[HN Gopher] New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled ...
___________________________________________________________________
New plant-based plastics can be chemically recycled with near-
perfect efficiency
Author : ColinWright
Score : 405 points
Date : 2021-02-20 18:30 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (academictimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (academictimes.com)
| giantg2 wrote:
| There's also a company working on a plastic replacement for
| mushroom grow bags. It would be biodegradable.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Ooh - do you happen to have a link?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Mushroom bags that have additives to biodegrade the plastic -
| https://www.shroomsupply.com/mushroom-grow-
| bags/biodegradabl...
|
| Plastic like bags that are made from cassava and dissolve in
| water - https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/company-makes-
| cassava-ba...
|
| And also, cellophane is biodegradable too.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Plastic recycling seems heavily motivated by emotion and virtue
| signaling.
|
| In reality, only about 5% of our crude oil use goes towards
| plastic.
|
| If we rolled out EVs, and then just burned all the plastic trash
| (using waste-to-energy plants), we would still be far ahead.
|
| The biggest challenges with plastics are hormone disruption, and
| microplastics (particularly in the 3rd world without sufficient
| landfill or W2E infrastructure or societal environmental
| concern). If these new plastics are less molecularly stable,
| these issues may actually be worsened.
| legulere wrote:
| Plastic consumption is still growing exponentially though while
| burning oil is declining.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Plastic disposal is a clear example of the failure of current
| economics.
|
| It's clearly bad for the environment and has long term costs,
| but there basically isn't any way economics to calculate that
| or incent it to not be done.
|
| So IMO, recycling is an exploratory exercise in seeing if we
| can socially engineer behavior that is "better". The cynic
| would say "it doesn't", but I could argue civilization is built
| on short term economic calculations and resulting
| social/behavioral engineering that makes that impossible.
|
| If there was any way to know, I'd be fascinated to see if there
| are real measurements in the drop in altruism, either from the
| psychological conditioning of our society, or making altruistic
| people less able to procreate.
| orev wrote:
| There definitely is a way to deal with this in economics:
| taxes. If you tax the companies making the plastics, the
| price will go up, and they have an incentive to do things
| differently.
|
| Taxes are a crucial pillar of even a purely capitalist
| society, it's just that they are not easy to implement
| politically.
| alistairSH wrote:
| LOL @ the downvotes. Not sure why, what orev said is true -
| taxing externalities is generally considered (at least by
| economists) the best way to manage the externality. Set the
| tax at a level that makes it cost prohibitive to use
| plastics and the market will find an alternative.
| hntrader wrote:
| Pigovian taxes are my favourite response to environmental
| damage.
|
| In theory, everyone should be on board. The fiscal
| conservatives _should_ want it, since negative
| externalities are a violation of the non-aggression
| principle, and taxes are the least intrusive way to
| encourage change, it 's basically delegating the specifics
| of the change to the market. It is consistent with their
| principles to want it. It seems like the easiest way to
| potentially get the most people on board.
|
| I also genuinely believe it's the best solution most of the
| time. The market is ingenious as long as prices accurately
| reflect costs and benefits.
| specialist wrote:
| I read u/AtlasBarfed's point being that we don't have a
| proper way to put a price on the externalities.
|
| To your point, onerously high taxes could largely remove
| plastics from the waste stream, mooting the need to
| determine the cost.
|
| I'd like to go even further. Incentives and prizes and
| grants and whatever-it-takes to find alternatives. eg Bulk
| pills in plant-based baggies, instead of monthly oversized
| labeled bottles and caps.
|
| Nudge the culture and expectations. Every little bit would
| help. Because better is better.
| sep_field wrote:
| The onerously high taxes could help pay for the
| incentives, prizes, and grants.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| 90% of ocean plastic comes from Asia and Africa:
|
| http://odinafrica.org/about-us/news/217-90-percent-of-
| ocean-....
|
| We need to prohibit Western companies from packaging food and
| FMCG for the developing world in plastic - until both the
| disposal infrastructure and societal attitudes around
| pollution and environmental management change. Or, charge
| those polluters to build that infrastructure or change those
| attitudes.
|
| Here are the biggest polluters:
|
| CocaCola (USA)
|
| PepsiCo (USA)
|
| Nestle (Switzerland)
|
| Unilever (UK)
|
| Mondelez (USA)
|
| Mars (USA)
|
| P&G (USA)
|
| Phillip Morris (USA)
|
| Colgate-Palmolive (USA)
|
| Perfetti van Melle (Italy)
|
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coca-cola-pepsico-and-
| nest....
|
| I would suggest that a targeted protest and political
| lobbying campaign against the headquarters of those companies
| would be more effective than any individual effort to clean
| up plastic pollution.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| That's only because we were sending plastics to them to
| 'reprocess', and when those countries banned it, we were
| dumping it there illegally:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/29/malaysia-to-
| se...
| maxerickson wrote:
| My recycling is sorted on site at the county dump, with
| rejected stuff disposed of in the dump. No way are the
| bundles of material they sell being shipped to Asia for
| disposal, it doesn't make any sense at all.
|
| That article is about the countries raising their
| standards for the sorted material they accept, not about
| the typical journey that Australian waste takes. Just
| think about what a non existent amount of material 100
| tonnes is for a country of 25 million people. Millions of
| tons of waste a year just in NSW:
| https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/what-sydney-is-
| really-th...
| dEnigma wrote:
| Yes, 100 tonnes is nothing at this scale. The company I
| work for, a small-ish waste paper recycler, deals with
| about 15000 tonnes a month.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| A lot of that plastic is shipped in from USA/EU.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Why would they buy plastic and throw it in the river? The
| US has plenty of landfill space, we aren't paying to ship
| plastic to Asia.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| Bulk shipping to asia in particular is very cheap due to
| the volume of empty containers going in that direction.
| Not sure about other places.
|
| Countries that recycle plastic have people pick out the
| good bits cheaply in hellish facilities, profit off
| selling the high grade recycling, the rest is "waste
| waste" to be gotten rid of somehow. Dumping it in the
| ocean is quite cheap.
|
| The sorted plastic used to be a thing that you could mix
| with virgin plastic to get a cheaper product.
|
| Since China's waste import bans, I believe it's actually
| more expensive than virgin plastic, partly because it
| costs more to produce now and partly because demand is
| driven by manufacturers who want to have a certain %
| recycled plastic in their product for marketing reasons.
|
| The higher price incentivises _other_ countries to import
| and process mixed plastic waste instead. They of course
| will also have to find a way to get rid of the not-useful
| portions of mixed plastic waste.
| maxerickson wrote:
| In the US, dumping stuff in the nearest landfill is
| pretty likely to be cheaper than dumping it in the ocean.
| Especially if the landfill is operating the recycling
| sort (the case here and many other smaller counties).
|
| (This addresses your second paragraph; if they are
| selling the high grade and putting the rest in the
| landfill...)
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| The first reason it's hard to just landfill it is optics.
| Local government asked people to sort their trash, made a
| big deal about it. And it's a scandal when people find
| out of course it's just being buried with the rest of the
| stuff. Recyclers were able to do two things; a) play a
| shell game which diverts the waste in an opaque,
| hopefully deniable way and b) deal with the waste more
| cheaply than landfilling it. They did this by exporting
| it, and all the externalities.
|
| I mean, your argument is good but I feel it's
| contradicted by reality in a sense; megatons of waste
| plastic were being sent to China before the import ban.
|
| You have to pay to put stuff in landfill, whereas the
| recyclers were paying _you_ to take the waste.
|
| I think you might also be surprised by the cost of
| landfill. Sure, there's plenty of space, but there's not
| as much _government approved, environmentally audited
| space_ as you might want - that won 't leach into the
| water table, has good geography, neighbours who won't
| NIMBY it, no rare frogs that live there etc. Obviously it
| all needs ISO 27000 management, union labour and regular
| safety and environmental audits.
|
| Caring about none of the above is how Chinese waste
| entrepreneurs could take mixed plastic from 1/2 way
| around the world and _make a profit_ out of it, instead
| of losing money putting it into the ground. Their margins
| are slim and _they_ have to pay for landfill too (much
| less of course), so dumping it in the ocean or similar
| saves money unless they get caught.
|
| (For what it's worth I do agree that putting it in the
| ground might be the best thing to do, i.e, cheapest
| considering all externalities, and local government
| should just be transparent about what actually happens to
| your recycling).
