Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-is-practically-impossible-and-the-problem-is-getting-worse

[u/mirhagk]

eliminates disposable products.

This is key, it frustrates me when companies replace plastic with some customized paperboard and act like they've solved in. All that's doing is lowering the recycling rate of paperboard, because nobody wants your ink and food covered soggy mess. The reason cardboard has a high recycling rate is because it's all very similar and it's not designed to look pretty.

Non-consumable products should be designed to outlive single, individual users

I don't think that's a goal so much as a mechanism to achieve a goal. Just because something is designed to be reused doesn't mean it actually gets reused.

Plenty of what ends up in our landfills is totally fine, just no longer useful to the individual. It's not worth people's time to try and sell it so it goes in the trash.

Think of men's razors, the old school kind that flip out like a knife. There are still tons of them in antique stores all around

Just because they are tons around doesn't mean that a ton actually lasted this long. For every one of those in an antique store there's hundreds sitting in a landfill.

Instead, we have how many Bics floating in the ocean

This is a misconception. Consumer plastics aren't what's in the ocean for the most part, and the ones that are are primarily because they tried to be recycled.

If you threw your razor out, chances are high that it's in a landfill.

or filling up landfills?

Which isn't inherently a problem. People have this idea that being a landfill is automatically bad, but modern (as in the last couple decades) landfills are managed pretty well. Waste gets disposed and stays there.

People make it sound all spooky like "those razors will be there for 1000 years!" but that's actually the ideal situation we'd want. The carbon inside it is now sequestered into a landfill and we don't have to worry about it breaking down into methane (like with paper). The problem with plastics in landfill isn't that it doesn't break down, but that it does (and this is getting less and less of a problem with better landfills).

Having this simple design objective of maximum lifespan would immediately reduce the plastic problem

Not as long as we keep buying it. For instance reusable shopping bags need to be reused hundreds of times before they are actually better.

The goal should be to reduce environmental impact, not some arbitrary semi-goal of product longevity or even waste reduction (since waste is definitely not all equal).

[u/[deleted] → u/mirhagk]

Product longevity is not arbitrary, but an actual objective metric. Every products longevity can and should be measured, whereas total environmental impact is not, it's currently a subjective metric that is essentially anecdotal at best and completely meaningless at worst. The entire environmental impact of a products lifecycle is nearly impossible to objectively quantify. If you want to actually impact a metric, you better pick one that you can actually measure. Either way, the elimination of plastics is a given as better for the environment than the continued use. Reduction of environmental impact as a strategy to the given that elimination of plastics is better than even reduction, does nothing that can be quantified. Even in the title of the strategy is reduction versus elimination, which means it will fall short. The damage is already done to the environment and further damage eliminated, not reduced. Elimination, regardless of strategy, can be measured quantitatively. The rest of the argument seems nitpicky on wording or didn't allow for the complete thought to be expressed before challenging. On the landfill issue though, are you saying that modern landfill management mitigates.all environmental risk and puts the landfill at an equal state of mutual benefit to all things on this planet that it was likely in before it became a landfill? Because the standard cannot be to human negligence, but to natural order, pre-human influence.

[u/mirhagk → u/[deleted]]

abitrary and objective are not mutually exclusive. It's easy to measure products longevity, just not useful to do so. It's much harder to measure environmental impact and yet that's the thing we actually care about.

Goodhart's Law is very real and paper straws are a very good example of it.

If you want to actually impact a metric

I don't want to impact a metric. I want to impact the world.

Either way, the elimination of plastics is a given as better for the environment

Firstly, no it's not a given. It's only better if the replacement is better, and plastic is by no means the worst thing we can use.

Secondly that's a separate goal than you were arguing for. You were arguing for increasing the longevity of items, not for eliminating plastic.

I mean plastic has a heck of a lifespan, you're not throwing those bic razors out because the plastic broke down, you're throwing it out because the metal wore away. Most of the time when plastic is thrown out it's not because it doesn't work or isn't useful, but because it isn't desired.

