4 ms·

The sooner we stop producing and consuming plastic in all its forms, the better for all life on Earth. There was life before plastic - it used wood, glass, meta

The sooner we stop producing and consuming plastic in all its forms, the better for all life on Earth. There was life before plastic - it used wood, glass, metal, and natural fabric. It was not that long ago, certainly within my life.

userbinator 2y ago
Life in 1850 was definitively NOT "better".
- codr7 2y ago
  This is a pretty meaningless statement. Where? To whom? According to what metric?
  - abenga 2y ago
    46% of children didn't see their 5th birthday in the early 1800s. It had gone down by 1890, but still in the mid thirties. Romanticizing those days is extremely silly.
    - codr7 2y ago
      I'm sure there were aspects of life back then that could be said to be better than today. More human contact, more time in nature, less technology, less stress, less pollution and so on.
      - abenga 2y ago
        Those aspects are mostly irrelevant if half of people who are born die before they enjoy them. More time in nature => this is neutral, not necessarily a positive, depends if you like that. Less technology => definitely a negative, I know when I'd rather have been born if this is the only change. Less pollution => Depending on the cutoff, most people today suffer less pollution than then. I'd rather the current global levels of pollution than actually cooking with coal/wood in my kitchen. The latter will probably kill you faster.
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  It was not that long ago, and I would call "not being headed for extinction" better than the alternative. In the West, plastic use became widespread in homes and with foods in the 1950s. In most other countries it took until the 1980s.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    False. Polyester fabric has been in widespread use since the 1920s and was first patented in Britain. Methinks you are using a rather “no true Scotsman” definition of plastic .
    - OutOfHere 2y ago
      Polyester use took off in the 1950s and 1960s, but it declined into the 1970s and 1980s. It took off again in the late 1990s. As such, the intervening period that didn't see major use of it was within my lifetime.
      - TylerE 2y ago
        No true Scotsman. You said “before plastic” not “during a lull” and in many case there weee many other plastics in widespread use throughout all those decades.
  - userbinator 2y ago
    [flagged]
- globular-toast 2y ago
  So you're assuming the person you're replying to is at least 175 years old?
  - TylerE 2y ago
    They insisted they had been alive prior to plastic being used. Commercial synthetic plastics have been in use since at least the mid 1850s.
- silisili 2y ago
  One interesting thing I've noticed in my life is that everyone that I've known personally preferred their early life and thinks the world is getting worse. From my great grandparents to me today. And each have their reasons, which sound valid, but probably have a bit of rose colored glasses and yearning for youth attached. So is it that people prefer the world they are born into and hate change, or is life for an average person getting worse in some less tangible respects? Is fondly remembering the family bonding over radio broadcasts worth more than being able to afford every member of the family having their own TV, for example? It seems hard to judge. We often define 'best it's ever been' by the poor being able to afford iPhones and the marginalized having more rights, which are both valid points. But is it better for the majority common person? Are there people who are constantly in awe of how great things are, or are we doomed to miss what we had as kids and focus on the negative? Because I find myself falling into that trap often. One thing that sticks in my head is that as a kid, my dad worked for a soda company and my neighbor worked for Lowes. Neither wife worked, both had 3 kids, and could afford a house and 2 cars. That seems like a fairy tale to young people today.
  - varjag 2y ago
    There is familiarity aspect for sure but also that living conditions don't change that dramatically over human lifespan. Life two generations ago was different but not so terribly different as to be uncomfortable to a modern human. However getting used to lifestyles of some centuries ago, let alone back to neolithic would be substantial complication.
  - verisimi 2y ago
    The presentation of reality is always worsening, and now there are more means to present than ever. And people are experiencing reality through screens more than ever. But if you turn off the screens, the physical reality hasn't really changed that much. There is some horrible architecture inflicted on us, but then parks and streets are nice/cleaner than in my youth. PS I do agree that the social pressures are worse, with both parents encouraged/needing to work.
    - mandmandam 2y ago
silisili 2y ago
I'm inclined to agree, but I grew up during the transitional years where both were available, and remember just so much broken glass everywhere...on the streets, sidewalks, etc. Maybe it was my poor neighborhood, but it was normal to see at least a broken bottle or two on the road each day. I don't see that now. As I understand it, aluminum cans require a plastic lining. How is that one solved?
- moi2388 2y ago
  You use copper instead
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    Copper is largely unsafe with foods due to copper toxicity due to it leeching into foods. It is not like aluminum in this respect which is a hundred times safer.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - lazide 2y ago
      Copper compounds, while being generally non-toxic for large mammals, are very toxic for insects and other smaller animals. It’s why they are widely used in everything from marine anti-fouling paint to wood ‘pickling’ treatments. And copper compounds will form in a wide variety of acidic and anoxic environments.
    - adrianN 2y ago
      Aluminum is not particularly healthy either. I heard it’s implicated in dementia.
      - OutOfHere 2y ago
        Normal kidneys excrete aluminum just fine. Lycopene also helps. If aluminum is accumulating in the brain or the blood, there is something that's not washing it out, meaning the waste removal process of the brain or kidneys is compromised.
veunes 2y ago
Plastic isn't just in packaging - it's in clothes, electronics, medicine, insulation, infrastructure. Undoing that won't be as simple as just "going back," but you're right - we do need to seriously rethink what's necessary vs. what's just easy
- nobodyandproud 2y ago
  Starting with the packaging is the easiest and most effective place to start. Clothing is an interesting problem; silk and wool can provide superior alternatives but are costly and so it’d be a shift into quality. That in turn requires a mindset shift away from changing trends every year to something perhaps more generational. Are the wealthy trend setters willing to do this?
  - veunes 2y ago
    Yeah, it probably does start with the trend-setters. If high fashion or influencers normalized re-wearing, mending, or timeless staples, the ripple effect could be massive.
Ferret7446 2y ago
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic... asshole. -- George Carlin
wahern 2y ago
> There was life before plastic - it used wood, glass, metal, and natural fabric. Technically speaking, latex and even silk are plastics, as are traditional products made from plant oils, like linoleum. We've been relying on them for millennia. "Plastics" has taken on a connotation similar to "GMO", intrinsically harmful by implication, in contrast to labels like "natural" or "organic" where the implication is they're harmless or healthy. But it's all just language games. There's often no meaningful distinction that can be made between "synthetic" products and "natural" products, and it's common for "natural" products to have safety profiles no less worrisome, if not more worrisome, then their synthetic counter parts. For example, "natural" neonicotinoid pesticides. There's alot more diversity in synthetic products, of course, though even the term "synthetic" relies on some very fuzzy line drawing. The substantive aspects of the debate can be reduced to arguments over the pace of progress, risk, etc, which have little to with whether something is "natural" or "synthetic", "organic" or "plastic". These labels are mere rhetorical instruments.

