[HN Gopher] Mechanically strong yet metabolizable plastic breaks...
___________________________________________________________________
Mechanically strong yet metabolizable plastic breaks down in
seawater
Author : anigbrowl
Score : 120 points
Date : 2024-11-22 02:07 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| modeless wrote:
| > can be water stabilized with hydrophobic coatings
|
| So when they make takeout containers out of this it's going to be
| coated with... something. I am suspicious of all these coatings
| they're slapping on compostable food containers these days.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Perhaps some sort of food-grade wax? Although then you've got
| to worry about _hot_ foods...
| Mistletoe wrote:
| My aunt got me a big wooden bowl in college and I was poor so
| I ate popcorn out of it. I noticed the popcorn tasted weird
| for quite some time. I finally put two and two together when
| the coating had all come off the bottom. The hot popcorn and
| oil had been removing the God knows what shiny finish and I
| had been eating it. :(
| asquabventured wrote:
| Hopefully just food grade mineral oil and beeswax if it was
| a wooden bowl.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| It was one of those you might get at Pier 1 or Kohl's
| back then and had a really plasticky coating. Not my best
| moment.
| kaikai wrote:
| Unfortunately mineral oil is derived from petroleum. I
| don't care if someone says it's food grade, I wouldn't
| want to eat it.
| teekert wrote:
| We've all eaten teflon coating at some point in our lives.
| blitzar wrote:
| I am suspicious of the food in the takeout containers.
| sfink wrote:
| Well, even vegetable oil is hydrophobic, so "something" needn't
| be too horrible. (Oil would obviously wipe off too easily.)
|
| Apparently soybean wax works well:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7435775/
|
| Though not for hot foods. It'll only work up to 50degC.
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Or hot climates that reach >50 C
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| There's no reason you'd ever worry about that; no one can
| use any object in such a climate, because they'd die.
| HPsquared wrote:
| People definitely live in places where it gets that hot.
| (And note that's the air temperature in the shade, not
| even surface temperatures in sunlight which can get much
| hotter).
|
| People survive because it's not 50degC all the time in
| those hot places. And the wet bulb temperature is lower,
| so sweating works (just about) to regulate body
| temperature. Mostly air conditioning and shelter, though.
| latexr wrote:
| You have not been paying attention.
|
| https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Cope
| rni...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/west-
| africa-he...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66229057
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Those links aren't shy about explaining that people
| exposed to that level of heat die. Here's the first one:
|
| > According to a study recently published in Nature
| Medicine, more than 60 000 people died because of last
| year's summer heatwaves across Europe.
|
| It's not necessary for your home food storage to be able
| to survive temperatures that you can't. If it happens to
| the food in your home, it will happen to you too.
| latexr wrote:
| People die with less heat. But clearly not everyone, and
| it is _not_ true that:
|
| > no one can use any object in such a climate, because
| they'd die.
|
| By the way, I know you can survive that heat because I
| did. No air conditioner. It was excruciating and I don't
| wish it upon anyone. Well, maybe on climate change
| deniers, it would probably do them some good to suffer
| through it to believe the science. They probably wouldn't
| but at least they wouldn't be able to move to make it
| worse, either.
| jajko wrote:
| Or simple locked car on a sunny day (maybe not during
| winter), with dark interior. This can reach >90C over an
| hour or two.
| KevinGlass wrote:
| No car interior has ever reached 90C. Did you mean 90 F?
| Retric wrote:
| Overall temperature isn't 90C but your lunch could be in
| contact with those temperatures:
|
| https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2019/09/26/heres-how-
| hot-t...
|
| "In a locked vehicle, a dark dashboard, steering wheel or
| seat can often reach temperature ranges of 180 - 200
| degrees F, which then warms the air trapped inside a
| vehicle." 194F is 90C.
|
| And that's Florida, other parts of the globe have higher
| outdoor temperatures which result in higher internal
| temperatures.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Maybe not far off from 90, given you can fry eggs in open
| air in the sun and for that you need 65.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhYkUuvDsGA
| inetknght wrote:
| > _No car interior has ever reached 90C._
|
| Ever seen a car on fire? I have.