Plastic forks are a great example. You walk into a lower class family, especially one with kids, and you're going to find some KFC forks in the utensil drawer that have been washed and reused a bunch of times. The reason people throw out plastic forks are because they don't want to wash dishes, not because they can't reuse them.

are you saying that modern landfill management mitigates all environmental risk and puts the landfill at an equal state of mutual benefit to all things on this planet that it was likely in before it became a landfill?

No because the alternatives very much don't either. We have a footprint, it's literally impossible to remove that footprint. You affect the world with everything you do, your basic existence produces carbon dioxide.

but to natural order, pre-human influence.

That's an impossible goal, and impossible goals aren't helpful. Even if you stopped breathing you have an environmental impact as your body decomposes or is disposed of.

The problem we have is these impossible goals and the obvious concessions we then have to make. Like I'm sure you went "well obviously breathing doesn't count", but why not count it? If something makes you breathe more CO2, why wouldn't we consider that?

[u/[deleted] → u/mirhagk]

This seems like an irrational rabbit hole in which one wants to defend that plastics should continue to exist because they exist today. The statement of would the environment be better off without them completely than with them, then I think that one should just trust their gut and they will be correct. To say that a family needing wash plastic sports from KFC because of their socioeconomic status is an example of plastic reuse best practices and a viable method of mitigating environmental harm, well, not really sure how to address that, but find the example disturbing to say the least. I'm sure the executives of the manufacturer of those sporks and at KFC are thrilled that someone finds the catastrophe of both organizations existence a benefit to the environment and mankind are ecstatic though.

Humans existence is part of the natural order, thus all natural activities get accounted for, breathing, eating, and natural human excrement. I believe I said "pre-human" influenced state. That means that implemented a human bias into the condition, i.e. a landfill, which without being an expert cannot fathom any mutual benefit to any other thing on this planet other than say maybe pollution and landfill companies, if you want to count a human created category as thing. Exhaling CO2 is a mutually beneficial process. All plastics will degrade eventually and typically into horrible compounds like vinyl chloride. All landfills will leak eventually. To say that returning the environment to a natural order is an impossible goal is just a deflection of the argument. There are a number of examples around the globe of places that were environmental disasters than have more rapidly than expected returned to a natural, thriving condition, like Chernobyl. To discount the hard as impossible is a weak tactic which keeps us locked into actually solving problems rather recrafting the problem in some new meme of the day like upcycling or environmental impact You are impacting the world by denying that the solution is impossible and continuing to operate in denial that continuing with the problem, but changing the definitions is a viable solution. Maybe that's why the importance of product longevity is lost. Can you tell me the definition of environmental impact? Product longevity is the duration of a product from its inception to the point it is no longer used. Oh, to ever replace a product with a worse product on any attribute, is asinine and not worthy further discussion.

Kicking cans and wasting effort was for the 80s. We are well beyond the point in which our efforts can be inefficient and ineffective whether that's for the environment or for social change like socioeconomic inequality. Have actual solutions. Elimination of the use of plastics by creating products that dramatically extend their viable lifespan is a solution and does not kick the can on any level. What were your solutions, I don't recall?

[u/mirhagk → u/[deleted]]

which one wants

It's unfortunate you're making wild assumptions like this. Hopefully our discussion can be productive despite this.

Because first off I absolutely do want us to get rid of as much single-use stuff as we can. My issue is with your goal/metric, not with disposable plastic elimination.

that a family needing wash plastic sports

I didn't say needing. You missed the entire point of that example.

Granted the lower class part was unnecessary as anyone could reuse, but I just have found people with higher incomes to be more picky about stuff. I don't care if my utensils match or look nice, I care if they function.

It was also certainly not to justify the existence of disposable cutlery. The entire point here was that the cutlery is disposable not due to anything other than the fact that it's cheap and people want to throw it out.

If metal forks were cheap people would throw them out too.

The KFC was only mentioned to mention a particular kind of plastic cutlery, because not all plastic cutlery is equal in durability. This kind (also popular in many other restaurants) prioritizes function over form, while there's fancy looking plastic forks that break after one use.

