[HN Gopher] An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)
___________________________________________________________________
An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)
Author : worldvoyageur
Score : 200 points
Date : 2022-05-02 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hwfo.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hwfo.substack.com)
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I agree with the message, but some states, the type that ban
| plastic straws, have made recycling a requirement.
|
| A message not touched on is reducing the amount of plastic that
| we produce and consume should be a goal, but with attention paid
| to the secondary effects. For example, if you don't wrap those
| peppers in plastic they'll spoil and that may be worse for the
| planet than shrink wrap. But what if you cover them in edible wax
| instead? Whats the footprint of each decision?
|
| Sometimes plastic will win out and other times we are being
| wasteful. In SE Asia, when you buy a single drink from the
| convenience store, it comes within a plastic bag, and you always
| get a straw. A plastic bag and plastic straw for a drink in a
| plastic bottle.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > But what if you cover them in edible wax instead? Whats the
| footprint of each decision?
|
| "states that ban plastic straws" generally use something
| biodegradable instead.
|
| The policy, IMO, is pretty simple to figure out. The reason
| plastic is used everywhere is because plastic is uber cheap.
| Those peppers are wrapped in plastic because it adds less than
| a penny per unit and gives them a much better shelf life.
|
| So, the simple solution isn't an outright ban of plastics, but
| rather a plastic tax. And what's the easiest way to impose
| that? Via a fossil fuel oil tax.
|
| This would allow companies producing these products to evaluate
| their individual cost benefits of wrapping everything in
| plastic.
|
| The rub is, this would have to be a global tax. Otherwise,
| we'll just be outsourcing our pollution problems. You'd also
| have to increase shipping taxes to a point where local
| manufacturing is the better financial option so bad actor
| companies don't simply manufacture in a nation with no oil tax.
|
| Unfortunately, I think anything else is just posturing that
| will fall short. If businesses don't feel a squeeze, they won't
| change behavior. And the only squeeze they feel is financial.
| wildmanx wrote:
| > Unfortunately, I think anything else is just posturing that
| will fall short.
|
| No, please don't go that fundamentalist route. The "all or
| nothing" approach won't lead us anywhere. Steady meaningful
| steps is the key. Build awareness, tackle one problem at a
| time, improve one aspect at a time, and you'll be able to
| bring people with you, allow them to adjust, business to be
| created, etc.
|
| You can't be perfect over night. If you try, it won't happen,
| not today, not tomorrow, and not 10 or 30 years from now. If
| you do it steadily step-by-step, you'll at least have a
| chance.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It's not an all or nothing thing. But rather a "meaningful
| vs unmeaningful" sort of thing. The smallest meaningful
| thing we could do to impact waste production is a tax in
| one city or nation.
|
| Meaningless things are things like banning plastic straws,
| awareness things, or even to a large extent funding day
| long excursions to the beach to pick up trash. Those are
| things more similar to urinating into a hurricane.
|
| It's not a fundamentalist thing. Rather, it's an Amdahl's
| law thing. The politically and socially popular actions
| have almost no real effect on climate change or waste
| production. The problem is we are mad at the wrong people.
| We blame individuals for waste when the amount of waste an
| individual produces is a TINY fraction of the waste
| generated by corporations. Further, a lot of that waste for
| a citizen is unavoidable. I can't help the fact that every
| item of food I eat has been wrapped in plastic, bundled in
| plastic, and then is shipped from halfway across the global
| only for the grocery store or restaurant to unceremoniously
| throw away that plastic garbage.
|
| Frankly, we won't reduce our climate impact through good
| feeling programs and broken corporate promises. We NEED
| laws that impose monetary losses on businesses for waste
| production to change anything.
| dylan604 wrote:
| "Globally: One and only one solution exists to curbing the deluge
| of oceanic plastics. The international community has to get the
| Philippines and similar countries enough money to have proper
| garbage collection."
|
| What would this look like? I'm guessing it's more than just
| giving them a fleet of trucks and landfill equipment.
| archarios wrote:
| Ideally, we would have funding for chemical recycling of
| plastics which would make a circular plastic economy. I don't
| know if this is actually a viable solution at scale but it's
| the dream.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I wonder if that would financially work out and not just make
| it so expensive to ship our recycling over there to no longer
| make sense, causing us to ship the stuff to the next cheap
| country throwing it into the ocean again.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Eventually, you go through all of the countries like this
| so that you have to deal with your own shit rather than
| shipping of to someone else. This would be the ideal thing
| would it not?
| MarkLowenstein wrote:
| It's a deceptive title, but it comes straight from the blog post.
| It's not going to teach you about straws (thankfully...are straws
| that interesting?). It tells you about the sources of plastic
| waste in general and justifies the most efficacious solutions to
| avoid plastic pollution. It is a short article focused on common
| sense, appropriate pictures, and well-chosen data.
| gumby wrote:
| > thankfully...are straws that interesting?
|
| I clicked on the link _specifically_ because I thought it might
| be about straws themselves. I agree straws don't sound that
| interesting but I don't really know much about them and for all
| I know there's something interesting about their manufacture,
| perhaps the difference in sizes, or something else.
|
| OTOH I am already well aware of plastic pollution problem and
| straws' relative place in it (both perceived and real).
| northband wrote:
| My family keeps our own compostable straws in the car. We
| typically don't ask for straws, lids, bags, etc. There are cases
| where you may forget, or can't avoid it, but overall it has
| decreased our yearly plastic use.
| LeanderK wrote:
| > And banning straws is just plain stupid.
|
| Why? We don't have them anymore in germany. People move on and
| new solutions get invented.
|
| Seeing a plastic straw is weird to me.
| thfuran wrote:
| I don't think it is especially stupid in and of itself but is
| it an efficient use of government effort?
| reactspa wrote:
| Can someone please clarify for me why some communities in the
| West Coast of USA banned plastic straws but not plastic "take-
| away" cups (that are also used only once)? I want to understand
| the logic that was used to do this. I've googled around for this,
| and while people like pmarca mock it, I've never found the
| original reasoning and logic for this action.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Plastic straws were banned because a video of a sea turtle with
| a straw stuck in it's nostril went viral and the decision was
| made based on emotions, not analysis. If it had been a plastic
| cup stuck on it's head, they would have banned cups instead.
| Too bad it didn't get a plastic tampon applicator stuck in it's
| nose, because I sure see a ton of them washed up on the beach,
| seems like a prime target to eliminate.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I have no answer but every time I get a cold drink at starbucks
| and see the new "no straw" lid (that seems to use as much or
| more plastic as the old lid + straw) I have the same question.
| It seems more about the "no straw" trend than about actually
| reducing plastic.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| My pet theory is that the 'no plastic straw' movement was
| started by someone as a sick joke to see how far people would
| take a silly idea to feel like they are helping save the
| environment.