|
| Ever seen a car on fire caused by heating from the sun?
| Well maybe not. But I have seen an egg get cooked on the
| roof of a car as a demonstration.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| "London skyscraper can melt cars and set buildings on
| fire" (Sept. 3, 2013)
|
| _London isn 't famous for hot weather, but that may
| change soon, and not because of global warming: The
| design of a new skyscraper in the city is melting cars
| and setting buildings on fire...._
|
| <https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/london-skyscraper-
| can-me...>
|
| Only one of several examples. Also the Vdara hotel in the
| somewhat more probable location of Las Vegas, NV, the
| Nasher Sculpture Center and Museum Tower, both in Dallas,
| TX:
|
| <https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-buildings-
| attack-...>
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Have you ever been inside a hot car? Metal surfaces can
| easily exceed 100C.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Objects left on the dash of a black vehicle with gray
| interior get into the 180s (F obviously). I measured
| because it's where I cure small painted objects in the
| summer. I live at at a medium northerly latitude.
|
| 90C seems completely believable for hot climates.
| ginko wrote:
| There's also shellac.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Soluble in alkali environments. No thanks.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Borosilicate glass, metal, wood/bamboo/paper, ... there are
| many existing choices without looking for or inventing an
| impractical "flying car" option.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Downsides to using glass and wood for takeout should be
| obvious and please don't put my soup in a paper takeout
| container.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| What about the downside of takeout?
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| Okay so now your solution involves banning takeout.
|
| Also leftovers are a thing.
| chmod775 wrote:
| A local chain here ships soup in some sort of
| biodegradable coated-cardboard-bucket-thingies. They
| still put a plastic lid on it, but I wouldn't dismiss
| cardboard/paper.
|
| They're good enough for transport, though they do degrade
| pretty fast (they'll get leaky after a day or so).
| trhway wrote:
| >Downsides to using ... wood for takeout should be
| obvious
|
| I don't understand why our civilization has still not
| replaced almost everything with bamboo (though
| technically the bamboo is grass, not wood). It grows fast
| (and an order of magnitude better sink for CO2 than
| trees) and seems to be very usable as bamboo utensils
| demonstrate for example.
| dwallin wrote:
| They specifically mention a coating in the abstract, parylene
| C.
| XorNot wrote:
| Interesting that this is a thermoplastic - my first question is
| how it performs as a 3D printer filament?
| jtms wrote:
| second question - does it/will it cost like $500 per 1kg spool?
| sfink wrote:
| The researchers are wondering, too. Last sentence in the
| abstract:
|
| > This approach can be extended to polysaccharide-based
| supramolecular plastics that are applicable for three-
| dimensional printing.
|
| (So, they haven't done it yet, but are thinking about it.)
| progre wrote:
| > Plastics that can metabolize in oceans are highly sought for a
| sustainable future.
|
| Really? I think that putting more nutrients in the water is
| almost as bad as having plastics floating around. The Baltic sea
| for example, have dead zones caused by agricultural runoff.
|
| Surely, the best would be to not put more stuff in the water?
| relaxing wrote:
| Well yeah but good luck with that.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The natural input of "nutrients" to the ocean is vast, compared
| to the natural input of modern artificial plastics.
| ruined wrote:
| it is certainly good to not put more stuff in the water. i
| would suggest it is even better not to make stuff that
| shouldn't go in the water. but apparently a lot has already
| been made and there's constantly more of it in the water, and
| it looks like nobody is stopping
|
| so if some major fraction of present production of that shit
| that shouldn't go in the water can be eliminated, and satisfied
| by an alternative that is not a persistent accumulating poison,
| i'll take it
| zo1 wrote:
| Seems like a pretty easy problem to solve if you ask me:
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-
| plas...
|
| Someone should send this link to Trump and Elon Musk so
| America and the EU can slap some actual serious and economy-
| breaking tariffs on those countries. I know that sounds
| snarky and drastic and funny and off-topic, but we seriously
| need actual serious politicians that just get shit done.
