[HN Gopher] Ocean plastics: How much do rich countries contribut...
___________________________________________________________________
Ocean plastics: How much do rich countries contribute by shipping
their waste?
Author : animal_spirits
Score : 139 points
Date : 2022-10-12 01:33 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ourworldindata.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ourworldindata.org)
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| baxtr wrote:
| I am not sure why you read this as "who's fault is this"?
|
| I read this as "let's make this transparent".
|
| From my perspective, who to blame and what to do is a second
| order question.
| ifqwz wrote:
| What's the point in making something transparent, if it isn't
| so it can be fixed?
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| Making something transparent can help identify if something
| should be fixed at all. Sometimes the transparency shows
| that the issue is arising from something that is worth the
| issues it is generating.
|
| So you make it transparent, and then you can look and
| determine what is or isn't worth doing.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Fool me once, shame on you.
|
| Fool me for 6 decades, I dunno, maybe I could have made an
| assumption about what you were going to do the next time.
| okintheory wrote:
| Suppose you're broke and then some rich guy walks up to you on
| the street and loudly proclaims "throwing plastic in this river
| next to us would be terrible! I would never do it! But, would
| you mind taking this plastic cup for me? I'll pay you $100 to
| take it! And I don't care what you do with it ;)".
|
| What would you do?
| mpweiher wrote:
| TFA:
|
| "That means that around 2% of waste is traded"
|
| "Most of the plastic that enters the oceans from land comes
| from rivers in Asia.1 More than 80% of it."
| tsimionescu wrote:
| You can believe that it's the "poorer countries'" fault that
| they are releasing plastics into the ocean AND that it's also
| "richer countries'" fault for sending their trash to known bad
| actors.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| Wow, you went a long way to make this about race. It's not even
| like brown people wrote the article.
|
| Heck, if you want poor countries to be accountable for their
| own pollution then they shouldn't be forced to trade with
| developed countries who don't want to make any concessions
| about the use of plastics, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be
| a popular stance with HN either.
| deworms wrote:
| doix wrote:
| Did we read the same article? Isn't the article basically
| saying that even if rich countries completely stopped exporting
| waste, it wouldn't make _that_ much of a difference? i.e
|
| > If rich countries banned the export of plastic waste to these
| countries, we might reduce plastic pollution a bit: perhaps up
| to 5%.
|
| > But, an end to trade won't stop plastic pollution. Only a
| small fraction of the world's plastic waste is traded - under
| 2%. And most - two-thirds of it - ends up in richer countries,
| where it's very unlikely to end up in the ocean.
| nicbou wrote:
| It's less about race and more about means. From each according
| to his ability.
|
| Someone living comfortably in Western Europe can afford to
| stick to his principles. He has the extra money and energy to
| give a damn. He can cut meat, drive less, fly less, consume
| less.
|
| It's silly for someone who enjoys air conditioning and two
| international trips a year, to tell people in developing
| countries to do their bit. It costs far less to do ours.
|
| This is not a paternalistic view of people in developing
| countries, it's a critical look at our own inaction.
| Proven wrote:
| princeb wrote:
| this is extremely interesting, the fact that at the end of the
| day, the plastics exporters still do a remarkable job of
| processing whatever plastic waste they keep, way better than the
| best job that plastic importers do with the plastic waste they
| pay for.
|
| So comparative advantage works once again, to our detriment.
|
| it seems we need to reverse the flow of plastics so that the
| countries good at reprocessing plastics reprocess more plastic
| around the world, even the ones produced by less developed
| countries. unfortunately a lot of waste processing industries in
| these countries are built on lies and corruption, so the economic
| cost and benefit is warped, leading to flow that is not optimal
| to humanity. poor countries are not being dumped on to the extent
| that they are _paying_ to be dumped on. when the issue is legal
| and economic structures of individual countries, where do we even
| begin to fix the problem?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I'd be interested in how much money Western corporations spent
| lobbying to prevent sensible waste policies that would have seen
| them foot the bill.
|
| We know they did it in their home countries. It is frankly
| inconceivable that they didn't do it to poorer nations.
|
| How many deposit return schemes and extended producer
| responsibility laws did they prevent while selling products in
| disposable containers?
|
| https://plastics.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/epr
|
| _Washington Could Get European-Style Recycling. Lobbyists Are
| Mad About It_
|
| https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/01/25/65471068/washing...
| [deleted]
| Lio wrote:
| I'm sceptical about plastic recycling in general. We are slowly
| poisoning ourselves with micro plastics.
|
| The best way to keep it out of the water system is to stop using
| it.
|
| The second best way is to incinerate it and scrub the output
| gases. It's even possible to route the CO2 to industrial
| greenhouses for things like tomatoes.
|
| Anything to keep plastic out of the water cycle.
| orwin wrote:
| I really like posts like this, it challenged my biases and
| changed my opinion. Just wanted to state here that this wasn't a
| simple upvote.
| shmde wrote:
| I saw a lot of east asia hate almost everywhere on the internet
| and surprisingly also on HN about asia dumping wastes into the
| ocean and polluting the globe in general when in fact we were
| the ones importing wastes and developing countries needed to
| use coal/oil for further advancing as a nation. The
| west/developed countries blames eastern/developing countries
| for it when in fact they were also responsible for a shitton
| amount of emissions when they started industrialising their
| countries and still continue to export wastes/export
| manufacturing stuff which generates waste.
| yrgulation wrote:
| Raising issues of common interest is not hate. It's a debate
| among equals. Projecting hate and shifting blame is hateful
| in itself. Not taking responsibility for local corrupt
| politicians that dont mind turning a blind eye to equally
| corrupt business from the west and ignoring environmental
| issues is appalling.
| llampx wrote:
| As a consumer and a tourist, I was appalled at the amount of
| plastic being used everywhere (Thailand and Vietnam).
| Pineapple by the slice from a kiosk? Wrapped in plastic.
| Bubble tea? Plastic container and straw, along with a little
| plastic bag. Groceries? Plastic galore.
|
| I do know though, that on a per-capital level, the Western
| world still produces more waste, but there was no thought of
| hey maybe this much plastic is bad?
| nerdponx wrote:
| > Pineapple by the slice from a kiosk? Wrapped in plastic.