| haunter wrote:
| Went to McDonald's today to get a milkshake, they only have paper
| straws here since 2019 iirc. Anyways the milkshake itself doesn't
| but I assume our saliva "softens" the paper straw so much that
| after a couple of minutes I had to turn the straw around to use
| the other end otherwise I just can't get the milkshake through
| lol if that make sense. I'm thinking about getting 2 straws next
| time.
| hammock wrote:
| PFAS "forever chemicals" were found in 36 out of 38 brands of
| plant-based (like paper) straws tested:
| https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/Biodeg...
| McNutty wrote:
| Personally I just drink from the cup. I never use a straw when
| drinking at home, I don't magically require one when not at
| home.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| Personally, part of the enjoyable expereince of drinking a
| milkshake is drinking it through a straw. Drinking a
| milkshake like a regular drink gives me no pleasure.
|
| I suppose if they ever went to paper straws where I live, i
| would just have to order a personal metal reusable straw.
| troyvit wrote:
| Man I remember being a kid and drinking a McDonald's shake
| through a straw. It was so frustrating. My cheeks would be
| sucked in like a 60 year old actress with really bad
| plastic surgery and even then I'd just get a little bit.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| Jack In The Box had wide, strong, blue straws when I was
| a kid, and they made drinking shakes easy. Now they have
| regular, small, thin-walled straws that does the same
| thing you're describing :-/
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| > I suppose if they ever went to paper straws where I live,
| i would just have to order a personal metal reusable straw.
|
| I suppose that's the sound of the system working.
|
| Certainly I note use fewer plastic bags since they started
| charging for them, though I have also thrown away quite a
| few broken, much, much thicker, bags and bought a lot more
| small bin bags since then.
|
| But neither the straw or bag are anywhere near a major
| contributor to plastic use, though I can see plastic bags
| certainly were a major litter source and are much less
| often found in hedges now.
| haunter wrote:
| I'm just thinking about to keep a reusable metal straw
| around. Cleaning is a pita, you need the special brush but
| honestly it's still better than the paper straws. But maybe
| it's just McDonald's? Maybe the other fast food joints use
| something else, like a different kind of paper
| aeternum wrote:
| A a glance, it seems to make sense that burying straws/garbage in
| a landfill is better than throwing it in the ocean but
| chemically, plastic decomposes significantly faster when exposed
| to UV/sunlight. It also seems as though ocean organisms are more
| able to consume plastic & oil.
|
| It sounds crazy, but could it be that trash in the ocean is
| actually a better option?
| slavik81 wrote:
| Why do we want it to decompose? It's made of carbon, so if it
| sits underground in a place where it doesn't break down, isn't
| that effectively sequestered carbon? Decomposing it into CO2
| and releasing it into the global carbon cycle seems counter-
| productive. What's the actual benefit of doing that?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| There is basically no UV on most of the oceans volume.
|
| I don't know where we stand better chance of getting a plastic
| consuming bacteria. (Do we even want that?) But the rate of
| natural decomposition of plastic on the ocean or underground is
| probably similar.
| changoplatanero wrote:
| if it is buried in a landfill is there less chance that it will
| end up in the body of an animal and work it's way up the food
| chain?
| loudmax wrote:
| Theoretically possible, but we should want a lot more data to
| support that conclusion. There seems to be data that suggests
| that at least certain types of plastics have a deleterious
| effect on humans, and probably other animals as well. As long
| as the ecological effects of plastic aren't completely
| understood, it's probably better for it to wind up in landfills
| than in the food chain. After all, plastics are derived from
| petroleum which came from underground to begin with.
| wildmanx wrote:
| > And anything that goes into the landfill does not get into the
| ocean.
|
| That's just not true. All plastic eventually ends up in the
| ocean. The "it's all decomposed in 50 years" is a myth.
|
| There was a pretty convincing article about all of that here on
| HN a while back.
| mike_d wrote:
| How would a plastic straw in a sealed landfill in Kansas ever
| make it to the ocean? Have you ever been to a modern landfill?
|
| Plastics are not evil creatures that grow legs and night and
| burrow out looking for the closest body of water.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| What would 50 years matter? Fossils are found in ground that
| are 10s of millions of years old. (I suspect the time until a
| landfill is disturbed is likely to be somewhere between those
| two extremes, but who knows.)
| moralestapia wrote:
| Weird, first it says,
|
| "[...] zero plastic thrown in a garbage can in the United States
| enters the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre", in bold letters.
|
| But then later in the article, it admits that about 50% of US
| plastics (it is unclear whether is all of them or only the ones
| meant to be recycled) were shipped "to Indonesia and Vietnam,
| which proceeded to improperly dump over 80% of it."
|
| So, it does go into the ocean in the end, whether the fault of
| the US or any other country, the point is that your plastic straw
| has a big chance of finding its way to the sea.
| rexreed wrote:
| These are both correct. Trash in a US garbage can usually ends
| up in a landfill. Recycling is often sent overseas, where it
| ends up in a different Gyre. Either way, a plastic straw
| (according to the article) doesn't enter in the North Pacific
| Subtropical Gyre if thrown into the trash or sent to recycling,
| it ends up in a landfill if trash, or a different gyre if sent
| overseas. Lesson learned: sometimes throwing stuff away is
| better. And don't litter, it goes without saying.
| dmd wrote:
| I think you rather missed the point of the article.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| Garbage can -> landfill
|
| recycling can -> overseas countries -> ocean
| janj wrote:
| I thought it was pretty clear, if you put the straw in the
| garbage can it will not enter the garbage patch, it goes to the
| landfill. If you put it in the recycling bin it has a good
| chance of entering the garbage patch.
| McNutty wrote:
| The point being made in the article is that plastic thrown into
| _garbage_ cans in the US end up securely held in the sealed
| landfills as described,while plastics sent for _recycling_ in
| the US end up getting exported and ultimately improperly
| dumped.
|
| The author is saying that you should put plastics in the
| garbage rather than in the recycling.
| mike_d wrote:
| > your plastic straw has a big chance of finding its way to the
| sea
|
| IF you put it in a recycling bin. Here is a quick breakdown:
|
| - Black bin (trash): Goes to a landfill where it is regulated
| by the EPA and stored in containment and the off-gas is
| harvested for energy
|
| - Blue bin (recycling): Gets shipped by boat across an ocean to
| a third world country where it is dumped because that is the
| most profitable thing to do and it is no longer subject to
| regulatory oversight that it actually gets recycled
| moralestapia wrote:
| It's not that easy,
|
| Trash goes into what is called, waste transfer stations, see
| [1], where there's an effort to salvage recyclables from
| regular trash as well, what you do with the black/blue bins
| is basically helping them do their work (and this is good).