| DFHippie wrote:
| I lived in Nashville in the early aughts. They had
| recycling centers where there were bins with labels for
| every sort of plastic. Of course, the only people using
| these centers, people like myself and my wife, were
| people who were scrupulously rule-abiding and wanted to
| do their part for the environment. Everyone shlepped
| their recyclables across town to these centers and then
| carefully sorted everything, take great pains and time to
| do it. If you were there when the trucks came to pick up
| the stuff, they emptied all the bins into the same truck.
| I saw this happen. The recycling company charged the city
| to mix the recycling. Then they charged it to separate
| everything again at the recycling plant. This was not a
| secret. Still, the people such as myself who took the
| trouble to recycling as much as they could of their waste
| could not be convinced to throw everything into whichever
| (carefully labeled) bin and go home.
|
| My point is that it is entirely plausible that people are
| paying extra to "recycle" their waste when this has no
| positive environmental consequence. I was one of the
| people separating my trash, knowing the trucks would come
| and mix and all and charge me for this "service". It
| wasn't "virtue signaling". It was desperation to feel
| that one wasn't doing so much harm plus a desire not to
| be seen as the one breaking the rules of the recycling
| center. I was trying to do the best I could in my
| circumstances and feel a little better about my actions.
| I no longer live in Nashville.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I've literally been in the local facility that sorts
| recycling, they do a good job of sorting clean stuff by
| type and throw everything else away, into the landfill
| where it is located. Should I not believe my lying eyes?
|
| So someone _pays_ to haul stuff away on trucks and I 'm
| supposed to believe that they are dumping that stuff in
| the ocean for some reason. Or shipping it to China and
| then dumping it in the ocean.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| The situation isn't binary.
|
| Waste management is handled at the local government
| level, they tend to "do their own thing". If your local
| government is doing the right thing, good for them! It
| could be burnt, landfilled, exported, sorted and sent to
| a local processor or sorted and then exported.
|
| Sorting is not a binary process either. You can sort to
| different contamination levels depending on what
| processors are willing to take.
|
| Not all waste is the same; different _kinds_ of waste are
| handled differently in different places.
|
| Local conditions make a difference; how much do voters
| care about the environment really? How much unused space
| is nearby? Are you way inland or near a port? etc.
|
| But we can zoom out a bit and look at the macro trends.
|
| I thought this article was a good introduction to how
| things have changed:
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-
| on-i...
|
| Hopefully in future we do see more local processing, and
| less "environmental law arbitrage" by waste export.
| lofi_lory wrote:
| I think the best use would be not microparticle-shedding
| plastics made from fast growing plants, deposited in the
| ground as carbon sinks. Something degradable, but not in
| anaerobic conditions.
| john_moscow wrote:
| EVs still heavily depend on non-recyclable batteries. A much
| better option would be to get biodiesel to a practical state.
| So whatever carbon your car releases will get trapped back into
| another portion of fuel.
| rahimiali wrote:
| disposing of plastics isn't so simple. burning plastic for
| energy is ok for some plastics, but plastics that contain
| chlorides produce dangerous gases. we don't have cost effective
| ways to capture those gases. even if we addressed that issue,
| the economics of w2e are poorer than those of landfills.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Citation? I was told proper incineration can take care of
| that l.
| DFHippie wrote:
| Tou have to incinerate at a _really_ high temperature to
| get rid of the chlorine.
| TedShiller wrote:
| Have you seen what lithium mining does to the earth? If you
| haven't, I suggest you check it out. EV cars are not the
| answer.
| jbay808 wrote:
| How does it compare with other types of mining, such as coal
| mining, uranium mining, or the Alberta tar sands?
| [deleted]
| Aunche wrote:
| I wish there were more charities focused on building proper
| waste management infrastructure in developing countries. People
| don't want to support landfills and incineration, so they would
| rather support "clever" methods of collecting plastic in the
| ocean instead, which often end up in landfills anyways.
| ehnto wrote:
| Maybe I am just cynical, but I don't believe we will stop
| polluting the oceans in my life time, so remediation
| technology is a necessary place to focus.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Have you never come across an area with heavy plastic pollution
| during your explorations? Seeing it makes me sad and motivates
| me to reduce my own plastic usage. I also actively pick up
| waste as part of my civic duty.
|
| Having said that, plastic recycling is bullshit. You can't
| recycle plastic. You can recycle steel and glass. A can can be
| turned into a new can. But the plastic around meat will never
| be turned into a new plastic around meat. That's not recycling.
| Glass is even better as it can be reused. No need for expensive
| recycling. Plastic can't be recycled so it just needs to be
| reduced. There are so many easy ways to do this that don't take
| a genius to figure out. It's just a matter of forcing the
| supermarkets etc to care about it.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| I think we should recycle plastic if we can, or better yet,
| switch to other materials that are easier to recycle. For
| example, glass bottles can just be sent back to the factory,
| washed and reused. This is already done for beer and wine
| AFAIK. It could be done for milk and every other kind of drinks
| as well.
|
| However, if we fail to recycle plastic, isn't burying plastic
| in a landfill, in a way, a form of carbon capture? This is
| that. much less carbon going into the atmosphere. Again, I
| think we should avoid that if we can, but IMO, not all
| pollution is an equally serious problem. Reducing CO2 emissions
| is clearly the number one priority.
| dawnerd wrote:
| If by sent back you mean crushed then yeah sure bottles are
| reused. Oregon for example breaks the bottles when you return
| them to prevent fraud.
| dEnigma wrote:
| That's horrible, if true. Do you have a source for that? A
| quick Google search didn't get me anywhere. At least here
| in Austria the glass bottles are actually cleaned and re-
| used.
| anamexis wrote:
| There isn't really any systematic reuse of glass bottles
| in the U.S. The only such thing I've encountered is some
| very niche arrangements between boutique dairy companies
| and boutique grocery stores, where you can return your
| $10 quart bottle of milk for the bottle to be reused.
| DFHippie wrote:
| The co-op I frequent in Vermont provides milk in glass
| bottles from various dairies. The bottles have
| significant deposits, but the most is $2. You return the
| bottle. You get the deposit back. They clean and reuse
| the same bottle, as is shown by the accumulating
| scratches on the outsides of the bottles. The co-op is
| the main grocery store in town, so not "boutique" except
| insomuch as Vermont itself is boutique. But then
| "boutique" just means not typical. Your implication is
| that it means supported by bougie people living in a
| fantasy land. Most of US material culture is crap. This
| is not by necessity.
| acdha wrote:
| > boutique grocery stores, where you can return your $10
| quart bottle of milk for the bottle to be reused.
|
| You're misrepresenting the price substantially - that's 5
| times what Whole Foods charges and while they're upscale
| they're more mainstream than boutique these days.
| anamexis wrote:
| You're telling me I can buy a quart of milk in a reusable
| glass bottle for $2 at Whole Foods?
| acdha wrote:
| Yes: a half gallon is two quarts and that's $4.
|
| https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/product/homestead-
| creamery-...
| dawnerd wrote:
| Yeah the machines around here you can hear them being
| crushed. Most are Tomra units. Oregon does recycle full
| bottles but I think that's only if you use the green bags
| and have them sort.
|
| https://www.bottledropcenters.com/buy-refillable-
| containers/
|
| Found a video of the same machine, you can hear the
| bottle breaking https://youtu.be/1wwmqmxdlSw?t=27
|
| Quick edit: Looks like Tomra does make machines that keep
| the bottles intact.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| Thankfully that's not the case everywhere: https://www.thes
| tar.com/life/food_wine/2013/06/28/the_averag...
| thret wrote:
| My mother used to say this happened with milk. They'd deliver
| it daily and collect the used bottles to be washed and
| reused.
| alistairSH wrote:
| AFAIK, you can still get daily milk delivery in rural
| Scotland. My grandparents certainly did through the
| mid-90s. Some homes even had a little door where the
| milkman could place the bottles straight into the kitchen.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Our family gets its milk direct from a farm this way in
| upstate NY.
|
| It costs about 50% more, but the quality of the milk is
| unbelievable and unlike most supermarket milk, we're paying
| the producer a sustainable rate that yields them a profit.
|
| Overall in New York, 75% of remaining dairy farmers will be
| bankrupt in a year or two.
| acdha wrote:
| That's what we've been doing during the pandemic in the DC
| area: it costs about the same as buying organic milk at
| Safeway to get glass bottles delivered from a local
| creamery, along with cheese, bread, etc.
| yojo wrote:
| This is still done today with some premium milk in the US -
| e.g. Strauss milk:
| https://www.strausfamilycreamery.com/simple-faqs/what-
| should...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You cannot win this argument.
|
| One concerned citizen will point out that glass is heavier
| and supposedly uses more diesel to move around and requires
| more trucks to do so. Another concerned citizen will point
| out that more carbon is used in firing sand into glass. Still
| another will tell you that the warm water used to clean a
| used bottle will also produce carbon.
