Plastic seals food, sterile medical implements, medicine, beverages, etc… it’s seems like plastic is used as a way to seal things safely. Post pandemic rising, I see even more. My work used to be have plastic utensils in the cafeteria, for example, an already wasteful thing. Now, post-2020, every fork, knife, and spoon is individually wrapped in a plastic wrapper. I feel like the more my desire to escape plastic intensifies, the more plastic I see all around me everywhere.
How can we get away from plastic as a safety layer?
We don’t have to get rid of plastics.
Get rid of cars (which emit the most micro-plastics), fishing nets (which cause the most plastic pollution in the ocean), plastics in clothing and packaging where it isn’t needed.
Then use bio-degradable plastics for whatever’s left. And single use plastics only for the tiny reminder of use cases where it’s needed, like medicine.Getting rid of cars is generations away in the US, at minimum.
Guess we’d better get started right away, then.
Getting rid of Internal combustion engined cars more reasonable. EVs aren’t perfect, but they are much better than ICE cars as far as pollution goes.
In the context of micro plastics, it’s the same. It comes from the rubber tires wearing out.
Then instead of roads let use tires made of metal and put them on some kind of road that also has metal. Let’s make it electric too…
Maybe we could connect many cars together on this system, and make it so the front or the back car is a special one thats more powerful and pulls the other cars behind or pushes the ones in front of it that carries all the passengers. For convenience, we could make nice loading and unloading areas.
Right, but we’re talking about microplastics here. Those mainly come from tires and braking systems, so the switch won’t help this specific problem.
Serious question, do brakes emit any plastic particles? I was under the impression they were mostly ceramic these days (or asbestos way back when)
An important source of plastics is road traffic emissions. Kole et al. reported global average emissions of tyre wear particles (TWPs) of 0.81 kg year−1 per capita, about 6.1 million tonnes (~1.8% of total plastic production). Emissions of brake wear particles (BWPs) add another 0.5 million tonnes. TWPs and BWPs are produced via mechanical abrasion and corrosion.
[…]
Most car braking systems consist of a disc or drum with either a pair of shoes or pads mounted in callipers. Brake linings consist of binders, fibres, fillers, frictional additives or lubricants and abrasives. Thus, BWPs are a complicated mixture of metal and plastic. BWP emissions depend on the bulk friction material on the frequency and severity of braking speed, weight, condition and maintenance of the automobile and the environmental conditions.
Wait till energy costs 10x in the next decade. Car use will go to nothing real quick.
Nope
If energy costs 10x more everything else will be at least 8x more. It’s just inflation on everything at that point.
You don’t have to get rid of cars, my dude, just tires.
It’s called a train; just use a train.
Ready to go to the grocery store kids? All aboard the grocery store express!
You sound sarcastic but … https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram
I don’t trust biodegradable plastics anymore. The in between stage of biodegration is micro plaltics. This may be an issue even if it’s from organic sources.
Lmao. Just use biodegradable plastics! So easy! You know jack shit about plastics my guy.
Canada is in the process of “banning single-use plastics”. Although you still see them everywhere, there are many places that have switched some stuff like plastic grocery bags, plastic straws and plastic utensils to cloth grocery bags, paper straws and wooden utensils.
The point OP is making still holds true in Canada though. I can’t go buy a plastic bag at my grocery store, but the store can use a ridiculous amount of wrap to sell produce, and there are tons of food products where you buy a bag full of smaller bags(and some full of even smaller bags. Pre-made salad is a big one) that I can buy easily and usually for fairly cheap.
You’re absolutely correct. We’re not close to eradicating it despite the strong wording of “single use plastic ban” but we are taking baby steps.
Start with the easy wins and replace the others as options come available. We don’t have to fix everything at once.
Ban them and let the market figure it out. They always do.
And forget all the people who will die in the mean time!
That’s why you announce the ban a year or two before.
I don’t think individual shrink wrapping of utensils is a necessary use, every time I pull that thin plastic off something I think we are all going to hell.
But as others have noted, we don’t need to eliminate all use, we need to radically reduce use and find a technology to deal with the remaining amount.
And the plastic on some of those shrink wraps have a terrible squeak.
Single use consumer plastics should be banned.
Bioplastic - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic
The solution is not perfect though…
Life cycle analysis studies show that some bioplastics can be made with a lower carbon footprint than their fossil counterparts, for example when biomass is used as raw material and also for energy production. However, other bioplastics’ processes are less efficient and result in a higher carbon footprint than fossil plastics.
the plastic problem is separate from the carbon problem though… we don’t ban plastics because we’re concerned about climate change; we ban them because we are worried that microplastics are causing significant health effects to both humans and most other animals
Still, there is that other thing to worry about as well. The eco system is a system, doesn’t depend on one thing only.
Likewise, we will always have products and processes which have some carbon footprint. The hope is that we have enough others that don’t or are carbon negative that the net effect is one of balance.
of course, but they are complex problems and you shouldn’t poo poo a potential mitigation to 1 because it negatively impacts another
the solutions to complex problems shouldn’t require being solutions to every complex problem
Obviously. I doubt bioplastic had even 1/100 of the money and research of their fossil counterparts.
That might also be true.
It’d be better to come up with ways to efficiently break them down chemically so they can be remade into new plastic.
How can we get away from plastic as a safety layer?
We don’t need to get away totally.
It will be good enough if we avoid most of it.
I’m probably going to hell for saying this, but… I’m not that worried about plastic pollution? Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to minimize single use items and plastic ending up places it shouldn’t, but if it’s the best option for food / medical safety or cheaply producing something with a lower carbon footprint… we should probably just use it without too much guilt? The world is almost certainly better because of plastic in my opinion.
You can buy bamboo utensils individually wrapped in wax and brown paper. For most one time use items we already have a non-plastic alternative, it’s just less convenient.
The answer is that we’re not going to get away from plastic
Everyone should read the Plastics Paradox. It’s good to be well informed.
Plastic isn’t the problem, capitalism is.
IMO this is an unpopular opinion mainly because capitalism is a terribly polarizing word which now means different things to different people. On the left, it’s associated with imperialism and oppression. Among moderates and liberals it means the flawed ideology which beat something even worse, i.e. communism.
But the original meaning of capitalism was basically: accumulation. In other words, economic growth. And I think the jury is now in on this one. In the end, exponential growth is just not compatible with a living planet. The evidence is mounting on all sides. One example: the only period in recent history when the environmental indicators were all pointing the right way was the short deep recession that followed the financial crisis. That says an awful lot.
As a liberal I’ve changed my mind on this subject and I now agree with you.
I feel like the more my desire to escape plastic intensifies, the more plastic I see around me everywhere
Congrats you learned something about how your brain works. My advice is to stop freaking out about plastic.