| Bubble tea? Plastic container and straw, along with a
| little plastic bag. Groceries? Plastic galore.
|
| Sounds like the USA too. Things have only started to change
| in the last 2 years or so, as some municipalities start
| banning plastic bags and foam food containers, and
| companies like Starbucks are starting to put on a show of
| biodegradability.
|
| Meanwhile now we have paper straws coated in PFAS. We
| definitely don't need the plastic bags, but I'd rather have
| the plastic straws!
| Bayart wrote:
| Free plastic grocery bags have been banned for years in
| the EU and it couldn't be better. It makes me all the
| more so annoyed at food packaging (since it's the only
| thing you see stuck in roadside bushes nowadays).
| ridgered4 wrote:
| I thought the bag banning was the wrong thing myself. I
| always reused my grocery bags as trash bags, now I have
| to buy trash bags...which seem like they use more
| plastic. But maybe most people don't use them that way.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I did this too, but I only needed a trash bag like once a
| week, and inevitably ended up with more than that, before
| I got diligent about reusable bags. Even if everyone did
| it, there's no way every bag would be accounted for.
| llampx wrote:
| Yes that's what I mean, per capita the Western world
| leads in waste and plastic usage. Can't help but think
| that if Asia and Africa were at a similar income level,
| they would be as high or higher on the waste scale, i.e.
| the poorer populations in Asia pull down the average vs
| the city-dwelling middle classes.
| api wrote:
| Is it perhaps a workaround for poor sanitation? All that
| plastic isn't free so I'd assume there is a reason they do
| it.
| llampx wrote:
| The food doesn't become sanitary by coming in contact
| with plastic. I do believe it is a proxy for sanitary
| conditions though and that explains at least some of the
| usage.
| Eupraxias wrote:
| I suspect that much of the sentiment comes from the fact that
| when Western countries did it, they didn't know better.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure they did.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_soup_fog
|
| > From as early as the 1200s, air pollution became
| increasingly prevalent, and a predominant perception in the
| 13th century was that sea-coal smoke would affect one's
| health. From the mid-1600s, in British cities, especially
| London, the incidence of ill-health was attributed to coal
| smoke from both domestic and industrial chimneys combining
| with the mists and fogs of the Thames Valley. Luke Howard,
| a pioneer in urban climate studies, published The Climate
| of London in 1818-1820, in which he uses the term "city
| fog" and describes the heat island effect which
| concentrated the accumulation of smog over the city.
|
| > King Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal
| by proclamation in London in 1272, after its smoke became a
| problem.
|
| They knew it was a problem. The economic benefits were
| simply too much to pass up. Sound familiar?
| Eupraxias wrote:
| These are local problems. Those lucky enough to relocate,
| can.
|
| The issue is causing problems for everyone. We don't even
| have a relocation plan for the ultra-rich. Amazing that
| we all still have something in common.
| batushka3 wrote:
| > Most of the plastic that enters the oceans from land comes from
| rivers in Asia. More than 80% of it.
|
| This is THE PROBLEM. It is mesmerizing how article shifts blame
| to those terrible "rich countries". Me in that rich country
| collect every bit of plastic to trashbin, sort it out just to
| read than my asian friends dumped it to river zero F's given. And
| it's my fault!
| orwin wrote:
| Did we read the same article? From what i've read, the west
| contribute to at most 5% of that (i used to believe it was much
| more, something like 20%, aka around the same per capita).
|
| I don't think the article blame the west at all, the opposite
| rather. It also says that the 5% figure is probably inflated,
| because traded plastics are likely to have more oversight and
| less likely to end in rivers. I think this article is perfectly
| balanced.
|
| Also:
|
| > Me in that rich country collect every bit of plastic to
| trashbin, sort it out just to read than my asian friends dumped
| it to river zero F's given. And it's my fault!
|
| It's your government that permit companies who exploit local
| populations with little to no oversight (regulations are bad,
| oversight is bad). That's basically what "neocolonialism" is. I
| dislike the word and i think this is more related to capitalism
| than colonialism anyway, but that's the accepted definition.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Blaming entire countries is generally done to shift the blame
| from a small number of billionaire CEOs and corrupt
| politicians, to the working class of that country.
| bennysonething wrote:
| What evidence do you have for this?
| snarf21 wrote:
| We also need to remember that 75%+ of the plastic in the great
| big garbage patch in the pacific is from fishing.
|
| But we also need to be clear that this is _ALL_ our faults. We
| may say we dutifully collect our plastic bottles and separate
| them but do no further research to learn that most of it goes
| right to a landfill. We don 't demand product packaging that is
| known to be easily recyclable, we want cheap and convenient. We
| don't demand clean water for other countries around the world
| anymore than we demand clean working conditions and humane
| treatment. Everything is out of sight, out of mind. We are so
| privileged that we forget ourselves.
|
| Humans are a very selfish species and we keep losing sight of
| the fact that this planet can't support this many selfish
| humans. The planet is just now starting to fight back. We have
| been f'ing around and are now starting to find out and it won't
| be pretty. Until we get serious about sustainability writ
| large, we will continue to receive our comeuppance.
| hactually wrote:
| Currently in Bali and there's a lot of plastic waste. And
| that's the only waste you see.
|
| There are efforts to return to the old pre-plastic days as it's
| a relatively new invention and the Balinese aren't used to
| having to use bins and shipping plastic off to far away lands.
|
| They expect it to all degrade back into the ground, perhaps
| rightly so.
|
| Changing that entire culture for the worst because we
| introduced plastic to the world seems incredibly ignorant.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| I've never heard anyone from the US or Europe claim that
| plastic will degrade back into the ground. Somehow they
| changed their "entire culture" to put trash in cans.
| yrgulation wrote:
| Last time i raised the same concern i was accused of 1)
| colonialism 2) supremacism 3) racism.
|
| I suppose "poor" countries get a free pass because corrupt
| politicians accept to turn those countries into dumping grounds
| and we have no right to raise that issue. Even the suggestion
| that everyone should do their part is censored here on HN. Not
| by HN but by extremist nationalists from the region.
