[HN Gopher] Research shows plant-based polymers can disappear wi...
___________________________________________________________________
Research shows plant-based polymers can disappear within seven
months
Author : geox
Score : 200 points
Date : 2024-03-21 12:50 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (today.ucsd.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (today.ucsd.edu)
| userbinator wrote:
| ...enabling more planned obsolescence than ever thought possible.
|
| Why make things last when you can have them "naturally" self-
| destruct and force you to buy again, under the guise of
| greenwashing?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| The use of degradable polymers is for things that are single
| use. Plastic bags, straws, etc. nobody is trying to replace
| your iPad with a compostable version that disolves in humidity.
|
| It's cynical bordering on humor to look at the accumulation of
| forever trash in our oceans and blood and say "well at least we
| can build something that _may_ last with all this poison ".
| Nobody does that anyway.
| userbinator wrote:
| _Plastic bags, straws, etc_
|
| Those are the least likely to degrade into microplastics
| anyway, unlike clothing fibers and the like, and that is
| already assuming you believe that microplastics have any
| actual effects.
|
| _nobody is trying to replace your iPad with a compostable
| version that disolves in humidity._
|
| The article talks about phone cases and clothing.
| techdmn wrote:
| The phone cases made by RhinoShield are the aftermarket
| kind that fit over the phone, not the integrated case.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Microplastics are accumulating at pretty high levels all
| over the food chain, right? The burden of proof should be
| on the folks who want to run the "let's all eat this new
| thing in great quantities" experiment.
| jeltz wrote:
| No the burden of proof is on people who claim this will
| reduce the release of microplastics. Most plastic
| pollution comes from a few countries in Asia and from
| fishing.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics
|
| What we need to do is assist these few countries with
| better waste management, that is what by far would have
| the biggest impact. Not saying we shouldn't do other
| things too like trying to find new materials for fishing
| nets or reducing fishing but plastic bags in the west is
| not a significant source.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That's a related but different issue, we should figure
| out if they are safe, help other countries deal with
| them, and stop producing as many ourselves, at the same
| time.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| We should also lead by example by not just exporting our
| plastic trash to other countries.
| Zach_the_Lizard wrote:
| The story of humanity can be summed up as: "what if we
| changed our environment without understanding it?" with
| both wonderful and wretched consequences.
|
| The same fires that poison the air we breathe also power
| life saving medical equipment so that we can keep
| breathing.
|
| Micro plastics, endocrine disrupters and more have been
| unleashed. I am sure their effects will prove to be less
| than positive on both humans and wildlife.
|
| But in trying to snuff out the next great environmental
| crisis, will we account for the benefits we've derived
| from the use of these materials when we do our cost-
| benefit analysis? The effects on innovation?
|
| Did curiosity kill the cat, but save cats?
| bee_rider wrote:
| We have think of it differently now, stuff like lead and
| asbestos were bad, but localized mostly. We're running
| the microplastic experiment on everybody simultaneously.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This comment contradicts itself: if microplastics in
| clothing are a serious issue, then we _should_ be looking
| seriously at clothes that degrade without producing
| microplastics.
|
| (All clothing degrades; presumably you don't object to wool
| or accuse wool sweaters of planned obsolescence.)
| jeltz wrote:
| Or we can just burn the clothes. Almost no clothing in
| Europe, biodegradable or not, ends up in the ocean.
| woodruffw wrote:
| My understanding is that much of the West's second-hand
| and overstock clothes ends up in countries like Ghana,
| where it does end up in waterways[1]. This has presumably
| increased over time due to fast fashion, which is a large
| market in Europe (like in the US).
|
| [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-
| development/2023/jun/05/y...
| graemep wrote:
| Fast fashion is horrible. That article really shows on
| aspect of it. It has turned a large chunk of a recycling
| process into dumping.
| logtempo wrote:
| You really need to cite a source on this subject,
| measuring the industrial waste is very difficult and any
| articles state that "we found this but anyway, it's
| difficult to track efficiently the industry wastes".
| piaglfgp wrote:
| Microplastics are emitted from clothing and flushed into
| the waste water system, and from there to oceans, every
| time you do laundry. This is considered to be the main
| source of microplastic pollution, including in the EU
| unless they managed something revolutionary that I'm not
| aware of.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43023-x
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Absolutely shit tons of fluff comes off off polyester
| clothes and ends up in the drain.
|
| We could probably design washing machines to filter it
| better, granted.
| pfdietz wrote:
| So, like ... cotton?
| woodruffw wrote:
| Sure. But the reality is that cotton is expensive and
| resource intensive compared to other materials; absent a
| global effort to ban plastic clothes, it seems worthwhile
| to make those clothes less environmentally damaging.
| IntrepidWorm wrote:
| Cotton also shrinks when wet and has poor thermal
| properties - polymer blend fabrics perform better in the
| cold, and are lighter and cheaper than wool. Goretex is
| wonderful stuff, but its also made of '"forever-plastics"
| and is known to slowly leach into runoff. Finding a
| polymer that can be cleanly manufactured for a
| competitive price with similar properties would be
| wonderful, as long as theres also a method for it to
| degrade safely when discarded.
| Filligree wrote:
| It's also commonly used in 3D printing, i.e. PLA.
|
| PLA is stable enough in normal circumstances -- you need
| specific equipment to make it degrade -- but once broken down
| to microplastics it doesn't last long. Otherwise it's nearly
| an ideal plastic for printing; brittle, but strong and
| incredibly easy to print. With some additives you can get rid
| of the brittleness, though I'm not sure how those would
| degrade.
