[HN Gopher] A global plastic treaty will only work if it caps pr...
___________________________________________________________________
A global plastic treaty will only work if it caps production,
modeling shows
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 51 points
Date : 2024-05-13 17:16 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| martinbaun wrote:
| I dislike getting poisoned by microplastics as much as the next
| guy, but a treaty like this decided by some global elite might
| have some unintended consequences. Like they always do..
|
| This probably wont affect the average HN, but all of our food and
| medicine is using plastics for a reason. It is cheap, sterile and
| safe. If you're poor and the price of shippings/storing your food
| becomes significant more expensive then you'll even more screwed.
| Again, probably wont affect you or me, but these things always
| have bad unintended consequences.
| mihaic wrote:
| I think at this point the unintended consequences argument has
| been overused.
|
| There are significant intended consequences that implementing
| something like this would have. I order for this to be
| negative, the unintended consequences would need to be larger,
| and I think it's hard to see that happening.
|
| Reading the article between the lines though, it seems like
| global coordination is required, and the biggest challenge is
| getting the top 5 producers in line (China not being mentioned
| by name/exact number feels evasive by the authors).
| tialaramex wrote:
| Plastic appears in a lot of "convenience" products which I
| wouldn't expect to be popular with the poorest people in the
| world. Plastic bottle of water? Convenient but not an efficient
| or reliable option.
|
| And while you can probably find a "bad unintended consequence"
| for everything if you try hard enough, it's usually the case
| that these bad effects are far smaller than the thing we set
| out to achieve.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Are you saying you assume plastic bottled water and
| convenience items are not popular in the poorest places in
| the world?
|
| That's most definitely not the reality. South east asian
| cities are littered with takeout containers and bottles.
| martinbaun wrote:
| I haven't been to asia, but I could imagine that plastic
| bottled water isn't a convenience good, but a way to avoid
| getting sick from polluted tap water.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| My limited experience is in Southeast Asia and Mexico
| tourists used bottled water and natives do not, at the
| time I went ages ago it was the recommended behavior but
| the rivers in Southeast Asia had lots of what appeared to
| be single use containers, there was simply no larger
| cultural impetus to dispose of stuff properly. OTOH
| riding my bike around SF Bay Area there is always
| discarded fast food wrappers and packaging along paved
| roads, a few of us can't be bothered even in one of
| wealthiest parts of USA.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| You have filtered water delivered to your home or you
| drink bottled water. If you are away from your home and
| you need water, you buy a bottle. Everyone only drinks
| bottle water in Cambodia/Vietnam/Thailand unless you are
| so desperately poor that you have no choice but to get
| sick.
|
| Exceptions abound, I'm sure, but it is a necessity not a
| luxury.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Boiling the water will kill any pathogens, but it doesn't
| do anything for chemical or disolved contaminants. If
| you're so poor you don't have a pot to boil water in you
| are desperate indeed.
| dlachausse wrote:
| Plastic bottles of water are one of the most important
| supplies you can provide during and after a major disaster.
| There are so many situations that disrupt access to clean,
| safe, potable drinking water and pallets of bottled water are
| the simplest and fastest way to help people in need.
| martinbaun wrote:
| Didn't even think about this and you're absolutely right.
|
| And where do the worst disasters happen? The countries
| where the infrastructure is not good enough.
| martinbaun wrote:
| Perfect example. Bottled water might be a luxury good for
| you, but in most places in the world you have polluted tap
| water you can die from or bottled water.
|
| So if you were in charge of this, you might have just killed
| a few million people from cholera.
|
| https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cholera
|
| I can't stress this enough, but there are so many unintended
| consequences.
| yareal wrote:
| That's a false dichotomy though. Individual single use
| plastic bottles and cholera are not the only two options.
|
| Paper packaging, metal packaging, glass packaging, bulk
| packaging, improved infrastructure, filters, etc. I'm sure
| there are other reasonable options beyond single use
| plastic bottles.
| martinbaun wrote:
| Well, if you're living in "Extreme Poverty", then you'll
| be earning around $2 a day.
|
| If you're earning $2 a day, then paying $.2 more for
| bottled water in paper is probably going to be
| detrimental for you. Around 1 billion people live in
| extreme poverty.
|
| So yes, there's alternatives for you and me, but not for
| a billion people.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty
| yareal wrote:
| I'm aware.
