6 ms·

This is an ambulancing project. The focus should be on forcing industry to pay for the pollution they create on an industrial scale. It's never going to be clea

by brikym 1y ago

This is an ambulancing project. The focus should be on forcing industry to pay for the pollution they create on an industrial scale. It's never going to be cleaned up by small actors. These projects probably make plastic production more acceptable which is not what we want. Look over there, see recycling a few tones of plastic works, now let's carry on producing boat loads of shit.

oblio 1y ago
We basically need to increase the cost of plastic to account for all externalities. It's a super material, it needs to cost as much as competing natural materials: nylon - silk, whatever plastic bottles are made of - glass/aluminum, whatever packaging is made of - paper/textiles, whatever containers are made of - wood/steel/aluminum/etc. Similar story for paints. Basically, excises, but for plastic instead of just alcohol and tobacco. We do this, plastic starts being used just where it really makes sense.
- mavhc 1y ago
  We need to increase the cost of everything to account for all externalities. This will also encourage people to invent things to reduce the cost of the externalities, win win
- oblio 1y ago
  Rollercoaster of a comment, that one of mine. Down voters: why not comment why not? The market is clearly failing. I count a possible solution is 50+ years as failure.
worldsayshi 1y ago
The industry isn't getting forced to pay for the pollution they are causing anyway. They don't need to point at initiatives like this to avoid that. People with brooms are not an argument for people making a mess to carry on what they are doing.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  They are in many jurisdictions for a variety of products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibili... > Passing responsibility to producers as polluters is not only a matter of environmental policy but also the most effective means of achieving higher environmental standards in product design
  - worldsayshi 1y ago
    Glad to hear.
teekert 1y ago
I agree, there are people working on "molecular barcoding" [0], which would allow for perfect separation of packaging. Combine this with some standards for easy de-lamination or something to get the different components detached (7 layers of different materials in a foil appear to be quite standard) and separated and you should make a dent in the problem. However I heard "from the system" that manufacturers are not interested in the world knowing exactly what they produce, why, where it ends up and what their contribution to our plastic soup is (surprise surprise). It's a sick system of you ask me. The law (so us citizens) should set the incentives. Still, people making nice things from waste is always good. But I would be a bit worried about the fumes and dusts coming from these materials though. Where I worked we didn't laser-cut poly-carbonate for example because it would produce airborne endocrine disrupting substances... [0] https://research.qut.edu.au/cms/projects/macromolecular-barcoding-for-tracing-plastic-materials-for-the-circular-economy-a-game-changer-for-recycling/ https://research.qut.edu.au/cms/projects/macromolecular-barc...
- zevon 1y ago
  Health concerns are important - which is why the PP knowledgebase and PP workshops include quite a few infos about the safety aspects of different plastics and how to work with them. The laser cutter is not necessarily a good comparison for safety considerations. By definition, a laser cutter burns the materials it cuts. With equipment that melts plastic - like injection molding machines or FDM 3D printers - burning the material just means that you did it wrong, your temperature was too high - and you will not get a useful product. What people do on their own is another matter - but hey, that's apparently just human (see all the chainsaw heroes in safety flip flops, the people running SLA printers in their dorm room, all the soldering that goes on without a fan/filtration, ...)
  - teekert 1y ago
    You're fully right of course. I used plastic materials to make rapid prototypes for lab-on-a-chip purposes. We laser-burned channels in PMMA and laminated it to foils. PMMA behaves very poorly with any solvent, so we started exploring other polymers, and then you run into this issue... I remember PP (poly-propylene) being a very good, inert, non-problematic polymer btw.
jdietrich 1y ago
The EU is already two steps ahead. https://wts.com/global/publishing-article/20240508-plastic-taxation-europe-update-2024~publishing-article https://wts.com/global/publishing-article/20240508-plastic-t... https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/plastics/single-use-plastics_en https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/plastics/single-use-...
awongh 1y ago
Also, I think the use of plastics and it's impact on the environment is probably overstated from a consumer standpoint- no one really thinks about the systemic issues and the cause and effect cycles at work. Everyone is concerned with micro plastics now, but taking drink bottles and making them into chairs is just a distraction. We have a lot of knowledge on how to literally burn plastic and not pollute anything- waste really doesn't have to be an issue. The micro plastics that studies find in the human body are probably from sources no one cares to address- acrylic paint, tires, polyester clothing, things that are constantly being ground into nano particle size bits that are omni-present in all environments (and no one even considers getting rid of). If you live in a first world country the ocean plastic isn't from you- if you drink from a plastic straw or not it probably doesn't matter. That plastic is most likely from fishing nets and from a few countries where people throw their waste directly into a few rivers. People would rather focus on shaming those who don't sort their trash and drink from plastic straws.
- Anthony-G 1y ago
  I largely agree with what you say but I have my doubts about the following statement. > If you live in a first world country the ocean plastic isn't from you I live in Ireland and I’m not sure that’s the case for us. Plastic was collected in the recycling bins and then shipped to China for processing. I was always skeptical of the environmental soundness of shipping plastic to the other side of the planet – and the lack of transparency about what happens to the plastic waste after. I always wondered if any plastic that wasn’t PET was just dumped in a river or the sea. A few years ago, China stopped accepting plastic refuse from Western countries so the plastic was sent to other Southeast Asian countries but they also find it to be not economically viable to process. I looked into this issue before but found it hard to get solid evidence that the plastic is actually recycled. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the plastic that is collected in the West for “recyling” ends up in the ocean, while we in the west pat ourselves on the back for doing the “right thing”. Personally, I do my best to Reduce and Reuse rather than Recycle.
  - awongh 1y ago
    I guess that mostly proves my point in the sense that it's not most people's personal choices that determine if plastic ends up in the ocean- it's either incompetence or downright deliberately deceptive actions by someone else- it's crazy to think that we need to make chairs out of bottles because someone decided to ship the plastic to another country rather than actually deal with it properly. In that sense, saying "recycle or it'll end up in the ocean" is like saying "eat your food because people are starving in africa". Not only are the cause and effect not related but then people ignore the true underlying causes.