userbinator 2y ago

Life in 1850 was definitively NOT "better".

codr7 2y ago
This is a pretty meaningless statement. Where? To whom? According to what metric?
- abenga 2y ago
  46% of children didn't see their 5th birthday in the early 1800s. It had gone down by 1890, but still in the mid thirties. Romanticizing those days is extremely silly.
  - codr7 2y ago
    I'm sure there were aspects of life back then that could be said to be better than today. More human contact, more time in nature, less technology, less stress, less pollution and so on.
    - abenga 2y ago
      Those aspects are mostly irrelevant if half of people who are born die before they enjoy them. More time in nature => this is neutral, not necessarily a positive, depends if you like that. Less technology => definitely a negative, I know when I'd rather have been born if this is the only change. Less pollution => Depending on the cutoff, most people today suffer less pollution than then. I'd rather the current global levels of pollution than actually cooking with coal/wood in my kitchen. The latter will probably kill you faster.
OutOfHere 2y ago
It was not that long ago, and I would call "not being headed for extinction" better than the alternative. In the West, plastic use became widespread in homes and with foods in the 1950s. In most other countries it took until the 1980s.
- TylerE 2y ago
  False. Polyester fabric has been in widespread use since the 1920s and was first patented in Britain. Methinks you are using a rather “no true Scotsman” definition of plastic .
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    Polyester use took off in the 1950s and 1960s, but it declined into the 1970s and 1980s. It took off again in the late 1990s. As such, the intervening period that didn't see major use of it was within my lifetime.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      No true Scotsman. You said “before plastic” not “during a lull” and in many case there weee many other plastics in widespread use throughout all those decades.
- userbinator 2y ago
  [flagged]
globular-toast 2y ago
So you're assuming the person you're replying to is at least 175 years old?
- TylerE 2y ago
  They insisted they had been alive prior to plastic being used. Commercial synthetic plastics have been in use since at least the mid 1850s.
silisili 2y ago
One interesting thing I've noticed in my life is that everyone that I've known personally preferred their early life and thinks the world is getting worse. From my great grandparents to me today. And each have their reasons, which sound valid, but probably have a bit of rose colored glasses and yearning for youth attached. So is it that people prefer the world they are born into and hate change, or is life for an average person getting worse in some less tangible respects? Is fondly remembering the family bonding over radio broadcasts worth more than being able to afford every member of the family having their own TV, for example? It seems hard to judge. We often define 'best it's ever been' by the poor being able to afford iPhones and the marginalized having more rights, which are both valid points. But is it better for the majority common person? Are there people who are constantly in awe of how great things are, or are we doomed to miss what we had as kids and focus on the negative? Because I find myself falling into that trap often. One thing that sticks in my head is that as a kid, my dad worked for a soda company and my neighbor worked for Lowes. Neither wife worked, both had 3 kids, and could afford a house and 2 cars. That seems like a fairy tale to young people today.
- varjag 2y ago
  There is familiarity aspect for sure but also that living conditions don't change that dramatically over human lifespan. Life two generations ago was different but not so terribly different as to be uncomfortable to a modern human. However getting used to lifestyles of some centuries ago, let alone back to neolithic would be substantial complication.
- verisimi 2y ago
  The presentation of reality is always worsening, and now there are more means to present than ever. And people are experiencing reality through screens more than ever. But if you turn off the screens, the physical reality hasn't really changed that much. There is some horrible architecture inflicted on us, but then parks and streets are nice/cleaner than in my youth. PS I do agree that the social pressures are worse, with both parents encouraged/needing to work.
  - mandmandam 2y ago