|
| A glass bottle has a unit cost increase of approximately
| a penny per bottle (per CleanMetrics). But the bottle
| itself can be reused and recycled.
|
| Also, this assumes it's not in our best interest to
| subsidize this penny per bottle cost for our own health.
| Plastic trash ends up in our hydrocycle no matter where
| it is used.
|
| Also, reusable plastic aren't the problem either. A
| large, centrally fillable 5 gallon container is not
| likely to be used once and discarded.
|
| Are you really asserting that individual 12-40oz single
| use bottles of water are the best system we can imagine
| and what a million people use for daily water?
| xyzzyz wrote:
| In what way paper, metal, or glass bottles are better
| than plastic?
| QuercusMax wrote:
| They can all be recycled in a much more meaningful way
| than plastic. Paper can biodegrade. Empty metal and glass
| bottles are easy to use as raw materials.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| Glass bottles can be re-used as is (like ~20..50
| roundtrips or so in consumer <-> supermarket context),
| before recycling even comes into the picture.
| yareal wrote:
| Paper biodegrades and can potentially be composted. If
| our ocean started filling with paper, existing biological
| systems would be able to address it.
|
| Metal and glass are reusable many, many more times than
| plastic and are sterilizable with heat. Both metal and
| glass are recyclable or inert in the environment. If a
| bottle ends up in the ocean it eventually becomes sand
| again.
|
| None of the above require oil to be produced.
|
| I'm not saying plastic has no upsides, I'm saying other
| options exist that specifically address the downsides of
| plastic. With materials we are always making trade offs.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Aluminum can be almost 100% recycled IIRC and aluminum
| cans don't weigh a lot. You're getting the same product
| in better packaging.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I would have expected the cost of aluminum cans to be an
| order of magnitude more than plastic bottles, but from
| some quick searching it appears it's not even double.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Is that in their production or their recycling? Even if
| it is recycling, I'm pretty sure virgin plastic can be
| remade 6-7 times only.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Aluminum cans are plastic lined
| tialaramex wrote:
| I guess that fact sheet needs to be updated with your
| important revelations about how magically if they just have
| enough plastic bottles they'll solve cholera.
|
| And to think all this time we'd been worried about the
| _safe drinking water_ and didn 't realise that without
| enough plastic bottles it's all a waste of time.
| keybored wrote:
| Having access to drinkable tap water[1] is an amazing
| privilege. Some places either don't have access to enough
| water or don't have the infrastructure.
|
| [1] Bonus if it also tastes good!
| reaperman wrote:
| I'd imagine a lot of these could be replaced with certain
| varieties of PLA that are sourced from bio-feedstocks and
| also relatively biologically degradable. Some PLA isn't very
| biodegradable, and certainly many would contain problematic
| plasticizers and other harmful chemicals. Additionally, PLA
| doesn't have the mechanical stiffness and toughness needed
| for many applications - but I think if the market for that
| expanded greatly, research investment would create new
| varieties of biodegradable PLA which could function as a
| drop-in replacement for a larger portion of other plastics.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Plastic is how extremely poor people get things. If you want
| basic necessities for living plastic is a great option.
|
| If you are extremely poor, what do you eat from? What do you
| store things in? What do you wear? The answer is obviously
| plastic.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| As I see it, plastic is too cheap to produce (no incentive to
| recycle it) and overproduced (lots of very low quality plastic
| goods that have to be frequently replaced; lots of things with
| unnecessary plastic packaging). A cap on production ought to go
| some way towards solving both problems.
| michael9423 wrote:
| Plastics can't be recycled. Even the best quality HDPE resins
| can only be down-cycled once, and are turned into pens, toys
| and other low quality plastics stuff you don't want to have
| close to food.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I'm afraid the plastic recycling factories haven't gotten
| this memo.
|
| https://youtu.be/g1WTgGyirDw&t=247
| michael9423 wrote:
| Plastic resins lose quality in every recycling process
| (impurities, residues, etc.), so during "recycling", pure
| new plastics is added.
|
| Even in PET recycling - which is the most effective
| "recycling" process that exists - PET bottles only contain
| an average of 17% recycled PET and the rest is brand-new
| PET. PET bottles are only recycled one or two times.
|
| Most of the "recycled" PET actually goes into other
| production, like films and textiles, because it's too
| impure. When plastic gets "recycled", it actually gets
| down-cycled into products that are no longer recyclable.
|
| So what happens in the end is that the toxic plastics gets
| concentrated into products where the law does permit these
| toxins to be present.
|
| Only organic waste and paper allows true recycling.
|
| https://www.oceancare.org/stories_and_news/europas-
| schweiz-p...