|
| The only answer is to move next to a spring and drink the
| water with your hands, but some other person will be
| concerned that you are disrupting the spring's ecology.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| It's tradeoffs all around. We each get to decide where our
| personal responsibility begins and ends. As a society we
| negotiate together in choosing leaders to preserve our way
| of life.
|
| As people become more educated their positions can change.
| We don't have to settle for one solution forever or give up
| just because there isn't absolute agreement.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| I agree that there are always people whining, no matter
| which solution you might suggest (unfortunately). However,
| I'm invested in three companies that build electric trucks,
| and there are more and more renewables on the grid.
| Multiple companies are tackling the problem of energy
| storage as well. Change is happening.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| > The biggest challenges with plastics are hormone disruption,
| and microplastics (particularly in the 3rd world without
| sufficient landfill or W2E infrastructure or societal
| environmental concern).
|
| Do we live on the same planet?
|
| The biggest challenges with plastics is the proliferation of
| plastic pollution.
| cjblomqvist wrote:
| Do you have any source for the 5% stat? I don't mistrust you,
| but it would be nice to "see it with my own eyes" to be
| confident enough to use it in conversations with others.
| lionsdan wrote:
| "Plastics production accounts for about 4 percent of global
| oil production. That's according to figures for 2012, so now
| it may well be higher."
|
| https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/How-Much-Crude-
| Oi...
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| https://www.bpf.co.uk/press/Oil_Consumption
|
| "In Europe, it is estimated that between 4-6% of oil and gas
| is used for producing plastics."
|
| - British Plastics Federation
|
| It varies from country to country, and in the USA natural gas
| is the primary input instead of oil. Some gas or oil could be
| consumed by the plant, not actually ending up in the final
| product.
| rmason wrote:
| I remember a time when everything was paper bags. Groceries and
| retailers went with plastic because it was cheaper. But with
| plastic there was a hidden cost.
|
| Now we're told we must pay a premium for recyclable plastic.
| Personally I'd rather pay a premium for paper because it's made
| from a renewable resource. Plus paper will decompose within two
| months in nature.
|
| The only drawback I can find is that paper bags take more water
| to produce than plastic. Sitting in a Great Lakes state that
| problem doesn't bother me.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Also not everything can be paper. A coffee cup can never be
| fully paper, it needs a plastic lining and can thus never be
| recyclable. Not without it being extremely crappy. No food
| item can be enclosed in a fully paper enclosure and expected
| to have a shelf life.
|
| And for all the Portlanders saving a plastic bag there's a
| Texan buying all their drinking water as pallets of
| disposable single use plastic bottles.
|
| I think we should just take the japan route - use plastic,
| try your best to be judicious and then just incinerate it.
| mssundaram wrote:
| > _Also not everything can be paper. A coffee cup can never
| be fully paper, it needs a plastic lining and can thus
| never be recyclable_
|
| There are bioplatic liners for paper coffee cups that allow
| them to be fully compostable, though. I have sitting next
| to me one made from the World Centric brand that uses the
| "Ingeo PLA" for the liner, and I compost these cups in my
| backyard. I only use them when it's inconvenient to not use
| a regular mug.
| astrange wrote:
| I'm not sure Japan is good at plastic use. Practically
| everything is wrapped in 3 different layers for style
| points.
|
| Japan's electricity is also so coal-based that using
| Japanese factories is starting to violate US companies'
| clean energy rules.
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/bbd59494-ac64-4dda-8da5-a2990d89
| 3...
| nicoburns wrote:
| Coffee cups should just be reusable. Forgotten to bring
| your reusable cup? Then tough, don't get a coffee (or drink
| it at the cafe).
| globular-toast wrote:
| Single use bags are always stupid. You can get bags or boxes
| that can be used hundreds of times before they need to be
| replaced.
| madacol wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-
| environmental...
|
| TL;DR
|
| # Reuses needed to break-even with standard single-use
| plastic bag (LDPE;Low-density polyethylene)
|
| Organic cotton - 20,000 reuses
|
| Conventional cotton - 7,100 reuses
|
| Composite - 870 reuses
|
| Recycled PET - 84 reuses
|
| Polypropylene, non-woven, recycled - 52 reuses
|
| Polypropylene, woven, recycled - 45 reuses
|
| Unbleached paper - 43 reuses
|
| Bleached paper - 43 reuses
|
| Biopolymer - 42 reuses
|
| Polyester PET, recycled - 35 reuses
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| The solution, bags-wise, is reusable bags. I carry around
| several of the convenient, pack-into-a-ball variety. They're
| plastic, but they'll last me many many uses. When they
| eventually wear out, they should probably be incinerated. But
| in the meantime, I'm using plastic's advantage, it's long
| life, in my favour - rather than having it haunt me as waste.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Cloth bags are even better. I can put them into the washing
| machine if they are dirty, they can be easily stored and so
| far (I have and use some of both types that are over 10
| years old) none of them degraded.
| madacol wrote:
| Will you reuse it a thousand times?.
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-
| environmental...
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| The newest of the two canvas shopping bags I use is over
| 10 years old, the other I inherited from my grandpa, that
| one may be older than I am.
|
| Both are good sturdy canvas and can easily be patched and
| repaired by anyone with basic sewing skills, some thread
| and a scrap of additional fabric.
|
| Between those two bags and a military surplus canvas
| shoulder bag, I can take care of 99% of my shopping on
| foot or by bicycle (baskets and panniers are wonderful
| inventions), and I haven't had to buy a plastic bag in
| years.
| madacol wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-
| environmental...
|
| TL;DR
|
| # Reuses needed to break-even with standard single-use
| plastic bag (LDPE;Low-density polyethylene)
|
| Organic cotton - 20,000 reuses
|
| Conventional cotton - 7,100 reuses
|
| Composite - 870 reuses
|
| Recycled PET - 84 reuses
|
| Polypropylene, non-woven, recycled - 52 reuses
|
| Polypropylene, woven, recycled - 45 reuses
|
| Unbleached paper - 43 reuses
|
| Bleached paper - 43 reuses
|
| Biopolymer - 42 reuses
|
| Polyester PET, recycled - 35 reuses
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| Paper bags also turn to mush and spill your groceries when
| wet.
| rmason wrote:
| Apparently you've never had a plastic bag break dumping
| your groceries on the ground. Try chasing rolling bottles
| of pop going under cars when it's below zero out. Never had
| that happen with a paper bag.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| I've had both break. Plastic bags tear when overloaded or
| structurally unsound. Previously sound paper bags
| _become_ structurally unsound when soaked, and it doesn
| 't take much wet to soak them. (And unhelpfully, the
| things that could make a paper bag waterproof also make
| it non biodegradable).
| pozazumi wrote:
| Would this be a better use of plastics?
|
| https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-bricks-in-kenya-2650645441....
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > Only about 5%
|
| Perhaps. But 5% of gazillions is still bazillions. Bazillions
| of non-biodegradable goods - many single use - adds up.
| Forever.
|
| Presuming oil follows the same path as coal (i.e., demand
| collapses and price follows) then plastics will get even
| cheaper. If we don't find an alternative soon, it might never
| happen.
| edanm wrote:
| Besides all the other great points commenters have raised, I'd
| like to address this:
|
| > If we rolled out EVs, and then just burned all the plastic
| trash (using waste-to-energy plants), we would still be far
| ahead.
|
| Well yes. But... we're probably not going to just "rolled out
| EVs" so easily. Every step will most likely seem small, because
| it will be, because that's the only thing we can realistically,
| politically do. But that doesn't make it not worth doing.
|
| We may as well say "if we just stopped using electricity we'd
| be way ahead". Not a good basis for comparison, and even if it
| were, it's still only like 20%-30% percent of oil use (off the
| top of my head), so even _that_ won 't unilaterally solve all
| problems.
| enchiridion wrote:
| I get your point, but no. This is the type of thinking that
| led to the stagnation of the auto industry.
|
| Why not roll out EVs that easily? The most profitable case
| company is doing it.... why would anyone go anything else?
| edanm wrote:
| > I get your point, but no. This is the type of thinking
| that led to the stagnation of the auto industry.
|
| I'm sorry, I don't follow. In what way?
|
| > Why not roll out EVs that easily? The most profitable
| case company is doing it.... why would anyone go anything
| else?
|
| I'm all in favor of rolling out EVs. I'm in favor of new
| technical innovations. I'm in favor of better regulations.
| In short, I'm in favor of doing many things at once to
| combat one of our biggest emergencies.
| jariel wrote:
| ? Oil being used to make plastics was never a problem.
