Killing our planet with plastics

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semipro said:
I don't understand why we don't do more waste-to-energy conversion, especially with plastics. My understanding is that most plastics are a great fuel.
Use of abandoned coal power plants for this seems to make sense to me. They typically have the transportation infrastructure, machinery, waste handling, and grid connectivity needed for such an effort.
I suspect that the equipment required to deal with potential toxic air emissions must be the deal killer.
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Likely because plants can't meet emissions regulations?
 
Seasoned Oak said:
Their is talk of holding drug Mfg partly responsible for the addiction opioids cause so we are seeing more business,s be held to account for the impact on society of their products. I am not anti-business at all, just the opposite ,but sometimes govt has to step in and regulate a bit. .
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Can we hold cheese companies accountable for high cholesterol and heart conditions? Maybe I can get Kraft to cover my gym membership.
 
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sportbikerider78 said:
Likely because plants can't meet emissions regulations?
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There are several of waste to energy plants in the US already, over 71 and more coming online. They do meet current emissions regulations, though not perhaps some stricter European emissions standards. I would like to see more plants here on the model that the Swedes have developed.

That said, the quickest and most cost effective near term solution is to reduce the consumption of non-biodegradeable, single use plastics. Newer packaging solutions do exist, but the market is weak for them in the US. In Europe it's much more robust and growing rapidly due to cradle-to-cradle manufacturing mandates. Part of those mandates puts the costs of recycling on the manufacturers instead of municipalities and taxpayers.
 
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sportbikerider78 said:
Can we hold cheese companies accountable for high cholesterol and heart conditions? Maybe I can get Kraft to cover my gym membership.
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Then your proposing the cleanup cost be a public expense? Or do nothing and let the stuff pile up and pollute everywhere. The fact the product does not degrade could be seen as a defect for a single use product. Would be one way to attack the problem.
 
Seasoned Oak said:
Then your proposing the cleanup cost be a public expense? Or do nothing and let the stuff pile up and pollute everywhere. The fact the product does not degrade could be seen as a defect for a single use product. Would be one way to attack the problem.
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No, I was talking to your point of making the companies accountable instead of the consumer.
If you put another regulation on all companies in a particular market, you have a public expense, not a private one. The price goes up.

Didn't we already establish most of this pollution is from 3rd world countries? How would a tax locally clean up waste in our oceans?

Kinda unrelated......but related....
I'm actually really shocked so many people still use bottled water. I'm 40 yrs old and i've been carrying around a Nalgene water bottle since I was in a community college. Even if these wayyyyyy overpriced bottles of water were $.10, it is still easier to just fill your bottled water with filtered water.
I don't get people.
 
Yes it is the consumer that is doing most of the polluting. Not much can be done to change that. Deposits help,even on plastic bottles. Something that will degrade when exposed to sunlight for long periods would be helpful.
 
Seasoned Oak said:
Something that will degrade when exposed to sunlight for long periods would be helpful.
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Wouldn’t that just add to the micro plastics problem you were previously discussing?
 
Ashful said:
Wouldn’t that just add to the micro plastics problem you were previously discussing?
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Probably would not contain any plastic at all. Some plastic bottles are already partly plant based. Decomposing rather than just breaking down into smaller pieces.
 
Seasoned Oak said:
Probably would not contain any plastic at all. Some plastic bottles are already partly plant based. Decomposing rather than just breaking down into smaller pieces.
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... just as long as they don’t break down while sitting in my cupboard, and ruin the wood work. In some households, it might be common for a bottle pushed to the back of the cupboard to sit for a few years.

... and what happens when I leave it in the cup holder of my car at the airport, or over a long weekend?
 
Ashful said:
... just as long as they don’t break down while sitting in my cupboard, and ruin the wood work. In some households, it might be common for a bottle pushed to the back of the cupboard to sit for a few years.

