How the Fossil Fuel Industry is Pushing Plastics on the World (cnbc.com) 113
We're in the midst of an energy transition. Renewable power and electric vehicles are getting cheaper, the grid is getting greener, and oil and gas companies are getting nervous. That's why the fossil fuel giants are looking towards petrochemicals, and plastics in particular, as their next major growth market. From a report: "Plastics is the Plan B for the fossil fuel industry," said Judith Enck, Founder and President of the nonprofit advocacy group Beyond Plastics. Plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, are set to drive nearly half of oil demand growth by midcentury, according to the International Energy Agency. That outpaces even hard-to-decarbonize sectors like aviation and shipping.
"Every company who is currently engaged in producing plastic, if you look at their capital budgets for the next two to three years, they're all talking about expansion plans," said Ramesh Ramachandran, CEO of No Plastic Waste, an initiative from the Mindaroo Foundation that's working to create a market-based approach to a circular plastics economy. Yet much of the developed world is already awash in plastics. So fossil fuel and petrochemical companies are relying on emerging economies in Asia and Africa to drive growth. Alan Gelder of Wood Mackenzie forecasts that every year through 2050, there will be 10 million metric tons of growth in the market for petrochemicals, which are used to make plastics and other products. He says much of that will be shipped overseas.
"Every company who is currently engaged in producing plastic, if you look at their capital budgets for the next two to three years, they're all talking about expansion plans," said Ramesh Ramachandran, CEO of No Plastic Waste, an initiative from the Mindaroo Foundation that's working to create a market-based approach to a circular plastics economy. Yet much of the developed world is already awash in plastics. So fossil fuel and petrochemical companies are relying on emerging economies in Asia and Africa to drive growth. Alan Gelder of Wood Mackenzie forecasts that every year through 2050, there will be 10 million metric tons of growth in the market for petrochemicals, which are used to make plastics and other products. He says much of that will be shipped overseas.
Mr. Maguire: I want to say one word to you, Benjam (Score:5, Interesting)
Mr. Maguire: Plastics.
It was unintentionally funny in 1967, and just hilarious today
On another foot, Footprint Inc is making a mint on degradable containers, and even managed to purchase rights to the Phoenix Suns area (Footprint Center), where they will serve all concessions in biodegradable containers, because you don't need something that lasts millennia to serve a hotdog in
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"Think about it. Will you think about it?" -Mr. Maguire, addressing Ben, in reference to plastics
Would have been disappointed not to find this comment here. Happy it's the first one!
Obligatory Carlin (Score:2)
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Well, plastic resins are made from oil. So are a multitude of other things. This isn't a plan B at all.
Oil and gas companies are getting nervous (Score:3)
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Sure they are. Crude is pricey today, but virtually all the major economies of the world (other than the US) are investing heavily in eliminating most of the usage. The inflection point is still years if not decades away - but it's all but but inevitable.
And oil companies can see the writing on the wall, so they're pushing hard in any direction that will keep the money flowing, because it will almost certainly take years if not decades to establish those alternate markets.
Hence all the push for a hydrogen
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Actually, crude prices were higher in ~2008-214 than they are now (in ~2008 they were even higher than in 1980 if you discount inflation).
https://www.macrotrends.net/13... [macrotrends.net]
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While the prices have been high, 2020 has seen some of the lowest prices on record. This combined with increasing high costs of extraction, such as sh
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In 1970 crude prices began escalating leading to gas shortages in the US.
The shortages were caused by Nixon implementing wage and price controls, leading to more inflation which causes increased prices or shortages or both. Politics is about ignoring economics.
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You spelled 2014 wrong. [macrotrends.net]
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Bullshit. The price of crude is at the highest it's been since 1980. Oil companies don't get nervous because of renewable energy. They still have the rest of the world to tackle.
I'll call your bullshit and raise you some facts. Crude was $160+ in the late 2000's. It's ~$88 today https://www.macrotrends.net/13... [macrotrends.net]
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Bumping it back up beca
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Someone mod this up. BoB is saying reasonable things, there's absolutely no reason for the post to be -1. Remember, moding is not about what you agree with, it's all about whether someone is on topic, makes good points (even if you disagree with them), is coherent, is not trolling, etc.
