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Chewing gum is plastic pollution, not a litter problem
- hofrogs 2y agoI love chewing gum but I've never thought about what it's made of. The thought that I've been chewing on synthetic rubber the entire time makes me uncomfortable.
- jerkstate 2y agoI chew (and let my kids chew) Chios gum, which tastes like pleasant tree sap (because it is!) - it’s a little expensive, and much chewier than normal gum, but supposedly has benefits for proper tooth alignment and jaw growth, to help prevent needing expanders and braces. (I got this from the book Breath by James Nestor - not sure how scientific it is).
- djmips 2y agoThe gum wall in Seattle is disgusting.
- iszomer 2y agoWow, TIL. DNA samples galore!
- lifestyleguru 2y agoDo they also have cigarette butt wall?
- andelink 2y agoIt’s a fascination of the city for sure. Growing up my mom would always take my siblings and I photos there when we went to pike place. Pretty sure I have photo evidence of me touching that thing at various stages of life lol
- Fricken 2y agoA square is a rectangle, not a polygon
- stavros 2y agoThe article addresses this. Calling it "litter" puts the responsibility on the consumer, calling it "pollution" puts it on the corporation that manufactures the plastics.
- jisnsm 2y agoBecause disgusting people spitting gum on the floor is obviously the corporation’s fault.
- stavros 2y agoNo, but the fact that the gum then never degrades is.
- wbazant 2y agoThat line of thinking doesn't get us towards no gum on the floor, and surely in our collective capacity we can do something about it?
- georgeplusplus 2y ago>>> That line of thinking doesn't get us towards no gum on the floor Sure it does. We can collectively shame people who spit gum on the floor. We could also enact something like singapore that carries hefty penalities.
- nielsbot 2y agobut who profits by selling the gum?
- Teever 2y agoThere's a popular drive through coffee and fast food franchise in my country and the immediate area around is often covered in their empty cups and food wrappers that their customers discard when they get new stuff from the drive through. Funny thing is that the waste is often found around the store and not nearly as much in other places. I personally blame the company that produces the garbage with their branding on it and who has a profit motive to not deal with this stuff.
- kristianp 2y ago> chemical analysis shows that gum contains styrene-butadiene (the durable synthetic chemical used to make car tyres), polyethylene (the plastic used to make carrier bags and bottles) and polyvinyl acetate (woodglue)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gruez 2y agoYour body contains hydrogen monoxide (coolant used in nuclear reactors)
- cassianoleal 2y agoThat’s not an artificial plastic though.
- gruez 2y agoThe point is that including the usage of such plastics add little value except to imply you're eating a tire when chewing gum, which is clearly not the case.
- advisedwang 2y agoWhich plastics make sense as part of your diet? (none) vs Does water make sense in your diet? (yes)
- robocat 2y agoCasein plastic is made from casein (milk).
- y-curious 2y agoIt's actually dihydrogen monoxide, and it is no laughing matter. People that ingest it regularly end up getting hooked and dying if they stop. Thanks for building awareness. (Your reactors comment made me laugh)
- joriskok1 2y agoFor those of us that are disgusted at the sight of spit out chewing gum, don't press the link, as the main picture is just that.
- Smithalicious 2y agoJust swallow it. Perpetuating the myth that gum is not safe to swallow with this "it's made of PLASTIC and CHEMICALS" fearmongering is just proliferating the actual cause of people spitting their gum everywhere, which is being taught not to swallow it.
- JohnFen 2y agoEven better, don't chew it in the first place.
- nozzlegear 2y agoBut I like the way it tastes.
- JohnFen 2y agoThen chew it. I'm just saying that if reducing plastic pollution is a goal, then whether you spit gum out or swallow it doesn't matter. It's polluting either way. The only way to reduce the pollution is to not create it.
- otterley 2y agoPlastic isn't digestible, so swallowing gum just means the plastic comes out the other end. It won't solve the pollution problem.
- lifestyleguru 2y agoWe didn't tell the youngsters about chewing gums and Mars/Wrigley/Orbit passed on marketing at least on some markets so luckily I haven't seen chewing gums anywhere around in the recent years. It's a better world in some way. E-cigarettes on the other hand....
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- SapporoChris 2y ago"Thousands of tonnes of plastic pollution 'could be' escaping into the environment every year … from our mouths. " First: 'could be', let me know when you have some verifiable information. Second: "Global plastic waste generation has grown more than seven-fold in the past four decades to 360 million metric tons per year. " https://www.statista.com/topics/5401/global-plastic-waste/ https://www.statista.com/topics/5401/global-plastic-waste/ Thousands of tons versus a global problem of 360 million tons. If you want to chew gum or not, your choice won't make any difference to the real problem of plastic pollution.
- piokoch 2y agoIn general municipal garbage is a small fraction of all wastes. In Poland municipal garbage is just 10% of all (the rest is industry), and out of this 10% only 15% could be recycled. So, this effort to sort garbage has negligible effect, yet it is costly and resource consuming, so net effect on environment could be easily negative as compared with, say, incineration with energy recovery. Going after chewing gums is just stupid from that perspective.