Gousout wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 7:05 pm Actually, I plead on eliminating plastic, any kind of it! I think that authorities need to implement some strict rules in order to punish businesses that use plastic bags, cups, or straws

Thanks for that insightful comment, fake Internet user from Moldova who claims to be from Scotland.

awesomeness.

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.

Drink liquor, wine, and beer that comes in bottles and aluminum cans instead! And sodas like IBC come in bottles as well!

Our reliance on single use plastics is the mainstay of the petrochemical lobby. Absent their influence we'd buy our veggies using paper and take them.home in our backpacks or the like. Clamshell security packaging would be replaced by a sales person behind a counter. And "paper or plastic" would disappear from the lexicon.

Hippsterville, aka Portland has (to its credit) a ban on plastic shopping bags, fast food-take out-doggy bag containers...whereas neighboring municipalities, not so much...and still the greatest contribution to our "solid waste" disposal management system is, in Portland, single use plastics.

Ironic, insofar as during our recent adjustment to curbside residential waste hauling (we have three elements: compostables, recyclables, and garbage garbage...earmarked for landfill.land) due to an "epic - historic" snow storm (our last was three years ago)...

our city franchised hauler elected to collect only garbage "in the interest of public health"...leaving compostables and recyclables for later.

Keeping in mind that garbage consists mostly of plastics whereas compostables contain the rotting flesh from meat eaters, paper towels, and decaying vegetable matter.

Must be the dog shit. In the plastic bags.

There exists a disconnect between consumer and industry, fueled by big oil.

My city of Chico outlawed plastic bags, too. --no, I forgot: California was the first state in the nation to outlaw plastic bags at the checkstand. Now they're just in the produce section. At the hippie co op, the bags are made from corn, so they decompose, but in the corporate stores, still petro chemical bags for cabbage. Most people bring their own cloth bags--during pandemic, baggers can't touch personal bags, so we bag our own.

CDFingers

For what it's worth, I've been able to cut back on single use plastics a bit this past year by mostly eliminating soft drinks from my diet. I am also making a conscious effort at the grocery store to choose products that come in glass jars and bottles instead of plastic ones. It's just a small step, though, I'm afraid. There's still way too much plastic in what I buy.

my local grocery has 3 big recycle bins out front, which i use regularly: "containers(glass, plastic, aluminum)", "plastic bags and film", and "paper". i can recycle about half of the packaging i bring home. some of it, microwave food trays, i re-use around the house or in the reloading area of the shed. and just recently i've noticed that lowes recycles dead rechargeable batteries, there's a bin for them up front by customer service.

Seems like it's gotten harder since the pandemic started. Restaurants were closed for inside dining so it's take out and the take out containers many places here use are hard plastics. I go to a lot of Asian restaurants and most use hard plastic or styrofoam. I know they too are having a hard time getting supplies. So I take them home and put them into my recycling can when I'm done with them. I'm hoping the recycling bin doesn't just end up in landfill somewhere.

The thing that's made it impossible for me right at the moment was that winter storm knocking out my water well. Right now I am having to buy bottled water and all I can find are cases of the damned single person bottles.

Eris wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 12:48 pm The thing that's made it impossible for me right at the moment was that winter storm knocking out my water well. Right now I am having to buy bottled water and all I can find are cases of the damned single person bottles.

That's tough being dependent on single use ones. Any time frame when you'll be able to use your well again?

highdesert wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 1:51 pm

Eris wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 12:48 pm The thing that's made it impossible for me right at the moment was that winter storm knocking out my water well. Right now I am having to buy bottled water and all I can find are cases of the damned single person bottles.

That's tough being dependent on single use ones. Any time frame when you'll be able to use your well again?

I patched the obviously broken pipes on Monday. Someone is coming today to look at all the non-obvious stuff I found when I pressurized the system again.

The need remains for single use plastics. I admit it. I love single use plastic bags. So just make a law to them out of corn. No body dies. Everyone gets to pick up dog doo and put a half onion in the refrigerator so it doesn't smell like an onion in there.

I find it too hard to change other humans' behavior. I just want to give them a healthier bag. By law. Snot socialism.

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/323/pl ... Breadcrumb


CDFingers

Eris wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:00 pm

highdesert wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 1:51 pm

Eris wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 12:48 pm The thing that's made it impossible for me right at the moment was that winter storm knocking out my water well. Right now I am having to buy bottled water and all I can find are cases of the damned single person bottles.