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Metals are pretty well recycled, no?
| michael9423 wrote:
| Yeah I'm talking about the household waste people are
| told to separate into their bins.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Molecular plastic recycling allows 100% renewal.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| There are processes for "chemical recycling of plastics" that
| either convert polymers back to the monomer (pretty easy for
| styrene) or to mixed petrochemicals (such as pyrolysis).
| There are other problems, but the economics are always going
| to be tough for them because bulk plastic monomers and other
| petrochemicals (even fuels) usually cost about 50 cents a
| pound which is a hard price to beat even when you don't
| consider the cost of gathering and transporting all that
| plastic.
| michael9423 wrote:
| In an ideal world, people would use natural and durable
| materials, mostly wood, glass, steel. Stuff that does not hurt
| living beings.
|
| The acute problem is not plastic production, although that's an
| issue. But the industry invented the myth of plastic recycling,
| and due to wrong incentives, the plastic is shipped to poor
| countries where it comes into the environment.
|
| The easiest way to deal with plastics is to collect it and burn
| it.
| warcher wrote:
| But those more durable goods have a cost in hydrocarbons as
| well, don't they? Lot of energy input in a hunk of steel. Are
| we really saving any fossil fuel conversion by swapping over?
| Has anyone measured?
| yareal wrote:
| Yes. This analysis has been done. And yes, it depends on your
| source of energy. But in general energy is getting cleaner,
| and eventually could be 100% oil free. Most plastics rely on
| oil, so there's a crossover threshold for most at some point.
| michael9423 wrote:
| Actually plastics is the most ecological and economic way to
| package things. Nothing comes close. Because people throw
| things away all the time, and producing things out of cotton,
| wood, glass etc. takes way more energy.
|
| The price of something usually reflects the energy needed to
| produce it. But it does not take account the externalized
| cost on the society and environment.
|
| On the other hand, there are areas where other materials like
| cotton are only a bit more expensive but do not have such a
| negative effect on the environment. In those areas, like
| textiles, a ban on synthetic material is probably a good
| thing.
|
| The problem with the environmental impact of plastics is not
| the production, it's where it ends up. So the question is how
| to incentivize keeping a closed system where plastics ends up
| being burned.
|
| Minimizing the use of plastics requires a complete change of
| how the economy works. It would require a society of
| citizens, not consumers who throw away things that are still
| fine and there are certain areas where plastics can not be
| replaced by other stuff.
|
| Forcing a cap on plastic production means hurting the
| emerging markets most but also the wealth in western
| countries.
| warcher wrote:
| "Where it ends up" is not a problem in the developed world.
| Everybody complains about it but there are zero problems
| with our landfills.
|
| All the environmental degradation is in the developing
| world, where they... do not value the environment in the
| same way. We didn't either when we were developing. It took
| a while.
|
| But western advanced economies dispose of their trash well.
| It's not even close to the top of our list in terms of what
| we could do for the environment. Seems to capture our
| collective imagination tremendously though. Maybe because
| of guilt for consumer culture, maybe because making a
| meaningful impact would hurt too much.
| michael9423 wrote:
| There's lots of plastics pollution in the west -
| including from tires, from people throwing stuff away,
| and from microplastics in the water.
|
| It's just not visible immediately. But you can actually
| easily collect hundreds of kilograms of plastics next to
| a 1-2km long part of a road on the countryside.
| warcher wrote:
| Tires are a fair point, but kind of a goal post shift
| isn't it? The problem with tires is not disposed tires,
| it's _tire wear_.
|
| If there's a plan for remediating tire shavings over the
| course of tires wearing down in any of these threads I
| must have missed it. Please correct me?
|
| As far as the rest it's just not true. Landfills in the
| west are fine. Nothing is perfect but they're not
| impactful at all ecologically. (Developing world not so.
| Lack of robust waste management contributes massively in
| the developing world.)
| michael9423 wrote:
| I don't want to move any goalposts, I completely agree
| with your previous posts. In some European countries like
| Germany and Switzerland, waste collection has been almost
| perfected, there's not much to complain. But we still
| have pollution related to plastic production.