| nashashmi wrote:
| be careful in how you address the problem if you keep blaming
| others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bho6xY-jSuE
| zakki wrote:
| I think the problem is people from rich country blame the
| people from poorer country because they let the corrupt
| politicians turn their country to dumping grounds. But people
| from rich country doesn't care that their politicians let
| their country exporting waste to poorer country.
| yrgulation wrote:
| I am quite sure there is a lot of pressure on politicians
| to not let their countries export trash in rich countries
| and zero in poor countries. There are even laws in that
| regard [1]. I am in awe by the amount of hate the west
| gets.
|
| [1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/importing-and-exporting-
| waste
| martin_a wrote:
| > But people from rich country doesn't care that their
| politicians let their country exporting waste to poorer
| country.
|
| I would even be fine with that, if there was some highly
| specialized recycling facility in one of those poorer
| countries.
|
| Seems like they are just building landfills with all of
| that, or just dump it somewhere, though.
| badpun wrote:
| It's western governments fault that they allow exporting trash
| to foreign countries to be "processed" by companies which are
| more than likely to just dump eveything into ground or a river.
| And it is much worse with toxic industrial waste, where it's
| not just discarded plastic forks and stuff, but actual million
| of gallons of chemicals that can poison entire water basins.
|
| If recycling or protection of environment in general was the
| actual goal, we'd never do it. But, in reality, it is mostly
| just greenwashing and/or protecting just the local environment
| (who cares if rivers in Poland or China will become toxic, as
| long as US or Germany or Italy are clean), so "out of sight,
| out of mind" policy works well.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Huh?
|
| "Most of the world's waste is handled domestically and most
| of the waste that enters the oceans stems from these
| countries."
|
| "... around 2% of waste is traded."
| badpun wrote:
| It would be great if it was weighted by toxicity though.
| Regular municipal waste is nowhere as dangerous or
| expensive to dispose of. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, there
| are hundreds of sites discovered by authorities, where
| extremely toxic industrial waste from Western Europe plants
| is abandoned by various sham companies. Safely cleaning up
| each of those sites can cost dozens of millions of dollars
| (per site) and that's assuming the containers didn't break
| and the poison didn't leak into ground already.
| mpweiher wrote:
| The article and all the figures are about plastic, not
| toxic industrial waste.
| usrusr wrote:
| Do you read the article as shifting blame to richer countries?
| I read it the exact opposite way: most of the article is all
| about debunking the popular meme that most of poor countries'
| badly managed waste is actually out-of-sight-ed rich countries'
| waste, but it tries hard to do so in a polite way.
| a1445c8b wrote:
| > Me in that rich country collect every bit of plastic to
| trashbin, sort it out just to read than my asian friends dumped
| it to river zero F's given. And it's my fault!
|
| Woah right there! Hang on. No need to get personal.
|
| While I commend you for doing your job with recycling, it takes
| a government and its recycling policies and programs to make
| any meaningful difference. Conversely, it takes poor government
| policies to produce poor regional handling of plastics.
|
| Let's keep it at that level and not include ethnicity into the
| picture.
| hedora wrote:
| Interestingly, 20% of ocean plastics come from boats:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics
|
| Most of those are fishing nets. That seems easy enough to fix:
| Ban plastic fish nets!
|
| We're overfishing the ocean anyway, so lowering the efficiency of
| fishing seems fine. (In the same way fishing with dynamite is
| illegal in most places.)
| dahfizz wrote:
| TLDR:
|
| > ... rich countries would contribute between 1.6% (in the best
| case) and 11% (in the worst case) of ocean plastics through
| shipping waste overseas.
|
| So, even in the most generous case, 89% of plastic waste comes
| domestically from Asia. The only solution is to get Asian
| countries to take waste seriously. As the article says, stopping
| all shipping of waste would have a negligible effect on the
| amount of plastic entering the ocean.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| They are. 4 years ago in Jakarta malls cashiers put simple
| light items in double bags. Last year there were no plastic
| bags, only heavy reusable bags.
|
| But there is a lot of intertia.
| nashashmi wrote:
| It's not that simple of a concept. It's not "their" problem.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bho6xY-jSuE
| Eupraxias wrote:
| The article concludes: "poorer countries are not a dumping ground
| for the rich."
|
| They are indeed a dumping ground for the rich. Whether they
| should they be so is another question.
| [deleted]
| mpweiher wrote:
| What are your grounds for dismissing the well-supported
| conclusion of the article?
|
| Are their data faulty? Incomplete beyond what they themselves
| show?
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| It's incomplete in that it only considers direct
| imports/exports of waste. It can be argued that rich
| countries have exported manufacturing and resource extraction
| to poor countries as well, generating waste that wouldn't be
| accounted for in this analysis. (Such as: We know that
| fishermen from poor countries create a lot of ocean plastic
| waste, but how much of that is generated to sell fish to rich
| countries). Understanding how much waste is generated by each
| country's consumption would paint a more complete picture.
|
| Of course supporting that argument also isn't clear cut in a
| way where just stating it outright makes sense, and the
| article does indeed do a good job of showing that direct
| waste exports are not really a major contributing issue.
| Eupraxias wrote:
| I'm not dismissing anything - I tend to agree with the
| findings of the article.
|
| I'm just taking issue with the words choice of that sentence.
| tdehnel wrote:
| Wild _reasonable person_ appeared!
| Eupraxias wrote:
| Hi there! There are at least one of us left.
| ovi256 wrote:
| Common misuse of positive statements for what should be
| normative statements.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| A dumping ground is a place where it is appropriate to dump
| waste. To say that poor countries are not a dumping ground
| for the rich means that it is not appropriate for the rich to
| dump waste there. The word itself is normative, and therefore
| so is the sentence.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I hate how much this is made into 'rich' versus 'poor' countries.
| It distractes from the main culprits:
|
| Coca-Cola, Nestle, Pepsico, Unilever, P&G, Mars, Kraft-Heinz ...
| etc.
|
| Coca-Cola sells 1.3 billion liters of coke in 'poor' Mexico
| alone, most of which will be in plastic packaging. Coca-cola
| alone is creating 110 billion PET bottles _per_year_.
|
| At the end of the day it is companies packaging products that
| have externalized the environmental costs of the _cheaper_ (for
| them) plastic packaging onto local governments and consumers. Why
| are we not discussing that?
|
| Why is there no regulation to force non-plastic packaging when a
| viable alternative packing exists?
