[HN Gopher] Breaking free of plastic pollution
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Breaking free of plastic pollution
Author : dnetesn
Score : 67 points
Date : 2023-12-21 12:26 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (worldsensorium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (worldsensorium.com)
| skybrian wrote:
| Seems like this is missing "support regulation to make landfills
| secure against leaks." We shouldn't just accept that they're
| going to leak.
| tokai wrote:
| Just stop using landfills all together. Burn it, scrub the
| exhaust, and enjoy the cheap electricity.
| 542458 wrote:
| I don't think it's highly realistic to leakproof something as
| large as a landfill - we can't even consistently leakproof
| house foundations, and those are smaller, easier to inspect,
| and higher budget. And that's for new landfills, I don't think
| there's any way to retrofit every existing landfill to prevent
| leaks.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Landfills will always leak. Sure, we can try to line them with
| multiple plastic barriers, but the reality is that these
| barriers will get holes and tears in them and let contaminated
| water out. Sure, we can detect that and dig out the whole
| landfill into a new landfill whenever the liner fails, but at
| some point into the future there will be no money to do that.
|
| Instead, we should aim to not put contaminated stuff into the
| landfill in the first place. Which in turn means don't sell
| toxic stuff to consumers.
| skybrian wrote:
| This seems rather defeatist. We are trying to do near-
| impossible things like getting rid of carbon emissions
| everywhere and we can't fix landfills?
| kyleyeats wrote:
| How does recycling reduce plastic pollution? It's degrading and
| destroying the same plastic over and over. You're taking the
| high-quality plastic that would have sat in a landfill, making it
| into a lower-quality plastic and then sending it back out in the
| world. And then eventually... yep, the landfill, in the best-case
| scenario.
|
| Recycling just increases the chance that it's going to end up as
| low-quality plastic polluting the environment.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Plastic eating bacterium seems to be the only proper way of
| disposal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideonella_sakaiensis
| aarond0623 wrote:
| If you reuse the same plastic multiple times, doesn't that
| reduce the total amount of plastic needed to produce the same
| number of goods, thus reducing plastic pollution?
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Recycling is complicated, because only certain polymers can
| be recycled, then it has to be separated from contaminants,
| transported, sorted and re-shipped to re-use facilities
| (often in China). A lot of improvements are needed for this
| to be both lucrative and effective [0]. Then there's the
| microplastics that still spread across the globe.
|
| [0] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/gc/d2
| gc0...
| mrweasel wrote:
| > How does recycling reduce plastic pollution?
|
| So the solution is to make more plastic? If we're not reducing
| the amount of plastic we're using, we can at least make less,
| by reusing the plastic we've already created. Take plastic
| conduits, they are mostly made from recycled windows, but still
| last a heck of a long time, that is going to be the better
| option than making all new plastic for them. We also reuse
| plastic bottles all the time, 87% of soft drink bottles are
| reused and made into new bottles (in Denmark), so we'd need to
| create a lot more plastic overall to compensate if they where
| not reused.
|
| On a lower level, having to recycle your plastic at home makes
| you painfully aware how much plastic you drag into your home.
| Ideally that would mean that you "buy" more, but mostly you
| don't have any control over that. Everything is packaged in way
| more layers than strictly needed. The amount of plastic we have
| to sort on a daily basis is insane. It has made me look for
| products that are packaged in less plastic, but it's an uphill
| battle.
| NewsyHacker wrote:
| "Recycling" is often a shorthand for any rubbish separation. In
| various countries now, plastic is separated at the
| municipality's order so that it can then be burned utterly in
| an incinerator (plastic and metal waste are frequently
| separated together, so the metal can be recovered after
| burning). Burning prevents even microplastics.
|
| Also, recycling can involve wholly reusing plastic containers
| several times, not breaking the plastic down to make new stuff.
| This has been done in e.g. the Nordic countries for decades
| now: soft-drink bottles are returned to the supermarket at a
| special machine (so you get a deposit back), then they are
| washed and refilled by the bottler.
| gruez wrote:
| > then they are washed and refilled by the bottler.
|
| Source? I highly doubt they're washing and reusing plastic
| bottles.
| NewsyHacker wrote:
| My experience is a few years old and apparently this system
| has changed, see this Reddit discussion[0]. But 0.5L and
| 1.5L bottles in Finland used to be made from much thicker
| and more durable plastic than in most other EU countries so
| they could be washed. They were then stamped, and once a
| certain number of uses was reached, they were finally
| disposed of.
|
| [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/w703w4/plasti
| c_and...
| jkestner wrote:
| A good point. Where's the cost-benefit to use _more_
| plastic to create more durable products, even at the cost
| of recyclability?