| We've tried the "reasonable politicians" approach so far,
| maybe it's time to bring in people that are _unpalatable_ but
| actually willing to break shit and blockade some actual evil
| people and countries around the world in order to make
| positive change.
| Nevermark wrote:
| There seems to be a high correlation with people who are
| enthusiastic about breaking things to enable "simple"
| solutions, being legislative blockaders (instead of
| negotiators) of forming good policy from/with others, and
| not caring about external costs to the point of making that
| a vocal policy point.
|
| A lot of damage is done in the name of real problems,
| associated with high frustration, leveraged politically.
| graemep wrote:
| Depends on what you put in, how much, and where.
|
| I do not think moderate quantities of nutrients are a problem,
| and very likely has benefits.
| emilamlom wrote:
| What the other commenter is alluding to is that, if this
| comes into widespread use, it won't just be a moderate
| amount. We produce mind-boggling amounts of plastic waste and
| a lot of it would concentrate in rivers and estuaries.
| graemep wrote:
| It will be a moderate amount compared to the amounts that
| produce dead zones.
| Tagbert wrote:
| These would not break down into the kinds of nutrients that
| cause algal blooms and dead zones. That is cause by
| nitrogen and phosphorus runoff.
| emilamlom wrote:
| That's interesting. I didn't have access to the paper,
| just the abstract, so didn't know it was different.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Plastics are mostly carbon and hydrogen atoms, neither of which
| are even remotely limiting factors because autotrophs at the
| bottom of the food chain produce plenty of both from water and
| carbon dioxide.
|
| Agricultural runoff is mostly nitrogen and phosphorus, which
| _are_ limiting factors (hence why we have to supplement them in
| agriculture).
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Plastics are mostly carbon and hydrogen atoms
|
| In general, _this particular_ stuff is significantly
| different.
|
| The article mentions sodium hexametaphosphate [0] and
| guanidinium sulfate [1], which have phosphorous and nitrogen
| respectively. Those are both common in fertilizers and are
| implicated in algal blooms.
|
| [0] https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Hexasodium-
| hexamet...
|
| [1] https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Guanidinium-
| sulpha...
| Terr_ wrote:
| If you mean _this particular_ thing because it involves
| compounds [0][1] with nitrogen and phosphorous, then I agree it
| 's a valid concern to look at.
|
| However for existing plastics _in general_ --mostly carbon,
| hydrogen, and oxygen--it's less of an issue. Just because a
| material _can_ be metabolized doesn 't necessarily mean it's a
| _rich_ source of energy, or that the chemicals in it will
| unlock some limiting-factor that was holding back a population-
| boom.
|
| Just to prove it's possible, consider lignin, another C/H/O
| polymer and the core component of wood. It was ecologically un-
| digestible for a long time until something (fungi) evolved to
| dismantle it efficiently. Yet even now, its breakdown is a
| slow, low-margin process that occurs in the background.
|
| ____
|
| Side note: The long delay between the evolution of trees and
| the evolution of something to eat wood has been suggested as a
| cause of coal formation, but it is disputed. [2]
|
| [0] https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Hexasodium-
| hexamet...
|
| [1] https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Guanidinium-
| sulpha...
|
| [2] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517943113
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| We've heard the "biodegradable" greenwashing scam of plastic
| technology advances over and over again. Maybe we shouldn't be
| seeking continued use of toxic petrochemical processes and should
| instead change our storage and packaging materials to be less
| hazardous and more reusable, because many other options already
| exist.
| 1minusp wrote:
| This. There seems to be one of these announcements every so
| often, and i havent seen any of them used at scale, or making
| any kind of dent in the status quo.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| That will be 5 $ more per butterstick, for the logistics of
| reusable porcelain butter packages.. which have to be
| collected, washed and shipped. Which makes it a rich people
| feel good status-symbol luxury, sadly.
| vhcr wrote:
| Or you know, supermarkets would purchase 50kg blocks of
| butter and fraction it, clients would then be responsible for
| bringing their own reusable containers.