|
| Why are these companies lobbying against plastic taxation?
|
| Why are these companies lobbying against single-use plastic bans?
|
| Sadly straws and q-tips ban is the most embarassing display of a
| collective of weak governments in the hands of corporate
| lobbying.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Why is there no regulation to force non-plastic packaging
| when a viable alternative packing exists?_
|
| Because, at least in the non-dictatorial world, regulation
| comes only as a result of the mass population recognizing a
| need to clean up the outliers who aren't comforting with the
| wishes of the masses.
|
| When a population is consuming 110 billion PET bottles per year
| _that represents the masses_. They are not going to enact
| legislation to clean up themselves. There would be no reason to
| since voluntarily stopping the practice of consuming said
| bottles would achieve the same effect.
| uoaei wrote:
| This argument only makes sense when consumers are free to
| choose comparable alternatives without the plastic packaging.
| But realistically, consumers are typically severely limited
| in their selection of products.
|
| Picking the best of a bad lot doesn't mean people prefer bad
| things, if their selection is extremely constrained.
| randomdata wrote:
| It used to be you could only buy Coke in glass bottles. The
| mass market proved it didn't like glass bottles, so the
| vendors moved away from them. If the consumer preferred
| glass bottles it would be the plastic bottle that is hard
| to come by today, but in reality the consumer prefers the
| plastic bottle. They are much cheaper and more convenient
| than the glass bottle.
|
| Let's not downplay how much power the consumer actually
| has. A business like Coca-Cola would end up bankrupt in a
| matter of days if it didn't listen closely to what
| consumers are willing to buy. It, again, delivers plastic
| because that's exactly what the masses want. Business is
| tightly bound the whims of the consumer. Business only
| exists to serve the consumer.
|
| That doesn't mean people prefer bad things. The plastic
| bottle is clearly superior in many ways, even if has some
| negative externalities. There is good reason why the masses
| don't want to move away from it, even amid the good reasons
| to stop their production.
| GrinningFool wrote:
| The mass market didn't prove this - the only thing proved
| was that it cost Coca Cola less to produce and ship
| plastic bottles.
|
| If Coca Cola switched to glass-only again, they wouldn't
| lose very many customers. People want the Coke. They
| might have feelings about the bottle it's sold in, but
| they're generally not going to stop buying the Coke
| because the bottle changes to one that they like less.
| Nor, for the most part, because the price increases
| slightly to make up the cost difference.
|
| Whether the plastic is superior in many ways is not, in
| this case, indicative that the masses don't want to move
| away from it - the masses just want their Coke.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> the only thing proved was that it cost Coca Cola less
| to produce and ship plastic bottles._
|
| Which too is the most important consideration to the
| consumer. Coke could be served in a Yeti bottle at $50 a
| pop, but who wants to pay for that? Nobody. Coke is
| merely delivering what the consumer wants: Coke, served
| as cheaply and most conveniently as possible.
|
| _> If Coca Cola switched to glass-only again, they
| wouldn 't lose very many customers_
|
| Ultimately not, but they also wouldn't make the customer
| happy in doing so. Given that business exists only to
| serve customers, why would you go out of your way to make
| your customers unhappy to risk rocking the boat? Even a
| few lost customers is lost revenue, and long term
| negative sentiment is never good. Individual unhappiness
| is unavoidable, of course, but leaving the masses unhappy
| over something arbitrary like this even if you won't lose
| their business is pointless. That is not how business
| works.
|
| _> the masses just want their Coke._
|
| ...served as cheaply and most conveniently as possible,
| which is where plastic wins. For better or worse, the
| masses have made their decision. They don 't want to pay
| for glass and they most certainly will not put in extra
| effort to legislate that they must pay for glass just to
| get a Coke. It is flabbergasting that the original
| comment in this thread even thought for a minute that
| they would.
| uoaei wrote:
| You're making a huge assumption throughout the analysis
| that you fail to acknowledge -- you assume that cost
| savings are passed on to the consumer, ie, that there is
| a signal being communicated from consumer to producer on
| the basis of rising or falling prices. I don't believe
| that is a valid assumption in this scenario.
|
| If Coca-Cola manages to reduce their bottling costs, they
| pass on those extra profits to their _stockholders_ , not
| their consumers. The behemoth that is Coca-Cola
| production cannot slow down or speed up fast enough to
| respond to actual consumer demands: they must plan ahead
| to anticipate them. This is more easily done by
| influencing consumer demand via promotional deals,
| advertising, and market capture. They operate in a meta-
| stable fashion, constantly producing at a roughly
| constant (if always slightly rising) rate, and using
| influence over the market -- prices, exclusive contracts,
| quasi-monopoly, promotions, advertising -- to control how
| quickly it gets consumed to keep sales up and inventory
| costs low.
|
| In reality, consumers can't choose what's not in front of
| them. If Coca-Cola wants to use only plastic bottles
| because they're easier to manufacture and transport,
| that's what governs their use of plastic bottles. Any
| price difference seen as a result of that will not be due
| to cost savings, but rather in response to the change in
| production processes that affects the market supply.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> If Coca-Cola manages to reduce their bottling costs_
|
| If glass reduces costs the market would likely go in that
| direction quickly, but we already agreed that glass is
| more expensive, hence primarily why plastic is preferred
| by the consumer. They don't actually care how the liquid
| arrives, they just want it cheaply and conveniently.
|
| But let's say, hypothetically speaking, that Coca-Cola
| wanted to pretend to be more environmentally friendly and
| started making glass bottles more accessible, but also
| kept plastic bottles around to satisfy the actual
| customer demand. What reason is there for us to believe
| that Coca-Cola would simply eat the cost of glass bottles
| rather than pass that added cost onto consumers? It's not
| going to happen. At best you might see a short-term loss
| leader-type offer as a marketing stunt, but soon glass
| will cost more.
|
| I mean, you suggest yourself that they will put
| profitability at the forefront of their decision making,
| profitability that is driven directly by consumer demand,
| so there is a contradiction here to think that plastic
| won't be sold for comparatively less. Glass costs more
| and they will, without question, pass that added cost on.
| Coca-Cola exists to serve the customer, not to give away
| things for free.
