4 ms·

There is no low hanging fruit when it comes to reducing plastic production or consumption. Plastic is just too awesome -- which is why we use it instead of what

There is no low hanging fruit when it comes to reducing plastic production or consumption. Plastic is just too awesome -- which is why we use it instead of whatever we used before plastics. I'm not aware of any major use of plastic where going backwards in time is on-net more environmentally friendly. Most reports discussing plastic replacements make unreasonable reuse and durability assumptions. Often they ignore or downplay consequences of switching like increased transportation pollution or pollution from assumed recycling.

digging 2y ago
> I'm not aware of any major use of plastic where going backwards in time is on-net more environmentally friendly. Literally all of them. They reduce plastic pollution to 0. CO2 pollution is not the driving factor behind plastic reduction.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  Only focusing on plastic bring us to a Goodhart's law situation where we get worse overall effect in exchange of a hollow "0 plastic" marketing claim. That's one situation where I think "doing something" for the sake of it is the worse option.
  - digging 2y ago
    > the worse option Only with the following assumptions: - "0 plastic" is a hollow marketing claim and not a real thing (what do you even mean by that?) - the overall effect on Earth's biosphere is worse with no plastic than with plastic Neither of those is obvious so it's counterproductive (and suspicious) to be pro-plastic here.
    - makeitdouble 2y ago
      It's not (and is never) a question of being pro-plastic, or pro-paper, or pro any material really. You can't reduce the discussion about how to balance our civilization and the rest of the planet to a "plastic or not" question. Plastic use is a tradeoff, removing plastic has side effects that need to be addressed. "0 plastic" is a marketing claim because it doesn't guarantee it puts us actually in a better place. To take a simple example: let's say tomorrow we replace all the plastic in cars with metal. Would the manufacturing required to get that metal in place, and the additional energy needed as the cars get significantly heavier counter balance the amount of plastic that won't be released in nature ? I'd wager that no, that would be a stupid idea, even if it reduces plastic. And there's an infinite number of other stupid ideas to reduce plastic. That's why "0 plastic" is meaningless, what matters is if there's an actual improvement, including keeping using plastic where we don't have better alternatives.
      - digging 2y ago
        > "0 plastic" is a marketing claim because it doesn't guarantee it puts us actually in a better place. It's only a marketing claim if it's used in marketing. It can also be a statement of fact... Plastic pollution and CO2 pollution are separate phenomena and we could theoretically achieve 0 plastic and that could be a genuine victory for the problem of plastic pollution. Anyway I realize my initial statement came off strong. I want to be clear I'm not saying zero-plastic is the goal we should actually be pursuing. But "Net environmental effect" is so complicated as to maybe not even be measurable. Are we talking about extinction rate? Biodiversity? Cancer rate of wild animals? Ecosystem collapse? Additionally - as many ways as there are to evaluate our effects on the biosphere, there are ways to address the problems. Plastic reduction doesn't have to mean 1:1 replacement; that would be shortsighted. Holistic societal changes are necessary, and I think we're actually both agreeing on that. E.g. don't replace plastic car parts with metal - get more cars off the road.
- StackRanker3000 2y ago
  Is plastic pollution the only factor that matters in being environmentally friendly, to the point where you can dismiss all others out of hand?
White_Wolf 2y ago
Maybe you're too young to remember the days of paper bags, hemp shopping bags, shoes and shirts. "more environmentally friendly"? Most alternatives are more environmentally friendly in a long run than plastic.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  Production of paper comes with many asterisks regarding environment friendliness [0]. It sure can be done, but it's not simple and the majority of the industry isn't "clean". Hemp is only used a low scale so I don't think we have enough data on what would happen if tomorrow we decided to replace all the plastic bags with hemp bags and how we'd produce that. It's not guaranteed to be better until then. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_paper
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    A big advantage of paper is that when people inevitably litter, it doesn't break down into microplastics.
    - makeitdouble 2y ago
      On the other side we're killing whole forest ecosystems under the pretense trees can be replanted, plus the monoculture effects. It's complicated.
      - kjkjadksj 2y ago
        Does any paper at this point come from old growth? I'd figure its new growth treefarms that produce paper. At which point, you can't exactly flip a light switch and expect a complex forest ecosystem that took a millenia to establish to restore itself on human timescales. And thats only if the existing landowners wanted to just say "we are content to not make any money ever again with this land"
        2y ago
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
> I'm not aware of any major use of plastic where going backwards in time is on-net more environmentally friendly. My guess would be fishing nets. These are the main source of plastic pollution in the ocean.
- travisb 2y ago
  Even doesn't pass the smell test, especially if one considers the data for cotton shopping bags versus plastic. Per unit length of netting with the equivalent strength, cotton/hemp netting will weigh more, require more frequent replacement, require horrible preservatives which will leach into the marine environment, require more fossil fuels to till and fertilize the cotton, consume more freshwater in production, result in more top soil loss due to mono-cropping, need more pesticides, etc. Direct plastic pollution in the ocean would be reduced yes, but at the cost of higher pollution and environmental degradation elsewhere.
  - nobodyandproud 2y ago
    Yes, but there’s a false equivalence here: Pollution-type-A isn’t equally catastrophic as pollution-type-B. Humans nor nature have a way of dealing with the myriad of plastics and the way it degrades (or doesn’t). “Horrible preservatives” sounds like injecting FUD. Hemp also doesn’t require fertile soil, so the fertilization overhead is also less. While there are use-cases where plastic is indispensible, it’s outweighed by the completely asinine usecases.