To take just one of BoB's points: the increased use of plastics allows automobiles to be lighter than when they used more steel, and lighter means better gas mileage. So it's better for the owner, and it's better for the e
Environment conflict of the century (Score:2)
it's already started (Score:4, Insightful)
can't seem to buy food anymore without it being in a plastic container.
this is a function of getting tomatoes from some other country. put them in a plastic container to keep them from getting damaged.
so that's two strikes. i'm eating food from really far away (carbon to transport) and the transport is causing a proliferation of plastic containers.
and you have no choice. the manufacturer uses more plastics, the stores don't care if they are buying more things in plastic, and now you have very little choice because they are all doing it.
the endpoint of all this lazy, ridiculous, selling the planet for a buck is going to end very, very badly, and probably sooner than you think.
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can't seem to buy food anymore without it being in a plastic container. ...
put them in a plastic container to keep them from getting damaged.
There's some truth to this. But it's not a function that cardboard couldn't fulfill. If the oil industry wants to remind people of it's importance and the consequences of restricting oil exploration, all they have to do is to point out the looming fertilizer shortages. It won't matter what they wrap that food in if there's no food.
Re:it's already started (Score:4, Interesting)
>it's not a function that cardboard couldn't fulfill
Yep. As proven by the fact that cardboard (and wax paper) *did* in fact fill those functions for ages before plastic came along to do the job cheaper.
There's also plenty of other options for producing all that ammonia for fertilizers (and fuel - ammonia is one of the few truly viable options for "green fuel" that can be easily synthesized and transported). But again fossil fuels cornered the market because they could do the job cheaper. In the case of ammonia, mostly because by producing ammonia from hydrocarbons you don't need an external power source to provide all the energy being packed pack into the chemical bonds, you're just reconfiguring the already existing "fossilized energy" in the hydrocarbons.
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Let's not gloss over the fact that environmentalists in the 80's pushed for replacing paper packaging with plastics. It was all about saving trees. It's why any "environmental" push needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Nearly everything that gets proposed by the big environmental groups has unintended consequences and they refuse to listen to anyone that bring it up. But several years later, those consequences become the next big environmental issue. There's far too much reaction as well as big mone
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Dunno where you live (but suspect USA?) but I went shopping today and bought spring onions and capsicum by picking up the raw vegies from the stack and putting them in my (plastic, re-usable) bag. The spuds I bought were wrapped in plastic, yes. And the dips are in plastic containers. Though last week I bought carrots, cauliflower and cabbage raw, unwrapped, just plopped into my bag.
But here, Western Australia, I can still buy basic fruit and vegies without using plastic, should I choose to (the spuds were
Re:it's already started (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget the billion odd hypodermic syringes used for the vaccines. Plastic.
Way too many clothes. Polyester, a Plastic.
N-95 masks? Polypropylene, a plastic.
My canoe? Crosslinked polyethylene. Plastic.
The lenses in my glasses? Polycarbonate, plastic. Glass is no longer considered safe enough.
Plastic is useful.
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Things like lenses aren't really an issue, they last a long time so it's not like you are using them once and then discarding them.
It's plastic packaging that is the real problem. If only we could invent transparent cardboard we could replace a lot of it, but people want to see what they are buying when it comes to produce.
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Plastic for food isn't new. I grew up in the 1950s (and I'm still alive, last I looked). Tomatoes came in plastic back then, too. They were little trays that held three tomatoes, and covered in saran wrap or something similar. (And the tomatoes tasted awful, we grew our own whenever we could. Tomatoes in the store today are comparatively quite good, plastic wrapped or not.)
propaganda bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
Who is writing this nonsense? I'm *in* this industry (well, not precisely, but my business consumes semimanufactured plastics for our products). This is a hitpiece of the first order produced by the marketing arm of some competitive product or anti-industry group.
From TFA: "So what is driving this, is just this glut of fracked gas and the fossil fuel industry teaming up with the chemical industry to just crank out more and more plastic."
"Every company who is currently engaged in producing plastic, if you look at their capital budgets for the next two to three years, they're all talking about expansion plans"
Yes, that's because DEMAND IS THROUGH THE FUCKING ROOF.
This is not some insidious plan for petrochemical companies to compel Joe Consumer to use/buy plastic (Setting aside why: So some Snidely Whiplash character can deliberately pollute the world? Really?)