|
| Oil is not evil. It's the Co2 bit that's a problem.
|
| The problem you missed was at least to some extent recycling:
| we can't reuse the material at all, and while theoretically
| burning is practical, we still don't separate everything and
| burning still leaves a byproduct that has to be buried.
|
| I suggest the alternative is going to have to be something that
| truly disintegrates, i.e. more organic.
| gbear605 wrote:
| Oil on its own is still not great, because of the extraction
| methods that cause environmental harm, but it's definitely
| better than the CO2-related issues from burning it.
| 8note wrote:
| Burying it as is makes it a carbon sink.
|
| If we take plant, turn them to plastic that doesn't regards
| quickly, then bury them, we're sequestering that co2
| jariel wrote:
| Oil for plastic use just is not a CO2 issue, it has nothing
| to do with sequestration.
|
| Oil for plastics is more akin to the use of any other
| natural resource in a product or good.
|
| The above commenter indicated 'issues with extraction',
| well yes, but we have the same issues with extracting
| everything else. Also, frankly, most oil extraction is not
| very damaging directly - if we were only using oil for
| plastics, we'd probably only use the easiest to access oil,
| like from the Middle East where we pop a straw in the
| ground and that's it aside from refining.
|
| Burned 'anything' that we put in landfills is actually
| better than raw garbage as it's considerably reduced and
| more dense - but it's still landfill.
|
| We should strive for a solution that doesn't require
| landfill.
| hannob wrote:
| > In reality, only about 5% of our crude oil use goes towards
| plastic.
|
| This is such a dangerous take, and so popular.
|
| If we want to fix climate change we need to get rid of
| emissions in all sectors (and yes, plastic does create
| emissions, both in the refinery process and later on landfills
| and in incinerators). It's not a reasonable strategy to only
| focus on the large and easy to fix emission sources.
|
| Plastic is a hard to fix sector, and it's unfortunate that
| developments to decarbonize it have barely started.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I believe plastic recycling is not motivated by oil use
| primarily. I believe it is motivated by trash accumulation in
| oceans and the food chain (microplastics). There are a ton of
| areas of the world where plastic just piles up.
| cortesoft wrote:
| How would recycling help that? Throwing your trash in a trash
| can and taking it to a landfill would protect the ocean and
| food chain just as much as recycling it would.
| tooltower wrote:
| It would reduce the demand for landfill space?
| DenisM wrote:
| We're not running out of land tho.
| ehnto wrote:
| That's not correct, plenty of countries don't have space
| for landfill and instead burn off trash in incinerators.
| DenisM wrote:
| Let's talk about the US then. Do you agree we're not
| running out of land? If so, what is the point of
| recycling?
| objektif wrote:
| What is your point? If we are not running out of land
| should we start dumping plastic all over the place?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Modern landfill techniques are actually quite scientific
| and regulated. It's not as bad as the far left portrays.
| We do need to encourage more reusable things though.
| Plastic and aluminum can be almost 100% recycled. Plastic
| is much much lower. It will take more than one solution
| to fix the problem. I think composting is a pipe dream
| though unless someone figures out how to quickly do it on
| a very large scale. It's fine for home gardeners but the
| rest of us simply aren't going to do it.
| ehnto wrote:
| Composting is only a pipe-dream for plastic because so
| few councils have a plastics composting process in place.
| No one was ever expected to compost PLA at home, and it's
| definitely just a feel-good exercise right now. Most PLA
| cups end up in landfill because they can't go to the
| normal recylcing plants.
| ehnto wrote:
| Presumably you hope the US has a long and prosperous
| future beyond our generation, so it's a problem that will
| need to be solved at some point. The US consumes 70
| million plastic water bottles a day, just disposable
| water bottles. Consider all other plastic waste, and
| consider that just because there is uninhabited land
| doesn't mean you can economically put rubbish in it.
|
| I must admit I am surprised that anyone needs to justify
| the merits of recycling, so I'm curious what your outlook
| is. What makes you question the need for recycling?
| ars wrote:
| There is enough landfill space effectively forever. It's
| really not a problem.
|
| > What makes you question the need for recycling?
|
| The environment makes me question it. Everything I've
| seen shows recycling anything except metal is bad for the
| environment. We only do it because it makes people "feel
| good".
|
| The right thing to do with:
|
| Metal: recycle it
|
| Glass: bury it
|
| Paper: bury it
|
| Plastic: burn it
|
| Everything else: bury it
| spookthesunset wrote:
| You can compost food waste paper like paper towels,
| cardboard takeout boxes, etc... compost makes a lot of
| sense.
| samcheng wrote:
| If you look at the free market for recyclable materials,
| you will find that clean paper and especially clean
| cardboard are valuable feedstocks for paper/board
| processing, and should definitely be recycled.
| cromat3 wrote:
| Why is glass recycling bad for the environment?
| ars wrote:
| Because transporting it (it's heavy) and recycling it
| consumes more resources than making it fresh.
|
| Additionally glass is harmless in the environment, and
| it's not something we can ever run out of.
|
| So why do it?
|
| Additionally, if you actually do want to recycle things,
| glass shards contaminate everything, making it much more
| difficult and expensive (i.e. consumes more resources) to
| do it.
| elil17 wrote:
| For plastic and glass, to make you feel better. Even if
| you're concerned about land use, they end up throwing
| away a lot of what goes into the recycling anyway. With
| glass especially, it is actually worse for the enviroment
| to reuse the glass because of the energy and water use
| associated with cleaning it. (There's also an argument to
| be made that we should continue to recycle plastic so the
| public is in the habit of sorting their trash if we ever
| come up with a way to do it efficiently)
|
| For aluminum, recycling is incredibly important. It
| reduces the need for environmentally-destructive aluminum
| mining and energy intensive smelting.
|
| For paper, recycling high quality paper like clean office
| paper and some cardboard reduces the demand for virgin
| wood pulp. Lower quality paper gets thrown away.
|
| Also, shout-out to composting - food and yard scraps
| breaking down in a well aerated environment produces
| fewer greenhouse gasses than landfills.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| It is amazing how much stuff you can compost. In my
| armchair quarterback opinion compost everything you can
| and recycle only metal.
|
| If people are pissed about how much stuff they are
| throwing into the trash... go look at the incredible
| amount of packaging material that gets thrown out....
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| How many people have backyards to compost stuff and the
| time to do it? 25%?
| elil17 wrote:
| Backyard composting piles aren't really the solution in
| my opinion (they're great if you can do them, but few
| people ever will). We need municipal compost pickup.
|
| My city actually has this - we were all given bright
| green compost bins and instructions for composting. The
| amazing thing about municipal composting is that they can
| handle way more types of food scraps (e.g. bones and
| fruit pits) than backyard composting bins. They come pick
| it up every week just like the trash and recycling.
|
| Unfortunately, it seems like I'm one of two or three
| people on my street who compost my food scraps every
| week. I think composting should really be easier for
| people to figure out than recycling - it's so simple to
| know what you should and should not compost (as it says
| on the front of every green bin, "If it grows, it goes").
| pkulak wrote:
| Yeah, the great irony here is that recycling is what sends
| the trash to Asia were it's then tossed in the ocean.
|
| Or at least, it used to. I think most plastic "recycling"
| is now going into local landfills.
| ars wrote:
| > recycling is what sends the trash to Asia were it's
| then tossed in the ocean.
|
| That isn't true (and was never true). Trash in Asia that
| ends up in the ocean is local trash.
|
| Even back when Asia bought recycling from us there wasn't
| much trash in it, and even the trash that was there
| didn't end up in the ocean.
|
| The stuff in the ocean is what litters the streets, and
| then goes in rivers during rain storms.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I tried explaining this a very eager green friend of mine
| and he would have none of it, he preferred blaming the
| USA on every bad thing going on in the world. Even Asian
| garbage being dumped in the ocean.
| ehnto wrote:
| Depends on your local council. Recycling is a very local
| issue, and so it's something communities can and should
| tackle head on.
|
| But you are right, the amount of councils sending
| recycling to landfill is very sad.
| smabie wrote:
| Why is it sad? Why does plastic need to be recycled?
| EGreg wrote:
| Here are some reasons:
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/International/plastic-garbage-
| flip-fl...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180426-why-plastics-
| are...
|
| https://www.surfrider.org/coastal-
| blog/entry/microplastics-f...