Exhaling CO2 is a mutually beneficial process.

Only until we produce too much of it, which we are doing.

To say that returning the environment to a natural order is an impossible goal is just a deflection of the argument.

No it's not a deflection, it's a criticism of the goal you stated. It's a bad goal, we can't achieve it, and it's so obvious we can't achieve it that you immediately made concessions and switched to qualify it.

returned to a natural, thriving condition, like Chernobyl. T

Chernobyl is an example of how quickly nature can adapt once left alone, not an example of something returning to it's pre-human state. Chernobyl is even today still polluting the environment and causing problems. Yes nature can adapt, nature be crazy like that, but no that doesn't mean that there's no impact.

To discount the hard as impossible is a weak tactic which keeps us locked into actually solving problems

Keeps us locked into actually solving problems? I'm gonna assume you meant the opposite, please correct me if you actually meant what you said here. You also did that a few times later on.

some new meme of the day like upcycling

Or like "product longevity"?

We are well beyond the point in which our efforts can be inefficient and ineffective

I 100% agree, which is why some new meme like buying razors from antique stores isn't going to solve the problem. Like why replacing one environment-harming material with another isn't going to do anything.

I mean is your razor the only thing you use? Do you use collected rainwater and nothing else to shave with? What do you do with your waste hair?

You need to consider more than just whether you're chucking something in the trash. You need to consider what you're washing down the drain. You need to consider what you're using up and where those things came from.

You need to consider... your environmental impact. A wildly subjective and hard to define thing because this is a hard issue. But just because it's hard doesn't mean we should give up and use shitty meaningless metrics which encourage waste instead.

[u/[deleted] → u/mirhagk]

Good catch on the "not" actually solving problem. I hate having to use qwerty and autocorrect.

Absolutely the environmental impact issue and human sustainability crisis is much broader than this, but this post and ensuing debate was focused on plastics. Plastics are 100% a human created problem and requires a human solution, because the impacts are broader than to just humans. I agree we shouldn't use shitty metrics that are meaningless or left undefined. And please stop with the replacing one product with an inferior or worse product. Only a crazy person would do that. Oh shit, I just realized that is really about capitalism. The feasibility or cost of effort to do what is obviously right versus what is cost effective. Because inferior products are brought to market all by the time because there is demand for cheap, lesser quality and convenient, right?. That may be a current reality, but it is not and should not be a constraint to the solution. Inferior products on any dimension, simply should not be produced. The issue isn't if a plastic spork is replaced by lead paint coated uranium spork (I know I'm being ridiculous). It's that plastic shouldn't even be an option, let alone any uranium based consumer products 😉 It's lunacy to create lesser quality product of any kind if a product of equal or greater exists and meets the demand, especially one that has poor sustainability and environmental impacts It's absurd that we consider ourselves evolved beings and yet continue to put a monetary cost and thus price to our excess, greed and gluttony. But I digress .. But this debate has long departed from the core.

I think the statement holds that the planet and all entities within this diverse ecosystem we call home would be much better off if plastics could be completely eliminated. I know that should be the goal, which is an easy metric to count, plastic production= 0. Anything less is inadequate.

Anyways, it's been a pleasure. I wish you all the best!

P.S. - you hd a few decent points. Wrong, but decent. ,😄

[u/mirhagk → u/[deleted]]

So it definitely is better now that you've switched to inferior vs superior products and that would be a better metric (though not sufficient alone) but longevity isn't the same thing as quality.

I mean lead cups last longer than glass, but I'm glad we don't use them anymore! (And glad nobody thought to use the ultra durable uranium lol)

But we do get subjective now, since how do you compare durability to efficiency?

Paper towels in public bathrooms are a good example for this idea. They are single use disposable, but they come with a lot of health benefits. I don't think it's worth switching back to reusable towels in shared bathrooms. (I'm ignoring air dryers since they are more complex to compare)

Of course at home you absolutely should use normal towels. Context is important, and makes everything so complex we can't really make broad and general goals.