|
| Let's say then, that all this plastic goes into the "plastic
| that could be recycled" bin, of which we actually DO recycle
| 3.1 million tons of it (as stated in the article) out of 35.7
| million tons (total).
|
| But then it goes to say "We used to send half of this to
| China until they banned it [...]", and it is not clear either
| this is half of the recycled chunk, or the total amount of
| plastic that gets thrown away. It wouldn't make sense for it
| to be the recycled chunk, as ... we are recycling it, right?
| But then, it could, maybe, as it could be sent to those
| countries for "recycling" and they then "improperly dump it"
| (as also stated in the article).
|
| 1: https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/waste-management-transfer-
| sta...
| bhk wrote:
| People are intercepting plastic from our waste stream and
| re-directing it to other countries that dump it into the
| ocean? Well I see your problem right there!
|
| The idea that we would not ban that and instead ban
| drinking straws _because_ of that is even more absurd than
| the nonsense that I _thought_ was in play.
| jccooper wrote:
| A lot of "recycling" gets diverted to landfill domestically,
| too. How much depends, but lots of stuff is sorted out as
| unrecyclable, unidentifiable, or just plain unprofitable.
| Probably including most straws and other small items placed
| in recycling.
| function_seven wrote:
| While true, I'd rather play it safe and put my plastic in
| the trash bin. Helpful mnemonic: The _blue_ bin is _blue
| like the ocean_ that plastic will end up in.
|
| :(
| legitster wrote:
| Right at the bottom of the article:
|
| > Locally: You must reduce the amount of plastic shipped
| overseas by _putting it in the regular garbage instead of the
| recycle bin_.
|
| The premise is that recycling creates pollution but landfills
| do not.
| saltdotac wrote:
| That's why I disagree with the article's conclusion that
| getting rid of plastic straws is "stupid". There are
| alternatives, some better than others at their job of fluid
| delivery to your face parts, but most doing a better job of not
| polluting.
| drewg123 wrote:
| If you want to save the oceans, ban plastic fishing equipment, as
| nets and other gear is the biggest plastic polluter in the
| oceans:
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-f...
| jjcm wrote:
| What material would you recommend instead?
| chillingeffect wrote:
| Also: we don't need to eat seafood.
| drewg123 wrote:
| Hemp, or anything else non-toxic and biodegradable.
| munificent wrote:
| This article is a great example of how poor use of math can do
| a disservice to the public. The article says:
|
| _> Lost and abandoned fishing gear which is deadly to marine
| life makes up the majority of large plastic pollution in the
| oceans_
|
| This is one of those statistics that shouldn't even pass the
| sniff test. Think about all of the millions of ways that humans
| use plastic across every single industry, job, and area of
| life. And yet somehow ghost gear is supposed to be greater than
| _all of that put together?!_ Are fisheries just dumping a
| hundred nets in the ocean for every one they use or something?
| The number makes no sense.
|
| And, indeed, the report in question says no such thing. What it
| _does_ say is:
|
| "12 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the ocean every year"
| and "640,000 tonnes of ghost gear enters the ocean every year".
| So that means ghost gear is only around 5% of the plastic that
| ends up in the ocean per year. In fact the report itself states
| that "Ghost gear is estimated to make up 10% of the plastic
| waste in our oceans".
|
| Of course, that's not alarming enough, so it also goes on to
| state that "[ghost gear] represents a much higher proportion of
| large plastics found floating at the surface" and "over 85% of
| the rubbish on the seafloor on seamounts and ocean ridges, and
| in the Great Pacific Gyre."
|
| That sounds bad but... it should come as no surprise. Most
| plastic that ends up in the ocean is trash. Land-based trash
| plastic that is large or heavy enough to sink is less likely to
| flow down rivers and end up in the middle of the ocean. It will
| get broken up by trash processing, sink to the bottom of
| rivers, or otherwise not make it all the way to the ocean
| intact. So of course you'll see a disproportionate amount of
| ghost gear when you look on the seafloor or at large items--
| ghost gear is large plastic that is deliberately designed to
| sink in seawater and then is deliberately dragged out into the
| middle of the ocean and thrown overboard.
|
| If your primary goal is to save animals, then Greenpeace's
| focus on ghost gear makes sense. But if your goal is to reduce
| the _overall_ amount of plastic ending up in the ocean (which
| also saves animals), then ghost gear is only a relatively small
| fraction of the problem.
| drewg123 wrote:
| It seems like the study folks are quoting is a peer reviewed
| article in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018
| -22939-w?fbclid=Iw...
|
| It states "Over three-quarters of the GPGP mass was carried
| by debris larger than 5 cm and at least 46% was comprised of
| fishing nets."
| munificent wrote:
| Ah, good catch! That does agree with the article, so maybe
| that's where the claim comes from and not directly from the
| Greenpeace article.
|
| There's still a difference between "quantity dumped _per
| year_ " and "total amount measured right now". It seems
| like ghost gear is not a large fraction of the plastic
| entering the ocean, but it a large fraction of the
| accumulated large pieces in the garbage patch. I presume
| that's because fishing gear is designed to survive in the
| ocean so takes longer to break down than other plastics.
| verdverm wrote:
| Here's a NOAA page on the topic
|
| https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/marinedebris/plasti
| cs-...
| nine_k wrote:
| Humans use metals in colossal quantities, but only a small
| proportion of that, used to make weapons and ammo, is
| responsible for the majority of human deaths induced by metal
| items.
|
| Similarly, fishing gear is specifically produced to lure,
| trap, catch, and ultimately kill marine life. One abandoned
| fishing net _could_ be much more deadly than 10x of the same
| plastic by weight in the form of plastic straws, spoons, and
| cups.
|
| I don't know if it's indeed so, but I can easily see why it
| _could_ be so.
| McNutty wrote:
| I think you've overlooked the keyword _large_ in the opening
| statement
| munificent wrote:
| I did notice that but the linked report does not define
| "large" at all as far as I can tell.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I do not understand why more restaurants do not have metal straws
|
| They already have silverware and a whole process for cleaning it
| and whatnot. Why not just also invest in metal straws and re-use
| ? It seems like it would be cheaper than even plastic straws long
| term. And of course less waste.
| telotortium wrote:
| Many commercial dishwashers might be specialized for certain
| dishes, so adding a straw washing machine would be a
| significant expense. In addition, I've heard that many
| commercial dishwashers require the dishes to be scrubbed
| beforehand (see
| https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/620/types-of-
| commerci...), and straws are quite difficult to scrub.
|
| Given that most restaurants that go through a lot of straws
| want to provide the option for takeout anyway (for which you
| can't use metal straws), it makes sense that most restaurants
| don't bother.
| floren wrote:
| I've been given a metal straw at a restaurant. My immediate
| thought: how do I know this is clean on the inside? I can't see
| in there, it could be full of mold. I just drank from the glass
| instead, because I'm an able-bodied adult.
