3 ms·

With the goal of less plastic in the ocean and landfills, the solution should not be to make a very narrow and specific form of plastic illegal while everything

by belorn 3y ago

With the goal of less plastic in the ocean and landfills, the solution should not be to make a very narrow and specific form of plastic illegal while everything else is acceptable. Thick plastic and aluminum are both terrible at decomposing at the bottom of the ocean. Natural fibers however tend to dissolve quite well in water. Recycling and plastic waste initiatives seems like two completely different goals. Recycling reduce energy usage in the industry, but the effect on ocean waste can be anything from beneficial, marginal to negative. In order to address single serving aluminum cans, one of the more effective solution is container-deposit. When 1/5 of the counter price is in the deposit, people seems to litter a lot less. It need to hurt a little to throw the can into the ocean or just randomly in the street.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
But thick plastic and aluminum are much less likely to end up in an ocean than a plastic disposable grocery bag. Plastic disposable grocery bags catch the wind very easily and are great kites. They can easily travel hundreds of miles in the air. Also, decomposing in the ocean is exactly what we don't want. Plastic disposable grocery bags decompose into microplastics, and we're finding out how bad that is. A heavier bag stays intact.
- belorn 3y ago
  People don't generally see how much trash end up in the ocean since water surface naturally obscure visibility, and pollution obscure it even further. It far from just grocery bag. Littering is very common behavior, and cities located near rivers or the ocean has trash ending up in the water all the time. To get a bit of sense of the scale, every single dive center teaches divers about trash, and basically every employee of such places pick up trash as a matter of being able to do education. It is simply not a good practice to have students training diving when trash is littering around them. Measure a square meter and almost regardless where it is, there will be trash in it if located close to a city. In a city river there seems to be more trash than rocks. Decomposing nature fibers like paper or cloth does not leave microplastics. It also don't survive long time in the water so water near cities with bans on plastic bag and plastic eating utensils tend to be significant cleaner. The sad thing is that it is mostly just divers who will see this since the water tend to still have poor visibility (traffic, eutrophication, and other runoffs).
stetrain 3y ago
I have never had trouble recycling aluminum cans when I live in a place with curbside recycling or in public with clearly marked recycling containers. Nobody even had to pay me to do it. I know littering will happen and deposits can help with that, but it also seems like the percentage of cans that get littered vs recycling would be small in a place with convenient recycling. I know that some will end up in landfills and oceans, but is aluminum in the ocean an ecological problem in the way plastics are? One of the big issues with the thin plastic film shopping bags is that they aren't easily recyclable at home or in public. Recently I have seen grocery stores near me offer such recycling as a service, but home recycling pickup doesn't accept them.
- martycon 3y ago
  Aluminum cans are plastic lined on inside. Paint is toxic technically. Aluminum is beat when recycled.
- belorn 3y ago
  > is aluminum in the ocean an ecological problem in the way plastics are? It depend a bit on how one want to measure it. Imagine walking in a forest and for every 10 step you see a can laying on the ground. Would that be a ecological problem? Cans and bottles are often home to a lot of insect and other small animals so there could be an argument that in terms of ecology it is beneficial. The other side of the argument say that any such man made littering is harmful, and since they do not really decompose at a fast pace, its a problem that steadily increase each year. The only trash that realistically get removed from the ocean floor is by divers, generally as a hobby, which is only a tiny sliver of all trash that do end up in the ocean floor. The rest accumulate and do so at an increased rate.

by belorn 3y ago

bryanlarsen 3y ago

But thick plastic and aluminum are much less likely to end up in an ocean than a plastic disposable grocery bag. Plastic disposable grocery bags catch the wind very easily and are great kites. They can easily travel hundreds of miles in the air. Also, decomposing in the ocean is exactly what we don't want. Plastic disposable grocery bags decompose into microplastics, and we're finding out how bad that is. A heavier bag stays intact.

belorn 3y ago
People don't generally see how much trash end up in the ocean since water surface naturally obscure visibility, and pollution obscure it even further. It far from just grocery bag. Littering is very common behavior, and cities located near rivers or the ocean has trash ending up in the water all the time. To get a bit of sense of the scale, every single dive center teaches divers about trash, and basically every employee of such places pick up trash as a matter of being able to do education. It is simply not a good practice to have students training diving when trash is littering around them. Measure a square meter and almost regardless where it is, there will be trash in it if located close to a city. In a city river there seems to be more trash than rocks. Decomposing nature fibers like paper or cloth does not leave microplastics. It also don't survive long time in the water so water near cities with bans on plastic bag and plastic eating utensils tend to be significant cleaner. The sad thing is that it is mostly just divers who will see this since the water tend to still have poor visibility (traffic, eutrophication, and other runoffs).

stetrain 3y ago

I have never had trouble recycling aluminum cans when I live in a place with curbside recycling or in public with clearly marked recycling containers. Nobody even had to pay me to do it. I know littering will happen and deposits can help with that, but it also seems like the percentage of cans that get littered vs recycling would be small in a place with convenient recycling. I know that some will end up in landfills and oceans, but is aluminum in the ocean an ecological problem in the way plastics are? One of the big issues with the thin plastic film shopping bags is that they aren't easily recyclable at home or in public. Recently I have seen grocery stores near me offer such recycling as a service, but home recycling pickup doesn't accept them.

martycon 3y ago
Aluminum cans are plastic lined on inside. Paint is toxic technically. Aluminum is beat when recycled.
belorn 3y ago
> is aluminum in the ocean an ecological problem in the way plastics are? It depend a bit on how one want to measure it. Imagine walking in a forest and for every 10 step you see a can laying on the ground. Would that be a ecological problem? Cans and bottles are often home to a lot of insect and other small animals so there could be an argument that in terms of ecology it is beneficial. The other side of the argument say that any such man made littering is harmful, and since they do not really decompose at a fast pace, its a problem that steadily increase each year. The only trash that realistically get removed from the ocean floor is by divers, generally as a hobby, which is only a tiny sliver of all trash that do end up in the ocean floor. The rest accumulate and do so at an increased rate.