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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 an

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.
- squigz 2y ago
  Do you have any data on this?
- dahart 2y ago
  I went deep sea fishing in Mexico a few years back, and the number of water bottles floating out in the ocean was very alarming. That’s not fishing industry waste, it’s definitely consumer plastics, and it was the only visible waste.
  - asdff 2y ago
    Water bottles floating in the ocean definitely sounds like fishing industry waste. Or whoever is boating and just chucking bottles off the side. I mean think of consumer recycling; only a little fraction of it is probably plastic bottles yet thats all you see in the ocean? Seems hard to believe. There are people who go out and collect seaglass, an industry that exist because boaters throw just that many green brown or blue bottles of beer off the side of the boat to lead to appreciable yields on shore.
    - dahart 2y ago
      No, you’re misunderstanding the scale and making assumptions. It’s widely reported and well known that water bottles polluting the ocean is coming from consumer goods - the volume of plastic trash in the ocean is far far bigger than the entire fishing and all boating industries combined globally. https://plasticoceans.org/the-facts/ https://plasticoceans.org/the-facts/ Maybe you never heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch It’s a bit shocking to see first hand. Get out there and look around, and you’ll realize this isn’t a tiny problem caused by boaters.
      - asdff 2y ago
        From the wikipedia: “An open access study published in 2022 concluded that 75% up to 86% of the plastic pollution is from fishing and agriculture“ And also in that article it mentions you can’t really see or detect the patch yourself without specific tooling for it as the fragments are often quite small and dispersed. You can’t use satellites to see it either as such.
        2y ago
- lurking_swe 2y ago
  that’s true. But IMO it doesn’t really matter where it comes from. once it’s in the ocean it travels and affects everyone eventually. Having people in north america pay less for plastic just because we do a better job not throwing it out isn’t fair either. That would basically be north america “outsourcing” our problems to the poorer countries that don’t yet have the infrastructure in place to properly deal with garbage.
- sudahtigabulan 2y ago
  > North America consumer plastics do not end up in the ocean in large numbers. Yes, they end up in South East Asia. https://eastasiaforum.org/2019/06/26/southeast-asias-plastic-waste-problem/ https://eastasiaforum.org/2019/06/26/southeast-asias-plastic...
  - nostromo 2y ago
    That's no longer the case as the US no longer sends plastics to Asia under the guise of recycling. None of this would be an issue if we put our no-longer-usable plastics in landfills where they should be.
    - anon7000 2y ago
      Which is what cities tell you to do (Seattle is relatively specific about what kinds of plastic to put in the landfill vs to recycle), but that makes it complicated for consumers.
vkou 2y ago
> Then i bet you plastic won’t look as competitive anymore… They still will. For most things that we use plastics for, they have incredible material properties. Adding a small cost of disposal to them won't change the equation.
- klipt 2y ago
  Do we have any idea of the true cost of cleaning up microplastics / forever chemicals (PFAS) pollution?
  - Thorrez 2y ago
    We should be taxing PFAS. Are there significant health downsides of microplastics?
    - staplers 2y ago
      Takes a quick google search for "microplastics health effects" to find a well researched laundry list of health downsides.
  - asdff 2y ago
    Theres evidence that some species of bacteria have mutated to break down plastic for an energy source. So maybe in time that cost is zero.
- jon_richards 2y ago
  Much of Europe seems to do fine orienting their consumption and recycling around glass (including wash+reuse). I was surprised I didn’t even see aluminum recycling because it was so rare to see a can.
- lurking_swe 2y ago
  most plastic i see daily is completely unnecessary. it’s simply cost savings for the manufacturer. I’m all for using plastic where it actually makes the product better. Like a silicone spatula for example, or in medical industry where plastics are used to keep needles, etc sterile. Is society vastly better compared to 50 years ago? No not really, aside from improved vehicle safety and a few other tech improvements. Yet plastics were used SO much less back then. Maybe i’m missing something.
gosub100 2y ago
Why should someone in Oklahoma pay more for the actions of a litterbug in the Philippines?
- metalman 2y ago
  because much of the worlds plastic will be produced useing pattented processes and specialty machinery and components, invented and owned by americans.Plus american natural gas as the major feed stock is sold to make that plastic. America proffits at every step, so bears a responsibility. Or, we can get into the idea of "exporting contradictions", and the eventual reconing that will happen, later..... I should add, that I know a good many rural people who have no issue with taking responsibility for problems that others created, so unless you are an actual born bred okey, then perhaps you need to get out there and ask some dirt farmer what they think.
- lurking_swe 2y ago
  This is a bit racist imo, or at the least lacking empathy. It’s a systems problem. Sounds like you (like me) grew up in the 1st world where your country has the proper trash infrastructure. Additionally, the government and schools provided the basic education about why littering is harmful, and society at large understands it in your country. That’s great. Just because we grew up with this knowledge ingrained into us doesn’t make us “better” people, or better than a filipino person. Some poor countries have poor trash infrastructure, and they do a poor job teaching the ills of littering to their people. That’s unfortunate, but doesn’t make us “better” than them imo. It just means they are poor and uneducated on certain topics. Now to answer your actual question, why should someone in oklahoma pay more. I don’t think it’s ethical or even fair for someone in oklahoma to pay LESS for plastic simply because they do a better job throwing out their trash. Cheap prices for plastic encourage additional plastic use. And additional plastic use means more and more plastic will be entering rivers and oceans around the world, which affects ALL of us, including the person in oklahoma. Plastics enter the food chain, via fish eating them, and even through rainfall once they become microplastic in size. Basically, i’m arguing that “outsourcing” the issue to poor countries won’t solve the problem and is just pushing a cost burden onto already poor countries. A proper solution IMO would discourage plastic production globally, or at least enforce cleanup by the producers of plastic (make them pay for efforts similar to the Ocean Cleanup Project).