| p1mrx wrote:
| The Pasig River in Manila doesn't seem to look nearly as bad as
| the author claims:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@14.5674227,121.0375559,3a,90y,7...
| hk__2 wrote:
| If you reverse-search the second image you can find a 2018
| article that gives a bit more detail [1]. It does describe the
| Pasig River as "Manila's most important and heavily polluted
| waterways".
|
| [1]:
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-5806619/Manila...
| Symbiote wrote:
| That particular river was cleaned up in 2018:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_of_the_Pasig_Ri...
|
| There are plenty of (older?) pictures of it covered in plastic
| online. I don't think there's any reason to doubt the author's
| picture.
| hk__2 wrote:
| You can also see it on Google Street view as it has some
| imagery from 2014.
| rootsudo wrote:
| It's still pretty bad, but it's a river, it depends where
| you look - the image depicated is near Tondo or the mouth
| where it enters Manila Bay.
| legitster wrote:
| Plastic gets a bad wrap. But it's a _pretty dang_ efficient
| material. It takes so little energy and material to make
| something very functional and resilient. I know that CO2 analyses
| of the replacements to plastic bags and straws has not been very
| kind to them.
|
| I find it commendable to encourage people to consumer less stuff,
| but the war on plastic straws has been a huge step back - it's
| done relatively little to actually help, but has imposed huge and
| everyday annoyances on everyone. These should be the exact
| opposite goals of environmental reforms when there are much lower
| hanging fruits available.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Plastics are cool materials but at the moment they're mostly
| made from fossil fuels so you're funding some really bad people
| by using them.
|
| They'll only use that money to convince gullible people that
| climate change isn't happening, that every government
| regulation will magically have exactly the opposite impact,
| that solar and wind power are scams, that recycling is bad for
| the planet and that science and democracy have been taken over
| by idiot hippies that will kill us all because they stupidly
| hate fossil fuels for no reason.
|
| That's a heavy price to pay.
| tptacek wrote:
| It is probably not reasonable to select materials with worse
| ecological footprints than plastic purely out of concern for
| what people in the plastics supply chain are going to say
| about climate change.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The whole point is that you don't know if its a worse
| ecological footprint unless you count all the impacts.
|
| If that impact includes support for some of the worst
| regimes on earth starting wars and undermining democracy
| then I think you'll find there's been a recent shift in
| public attitudes on this issue.
| jholman wrote:
| I'm confused.
|
| There are people with fossil fuels. They want to make money
| from their access to fossil fuels. They will strive to do so,
| and some of them will strive without concern for the
| collective good. I think those things are clear.
|
| If fossil fuels are burned for energy, that contributes
| directly to climate change. If those fossil fuels are
| converted into plastics which are put in landfills, that
| directly contributes less to climate change. I hope that all
| of the above is uncontroversial.
|
| Where I get confused is this:
|
| Do you think that reducing demand for plastic will result in
| less fossil fuels being burned? Do you think that reducing
| demand for non-burning-uses of fossil fuels will result in so
| much less production of fossil fuels that the overall price
| of oil-for-burning will go up?
|
| I'm no economist, but your claim is the exact opposite of how
| I thought it works. Can you explain?
| munk-a wrote:
| Fossil fuels are complex materials and the refining process
| breaks crude up into several different compounds, these
| compounds have different uses with the base materials for
| most plastics being an, essentially, useless side effect of
| fuel production. It's less a question of taking a barrel of
| oil and turning it into a hunk of plastic or a can of fuel.
| Both are produced in the most efficient processes.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I'm not making a claim about the price of oil for burning
| rising though.
|
| I'm saying the money spent on noncombusted fossil fuels
| funds climate change denial just as much as the burned
| stuff does.
|
| Is it the carbon that's the problem or the groups that have
| prevented a carbon fee being enacted for decades that is
| the problem?
| roughly wrote:
| I think the core problem is that there's a whole raft of things
| that get bucketed under "environmentally friendly" - for
| example:
|
| - CO2 - Lifespan of materials - Ecological impact of material
| extraction/creation - Ecological impact of the materials
| themselves - Energy cost of transport/etc.
|
| In this case, plastic is concerning because of the lifespan of
| the materials and the ecological impact of the materials - it
| may be energetically cheaper to produce & transport a plastic
| bag as opposed to a paper bag, but presumably the paper bag
| degrades faster and with fewer side effects.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Plastic that is recycled or even incinerated to produce
| energy is often better than the alternatives. There are many
| environmental problems much bigger than plastic that ends up
| in landfills. I always thought that the problems with straws
| in particular was that a disproportionate amount ended up in
| the oceans. But even then I still suspect that it just was a
| way to distract people who care from the real problem of
| climate change so that the oil companies can make more money
| a bit longer.
|
| Edit: no, I didn't read the article before I commented. I did
| now. I live in Sweden and put all our plastics in the recycle
| bin (one specifically for plastics). They are building better
| and bigger sorting and recycling facilities for plastic, but
| I think about 80% still is incinerated. Which of course
| releases greenhouse gases. But the plastic we throw away in a
| week corresponds to less CO2 than one trip back and fourth to
| work for my wife in our Prius.
| pg314 wrote:
| > but has imposed huge and everyday annoyances on everyone
|
| Not on everyone. I can't remember the last time I used a straw,
| I manage to drink from a glass or a cup just fine. Is it really
| a _huge_ annoyance for you? I understand that for some people
| (e.g. people with Parkinson 's or a broken jaw) straws are a
| necessity, but most people should be able to manage just fine
| without them.
|
| It's true that there are bigger contributors to plastic
| pollution, but it's hard to argue that plastic straws in the
| oceans or nature are a good thing.
| brian-armstrong wrote:
| Nobody's forcing you to drink from a straw if you don't want
| to. Chill.
| munk-a wrote:
| In a lot of transactions straws are handed out regardless
| of the customer's desire - ditto for plastic cutlery with
| takeout/delivery.
|
| For individual businesses the math is against conservatism.
| Failing to deliver cutlery and getting massive complaints
| (especially if they lead to politically charged boycotts)
| is the second most expensive option - the most expensive
| option is forcing customers to state their preference (and
| baked in preferences like those submitted by UberEats are
| small check boxes that users don't see and so restaurants
| often ignore). The cheapest option is probably just to put
| a straw jar somewhere on the counter, but then you'll tend
| to get complaints from employees/franchise owners about
| theft - while that theft is rare and inexpensive, it is
| very visible.
| Uehreka wrote:
| >handed out regardless of the customer's desire
|
| This, but for paper receipts! It blows my mind that the
| default everywhere I go is to print a receipt, then ask
| me if I want it. I never do. I am not expensing these two
| slices of pizza. I will not need to deduct this bottle of
| shampoo when I file my taxes.