|
| Right now I'm making a product that should last 10 years
| outdoors. I wanted to pick PET or HDPE for their high
| recyclability, but if it leads to a shorter product
| lifespan (and all the opportunities to drop out of the
| recycling stream), what's the point? Our plan is use a
| more rugged plastic and take back old product ourselves
| to recycle, only because we have a willing injection
| molder.
|
| ABS is one of the most commonly used plastics and very
| unrecyclable, but it might be more acceptable if the
| electronics in it were supported for more than 3 years.
| bromuro wrote:
| In Germany they successfully refill PET containers:
| https://www.tomra.com/en/reverse-vending/media-
| center/featur...
| gruez wrote:
| Your source seems to suggest it's a deposit return
| scheme, not a bottle reuse scheme?
|
| First sentence in the article:
|
| >Germany has the world's largest and highest-performing
| deposit return system (DRS, also known as a deposit
| return scheme)
|
| later it says
|
| >In a few years, the market share of refillable
| containers fell below this quota, and so a DRS for
| single-use containers was established in January 2003.
| leipert wrote:
| It's both.
|
| A lot of bottlers use reusable bottles, thick walled
| bottles (15ct deposit) that are sold in crates. For a lot
| of soft drinks and water they tend to be made from PET
| (because it's lighter than Glass).
|
| Don't get me started on the German habit of buying water
| in crates rather than using perfectly fine tap water
|
| Then you also have thin-walled PET bottles which are 25
| ct deposit and one-use. Return rates are rather high
| because of the high deposit.
|
| The crates are often a PITA to deal with because you need
| to return them to a shop that sells the same bottles
| (there are some standards, but some bottlers think a non-
| standard bottle is a USP). Whereas the 25ct bottles must
| be taken back from any store that sells 25ct bottles
| themselves.
| occz wrote:
| I think they stopped the washing-kind of recycling in favour
| of just recycling the material in the early 2000s.
| imjonse wrote:
| The idea that recycling exists allows guilt-free production and
| consumption of more plastics even if those are not actually
| ever recycled.
| guiambros wrote:
| > _Recycling just increases the chance that it 's going to end
| up as low-quality plastic polluting the environment._
|
| I don't follow your logic. Say you consume 10 units of plastic
| per year; if 5 of them are still good to be recycled, and 5 end
| up in the landfill as degraded "low-quality plastic" (whatever
| that means), you net landfill contribution is 5/yr.
|
| Why would be sending 10 units/yr of "high-quality plastic" be
| any better?
|
| In practice, the issue is economic; it's cheaper to produce new
| plastic than to fix the entire recycling supply-chain.
|
| Until we have a carbon tax over plastic manufacturers that
| equalizes the recycling costs, it'll be hard to create systemic
| change just based on consumers' consciousness.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| In practice, plastic recycling can be worse than other
| solutions, like incineration and well managed landfills.
|
| That's when plastic is sent to "recycling" centers overseas,
| which not only burns fossil fuel getting it there, but may end
| up in nature instead of being recycled when no one is looking.
| And by overseas, I mean countries like Indonesia, China used to
| be one of them but they are now taking the environment a bit
| more seriously and are starting to refuse to greenwash western
| trash.
|
| Plastic recycling can make sense in a limited way, but it
| shouldn't hamper other efforts. The most important being
| avoiding dumping in in nature.
|
| And remember that plastic is carbon. Burying it where it
| doesn't degrade is carbon neutral (for oil based plastics) or
| carbon negative (for bioplastics).
| sobkas wrote:
| > How does recycling reduce plastic pollution? It's degrading
| and destroying the same plastic over and over. You're taking
| the high-quality plastic that would have sat in a landfill,
| making it into a lower-quality plastic and then sending it back
| out in the world. And then eventually... yep, the landfill, in
| the best-case scenario.
|
| > Recycling just increases the chance that it's going to end up
| as low-quality plastic polluting the environment.
|
| Recycling was/is a scam
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-passionate-eye/recyclin...
| david_draco wrote:
| Not disagreeing that plastic is a concern, but calling it one of
| the biggest threats? I recall it is negligible compared to
| climate change and expanding land use, which can be addressed by
| reducing meat, flying, consumption, and increasing regulation,
| carbon tax, and all the other good things that various NGOs have
| advocated for years.
