We honestly don't know how bad micro-plastic is. Our experience with asbestos, another fibre that can penetrate cells, suggests "very bad" is on the list of potentials. We do know that it's in literally everything from dirt to water to air, and that it has circled the globe and got to places no human sets foot.
Like soil depletion and loss of insects, it's on the list of problems which aren't trendy to focus on right now, but might end up being really serious.
But on the third hand locking up hydrocarbons in plastics while we're dealing with global warming seems like a positive good.
> Microplastic pollution caused by washing processes of synthetic textiles has recently been assessed as the main source of primary microplastics in the oceans.
[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43023-x
[2]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro...
[3]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/17/micropla...
Fuzzy blanket (synthetic)? Microplastics.
Cozy sweater (synthetic or blend, but lets face it: usually synthetic)? Microplastics.
Microfiber towel? Microplastics.
Plastic straws, bags, and packaging? Landfill.
Importantly, where did you get your data from? It can't be just your imagination because that's only a tool to reinforce what you already believe.
Even if it's microplastic in that landfill water, it's not getting to the ocean. Worst case is it's captured with the decomposing gases and condensate, and reprocessed at a refinery or incinerated.
The plastic is much better deposited in US landfills than shipped overseas, where it may be directly spilled into the ocean, or dumped into open fields for the poor to manually sift for the most valuable material, and then there's no telling where the rest of it will end up once it rains.
Plus landfill plastic is sequestered carbon.
Even places that certify plastic recycling into a new end user product are often making worthless items that are given away so that they can claim zero waste. The material ends up as construction fill for hydraulic detention infrastructure, playground surfaces and sports fields, or even those "green" children's toys. Or cheap fleeces. Lots and lots of cheap fleeces, blankets, and snuggies.
The exact places we don't want that plastic to end up.
The hydraulic conductivity of this clay is measured in millions of years per inch. It's water tight, and it's super absorbent.
Yes, perpetual containment is what they are designed for.
Hydrocarbons can break down on their own, which is why you are supposed to change your cars oil every 3 months regardless of how many miles you drive.
It also degrades in the marine environment.
On the other hand, the issue seems to be animals ingest microplastics, mistaking them for food. The thing is, the vast majority of any environment is "not food". Tiny sand particles, dust, lignin, volcanic ash. If there is one thing life is phenomenally good at, it's distinguishing "not food" from food. Introducing a poison like pesticides into the environment, or wholesale environmental change like CO2 is doing - that could and indeed is wiping out a lot of species. But I have a hard time believing another source of "not food" will cause the same scale of damage.
Doubtful, not saying it's harmless but microplastics are everywhere, asbestos is not. We should research it but should not jump to the conclusion that it might be worse than a known horrible material.
Asbestos had clear links to various kinds of horrible conditions known all the way back to the early 1900s. Microplastics might increase some kinds of cancer and screw with some hormone signalling but we haven't seen such clear links yet to the same kinds of conditions.
Asbestos pretty much stays asbestos forever.
Not exactly. The point is not to use paper bag, but to use durable/persistent bag from any material (even plastic) as long as you can.
For example, I almost never use one-time plastic bags, because I have backpack, so when I go to a grocery store, all the things placed into the backpack.
In such case (from energy perspective) it's easier to peoduce 1 backpack (32l) for several years of daily use instead of paper/plastic/etc ONE-TIME bag.
Unfortunately, that approach doesn't work with other things. For example, it's impossible to buy yogurt not in one-time plastic package and we didn't find a "mass market" solution to that problem. Same goes for any other ONE-TIME package
Actually there are completely package-free supermarkets in Europe (and probably the US, too) now, where you bring your own container and pay by weight. It's very niche now but I can imagine it increasing in popularity.
https://www.azurestandard.com/ has drop off points across the country. They are amazing.
https://dispatchgoods.com/ for Bay Area delivery food in reusable metal containers.
Most health food grocery stores do something similar with their bulk foods and soaps.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/malaysia-bans-waste-import...
I’m not sure how the situation has changed since.
More here: http://environment.gov.au/protection/waste/how-we-manage-was...
In Nordics most yoghurt is sold in one-liter Tetra Pak style cartons, similar to milk. I've noticed it's next to impossible to find these in Central Europe though, for whatever reason.
I know they’re made from recyclable products, aluminium and paper, but they’re also an awkward combination of glossy paper glued to aluminium, which—last time I checked—were sent directly to landfill here.
Here’s the Tetra Pak website about recycling for Australia, where it goes on for a bit to vaguely avoid saying they go to landfill as the aluminium isn’t a sufficiently concentrated source, and nobody cares to reuse the low grad paper that could be reclaimed.
https://www.tetrapak.com/en-anz/sustainability/planet/carton...
Of course. I was referring/responding to the parent comment.
That's almost completely false.
It obviously depends on the kind of plastic. PE and PP are made from ethene and propene, which are indeed byproducts of fuel refining. But demand far outstrips supply now, so these are now made on purpose. PS is made from styrene, which is not a byproduct. It is made from low-value chemicals, so it's upgraded waste. PET is made from terepthalic acid, which is very much not a waste product of any process.