Our plants (which use LDPE, HDPE as well as an array of films) are overbooked by 20% through all of 2022. New orders from customers today are being confirmed for probable delivery in Q1 2023.
We cannot GET the plastics we need for our products, and are on allocation from producers. Order 18 containers for a week's manufacturing...we get 3-5. Does that sound like the behavior of an industry trying to push their products on people?
For what it's worth, my company saw the handwriting on the wall. We've been pushing alternatives to our plastic products, AT LOWER MARGINS to us because our management team actually takes environmental stewardship seriously, for more than a decade. And our customers DON'T WANT THEM (mostly).
They don't perform as well as plastics on the shelf, nor (especially) in extreme environments or over time.
They're not as pretty as plastic (for consumer products).
They're more expensive (despite us aiming for lower margins on them generally).
I'm a little sick of pablum designed to advance an agenda being consumed by idiot journalists who then widely promulgate this stuff as if it's fact. Do the slightest bit of source checking or critical analysis before you write.
Externalities (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for your perspective. But, given how awful plastics are for the environment, demand for plastics must be balanced against the externalities. Plastics are so cheap, and so effective, that market forces alone can't stop us from using them. Since you take environmental stewardship seriously (again, thank you), you should agree to help us all reduce plastic usage, for example through a combination of strict regulation and taxation.
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... demand for plastics must be balanced against the externalities.
The term "externalities" implies market failure, where the mechanism of supply and demand fails to account for costs that are incurred outside of the trading interaction. Plastics are cheap, and in demand, partly because their full cost is not built in to the selling price. We don't get our cheap plastics for free. We end up paying for waste disposal, usually through taxes. If we don't pay for waste disposal, we end up living in a stinking rubbish heap.
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In response to the article, I was going to write this:
Companies try to sell their products. News at 11.
But your response is a lot better. Never mind the trolls that have responded to you, like garyisabusyguy.
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When I was at school, many years ago, I learned that oil is a valuable resource for all sorts of chemical manufacturing, including plastics. It struck me then that it was a terrible waste to just burn the stuff. It was like burning wood to provide heating, instead of using the wood to make houses, furniture, guitars, and other useful things that make use of the special properties of wood.
From the economics point of view, I don't see how the fossil fuel industry could make the rest of the economy consume mor
It absolutely is. (Score:2)
This is not journalism, it is propaganda.
Re:propaganda bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
You are in the industry?
The stop being part of the problem and get a different job
In some parts of the country, the majority of well paid jobs are in the oil & gas industry. Moving isn't cheap or easy and most places are still run by fossils that hate remote work. Have you completely removed your demand for all petrochemical products from the market? If not, stop being part of the problem.
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Yep, just blame the helpless for the sins of the people profiting from foisting crap products on them
I'm not blaming the helpless, I'm blaming loudmouth fools who think that 2 million people should lose their jobs because said fools don't like the industry but at the same time don't have the conviction in their beliefs to put their money where their mouth is.
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Sure buddy
Please let me know where I can buy drinks in glass containers because that is the bulk of the disposable plastic that I bring into my house.
Also, please let me know what local grocer does NOT use plastic bags for produce...
Beyond that, most everything that I buy is in paper/cardboard and uses cellulose based '[plastic'to be waterproof
I do my best to reduce the amount of plastic that I use, and not being a fool, I realize that these changes will take time.
I also know that the loudest fools are the
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Are you kidding?
My local grocer has SEVERAL sections of beverages in glass containers, mostly fru fru waters and some boutique sodas.
My local grocery offers paper bags as well as plastic - I BET YOURS DOES TOO. You know what? Most people prefer plastic because it's easier to carry, is stronger against tearing and when wet, has integral handles. Or bring a shopping back yourself if you don't mind e.coli.
People who are holier-than-thou should tend their own windows before they start chucking stones.
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Sure buddy, you lie like you were born to it (or spend all your time in a liquor store)
lying shill continues to lie, news at 11
fyi, if you can find paper bags in a grocery store's PRODUCE department, that would be surprising. Everybody ought to know you can ask for paper at the checkout
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Everybody ought to know you can ask for paper at the checkout
They often do have paper bags for buying loose mushrooms in some supermarkets & greengrocers. However, where I live, you have to pay for plastic bags & they have to be re-usable, i.e. substantial. There's other bans on single-use plastics & they're also considering banning putting fresh produce in plastic wrapping. From the customers' point of view, there really is no reason to put fresh fruit & veg into plastic bags.
