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i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

1 by lurker
i've been reading this series by the Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -landfills? and it echoes my experience. over the years many of us have tried to do the responsible thing, washing and sorting our "recycleables". now it seems that much of it never was recycled, and less and less of it is over time. instead it goes into landfills, or foreign countries or the ocean. we are "shitting in our own nest" and it's practically impossible to stop getting plastic. they look at me funny if i try to refuse plastic bags at the checkout, and everything seems to be enclosed in an indestructible transparent package that requires scissors or a knife to remove.
some plastics are fine, i think. i have 3 20 year old plastic trash cans which are still as good as new. but we (i) throw away so much, and now it seems all the washing and sorting are for naught. gaea, :sorry:

eta: i dimly recall a sci-fi story about life in a plastic-free world. back story was that some biologist invented plastic-eating bacteria and it went feral.
Last edited by lurker on Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

4 by CDFingers
Eris wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:17 pm I've long wanted a ban on single use plastics, but I've also been, and remain, guilty of using them. For me the big culprits are the usual - plastic bags and plastic bottles. I need to break my addiction to carbonated drinks.
Beer is OK if you drink it out of recyclable glass or aluminum.

Just trying to help.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eye Jack

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

5 by Eris
CDFingers wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:22 pm
Eris wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:17 pm I've long wanted a ban on single use plastics, but I've also been, and remain, guilty of using them. For me the big culprits are the usual - plastic bags and plastic bottles. I need to break my addiction to carbonated drinks.
Beer is OK if you drink it out of recyclable glass or aluminum.

Just trying to help.

CDFingers
Beer is too bitter for me.
109+ recreational uses of firearms
1 defensive use
0 people injured
0 people killed

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

6 by lurker
i have been using the same plastic juice bottle for months to mix up my arnold palmers(sweet tea and lemonade). the powder comes in a mostly-cardboard can. my grocery store has recycle bins out front, but now i wonder whether that does any good at all, either. i suspect our culture with its "more is better", "throw your trash over your shoulder and move west' mentality, while efficient in the short run, will eventually kill us.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

7 by lurker
Eris wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:23 pm
CDFingers wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:22 pm
Eris wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:17 pm I've long wanted a ban on single use plastics, but I've also been, and remain, guilty of using them. For me the big culprits are the usual - plastic bags and plastic bottles. I need to break my addiction to carbonated drinks.
Beer is OK if you drink it out of recyclable glass or aluminum.

Just trying to help.

CDFingers
Beer is too bitter for me.
tried hard cider? glass bottles!
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

8 by Eris
lurker wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:34 pm
Eris wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:23 pm
CDFingers wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:22 pm
Eris wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:17 pm I've long wanted a ban on single use plastics, but I've also been, and remain, guilty of using them. For me the big culprits are the usual - plastic bags and plastic bottles. I need to break my addiction to carbonated drinks.
Beer is OK if you drink it out of recyclable glass or aluminum.

Just trying to help.

CDFingers
Beer is too bitter for me.
tried hard cider? glass bottles!
I love some ciders, but most of the ones that seem to be popular around here are too dry for me. My favorite is Woodchuck, but I rarely see it in the stores.
109+ recreational uses of firearms
1 defensive use
0 people injured
0 people killed

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

11 by SailDesign
Eris wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:17 pm I've long wanted a ban on single use plastics, but I've also been, and remain, guilty of using them. For me the big culprits are the usual - plastic bags and plastic bottles. I need to break my addiction to carbonated drinks.
Here, as well. I don't use single-use plastic bags except very rarely (I keep a bag in the car for the occasional trip to MallWart) and refuse to buy bottled water unless the missus wants some.

BUT... There are a lot of times that you just can't avoid it. Is buying juice in large plastic bottles any better than bottled water in little ones? Prolly not - but guilty. I toss my used plastic ammo boxes in the recyc, to my wife's disgust ( :) ) on the principle that SOME of it must get recycled.

Little things like always using a dish-towel to dry up water spills, instead of instinctively reaching for the paper-towels, all add up. I'm not anal about it, but I try to do something less wasteful if I can.

Now that I've polished my halo - I'll go do something useful. :D
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo.
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Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

12 by Bullitt68
CDFingers wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:15 pm I'm with you on that. Yet I also want to find a way to recycle all the stuff that's out there. I want a way to make solid blocks out of it that are stable and can be machined. If that demand for those products is created, it will take off some pressure.

CDFingers
I've always wondered about plastic building blocks in construction. May not pass fire code here I dunno. https://www.archdaily.com/869926/this-h ... tic-bricks
We sit in the mud... and reach for the stars.
Ivan Turgenev
Prevent Suicides Call https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/t ... meone-now/

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

15 by Eris
I went to a convenience store this morning and decided to be good: no plastic for me! I brought my own mesh cotton bag, got a box of Junior Mints (candy in cardboard, as nature intended), and some sodas in glass bottles. Yet even though I had my own bag, the checker still tried to give me a plastic bag. :wtf:
109+ recreational uses of firearms
1 defensive use
0 people injured
0 people killed

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

16 by SailDesign
Eris wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 11:39 am I went to a convenience store this morning and decided to be good: no plastic for me! I brought my own mesh cotton bag, got a box of Junior Mints (candy in cardboard, as nature intended), and some sodas in glass bottles. Yet even though I had my own bag, the checker still tried to give me a plastic bag. :wtf:
The sad thing is that they are encouraged to force them on you as they have the store's logo on the side, and are therefore "free" advertising. For the next 500 years.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo.
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Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

17 by featureless
Plastics are now found in every ecosystem on Earth. Plastics are decimating bird and sea creatures as they eat the tiny particles, get plugged up and starve to death (not to mention the endocrine disrupting nature of some plastics that are impacting DNA and fertility). A good friend of mine has sailed from CA to HI a few times and reports the shit is everywhere along the way--can't see anything out there except ocean and plastic. Fun times.