... and what happens when I leave it in the cup holder of my car at the airport, or over a long weekend?
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The Stainless steel Water bottles are getting more popular ,i have a few of them. As far as things like mayo jars they only recently became primarily plastic before that were mostly glass. All this wont mean much to most of us, ill be lucky if i have 10 yrs or so left on the planet. The next generation will be dealing with most of it, as well as all the Debt.
 
The next generation is going to have bigger fish to fry. Start educating yourself on some of the most recent breakthroughs and thoughts on artificial intelligence, plastics will no longer occupy your worries.
 
Ashful said:
Start educating yourself on some of the most recent breakthroughs and thoughts on artificial intelligence,.
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Ill be 62 tomorrow so i wont need any new skills. Ill be busy divesting property for the next 10 years
if i make it that long. My kids will have to worry about it.
 
Doug MacIVER said:
should we send this back?https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article218982585.html
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Bummer. I vacationed one year in Topsail beach, probably summer 1988. Was pretty rural and quiet, back then. Almost got stuck out on the water as a tropical storm or fizzling hurricane approached, when I made the decision to do some water skiing in the hours before the storm hit, and our boat battery died out on the water. Got a frightening tow from a commercial fishing boat that was way too big to safely tow our little ski boat, but beggars can’t be choosers.
 
Iv been thinking that deposits may be a good way to tackle much of this problem. That way were only the actual polluters are paying for cleanup since many of us are careful this stuff does not get into the environment. Any excess money collected in deposits earmarked for cleanup activities. That goes for aluminum cans as well.
 
Ashful said:
Bummer. I vacationed one year in Topsail beach, probably summer 1988. Was pretty rural and quiet, back then. Almost got stuck out on the water as a tropical storm or fizzling hurricane approached, when I made the decision to do some water skiing in the hours before the storm hit, and our boat battery died out on the water. Got a frightening tow from a commercial fishing boat that was way too big to safely tow our little ski boat, but beggars can’t be choosers.
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Topsail has an interesting history with respect to weapons testing. We went there a few years back and enjoyed it. The concrete structures that hosted high speed observation cameras can still be found.
https://www.starfishrentalsandrealty.com/operation-bumblebee.htm
 
Seasoned Oak said:
Iv been thinking that deposits may be a good way to tackle much of this problem. That way were only the actual polluters are paying for cleanup since many of us are careful this stuff does not get into the environment. Any excess money collected in deposits earmarked for cleanup activities. That goes for aluminum cans as well.
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Deposits have proven very effective. All you have to do is compare the roadsides in that states that do and don't have container deposits.
We had one legislator in VA that tried numerous times to pass what was termed a "bottle" bill. It was never supported well in our Republican-controlled legislature.
 
You would think a bottle bill would be a very NON partisan issue.
 
Seasoned Oak said:
You would think a bottle bill would be a very NON partisan issue.
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Right vs. Left have become the new religion, entrenched battle lines from which neither side will budge, and from which neither side really even makes much sense anymore.

It's really a shame there was no strong third-party candidate, as we were left with what seemed to me like the worst two candidate options in my lifetime. There could have been a real shake-up, if someone on the level of Ron Paul had been running this time around, and fifteen years younger.
 
Ashful said:
Right vs. Left have become the new religion, entrenched battle lines from which neither side will budge, and from which neither side really even makes much sense anymore.

It's really a shame there was no strong third-party candidate, as we were left with what seemed to me like the worst two candidate options in my lifetime. There could have been a real shake-up, if someone on the level of Ron Paul had been running this time around, and fifteen years younger.
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I always liked Ron Paul. He made more sense than anyone ,but not many seemed to be listening, not even his fellow congressmen.
 
This reads more like a marketing piece. Although I object to the article headline, it will be interesting to see how well this one works. There are already several bioplastic approaches that have demonstrated good properties for use in the packaging industry, especially for single-use plastics. However, plastics are used in all sorts of applications and for some uses bioplastics don't always stand up. For example say to heat, or shelf life. Not sure how Nuatan will measure up in this regard. They list no testing standards that the product has passed. It's unclear how well it would work for a soda bottle, plastic cutlery, bags or a yoghurt container. Their website is very basic and offers little detail.
 
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