|
| It's the west who's shipping the plastic waste to Asia
| where it ends up destroying the environment and the
| health of people.
| warcher wrote:
| I'm specifically saying, in the US, we don't do anything
| special with our trash. Mostly no recycling of anything
| but metal. We put it more or less securely in the ground
| and bury it. That's all.
|
| And that is fine. We would have to fix a whole RAFT of
| serious serious problems before landfills are anybody's
| radar. We will never see it our lifetime and I hazard
| that we may never see the day.
|
| Other countries have tighter land requirements and they
| might be more forward thinking, but the idea that plastic
| packaging is impacting the environment is just not
| supported by data.
|
| As long as you're not throwing it in the river, plastics
| waste just doesn't matter much.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| "...corrugated boxes had a recycling rate of 96.5 percent
| in 2018."
|
| https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-
| waste-...
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| That seems unbelievable to me. Unless internal
| industrial/commercial uses of corrugated really outnumber
| john smith by that much.
| luplex wrote:
| The European Commission is working on the new EURO7
| standard for car emissions, which will include new
| standards and targets for tire (and brake) wear. I tried
| to find specifics and they don't seem to be publicly
| known yet.
|
| But yes, I do expect significant progress on this in the
| next few years!
| digging wrote:
| > "Where it ends up" is not a problem in the developed
| world. Everybody complains about it but there are zero
| problems with our landfills.
|
| That's a total fiction. There is plastic trash in my yard
| right now which came from somewhere else. I don't even
| know where it came from; my entire neighborhood and the
| park downstream are littered with plastic trash almost
| year-round.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| Yes. They dispose of it well... by shipping it in Asia.
| Look up the whole scandal with plastic shipped to various
| places in Asia. Crap that even China considers impossible
| to recycle and refused to allow entry to.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Carbon is only a tiny part of the problem... plastics are
| nasty in all kind of ways, both to you and the environment.
|
| Steel and glass won't give you cancer, wool won't destroy
| your hormonal system, &c.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Would it be correct to say that the lowest hanging fruit for
| reducing production of plastic without outsize negative impact
| would probably be in stymying the vast quantities of synthetic
| textiles being sold, particularly to richer countries? Those
| materials dominate fast fashion and are one of the most common
| types of fabric across a broad range of products ranging from
| clothing to automobile seat covers to pet beds.
| juujian wrote:
| The easiest way would be to curtail the supply of oil, which is
| the raw input of all plastics and there is more of it being
| extracted than ever before. As long as there is a glut of cheap
| oil on the market, companies will find a way to make a profit
| while outcompeting companies that use natural products like
| cotton. The major ways we use oil all harm the planet in some
| ways.
| ars wrote:
| Cotton uses an order of magnitude more oil than "plastic"
| clothing.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Also almost all cotton clothing today is "permanent press"
| which means the fibers are coated in plastic.
| notnullorvoid wrote:
| Here's an idea, maybe we stop doing that.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Are you claiming that "100% cotton" clothing labels can
| be inaccurate? Do you have a source for this?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Wouldn't surprise me.
|
| The premium "not from concentrate" orange juices contain
| additives not required to be listed on the packaging.
|
| Great value "natural flavor" chocolate syrup contains
| vanilin (artificial vanilla). So I guess the natural part
| only applies to the chocolate and not other flavors used.
|
| Many "100% alpaca" socks contain other fibers too
| (elastics, etc).
|
| The list goes on...
|
| Edit: why disagree? You can even see stuff like "100%
| cotton with Scotchgard" or the sublimation process used
| on clothes. Want to share any evidence to the contrary or
| tell me why it's wrong?
| robocat wrote:
| > fibers are coated in plastic
|
| No: Cotton is chemically treated.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrinkle-resistant_fabric
|
| Perhaps you are thinking of "However, almost all the
| wrinkle resistant garments are made with poly/cotton
| blends fabrics."
| giantg2 wrote:
| They could be thinking of the stain resistant treatments
| which are a ureathane (plastic) coating.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't think that is true, but am open to learning
| otherwise.
|
| A quick review of Wikipedia indicates dimethylol ethylene
| urea (DMEU) is used to crosslink the cellulose polymers
| itself.
|
| Cotton is already a polymer (albeit a bio-degradable
| one). DMEU is not a polymer/plastic in its own right.
