6 ms·

The problem isn’t that governments are beholden to the plastics lobby; this is more of a ‘bootleggers and baptists’ situation where most people like plastics be

by nickff 2y ago

The problem isn’t that governments are beholden to the plastics lobby; this is more of a ‘bootleggers and baptists’ situation where most people like plastics because they’re cost-effective, and ‘recycling’ lowers their perceived environmental costs

Over2Chars 2y ago
Plastics are cost effective because they're allowed to be dumped into the environment without any cost, under the guise of fake recycling efforts. If the plastics industry had to bear the cost of their product, it wouldn't be as cheap. "For many years, recycling was relatively cheap. North American and European countries were sending millions of tons of recyclables to China, where they were bought at a price that helped offset the cost of local recycling schemes in exporter countries." https://www.rts.com/blog/is-recycling-worth-it/ https://www.rts.com/blog/is-recycling-worth-it/ (randomly picked from search "cost of recycling")
- nostromo 2y ago
  Plastics are incredibly cheap if you put them in a landfill at the end of life. I agree that we should try and reduce our use of plastics. But their environmental impact is very small when they are disposed of properly.
lurking_swe 2y ago
the price of plastics that we pay is not the TRUE cost in my opinion. The solution would be to address this. Then i bet you plastic won’t look as competitive anymore… For example, are plastic producers mandated to pay for plastic cleanup efforts? No. Well…why not? All the garbage ends up in the ocean and then destroys the food chain slowly. And then new companies like the “ocean cleanup project” have to scrape by and beg for donations to fund their ocean and river cleanup efforts. Increased plastic prices would also encourage research into alternatives.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
  Just burn it in a gasifier, use the gas to generate electricity (combined cycle gas turbine).
  - r-bryan 2y ago
    Yeah, basically the oil companies pumping up fossil fuel to burn, but we get a single use of it as plastic before it goes to the incinerator.
- nostromo 2y ago
  North America consumer plastics do not end up in the ocean in large numbers. Plastics in the ocean generally come from waste from the fishing industry and from South East Asia.
  - metalman 2y ago
    I live on an ocean front property in Nova Scotia, and spend an inordinate amount of time at the waters edge. And there is massive amounts of plastic washing up, and a lot of it is not from here, its mericun plastic. The major current (gulf stream) brings it from the US, everything, and I mean everything that will float, and some that doesn't. I have a growing collection, of, hats, just the nice ones mind, and as anything that has spent days, weeks ,or years in the ocean, is more ir less sterilised, I am happy to keep, pass on, or use.My favorite pillow case, which started of as a lucky find, used to bring MORE, treasures home is just one thing amongst many. That does not mean that I dont find eagle feathers, agates, fossils, perfect walking sticks stripped, sharpened, and lost by beavers, but there is a lot of plastic and sundry junk. Some of the plastic is admitedly beautiful, fragments of lost toys, polished and worn smooth by the wind, waves, and sand. And historical plastic, mint shape, that must have been dumped, burried somewhere and then floated anew, and washing up now.
    - jvanderbot 2y ago
      If I read "America" as the western hemisphere, then this comment makes sense. If I read it as "USA" I doubt your attribution a little. Undoubtedly you get a lot of it.
dqv 2y ago
I think if that were really true, so many companies wouldn't go out of their way to create an image of something not being made of plastic when it is. It's resin. It's polymer. It's PU. It's felt. It's acrylic. It's wool (aka 30% wool, 70% polyester like don't piss me off). Or my favorite: they just don't tell you what it's made of at all. A recent example of this is when I was looking for key racks. The hooks on the key racks were painted a metallic silver... obviously to look like metal. They weren't metal though, they were plastic. There was no way to find this information easily without first buying the product and investigating it myself. Why not just say they're plastic hooks? If plastic were truly a selling point, it would be prominent in all the advertising: "$5 value plastics!" or "Plastic/Wool jacket!" It's not. Because they know that, in reality, people don't actually like plastic. It's just that in an environment where you have a selection of items varying in price where the highest-price item is just as likely to predominantly contain plastic, consumers will choose the least expensive option. It is exploitation of information asymmetry, not a true preference for cost-effective plastics. The other thing is that there are a lot of products that are very expensive that are still made with plastic. When looking for products online, I always try sorting by most expensive to least expensive to get the higher quality products. Still there is plastic, but it's Gucci plastic! See, this plastic junk is better because it has a household brand name on it. The capitalism apologia for this behavior is insulting too: No, you need that plastic, it's better than using the non-plastic materials! You wouldn't like it without the plastic! We're protecting you! (Again, if it really is better, then make its betterness prominent. Be proud of the fact that you chose plastic for its cost-effectiveness or its physical properties!) The solution I'd like to try is requiring that this sort of information be provided directly under the price at the consumer's request. In brick and mortar stores, they can have pull outs under the price label or just have a bigger label (yes this is feasible - retail stores already redo their labels regularly for price changes and new/seasonal merchandise). Online, there would have to be a prominent flippy switch to toggle on that additional information. In all, I find the claim that people prefer plastic to be dubious and think that, if given the information, a lot of consumers would buy less plastic. I think people prefer their time, not wanting to go down a deep research rabbit hole (where one must dodge the companies who infiltrate information sharing spaces like the Buy It For Life subreddit with false sentiment about their products), and are, at best, indifferent to plastic.