silisili 2y ago

I'm inclined to agree, but I grew up during the transitional years where both were available, and remember just so much broken glass everywhere...on the streets, sidewalks, etc. Maybe it was my poor neighborhood, but it was normal to see at least a broken bottle or two on the road each day. I don't see that now. As I understand it, aluminum cans require a plastic lining. How is that one solved?

moi2388 2y ago
You use copper instead
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  Copper is largely unsafe with foods due to copper toxicity due to it leeching into foods. It is not like aluminum in this respect which is a hundred times safer.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - lazide 2y ago
    Copper compounds, while being generally non-toxic for large mammals, are very toxic for insects and other smaller animals. It’s why they are widely used in everything from marine anti-fouling paint to wood ‘pickling’ treatments. And copper compounds will form in a wide variety of acidic and anoxic environments.
  - adrianN 2y ago
    Aluminum is not particularly healthy either. I heard it’s implicated in dementia.
    - OutOfHere 2y ago
      Normal kidneys excrete aluminum just fine. Lycopene also helps. If aluminum is accumulating in the brain or the blood, there is something that's not washing it out, meaning the waste removal process of the brain or kidneys is compromised.

veunes 2y ago

Plastic isn't just in packaging - it's in clothes, electronics, medicine, insulation, infrastructure. Undoing that won't be as simple as just "going back," but you're right - we do need to seriously rethink what's necessary vs. what's just easy

nobodyandproud 2y ago
Starting with the packaging is the easiest and most effective place to start. Clothing is an interesting problem; silk and wool can provide superior alternatives but are costly and so it’d be a shift into quality. That in turn requires a mindset shift away from changing trends every year to something perhaps more generational. Are the wealthy trend setters willing to do this?
- veunes 2y ago
  Yeah, it probably does start with the trend-setters. If high fashion or influencers normalized re-wearing, mending, or timeless staples, the ripple effect could be massive.

Ferret7446 2y ago

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic... asshole. -- George Carlin

wahern 2y ago

> There was life before plastic - it used wood, glass, metal, and natural fabric. Technically speaking, latex and even silk are plastics, as are traditional products made from plant oils, like linoleum. We've been relying on them for millennia. "Plastics" has taken on a connotation similar to "GMO", intrinsically harmful by implication, in contrast to labels like "natural" or "organic" where the implication is they're harmless or healthy. But it's all just language games. There's often no meaningful distinction that can be made between "synthetic" products and "natural" products, and it's common for "natural" products to have safety profiles no less worrisome, if not more worrisome, then their synthetic counter parts. For example, "natural" neonicotinoid pesticides. There's alot more diversity in synthetic products, of course, though even the term "synthetic" relies on some very fuzzy line drawing. The substantive aspects of the debate can be reduced to arguments over the pace of progress, risk, etc, which have little to with whether something is "natural" or "synthetic", "organic" or "plastic". These labels are mere rhetorical instruments.