|
| As far as I was able to see, permanent press is
| biodegradable.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethylol_ethylene_urea
| giantg2 wrote:
| The sublimation process on cotton clothes uses synthetics
| as the bonding base. It could be a polyester resin or a
| vinyl. The shirt itself will still be listed as 100%
| cotton.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| DMEU is a synthectic bonding resin. but im not sure that
| by itself is in any way a problem. Are you talking about
| pattens that are sublimated onto cotton shirts?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yes
| yareal wrote:
| Packaging produces about 140 million tons annually. Textiles
| produce about 40 million tons. Construction produces about 75
| million tons, and transportation about 60 million tons.
|
| Textiles are non negligible, but packaging is almost certainly
| a better target for inexpensive impact. Tons of stuff doesn't
| need plastic wrapping.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Yeah, "frustration free packaging" could save the Earth.
| Often it is such a terrible experience cutting into plastic
| clamshells.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Only a very small percentage of packaging ends up as micro or
| nano plastic in the water supply. A much larger percentage of
| textiles end up as micro or nano plastic in the water supply
| since they're generated by washing clothes.
|
| If that's what you're concerned about, a focus on textiles is
| warranted.
| travisb wrote:
| There is no low hanging fruit when it comes to reducing plastic
| production or consumption. Plastic is just too awesome -- which
| is why we use it instead of whatever we used before plastics.
|
| I'm not aware of any major use of plastic where going backwards
| in time is on-net more environmentally friendly. Most reports
| discussing plastic replacements make unreasonable reuse and
| durability assumptions. Often they ignore or downplay
| consequences of switching like increased transportation
| pollution or pollution from assumed recycling.
| digging wrote:
| > I'm not aware of any major use of plastic where going
| backwards in time is on-net more environmentally friendly.
|
| Literally all of them. They reduce plastic pollution to 0.
| CO2 pollution is not the driving factor behind plastic
| reduction.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Only focusing on plastic bring us to a Goodhart's law
| situation where we get worse overall effect in exchange of
| a hollow "0 plastic" marketing claim.
|
| That's one situation where I think "doing something" for
| the sake of it is the worse option.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| Maybe you're too young to remember the days of paper bags,
| hemp shopping bags, shoes and shirts. "more environmentally
| friendly"? Most alternatives are more environmentally
| friendly in a long run than plastic.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Production of paper comes with many asterisks regarding
| environment friendliness [0]. It sure can be done, but it's
| not simple and the majority of the industry isn't "clean".
|
| Hemp is only used a low scale so I don't think we have
| enough data on what would happen if tomorrow we decided to
| replace all the plastic bags with hemp bags and how we'd
| produce that. It's not guaranteed to be better until then.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_
| paper
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| A big advantage of paper is that when people inevitably
| litter, it doesn't break down into microplastics.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| > I'm not aware of any major use of plastic where going
| backwards in time is on-net more environmentally friendly.
|
| My guess would be fishing nets. These are the main source of
| plastic pollution in the ocean.
| travisb wrote:
| Even doesn't pass the smell test, especially if one
| considers the data for cotton shopping bags versus plastic.
|
| Per unit length of netting with the equivalent strength,
| cotton/hemp netting will weigh more, require more frequent
| replacement, require horrible preservatives which will
| leach into the marine environment, require more fossil
| fuels to till and fertilize the cotton, consume more
| freshwater in production, result in more top soil loss due
| to mono-cropping, need more pesticides, etc.
|
| Direct plastic pollution in the ocean would be reduced yes,
| but at the cost of higher pollution and environmental
| degradation elsewhere.
| dzink wrote:
| A HUGE % of plastic production worldwide is from bottlers of Coca
| Cola company drinks and their competitors. Why not address and
| deal with the elephant in the room.
| dlachausse wrote:
| What solution are you advocating for? Glass bottles? Aluminum
| cans? Banning soda entirely?
| klysm wrote:
| Aluminum cans
| giantg2 wrote:
| They're plastic lined. So how is that better?
| yesfitz wrote:
| They have less plastic, which is better than more plastic
| when it comes to disposable items.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| On a basis of grams of plastic to grams of product, I
| don't see how anyone can claim that they aren't better
| than plastic bottles.
|
| If that's an invalid basis for comparison between plastic
| bottles and aluminum cans, I'm probably not the only
| person who'd like to know more.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Ok, but why not use glass instead? That's even lower.
| With cans you'll still end up with microplastics and
| chemicals leaching into the soda. You still have the
| potential for microplastics in the environment even if
| it's 50% since one side is coated (surface area might be
| a large factor compared to overall mass if most particles
| are shed from the top layers. I don't know).