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ocean-plastic-liberals-
| fact...
|
| And it's only going to get worse unless we do something
| about it. Recycling is far worse than just taxing
| negative externalities and making the companies upstream
| use biodegradeable materials.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > I believe it is motivated by trash accumulation in oceans
| and the food chain (microplastics). There are a ton of areas
| of the world where plastic just piles up.
|
| But then how are we not at the same solution? Burn the
| plastic garbage (in place of coal or natural gas) to generate
| electricity.
|
| Even better if they were plant-based plastics to begin with,
| because then it's renewable energy.
| joshspankit wrote:
| Off-topic, but sometimes I feel like we could harvest the
| plastic from the ocean, make plastic bricks, and build
| millions of houses.
|
| _Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to say that this is
| a viable solution to anything, or that it's a good use of
| resources based on our current methodologies. I'm more just
| trying to say that there's so much raw material out there and
| that it's better if it comes out of the ocean. Like, if
| suddenly we found a non-polluting method to perfectly
| separate out all the components, then a health-safe chemical
| mixture with those components that was solid and fireproof
| (and UV proof), there's probably enough out there to do
| something significant with._
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| Bricks made of plastic weather into dust made of
| microplastic.
|
| If microplastic turns out to be as serious a problem as has
| been suggested, with bioaccumulation and various sorts of
| damage, then the only solution is that _all plastic without
| exception has to be thoroughly destroyed_ chemically or by
| burning as soon as it it isn 't in use. And not put into
| use in ways that emit microplastic (as fibers, dust, or
| otherwise).
| derefr wrote:
| How about asphalt with plastics mixed into the
| underwater, but not the top layer?
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| Deferring the problem. Roads get dug up and relaid, roads
| get abandoned, maybe a few years down the line, we won't
| be using roads. Mentally insert "Back to the Future 2"
| clip here. And so a few decades later, we return to the
| problem.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I forget where I read this but asphalt is perhaps the
| most recycled plastic out there. Asphalt can be ripped up
| and then remelted right back into place or moved
| somewhere else.
| derefr wrote:
| Right! They even have road-paving machines that rip up
| the asphalt; add a bit more tar to replace the tar that
| seeped away; heat up the mixture and tumble it; lay it
| back down; and steamroll over it; all in one pass, all in
| a closed system with no dust escaping. (Ref:
| https://youtu.be/XKFaC5RYbEM)
|
| Plus, since asphalt's petroleum-tar binder is liquified
| during the working process, it would actually act as a
| solvent perfect for _dissolving_ (certain) microplastics
| into. The microplastics wouldn't merely be in mechanical
| mixture with the asphalt; they wouldn't exist as distinct
| entities any more! They'd revert to being a petroleum
| fraction, in complex with the heavier petroleum fractions
| of the tar.
| pkaye wrote:
| You also need to make it fireproof or use an outer layer of
| fireproof material.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Yeah, if you aren't careful plastic building materials
| have some grim failure modes, the cladding that burned
| Grenfell Tower was made of aluminum and polyethylene,
| which more or less acted like a candle.
| joshspankit wrote:
| I've edited my comment to clarify the subtext, but yes
| you'd _definitely_ need to make it fireproof. Fiery
| liquid plastic is exceptionally unpleasant.
| bluGill wrote:
| Your edit is where the problem is. Sure there is a lot of
| plastic in the ocean, but the ocean is big as well. As a
| whole the size of the ocean cancels out your attempts to do
| any recovery. You end up using more energy to power the
| filters (which are typically on ships) than you would by
| taking the oil powering the filters and directly turning it
| into plastic.
|
| Plastic in the ocean isn't an easy problem to solve with
| anything other than wait for it to degrade. Which isn't as
| bad as it sounds because plastic doesn't do well in the
| sun, and we can easily make plastics that do worse and thus
| degrade faster.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| You're assuming smaller plastic is better.
|
| You should probably stop assuming that.
| bluGill wrote:
| I assume no such thing. Degrade is more than just
| smaller, though that does come first
| Covzire wrote:
| There have been attempts at harvesting plastic from the
| ocean. I remember one fairly recently that built a system
| using crowd funding but I don't think it was as successful
| as hoped. If they keep trying I have little doubt they'll
| make it work and possibly even turn a profit.
|
| https://www.sciencealert.com/that-ocean-garbage-collector-
| is...
| TheGallopedHigh wrote:
| This company did a slight pivot to building autonomous
| collectors anchored in rivers which have the most plastic
| dumped into them leading to the ocean.
| beckman466 wrote:
| Or... we could not use so much plastic, and make _actual_
| bricks to build 'millions of houses'.
|
| Since you sound so excited, are you going to live in the
| first plastic house with your family?
|
| I think suggestions like this are super demeaning. I often
| see them coming from privileged knowledge workers, who are
| eager to share 'free ideas'/psuedo-solutions as a sort of
| 'charity' for poor people (and people in the global south).
| They are also often strategies which somehow don't seem to
| fit for their own life - and instead are for 'others' who
| are less well off.
|
| In other words: tech solutionism.
|
| As knowledge workers, let's try to cut through our false
| consciousness and come up with some awesome systemic
| changes that kick butt.
| joshspankit wrote:
| Demeaning or proposing 'charity' was not my intent at
| all.
|
| I've edited my comment to clarify the subtext, but to
| answer your question: if we could find a health-safe fire
| and UV-resistant plastic formula that made solid building
| materials out of the pollution in the ocean, I would
| definitely live in the first plastic house with my
| family. It could survive hundreds of years and have a lot
| of benefits.
| dEnigma wrote:
| You're reading a lot into that short parent comment.
| Maybe you should be a bit more generous in your
| interpretation of other people's words.
| [deleted]
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| You certainly could, but you could also build houses out of
| stone and cement, like they used to do in the old days.
| Makes for very durable construction.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Better to harvest the plastic from the ocean, and power the
| collection system with the plastic in a plasma gasifier.
| The slag can be disposed of in the ocean, as its chemically
| inert.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > [...] build millions of houses
|
| ... slowly leaching endocrine disruptors in the environment
| for generations to come.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| This would also cut reproduction rates, which is not
| pleasant but is necessary to stop climate change.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| There are more species than humans who need to reproduce.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| That is a good point, maybe something like one-child
| policy better serve this need. Or possibly we must
| consider which is worse for animals, damage from climate
| change or damage from endocrine disruptor.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > one-child policy better serve this need
|
| Over my cold dead body [and I won't go without a fight.].
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| This more extreme usonian gun and freedom idea. If
| government say you have only one child you hav xr15 rifle
| not help. you people no can be trust with guns, ability
| to have as many children as wanted, others. you try use
| them to continue kill planet. you no have freedom to keep
| breeding kill other country with climate change. US
| having more children is externality it not pay. the US
| days of telling world around and doing what desire is
| over.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > If government say you have only one child you hav xr15
| rifle not help
|
| What are they gonna do, line me up and execute me and my
| family ? Kill my children ? Fortunately, Rights are still
| a thing, including the 2nd.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| This is not in need. Fining confiscateing properties
| limiting from some good jobs all good consicuences. You
| have politician come to senses but slowly, you have
| democrat party finaly beat sense into your head on guns,
| sicund amendment be finaly rimoved. US no simply dictate
| to rest of world any more. If US continue cause climate
| change PRC enforce by army. US no more have army
| hegemony, have less man than PRC and bad technology than
| PRC. Your government enforce or we enforce, this is
| choice you for to make.
| mnouquet wrote:
| We will meet on the battlefield in the looming civil war,
| then.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| The answer is neither. Human energy use that causes
| climate harms can be replaced with renewables. Fuel can
| be replaced with batteries. In the longer term, the sun
| is absolutely pouring out energy, which largely goes to
| waste, and a Dyson swarm capturing a small fraction of
| that would satisfy the energy needs of a much larger
| population.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > Human energy use that causes climate harms can be
| replaced with renewables
|
| No, it can't.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| These are not solving land impact of human. We must have
| fewer human or live in smal space like in Tokyo and
| others city like it. Most human no have desire to do
| this. Batery take resources like lithium more than we
| have. Maybe Dyson swarm eating star energy output cause
| climate change of its own, fewer energy reaching earth
| surface. There is always impacts that human create. We
| only can for truly mitigate climate change with reducing
| human numbers. One action we take for to reduce impact
| create impact again in one other place. We swalow spider
| to catch fly and continue on each and again. One child
| policy is the forebest way for to accomplish.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > We only can for truly mitigate climate change with
| reducing human numbers.
|
| Then you should welcome pandemic, genocide and war.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| they are having some positive efect in long enough view.
| also they are having sufering first. best is not to have
| as much persons born.
| astrange wrote:
| It is not necessary. Malthus was wrong. You'll notice
| this position was popular among boomer environmentalists,
| which is why it was parodied just recently by 70s comic
| villain Thanos.