| layer8 wrote:
| You'd still have to pay the employee who'd be responsible
| for cutting and weighing the butter for each customer, and
| taking payment for the butter (or however else that would
| work). Or build a machine that does it. Not sure how the
| cost for that would work out, or the machine's ecological
| footprint in comparison.
| jdietrich wrote:
| Plus all of the food hygiene and logistical implications
| of handling products in bulk, multiplied by the 30,000
| different products in a typical supermarket.
|
| I don't know about the US, but in my country butter is
| packaged in waxed paper, which is fully biodegradable.
| Loughla wrote:
| >multiplied by the 30,000 different products in a typical
| supermarket
|
| It's almost like we're going to have to reduce our
| consumption or something. Maybe we don't need 200
| different kinds of cereal and 300 different kinds of
| coffee available every single day.
| Tagbert wrote:
| And due to the labor, it can only handle a low volume of
| goods with a high markup. When I go there, you end up
| waiting in line to be helped by the one or two people
| working that counter. Meanwhile, the cheaper, prepackaged
| foods can be picked up as needed.
| layer8 wrote:
| It wouldn't be that different from how a lot of cheese is
| being handled where I live. Except they currently put the
| cuts into plastic wrappings (which are "sealed" by the
| price sticker) instead of customer-provided containers.
| On the other hand, for fruits we already do use nets
| brought by the customer, and the weighing happens at the
| checkout.
| riffraff wrote:
| In my hometown in Italy you can ask to put your cheese or
| cold cuts from the counter in a container you provide.
|
| I'm not sure this ends up as a net positive compared to
| the paper with plastic lining they provide tho, since you
| have to wash the container at some point.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > I'm not sure this ends up as a net positive compared to
| the paper with plastic lining they provide tho, since you
| have to wash the container at some point.
|
| Unlike different kinds of plastic, water is 100%
| recyclable and doesn't come from nasty petrochemicals in
| the first place.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| My local supermarket chains already do that. It's called
| the Deli Counter. The cost is not a big deal.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| No one will actually do that, except the few weirdos who
| think that it's a good idea.
|
| Remember: "Reusable" containers also have an environmental
| cost. Each container will be used, on average, X times.
| Then it will break, or otherwise end its useful life, and
| end up in a landfill too.
|
| Don't assume that a "reusable" container is better for the
| environment: My house is full of free, pristine, reusable
| water bottles that are gifts, souvenirs, ect. My kids go
| through about 2 reusable water bottles a year, each.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| I mean, of course it's not perfect. But isn't 2 water
| bottles in a land fill orders of magnitude better than
| 300? Isn't the reduction of bulk trash the point? Why
| would the fact that a glass container can break make it
| not still a better alternative to 50 plastic ones?
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > But isn't 2 water bottles in a land fill orders of
| magnitude better than 300?
|
| I think you're making a lot more assumptions than you
| think:
|
| For example, glass vs glass: My single-use glass
| container may be recyclable, but the fancy glass reusable
| one isn't.
|
| Aluminum: Aluminum cans are highly recyclable. Is your
| metal reusable water bottle recyclable?
|
| Plastic: Ooooh, I won't go there.
| kaikai wrote:
| I've had the same steel water bottle for over 10 years.
| Just because you don't reuse things well doesn't mean
| it's impossible.
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| What were the inputs like to manufacture the steel
| container?
| trollbridge wrote:
| Probably less than 3.650 plastic bottles, assuming he
| drinks one per day.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I stress the word "free" here. Most of them were gifts.
|
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42214319
| fragmede wrote:
| Butter is, perhaps, a bit sticky for that, but my local co-
| op has various bulk grains and flour and beans and such
| that customers can bring their own containers for.
| riffraff wrote:
| Not arguing the general point, for which I agree, but isn't
| butter commonly sold in aluminum foil wrappers?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Butter used to be packaged in wax paper, which was (then)
| biodegradable. The plastic packaging is about branding and
| shipping, not cost.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| It still is.
|
| Well maybe not at Whole Foods, I've never been in one, but
| at Walmart it's four wax-paper wrapped sticks in a
| cardboard box.