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not really up to speed on how plastic turns
| into microplastic and how that might work with coated
| cans either, but it's a fair question to ask.
|
| I think one argument against glass is the transportation
| cost (dollars or carbon, take your pick) on a grams of
| packaging to grams of product basis. Plus the added
| volume of both the glass and the packaging required to
| keep breakage manageable, which is volume that isn't
| being devoted to product either. A case of wine is 6^H
| (edit: can't math) 9 liters of wine, whereas a 24 pack of
| beer in 350ml cans is 8.5 liters is less overall volume
| and mass.
|
| It seems insane to me that you can get a glass bottle of
| wine from another hemisphere for a single-digit or low
| double digit number of dollars. Just melting the sand to
| make the glass seems like it should cost a couple bucks.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's possible they're reusing the bottles instead of
| melting them down. That's what was done a long time ago,
| and isn't an option with plastic or metal cans.
|
| I can see how shipping could be more especially if it
| needs a cardboard case. Perhaps shipping would be
| negligible if we had more localized production and less
| long distance shipping. Rail shipping would likely have a
| negligible shipping cost difference. Even something like
| increasing the use of concentrated syrups and fresh made
| sodas could be a benefit for packing reduction and
| shipping costs.
| klysm wrote:
| Aluminum can actually be recycled. The plastic lining is
| problematic but not strictly required.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Aluminum cans are plastic lined.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| > Banning soda entirely
|
| I mean... is it a climate emergency or not? Do we really need
| to haul tons of sugary water up and down the highway? Not to
| mention the plastic.
|
| There is alternative btw: soda stream and syrups. Apparently
| a 440ml bottle of syrup makes up to 9 litres of pepsi.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _Banning soda entirely?_
|
| You'd be doing literally everybody (except soda company
| shareholders) a favor.
| dzink wrote:
| The solution has been figured out by the company decades ago.
| The drinks are concentrated a massively and only mixed and
| the bottler, which is also the biggest plastic polluter on
| the planet. Have reusable containers people can buy from the
| company if they want to and set up dispensing machines at any
| location. Even better - rent those containers to the customer
| when they buy the drink and charge if they don't return the
| container. But the logistics of all of that worldwide are
| more expensive than making ferrying and polluting with
| plastic. Move the bottling to the edge - to the consumer.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Plastics are one of the greatest, most versatile materials
| available. If you want to cap plastic production, every single
| industry and your daily life will be drastically affected.
|
| There are exactly zero incentives for any nation to drastically
| limit plastic production. As with CO2 these policies will be
| implemented by many Western nations, while the many, densely
| populated countries, relying on cheap goods will take no serious
| actions. Plastic is just too useful.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I've heard that 80% of plastic pollutions in the oceans are from
| African big rivers being used as dumpsters and then flushing
| their yield to the sea.
|
| Why TF are we supposed to limit plastic use in developed
| countries, often located deep inland, where our plastic has many
| orders of magnitude smaller chance of polluting the oceans, etc?
| robocat wrote:
| > African
|
| You have heard wrong. Then again:
|
| "More than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global riverine
| plastic emissions into the ocean"
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz5803 Has some
| nice maps of waste versus country:
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz5803#F4
|
| "Around 90% of all river-borne plastic that ends up in the
| ocean comes from just 10 rivers"
| https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluti...
|
| Not necessarily contradictory, but an indication of
| disagreement.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| The modeling uses a certain set of assumptions, and has a certain
| goal. As far as I can tell, neither were discussed in the
| article, making it difficult for me to _really_ conclude whether
| I feel the cap on production is justified. I realize my option
| doesnt matter, and the research papers probably do discuss the
| assumptions of the model. I don't see why anyone should read this
| article though, unless you want another opinion piece
| chris_va wrote:
| It might be simpler to mandate accounting and (progressively) tax
| production to pay for remediation to force the market away from
| polluting.
|
| And maybe it would encourage more out of the box solutions, like
| this one: https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/04/researchers-
| make-a-p...
| boring-alterego wrote:
| Sometimes you come to the comments for good ideas, sometimes you
| come for the show.
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