by nickff 2y ago

Over2Chars 2y ago

Plastics are cost effective because they're allowed to be dumped into the environment without any cost, under the guise of fake recycling efforts. If the plastics industry had to bear the cost of their product, it wouldn't be as cheap. "For many years, recycling was relatively cheap. North American and European countries were sending millions of tons of recyclables to China, where they were bought at a price that helped offset the cost of local recycling schemes in exporter countries." https://www.rts.com/blog/is-recycling-worth-it/ https://www.rts.com/blog/is-recycling-worth-it/ (randomly picked from search "cost of recycling")

nostromo 2y ago
Plastics are incredibly cheap if you put them in a landfill at the end of life. I agree that we should try and reduce our use of plastics. But their environmental impact is very small when they are disposed of properly.

lurking_swe 2y ago

the price of plastics that we pay is not the TRUE cost in my opinion. The solution would be to address this. Then i bet you plastic won’t look as competitive anymore… For example, are plastic producers mandated to pay for plastic cleanup efforts? No. Well…why not? All the garbage ends up in the ocean and then destroys the food chain slowly. And then new companies like the “ocean cleanup project” have to scrape by and beg for donations to fund their ocean and river cleanup efforts. Increased plastic prices would also encourage research into alternatives.

TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
Just burn it in a gasifier, use the gas to generate electricity (combined cycle gas turbine).
- r-bryan 2y ago
  Yeah, basically the oil companies pumping up fossil fuel to burn, but we get a single use of it as plastic before it goes to the incinerator.
nostromo 2y ago
North America consumer plastics do not end up in the ocean in large numbers. Plastics in the ocean generally come from waste from the fishing industry and from South East Asia.
- metalman 2y ago
  I live on an ocean front property in Nova Scotia, and spend an inordinate amount of time at the waters edge. And there is massive amounts of plastic washing up, and a lot of it is not from here, its mericun plastic. The major current (gulf stream) brings it from the US, everything, and I mean everything that will float, and some that doesn't. I have a growing collection, of, hats, just the nice ones mind, and as anything that has spent days, weeks ,or years in the ocean, is more ir less sterilised, I am happy to keep, pass on, or use.My favorite pillow case, which started of as a lucky find, used to bring MORE, treasures home is just one thing amongst many. That does not mean that I dont find eagle feathers, agates, fossils, perfect walking sticks stripped, sharpened, and lost by beavers, but there is a lot of plastic and sundry junk. Some of the plastic is admitedly beautiful, fragments of lost toys, polished and worn smooth by the wind, waves, and sand. And historical plastic, mint shape, that must have been dumped, burried somewhere and then floated anew, and washing up now.
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    If I read "America" as the western hemisphere, then this comment makes sense. If I read it as "USA" I doubt your attribution a little. Undoubtedly you get a lot of it.

dqv 2y ago

I think if that were really true, so many companies wouldn't go out of their way to create an image of something not being made of plastic when it is. It's resin. It's polymer. It's PU. It's felt. It's acrylic. It's wool (aka 30% wool, 70% polyester like don't piss me off). Or my favorite: they just don't tell you what it's made of at all. A recent example of this is when I was looking for key racks. The hooks on the key racks were painted a metallic silver... obviously to look like metal. They weren't metal though, they were plastic. There was no way to find this information easily without first buying the product and investigating it myself. Why not just say they're plastic hooks? If plastic were truly a selling point, it would be prominent in all the advertising: "$5 value plastics!" or "Plastic/Wool jacket!" It's not. Because they know that, in reality, people don't actually like plastic. It's just that in an environment where you have a selection of items varying in price where the highest-price item is just as likely to predominantly contain plastic, consumers will choose the least expensive option. It is exploitation of information asymmetry, not a true preference for cost-effective plastics. The other thing is that there are a lot of products that are very expensive that are still made with plastic. When looking for products online, I always try sorting by most expensive to least expensive to get the higher quality products. Still there is plastic, but it's Gucci plastic! See, this plastic junk is better because it has a household brand name on it. The capitalism apologia for this behavior is insulting too: No, you need that plastic, it's better than using the non-plastic materials! You wouldn't like it without the plastic! We're protecting you! (Again, if it really is better, then make its betterness prominent. Be proud of the fact that you chose plastic for its cost-effectiveness or its physical properties!) The solution I'd like to try is requiring that this sort of information be provided directly under the price at the consumer's request. In brick and mortar stores, they can have pull outs under the price label or just have a bigger label (yes this is feasible - retail stores already redo their labels regularly for price changes and new/seasonal merchandise). Online, there would have to be a prominent flippy switch to toggle on that additional information. In all, I find the claim that people prefer plastic to be dubious and think that, if given the information, a lot of consumers would buy less plastic. I think people prefer their time, not wanting to go down a deep research rabbit hole (where one must dodge the companies who infiltrate information sharing spaces like the Buy It For Life subreddit with false sentiment about their products), and are, at best, indifferent to plastic.