Even if there were any waste products from fuel refining, they would certainly not be vented. They'd be burned as fuel. Which is also a sensible thing to do with waste plastics. (Someone is going to object that this releases CO2. It does. Burning fuel releases CO2. We can come back to this point once we longer burn coal or methane for energy.)
> PE and PP are made from ethene and propene, which are indeed byproducts of fuel refining.
When we're talking about things like plastic bags and wraps, aren't we talking about PE/PP?
> Even if there were any waste products from fuel refining, they would certainly not be vented. They'd be burned as fuel.
This makes a lot of sense. But what if a refinery is not equipped to do this? What if the refinery is in a place with poor or non-existant environment regulation/enforcement?
> But demand far outstrips supply now, so these are now made on purpose.
This is the kicker. So how do we make PP/PE when supply of precursors from crude refinement is not sufficient?
> PS is made ... PET is made from ...
I shouldn't have used the word extruded, I guess? I was thinking more about PE/PP.
Except that many reusable bags are likely a waste of resources:
Danish study: "polypropylene bags (most of the [] reusable bags found at supermarkets) should be used 37 times paper bags should be used 43 times, cotton bags should be used 7,100 times."
UK study: "paper bags should be used three times low-density polyethylene bags (the thicker plastic bags commonly used in supermarkets) should be used four times, non-woven polypropylene bags should be used 11 times, cotton bags should be used 131 times."
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-reuse-bags.html
A simple approximation for environmental damage is the cost in $. If a plastic bag costs 1c, and a jute bag costs $2, then you can guess crossover point is 200 usages (weekly shopping for 4 years to reach breakeven also presuming you value your extra time and hassle at zero).
Reusable bags are a huge waste IMHO.
I dropped a bottle of wine the other day because I didn't have a plastic carry bag - cost equivalent of 1000 plastic bags... Arrrrghhh!
When I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, we mostly had cotton shopping bags for everyday use. Nicely printed, colorful plastic bags were a bit of a luxury. But our cotton shopping bags rarely lasted more than two or three years. The wear and tear was significant. A lot of food comes in edg-y or point-y packaging, which is not friendly towards the bags.
Neglecting externalities seems like the exact opposite of what you'd want to do in a discussion about environmental impact.
And price is generally an extremely good indicator of how much energy it took to produce something.
Energy is important, but the energy consumption of a grocery bag is small compared to the energy consumption of most of the things in the grocery bag, and if you drive a car to the grocery store, the energy consumption of the car for the roundtrip (~0.3 kWh per mile).
I'd say for grocery packaging the ecological impact should be the bigger concern.
Honestly the solution is easy, change the $0.10 grocery bag surcharge to $1.00 and people will stop using single-use grocery bags tomorrow. $0.10 is not enough for people to care.
Where I am, we've been under the effect of a pretty steep tax on plastic grocery bags that get noticeably passed along to the consumer. The result, from my personal experience, seems to have been a widespread adoption of tote bags. These last a very long time, 5+ years in my own experience. It has not resulted in a decrease in supermarket visits, to the best of my knowledge.
Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding your comment.
Your fine isn't tied to any externality so it is stupid.
- cleaning products (with plastic containers
- water (warmed by burning gas)
- spending time which could be used in any other way
- who knows what else
In many office kitchens, I see so many people using the hot water to wash when the cold would suffice. Using massive amounts of washing liquid when you only need a little. Keeping the faucet on while they scrub their dishes.
And depending on your household situation, you can do dishes for a family of 4 in under 30 mins. Cleaning a single plate during the day takes seconds. Or even just learn to pack your dishwasher properly. Let’s not pretend that doing a few menial tasks everyday is what’s stopping you from being that extra bit more efficient.
So better plastics solidified and made useful than released as fumes, but your decisive line of argument omits the carbon sequestration possible with large-scale paper for one thing (just not the kind that spills outflow directly into waterways), and the general degradation of the living oceans.
Isn't that the critical point? Of all our environmental problems, atmospheric CO2 is the biggest one, right? My assumption is that the energy used in industrial manufacturing is almost always non-renewable. If we're advocating for using paper bags over plastic bags, that means we're advocating for way more CO2 in the atmosphere. So what we should actually be advocating for is mandating that people reuse bags, bottles, and containers of all kind.
It's been a long time since I've been involved in chemistry, but my understanding is that extruded polymers like plastic bags, wraps and containers are almost always synthesized from waste products of fossil fuel refinement. If it wasn't for products like plastic wraps and bags, these "waste" gasses that are polymerized into plastics would be released into the atmosphere (especially in places without environment regulation or enforcement). The production of plastics at least traps those gasses into some solid state that we can then hope to maybe possibly bury in a landfill. I know it's ugly and pretty horrible, but from a climate perspective I'd go so far as to say that I'd prefer the plastic in a body of water than in the atmosphere.