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| So many urgent threats. It's mostly checkmate
| bamboozled wrote:
| It's been almost checkmate from the beginning.
| CWIZO wrote:
| The good thing about reducing/ eliminating meat consumption is
| that it would actually help with plastic as well. Mainly
| because the fishing industry is responsible for over 50% of the
| plastic pollution in the oceans. And because you reduce the
| packaging waste of all that meat being sold.
| sgu999 wrote:
| > Mainly because the fishing industry is responsible for over
| 50% of the plastic pollution in the oceans.
|
| !!!
|
| Because of the nets?
| born-jre wrote:
| i would certainly rant just below climate change so think it
| deserves one of the biggest title for sure.
| whyoh wrote:
| >I recall it is negligible compared to climate change and
| expanding land use
|
| We don't really know how much damage plastic/chemical pollution
| is doing. It could easily be _more_ than climate change.
| carapace wrote:
| If plastic pollution kills the plankton it's all over.
|
| We eat more fish than land mammals. If the plankton go, the
| fish go and we follow not long after.
|
| Oh yeah, edit to add, if the plankton go, the oxygen goes too,
| so we might see the whole planet shift back to anaerobic
| conditions. Not fun.
|
| > It is estimated that about 50% of the world's oxygen is
| produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton#Oxygen_production
| rastignack wrote:
| I don't know why all the attention is on climate change and not
| on the consequences of microplastics everywhere.
|
| Such an important issue, yet no world summit, no word about the
| topic when we talk about environmental issues.
|
| Change is due !
| dao- wrote:
| > I don't know why all the attention is on climate change
|
| Because it's the largest existential threat human civilization
| has ever faced.
|
| But perhaps two things can be bad at the same time, and we
| should stop flooding earth with microplastics without taking
| away any attention from climate change. There's plenty of
| attention to go around. It's not like humanity is wholly
| committed to fighting climate change. Quite the contrary.
| rastignack wrote:
| I think there is more than enough attention on climate change
| (it's constant hammering at this point) and that it is
| predatory to awareness about other environmental risks.
| dao- wrote:
| More than enough by what measure? That constant hammering
| hasn't yet translated to political will to actually turn
| the ship around.
| rastignack wrote:
| Well for example I spend 3 full days a year of training
| at my company being lectured about climate change.
|
| There are yearly events and summits with huge press
| coverage.
|
| I don't know if my company can afford to spend 3 more
| days per employee talking about microplastics and
| chemicals pollution.
| sgu999 wrote:
| > Well for example I spend 3 full days a year of training
| at my company being lectured about climate change.
|
| I can perfectly imagine employees of a bank having to do
| that for the SRI rating. Then head back to their cubicle
| for the 280 other days and give loans for mining, road
| constructions, malls, etc. 99% of the time spent on
| business as usual isn't exactly being too much concerned
| about an existential threat...
|
| That said, 3 days is better than nothing at all, and your
| company is likely an exception.
| rastignack wrote:
| The thing is that it feels force fed. Reactions are
| adverse it's counter productive.
| kennywinker wrote:
| So what is your suggestion? How do we avoid this fast
| approaching existential threat to humanity?
| cptaj wrote:
| Its hard to explain how bad this problem is getting to people
| that don't live near the sea. If you're downcurrent anywhere in
| the world, your beaches are basically full of trash that gets
| replenished on a daily basis
|
| It really pisses me off
| ks2048 wrote:
| I just had my most glaring experience of this ever on a beach
| that is basically on the open sea - Coco beach in Dar Es Salaam
| on the Indian Ocean. Incredibly beautiful beach and the warmest
| ocean water I can remember. And just walking through a foot of
| water you are basically continually hit with plastic waste. So,
| sad.
| shauryamanu wrote:
| With our current attitude that day's not far away when all
| our oceans will be dead, just like we killed our rivers, at
| least in my own country India. At least one country needs to
| put the biggest offender liable. Like having Plastic tax just
| like Carbon tax.
| londons_explore wrote:
| One way to make unknown waste mixtures safe:
|
| * Burn it hot.
|
| * Take the exhaust from the burnt waste and fractionally distill
| it to extract the Nitrogen, CO2, water and other safe gasses.
|
| * Take the ash and extract things that are worth money (metals),
| then vitrify the rest (turn it into glass)
|
| * Take everything else and stick it back into the input, letting
| it go round again and becoming something safe this time.
|
| 1 ton of household waste probably only makes 5kg of vitrified
| glass - turns out nearly everything in your house is carbon,
| hydrogen and oxygen.
|
| I suspect the energy in all the waste makes this process "free"
| from an energy standpoint. But obviously the capital cost of a
| plant big enough for the worlds waste is huge, and unless laws
| are written to ban landfills and regular incineration, it would
| never make financial sense.
| invernomut0 wrote:
| You're forgetting dioxins and other pollutants resulting from
| burning various materials, especially plastic.
| pwarner wrote:
| Burning above 1000degC supposedly destroys the dioxins.
| https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dioxins-
| and...
| londons_explore wrote:
| By having a 'loop' in the process, anything that is
| incompletely burned and results in dioxins (and anything with
| a boiling point under ~1500C, which cannot be vitrified) will
| end up not passing the fractional distillation stage and will
| be put back into the start of the process to have a 2nd go at
| breaking down.