|
| I see no reason you couldn't make plastic straws from PLA.
| Clothing might not last as long, but plastic clothing never
| lasts that long in any case; I prefer cotton.
| delecti wrote:
| A lot of commercially available
| "biodegradable"/"compostable" plastic is already made out
| of PLA.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| American plastic trash does not end up in the ocean.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Have you spent time in any major American coastal city or
| one with an ocean bound river. There is so much plastic
| litter. I'm in Manhattan and I see plastic litter every
| day. If even some of it doesn't get swept up it's a short
| trip to the East River, a tidal estuary of the Atlantic
| Ocean. This isn't a theory these things are gathering into
| the oceans and in our bodies.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I'm sure Manhattan has more trash than either of us would
| wish.
|
| But I think looking around Times Square is not the best
| way to study this scientifically.
|
| The studies that have been done in the Great Pacific
| Garbage Patch shows that it's majority from China, with
| Indonesia a strong seconds. US contributes < 1%.
|
| This would be a more convincing post if I could point to
| sources. I don't have time to dig those up, so this data
| is from my memory. Take it for what it is...
| graemep wrote:
| > nobody is trying to replace your iPad with a compostable
| version that disolves in humidity.
|
| Ssh - you will give the electronics industry ideas :)
| bordercases wrote:
| The arguments against planned obsolescence are partially
| environmental. If planned obsolescence isn't going away, at
| least this aspect is improved. Consider medical disposables, or
| one-time packaging that still requires medium term storage
| survivability.
| mechanicalpulse wrote:
| I'll take environmentally responsible planned obsolescence over
| the current situation.
|
| Nothing lasts. Durable plastic and metal goods become damaged
| or worn. What then? When repair, reuse, or recycling is not
| socioeconomically attractive, having some sort of naturally
| sustainable cycle would be nice, wouldn't it?
|
| Even if I have to buy a new phone case every seven months, if
| it's part of a sustainable cycle that becomes quite economical
| due to the massive scale -- wouldn't that be better than
| maintaining the current production of long-lived plastics?
|
| This strikes me as an example of capitalism learning something
| from biology.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Meanwhile, a lot of people end up buying cars sooner than
| they would have had to otherwise, because someone thought it
| was a good, environmentally-sound idea to make electrical
| wiring out of tasty, tasty soybeans.
|
| _That 's_ capitalism taking a lesson from nature.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The problem with "environmentally responsible" planned
| obsolescence is that it's never environmentally responsible
| to throw out what would otherwise be a functional device but
| for the fact that it was made to break down on a specific
| timetable. The three Rs are "reduce, reuse, recycle", not
| "recycle, recycle, recycle". Making the product degrade
| prematurely means you can't reuse, and by proxy, having to
| buy a new one means you're not reducing.
|
| Degradable devices sounds like the sort of thing intended to
| assuage the consciences of very rich people who buy the
| newest iPhone every year.
| thrawn0r wrote:
| it doesnt seem like `the market` will fix this abhorrent use of
| plastic for packaging and other fast moving consumer goods. This
| is where states have to interfere and ban plastic usage. How can
| it be allowed to package 80g of food (like ham, cheese etc.) that
| has a shelf-life of max. 14 days in 10g+ of plastic that will be
| around for hundreds of years? If you go to any super market there
| is no consumer choice but to buy most of your food wrapped in
| plastic, amounting to kilos of plastic per family and month :(
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| This seems like an appropriate place for the government to step
| in and price negative externalities in the form of taxes. Taxes
| are effective as bans but they better handle edge cases where
| plastic may still be required for whatever reason.
| sph wrote:
| Where do you account for lobbying from the oil industry and
| corruption?
| sph wrote:
| In a perfect world where governments are competent, I would
| love a law stating that packaging must not last more than 10x
| times the shelf life of the product itself. Ham expires after 3
| days? Put it in packaging that lasts no more than 30 days when
| left outside.
| peteradio wrote:
| Something that only lasts 30 days is going to partially start
| breaking down on day 1, I don't think people want that
| touching their meat.
| logtempo wrote:
| Adjust the variable in consequence, we're talking about a
| fictional material. You're using a strawman there, just to
| be in contradiction.
| sph wrote:
| Just brainstorming here: anything temperature-based? Starts
| degrading above 10C for example. In your fridge it's no
| problem, chuck it out of the window like a savage and it
| will eventually degrade, unless you live on the poles.
|
| Sounds like a good avenue for (organic) material science
| research.
| bluGill wrote:
| Does something like that exist? Can something like that
| exist? don't forget it needs to be food safe - including
| whatever it breaks down to, and whatever bacteria might
| grow on it - so long as the food itself is safe to eat.
|
| Materials science has come a long way, but some problems
| still are not solved and it isn't always clear if the
| problem can be solved.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Water ice fits the description, but it's hard to see how
| that would be practical.
| sph wrote:
| We need Ice 9: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-nine
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Ok 100, or 500, both way below the hundreds of years they
| now last.
| verisimi wrote:
| You know, this is simply not true.
|
| I have found old buried plastic bags, from supermarkets -
| I remember the bag style from just a few years ago. The
| bags had severely degraded. When I tried to pick one up,
| it fell apart into small pieces, what integrity it had
| was gone. I've had the same experience with bags left in
| lofts - they degrade.
|
| From my personal experience, I therefore assume that
| plastics already disintegrate after about 10 years, not
| 100 or 500 years, as you state.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| You're just talking about a bag degrading into smaller
| and smaller plastic particles (microplastics) while the
| people above are talking about biodegrading into natural
| elements.