Just wait until some species of bacteria evolves to digest plastic & t
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"Just wait until some species of bacteria evolves to digest plastic & then watch as our rivers, lakes, seas, & oceans start fermenting." You mean like they're fermenting now because bacteria digest virtually everything else that flows into the streams, lakes and oceans, besides the water itself?
Get real.
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The DDR Trabant car body was made of a thermoset phenolic resin/cellulose composite (think early 1960s smelly brown printed circuit board material). I have seen unsubstantiated claims that someone thought to look in the soil under leaky pipes at the resin plant, and found some microbe that eats that resin. Impressive, given that my nurse grandma spoke of using "carbolic acid" (phenol) as a disinfectant. I got a site and lab tour around 1997 of a now-closed US phenolic resin plant for the plywood and part
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About paper bags: the town where I lived outlawed plastic bags for most purposes, including taking groceries home. The first time I went to the grocery after that law took effect, the checkout person had to use nearly twice as many bags, because the paper ones couldn't hold the same weight that the old plastic ones did. And she cautioned me not to pick up certain bags (like the ones that held juice containers, and so were heavier) by the handles, because they would tear. And before I got home (about a mi
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About paper bags: the town where I lived outlawed plastic bags for most purposes, including taking groceries home. The first time I went to the grocery after that law took effect, the checkout person had to use nearly twice as many bags, because the paper ones couldn't hold the same weight that the old plastic ones did.
a) Demand better paper bags.
b) Even better, learn to take your own awesome bags with you when you go shopping. How difficult is it really to just keep some bags in your car?
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re a) How? Go to the store manager and ask them to spend more money on stronger bags? I'll get laughed out of the store.
re b) Baggers are not allowed to bag groceries if you bring your own bags. That means I have to either go around to their side of the plexiglass shield and do my own bagging, or try to reach over the top of the shield. Maybe it will be different post-covid.
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You know what? Most people prefer plastic because it's easier to carry, is stronger against tearing and when wet, has integral handles. Or bring a shopping back yourself if you don't mind e.coli.
You'd be amazed if you ever went to a more advanced country where shops should only have proper shopping bags that cost a couple of bucks each. No paper or plastic ones.
And you'd be totally freaked out if you saw people taking their used bottles and packaging back to the store to be re-used. It really happens!
Re:propaganda bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
I also know that the loudest fools are the ones telling me to shut up and drive off of a cliff because they are busy making money
The loudest fools are always the ones trying to tell everyone else how to live their life, like telling people in oil & gas to quit their jobs because you don't agree with it. You're no different from a religious zealot.
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It's not about disagreeing with somebody's lifestyle choice, it's about not wrecking the planet in the name of profit.
Maybe you can afford to live in a place where you don't personally get to see all the crap but the oceans are filling up with plastic just the same.
There's only one planet. Once it's fucked up, that's it. No second chance.
Re: propaganda bullshit (Score:2)
You are clearly a selfish prick for prioritizing your love of the planet over the freedom of others to destroy it. /s
sad that the sarcasm indicator is necessary here
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It's not about disagreeing with somebody's lifestyle choice, it's about not wrecking the planet in the name of profit.
Maybe you can afford to live in a place where you don't personally get to see all the crap but the oceans are filling up with plastic just the same.
There's only one planet. Once it's fucked up, that's it. No second chance.
I didn't know oil and gas companies were dumping plastic into the ocean. Oh wait, they aren't, its the consumers and end users.
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The loudest fools are always the ones trying to tell everyone else how to live their life, like telling people in oil & gas to quit their jobs because you don't agree with it.
Fossil fuels are a declining industry. People in that industry will lose their jobs, and have to find other work. That story is as old as industry itself. What happened to all the workers who made steam engines? Supporting jobs by subsidising declining industries is basically welfare under the guise of industrial investment. It is probably more productive to fund the unemployed, while they find jobs in industries that have a future.
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The loudest fools are always the ones trying to tell everyone else how to live their life, like telling people in oil & gas to quit their jobs because you don't agree with it.
Fossil fuels are a declining industry. People in that industry will lose their jobs, and have to find other work. That story is as old as industry itself. What happened to all the workers who made steam engines? Supporting jobs by subsidising declining industries is basically welfare under the guise of industrial investment. It is probably more productive to fund the unemployed, while they find jobs in industries that have a future.