by brikym 1y ago

oblio 1y ago

We basically need to increase the cost of plastic to account for all externalities. It's a super material, it needs to cost as much as competing natural materials: nylon - silk, whatever plastic bottles are made of - glass/aluminum, whatever packaging is made of - paper/textiles, whatever containers are made of - wood/steel/aluminum/etc. Similar story for paints. Basically, excises, but for plastic instead of just alcohol and tobacco. We do this, plastic starts being used just where it really makes sense.

mavhc 1y ago
We need to increase the cost of everything to account for all externalities. This will also encourage people to invent things to reduce the cost of the externalities, win win
oblio 1y ago
Rollercoaster of a comment, that one of mine. Down voters: why not comment why not? The market is clearly failing. I count a possible solution is 50+ years as failure.

worldsayshi 1y ago

The industry isn't getting forced to pay for the pollution they are causing anyway. They don't need to point at initiatives like this to avoid that. People with brooms are not an argument for people making a mess to carry on what they are doing.

ZeroGravitas 1y ago
They are in many jurisdictions for a variety of products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibili... > Passing responsibility to producers as polluters is not only a matter of environmental policy but also the most effective means of achieving higher environmental standards in product design
- worldsayshi 1y ago
  Glad to hear.

teekert 1y ago

I agree, there are people working on "molecular barcoding" [0], which would allow for perfect separation of packaging. Combine this with some standards for easy de-lamination or something to get the different components detached (7 layers of different materials in a foil appear to be quite standard) and separated and you should make a dent in the problem. However I heard "from the system" that manufacturers are not interested in the world knowing exactly what they produce, why, where it ends up and what their contribution to our plastic soup is (surprise surprise). It's a sick system of you ask me. The law (so us citizens) should set the incentives. Still, people making nice things from waste is always good. But I would be a bit worried about the fumes and dusts coming from these materials though. Where I worked we didn't laser-cut poly-carbonate for example because it would produce airborne endocrine disrupting substances... [0] https://research.qut.edu.au/cms/projects/macromolecular-barcoding-for-tracing-plastic-materials-for-the-circular-economy-a-game-changer-for-recycling/ https://research.qut.edu.au/cms/projects/macromolecular-barc...

