Food Delivery Apps Are Drowning China in Plastic (nytimes.com) 115
In all likelihood, the enduring physical legacy of China's internet boom will not be the glass-and-steel office complexes or the fancy apartments for tech elites. It will be the plastic. From a report: The astronomical growth of food delivery apps in China is flooding the country with takeout containers, utensils and bags. And the country's patchy recycling system isn't keeping up. The vast majority of this plastic ends up discarded, buried or burned with the rest of the trash, researchers and recyclers say. Scientists estimate that the online takeout business in China was responsible for 1.6 million tons of packaging waste in 2017, a ninefold jump from two years before. That includes 1.2 million tons of plastic containers, 175,000 tons of disposable chopsticks, 164,000 tons of plastic bags and 44,000 tons of plastic spoons.
Put together, it is more than the amount of residential and commercial trash of all kinds disposed of each year by the city of Philadelphia. The total for 2018 grew to an estimated two million tons. People in China still generate less plastic waste, per capita, than Americans. But researchers estimate that nearly three-quarters of China's plastic waste ends up in inadequately managed landfills or out in the open, where it can easily make its way into the sea. More plastic enters the world's oceans from China than from any other country. Plastic can take centuries to break down undersea.
Put together, it is more than the amount of residential and commercial trash of all kinds disposed of each year by the city of Philadelphia. The total for 2018 grew to an estimated two million tons. People in China still generate less plastic waste, per capita, than Americans. But researchers estimate that nearly three-quarters of China's plastic waste ends up in inadequately managed landfills or out in the open, where it can easily make its way into the sea. More plastic enters the world's oceans from China than from any other country. Plastic can take centuries to break down undersea.
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Re:Not just China (Score:4, Funny)
ok, just ban all plastic cutlery except for the spork. we can all get by using sporks.
I use a sporfe. It's like a spork, but one side is also sharp enough to cut with. After a while you kind of get used to everything you eat tasting like blood.
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Splayd all the way!
http://timmoe.soup.io/post/229... [timmoe.soup.io]
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All plastic that has a lifespan measured in minutes should be banned.
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That is called "the exception that proves the rule."
Ban all short-use plastics unless you have a permit for a medical exception. See, so much easier than waving your hands and crying.
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Oh wait - you can't anymore [theguardian.com]
china will just continue dumping in the ocean (Score:3)
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Banning is unnecessary and more likely to backfire. Significant reduction is the better path forward.
Try to ban it and you will get the same angry reactionary sentiment as the overall environmental awareness group is getting in general. People will irrationally hate you and resist you, even when there are other, sometimes better, options available.
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Otherwise, you are right. Ppl just get angry/frustrated.
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banning has its place, but only if you have a decent alternative (s), as in quantity, costs, etc.
Even then, bans only work if the majority has already accepted the alternative.
1. Create decent alternative
2. Convince most people to switch
3. Ban it to force the laggards to switch
For plastic, we haven't done #1 yet.
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None of the problematic uses of plastic are traditional uses. You don't have to go looking for an "alternative," the plastic was already an alternative, and it can be rejected and you just go back to what you were doing before.
For example there are places in the world where vending machines don't spit out a cup or bottle full of liquid, but instead simply measures out an amount of liquid into the customer-provided container. In some situations that container is shared by everybody, and there is a place near
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the same angry reactionary sentiment as the overall environmental awareness group is getting in general
No dumbfuck that is your tiny echo chamber. Even in the US, the vast majority want increased environmental protections.
Just because you and your asshole friends make crude jokes about whales and spotted owls does not imply that it is a popular sentiment.
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I would submit that plastic for certain elements (cutlery) still makes sense (if you even need it, at home I personally do not). But there's no reason for the food itself to be packaged that way.
And yeah, you need plastic for straws unless/until a suitable replacement material is found. So far the options suck.
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I'm old enough to remember when all straws were paper. Worked well enough. Didn't get soggy until after you'd finished the drink.
Re:Not just China (Score:4, Funny)
you need plastic for straws unless/until a suitable replacement material is found.
I have a dozen reusable straws made from bamboo.
I bought them at Walmart.
So far the options suck.
For straws, sucking is good.
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We switched to glass straws at home, and some silicone straws that we try and keep in the car for dining out.
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I have a dozen reusable straws made from bamboo.
I bought them at Walmart.
You can buy them from Walmart's website [walmart.com].
They are apparently popular enough that you can also buy fake bamboo straws [walmart.com].
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I think rather, that plastics should be treated with respect. ... but instead of building durable things out of it and recycling it properly, we use it mostly for disposable packaging.
It is such a wonderful material, with so many uses, and it is made from a non-renewable resource
Disposable packaging should be made from perishable biodegradable materials.