|
| And then the merchant prints a receipt for themself! As
| if the computer that printed the receipt couldn't just
| _save a record of the purchase to a database_!
|
| The miles and miles of receipts that probably get printed
| and then thrown away probably adds up to something
| nontrivial, it'd be such an easy win to only print
| receipts on request.
| cortesoft wrote:
| We could play this game with almost every product... I am
| sure there are many things that you use and like to use that
| I never use, but it isn't fair for me to just say, "Well it
| isn't important to me so that means it isn't important to
| anyone". Almost every product we produce, people could
| 'manage just fine' without... we can always just point to a
| time before the thing was invented and say, "Look, people
| managed just fine without computers... they aren't a
| necessity, let's not waste resources making them" Unless a
| product has outsized environmental costs relative to other
| luxury items, I don't think we should get in the habit of
| having governments pick and choose which items are
| 'necessity' or 'luxury'.
|
| If we are concerned about plastic waste, let's put a general
| tax on plastics to reduce their consumption across the board
| and let the market decide how to do that reduction, instead
| of picking and choosing which plastic products to ban.
|
| While I don't think people need to justify using straws, I
| will go ahead and say straws are very important to me. I like
| cold drinks with ice in them, but I have cold sensitive teeth
| that hurt when I drink from a cup with ice and no straw. It
| is way easier to drink in a car with a cup, lid, and straw.
|
| I simply prefer using a straw. Do you want to go through a
| similar exercise where you justify every single one of your
| consumption practices?
| munk-a wrote:
| If you've used them before - how do the sippy cups tend to
| work for you? I've always been curious how they are for
| folks with sensitive teeth.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| The straw event was not organic.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| > the war on plastic straws has been a huge step back
|
| I always find it funny when they give me a huge plastic cup
| with a plastic lid and then a paper straw. If straws are that
| big of a problem, get sippy cup style lids and skip all straws.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Starbucks did this, and then people realized that the sippy
| cup style lids were thicker (to maintain the structure of the
| sippy part) and actually used more plastic than the old
| straw/top combo.
|
| Starbucks said that the new plastic lids were more easily
| recycled because they were larger than straws (which aren't
| normally picked up by recycling machines) so it was still a
| net positive. But this goes back to the articles point of
| "its plastic, and its probably not going to get recycled
| anyway"
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/23/starbucks-s.
| ..
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| > bad wrap
|
| Nice.
|
| Focusing on plastic bags and straws is such a transparent
| "something just be done: this is a thing: it must be done"
| response.
|
| 90% of the time, the plastic bag in question is filled with
| products packed in plastic[1] and half the time, the straw is
| stuck into a clear plastic cup to show off the frappuccino.
|
| [1]: Fruit and veg aside, why am I expected to buy a new spray
| bottle for every half litre of kitchen cleaner, say? Why can't
| I just buy one bottle and spray and then some kind of refill?
| floren wrote:
| > Fruit and veg aside, why am I expected to buy a new spray
| bottle for every half litre of kitchen cleaner, say? Why
| can't I just buy one bottle and spray and then some kind of
| refill?
|
| There's a company (whose name escapes me at the moment) which
| appears to be aiming for exactly this and is advertising all
| over the streaming services I watch. Now, clearly their ads
| aren't doing their job since I can't remember the name, but
| it's out there.
|
| More prosaically, I've been using the same Dawn dish soap
| bottle for months now because I bought a giant jug of dish
| soap at Costco and just refill the little one as needed. I
| assume it'll be less waste at the end... I just wish the big
| jug was made out of glass or aluminum instead of plastic.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Right, but the default position is just small packs in
| disposable containers. As long as you have to make
| substantial efforts to so otherwise, like finding a special
| company or paying for Costco (and getting there, who lives
| in walking or cycling distance of one?), it will remain
| what 99.5% of people do.
|
| And it's not even an unreasonable position for those
| people. Making an enormous effort to just find a bottle of
| soap is not sustainable.
| jopsen wrote:
| > but the war on plastic straws has been a huge step back
|
| Yeah, the straw is a prime example of bike-shedding.
|
| So much talk and energy spent on something so unimportant.
|
| Everybody can have an opinion about straws.
|
| Worse it makes reasonable people argue against what is intended
| to be regulation to save the environment. Thus, fracturing what
| should otherwise be a strong public opinion that we can and
| must protect the environment.
| jnmandal wrote:
| Yes, the US is a country that cannot process its own waste so it
| ships it overseas just to be rid of it. The solution is not to
| raise money and send it to the Philippines to build landfills.
| The solution is to actually recycle plastic, build circular
| supply chains, and use biodegradable materials as much as
| possible.
|
| If humans are to stay on this planet, in the long term we cannot
| just keep piling up garbage in landfills and building on top of
| it. Eventually, in hundreds or thousands of years we will have to
| remediate that land. Its going to be a lot better if we just make
| our waste as recyclable as possible in the first place.
|
| The author is recommending a half measure based on the assumption
| that the US cannot fix its own problems. They are also implying a
| false equivalency: banning single use plastics is not the same as
| recycling plastic. A more equivalent comparison might be the
| tradeoffs between plastic bottles for soda, water, or oils and
| glass or metal containers. It is also true that plastic straws
| are a much smaller problem then other usages of plastic such as
| bottles or event fishing gear and even bags.
|
| Yet there is nothing inherently wrong with reducing plastic
| usage. Doing so is smart and will be important for the health and
| well being of future generations -- human and nonhuman -- of life
| on earth.
| kube-system wrote:
| Plastic recycling is simply not very practical in the current
| day. Solving that problem is certainly something we should
| strive for, but plastic isn't going anywhere any time soon. We
| need something to do with it _today_ and the most
| environmentally friendly thing to do is to landfill it. If at
| some point in the future we have a good solution to recycle it,
| we 'll know where to find it. But if we keep dumping it in the
| ocean we'll probably cause other disasters before we'd ever run
| out of empty space.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > If humans are to stay on this planet, in the long term we
| cannot just keep piling up garbage in landfills and building on
| top of it. Eventually, in hundreds or thousands of years we
| will have to remediate that land. Its going to be a lot better
| if we just make our waste as recyclable as possible in the
| first place.
|
| Landfill space is not the issue at all. Landfills do not take
| up that much physical space, and we have plenty of empty space
| to use.
|
| The issue is around the greenhouse gases released creating all
| of those disposable products and the resources going into their
| production.
|
| If it was just landfill space, we would be totally fine.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Also...
|
| > Eventually, in hundreds or thousands of years we will have
| to remediate that land.
|
| Over that time scale the land automatically remediates
| itself. There's a hill in Rome made of a big pile of Roman
| garbage. The hill is more useful than the pots were.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Boston as well, iirc. And parts of Chicago (a city that was
| built ontop of an actual swamp)
| robonerd wrote:
| Related; In mid 19th century, Entire neighborhoods of
| Chicago were lifted up on jackscrews to raise the street
| above the swamp:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
| dvtrn wrote:
| Yep! I love my city for a lot of reasons but stuff like
| this are some of my favorite bits of Chicagoland trivia.