| verisimi wrote:
| You think I'm unfair in comparing a plastic bag to
| plastic packaging? If you follow this particular thread,
| they were talking about packaging.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| No, you're just confusing macroscopic level of
| degradation (the whole structure degrades) and
| microscopic degradation (molecules are being degraded).
|
| The problem with plastic is that while the macroscopic
| structure can be altered in just a few years (depending
| on the conditions), the resulting parts aren't being
| metabolized away by micro-organisms and they remain as
| small plastic chunks, and then micro-plastic, then nano
| plastic, until they eventually break down entirely after
| decades, which is very unlike what happens with what we
| call biodegradable materials.
| verisimi wrote:
| So, in your view, although the bag I see is breaking up
| into small brittle pieces, there are even smaller pieces
| that are not been degraded? Is that a theory to you, or
| do you have first hand knowledge?
|
| If I have understood your position correctly, this is
| certainly counterintuitive... because if there is not
| much plastic bag left, you'd think that whatever broke
| down the bag, would also be able to break down these
| smaller bits (microplastics). But you are saying that
| small bits of the bag remain for decades, even though I
| can't see them.. I just don't see why small bits of
| plastic bag would remain, when it is evident that
| something in the ground already degraded the plastic bag
| as a whole.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > So, in your view, although the bag I see is breaking up
| into small brittle pieces, there are even smaller pieces
| that are not been degraded?
|
| They are being degraded, just slowly.
|
| > Is that a theory to you, or do you have first hand
| knowledge?
|
| It's not a theory of mine, you can find the explanation
| in practically any explanation of what "microplastics"
| are.
|
| > If I have understood your position correctly, this is
| certainly counterintuitive... because if there is not
| much plastic bag left, you'd think that whatever broke
| down the bag, would also be able to break down these
| smaller bits (microplastics)
|
| That's correct, and it eventually happens, the process is
| just very slow, let me try explaining it to you:
|
| Plastics are made of very long polymer chains, composed
| of the same small molecule (monomer) chained together
| millions of times. Let's assume we have a plastic for
| which half[1] of the connections break down in 50 years.
| If I'm not messing the math up, it means that every year
| you lose roughly 1% of the connections between the
| molecule. So, after one year, your chain of 1 million
| molecules have been cut in 10,000 smaller piece of 100
| monomers. Then the next year, there's again 10,000
| connections that will break (~1% of the remaining 990,000
| connections), but this time it will just double the
| number of pieces (if you cut a piece 10 times, you and up
| with 11 pieces, if you have again 10 scissor hits on the
| next 11 pieces, you'll end up with 21 pieces).
|
| Of course my model is not entirely accurate because I
| looked only at the 1D molecular structure, when plastics
| are actually 3D meshes of these chains, so multiple
| chains are holding one another and it slows down the
| macroscopic effect, but you should get the idea of why it
| first degrades relatively quickly at macro scale and then
| slower at smaller scale.
|
| [1] half times are a good way to model degradations of
| chemical compounds, at least the "spontaneous" ones, but
| keep in mind it's a _model_ : it's not flawless and it's
| not able to describe every degradation phenomenon (for
| instance it fails to describe degradation from
| microorganisms that can grow on a substrate they are
| degrading hence the "spontaneous" qualifier above).
| verisimi wrote:
| Thank you for taking the time to explain.
|
| I get how these connections are meant to break down,
| though not to the detail you provided. It could be like
| you say, though I don't why the degradation wouldn't be
| concurrent - ie I don't get why half times are a good way
| to model plastic degradation, when all of the plastic is
| exposed to 'scissor hits' all of the times. Ie, once the
| scissor hits start to impact the bag, I would think the
| bag would soon fully disintegrate.
|
| Assuming it is like you say, if a plastic bag is brittle,
| going to dust after just 10 years after being in the
| ground, (I'm using supermarket bag design as a means to
| figure out the age of the bag,) that is far from 50 years
| to break down half the connections. This is too say the
| metric to measure degradation seems wrong to me... Or
| perhaps the metric is the case in artificial, sterile
| conditions, which the ground is not.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > ie I don't get why half times are a good way to model
| plastic degradation, when all of the plastic is exposed
| to 'scissor hits' all of the times.
|
| They are all exposed to scissor hits all the time, but
| it's a stochastic scissor. You can think of every
| connection rolling many dices every second, and whenever
| they all land on 1 the molecule breaks. This kind of
| behavior leads to exponential decay, which is subject to
| half life.
|
| > Assuming it is like you say, if a plastic bag is
| brittle, going to dust after just 10 years after being in
| the ground, (I'm using supermarket bag design as a means
| to figure out the age of the bag,) that is far from 50
| years to break down half the connections.
|
| Why? You don't need to break all connections to break to
| dust. They are trillions of connections to break if you
| want to degrade the compound to its primitive molecule,
| but only thousands if you want to shred it to pieces.
| Keep in mind that if the monomer measures 1nm, a piece of
| plastic of 10um still has 10,000 connections. And if at
| the beginning you have a piece of plastic that's 10cm
| long (all reasoning are 1D here for simplicity), you just
| need to cut it 1000 times to get to 10um (so at 10um
| you're still much closer to the beginning than to the
| end, even though the plastic is now invisible).
|
| > Or perhaps the metric is the case in artificial,
| sterile conditions, which the ground is not.