And we should start recycle non-packaging plastic such as the plastic used for our computers, furniture and household devices that nowadays otherwise get bu
So . . . where's the problem . . . ? (Score:2)
In all likelihood, the enduring physical legacy of China's internet boom will not be the glass-and-steel office complexes or the fancy apartments for tech elites. It will be the plastic.
Instead of building the buildings out glass and steel . . . build them out of plastic.
Plastic buildings survive typhoons better, like bamboo building scaffolding.
It just kinda swings a bit with the wind, instead of collapsing.
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lolz no, it oxidizes, degrades and also gets stress fractures. Unsuitable building material.
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why don't you use a search engine and educate your ignorant self about how the plastic ties have exactly the issues I mentioned and more...
First of all, those "plastic ties" are a plastic mixture reinforced by a... wait for it... wooden beam
And yet they still have issues I mentioned, here is what my state of illinois found
"Performance and safety
issues arising from these properties include: fracture, low tie-ballast interaction, spike-holding
power, tie plate cutting, creep (increased gage), stress-relaxation
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OK, wait, I found new info from here: https://philadelphiastreets.co... [philadelphiastreets.com]
Philadelphia residential waste is 25% of total and 10% of that is plastic. So 2.5% of all Philadelphia waste is household plastic. The MSW in 2014 as per the source was 2.5 million tons. Therefore, plastic waste was 62,500 tons in 2014. That's 39.4507 kilograms per capita per year.
China, on the other hand, yielded 1.6 million tons of plastic waste. Dividing by population, it results in... 1.1544 kilograms per capita per year.
Re:So, wait... (Score:5, Informative)
No, China did not produce 1.6 million tons of plastic waste in 2017. Chinese takeout businesses produced 1.6 million tons of plastic waste in 2017. JUST the takeout businesses.
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I understand that, I was just elaborating on the (rather stupid) comparison.
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* - I do not deny that humanity in its rapid growth did not impact earth, environment and thus climate too. What I question is number of things among them: our ability to explain how far our influence goes and wha
Someone's never been to China in the past... (Score:5, Informative)
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It's OK to just throw stuff everywhere, who cares - it's not mine...
Whatever happened to that feeling of collective ownership and shared responsibility for the commons?
There goes your socialism.
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Never understood why people think ownership and responsibility will increase when you remove ownership and responsibility.
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It's alive and well [bbc.com], just elsewhere. Like, in *one* country in the world.
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Re: Someone's never been to China in the past... (Score:1)
Yup. You can see farmers throwing AA batteries in a ditch half a meter from their property. On the other side of the road is their field where they grow food. And they source the water from the river the ditch flows into. They really don't deal with trash.
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Then this would make it easier to audit. Insert government auditors into the Sherpa delivery stream, audit container types, penalize the businesses responsible as only a totalitarian government can -- you have your choice of a fine, a ding on your social credit score, jail time, etc. -- and start solving the problem that way.
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One of these things is not like the other . . . (Score:2)
Two of those are very different from the third. Plastic waste that's properly disposed in a landfill or incinerated may or may not be environmentally (or energetically) ideal, but is a far sight better than "loose" plastic floating around the planet.
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Spot on. The drinking straw and plastic bag bans in the USA are reasoned as if we were one of the countries without a functioning garbage collection system. Equating the two leads to a huge waste of political capital to fix a mostly non-existent problem. I'd rather see that political energy put into better transit, high gas taxes, and so forth rather than preventing me from using a soda straw because somewhere in SE Asia has a trash disposal problem.
I live in Portland Oregon with two rivers and a glacial
The new America ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... China is.
I come from generations of oil patch workers. I grew up with rivers and small streams that were polluted with oil sheen that had the unmistakable smell of hydrocarbon.
Fishing lines were fouled with the stuff. Local crabs don't taste as good 60 years later precisely because they don't have those additives anymore.
Same with local shrimp and oysters.
We had air pollution that we were used to. When we went up-country to the piney woods, we appreciated what clean air was.
As I got into my 50s (I'm 73), I noticed China was going through precisely the same phase. Water was dirty, visibility low ...
In a lot of ways, China is going through what America has, except at an accelerated pace.
Like America, they will survive the birthing pains of becoming king of the hill.
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Like America, they will survive the birthing pains of becoming king of the hill.
No they won't because America will try as hard as it can to give China an abortion.
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Emphasis on "try". If you keep going the way you do you'll sink yourself into irrelevance in the process.
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Like America, they will survive the birthing pains of becoming king of the hill.
Maybe. Or maybe none of us will survive the birth.
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China's pollution is much much worse than America's ever was. For example, we nearly killed Lake Erie. China is killing multiple seas around them.
In addition, American politicians cleaned up, because we voted them in. Chinese politicians are trying to do enough to keep their heads.
You often don't need plastic utensils for delivery (Score:3)
If the food is being delivered to your home, you can eat it with your own utensils at home and save on that plastic. Plastic utensils should be an optional item when ordering food delivery. I've actually built up a collection of plastic forks and knives because I'd rather eat my delivery with my own metal utensils than flimsy plastic junk!