| solveit wrote:
| We were able to lift entire neighbourhoods in the 19th
| century but now we can't even build houses...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| We can still build them now. It's a question of whether
| we're allowed.
| bko wrote:
| > If humans are to stay on this planet, in the long term we
| cannot just keep piling up garbage in landfills and building on
| top of it. Eventually, in hundreds or thousands of years we
| will have to remediate that land. Its going to be a lot better
| if we just make our waste as recyclable as possible in the
| first place.
|
| From the article linked below:
|
| If you took all the trash that the United States would generate
| in 100 years and piled it up in the shape of the Great Pyramid,
| it would be about 32 times bigger. So the base of this trash
| pyramid would be about 4.5 miles by 4.5 miles, and the pyramid
| would rise almost 3 miles high.
|
| That's a big landfill but its just not true that its
| unsustainable. That's ignoring all the advancements we'll make
| over the 100 years to harvest that garbage or further increase
| efficiency of landfills.
|
| https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-scienc...
| anamax wrote:
| > So the base of this [100 years] trash pyramid would be
| about 4.5 miles by 4.5 miles, and the pyramid would rise
| almost 3 miles high.
|
| > That's a big landfill but its just not true that its
| unsustainable.
|
| That is NOT a big landfill. That volume could be easily
| hidden in all but a couple of US states.
|
| Moreover, it is a concentrated supply of many useful
| materials. It might not be profitable to mine it today, but
| if the "earth is running out of resources" people are
| correct, it will be. (And, if they're not, generating trash
| isn't a problem.)
| bombcar wrote:
| > The biggest mining operation on Earth can be found in
| Germany. At the Garzweiler strip mine they remove the top
| ground layer to extract lignite. The total mining surface
| is a staggering 18,5 ml2 (48 km2) and several villages had
| to be moved for the mining operation.
|
| The trash pyramid is 100 cubic kilometers, that could fit
| in a few of the biggest open pit mines.
| antisthenes wrote:
| A Landfill would also generate a ton of usable energy in
| the form of landfill gas, which can either be used for
| heating, or concentrated/scrubbed and used as an equivalent
| of natural gas.
| alfor wrote:
| I think we are not in a position to judge what is reasonable to
| do over hundred or thousand of years with our current
| technological progression.
|
| Plastics where not really a thing 100 years ago. At our current
| progression I think we should avoid the big catastrophes
| (Nuclear war), push for developpement of poor places(get more
| genius) and advance technology as fast as we can.
|
| At this speed of advancement in less than 100 years I am sure
| we will have figure out something for the plastic we have
| generated meanwhile.
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _At this speed of advancement in less than 100 years I am
| sure we will have figure out something for the plastic we
| have generated meanwhile._
|
| The problem is that today's plastic, in _far_ less than 100
| years, is reasonably likely to be finely divided into small
| numbers of molecule sized chunks, and spread evenly
| throughout the entire biological systems of the planet. We
| find microplastic in ants in the middle of untouched
| forestland, because it spreads so well on the wind.
|
| > _...and advance technology as fast as we can._
|
| It's an interesting gamble, certainly - solving the problems
| created by our current technological development path by
| pushing further down that development path.
|
| It's just not one I expect to _work._ You don 't generally
| solve problems by "doing more of what made them in the first
| place."
| playpause wrote:
| Your implied plan (doing less of what made the problem in
| the first place) seems like more of a stretch to me. It
| would be nice, but I can't see many countries giving up
| plastic. It's too useful. I think focusing international
| collaboration efforts on better waste/pollution management
| (eg getting more waste plastic into properly managed
| landfills) seems a lot more plausible.
| Syonyk wrote:
| I may not have explicitly stated it in the parent
| comment, but it's quite explicit other places.
|
| Either a system is sustainable or it's not. If it is, it
| can continue forever. And, if it's not, _it won 't._ One
| way or another, it won't, though you can pick the method
| early on, and later, reality will force it on you. The
| history of civilization collapse is the history of this
| reality being forced on groups of people who thought it
| didn't apply to them.
|
| Plastics in their current form won't exist as new
| products in 1000 years (though the current stuff probably
| won't have broken down entirely). Either something far
| less vile and toxic to "all life" will have been found,
| or, more likely, industrial civilization will have done
| the usual "overshoot and collapse" thing, so we won't
| have the technology to make them in their current form
| then.
|
| None of that changes the fact that plastic are toxic to
| life _now_ - and, so, we ought not be using nearly as
| much of them. I don 't mind "durable plastics" quite as
| much, but the bulk of it is single use, and splitting out
| all our recycling, I'm regularly reminded of just how
| much plastic one cannot avoid, even when trying to
| minimize it.
|
| If the reality (which it probably is...) is that people
| won't stop doing anything until the external reality we
| live in forces their hand, the outcomes are almost always
| far worse than if we decide to stop doing those things
| earlier.
|
| Plastics are convenient, certainly. They're also a horrid
| biotoxin that has, quite literally, blanketed the planet
| in the form of microplastics. We have no idea what to do
| with the stuff, and burying it only works for so long
| (and if you're really careful to not let the bits and
| pieces leech into groundwater). But, I mean, at least you
| can get water without having to use a drinking fountain!
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _The solution is to actually recycle plastic, build circular
| supply chains, and use biodegradable materials as much as
| possible._
|
| This assumes that:
|
| (1) Plastic can actually be recycled. Unlike a lot of other
| materials, it degrades rather substantially every time you try,
| and plastic quality coming out of recycling isn't generally
| uniform enough to make anything more than the big, chunky
| "recycled plastic toys and benches" you'll occasionally see.
| More and more, it's evident that "plastic recycling" is a myth
| mostly funded by plastic producers and crew, who wish to have
| it be seen as "not the terror it actually is." Hard on profits,
| you know, if people don't like your product. The Guardian has
| done some great work on the truths behind plastic recycling,
| and they're not pretty. That's _before_ you get into the
| biological impacts of microplastics on "literally everything
| on the planet that's alive."
|
| And, (2) that "biodegradable materials" actually do that in
| realistic end of life conditions. They don't. People date
| landfill digs by reading the headlines on the newspapers that
| are "slightly yellowed compared to when they were buried."
|
| Treating plastic as the life-toxic sludge it is would be a far
| better start. At least with metal recycling, we know it's
| actually being put back into a smelter for recycling, and that
| it uses far less energy than the original materials (though
| "pure circular" with most metals is still a problem as they
| just dilute the various alloys down with virgin metal enough to
| make the additives not a problem in current systems).
|
| "Oh, it's fine, it's recycled!" leads to far more plastic use
| than "No, we literally can't do anything with it, the best we
| can do is go burn it to offset coal use" (which is what my
| local area does with plastic, as it seems to have the best
| impact for the least cost, and the burn temperature is
| _probably_ hot enough to decompose all the nasties...).
| balaji1 wrote:
| > You must reduce the amount of plastic shipped overseas by
| putting it in the regular garbage instead of the recycle bin.
|
| That's the reality. Why does the US/California make it seem
| like recycling is a magic trick to save the planet?