Fossil fuel industries are branching out to alternative energy solutions. And if the industry declines then people will gradually move on. But that isn't what the discussion was about. This clown wants everyone in the industry to just up and quit their jobs. Good luck with a 33% increase in unemployment.
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I bring my own bag/s to do my grocery shopping, have done for years, especially as now single use plastic bags (and this year single use plastic items, like cups, bowls, utensils) are illegal now in my state (Western Australia/WA). So we are slowly reverting back to the 'good old days' where containers are biodegradable. Hopefully.
Every household has a recycling bin, so in theory, plastics, glass and aluminium get recycled. Though cans, jars and bottles get taken to a recycling centre and you get $0.10 per
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As long as you reply on slashdot by typing on a plastic keyboard you're part of the problem.
Forge yourself a steel sword, use-it to slaughter big game animals then carve yourself some bone keycaps. This is the 1st step of not being a plastic industry shill.
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Maybe you could take the fossil fuel industry's dick out of your mouth for long enough to realize the problem is with disposable/short term use plastics and not plastics intended to be used for years or decades
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Right because Shell Oil is MAKING people preferentially demand plastic bags in grocery stores.
Curious HOW you believe they're doing that? And why, again?
Plastic Grocery bag is better for the environment (Score:2)
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So do you know, or are you pretending not to remember that paper bags (and plastic bags, for that matter) are recyclable?
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Actually, I intend to start grabbing the paper bags when San Diego really kicks in gear with the composting law California passed.
See, you can toss all those composting items into the paper bag and then drop that paper bag into the green bin or otherwise into the bin provided by your apartment/condo association.
It's either that or you put in a bucket and scrape the bucket. That seems like a hassle compared to just dumping it all into a paper bag and ditching the entire bag.
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the problem is with disposable/short term use plastics
Exactly. The problem with disposable plastics is driven by demand. It suits distributors of consumer products to use disposable plastic packaging, to preserve or protect the product, make it look good versus competitors, and so on. Speaking as a consumer, I don't get much choice in the matter. My local family-owned greengrocer and fishmonger, who sold stuff in paper bags, retired long ago.
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You said, typing on a keyboard made of plastic.
Sitting on an office chair likely mostly of plastic.
Driving a car made substantially of plastic.
Using electricity coming to in wires bound by plastic.
Unless you reply using a letter written with a quill pen you're a fucking hypocrite.
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So you're advocating a return to cave man days? How exactly do you propose creating products to maintain modern necessities? There's not enough easily mined ore to return to metals for nearly everything. Not to mention the expense and environmental impacts of mining and smelting. Glass is a very energy intensive process, is heavy and fragile. Turning to crop products takes away from food production, requires turning more natural environments to farmland and requires a bunch of energy. Not to mention w
No one is "pushing" plastics, FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
The important thing is to push plastic for what it's good for. For example LEGOs. THE LAST FUCKING THING THE WORLD NEEDS IS BIODEGRADABLE LEGOS (something the LEGO corp is proud to work on). The reason I pay more for LEGO sets vs the MUCH cheaper knockoffs is because they're high quality and will hold up to my kids and even my grandkids. My nephews are playing with my LEGOs from the 80s. They don't pile up in landfills. The durability of plastic is a feature, not a bug, when applied intelligently.
In contrast...well, nearly all disposable packaging would be better if not in conventional plastic. Selling lettuce in thing plastic shells is probably not a great idea. Maybe we should use less straws or find better materials to make them out of. There are sensible ways to tackle the problems with them.
Plastic is one of the greatest inventions in human history. It's one of the few materials you can make outdoor items out of or hold water in that's not super heavy and super fragile. It's essential for everything we carry, every piece of electronics. Even for things like reusable water bottles. I go for the expensive stainless or glass bottles...the plastic ones are just far better: cheaper, lighter, more durable. No material matches it.
There's a huge demand and it's only growing. These oil companies don't need to "push" it. It sells itself.
Re:No one is "pushing" plastics, FFS (Score:5, Funny)
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Some do, others don't (Score:2)
They aren't good for health, they continually leach plasticizers and crosslinkers into peoples food and bodies. Because of they way they burn they need to be treated with toxic fire retardants. I would happily settle for glass container for foods and natural fiber in clothes for the tiny inconvenience.