|
| As I said before, it's a model and you're right it's not
| entirely accurate. Yet plastic doesn't have much enemies
| living in the ground, so it's pretty close to being
| sterile from the perspective of the plastic. And that's
| actually the problem we're facing right now.
| verisimi wrote:
| I still don't see why microbes or UV light or salt work
| in this linear process, where half lives come into play.
|
| > Yet plastic doesn't have much enemies living in the
| ground
|
| But this is the very point I'm making in my first post in
| this thread - that I found a fairly recent plastic bag
| (~10 years old) that _was_ badly degraded.
|
| Perhaps there aren't adverse conditions in the lab. Or
| perhaps the measurements are wrong? Perhaps these micro
| plastics are too small to see... But the info we are
| given should correlate with one's personal verification,
| I hope you agree.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > why microbes or UV light or salt work in this linear
| process
|
| It's not linear, it's exponential! And, as I said before
| microbes are special and are not well represented by
| half-life models, but they aren't too relevant for
| plastics (and that's the reason we call plastics "non-
| biodegradable")
|
| > that I found a fairly recent plastic bags (~10 years
| old) that was badly degraded
|
| I've spent the past two comments explaining why this
| happens, and why the plastic bag can _appear_ degraded
| even though there 's little degradation overall in the
| material itself.
|
| It's OK that you don't understand the phenomenon, I'm
| probably at fault here for not explaining it well enough
| although I did my best. But if you don't understand it,
| please at least _admit_ that it 's what happening even if
| it sounds counter-intuitive to you.
|
| It's not the lab conditions that are at fault here, it's
| your understanding of the mechanism and my limited
| abilities to explain them to you.
|
| If you are curious I'm pretty sure you can find much
| better explanation on YouTube or elsewhere, as the
| internet is crowded with extraordinary science teachers.
| And if you aren't that curious (that's OK, life is short
| we cannot learn everything) then at least please admit
| the result and move on. Do not assume that "everybody
| else is wrong including polymer scientists, and
| microplastics don't exist because once I've seen a bag
| that was in bad shape". It's just your intuition is just
| wrong, and that's OK.
| verisimi wrote:
| > It's OK that you don't understand the phenomenon, I'm
| probably at fault here for not explaining it well enough
| although I did my best. But if you don't understand it,
| please at least admit that it's what happening even if it
| sounds counter-intuitive to you.
|
| Not at all - I thank you. I am curious and want to
| understand. I simply don't accept counter-intuitive
| claims without good reason. I accept that such things as
| counter-intuitive claims exist. But, even so, I need to
| know how to verify things personally.
|
| So, if I see plastics that are turned to dust after just
| 10 years, but another is saying that the dust continues
| to degrade for 500 years, I can consider the claim - but
| I want to know how it can be verified. Once you are
| talking about stuff you can't see or confirm, you are in
| thrall to experts. Unfortunately, when information or
| tools are not available to others, this provides cover of
| darkness for all sorts of poor ideas.
|
| I can imagine all sorts of claims... but I'm after
| knowledge, not hearsay. And knowledge is not a communal
| endeavour - it is personal, based in personal
| verification. To me, even scientific claims are hearsay -
| you of course will know about the reproducibility crisis,
| and will no doubt have countless examples of how science
| presumed to know one thing, then changed position. Of
| course, this is the scientific method - nothing is set in
| stone. But science present monolithic conclusions that
| might be wrong. And its not like scientific endeavours
| cannot be steered by money.
|
| The philosophical issue in play here relates to
| knowledge. What is it that knows - is it a group or an
| individual? Can it be that one part of science state this
| or that to be true, and everyone else must then uniformly
| accept that pronouncement? A pronouncement that cannot be
| verified personally? Even though we know that all science
| is the output of flawed humans? Etc.
|
| Thanks for the exchange.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| It's good to be skeptical and keep an open mind on stuff
| even when there's a well accepted "truth". But on the
| flip hand you should be cautious not to let it evolve
| into anti-intellectualism and complete mistrust in
| scientific output (especially because calls to common
| sense are a very common manipulation tactics).
|
| Science is a social thing, and as such it's far from an
| ethereal ideal of knowledge production. But at the same
| time, it's the best tool we have by far...
|
| Maybe re-reading my explanation tomorrow or another day
| can help you grasp the phenomenon better ;).
|
| Have a nice day.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> In a perfect world where governments are competent_
|
| Yet the general consensus seems to be that in a perfect world
| governments are democratic, and therefore beholden to the
| will of the people, not authoritarian like you suggest. But
| if the will of the people wants to see a change in the use of
| plastic, they don't need it to flow through government, they
| can simply change their buying habits.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| You cannot buy something that doesn't exist or is otherwise
| unavailable.
|
| And good packaging materials rarely make for good
| marketing.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> You cannot buy something that doesn 't exist or is
| otherwise unavailable._
|
| Of course you can. Facilitating such a thing is
| Kickstarter's entire business model, as an example. You
| can also refrain from buying, communicating to other
| people that "I'm not buying your product unless you..."
| which gives really strong incentive to do things
| differently.
|
| It's not like government is some kind of magical thing.
| It's just people. And in the case of democratic
| government, it's the _very same_ people.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > You can also refrain from buying
|
| _Day 56 after I refrained from buying food: I 'm now
| dead._
| randomdata wrote:
| If only the people had chosen to enact a law that made it
| illegal to sell you food packaged in harmful packaging
| that you had already decided not to buy. I mean, you'd
| still be dead, but you'd have 56 days of satisfaction
| knowing that your voice was heard.