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And sometimes your ordering takeout to consume in a hotel or in an office where utensils are not readily available... It's extremely annoying when you need utensils but don't get any.
Ask for utensils rather than expect them (Score:3)
And sometimes your ordering takeout to consume in a hotel or in an office where utensils are not readily available... It's extremely annoying when you need utensils but don't get any.
Did you ask for them? The default should be that you ask for them, not that they automatically throw in a bunch of garbage you don't actually need. They shouldn't be including anything in the delivery you did not request aside from the packaging to actually deliver it. Plastic utensils should be opt-in and cost money. If you want to cut down on something make it actually cost cash-money.
Plus at my office I keep utensils (both plastic and metal) in my desk in case I need them. Then if I get carry-out an
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And sometimes your ordering takeout to consume in a hotel or in an office where utensils are not readily available... It's extremely annoying when you need utensils but don't get any.
Oh, noes! An annoyance!
Surely that is worth destroying the environment for future generations, if you can avoid a very minor annoyance.
This is exactly why we should quit trying to "educate" people and just fucking ban that disposable shit. If we ban it, the 7-11 will start selling reusable sporks, and the problem will be solved quickly, by capitalism.
Home delivery (Score:4, Interesting)
Plastic utensils should be an optional item when ordering food delivery.
It should be opt-in and cost money. If it is opt-out then it doesn't solve the problem.
I've actually built up a collection of plastic forks and knives because I'd rather eat my delivery with my own metal utensils than flimsy plastic junk!
I return them to the stores (at my convenience) or other places that really could use them when they hand me plastic-ware I don't actually need.
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They probably just throw them out if you return them.
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They probably just throw them out if you return them.
Usually I return them before I leave the store. However if they decide to toss them instead of using them I don't control that. I'm not going to stress about things I can't control. I've done my part. If they don't want to do theirs then that is on them.
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If the food is being delivered to your home, you can eat it with your own utensils at home and save on that plastic.
Yeah, but then I have to wash them...
Suspect statistics (Score:2)
Since China till last year was handling most of the recycling from USA and now have stopped doing it, they have excess recycling capacity to handle domestic recycling. its probably USA's recycling being burnt or put into ladfills since the trade war started.
It's always the "bad" things about China - Why? (Score:2)
But researchers estimate that nearly three-quarters of China's plastic waste ends up in inadequately managed landfills or out in the open, where it can easily make its way into the sea. More plastic enters the world's oceans from China than from any other country.
I understand that China has made great strides in AI [cnbc.com], High-speed trains [telegraph.co.uk], not mentioning landing [the first ever] probe on the dark side of the moon.
When I visited New York last month, I could not believe I was in the 1st World! Old (1950s) trains and infrastructure, filth [almost] everywhere. As if to drive my thinking home, a quick friend I met pointed me to this Seattle is Dying [youtube.com] documentary.
Sad.
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Interesting theory you've got there.
For reference, about 70% of all Federal taxes** goes to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Welfare.
Oddly enough, the wealthy don't use nearly as much Medicare/Medicaid/SS/Welfare as the poor and middle classes do.
** Note that Federal taxes are NOT the same as Federal Spending. We spend more than we tax every year. That "about 70%" of Federal
Investment (Score:1)
Drowning in Plastic? (Score:1)
China already has experience in building artificial islands [wikipedia.org]. What's the problem? Construction material shouldn't be an issue
So (Score:2)
Do the delivery services show up again, an hour later?
Bad choices by China (Score:3)
Real first world nations are replacing foam clamshell packaging with mushrooms grown to form factors, packing peanuts with similar biodegradable products, plastic bags and containers with vegetable fiber "plastic".
So sad that China is so far behind.
Even more than Philly? Color me shocked. (Score:2)
OK, so we're told that China, a nation of 1.4 billion people, produces more trash than Philadelphia, a city of 1.5 million? Gee ... something about that math just ... adds up.
Really should do food delivery like Korea does (Score:5, Informative)
Correlation between preparation, health, plastic (Score:3)
The more something is prepared from scratch, the less non-recyclable materials we have leftover. On the extreme end is produce, which can sometimes be used 100% (basil, assuming it didn't come in a bag), and most other produce has a very small rubber band. There is some food waste but that can go back into the ground as compost.
On the other end, the more heavily prepared, the more packaging is leftover. And often, we have packaging that doesn't even have a recycle logo on it. Strange materials are being used sometimes.
The more prepared, more trash leftover things usually are less healthy with more sugar, salt, fats, etc. Hell, even the rotisserie chicken had sugar in it. Couldn't believe it This isn't scientific or anything. Just something I noticed. If you have the guys over for video games and have just a few snacks, it seems like the trash is overflowing. But then on Sunday if we prepare a meal from scratch, we only have recyclables.