4 ms·

Not that I believe any of this BS in the first place, but I've always found it quite amusing that traditional blown-film plastic bags are being replaced with "r

Not that I believe any of this BS in the first place, but I've always found it quite amusing that traditional blown-film plastic bags are being replaced with "reusable" ones... which are also made of the same plastics, except in textile form and thus easily shed fibers everywhere.

leoh 11mo ago
Okay, feel free to ignore everything about PFAS, etc.
- userbinator 11mo ago
  A century of progress is getting destroyed thanks to radical misguided "environmentalism".
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - metalman 11mo ago
    not in China, progress there is picking up pace, powered by solar. China is also prempting the loss of labour as people get older, and are building out fully robotic factories ,"dark factories" for the fact that the lights are turned off, not on, when they are running, as there are no humans on the floor. On the plastic's side China is by far the largest manufacurer of all things plastic, and buys load after load of US natural gas that gets pumped strait into cracking plants to be converted into polymers, but you can be sure that they, and others are working along sytematicaly to find a ploymer with the right properties for use, but that then iether breaks down comlpletly, or is inhearantly benign, and inert. My main point is that China, and nowhere else will decide how the whole plastic thing goes, and what we are loosing here in the west, is agency and credibility.
  - stubish 11mo ago
    Asbestos and lead in petrol and CFCs were also progress. But we decided to progress further to reduce the chance of dying of cancer. And we did!
    - userbinator 11mo ago
      Asbestos is harmless if not inhaled, and the most dangerous forms of it were banned long ago. White asbestos (chrysotile) is relatively safe especially if used as an encapsulated filler. Here's an interesting study of chrysotile miners, exposed to very high levels of it daily: https://asbest-study.iarc.who.int/ https://asbest-study.iarc.who.int/ The effects of CFCs are still disputed, but they replaced far more dangerous refrigerants... but somehow people are being convinced into using propane and butane again. On the other hand, I'll say that leaded petrol was bad, but that's because it was designed to be dispersed into the atmosphere and the effects of lead poisoning quite clear. This microplastics bullshit has not passed the test of time or (real) science. It's not "progress", it's become radical ideology. Here's something which may enlighten you: a ton of articles which claim to have discovered "microplastics" are really implying to have done so by detecting the decomposition products of long hydrocarbon chains, which are of course present in polymers like polyethylene, the world's most common plastic; but guess what else has long hydrocarbon chains? Fats and oils. As in biological matter.
esafak 11mo ago
Cloth bags exist.
roxolotl 11mo ago
You can buy microscopes for pretty cheap if you’d like to look for microplastics yourself. But regardless I’m curious what you think happens to the plastic you use. Where does the little bit you scrape away go when you cut on a plastic cutting board? What happened to the fluffy fleece jacket that’s no longer fluffy? This stuff doesn’t biodegrade so it’s gotta go somewhere.
- userbinator 11mo ago
  It's going back where it came from. I really don't give a shit about this new hysterical idiocy.
  - pluralmonad 11mo ago
    Where do you think it came from and how does it get back there?
  - esseph 11mo ago
    > Detection of microplastics in human tissues and organs: A scoping review > Conclusions > Microplastics are commonly detected in human tissues and organs, with distinct characteristics and entry routes, and variable analytical techniques exist. > In addition, we found that atmospheric inhalation and ingestion through food and water were the likely primary routes of entry of microplastics into human body. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11342020/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11342020/
  - Lutger 11mo ago
    So it turns itself back into oil and seeps into the well where it originated from? You know this sounds like putting your hands on your ears shouting 'lalala I can't hear you'? The thing I'm wondering is, if you don't care, why make the effort to comment at all? Clearly you care enough to do so. What are you afraid will happen by merely acknowledging what is the case? Whenever someone presents the finding of facts as hysterical, I'm left wondering who is actually the hysterical one. The microplastic particles in our air aren't hysterical. They are just there. Research revealing they are present isn't hysterical either, nor is research about the consequences. At most, such research is more or less accurate, or distorted. I'm starting to think you are the one who is hysterical in this matter. But for what reason? I can only think of only three: you agree with the dangers but find it so overwhelming that you want to shut it down you fear losing the benefits of plastic and want to undermine any action on the subject you just can't take any kind of panic, regardless of the reasons and to maintain your sanity, you vehemently push away anything that might otherwise makes you feel alarmed
ragequittah 11mo ago
This seems obvious to me why the heavier bags are better. They don't immediately blow away to the ocean or wherever else. We're also charged $1.50 for them where I am or you get a paper bag so people who want to save $4.50+ on a grocery run (which is a ton of people) will bring their own.
- rincebrain 11mo ago
  The problem with that is, in places where delivery is ubiquitous, people use the reusable bags the same as they used the single-use bags, and there's no way to return them, so now people are disposing of much more resource-intensive bags the same way they did the single-use ones.
  - ragequittah 11mo ago
    Those same people who will save $4.50 by using the reusable bags also wouldn't think of paying for delivery. And the reusable bags are much more likely to be recycled or used for other purposes. But also where I am people deliver 100% in boxes. That's an easy enough way to solve it. Also makes the delivery of a heavy load easier because you just drop the box on a dolly or similar.
    - rincebrain 11mo ago
      In a number of cases, yes. I'm not remarking that the premise is entirely without merit, just that there's some emergent cases where it actively made things worse.