| kaikai wrote:
| Do you know that it's waxed paper, and not plasticized
| paper? Genuine question, since I imagine "wax" paper is
| either plasticized or using petroleum-based waxes.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Your sticks of butter come wrapped in plastic?
|
| I don't think I've ever seen anything other than wax paper or
| foil, with only tubs of butter, rather than sticks, in
| plastic.
| njtransit wrote:
| Up until earlier this year, many "grease proof" papers
| (e.g. butter wrappers) were PFAS.
| Aloisius wrote:
| PFAS aren't plastics.
|
| And removing them clearly didn't increase the price of
| sticks of butter by $5.
| atombender wrote:
| A lot of plastic containers use fluorine-treated plastic
| [1], resulting in the creation of PFAS. The fluorine is
| used to strengthen the plastic and make it less
| permeable.
|
| > Since EPA released its investigation, we have learned
| the disturbing fact that the fluorination of plastic is
| commonly used to treat hundreds of millions of
| polyethylene and polypropylene containers each year
| ranging from packaged food and consumer products that
| individuals buy to larger containers used by retailers
| such as restaurants to even larger drums used by
| manufacturers to store and transport fluids.
|
| [1] https://blogs.edf.org/health/2021/07/07/beyond-paper-
| pfas/
| SoftTalker wrote:
| A lot of "butter" spreads are sold in plastic tubs.
| StableAlkyne wrote:
| It's very easy to say "why don't we just stop using toxic
| petrochemicals," but very hard to do in practice. For a
| sustainability advancement to be considered a success, it has
| to actually replace something. To replace something, it:
|
| - has to be affordable, or people will refuse to buy it. The
| general public cares more for its wallet than the environment.
|
| - has to be at least as performant as what it's replacing, or
| people won't want to change. The general public is not going to
| buy an inferior product in the name of sustainability.
|
| - has to be more environmentally friendly than what preceeded
| it, or it has no benefit.
|
| If you can find a more environmentally friendly material that
| is able to replace plastic, achieve its physical properties, at
| the same cost, then patent it and you will be very wealthy. And
| will have outplayed the billions (probably a lowball) being
| dumped into this by governments, universities, and private
| companies around the world.
|
| Also, the reason most of these articles hype their own work up
| is because the name of the game in academia is grant money. If
| a funding agency doesn't think your work is impactful, they'll
| give it to someone who is. That's why articles rarely describe
| their incremental work as just being incremental.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| You seem to believe plastic containers are used due to being
| a more affordable and technically superior solution. That's a
| common mistake.
|
| The true reason it's so cheap and available, is subsidies. $7
| trillion as of 2023, to be exact.
|
| Without subsidies, using a non-renewable, expensive to
| harvest resource, to produce single-use plastic would be an
| absolutely irrational decision.
|
| https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-
| fuel...
| incrudible wrote:
| This bogus number comes from putting a value on the
| supposed environmental cost, but that is not what subsidy
| means in the economic sense. We already established that if
| we somehow could globally settle on a price for
| externalities, alternatives would be competitive, but they
| would still be intrinsically more expensive.
| leptons wrote:
| Except it isn't a "bogus number". Fossil fuel subsidies
| are real.
|
| > _" It's not just the US: according to the International
| Energy Agency, fossil fuel handouts hit a global high of
| $1 trillion in 2022 - the same year Big Oil pulled in a
| record $4 trillion of income."_
|
| https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/sen
| -wh...
|
| I say give the subsidies to environmentally friendly
| producers instead, that don't use fossil fuels as the
| base material for producing packaging products. $1
| trillion in one year is just an unfathomable amount of
| money to give away to corporations that are already
| making record profits far above the $1 trillion they
| already get.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| You'd want to factor in _externalities_ as well, both on
| the extraction side (fossil fuels are phenomenally under-
| priced, likely by a factor of _millions_ ), and disposal
| (environmental impacts of discarded plastics and pollution
| during manufacture).