|
| The birth rate everywhere outside Africa has already
| collapsed, anyway. It's probably too low.
| BariumBlue wrote:
| There is a Kenyan Entrepreneur that is trying making bricks
| from excess and non-recyclable plastic:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-environment-
| recycli...
| labawi wrote:
| Most of the plastic can not be practically recovered from
| the ocean. It's more of a publicity stunt and cleaning
| hotspots.
|
| We need to catch the plastics before they go into the
| environment, disintegrate, release their plasticizers and
| other toxins.
|
| As has been said, best way to deal with all the plastic
| garbage that contains who-knows-what would probably be
| fuel, feedstock in refineries or similar.
| DenisM wrote:
| The countries which are the most preoccupied with recycling
| plastics, such as the US, are also the least likely to throw
| they trash into the ocean.
|
| Plastic bags do no harm buried in the landfill, and we're not
| running out of land.
| jounker wrote:
| I see plastic bags on the beach. I walk along the creeks
| nearby, and I see plastic bags and plastic garbage. I go
| for a hike in the sierras, and I find plastic garbage.
|
| I bike along the roads in town, and I see plastic bags in
| the gutter. I look down the incline beside the road and
| there are plastic bags in the trees.
|
| Is the USA as bad as Morocco? No. Is plastic waste a
| problem? Yes.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Multiply that by 100 truckloads per bag, and you have
| what goes into the dump. This blow-away trash is
| unsightly, but addressing it _first_ is kind of the
| definition of virtue signaling. We end up at "If I don't
| see the problem, I can pretend it doesn't exist"?
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| The amount of plastic bags strewn across the environment
| in Morocco has drastically declined since new laws
| against them. There is still progress to be made, but the
| result has made me a supporter of plastic bag bans.
| shawnz wrote:
| Littering/dumping is a much different issue than
| disposing of your waste through the wrong channel. The
| problem you are describing isn't because people use the
| garbage instead of the recycling.
| oblio wrote:
| If we only had paper bags and such, littering wouldn't be
| a problem. Single use plastics of any kind need to be
| banned universally. Pseudo multiple use plastic such as
| bags needs to be taxed like alcohol and tobacco, through
| the roof, until alternatives become economically viable.
| tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote:
| How much does a plastic bag cost where you are? Here in
| Sweden there's a tax on it and a single bag can cost 7
| SEK (USD 0.85).
| oblio wrote:
| It's still too low.
|
| A plastic bag can be quite sturdy, it can be transparent
| so you can easily see what's inside, it's light, it folds
| well, is resistant to humidity, etc.
|
| If you'd give a plastic bag to someone from the 18th
| century they'd cherish it.
|
| We need to make it so the average person actually cares
| about buying a bag.
|
| Something like EUR2 with a return value of EUR1. Or
| anything that makes you treat it like you'd treat, say, a
| good tennis ball. You wouldn't just throw those away
| willy-nilly.
|
| And we need to ban the low grade ones completely.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Yes well here in Spain bags are almost automatically
| handed out. And the cashier is personally offended if you
| say you don't need the bag.
| DenisM wrote:
| We would also have torn handles, pants-staining leaks,
| groceries spilled across the parking lot, double and
| triple bagging, and so on. In fact we already have all of
| these problems thanks to the ham-fisted paper bag laws.
|
| I would be more amenable to the idea if they made a bag
| that does not get torn (e.g. armor the paper with cotton
| or bamboo thread), and is leak-resistant (e.g. waxed),
| but that somehow takes the back seat.
| oblio wrote:
| Well, to your paragraph: oh, the humanity! Will someone
| think of petty conveniences?!?
|
| You do know that we're creating country sized plastic
| patches in the middle of the Pacific, microplastics are
| everywhere and we're eating them, they're slowly changing
| us in ways we don't even understand, etc, etc?
| DenisM wrote:
| Where do you live? In the Pacific Northwest I see nothing
| of the sort, the only nuisance is aluminum beer cans.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Assuming that we can keep burying it forever is not a
| healthy attitude.
|
| People used to assume that dumping sewage in the streets
| was just fine, but it led to cholera outbreaks [1]. There
| was no push to change that until it became a major problem
| and something had to be done. Sure, we can assume burying
| plastic will be a solution forever. But is it not better to
| avoid risking the event where it suddenly is a problem, and
| try and mitigate it now?
|
| (Personally, I think so, but it is one of things that will
| be forever debatable.)
|
| [1] http://www.hubhistory.com/episodes/boston-in-the-time-
| of-cho...
| DenisM wrote:
| > Assuming that we can keep burying it forever is not a
| healthy attitude.
|
| Yes it is. Just because some decision made in the past is
| wrong doesn't mean a different decision made in the
| present is also wrong. There is no harm to landfill, and
| we know it quite well by now.
| beowulfey wrote:
| It isn't about being right or wrong. It is about
| sustainability and foresight. Yes, landfill works now.
| But the population is growing and eventually the land may
| need to be reclaimed. It is about recognizing that excess
| waste now may become a problem for future generations. It
| is about realizing that things could, you know, maybe be
| done better.
|
| Dumping our trash in the ground is lazy and I just don't
| understand how anyone wants to defend it.
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| We are running out of land. I don't disagree with your
| point that landfill space isn't "a problem." But if you
| zoom out and look at inefficient land use more generally
| (like fields for feed corn), you find that there is for all
| intents and purposes no nature left in many of the places
| we occupy.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| If we are fine with Cemeteries in extremely valuable land
| in major city centers, I'm fine with a square mile
| landfill in Oklahoma.
| digidob wrote:
| I'm not fine with either.
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| Cemeteries are also an incredibly inefficient use of
| space.
| DenisM wrote:
| A landfill 1x1x1 km can contain the entire waste the US
| produces in 3 years. A small patch of land 100x100 km has
| enough space to keep trash for 30,000 years.
|
| https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-
| waste-...
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| I'm not disputing that landfills aren't really a big
| deal, I'm disputing the claim that we aren't running out
| of space.
| itsrhettbutler wrote:
| Ever look at satellite images of coastal cities, such as
| LA or the greater NYC region? Turn off all map and road
| labels so it's just a view of land use and cities just
| look like a giant concrete mass sprawling hundreds of
| miles. Now view over Nevada or other major flatland,
| desolate regions. 2x2 miles of landfill wouldn't even be
| visible from the same altitude view. I believe ground
| water and aquifers are near non-existent in many western
| areas too so we wouldn't have to fret about ground water
| contamination.
| mqrs wrote:
| Are we really supposed to be thinking of all currently
| available land as being flexibly provisioned for landfills.
| shawnz wrote:
| Why not? You can still live on top of a landfill. Is it
| better that we live on top of some ecologically inactive
| rocks instead?
| dTal wrote:
| I don't believe you can live on top of a landfill; it's
| too toxic. In fact I don't think you can even build
| housing on the site of a _former_ landfill.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Clearly you've never heard of Foster City!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_City,_California
| dTal wrote:
| That's "landfill" in the sense of raising the ground
| level, not in the sense of "dumping trash", which is what
| we're talking about.
| [deleted]
| DenisM wrote:
| A 1x1x1 km landfill (they are actually holes in the
| ground) can contain the entire waste of the US for three
| years. How many of those can we hide in the western US
| without anyone ever noticing? Howa bout a 100x100 km
| patch, that will hold 30,000 years worth of trash.
| Meanwhile we can focus our energy on the only problem
| that really matter - the climate problem.
| mping wrote:
| Developed countries outsource plasti garbage handling to
| other less developed nations that are happy to take care of
| it for a fee.
| DenisM wrote:
| I don't think that happens anymore?
| Alkhwarizmi wrote:
| You seem extremely confused if you genuinely think buried
| trash in landfill does no harm. Please go and educate your
| self on the consequences of PLASTIC landfills.
| acdha wrote:
| You're making some big assumptions: not intentionally
| dumping into the ocean doesn't mean that they don't end up
| there, and there are other places than the ocean of
| concern. Where I live in the DC area, plastic bags were
| about a third of the trash found in rivers, storm drains,
| etc. and in addition to impact on animals that caused
| problems for all kinds water processing facilities due to
| clogs. After a bag tax was passed, that sharply reduced the
| number of bags which ended up in the local rivers.
| DenisM wrote:
| That's good to know. Do you have a source handy?
| EGreg wrote:
| Plastic has found its way into water everywhere on Earth
| [1] and they don't degrade for centuries. Instead of making
| people recycle, why not tax the externalities upstream and
| nudge corporations into using biodegradeable materials?
|
| [1] https://qz.com/1299485/antarcticas-waters-now-contain-
| plasti...