|
| I do, indeed, assume that the added cost of glass will be
| passed onto the consumer because, well, why wouldn't it
| be? Coca-Cola isn't a charity and the price conscious
| consumer will just buy the lower cost plastic bottle
| anyway, so there is no risk to their market by charging
| more for the luxury of glass. In fact, it would only
| serve to _harm_ Coca-Cola and its shareholders if they
| compelled consumers into choosing glass at the same price
| as plastic.
|
| To think that Coca-Cola would sell glass at the same
| price as plastic, temporary marketing stunts aside, is
| even more silly than thinking that consumers would
| legislate their ability to buy plastic bottles, where
| they have shown a clear preference towards, away from
| themselves.
| kayfox wrote:
| > the only thing proved was that it cost Coca Cola less
| to produce and ship plastic bottles.
|
| It cost them less because it expends less energy to ship
| them, therefore contributing less to global pollution in
| that aspect.
|
| I find it frustrating that a lot of environmental actions
| these days only examine one part of the total
| environmental impact of something and disregard other
| aspects which may make the proposed solution worse.
|
| Paper straws often contain those forever chemicals
| everyone talks about. Corn based alternatives take more
| energy to make in some cases. "Recycling" plastic has
| spectacularly backfired in that we shipped it across the
| world to be "recycled" and it just ended up being burned
| or dumped into the rivers feeding the ocean. We could
| have just tossed it in a landfill and had less impact.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| > Why are we not discussing that?
|
| Because it's not one company that's a bad actor, is every
| company that sells anything anywhere. So it doesn't make a lot
| of sense to just blame every company.
|
| Even if the US banned single use plastic, (which would have a
| ton of other negative environmental effects, due to the higher
| carbon and water footprint) it still wouldn't have much of an
| effect on where most of the Plasti CI coming from, poor
| countries.
|
| The blindingly obvious solution is to figure out how to
| help/incentivize/fund better trash management systems in poor
| countries.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| When the US does things, the whole world listens, and often
| follows. US corporations are all around the world, like coco-
| cola.
| gumby wrote:
| > Coca-cola alone is creating 110 billion PET bottles
| _per_year_.
|
| By the way Coca-Cola is the sponsor of COP27 (the annual
| meeting of the Paris Agreement on the climate) which is meeting
| in Egypt next month.
| cute_boi wrote:
| "Why is there no regulation to force non-plastic packaging when
| a viable alternative packing exists?"
|
| Because democracy requires agreement with majority of people.
| Most people have their own problems and they don't care about
| PET bottles or whatever. Also, corporation are always lobbying
| government to not take any actions.
|
| Lobbying works because companies can get direct benefits. But
| many people who cares about climate changes seriously wont
| lobby as they don't have that much money to lobby politicians
| to take actions.
| User23 wrote:
| That and the implication that China is a poor country is pretty
| ridiculous at this point. Sure, there is poverty in China, but
| there is poverty in the west too.
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| There is a bit of a balancing act going on. If bottles moved to
| glass, that would increase weight and CO2. If they moved to
| more cans, that's still plastic due to the liners.
| joekrill wrote:
| You might have a point with glass - but the can argument is a
| bit of a straw man. Even coated aluminum cans are
| _significantly_ better than plastic bottles. They are very
| easily recycled.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| Nitpick: aluminium cans do not have a liner on the inside
| (unlike the laminates used for e.g. potato chips) and big
| brands usually print their branding straight onto the
| aluminium, it's only smaller brands that use plastic shrink
| sleeve labels.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| This is not about GHG emissions, this is about disposing of
| non-degradable plastic.
|
| But to follow your reasoning, do you have any data on the CO2
| emissions of extracting, transporting and transforming crude
| oil into PET bottles, versus some 30% added weight to a
| delivery truck?
| randunel wrote:
| I'm not sure lorries would get 30% heavier, they're already
| trying to maximise every load. You would, instead, get x%
| more traffic.
| bombcar wrote:
| The vast majority of trucks don't load full. Especially
| the local delivery trucks.
|
| And even those loaded by volume could probably go to
| glass without hitting weight limits.
|
| And if the result is more local bottling plants, that's
| even better.
| carlmr wrote:
| Are they maximizing the load by space or weight? Or do
| they actively try to get an optimized mix of both?
|
| I would imagine glass bottles also take more space
| though, so still I guess there might be more traffic.
| bombcar wrote:
| At least the local delivery trucks are often quite empty
| - easier to have a big truck and not need it than a small
| one that runs out of room.
| mrpopo wrote:
| If bottles moved to glass, many companies will quickly switch
| to returnable bottles, which will increase incentives to use
| standard bottle sizes, which in turn may reduce the distance
| that bottles travel, etc. It's also likely that prices will
| increase and therefore consumption will decrease
| (contributing to solving the obesity crisis in the process).
| You can't predict things in a vacuum.
|
| Also, how much would that increase CO2 emissions in the worst
| case? Plastic pollution and climate change are separate
| problems. If we are solving plastic pollution effectively,
| wouldn't it be worth a hypothetical .5% increase in global
| CO2 ?
| ip26 wrote:
| Glass + collection programs exist in Central America, and
| it quickly became apparent the biggest victim of glass
| reuse is _branding_. In that environment, standard bottle
| shapes in standard colors do best, and you can't run a
| flashy marketing campaign with a new batch of labels.
|
| It explains why plastic is so favored, but it's also
| depressing, as I consider branding mostly zero-sum.
| bombcar wrote:
| Beer is almost universally glass in the US and we don't
| reuse.
|
| I'd like to see standard glass bottles that are universally
| reusable and washable, but there are claims it's more
| energy to wash than to make new (which I suspect is funny
| accounting).
| tristan957 wrote:
| No brewery that I go to uses bottles for distribution. If
| you are talking about major beer brands, I would like to
| see some stats.
| bombcar wrote:
| https://www.beerinstitute.org/trends-beer-packaging/
|
| > Glass bottles compose nearly one-third of all beer
| volume in the United States and nearly two-thirds of
| above premium segment volume.
|
| I think the "premium" is what I'm noticing; I kind of
| ignore all the large packs of aluminum beer cans (though
| to be honest that's the only beer I have on hand right
| now).