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| It doesn't have to be cheap, It just has to be made cheaper
| artificially with globally enforced taxes.
|
| The number one economic role of government is mitigating
| externalities that arise from free trade, often through the
| restraint of that trade.
| Spivak wrote:
| Congrats you just made everyone subject to those taxes
| artificially worse off. People aren't stupid and can see
| what you did. You will be voted out of office next term. If
| you're going to artificially adjust prices it's got to go
| the other way where you subsidize the behavior you want. It
| worked with lightbulbs.
| ant6n wrote:
| Or perhaps everyone is actually better of if negative
| externalities are taxed.
| Spivak wrote:
| You made a change which caused consumer prices to go up,
| folks are already struggling financially it doesn't
| matter if it's for a good reason.
|
| This is the "I know _you 're_ struggling but the economy
| is actually doing great" but applied to environmentalism.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Or perhaps everyone is worse off because some well
| connected lobbyist got the government to mandate their
| more expensive, less effective product.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _globally enforced taxes_
|
| Why not just pass a law requiring everyone to be good?
| chiffre01 wrote:
| I would be interested to know the cost of more sustainable
| packaging at economies of scale. Almost all plastic-based
| packaging emerged after 1950, yet even before then, there was
| a need to package mass consumer goods on a large scale.
|
| I also believe plastic and PFAS coatings are used in
| packaging largely because they are assumed to be the only
| suitable materials. However, in earlier times, there were
| many clever and cost-effective solutions.
| georgyo wrote:
| Population of the world in 1950 was 2.5 billion. The
| population of the world has over tripled. This world put a
| lot of scaling pressure on everything.
|
| I didn't think plastics are used because they are
| considered the only submittable suitable material, but they
| are definitely the cheapest and easiest to use. You cannot
| injection mold wood to be the exact shape and size with a
| snug fit for something you are packaging.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The fraction of the world's population regularly
| consuming manufactured and packaged goods is also
| increasing. That increases discarded plastics and other
| materials.
|
| About a decade ago I tracked down the somewhat
| provocative claim that contemporary New Yorkers (city,
| not state) produced _less_ refuse, by mass, than those of
| the 1930s. My first thoughts were that total packaging
| weight and waste food might account for this, older
| packaging materials being more ecologically-friendly, but
| generally more massive: wood, glass, metal, etc., and
| refrigeration and food preservation less developed.
|
| Good guesses, but wrong as it happens.
|
| The culprit was _coal ash_ , on the order of 40% of all
| rubbish by weight. It had been > 80% in 1900.
|
| Building heat was supplied by boilers running on coal.
| That left a large quantity of fly ash as residue. As
| heating switched to natural gas and cogeneration steam
| from the 1950s through the 1960s, coal use was largely
| eliminated.
|
| Former generations of New Yorkers would often refer to
| receptacles as _ash cans_ , and they were traditionally
| made of galvanized steel, both useful when contents might
| contain glowing coals. As trash evolved to colder refuse,
| plastic bins or bags could be substituted. "[T]he New
| York City Sanitation Department began encouraging the use
| of plastic garbage bags in 1969." (<https://archive.nytim
| es.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/...>)
|
| Net _non-coal_ refuse has increased, but the total, at
| least as of a decade ago, was still below the early-20th-
| century high point. Much of the current total however
| _is_ plastics, and in particular disposable diapers.
|
| I'd had additional sources on this at one point though I
| can't locate them presently.
|
| This paper discusses composition and confirms the 40% &
| 80% figures above:
|
| "How New York City Residents Diminished Trash", Paul E
| Waggoner and Jesse H. Ausubel, The Connecticut
| Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven andRockefeller
| University, New York. October 2003.
|
| <https://phe.rockefeller.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/09/NYTra...>
|
| The NYT article above also confirms "ash cans".
| kazinator wrote:
| > _The general public cares more for its wallet than the
| environment._
|
| More or less, yes, but I think it deserves more nuance. Most
| of the general public is stuck trying to make ends meet, and
| regard the environment as a problem to be solved by their
| government and rich corporations.
|
| If you take away their plastic bags and straws, they will
| make do.
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