| malloryerik wrote:
| What about biodegradable plastics? If regular plastics were
| made illegal or heavily taxed, wouldn't industry quickly come
| up with biodegradable alternatives?
| donavanm wrote:
| Current biodegradable plastics are an industry smokescreen.
| The biodegradable portion is generally plant starch used as
| a binder. The "plastic" is just that, a very stable long
| lived micro/nano plastic. The big chunks break down, and
| the plastics continue to move through the environment and
| bioaccumulate.
|
| The work towards truly biodegrade plastic is generally from
| the other end; identifying or making organisms that can
| break down the polymers themselves. Those don't seem to be
| commercially viable, and in themselves won't address
| environmental plastic pollution.
| jononor wrote:
| Which plastics are you refering to? In a PLA plastic for
| example (which is derived from lactic acid, derived from
| startch) there is no distinction between "binder" and
| "plastic", and there is no starch left in the resulting
| production.
|
| Granted the biodegradability of many formulations is
| still far too long and requires unrealistic circumstances
| to happen in the wild (hot composting for example).
| johnisgood wrote:
| What about hemp or mushrooms?
| infogulch wrote:
| We overuse plastic when paper would suffice. But then
| some worry about cutting down trees for paper. Hemp is a
| pretty good crop for the natural fibers needed in paper
| production (and many other things besides) and could
| replace trees as raw material source for paper.
| barney54 wrote:
| It's not easy to find good biodegradable alternatives for
| many types of plastics. See the example of Legos trying to
| replace their plastic with a more environmentally friendly
| version. https://www.wsj.com/articles/lego-struggles-to-
| find-a-plant-...
| derefr wrote:
| Seems weird to want biodegradable lego, when they're
| highly _reusable_. I've never heard of a LEGO brick get
| so worn out that it had to be thrown away. Making them
| rot would just decrease their productive multi-
| generational lifespan.
| endgame wrote:
| ... which would increase the ability of the market to
| absorb new LEGO(R) Bricks! Genius.
| ehnto wrote:
| Everything has the potential to end up in the
| environment, so we have to consider the full cycle of the
| product. I think you might underestimate how much LEGO
| ends up in the bin.
| DenisM wrote:
| Biodegrading plastic releases CO2, landfill-buried plastic
| does not.
|
| Apart from that, what problem are you trying to solve with
| this innovation?
| trickstra wrote:
| The problem with plastic is not the CO2, but the fact
| that we are producing more and more of it and it does not
| decompose so we now have it in forests, rivers, ocean,
| fish, drinking water, our bodies... this can't continue,
| it's not a sustainable path.
| Thiez wrote:
| If the biodegradable plastic isn't made of oil but
| something we grow, then it would still be CO2 neutral.
| DenisM wrote:
| So is petroleum-derived plastic buried in the landfill.
|
| In fact bio-derived plastic buried in the landfill is
| carbon-negative and should be encourged!
| Sonnen wrote:
| So? Peopel should start stopping research on plastic
| alternatives? Probably not right? I don't think you can
| translate their research to saving oil through ev cars.
|
| And i think we should just do both. I'm able to advocate for
| less production of plastic and EV use and less driving around
| for nothing.
| Animats wrote:
| "The one disadvantage of the new materials Mecking identified was
| their cost."
|
| Oops.
|
| Biodegradable plastics are available. They're useful for things
| likely to be discarded with ordinary trash, like food packaging.
| Some are made from starches.
| ivan_ah wrote:
| Here is one of those bio-product bags
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQRqwoSD94w
|
| at 0:30 the video explains bags are made of "polyvinyl alcohol
| and raw materials like limestone" not sure how costly these
| primary materials + production are, but given final "state" is
| non-toxic, would be worth paying for this.
|
| Why are grocery stores not moving into this big time? Seems
| like a no-brainer to me.
| 127 wrote:
| I've heard composting PLA is pretty bad for the environment as
| it produces a lot of methane, which is much worse greenhouse
| gas compared to CO2.
|
| It also seems PLA doesn't degrade in landfills. It requires a
| built to purpose composting facility.
| neltnerb wrote:
| It contaminates compost if you put PLA into a regular
| composter. It requires a special industrial compost facility
| to handle it and most aren't.
|
| So it's trash.
|
| If you put PLA in the recycling bin it is making sorting even
| worse because if you get a bit of PLA mixed in with your
| other plastic it's not going to be good. So it's definitely
| not even slightly recyclable.
|
| So it's trash.
|
| PLA is trash. Unless you have an industrial composter. It's
| horrible.
| [deleted]
| Havoc wrote:
| The diversity of responses in this thread as to what the real
| problem is is deeply alarming.
|
| Apparently hn - presumably an educated crowd - can't even agree
| what the problem is let alone how to fix it.
| neltnerb wrote:
| The "real problem" is a futile entity to identify.
|
| There are an awful lot of real problems.
|
| I really like this technology. It's not going to fix the world.
| I like that the source is biological because it won't depend to
| the same extent on petrochemical supplies. I like that it is
| designed thoughtfully to have good mechanical properties while
| being nearly entirely recoverable. It's clever.
|
| I don't understand the hate. It's a silver BB but it's at
| _least_ cool tech.
| lrossi wrote:
| It's a complex problem for which solutions have many
| ramifications, so it's perfectly normal to see different
| opinions. Personally, I enjoy the friendly and constructive
| discussion I have seen so far, and can say that I learned a few
| things.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Isn't plastic in landfills actually a great way to sequester
| carbon?
| orev wrote:
| It's not really a benefit if the original carbon came from oil,
| because the carbon that was originally deep underground is now
| at the surface. If anything it's only neutral, however the
| carbon emitted during oil extraction and the manufacturing
| process still results in a net negative.
|
| Landfill isn't the worst option, but it's still better to try
| to avoid the manufacturing of it to begin with.
| TeamXe wrote:
| REDUCE, Reuse, Recycle. People forget (or never realized) the
| order was intentional.
| sep_field wrote:
| Agreed. An even better formulation is REFUSE, Reduce,
| Reuse, Recycle.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Although you are right, I don't think it is that people
| don't know this. Recycle is easy, through it in the blue
| bucket. Reduce requires a complete re-imaging of our
| society. This won't happen without substantial taxation on
| plastics and single use packaging. But that is a bad way to
| get re-elected and how will we get next day shippping?
| jrowen wrote:
| To go a bit further, I feel like "reduce" just isn't
| really in the vocabulary of living organisms. Once any
| particular cat is out of its bag, it's not going back in
| (though I'd love to hear some examples to the contrary).
| It seems like our best bet really is an ever more Rube
| Goldberg-ian stack of attempted fixes for the problems we
| create.
| samatman wrote:
| Modern cultures have substantially reduced their use of
| tobacco and alcohol, have reduced their birthrate below
| replacement, cut 95% of trans fats out of their diets,
| and use practically no tetraethyl lead and no DDT at all.
|
| We don't have to continue using endocrine disrupting
| plastics either. It can't be a blanket ban, we use them
| in too many places. But they can be phased out.
| acdha wrote:
| The answer is simple mechanically (let economics work by
| pricing in externalities) but it's politically tricky
| because an established industry has significant lobbying
| and propaganda clout.
|
| There are success stories such as the sharp reduction of
| CFCs and acid rain contributors, or the reduction in coal
| pollution once it cost more than alternatives, but we can
| see the opposite in, for example, the way the oil
| industry successfully captured a significant fraction of
| a major American political party and got enough people to
| believe climate change wasn't real to avoid a carbon tax
| for decades we could have used to transform the economy
| less sharply than will now be needed.
| Hypocritelefty wrote:
| Won't be long before tesla shills turn this in to EV is the
| mother of all solutions BS
| benjohnson1707 wrote:
| As always, scale matters. Plastic will be superior to all the
| alternatives as long as it's a cheap waste by-product of oil
| refinement.
|
| Make alternatives economically competitive to basically free oil
| refinement by-products, and we're talking.
|
| EVs might help here, it seems.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Cheap to produce. Infinitely expensive in the long term.
| johnisgood wrote:
| What is the current status with regarding to using hemp or
| mushrooms?
| robthebrew wrote:
| The process involves dissolving the plastics in ethanol at almost
| double its boiling point. So this requires pressure and
| presumably a batch process. That adds to the cost quite
| substantially.
| dheera wrote:
| "Mobile phone case made with 3D printing, using recycled
| plastic."
|
| I do a lot of 3D printing and I always feel bad every time I have
| a bad print or design error and need to throw it in the trash. I
| really hope we can see some of these filaments on the market soon
| especially considering how popular 3D printing is becoming.