| nerdponx wrote:
| New York City had a pilot plasma gasification program in the
| early 2010s, but I never heard anything about it after 2015 or
| so and I can't find any updated information about it. I guess
| the project folded for one reason or another.
| areed wrote:
| The recommendations at the end of the article to change
| individual behavior are a distraction but thankfully the author
| provided links to three organizations that are dedicated to real
| policy changes. I clicked through all and found 5gyres.org to be
| the most promising.
| nemo wrote:
| At this point whenever I'm on a walk I clean up any plastic
| litter I spot and dispose of it. I live not too far from some
| creeks and retention ponds along a local flood plain where I know
| my neighborhood's storm drains are headed. Seeing so much plastic
| litter and other pollutants spoil a habitat that once supported a
| very vibrant ecosystem was sad to watch, and I'm doing whatever
| small things I can to help. But we need systemic change to deal
| with plastic pollution.
|
| (The fish died from lawn runoff causing algae blooms as well -
| please be aware that if you live somewhere where it rains, then
| over fertilizing pollutes.)
| barbazoo wrote:
| That's why I always try to carry a bag or something to collect
| garbage in that I find.
| born-jre wrote:
| its not my area of my expertise but i keep thinking about this
| problem and comes to conclusion some kind of incineration
| facility in each county/zone is only alternative. Off course u
| would not release that dirty smoke to air and capturing and
| filtration technology should get a lot better.
| WhatsTheBigIdea wrote:
| There is clearly a problem, but the remedies proposed in this
| article are absurd and completely ignore the cause of the
| problem.
|
| Plastics are incredibly useful, fabulously performant, and
| astoundingly cheap. It is no wonder they are ubiquitous.
|
| If you are poor anywhere in the developed world, you are surely
| wearing plastic cloths & shoes, eating food packaged in plastic,
| and drinking water provided via plastic pipes and vessels. What's
| more, you likely don't have a meaningful choice in the matter. If
| you are not poor, this probably still holds true.
|
| It is frustrating that there is not a good and clear path forward
| to resolve this issue... and many other issues of the
| Anthropocene. We need to do better thinking about how we can help
| our ecosystems remain viable despite these upheavals.
| jkestner wrote:
| It's hard to know what is practically recyclable even ignoring
| the variation in municipalities. A good resource for product
| makers from the actual recyclers that's a little more direct:
| https://plasticsrecycling.org/apr-design-guide
| CptFribble wrote:
| I am once again asking you to consider plasma gasification. Here
| is my standard comment, copied again:
|
| ---
|
| Why are we still not talking about plasma gasification?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification
|
| As far as I can tell, the only real "disadvantages" if you can
| call them that, are:
|
| 1. more expensive than throwing the garbage in a big pile
| somewhere
|
| 2. need to clean it from time to time
|
| 3. not necessarily a profitable business
|
| Other than that, it can handle just about anything that's not
| radioactive, can be designed to produce 0 toxic byproducts, and
| can run at or at least only slightly below energy neutral. Plasma
| gasifiers can also consume a huge amount of garbage for their
| size, so much so that the US Navy is starting to put them on the
| latest generation of aircraft carriers.
|
| Not building out more gasifiers seems to me a failure of the free
| market. Because it's hard to make it profitable, no one is doing
| it - when really we should just be building one or two near every
| major city and funneling all our garbage there.
|
| In theory, we could build out enough to start working through all
| the landfills too.
|
| ---
|
| ADDENDUM:
|
| * This is NOT the same as incineration. Plasma gasification does
| not produce toxic gases vented to atmo, etc. The main byproducts
| are "syngas", which is mainly H2 and CO and can be reused to
| power the facility, and slag.
| carapace wrote:
| Molten salt oxidation is perhaps preferable: it's an exothermic
| reaction.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_oxidation
| cashsterling wrote:
| Burning plastic (and all kinds of other trash) for energy, if
| done well, IS economical/profitable and not much more 'dirty'
| than burning natural gas.
|
| I think a lot of refuse to energy plants in the US have been
| shutdown by environmental interest groups and negative
| sentiment from local residents, etc.
|
| We should first use a lot less plastic in disposable things...
| but if we can't do that we, should burn it along with a lot of
| other trash.
| carapace wrote:
| That just puts the carbon into the air, where we do not want
| it. It would be better to bury it than burn it.
| iamgopal wrote:
| I'm sold. I work with municipalities for solid waste
| discarding, is there a practical design or reference that we
| can use ? How about using sterling engine for energy
| production?
| kennywinker wrote:
| Up to 30% of ocean microplastics appear to be coming from car
| tires. Yes, buy less shit. But also, shift your life away from
| cars towards public transit systems, and active transport
| (bicycle, walk, etc)
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39042655
| cushpush wrote:
| Is there a way for everyday citizens to walk around and collect
| ambient plastics?
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(page generated 2023-12-21 23:02 UTC)