|
| What I have very rarely seen is _plastic_ beer - only at
| stadiums where they don 't want you throwing the bottle
| at the players, basically.
|
| Of course, the only _proper_ beer container is a giant
| keg.
| carlmr wrote:
| We already have somewhat standardized glass bottles for
| easier local returns in Germany. I think it's a good system
| to avoid plastic trash.
| qudat wrote:
| > It distractes from the main culprits:
|
| > Coca-Cola, Nestle, Pepsico, Unilever, P&G, Mars, Kraft-Heinz
| ... etc.
|
| I think the essence of your post is that we should consider
| both sides of the coin: supply and demand. Both should not be
| immune to criticism and I agree completely with that sentiment.
| rhino369 wrote:
| It's not coke's fault, I want cans. If they sold it in
| refillable glass jugs, I'd still buy the cans. That's on me;
| not them.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| It absolutely is Coca-Cola's and other companies'fault.
|
| And if it makes you feel better the plastic lining in a can
| is still a fraction of the plastic in a PET bottle.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| A system that is proven to work is a container deposit; in my
| country they recently made it so that the .5 liter bottles of
| e.g. coca cola have a 25 cent deposit, which you get back if
| you deposit it in the right channels. It's not perfect, but it
| prevents a lot of these ending up in the regular waste stream.
|
| In theory these bottles can then be washed and reused, or
| ground up and reused or recycled. I don't know if that actually
| happens though.
| tomp wrote:
| Your country's government scammed citizens out of 25 cents
| for each bottle they buy, and brainwashed them (you?) that
| plastic can be recycled.
|
| Hint: plastic cannot be recycled. Burning it is carbon
| positive. Burying it underground is closer to carbon neutral.
| We should bury plastic bottles.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Not all plastics are the same.
|
| Aren't the majority of plastic drink bottles made from PET,
| which has high recyclability?
|
| I agree that many plastic waste products should be burried.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted. This is the truth and
| honestly the best course of action at this point.
| Aunche wrote:
| >I hate how much this is made into 'rich' versus 'poor'
| countries. It distracts from the main culprits: Coca-Cola,
| Nestle, Pepsico, Unilever, P&G, Mars, Kraft-Heinz ... etc
|
| Let's not scapegoat a group that I'm a part of, and instead
| scapegoat a group I'm not a part of!
|
| >Sadly straws and q-tips ban is the most embarassing display of
| a collective of weak governments in the hands of corporate
| lobbying.
|
| "Lobbying" is a convenient bogeyman, but in this case,
| lobbyists are merely revealing the very real preference that
| Americans love using single use plastics. The internet thinks
| that lobbying is the corporations bribing politicians, but in
| reality, lobbying is corporations convincing politicians what
| is the best way to bribe their voters.
|
| Ocean plastics from consumer goods is already a solved problem
| anyways. Developing countries need better trash infrastructure.
| Even, landfills and incinerators are better than dumping it in
| the ocean.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > lobbyists are merely revealing the very real preference
| that Americans love using single use plastics.
|
| This comment is incredibly out of touch with reality. It
| completely ignores the fact that the consumer was NEVER given
| a choice of eco-friendly packaging vs single use plastic.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > lobbyists are merely revealing the very real preference
| that Americans love using single use plastics.
|
| Citation needed?
|
| So are you saying that it is the consumer that drives demand
| for single-use plastic? The massive cost reduction for the
| manufacturer has absolutely nothing to do with this push?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Who else but the consumer is asking for rock bottom
| pricing? Even if not verbally, people vote with their feet
| and wallets.
|
| We need to restore the relationship between disposal and
| cost, by charging manufacturers a cost to recycle or trash.
| https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2022-2-summer/notes-
| here-t...
| juve1996 wrote:
| Plastic, at the time, was simply better. It is lighter,
| not brittle, and cheap to mass-produce. Shipping costs
| are greatly reduced.
|
| Consumers benefit from cheaper pricing, companies get
| better margins, everyone wins.
|
| Now we see the externalities, or are forced to accept
| them. But it's not just the consumer's fault. Lots of
| cheaper items went directly to profit and not to
| consumers.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > by charging manufacturers a cost to recycle or trash
|
| I've been advocating for decades the taxing of pollution
| to "internalize the externalities". In this case, taxing
| plastic.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| The narrative that 'people vote with their wallets' get
| pushed around a lot on this forum but I fear it is often
| disingenuous to the nuances of a given situation. I can't
| really cast meaningful votes with a lot of items because
| I'm still at the mercy of what is manufactured and
| readily available. Despite not wanting a touch screen and
| only a barebones car, nobody is going to make one. Thus
| I'm left with a few options I don't like, one of which I
| have to take.
|
| To be clear I don't think the wallet-vote narrative is
| completely wrong-I just think consumers have less voting
| power than everyone thinks they do (in this narrative)
| Aunche wrote:
| > Despite not wanting a touch screen and only a barebones
| car, nobody is going to make one.
|
| This isn't a great example because the government
| mandates all cars have a back up camera, so given the
| real estate that takes in the center console, you might
| as well make it a touch screen and outsource some
| functionality to it. Mazda cars probably come closest to
| what you're looking for though.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| Tropicana, which was owned by Pepsi at the time, gained
| significant market share when they switched from paper
| cartons to plastic bottles. It was in the glossy annual
| report, but I can't remember what year.
|
| The real culprit for all the clear plastic was the anti-
| landfill environmental movement that deceived the public
| that plastic can be recycled in an environmentally
| beneficial way. I suspect this lie was backed by the
| manufacturers.
|
| The other environmental scam brewing is how hard the oil
| and gas industry are secretly and falsely pushing
| hydrogen as a solution to carbon emissions. They are
| salivating at the idea of federally funded pipelines and
| know hydrogen from methane is going to be the cheapest
| source for decades.
|
| The backup camera thing was regulation announced in 2002,
| with more than decade allowed to implement. The reason
| was because about 25 kids per year were being backed over
| and killed, often by their parents.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Nobody "asked for" it. People are presented a cheap
| option and an expensive option, and without a strong
| reason to prefer the latter, choose the former.
|
| Or people do actually prefer the slightly-more-expensive
| option, but it gets phased out and then there is only the
| cheap option and some artisanal bullshit version that
| costs 5x and much so only rich people buy it. Some
| combination of price discrimination via "quality
| bundling" and shrinkflation.