| loosetypes wrote:
| Agreed. If you print a dinosaur skull out of ABS, I wonder if
| the cast would survive longer than a real fossil.
| thret wrote:
| That is a sombre thought.
| swiley wrote:
| PLA can be recycled with near perfect efficiency and is
| available today.
|
| Also it's extremely biodegradable so throwing it out isn't the
| end of the world.
| tomcam wrote:
| TIL. Can you tell me more about the recycling process for
| PLA?
| mnouquet wrote:
| Shred, heat and extrude.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Wait, wait, let's not give the wrong impression. Yes, you
| can recycle PLA to an extent but you can't mix it in with
| your recylables. Few cities can recyle PS, much less PLA
| or at least they aren't set up to handle it.
|
| If you are curious about the tech, sure, it's recyclable.
| For practical purposes you may as well throw it in the
| trash ahead of time and avoid contaminating the
| recycling. Plus if you try to put it in most commercial
| composting it will not degrade enough to be usable and
| has to get removed to avoid damaging the compost. So if
| you happen to not have the right kind of composting
| facility you can't handle it.
|
| Yeah, it's on paper no worse than other plastics, but you
| have to have a plan to handle it -- it's not just a thing
| you can toss in the recycling bin.
| tomcam wrote:
| Thank you very much. Not sure why my question was
| downvoted.
| dheera wrote:
| I do wish it were required to give a reason or comment to
| downvote. I upvoted you to compensate since the downvoter
| did not do this.
| tomcam wrote:
| I would dearly love a world in which you provided a
| reason to download a comment on this site.
| dheera wrote:
| PLA is pretty useless as a material though for anything but
| art. Almost everything I print has a functional purpose and
| either (a) needs mechanical strength (b) will be placed
| outdoors in the California sun or (c) will be used to house
| electronics that may reach temperatures as high as 70-80 C.
|
| PLA is basically useless to me and pretty much all
| roboticists. I use PETG for almost everything because it
| works perfectly for all my needs; unfortunately I often need
| to go through about 2-3 versions of many parts I make and
| wish there were a better, more efficiently recyclable option
| that has the same or better properties as PETG.
| swiley wrote:
| If the part doesn't have to last long or is subjected to
| smaller forces and the robot is kept in a controlled place
| PLA is fine. We used them it to make parts for robotics
| competitions in college.
| dheera wrote:
| It really depends on what you're building. For controlled
| environments that's fine, but unfortunately I'm not
| building for controlled environments, and tend to do
| quite extreme things with parts. I need them to be
| subjectable to force and reasonable amounts of heat.
| There is no way around it in my applications.
|
| Point is PETG works, sometimes I need to go to CF-Nylon,
| I'm just looking for something that's as good
| mechanically and can be recyclable. I wonder if the
| plastics in the article would work.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > It really depends on what you're building. For
| controlled environments that's fine, but unfortunately
| I'm not building for controlled environments, ...
|
| Sample size fallacy right here. Just because it's useless
| to you doesn't mean it's useless. Plenty are doing fine
| with PLA.
| mrfusion wrote:
| I've just been living with the downsides of pla. Should I
| just switch to petg?
|
| I have my printer in my bedroom though. Is petg toxi to
| breathe?
| daslicious wrote:
| yikes, i thought 3d printers were high emitters of tiny
| plastic particles that are harmful to breath. Hope it's
| well ventilated
| gary_0 wrote:
| Not sure how toxic PETG is but the fumes are quite
| unpleasant. When I was around where large amounts of PETG
| were being worked with, ventilation was a must.
| dheera wrote:
| > I've just been living with the downsides of pla. Should
| I just switch to petg?
|
| As far as utility goes it's so much sturdier as a
| material that I don't even comprehend why people use PLA,
| especially considering they are very similar in price,
| and it's much easier to work with than ABS since it is
| not particularly prone to warping. If PLA can
| realistically be composted though, that's another story,
| bu I was under the impression 3D print PLA isn't the same
| as compostable PLA cups.
|
| > I have my printer in my bedroom though. Is petg toxi to
| breathe?
|
| PETG is not known to be toxic, so it's a much better
| choice than ABS if you don't have a garage or fully
| ventilated area. That said, I'm always skeptical and I
| don't keep my 3D printer in my bedroom.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| No, it's not. Despite what store pages love to tell you at
| every corner, PLA does not degrade by itself. It requires
| exposure to 60+ degrees Celsius for at least 6 months. Good
| luck building recycling plants handling this in an
| environmentally-friendly and economical way.
|
| Don't throw out PLA, it's barely less problematic than other
| materials.
| labawi wrote:
| I've personally seen how PLA degrades in good compost in
| about three weeks (can go for less if you're more active).
| True, it is important to go through a stage of 60+ for a
| day or so, to soften up so bacteria get in, otherwise it
| may indeed take 6 months to get through a solid chunk, but
| that is quite different from 6+ months of 60+.
|
| Yes, PLA can cause some issues in nature as it is acidic
| (lactic acid) and in quantity throws off pH balance in
| soil/compost, so many composters don't like to take PLA.
| OTOH, it is not a difficult problem to solve, and
| importantly, lactic acid is not inherently toxic in
| reasonable quantities (muscles generate it) and it
| shouldn't take too long for microbes to snatch it up once
| it is small enough.
|
| To put that in contrast, typical plastics consist of toxic
| components that you do not want in your system, or even in
| your garden. They are mostly inert while intact, but they
| tend to slowly decompose and often leach even while in use.
|
| Examples of compositions:
|
| ABS - acrylonitrile (toxic at low doses [1]), butadiene
| (Group 1 carcinogen [2]), styrene (known carcinogen [3]);
|
| PET, PETG: phtalate (Endocrine disruptors [4])
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butadiene [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrene [4]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalate
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Temperature at land fills get rather high. Not sure about 6
| months, it depends where.
| swiley wrote:
| They say "new ... plastic" but the paper looks like it's talking
| about Polyethylene (not too sure what "polyethylene-like" means,
| different degrees of polymerization?)
| profvyas wrote:
| The real problem with plastics is that they are really cheap.
| peteretep wrote:
| which is because they don't have externalities priced in
| nostromo wrote:
| It's more that plastics are a byproduct of oil production.
|
| As oil consumption falls, plastics will rise in price as
| there is less raw materials produced by oil refining.
|
| Much like if demand for beef and milk fell, leather could be
| more expensive.
| xorfish wrote:
| No, the problem is missing infrastructure for waste processing.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| "Really cheap" in the short term perhaps. Very expensive in the
| long term.
|
| What price do you put in the extinction of a species? Millions
| of years of evolution flushed down the toilet so one person can
| have their disposable water bottle.
| DFHippie wrote:
| The problem is externalized cost: the people making the
| decision to use the plastics aren't the ones holding the bill
| for its disposal.
| johnisgood wrote:
| What do you propose, how should it be resolved? What would your
| proposal's potential consequences be (both cons and pros)?
| dmos62 wrote:
| I guess the suggestion you're trying to tease out is that
| disposable plastics are prohibitively taxed and people adjust
| to living with reusable containers. Cons: people have to
| adjust and the plastic lobby might suffer.
| ratsmack wrote:
| >plant-based
|
| What they're _based_ from isn 't the problem, it's chemicals
| added to the base, such as chlorine compounds, that is the
| problem.
| specialist wrote:
| Please say more. My efforts to buy least processed cotton and
| wood pulp products have been largely unsuccessful. I don't need
| my toilet paper or t-shirts to be white.
| rarefied_tomato wrote:
| Your concerns sound more related to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_brightener than
| chlorinated plastics.
| srswtf123 wrote:
| I suggest using a bidet/washlet, and a dry towel. Toilet
| paper isn't truly necessary - to me.
|
| As a particularly hirsute gentleman, I find it both cleaner
| and more comfortable. YMMV.
| himujjal wrote:
| How are people still using toilet papers in developed
| countries? It still amazes me. I am from a developing
| country and it costs around $15 to fix a new
| bidet/handheld-shower to my existing pipe connection. There
| is the cost of water though. But then again. I am in a
| rainy area. Water crisis might never occur here. Plus all
| the waste is going to ground. So, not much to worry here.
| But seriously. Use bidets or at least handheld-showers
| DenisM wrote:
| Look into wool. Expensive, but super comfy and likely not
| bleached. Given the higher price some of the brands make it a
| point to detail the environmental and animal welfare impact.
| nine_k wrote:
| For some reason, products made of minimally treated hemp or
| linen are more widely available.
| williesleg wrote:
| Wait, plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and
| produce oxygen. Why kill more plants?
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