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

19 by highdesert
In 2016 CA got rid of single use free plastic bags mainly used in grocery stores, it was a ballot proposition that passed. Slowly most people have gotten used to bringing their own bags to the grocery store, I found if I kept them in the car I wouldn't forget. Stores also sell reusable bags at 10 cents each, the Walmart bags as a liquor store clerk said are almost indestructible. There is a bill in the CA Legislature to get rid of single use plastic cutlery, don't know its status. I hate to see any let up on recycling, it took decades to get people into it. Maybe we need a color coding system on plastics help people separate recyclable vs non-recyclable plastics. I was in a conservative area recently and watched as people self sorted their recyclables and most were older people driving nice vehicles.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

20 by CDFingers
Yeah, recycling is normal now as is bringing one's own bags. Maybe 20% will pay the ten cents per bag. When my bags are at home I'll pay ten cents for the paper bag. Which I use again until I recycle it. There's a biodegradable option for use in the vegetable section. Corn based I think.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eye Jack

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

21 by SailDesign
highdesert wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 2:11 pm In 2016 CA got rid of single use free plastic bags mainly used in grocery stores, it was a ballot proposition that passed. Slowly most people have gotten used to bringing their own bags to the grocery store, I found if I kept them in the car I wouldn't forget. Stores also sell reusable bags at 10 cents each, the Walmart bags as a liquor store clerk said are almost indestructible. There is a bill in the CA Legislature to get rid of single use plastic cutlery, don't know its status. I hate to see any let up on recycling, it took decades to get people into it. Maybe we need a color coding system on plastics help people separate recyclable vs non-recyclable plastics. I was in a conservative area recently and watched as people self sorted their recyclables and most were older people driving nice vehicles.
Emphasis added above.

Recyclng is all very well WHEN it is actually recycled, not simply sold to China or Indonesia/Malaysia to be "recycled" there. Most of it isn't - and eventually finds its way to the ocean from the giant dumps. Reduction in use is the only way for now. The second article is particularly telling...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ia-vietnam

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mala ... SKCN1SY0M7
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo.
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Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

23 by highdesert
SailDesign wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 2:53 pm
highdesert wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 2:11 pm In 2016 CA got rid of single use free plastic bags mainly used in grocery stores, it was a ballot proposition that passed. Slowly most people have gotten used to bringing their own bags to the grocery store, I found if I kept them in the car I wouldn't forget. Stores also sell reusable bags at 10 cents each, the Walmart bags as a liquor store clerk said are almost indestructible. There is a bill in the CA Legislature to get rid of single use plastic cutlery, don't know its status. I hate to see any let up on recycling, it took decades to get people into it. Maybe we need a color coding system on plastics help people separate recyclable vs non-recyclable plastics. I was in a conservative area recently and watched as people self sorted their recyclables and most were older people driving nice vehicles.
Emphasis added above.

Recyclng is all very well WHEN it is actually recycled, not simply sold to China or Indonesia/Malaysia to be "recycled" there. Most of it isn't - and eventually finds its way to the ocean from the giant dumps. Reduction in use is the only way for now. The second article is particularly telling...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ia-vietnam

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mala ... SKCN1SY0M7
I agree, it's not actually being recycled and ends up being dumped either in our landfills or in poor foreign countries. Oil is cheap so it's less expensive to make plastics than recycle them.
For all the campaigns encouraging people to recycle more, few lay out exactly what happens to our recyclables once they go into the blue bin. Rather than our milk jugs magically reincarnating into toys on their own, for nearly three decades American recyclables were shipped cheaply to China, where they could be sold and given new shape.

That worked well enough, until China started cracking down. With dirty waste continuing to appear in imported recyclables, the rising cost of labor, and an abundance of the country’s own potentially recyclable waste, China no longer had the same financial and environmental incentives to accept the world’s waste. Within the recycling community, there had been rumblings that China might change its policies, but the force of Operation National Sword, announced in July 2017, still came as a surprise. Going into full effect last March, it banned 24 types of scrap and implemented much stricter and more rigorous contamination standards which have been described as “impossible to reach.” As a result, local governments and the recycling industry are now facing an unprecedented recycling crisis, especially in plastics.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/4/2/ ... onal-sword
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: i think we need to stop using single-use plastic

25 by Wino
I had guest awhile back and whilst washing my clear plastic single use drink cups asked incredulously if really I washed and reused them !! Yes, dumbass. What?? You thought I washed with soap and water, then dry before I throw in recycle bin???
"Being Republican is more than a difference of opinion - it's a character flaw." "COVID can fix STUPID!"
The greatest, most aggrieved mistake EVER made by USA was electing DJT as POTUS - TWICE!!!!!
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