumps, or incineration, they just discard it directly in to the rivers or on to the street where it is washed in to rivers.

otherme123 3y ago

The problem is helium cannot be contained, and it goes up until it leaves the Earth. It never binds to any element that could "anchor" it to our planet. Compare with liquid nitrogen: you can liquify air, use the nitrogen that sooner or later will go back to the atmosphere, but it rarely leaves the planet. So you have a cycle.