That's tough being dependent on single use ones. Any time frame when you'll be able to use your well again?

I patched the obviously broken pipes on Monday. Someone is coming today to look at all the non-obvious stuff I found when I pressurized the system again.

I hope things improve soon. Thinking of you and hoping for clean water for all Texans & Mississippians, Eris.

Eris wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:00 pm

highdesert wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 1:51 pm

Eris wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 12:48 pm The thing that's made it impossible for me right at the moment was that winter storm knocking out my water well. Right now I am having to buy bottled water and all I can find are cases of the damned single person bottles.

That's tough being dependent on single use ones. Any time frame when you'll be able to use your well again?

I patched the obviously broken pipes on Monday. Someone is coming today to look at all the non-obvious stuff I found when I pressurized the system again.

Hope you can get it repaired really soon and get back to normal, no water is as bad as no heat. Would be nice if you could connect into the public water system as a backup when the pump fails but that's an extra expense.

There are places and times when single-use plastic is completely appropriate. There are other places, like surgery, where it's absolutely essential.

Ylatkit wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 7:18 am There are places and times when single-use plastic is completely appropriate. There are other places, like surgery, where it's absolutely essential.

As long as the plastic is biodegradable, single use is fine. It's what happens to the bag after we use it is the problem. A law mandating biodegradability would be appropriate.

CDFingers

Icolan wrote: Mon Mar 08, 2021 4:48 am Agree with you.

this one laid low for 3 weeks.
something about the thread title seems to attract them. maybe it's tagalog or swahili for "place canned meat product here"? we shall see.

I wash and reuse my clear plastic drink cups 6, 8, 12 oz. sizes until they crack, then into recycle bin. They last a very long time as I use mostly glass or reusable insulated RTIC mugs. Same for sturdy plastic picnic plates and utensils - used until non-functional.

Perhaps the biggest problem with these plastics is that there are so many types, many if not all, incompatible with each other for the purposes of recycling.
When China refused to accept unsorted plastic waste from us (US), the stuff just started piling up with a vengeance.
Separating these plastics is a manual job with not too many takers. (stink-yucky)
It would be an achievement of the first order if a single material could be created which would serve many, if not most, if not all consumer food and packaging needs.

My (plastic) cup runneth over.

CDFingers wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 7:48 am

Ylatkit wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 7:18 am There are places and times when single-use plastic is completely appropriate. There are other places, like surgery, where it's absolutely essential.

As long as the plastic is biodegradable, single use is fine. It's what happens to the bag after we use it is the problem. A law mandating biodegradability would be appropriate.

As long as the surgeons (and others in similar positions) agree, I'm with you.

But if biodegradable causes a problem in surgery, or other places like surgery, then what we have is better.

Not to even mention the sky-high costs of surgery in the United States, and what replacing single use plastic with anything else would do to that...

Do you think biodegradable plastic in surgery will affect the cost of surgery? I have no idea, but some things we have to have, like surgery, and surgery needs what it needs.

quite frankly, biodegradable plastics in surgery is an insanely stupid and ignorant position. I say that DEFINITIVELY!
I have Dacron mesh that repaired a double hernia 20 or more years ago and I DAMN well don't want it degrading until I'm dead!
I also have two replacement hips and the acetabular cups are lined with cross-linked polyethylene, which is basically the same stuff as PEX tubing. I certainly do NOT want THAT bio-degrading! I'm hoping it lasts at least 20 years without wearing out--I avoid impact activity.

Plus, PVC, CPVC, as well as PEX tubing is GREAT for plumbing solutions, particularly in highly corrosive environments, like seaside.

Sure, single-use grocery bags, formed plastic bubbles that hold products are all environmentally terrible, but in surgery? Non-biodegradable plastics are CRUCIAL!

I wasn't thinking of the implants themselves, I was thinking more of the wrappings of everything in surgery.

A Thing (whatever the Thing is, from a pack of silk thread to whatever-- some component, tool or supply needed by surgeons or nurses in surgery) arrives in surgery sterile. It's brand new, or it's been sterilized. It's wrapped in something to keep it sterile.

I was thinking of that wrapping. It seems like the perfect place for single use plastic. Cheap, we know how it works, it will do the job, and anything else is probably going to drive the cost of the surgery up even higher than it is now.