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _Why does the US /California make it seem like recycling
| is a magic trick to save the planet?_
|
| Because it's the most profitable step of the Reduce, Reuse,
| Recycle, [some people add other entries] chain, so it's in
| their interests to pretend the other steps don't exist.
|
| If I buy a bottle of water packed in plastic and don't
| worry about it because I assume it's recyclable and
| therefore "of zero net impact" (also not true, but implied
| by most of the standard recycling glossy brochures), I've
| helped their profits.
|
| If I bring my own water with me, or use a water fountain or
| something, I've not contributed to growing the profits of
| all the companies in the chain of extracting oil from the
| ground, processing it into various precursors, making it
| into a cheap, flimsy plastic, pumping water out of the
| ground to fill that bottle, trucking it across the roads
| built of oil with fuel built of oil, and selling it to
| someone, _then_ also the profits of dealing with the waste
| plastic (trash, recycling, whatever)!
|
| Reduce (don't buy stuff in the first place) and Reuse
| (finding ways to have things be not-single-use) just don't
| have nearly the profit chain.
|
| Pay attention to just how much rhetoric about
| climate/trash/etc boils down to, "We can consume our way
| out of problems caused by overconsumption." There are no
| shortage of companies happy to sell you "green" versions of
| whatever you might have otherwise bought - but very few
| people are willing to ask the question, "Should you have
| bought it in the first place?"
| osdoorp wrote:
| "We can consume our way out of problems caused by
| overconsumption." -- well said
| robonerd wrote:
| Many kinds of plastics can't be recycled at all, not even
| downcycled. Thermoset plastics particularly, which includes
| almost everything made out of fiberglass (glass fibers in
| thermoset plastic matrix.) That stuff either gets thrown into
| a landfill, or ground up and burnt.
| Syonyk wrote:
| That most of it burns is part of why "go burn it to offset
| coal" came out so well in some of the lifecycle analysis
| for end of life program I'm familiar with:
|
| https://www.hefty.com/sites/default/files/2021-01/Hefty-
| Ener...
|
| Instead of having to pay to sort and process, you just
| grind it up and mix it in with the coal (or heave the bags
| in, I'm not sure as to the actual feed mechanism though I
| keep meaning to see if I can get a tour).
|
| I'm not _actually_ in the program area, but I know where to
| drop my bags of plastic to get them into the program (one
| of the recycling companies in the area of the program
| handles it, and I 'm over there often enough that I'll toss
| a few of the bags in the back of the car if I'm going that
| way).
| munk-a wrote:
| An alternative solution, that this article weirdly doesn't
| touch on, is that the US could also shift policy to stop
| exporting recycling material. It'd be nice to encourage
| expanded recycling domestically but if that fails and if ~80%
| of exported material is going to end up improperly dumped then
| it'd be far more reasonable to just make sure it's _properly_
| dumped in the US.
|
| Make the export of detritus illegal, send the excess to dumps,
| and if Americans deem this offensive then they can legislate
| additional subsidies for domestic recycling (even potentially
| becoming a net importer of detritus!).
| barbazoo wrote:
| > If you don't know the exact location where your plastic is
| recycled, throw it in the regular garbage instead.
|
| Very interesting points they are raising. I reached out to
| https://recyclebc.ca to find out more about my local recycling
| org but from what I can find on their website almost all of the
| end product ends up in BC, Canada or at least North America. Same
| for the processing which seems to be local. I'll update with what
| I can find out and correct me if I'm wrong but those people
| saying everything gets shipped to Asia and dumped into the ocean
| aren't right, at least not universally. Here in BC at least that
| doesn't seem to be the case at all. If that's the case I'd really
| like to know why other places in first world countries aren't
| doing the same and I'd definitely consider the US a first world
| country.
| mattacular wrote:
| Interesting but what exactly is the point of this and who is it
| for? The continued focus on something as myopic as drinking
| straws and proposed "solutions" to the straw problem that depend
| on individual choices is actually insane given the point we are
| at in the battle against climate catastrophe.
| JoshGlazebrook wrote:
| I don't think the answer is paper straws and I personally dislike
| them. They turn slimy from your saliva and usually collapse on
| themselves before you're done with using it. I normally end up
| taking multiple just to replace them halfway through drinking.
|
| More companies could go in the direction Starbucks has gone,
| switching their iced drink cups to "sippy cup" lids to eliminate
| the need for straws while maintaining a lid all together. But
| that begs the question, is the sippy cup top more plastic than
| just a straw and the old lid?
|
| Or why not just use the compostable plastic straws that are
| readily available rather than trying so hard to make your company
| look "green" by saving the turtles from straws that never end up
| in the ocean in the first place.
|
| Seriously, fuck paper straws. They're up there with coke
| freestyle machines. Absolute trash.
| telotortium wrote:
| Compostable plastics like polylactic acid (PLA) don't decompose
| at room temperature, but only in industrial composters at 60 C:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid#:~:text=degrad...
| ..
| floren wrote:
| I recently went to a restaurant where the straws were literally
| straw (or some similar plant stem). They looked nice, held up
| fine, and had the pleasant taste I associate with wheat straw.
| chrisdhal wrote:
| I was with you until the freestyle machine part, they're
| awesome. Seriously, what's wrong with them? It doesn't prevent
| you from getting the regular things.
|
| I too, hate the paper straws. They are terrible. The "no
| straws" campaign is just a feel good thing and really does
| little.
| JoshGlazebrook wrote:
| I just find the consistency to be all over the place from
| machine to machine. Regular coke never tastes like coke. It's
| fine if you like adding lime/flavorings/etc but just getting
| the standard flavor of something is just always off.
| throwaway48375 wrote:
| My only complaints about the freestyle machines are that they
| are slower to use and sometimes at busy locations it can
| create a bottleneck. The second is that it is harder to be
| precise with the fill level because there is significant
| latency on the dispense button. Overall I am ambivalent
| towards them.
| hammock wrote:
| Did you read the article?
| vel0city wrote:
| Hey now, I like Freestyle machines. Where else am I going to
| find Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero, Raspberry Peach Mellow Yellow,
| and Fuze Lemon Tea all on the same fountain?
| Fricken wrote:
| I have a friend who is a quadruple amputee. For him straws are
| pretty good. For the rest of us, the solution to plastic straws
| is not straws. They aren't necessary.