digging 2y ago

> I'm not aware of any major use of plastic where going backwards in time is on-net more environmentally friendly. Literally all of them. They reduce plastic pollution to 0. CO2 pollution is not the driving factor behind plastic reduction.

makeitdouble 2y ago
Only focusing on plastic bring us to a Goodhart's law situation where we get worse overall effect in exchange of a hollow "0 plastic" marketing claim. That's one situation where I think "doing something" for the sake of it is the worse option.
- digging 2y ago
  > the worse option Only with the following assumptions: - "0 plastic" is a hollow marketing claim and not a real thing (what do you even mean by that?) - the overall effect on Earth's biosphere is worse with no plastic than with plastic Neither of those is obvious so it's counterproductive (and suspicious) to be pro-plastic here.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    It's not (and is never) a question of being pro-plastic, or pro-paper, or pro any material really. You can't reduce the discussion about how to balance our civilization and the rest of the planet to a "plastic or not" question. Plastic use is a tradeoff, removing plastic has side effects that need to be addressed. "0 plastic" is a marketing claim because it doesn't guarantee it puts us actually in a better place. To take a simple example: let's say tomorrow we replace all the plastic in cars with metal. Would the manufacturing required to get that metal in place, and the additional energy needed as the cars get significantly heavier counter balance the amount of plastic that won't be released in nature ? I'd wager that no, that would be a stupid idea, even if it reduces plastic. And there's an infinite number of other stupid ideas to reduce plastic. That's why "0 plastic" is meaningless, what matters is if there's an actual improvement, including keeping using plastic where we don't have better alternatives.
    - digging 2y ago
      > "0 plastic" is a marketing claim because it doesn't guarantee it puts us actually in a better place. It's only a marketing claim if it's used in marketing. It can also be a statement of fact... Plastic pollution and CO2 pollution are separate phenomena and we could theoretically achieve 0 plastic and that could be a genuine victory for the problem of plastic pollution. Anyway I realize my initial statement came off strong. I want to be clear I'm not saying zero-plastic is the goal we should actually be pursuing. But "Net environmental effect" is so complicated as to maybe not even be measurable. Are we talking about extinction rate? Biodiversity? Cancer rate of wild animals? Ecosystem collapse? Additionally - as many ways as there are to evaluate our effects on the biosphere, there are ways to address the problems. Plastic reduction doesn't have to mean 1:1 replacement; that would be shortsighted. Holistic societal changes are necessary, and I think we're actually both agreeing on that. E.g. don't replace plastic car parts with metal - get more cars off the road.
StackRanker3000 2y ago
Is plastic pollution the only factor that matters in being environmentally friendly, to the point where you can dismiss all others out of hand?

White_Wolf 2y ago

Maybe you're too young to remember the days of paper bags, hemp shopping bags, shoes and shirts. "more environmentally friendly"? Most alternatives are more environmentally friendly in a long run than plastic.

makeitdouble 2y ago
Production of paper comes with many asterisks regarding environment friendliness [0]. It sure can be done, but it's not simple and the majority of the industry isn't "clean". Hemp is only used a low scale so I don't think we have enough data on what would happen if tomorrow we decided to replace all the plastic bags with hemp bags and how we'd produce that. It's not guaranteed to be better until then. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_paper
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  A big advantage of paper is that when people inevitably litter, it doesn't break down into microplastics.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    On the other side we're killing whole forest ecosystems under the pretense trees can be replanted, plus the monoculture effects. It's complicated.
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      Does any paper at this point come from old growth? I'd figure its new growth treefarms that produce paper. At which point, you can't exactly flip a light switch and expect a complex forest ecosystem that took a millenia to establish to restore itself on human timescales. And thats only if the existing landowners wanted to just say "we are content to not make any money ever again with this land"
      - 2y ago

mitthrowaway2 2y ago

> I'm not aware of any major use of plastic where going backwards in time is on-net more environmentally friendly. My guess would be fishing nets. These are the main source of plastic pollution in the ocean.

travisb 2y ago
Even doesn't pass the smell test, especially if one considers the data for cotton shopping bags versus plastic. Per unit length of netting with the equivalent strength, cotton/hemp netting will weigh more, require more frequent replacement, require horrible preservatives which will leach into the marine environment, require more fossil fuels to till and fertilize the cotton, consume more freshwater in production, result in more top soil loss due to mono-cropping, need more pesticides, etc. Direct plastic pollution in the ocean would be reduced yes, but at the cost of higher pollution and environmental degradation elsewhere.
- nobodyandproud 2y ago
  Yes, but there’s a false equivalence here: Pollution-type-A isn’t equally catastrophic as pollution-type-B. Humans nor nature have a way of dealing with the myriad of plastics and the way it degrades (or doesn’t). “Horrible preservatives” sounds like injecting FUD. Hemp also doesn’t require fertile soil, so the fertilization overhead is also less. While there are use-cases where plastic is indispensible, it’s outweighed by the completely asinine usecases.