zevon 1y ago
Health concerns are important - which is why the PP knowledgebase and PP workshops include quite a few infos about the safety aspects of different plastics and how to work with them. The laser cutter is not necessarily a good comparison for safety considerations. By definition, a laser cutter burns the materials it cuts. With equipment that melts plastic - like injection molding machines or FDM 3D printers - burning the material just means that you did it wrong, your temperature was too high - and you will not get a useful product. What people do on their own is another matter - but hey, that's apparently just human (see all the chainsaw heroes in safety flip flops, the people running SLA printers in their dorm room, all the soldering that goes on without a fan/filtration, ...)
- teekert 1y ago
  You're fully right of course. I used plastic materials to make rapid prototypes for lab-on-a-chip purposes. We laser-burned channels in PMMA and laminated it to foils. PMMA behaves very poorly with any solvent, so we started exploring other polymers, and then you run into this issue... I remember PP (poly-propylene) being a very good, inert, non-problematic polymer btw.

jdietrich 1y ago

The EU is already two steps ahead. https://wts.com/global/publishing-article/20240508-plastic-taxation-europe-update-2024~publishing-article https://wts.com/global/publishing-article/20240508-plastic-t... https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/plastics/single-use-plastics_en https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/plastics/single-use-...

awongh 1y ago

Also, I think the use of plastics and it's impact on the environment is probably overstated from a consumer standpoint- no one really thinks about the systemic issues and the cause and effect cycles at work. Everyone is concerned with micro plastics now, but taking drink bottles and making them into chairs is just a distraction. We have a lot of knowledge on how to literally burn plastic and not pollute anything- waste really doesn't have to be an issue. The micro plastics that studies find in the human body are probably from sources no one cares to address- acrylic paint, tires, polyester clothing, things that are constantly being ground into nano particle size bits that are omni-present in all environments (and no one even considers getting rid of). If you live in a first world country the ocean plastic isn't from you- if you drink from a plastic straw or not it probably doesn't matter. That plastic is most likely from fishing nets and from a few countries where people throw their waste directly into a few rivers. People would rather focus on shaming those who don't sort their trash and drink from plastic straws.

Anthony-G 1y ago
I largely agree with what you say but I have my doubts about the following statement. > If you live in a first world country the ocean plastic isn't from you I live in Ireland and I’m not sure that’s the case for us. Plastic was collected in the recycling bins and then shipped to China for processing. I was always skeptical of the environmental soundness of shipping plastic to the other side of the planet – and the lack of transparency about what happens to the plastic waste after. I always wondered if any plastic that wasn’t PET was just dumped in a river or the sea. A few years ago, China stopped accepting plastic refuse from Western countries so the plastic was sent to other Southeast Asian countries but they also find it to be not economically viable to process. I looked into this issue before but found it hard to get solid evidence that the plastic is actually recycled. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the plastic that is collected in the West for “recyling” ends up in the ocean, while we in the west pat ourselves on the back for doing the “right thing”. Personally, I do my best to Reduce and Reuse rather than Recycle.
- awongh 1y ago
  I guess that mostly proves my point in the sense that it's not most people's personal choices that determine if plastic ends up in the ocean- it's either incompetence or downright deliberately deceptive actions by someone else- it's crazy to think that we need to make chairs out of bottles because someone decided to ship the plastic to another country rather than actually deal with it properly. In that sense, saying "recycle or it'll end up in the ocean" is like saying "eat your food because people are starving in africa". Not only are the cause and effect not related but then people ignore the true underlying causes.