|
| Of course, it's all bike shedding anyhow. The real problems are
| big and complex and overwhelming, so we argue about straws
| instead.
| andjd wrote:
| The author is conflating two separate issues.
|
| Their main point is at the end:
|
| > Banning plastic straws is stupid.
|
| They're probably right that throwing out plastic straws is better
| than throwing them in the recycling, assuming that plastic straws
| can't be efficiently recycled. That being said, many US recycling
| utilities typically sort the recycling on shore, and plastics
| that are too small to be efficiently identified and recycled
| (such as straws and loose bottle caps) will just be sent to the
| landfill regardless. How recycling is processed differs a lot
| across the country, so it's hard to make generalizations.
|
| But that doesn't support their final conclusion about whether
| plastic straws should be banned. The author doesn't give a
| reason, but implicitly that they think paper straws suck, and
| must suck. Which a lot of the ones today do. But it's an odd hill
| to die on, given that basically all straws before 1960 were made
| of paper. Their ire should probably be directed at the
| establishments they frequent for buying cheap and terrible paper
| straws instead of spending a bit more to get good quality paper
| straws. Such companies probably want to get you pissed off by
| paper straws to demand that your government remind the ban so
| they can go back to using cheaper plastic straws.
| legitster wrote:
| > Their ire should probably be directed at the establishments
| they frequent for buying cheap and terrible paper straws
| instead of spending a bit more to get good quality paper straws
|
| In our area, biodegradable plastic straws were already a
| popular option but the plastic ban included them.
| playpause wrote:
| > spending a bit more to get good quality paper straws
|
| I am yet to see one of these
| anamax wrote:
| > But it's an odd hill to die on, given that basically all
| straws before 1960 were made of paper.
|
| The fact that all pre-1960 straws were paper does not imply
| that paper straws, let alone paper straws today, do not suck.
| munk-a wrote:
| Ivory combs are pretty sweet apparently, they're a lot nicer
| to use than wooden or plastic combs... I'm not seeing much
| outrage over the fact that we're being forced not to use them
| in the modern world.
|
| People adjust - paper straws are servicable for most
| purposes, for things like bubble tea reusable straws are a
| reasonable investment (if you're having it often).
| anamax wrote:
| > People adjust - paper straws are servicable for most
| purposes
|
| What purposes are "most purposes"? They don't work for
| shakes, they don't work for anything that takes more than a
| minute, etc.
|
| Given a choice, people pick plastic straws. Who are you to
| say that plastic straws aren't better?
| munk-a wrote:
| As I mentioned in a sibling comment (specifically talking
| about bubble tea) metal straws are an excellent and,
| generally, superior alternative.
|
| People don't pick plastic straws - companies pick plastic
| straws and they stir up anti-environmental outrage to
| reinforce their fiscally based decision.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| Obligatory reminder of the lady who tripped and died by
| impaling her eyeball on her metal straw.
| thebean11 wrote:
| > for things like bubble tea reusable straws are a
| reasonable investment
|
| You're suggesting people bring their own straws to bubble
| tea? That's very impractical.
| munk-a wrote:
| I don't see why - we've managed it fine and I've got a
| terrible memory. I've got a messanger bag and usually
| just keep a metal straw in it for whenever we want some.
|
| A fair number of people carry around reusable coffee
| travel mugs and those are far more of a pain in terms of
| size and weight.
|
| I'd clarify, I'm living in Canada so there might be some
| cultural differences here.
| mpalczewski wrote:
| coffee is an everyday thing for many people.
|
| Bubble tea is a 1-4 times a year thing for me. I prefer
| not to carry a bag.
|
| carrying around a straw is less practical than just not
| having bubble tea.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think that's totally reasonable yea - reusable items
| aren't environmentally sane for infrequent purchases - if
| you drink coffee a few times a year it'd be silly to get
| a travel mug, similar to bubble tea straws. So, on the
| other hand, if the straw came with a 5cent disposal fee
| it probably wouldn't significantly impact your purchase.
| thebean11 wrote:
| So you always have your messenger bag on you? Or you
| always know ahead of time that you're going to bubble tea
| and bring your messenger bag?
|
| What do you do after you use it? Do you wash it after use
| or put it in your bag dirty to wash later? Not trying to
| argue but surprised people actually go through the
| trouble.
|
| > A fair number of people carry around reusable coffee
| travel mugs
|
| Yeah but that's usually in order to carry coffee they
| made at home. Not in case they decide to visit a coffee
| shop during the day.
|
| I live in NYC and I'm not sure most people who are
| getting bubble tea knew they were going to get bubble tea
| when leaving their home.
| munk-a wrote:
| I indeed always have my messenger bag[1] on me - after
| using it, assuming I'm not carrying the drink container
| home with me (or to someplace I can easily rinse it) I'll
| usually wrap it in a paper napkin - that's pretty rare
| though, usually by the time I can dispose of the drinking
| vessel I'm able to wash the straw out.
|
| Reusable bubble tea straws are also small enough that
| they'll easily fit in most purses - the length might be a
| bit too much for clutches but if your purse is big enough
| for a phone chances are the bubble tea straw will fit
| just fine.
|
| 1. Technically it's a bag of holding
| https://gadgetsin.com/the-bag-of-holding-messenger-
| bag.htm
| ioseph wrote:
| How is carrying a straw (even a heavy stainless steel
| one) in any way shape or form impractical?
| serf wrote:
| I don't know why I have to explain this.
|
| It's not in any way/shape/form more practical to carry
| more things with me when the alternative is that someone
| hands me a disposable version of the thing at time of
| purchase.
|
| Not everyone carries a bag with them -- and even if every
| single person on earth had a bag it'd STILL be more
| inconvenient for those people to waste cargo space in the
| bag with a straw when the alternative of being given a
| disposable one at time of purchase is available.
|
| I feel like there is a misunderstanding of the word
| 'impractical' here.
|
| Carrying your own straws is a lot of things -- wise,
| prepared, ethically-conscious, whatever -- it won't ever
| be practical ( practical : of or concerned with the
| actual doing or use of something rather than with theory
| and ideas. ) until the much more convenient option of
| being given a disposable straw at purchase time and
| trashing it at the end of use is no longer available to
| choose.
| thebean11 wrote:
| - You'd have to know you are getting bubble tea before
| you leave your apartment (or always carry a metal straw)
|
| - It's deeper than most pockets, and can poke and
| potentially hurt you when bending over, so you pretty
| much need a bag (or use a shorter straw that will get
| lost in your drink).
|
| - You need to somehow clean and dry it after use, and put
| it back in your bag
| seadan83 wrote:
| The straw is not the main point of the article but to
| demonstrate a larger point that plastics are better off in a
| landfil (according to the article).. discussing straws in
| specific (the title is clickbait), is missing the point
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