Plastic is like anything ubiquitous in life: it's complex. When done right, it's beneficial for the health and the environment. When done wrong, it's harmful.
For example, you wouldn't want a metal car seat. You'd have more fatalities in babies unless those things are SUPER heavy duty and then the fatalities would just come from kids getting crushed by them or parents dropping a 50lb car seat.
Is it overused? absolutely!!! However, we should appreciate it's strengths and weaknesses. It's great fo
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That's like saying Ben & Jerry's is "pushing" ice cream...they don't have to work too hard to convince you to eat it.
I don't eat ice cream. I want my cake.
People selling processed food etc should make their packaging either sexy enough to be reusable or as biodegradable as bond paper (I was quite surprised when I first read that some supposedly eco-friendly plastics will only degrade at certain temperature and humidity combinations).
Well yes and no (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm old enough to remember the opening to Laverne and Shirley and how they worked in a class bottling factory. As a consumer if I want reusable packaging I don't really have a lot of options. As an American I don't even get milk in bags let alone reusable packaging. And recycling is a joke, often costing more in terms of environmental impact then just producing new.
But go watch that John Oliver video. The one thing you'll see crop up again and again is the inevitability of plastic and of disposable containers. The other theme you'll see is the idea that only individuals can have any effect and that systemic change is forbidden to even talk about (again I know I'm triggering people with this phrase but I don't know another one to use that'll make people feel better about it).
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I thought one of the problems with reusable packaging like glass was some of its hidden or at least opaque costs. Glass is heavy, making it expensive to distribute -- more carbon from delivery vehicles. It has to make a two-way trip, going back to the factory (more energy) and then get processed/cleaned (more energy, water, soap, etc).
Now I get that these were externalities that the vendor had to absorb to re-use the container, so they now can wash their hands of it once they deliver it (using smaller, li
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I just wish there was some coordinated way to establish reusable container standards so that the costs of container reuse were distributed better or least felt less burdensome to producers.
Try only a limited number of containers styles made from a limited number of highly recyclable or degradable plastics. Fuck cost and marketing doubly so, we are gonna be buried alive in this shit if we don't act soon. The local recycler has about twenty things they accept and a dozen they don't, lowering the use of garbage grade plastics would be a good start.
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Yeah, it's a real tragedy of the commons thing because everyone is trying to shed the cost of externalities.
I think you only fix the packaging waste problem through imposed legislation -- mandating reusable or recyclable containers so that its at least a universal requirement and no one can gain advantage by using cheaper containers of disposable materials. Deposits or other cash incentives/costs to get consumers to actually return the containers. Maybe some kind of incentives to get packagers to collabor
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I'm old enough to have worked in a bottling plant that still filled recycled glass bottles. They mostly used plastic milk jugs, but also sold some brands using glass milk bottles. It was a pain in the ass receiving, handling, washing, and filling the glass bottles. I'm sure it was much cheaper for them to buy and fill one-use throw-away plastic bottles.
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I go for the expensive stainless or glass bottles...the plastic ones are just far better: cheaper, lighter, more durable. No material matches it.
If your stainless (steel I assume) and glass bottles aren't as durable as plastic you are doing something wrong (REALLY wrong). A stainless steel container should last infinitely longer than a plastic bottle and even a glass bottle is more durable if you take a bit of care in its handling. About the only benefit (of those criteria you listed) that plastic is better at is weight*.
* I guess you could argue price but if something is more expensive but last longer is it really more expensive?
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For a food processing or bottling plant, it is definitely more expensive to receive, handle, wash, and reuse heavy, long-lasting containers than it is to use light-weight throwaway plastic containers.
Steel dents, plastic bounces (Score:2)
I go for the expensive stainless or glass bottles...the plastic ones are just far better: cheaper, lighter, more durable. No material matches it.
If your stainless (steel I assume) and glass bottles aren't as durable as plastic you are doing something wrong (REALLY wrong). A stainless steel container should last infinitely longer than a plastic bottle and even a glass bottle is more durable if you take a bit of care in its handling. About the only benefit (of those criteria you listed) that plastic is better at is weight*.
* I guess you could argue price but if something is more expensive but last longer is it really more expensive?