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.
squigz 2y ago
Do you have any data on this?
dahart 2y ago
I went deep sea fishing in Mexico a few years back, and the number of water bottles floating out in the ocean was very alarming. That’s not fishing industry waste, it’s definitely consumer plastics, and it was the only visible waste.
- asdff 2y ago
  Water bottles floating in the ocean definitely sounds like fishing industry waste. Or whoever is boating and just chucking bottles off the side. I mean think of consumer recycling; only a little fraction of it is probably plastic bottles yet thats all you see in the ocean? Seems hard to believe. There are people who go out and collect seaglass, an industry that exist because boaters throw just that many green brown or blue bottles of beer off the side of the boat to lead to appreciable yields on shore.
  - dahart 2y ago
    No, you’re misunderstanding the scale and making assumptions. It’s widely reported and well known that water bottles polluting the ocean is coming from consumer goods - the volume of plastic trash in the ocean is far far bigger than the entire fishing and all boating industries combined globally. https://plasticoceans.org/the-facts/ https://plasticoceans.org/the-facts/ Maybe you never heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch It’s a bit shocking to see first hand. Get out there and look around, and you’ll realize this isn’t a tiny problem caused by boaters.
    - asdff 2y ago
      From the wikipedia: “An open access study published in 2022 concluded that 75% up to 86% of the plastic pollution is from fishing and agriculture“ And also in that article it mentions you can’t really see or detect the patch yourself without specific tooling for it as the fragments are often quite small and dispersed. You can’t use satellites to see it either as such.
      - 2y ago
lurking_swe 2y ago
that’s true. But IMO it doesn’t really matter where it comes from. once it’s in the ocean it travels and affects everyone eventually. Having people in north america pay less for plastic just because we do a better job not throwing it out isn’t fair either. That would basically be north america “outsourcing” our problems to the poorer countries that don’t yet have the infrastructure in place to properly deal with garbage.
sudahtigabulan 2y ago
> North America consumer plastics do not end up in the ocean in large numbers. Yes, they end up in South East Asia. https://eastasiaforum.org/2019/06/26/southeast-asias-plastic-waste-problem/ https://eastasiaforum.org/2019/06/26/southeast-asias-plastic...
- nostromo 2y ago
  That's no longer the case as the US no longer sends plastics to Asia under the guise of recycling. None of this would be an issue if we put our no-longer-usable plastics in landfills where they should be.
  - anon7000 2y ago
    Which is what cities tell you to do (Seattle is relatively specific about what kinds of plastic to put in the landfill vs to recycle), but that makes it complicated for consumers.