|
| However I agree that the solution is to un-externalize
| these costs.
| Aunche wrote:
| > Or people do actually prefer the slightly-more-
| expensive option, but it gets phased out and then there
| is only the cheap option and some artisanal bullshit
| version that costs 5x and much so only rich people buy
| it.
|
| If the majority of people prefer plastic jugs of milk
| over reusable bottles of milk, then the milkman no longer
| benefits from economies of scale, so they have to
| increase prices. This causes more people to switch to
| plastic jugs of milk, so milkmen have even less economies
| of scale, etc. The only stable equilibrium is for the
| milkman to market his service as a luxury.
| kixiQu wrote:
| The thing about invoking "scapegoating" is that the goat
| definitionally did _not_ do what it 's being tossed into the
| desert for.
|
| > Even, landfills and incinerators are better than dumping it
| in the ocean.
|
| https://www.no-burn.org/wp-content/uploads/Pollution-
| Health_...
| notaplastic1 wrote:
| > that Americans love using single use plastics.
|
| I only interact with single use plastics _directly_ as a
| Costco costumer, Amazon delivery recipient, and occasionally
| when I interact with some medical products like bandaids.
| Otherwise, here in San Francisco, in my day to day life, I do
| not interact with single use non-compostable plastics
| _directly_.
|
| I don't feel like I'm missing much.
|
| However I am intellectually honest, I know that the goods
| that are delivered to Whole Foods and Rainbow and whatever
| are packaged in single use plastics. I know the hospital
| throws away a lot of stuff, including metal instruments, let
| alone plastic ones.
|
| In an industrial context, it is possible to legislate a
| reasonable reduction in single use plastics.
|
| > Developing countries need better trash infrastructure.
| Even, landfills and incinerators are better than dumping it
| in the ocean.
|
| Some people never litter.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> the main culprits: Coca-Cola, Nestle, Pepsico, Unilever,
| P&G, Mars, Kraft-Heinz ... etc._
|
| And what do these giant multinational companies have in common?
| /s
|
| The issue is there is no unified multinational push to regulate
| these multinational giants.
|
| You can't have local solutions to global problems, and these
| companies are as global as they get, constantly chasing the
| places with the lowest taxes, lowest wages, least amount of
| regulations, most corruption, and easiest to bribe officials
| for access to exploiting local resources, etc. while making
| record profits quarter after quarter at the expense of the
| environment and people in less afluent places.
|
| We need global regulations for them. But that will never happen
| because China, the US and EU won't touch their giants as long
| as they're not doing anything illegal back home.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > We need global regulations for them. But that will never
| happen.
|
| That is a pessimist outlook, all you need is for the EU bloc
| and the US to implement such measures and plastic pollution
| in the world would fall an order of magnitude.
|
| The problem is not lack of _global_ regulations, just
| spineless politicians.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| What kind of regulation of these corporations do you
| envision? It's not them making the waste - it's the people-
| consumers who are not throwing the bottles away for
| recycling, or their countries not recycling locally and
| instead just throwing away the waste somewhere else. What
| about that is changed by regulating Coca Cola?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > It's not them making the waste - it's the people-
| consumers who are not throwing the bottles away for
| recycling
|
| I can't tell if this is ignorant or ill-intended. The
| 'recycled' material from these markets is getting shipped
| to Southeast Asia and dumped in landfills as per the
| original link in this submission.
|
| Ask yourself if what you say is real, then there would be
| no need for new plastic from crude oil since our market
| would be interely circular with recycled plastic.
|
| Plastic recycling pelets have a very limited use and
| there are only a handful of countries were consumers care
| about it where manufacturers mix in some recycled pelets
| and claim the plastic is from (partially) recicled
| plastic.
|
| Recycled plastic is greyish in coloration (you can't make
| it transparent) and far more brittle than 'new' plastic.
| Recycling plastic was a con all along to allow
| corporations to make a fortune on packaging cost savings.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| OK, and what kind of regulation do you envision to solve
| this problem?
| bombcar wrote:
| We could demand reusable glass bottles but some say the
| washing takes more energy than new. Maybe aluminum would
| work.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Washing, and transport.
|
| Plastic is the lightest, thinnest packaging material we
| have. Reducing its use may means trucks carrying less
| stuff that is heavier.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, according to https://www.roetell.com/glass-vs-
| plastic-vs-aluminum-contain... it can be a 40:1 ratio.
|
| Though you could counter-act that with more local
| bottling plants so that transport is shorter. In other
| words, don't bottle the soda in George and ship it to New
| York or whatever, but actually have multiple local
| bottling/washing plants in New York itself.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I commented on this before on hacker news:
|
| - Plastic is cheap to produce but difficult to recycle.
| Create quotas for 'new' plastic and make packagers bid
| for plastic in a plastic market managed by plastic
| producers. Petro-chemical producers still make money with
| less volume manufactured, since packagers have to bid for
| new plastic, paying more for it. This also forces more
| recycling since it is more competitive in comparison than
| outbiding in a new plastic market.
|
| - Ban single-use plastic except for medical/lab
| applications.
|
| - Enforce return schemes for plastic and glass at
| consumer shops but payed for by packagers.
|
| People will complain that prices go up but that should
| have been corrected a long time ago. There is no free
| lunch, you can't have near free cost packaging without
| some consequence, in this case we already have plastic in
| intra-uterine babies, I say the buck should stop here.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Some countries and states require companies to pay for
| the cost of recycling, or higher fees if the material is
| not recyclable. We could simply jack those up.
|
| https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2022-2-summer/notes-
| here-t...
| lesuorac wrote:
| Well no duh people are producing the waste. We were
| literally told to by thier advertising teams [1].
|
| It's always kind of strange how people how people never
| wonder how we got from a society where stuff got reused a
| million times to one where we don't.
|
| [1]: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vintage-ads-
| plastic_n_5cdb176...
| super256 wrote:
| I think the best way is to follow the German solution:
| When you buy a bottle/can, you place a collateral there
| for each bottle, like 50 cent per bottle. You only get
| the deposit back when you return the bottles to some
| supermarket.
|
| I really like this model, and it works over here.
