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Keep seeing these "possible breakthroughs" in breaking down plastic waste, but no concrete time frames on expanding to scale nor real world costs. Meanwhile, th

Keep seeing these "possible breakthroughs" in breaking down plastic waste, but no concrete time frames on expanding to scale nor real world costs. Meanwhile, the mountains of plastic continues. Finding it also odd that biodegradable plastics and safer alternatives are going quiet. As if the new scheme is to keep fossil fuel companies rolling, with the promise that one day a solution to get rid of incalculable mountains of plastic will be found. Don't worry, feel free to plastic pollute, because one day there will be a solution.

foxglacier 2y ago
Incalculable mountains aren't a real environmental problem. People just believe that for some reason. We can just leave them there forever. The actual environmental value in recycling is reducing the CO2 emissions from making new plastic by reducing production of new plastic. I don't know if biodegradable plastic actually helps at all or just placates the people worried about the fake problem of incalculable mountains.
- baranul 2y ago
  I'm not sure why you have the take that plastic pollution is not a problem. If anything, it is a massive catastrophe that threatens the environment and possibly the human race. Plastic pollution is destroying the environment[1], wildlife[2], and damaging humans[3][4]. That includes newborn babies[5]. [1] https://www.unep.org/plastic-pollution https://www.unep.org/plastic-pollution [2] https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics/ https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics... [3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/microplastic-human-brain-health https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/microplas... [4] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/microplastics-plaque-heart-disease https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/microplas... [5] https://scitechdaily.com/startling-discovery-scientists-find-microplastics-in-infant-organs-at-birth/ https://scitechdaily.com/startling-discovery-scientists-find...
  - foxglacier 2y ago
    I'm talking about plastic waste in landfills ("mountains"). For that, recycling does no good because it's just as likely (or more?) to leak into the environment failing to reach a recycling facility as it is failing to reach a landfill.
sokka_h2otribe 2y ago
Biodegradable plastics suffer from either being hard to degraded or hard to use without degrading. It's a difficult conundrum
Steve44 2y ago
> Finding it also odd that biodegradable plastics and safer alternatives are going quiet. They tend not to be a good solution to anything. There are a couple of ways of making degradable plastic. One is to add something to their manufacture so they break down into shorter chains which their supporters tell you will then further break down. These are generally referred to as OXO degradable. Another is to use bio based plastics such as PLA or cellulose. These both have poor performance compares to oil based plastics. All of these also require industrial composting where they add no nutrition to the compost, effectively just bulking it out. They [generally] do not break down when littered or even placed in a domestic compost heap. There is also a problem because these plastics are virtually impossible to sort from recyclable plastics so if they get in each other waste stream the whole batch can be rendered contaminated and useless.

foxglacier 2y ago

Incalculable mountains aren't a real environmental problem. People just believe that for some reason. We can just leave them there forever. The actual environmental value in recycling is reducing the CO2 emissions from making new plastic by reducing production of new plastic. I don't know if biodegradable plastic actually helps at all or just placates the people worried about the fake problem of incalculable mountains.

baranul 2y ago
I'm not sure why you have the take that plastic pollution is not a problem. If anything, it is a massive catastrophe that threatens the environment and possibly the human race. Plastic pollution is destroying the environment[1], wildlife[2], and damaging humans[3][4]. That includes newborn babies[5]. [1] https://www.unep.org/plastic-pollution https://www.unep.org/plastic-pollution [2] https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics/ https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics... [3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/microplastic-human-brain-health https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/microplas... [4] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/microplastics-plaque-heart-disease https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/microplas... [5] https://scitechdaily.com/startling-discovery-scientists-find-microplastics-in-infant-organs-at-birth/ https://scitechdaily.com/startling-discovery-scientists-find...
- foxglacier 2y ago
  I'm talking about plastic waste in landfills ("mountains"). For that, recycling does no good because it's just as likely (or more?) to leak into the environment failing to reach a recycling facility as it is failing to reach a landfill.

sokka_h2otribe 2y ago

Biodegradable plastics suffer from either being hard to degraded or hard to use without degrading. It's a difficult conundrum

Steve44 2y ago

> Finding it also odd that biodegradable plastics and safer alternatives are going quiet. They tend not to be a good solution to anything. There are a couple of ways of making degradable plastic. One is to add something to their manufacture so they break down into shorter chains which their supporters tell you will then further break down. These are generally referred to as OXO degradable. Another is to use bio based plastics such as PLA or cellulose. These both have poor performance compares to oil based plastics. All of these also require industrial composting where they add no nutrition to the compost, effectively just bulking it out. They [generally] do not break down when littered or even placed in a domestic compost heap. There is also a problem because these plastics are virtually impossible to sort from recyclable plastics so if they get in each other waste stream the whole batch can be rendered contaminated and useless.