vkou 2y ago

> Then i bet you plastic won’t look as competitive anymore… They still will. For most things that we use plastics for, they have incredible material properties. Adding a small cost of disposal to them won't change the equation.

klipt 2y ago
Do we have any idea of the true cost of cleaning up microplastics / forever chemicals (PFAS) pollution?
- Thorrez 2y ago
  We should be taxing PFAS. Are there significant health downsides of microplastics?
  - staplers 2y ago
    Takes a quick google search for "microplastics health effects" to find a well researched laundry list of health downsides.
- asdff 2y ago
  Theres evidence that some species of bacteria have mutated to break down plastic for an energy source. So maybe in time that cost is zero.
jon_richards 2y ago
Much of Europe seems to do fine orienting their consumption and recycling around glass (including wash+reuse). I was surprised I didn’t even see aluminum recycling because it was so rare to see a can.
lurking_swe 2y ago
most plastic i see daily is completely unnecessary. it’s simply cost savings for the manufacturer. I’m all for using plastic where it actually makes the product better. Like a silicone spatula for example, or in medical industry where plastics are used to keep needles, etc sterile. Is society vastly better compared to 50 years ago? No not really, aside from improved vehicle safety and a few other tech improvements. Yet plastics were used SO much less back then. Maybe i’m missing something.

gosub100 2y ago

Why should someone in Oklahoma pay more for the actions of a litterbug in the Philippines?

metalman 2y ago
because much of the worlds plastic will be produced useing pattented processes and specialty machinery and components, invented and owned by americans.Plus american natural gas as the major feed stock is sold to make that plastic. America proffits at every step, so bears a responsibility. Or, we can get into the idea of "exporting contradictions", and the eventual reconing that will happen, later..... I should add, that I know a good many rural people who have no issue with taking responsibility for problems that others created, so unless you are an actual born bred okey, then perhaps you need to get out there and ask some dirt farmer what they think.
lurking_swe 2y ago
This is a bit racist imo, or at the least lacking empathy. It’s a systems problem. Sounds like you (like me) grew up in the 1st world where your country has the proper trash infrastructure. Additionally, the government and schools provided the basic education about why littering is harmful, and society at large understands it in your country. That’s great. Just because we grew up with this knowledge ingrained into us doesn’t make us “better” people, or better than a filipino person. Some poor countries have poor trash infrastructure, and they do a poor job teaching the ills of littering to their people. That’s unfortunate, but doesn’t make us “better” than them imo. It just means they are poor and uneducated on certain topics. Now to answer your actual question, why should someone in oklahoma pay more. I don’t think it’s ethical or even fair for someone in oklahoma to pay LESS for plastic simply because they do a better job throwing out their trash. Cheap prices for plastic encourage additional plastic use. And additional plastic use means more and more plastic will be entering rivers and oceans around the world, which affects ALL of us, including the person in oklahoma. Plastics enter the food chain, via fish eating them, and even through rainfall once they become microplastic in size. Basically, i’m arguing that “outsourcing” the issue to poor countries won’t solve the problem and is just pushing a cost burden onto already poor countries. A proper solution IMO would discourage plastic production globally, or at least enforce cleanup by the producers of plastic (make them pay for efforts similar to the Ocean Cleanup Project).