| comicjk wrote:
| We're talking about negative externalities, of which
| pollution is a perfect example: the effects of pollution
| are spread across everyone, no matter who emits it, so no
| one has an individual incentive to change their buying
| habits. It's a coordination problem, which can be solved
| democratically by the voters demanding an overall change in
| incentives (such as an appropriate tax on single-use non-
| biodegradable plastics).
| randomdata wrote:
| _> We 're talking about negative externalities_
|
| No. Not sure why would you would choose to reply _before_
| reading the comments, but since you have... we are quite
| explicitly talking about at least one consumer expecting
| food packaging to degrade within a similar period as the
| food contained within, with a suggestion that an
| authoritarian government in a perfect world would
| recognize that as a good idea and force it upon the
| people.
|
| But the general consensus seems to be that, in a perfect
| world, governments are democratic - a notion you do not
| seem to discount.
|
| Under a democracy, if he stands alone in that desire of
| short-life packaging, nothing is going to change. No
| business is going to cater to his unique want (well,
| _maybe_ if he 's exceedingly rich and is willing to pay
| disproportionally for it) and government is not going to
| act on the wishes of one person (that would be
| undemocratic). If a majority of people share in that
| desire, though, then businesses would face pressure to
| provide when consumers make that choice clear. Any
| business that fails to comply will suffer the
| consequences of lost profits. The people can enact a law
| that prevents themselves from buying the product they
| already don't want to buy, but that doesn't accomplish
| anything. They've already decided they don't want to buy
| it!
|
| Democratic government is useful for cleaning up minority
| groups who try to act against the wishes of the majority,
| but in this particular case you have not even made clear
| why the minority would be stuck on buying 'forever'
| packaging or what businesses would gain from catering to
| the minority. People don't care about food packaging that
| much. Once the majority are buying short-life packaging,
| the small number of people who want to watch the world
| burn will be priced out of the market anyway. As such,
| there is no need for government. The people can just do
| it...
|
| ...and if they don't, that's the end of it. Magic isn't
| going to swoop in and save the day. The democratic
| government is nothing other than _the very same people_
| who have already decided that, in this scenario, they don
| 't want to do anything.
|
| But maybe what you're really struggling to say is that
| democracy wouldn't be found in a perfect world? Fair
| enough, but I'm still not sure that's the general
| consensus.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > they can simply change their buying habits.
|
| Sure. And where am I supposed to find affordable food not
| wrapped in plastic? Ideally in my city and not 100kms away,
| and not 10 times the price. And now that you're at it,
| please tell me where I can buy food that is not already
| polluted by microplastics?
|
| This kind of argument is a just a "blaming the victim" kind
| of reasoning.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> And where am I supposed to find affordable food not
| wrapped in plastic?_
|
| The same place you expect to find it when you outlaw food
| wrapped in plastic. It's not going to disappear until
| people stop buying it. You can create a law to remind you
| to not buy food wrapped in plastic, or you can just not
| buy food wrapped in plastic. So long as the population is
| on board with the idea of not buying food wrapped in
| plastic, there is absolutely no difference.
|
| If you are suggesting that the population isn't on board
| and everyone other than you is quite happy to keep buying
| food wrapped in plastic then a democratic government
| would never create such a law in the first place,
| rendering the entire discussion moot. That would not be
| in alignment with the will of the people. Democracy does
| not serve individual whims.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > The same place you expect to find it when you outlaw
| food wrapped in plastic. It's not going to disappear
| until people stop buying it.
|
| People aren't going to stop buying it as long as it's the
| only option!
|
| > You can create a law to remind you to not buy food
| wrapped in plastic,
|
| It's not about reminding you not to buy, it's about
| banning people from selling. You know, as they already do
| for dangerous stuff like Kinder Suprise in the US...
|
| > or you can just not buy food wrapped in plastic.
|
| You cannot because nobody is selling it.
|
| > If you're suggesting that the population isn't on
| board, then a democratic government would never create
| such a law in the first place. It would not be the will
| of the people.
|
| The population is on board, but population-wide
| synchronization don't happen for free you know. Here's a
| fun example: here in Europe the majority of people is
| against daylight saving time. Yet there is one. That's
| stupid you'd say, because they could actually
| collectively decide not to change their clocks' time and
| call it a day, DST is gone. But in fact, doing so would
| require an enormous amount of coordination, and this kind
| of amount of coordination is the exact reason why we've
| created the State in the first place! And it's actually
| its only power! (armed force: literally started as just a
| well synchronized militia, same for law enforcement,
| collecting taxes: just make sure to get a big enough
| group to raid the house of the people who refuse to pay,
| etc.)
| randomdata wrote:
| _> People aren 't going to stop buying it as long as it's
| the only option!_
|
| Then that's it. Game over. Until buyers stop buying
| what's already out there, vendors don't have an avenue to
| sell any kind of replacement. Fortunately, your view is
| quite disconnected from reality. In the real world people
| talk, negotiate, and work to satisfy the buyer's wants
| and needs.
|
| _> It 's not about reminding you not to buy, it's about
| banning people from selling. You know, as they already do
| for dangerous stuff like Kinder Suprise in the US..._
|
| Not to mention illicit drugs. They, of course, straight
| up vanished from the US as soon as it became illegal to
| sell them. Oh wait.
|
| Let's be real: If someone is buying, there will be
| someone ready to sell. The law ultimately has to compel
| the buyer to back away. You can say the onus is on the
| seller, but you're just looking at the opposite side of
| the same coin.