leoh 11mo ago

Okay, feel free to ignore everything about PFAS, etc.

userbinator 11mo ago
A century of progress is getting destroyed thanks to radical misguided "environmentalism".
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- metalman 11mo ago
  not in China, progress there is picking up pace, powered by solar. China is also prempting the loss of labour as people get older, and are building out fully robotic factories ,"dark factories" for the fact that the lights are turned off, not on, when they are running, as there are no humans on the floor. On the plastic's side China is by far the largest manufacurer of all things plastic, and buys load after load of US natural gas that gets pumped strait into cracking plants to be converted into polymers, but you can be sure that they, and others are working along sytematicaly to find a ploymer with the right properties for use, but that then iether breaks down comlpletly, or is inhearantly benign, and inert. My main point is that China, and nowhere else will decide how the whole plastic thing goes, and what we are loosing here in the west, is agency and credibility.
- stubish 11mo ago
  Asbestos and lead in petrol and CFCs were also progress. But we decided to progress further to reduce the chance of dying of cancer. And we did!
  - userbinator 11mo ago
    Asbestos is harmless if not inhaled, and the most dangerous forms of it were banned long ago. White asbestos (chrysotile) is relatively safe especially if used as an encapsulated filler. Here's an interesting study of chrysotile miners, exposed to very high levels of it daily: https://asbest-study.iarc.who.int/ https://asbest-study.iarc.who.int/ The effects of CFCs are still disputed, but they replaced far more dangerous refrigerants... but somehow people are being convinced into using propane and butane again. On the other hand, I'll say that leaded petrol was bad, but that's because it was designed to be dispersed into the atmosphere and the effects of lead poisoning quite clear. This microplastics bullshit has not passed the test of time or (real) science. It's not "progress", it's become radical ideology. Here's something which may enlighten you: a ton of articles which claim to have discovered "microplastics" are really implying to have done so by detecting the decomposition products of long hydrocarbon chains, which are of course present in polymers like polyethylene, the world's most common plastic; but guess what else has long hydrocarbon chains? Fats and oils. As in biological matter.

esafak 11mo ago

Cloth bags exist.

roxolotl 11mo ago

You can buy microscopes for pretty cheap if you’d like to look for microplastics yourself. But regardless I’m curious what you think happens to the plastic you use. Where does the little bit you scrape away go when you cut on a plastic cutting board? What happened to the fluffy fleece jacket that’s no longer fluffy? This stuff doesn’t biodegrade so it’s gotta go somewhere.

userbinator 11mo ago
It's going back where it came from. I really don't give a shit about this new hysterical idiocy.
- pluralmonad 11mo ago
  Where do you think it came from and how does it get back there?
- esseph 11mo ago
  > Detection of microplastics in human tissues and organs: A scoping review > Conclusions > Microplastics are commonly detected in human tissues and organs, with distinct characteristics and entry routes, and variable analytical techniques exist. > In addition, we found that atmospheric inhalation and ingestion through food and water were the likely primary routes of entry of microplastics into human body. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11342020/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11342020/
- Lutger 11mo ago
  So it turns itself back into oil and seeps into the well where it originated from? You know this sounds like putting your hands on your ears shouting 'lalala I can't hear you'? The thing I'm wondering is, if you don't care, why make the effort to comment at all? Clearly you care enough to do so. What are you afraid will happen by merely acknowledging what is the case? Whenever someone presents the finding of facts as hysterical, I'm left wondering who is actually the hysterical one. The microplastic particles in our air aren't hysterical. They are just there. Research revealing they are present isn't hysterical either, nor is research about the consequences. At most, such research is more or less accurate, or distorted. I'm starting to think you are the one who is hysterical in this matter. But for what reason? I can only think of only three: you agree with the dangers but find it so overwhelming that you want to shut it down you fear losing the benefits of plastic and want to undermine any action on the subject you just can't take any kind of panic, regardless of the reasons and to maintain your sanity, you vehemently push away anything that might otherwise makes you feel alarmed

ragequittah 11mo ago

This seems obvious to me why the heavier bags are better. They don't immediately blow away to the ocean or wherever else. We're also charged $1.50 for them where I am or you get a paper bag so people who want to save $4.50+ on a grocery run (which is a ton of people) will bring their own.

rincebrain 11mo ago
The problem with that is, in places where delivery is ubiquitous, people use the reusable bags the same as they used the single-use bags, and there's no way to return them, so now people are disposing of much more resource-intensive bags the same way they did the single-use ones.
- ragequittah 11mo ago
  Those same people who will save $4.50 by using the reusable bags also wouldn't think of paying for delivery. And the reusable bags are much more likely to be recycled or used for other purposes. But also where I am people deliver 100% in boxes. That's an easy enough way to solve it. Also makes the delivery of a heavy load easier because you just drop the box on a dolly or similar.
  - rincebrain 11mo ago
    In a number of cases, yes. I'm not remarking that the premise is entirely without merit, just that there's some emergent cases where it actively made things worse.