It's simple. Drop an empty stainless steel bottle from your desk and it will dent...looks like crap after you do it enough time or have kids. I have lots of Takeya bottles. They make awesome insulated stainless ones as well as cheap Tritan ones. The paint is coming off all my steel ones. They all have dents. My tritan ones can be run through the dishwasher and are slightly scuffed, but look pretty good. I drop them all the time and just don't care.
That's a reason why plastic is a miracle material
Plastics work very well, so recycle them. (Score:2)
Plastics are awesome but mismanagement of waste (it's not the US or EU dumping plastic in oceans and rivers...) is the problem and the solution is recycling.
Biodegradable materials are fine where appropriate but the permanence of plastic is why it's so widely used.
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>>Plastics are awesome but mismanagement of waste (it's not the US or EU dumping plastic in oceans and rivers...) is the problem and the solution is recycling.
Interestingly enough US plastic-based waste is sent to SE Asia where it finally ends up in the ocean [nytimes.com]
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The solution may be recycling but the problem is cheap new plastics.
Recycling is a joke (Score:2)
Plan B or Plan C? (Score:2)
I think Plan B is to fool the world into trying hydrogen-powered vehicles, this terrible zombie idea keeps coming back because the fossil fuel industry keeps hitting it with a cash defibrillator:
https://braveneweurope.com/des... [braveneweurope.com]
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For Green Energy, but I am not Anti-Oil (Score:2)
Hydro-carbons are a wonderful useful chemical, we can do a lot with them, building materials, lubricants, even food additives. It is so useful, that I see burning them to generate energy is a real waste of the the resource, especially now as we have alternatives that are proven to work very well, often much better than the old ways.
There is going to be a lot of plastic in your new EV, it is light weight, so you get a better range, it can handle impact stresses much better, easy to form and mold to keep cost
I see dum people. (Score:3)
Plastics make no sense in the 2020s (Score:1)
Look, the thing is, we never needed plastics.
Back in the day we had lunch in a brown paper bag, wrapped in wax paper (beeswax if you must know), and we kept food fresh without plastics.
We can even make organic plastic replacements like water squeezes (think the London Games and the marathon), seat covers (which were originally not plastics), and so on.
Just stop using them. If something comes in plastic, take it off, toss it at the vendor, and say "Not in my house!"
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Now, on the other hand, I have plastic coffee travel mugs that I bought in the 1990s and 2000 (it was when I had dot com dollars), which have lasted for 22 years or more (and a coffee grinder from the early 1980s from my military days).
Those are good plastics. They saved me composting tens of thousands of cups, and harvesting trees to make them.
But they are NOT single use plastics.
And we could make them from organic resins, actually
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Actually, we tend to use cloth. Or organic fibers that dissolve.
Plastics are a dead end, for the most part.
You'll see. They're testing them out right now.
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Bumping it back up due to industry shills d
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Old News (Score:5, Informative)
Here the NRP article from 2020 about how the oil industry lied to the pubic:
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11... [npr.org]
Shortsightedness or Greed? (Score:1)
They are investing in EVs. (Score:2)
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Plastics save lives (Score:2)
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good and bad (Score:2)
Chemical substrates for reactions is WHY O&G is referred to as Black Gold. It is far far more valuable on this than as fuel.
In addition, if the far lefties will quit with their garbage, then clean energy subsidies will be extended to geothermal (and yes, nuclear).
WIth that said, we also need to recycle much more of the plastics, but also need to change how O&Gs fertilizer/pesticide is applied to land/plants.
We need to go from s
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Agreed.
For steel/glass/etc, the manufacturer pays ALL the costs in creating, filling, distributing, reclaiming, cleaning the heavy containers.
For plastic, the manufacturer pays the much lesser costs of creating with a cheaper product, distributing a lighter product and none of the environmental clean-up costs.
Society is left to pay for environmental damage and health care costs (due to micro plastics in the ecosystem).
Win-win for the manufacturer.
But your plan has some hurdles:
The manufacturers have plenty
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Yeah, the biggest hurdle is vested interests fighting to maintain the value of assets that otherwise stand to lose an immense amount.
But nothing says we have to give up plastics - there are numerous options on the recycling front *if* we committed to making plastics cheap and easy to recycle -- e.g. limiting at least the most high-consumption uses such as packaging to a handful of standard formulations that could be easily sorted, and recycled cost effectively. A technically easy sorting option might be to