|
| Of course, you still need a working recycling chain, but
| at least it incentives individual people to properly
| bring their rubbish to the recycling places.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > the German solution
|
| Created in 2003, about 32 years after Oregon created the
| first bottle bill.
|
| Which reminds me, I need to take the bin of cans to the
| local drop site.
| super256 wrote:
| TIL. I must say that I'm quite surprised that such a bill
| was first introduced in the US.
| kube-system wrote:
| 9 of the 10 US states with bottle deposits implemented
| those laws in the late 70s or early 80s.
|
| The relative autonomy of US states often means that
| states can move very quickly to pass progressive laws,
| even though the US is well known for legislative friction
| at the federal level.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| But the problem is not in this part of the chain. The
| states then take their collected plastic waste and ship
| it away - and that's what we're reading about here in
| TFA.
|
| Collecting the waste is not so hard - today you have
| automated sorting lines that can separate plastic waste
| from other waste and some people are saying it's actually
| better than separating the waste during collection
| because maintaining separate plastic waste/other waste
| disposal infrastructures comes out as more costly and
| less ecological (2 specialized trucks instead of 1
| general, etc).
|
| This whole problem is about what's done with the
| collected waste after it leaves the garbage bins at
| stores or elsewhere.
| titzer wrote:
| Indeed, and some of the plastic bottles are actually
| really thick and heavy and are reused, e.g. the
| Adelholzener ones, which they claim they reuse up to 15x:
| https://www.adelholzener.de/nachhaltigkeit-und-
| werte/zukunft...
| thfuran wrote:
| Are they significantly less than 15x thicker and heavier
| than the cheap, single-use alternatives?
| belmont_sup wrote:
| We've tried this line of reasoning ever since the plastic
| industry had pushed for recycling as a means of reusing
| plastic when they know it'll never be economically
| feasible to do so.
|
| So might as well try something new and fix excessive
| plastic waste at a different point in the lifecycle.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| So your solution is to ban plastic entirely? If so, then
| sure, let's talk about it - I'm not picking sides, I
| don't care about plastic bottles that much (or at all).
| What would you pick as the replacement?
| addingadimensio wrote:
| Stop selling crap that needs to be packaged in single use
| plastic a simple solution That will destroy entire
| industries with impunity industries that do nothing but
| poison our bodies and our planet.
| Huh1337 wrote:
| So how do I buy a coke? Are you suggesting I drink water
| and nothing else? Sorry I'm not going to support your
| vision of the world.
| ehnto wrote:
| What you're seeing isn't consumers failing to recycle, it
| is councils being unable to fund the infrastructure
| required for recycling, and the councils are voting with
| their comparatively empty wallets. So even when you are a
| good little consumer and put it in the recycling bin, not
| all councils can afford to recycle it properly, because
| it is a difficult and costly problem to solve at scale.
|
| So Coca-cola reaps all the benefits, while councils pay
| for all the cleanup. Being pragmatic here though, whoever
| is ultimately at fault doesn't matter, because the
| outcome is clear: councils are poorer, coca-cola is
| richer, and the earth is full of plastic. So do we wait
| for the sudden and unprecedented cooperation of consumers
| across the globe, or do we regulate plastic?
|
| As for how to regulate, I would suggest that plastic
| recycling is paid for by the companies that produce the
| plastic, perhaps through levies per-kg of produced
| plastic that ultimately make it more costly to use than
| more environmentally friendly materials. This would help
| councils/countries afford recycling infrastructure for
| plastic that makes enough sense, and it would naturally
| be more economical to use less plastic. We need a way to
| set a "Tradeoff cost" at a community level, similar to
| how there are taxes on fuels for cars.
| mjhay wrote:
| Plastic recycling works poorly when all conditions are
| met. Even ideally, most "recycled" plastic doesn't get
| recycled. What does is of much lower grade and unsuitable
| for many applications - and can't really be recycled
| again.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| > all you need is for the EU bloc and the US to implement
| such measures and plastic pollution in the world would fall
| an order of magnitude
|
| Hahahaha wow, who would have thought it was _that_ easy?
|
| Also, politicians do nothing about a problem not because
| they are spineless (about losing popularity, I think, is
| what you mean), but because they gain something out of not
| doing a thing about the problem. Many of the poor countries
| cited in the article might be democracies, but they are
| weak democracies with regulatory capture of private
| enterprises.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> all you need is for the EU bloc and the US to implement
| such measures and plastic pollution in the world would fall
| an order of magnitude._
|
| Yeah, that's exactly what we need but the politicians in
| the US and EU are too well greased and too vested in the
| valuation of these mega corporations because the ugly truth
| is these companies provide a lot of money and jobs in their
| home countries and regulating the amount of waste and
| environmental damage they can do globally (in poorer less
| regulated countries) would reduce the money and jobs they
| bring in their home countries.
| ehnto wrote:
| Waiting for everyone to be on the bandwagon before you begin
| means you'll be waiting forever. If just one of the major
| countries did it, or a large amount of the smaller ones, it
| would be highly influential and get the bandwagon moving.
| njovin wrote:
| > You can't have local solutions to global problems
|
| No, but you can start locally and watch the dominoes fall.
| Take GDPR for example: EU mandates it so companies fall in
| line, and now California has their own version (and hopefully
| we'll see other states & countries follow suit). Forcing a
| company over a hump can certainly start a movement in the
| right direction. If the US were to outright ban single-use
| plastic bottles (which I think they should), these companies
| would have to make a huge shift in the way they source and
| manufacture materials and this would lessen the resistance to
| other countries doing the same.
| brightball wrote:
| Stuff like this is why I want to see more of the plasma
| incinerators that generate power by burning trash.
| [deleted]
| galangalalgol wrote:
| If a stellerator or tokamak type fusion generator ever broke
| even, could it also be used for waste disposal?
| c_o_n_v_e_x wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_torch
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| No, it would stop working. But you could use the power it
| generates to burn the waste.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| No. Chucking trash into it would immediately disrupt its
| operation.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I remember reading about these several years ago. Why didn't
| they catch on? I think NY City was looking into them.
| brightball wrote:
| There's a video documentary somewhere about a big one in NJ I
| believe.
|
| There's a company in Canada that specializes in making them
| too.
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