|
| _> Yet there is one._
|
| Meaning that if I decide to keep my clocks on a constant
| schedule it's straight to jail for me? If not, how does
| that relate to a law that would penalize you if you sell
| (or buy) plastic-wrapped food? In this part of the world,
| at least, if you want to ignore DST, go nuts. DST only
| exists because the people just do it, not because there
| is some legal threat that keeps them on the straight and
| narrow.
|
| _> and this kind of amount of coordination is the exact
| reason why we 've created the State in the first place!_
|
| If the state is democratic, the people have to coordinate
| _first_. Without such coordination, there is no way for
| democracy to take place. Once the people have coordinated
| their will, they can just do it. Like you point out with
| DST - at least to the extent of its existence in my part
| of the world - you don 't need a law to force people to
| do what they've already decided to do. They can just do
| it. Simple as that.
|
| Such laws are useful for keeping the minority dissenters
| in line with the will of the majority, but in this case
| once the majority has stopped buying plastic-wrapped
| food, it is highly unlikely there will be a compelling
| business case to serve the small handful of people who
| want to see the world burn. I mean, even if you don't
| give a rat's ass about the environment, are you really
| going to go well out of your way to buy plastic-wrapped
| food? Not likely. You're just going to buy the food the
| same way everyone else is. It will be cheaper and much,
| much, much more convenient.
|
| The previous commenter's idea of an authoritative higher
| power forcing the people to bend to his will is great and
| all, but doesn't work with democracy. If a perfect world
| sees that government be a democracy, as the prevailing
| consensus seems to indicate, then that idea is out the
| window in said perfect world.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Then that's it. Game over. Until buyers stop buying
| what's already out there, vendors don't have an avenue to
| sell anything else.
|
| That's pretty fascinating to see that you're reading
| literally everything backward, like not only the real
| world around you but even what I'm writing! I'm talking
| about the fact that nobody is _offering_ the possibility
| to buy stuff that 's not wrapped (and for legit business
| reasons, it's much easier on their supply-chain
| management to do so this way), and you're interpreting as
| if the problem was on the demand side.
|
| And everything is in the same vein: I'm talking about a
| situation where the supply side is definitely not
| providing what the consumer want, at least a significant
| fraction of the population, and you insist in arguing as
| if plastic packaging was driven by consumer demand: it is
| not it's cost saving and supply chain ease of use on the
| supply side, not demand. And that's why you can't find
| any: why would a business bother doing what the customer
| want when they can get away with costs savings because
| customers have nowhere to go.
|
| > Meaning that if I decide to keep my clocks on a
| constant schedule, it's straight to jail for me?
|
| Chances are that you'll straight up lose your job after a
| couple days. Then you'll see how your freedom not to
| change your clock time is respected when you're being
| evicted because you could not pay your rents due to lack
| of revenue. By the way that's a good illustration of the
| difference between freedom in a vacuum, and the actual
| exercise of freedom in a socially interconnected world
| where your agency is in fact very constrained by material
| factors.
|
| > If the state is democratic, the people have to
| coordinate first. Without such coordination, there is no
| way for democracy to take place.
|
| Fascinatingly steady with backward-driven thinking
| indeed! You can't have democracy if you don't have a
| state entity that's able to run the elections and enforce
| them. The democratic character of the state comes later,
| once the people already in charge have been confirmed
| through the election, or when they decided to step down
| if they lose. Coordination comes from the state, which
| can then replicate itself thanks to this coordination. No
| state _started_ with an election, at the very beginning
| was always somebody getting power through other means (be
| it a foreign invader, a previously ruling king, or a
| group of insurrectionist).
|
| > Laws are useful for keeping the minority dissenters in
| line with the will of the majority, but in this case once
| the majority has stopped buying plastic-wrapped food, it
| is highly unlikely there will be a compelling business
| case to serve the small handful of people who want to see
| the world burn.
|
| But without enforcement, nobody will ever be able to buy
| such food, because nobody has an incentive to sell it in
| the first place. It's cheaper to sell plastic wrapped
| food, and because the externalities come for free, the
| business isn't paying the cost of their behavior. Buyers,
| or at least a significant fraction of it, realize the
| cost, but they don't have any leverage on the business
| because there's nowhere to go. The same way I'm not
| buying a smartphone that's being manufactured in my
| country, because there isn't any.
|
| > Laws are useful for keeping the minority dissenters in
| line with the will of the majority
|
| Not only. Laws are also setting the state budget, the tax
| levels or food and drugs safety standards, your
| interpretation of what law is supposed to do is indeed
| very limited in comparison to what it actually is in the
| real world.
|
| > he previous commenter's idea of a higher power forcing
| the people to bend to his will is great and all, but
| doesn't work with democracy.
|
| No, there's no non-democratic high power in charge up
| there, it's just a matter of democratic state intervening
| to fix a market imperfection (negative externalities),
| but in your now infamous skill to misinterpret
| everything, you managed somehow invented some
| authoritarian power in the discussion. Well done.
|
| Maybe you could try reading what other people are writing
| twice before commenting, or maybe three or four times,
| just to be sure you're not making things up in your head,
| because that's a recurring theme at that point.
|
| Edit: oh I found this gem in another comment of yours
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39783570)
|
| _Not sure why would you would choose to reply before
| reading the comments_
|
| The irony is absolutely delicious.
| zik wrote:
| "Last no more than 30 days" with currently available
| degradable plastics just means it breaks down into
| microplastics really quickly and pollutes the environment
| with them.
| sargun wrote:
| I can see this playing out in one of two ways: 1. Suddenly
| shelf lives are massively extended. I think this would be a
| good thing. 2. Shelf lives are decreased to accommodate
| degradable packaging.
|
| Given the people who are in the food supply chain are probably
| going to be sourcing the same packaging from maybe 2-3 vendors,
| I don't see anyone able to differentiate themselves on
| packaging tech.
| fy20 wrote:
| > shelf lives are massively extended. I think this would be a
| good thing.
|
| 50 years ago many fruits and vegetables had a lot shorter
| shelf life, however that has been greatly extended due to
| selected breeding. For example tomatoes used to have a shelf
| life of around 3 days, but now it's 3 weeks or more.
|
| The disadvantage of this is that now there are a few
| varieties that dominate what you can buy in supermarkets, and
| they are optimized for economic features. This means other
| features like taste and nutrient content are a lot worse than
| it was 50 years ago.
| verisimi wrote:
| > If you go to any super market there is no consumer choice but
| to buy most of your food wrapped in plastic, amounting to kilos
| of plastic per family and month
|
| This is corporations 'socialising' the expense of their
| decisions via writing laws. Why should they pay?
| megaman821 wrote:
| I am seeing lots of problems with your argument here:
| * One, the amount of carbon that get wasted if that sandwich
| goes bad is immense compared to the small amount of carbon it
| takes to make the plastic. * Two, in places with decent
| waste management, what is wrong with the plastic sitting in a
| landfill. * Three, assuming you are still going to
| protect food items, the alternatives are all heavier materials
| that will increase transportation costs and pollution.
| burrish wrote:
| Always good news to hear alternative being made possible, but it
| doesn't matter if none of the big industries are willing to make
| the change.
|
| Always this need to wait 5 years or so until European Union
| decide to fine them if they don't get their shit together.
| burkaman wrote:
| There is also an upcoming UN plastic treaty that could
| potentially exert some influence here.
| bamboozled wrote:
| This actual sounds positive. The UN isn't a silver bullet of
| course but we can't keep polluting at this scale.
| parineum wrote:
| The UN, in general, is pretty impotent, especially for
| purpose which it was created. However, this kind of stuff
| is exactly the kind of thing that it has successfully done
| in the past.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| in terms of microplastics in our bodies, is there actually any
| evidence these are harmful?
|
| i know intuitively they would be, but i haven't actually found
| good evidence when i've gone searching
| prmph wrote:
| There was a recent study [1] that found they could dramatically
| raise the risk of adverse cardiovascular events
|
| [1].
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/06/microsco...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Sounds like something that ought to be backed up by
| statistics... say, a rise in otherwise-unexplained
| cardiovascular events that coincides with microplastic
| production.
|
| Haven't seen any such studies, but I'm sure they're out there
| if you look hard enough.
| MalphasWats wrote:
| > These effects consist of oxidative stress, DNA damage,
| organ dysfunction, metabolic disorder, immune response,
| neurotoxicity, as well as reproductive and developmental
| toxicity. In addition, the epidemiological evidence
| suggests that a variety of chronic diseases may be related
| to microplastics exposure.
|
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/envhealth.3c00052
| tiagod wrote:
| I can think of a few confounding factors for that...
| prmph wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/06/microsc
| o...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| this seems significantly better than past studies i've seen,
| thanks
| verisimi wrote:
| Right, but that comment is not a study, it's just someone
| saying there's a study..... They might be wrong, mistaken,
| or whatever... Sorry if it seems churlish, but if you are
| after studies, that comment is not what you want.
| prmph wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/06/micro
| sco...
| TFortunato wrote:
| Study was linked in article, but for those who don't want
| to go digging:
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822
| whimsicalism wrote:
| i mean i looked up the study, it was very easy to find as
| it is covered in nature and recent
| verisimi wrote:
| The comment that now has a link in it, did not have a
| link in it when I posted my comment!
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Googling "microplastic cardiovascular" brought up both
| the study itself and a dozen news articles about it. In
| general, if you think a comment is low-quality because
| readers can't easily find the source, you can help by
| posting that link yourself.
| culi wrote:
| Just so anyone doesn't get the wrong idea, this is about a
| specific algae-based polymer being developed by UCSD.
|
| > Microplastics can take anywhere from 100 to 1,000 years to
| break down and, in the meantime, our planet and bodies are
| becoming more polluted with these materials every day
|
| In general "biodegradable plastics" currently on the market
| should still be heavily scrutinized. So far it mostly has just
| meant it gets to the microplastics stage faster than other
| plastics. Not only does this have negative health consequences
| for us and fish, but it also makes it much more difficult to ever
| recycle and re-use these plastics
|
| https://www.biopak.com/au/resources/biodegradable-plastic-pr...
|
| Still, it's exciting to see progress on the possibility of an
| actually sustainable version of biodegradable plastic. Hopefully
| it can scale and doesn't lead to other micro pollutants
| colechristensen wrote:
| >Not only does this have negative health consequences for us
| and fish, but it also makes it much more difficult to ever
| recycle and re-use these plastics
|
| Are there any actual concerns with pure PLA?
| WhatIsDukkha wrote:
| "Environments without the necessary conditions will see very
| slow decomposition akin to that of non-bioplastics, not fully
| decomposing for hundreds or thousands of years.[59]"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid#Degradation
|
| No mention of its actual life cycle as it turns into a
| microplastic ie so it should be presumed dangerous in the
| same ways.
| mypalmike wrote:
| I suspect they are referring specifically to PLA.
| zik wrote:
| PLA pretty much just breaks down into microplastics unless
| it's decomposed in an industrial composting facility.
| dTal wrote:
| There's no such thing as pure PLA, like all industrial
| plastics it's filled with additives to improve its properties
| and these have endocrine disrupting / carcinogenic properties
| just like all the others.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| Endocrine disrupting plasticizers are not used in all
| plastics, and they're not used in basic PLA.
|
| You really cant generalize "all industrial plastics" as
| "plastic" is way too broad a concept. Good engineering
| plastics like PEI/PEEK dont even need to use any additives
| like plasticizers, stabilizers, cross linkers etc.
| huytersd wrote:
| When they say break down they just mean even more micro than
| microplastics right? It's not truly breaking down right?
| sfink wrote:
| Nope, truly breaking down and digested by bacteria.
|
| > The last measurement involved chemical analysis via gas
| chromatography/mass spectrometry (GCMS), which detected the
| presence of the monomers used to make the plastic, indicating
| that the polymer was being broken to its starting plant
| materials. Scanning-electron microscopy further showed how
| microorganisms colonize the biodegradable microplastics
| during composting.
| huytersd wrote:
| No I mean regular plastics. They're not truly going to get
| broken down in a 100 years, they're just going to be really
| tiny.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Regular plastics are truly broken down over the long term
| by environmental bacteria.
|
| "Degradation and metabolism of synthetic plastics and
| associated products by Pseudomonas sp.: capabilities and
| challenges"
|
| https://enviromicro-
| journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf...
|
| _Long-term exposure to sunlight and physical abrasion
| contributes to the formation of microplastics ( <5 mm).
| Microplastics can be degraded further by microorganisms.
| Consequently, biological degradation and subsequent
| metabolism have the potential to eliminate plastics from
| contaminated environments._
|
| ...
|
| _With respect to plastic degradation, the species of the
| genus Pseudomonas are amongst the most cited degraders of
| various extents for a wide range of plastic polymers.
| Complete biologically mediated elimination of plastic
| polymers first requires breakdown of the polymer into
| smaller oligomers and, eventually, monomers that can pass
| through the cell membrane followed by assimilation and
| subsequent intracellular metabolism. Here, we present a
| review of the capabilities of species of the genus
| Pseudomonas to degrade and metabolize synthetic
| plastics._
| numpad0 wrote:
| If you like set it on fire it decomposes into gas to the
| point they're not the same compound, they don't come back
| down into micro-particle slug of same thing like gaseous
| gold would, and there is always that bacteria known to
| scientists that can break down certain kind of plastics
| in that manner for almost all common plastics
| kleton wrote:
| PLA etc are just fine, they might not biodegrade quickly
| outside of a compost pile, but they are not making indefinitely
| persistent microplastics. Indeed, medical implants made of PLA
| are reabsorbed in mammals. The same cannot be said of PETE
| fibers accumulating in various tissues.
| Kerb_ wrote:
| Just a note, PLA is industrially compostable, but it won't
| biodegrade quickly if at all in your backyard compost pile
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| It will biodegrade just laying around anywhere, with not
| even a backyard composter, 1000x sooner than all the normal
| plastics.
|
| Some other things can even go faster and easier, but you
| can use pla without feeling guilty of anything.
|
| It doesn't do the world any good to make anyone wary of
| such a huge improvement.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| 1000x sooner is still a really long time, I've seen
| numbers like 80 years thrown around. And that's with
| normal PLA, not PLA+ and other popular modifications that
| may have very different properties. You are right that
| it's significantly better than ABS for example, but "less
| environmentally hostile" and "environmentally friendly"
| are not the same and imho a lot of the info out there is
| simply misleading in that regard.
| Kerb_ wrote:
| It doesn't do the world any good to lie about the degree
| to which things help either! We can be realistic about
| our need to properly dispose of PLA in an industrial
| composter, and still accept that it's a massive
| improvement over other plastics
| Havoc wrote:
| I suspect the sweet spot actually lies a bit higher than 7
| months. You don't want stuff disintegrating while in use.
|
| ...call it 5 or 10 years. But anything that gets us away from the
| functionally "forever" of current plastics would be a win
| jtsiskin wrote:
| 7 months in industrial compost, not 7 months in use! Hopefully
| under 'normal conditions' it does already last 5 or 10 years...
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| As far as I can tell, the company with the IP is making
| individual consumer products, like shoes and surfboard parts [1].
| I wish I could buy the material, to make my own biodegradable
| parts. It would also be nice to see packaging materials in their
| lineup
|
| [1] https://www.algenesismaterials.com/algenesis-products
| H8crilA wrote:
| I think that we've know that for a very, very long time:
| cellulose, i.e. wood or paper, is an example.
| arrowleaf wrote:
| This is a good chance to ask something I've wondered for a while,
| why isn't cellophane more commonly used as an alternative to
| plastic film? Is it coatings on cellophane that make it just as
| bad as plastic? Or does the environmental impact of producing
| cellophane outweigh the fact that it's biodegradable?
| culopatin wrote:
| Can you save me the rabbit hole time dump and tell me what
| makes cellophane so much better or potentially not viable in
| your opinion?
| limitedfrom wrote:
| Cellophane isn't all better. It is biodegradable, but
| traditionally at least, carbon disulfide used in making of it
| is some nasty stuff[1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_disulfide#Health_eff
| ect...
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Oh boy, not this trope again. The so-called "biodegradable"
| plastics that weren't (Fuck the plastics industry and their
| greenwashing). I'm suspicious every time this is raised because
| mostly the starch-based single use items have been shown to
| degrade in a reasonable timeframe.
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