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crackeddryice t1_j31wty2 wrote

Well designed plastic items can last a long time. My plastic garbage bin sits outside all year long--100F to 0F--and it's fine after 24 years.

I'm sure plastic things that break are either poorly designed for their purpose, or designed to some minimum spec that is expected by the designer to break after so much time or use.

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Walkop t1_j32mqlk wrote

Plastic is actually an incredible material, probably the greatest material invention of our time; it just so happens that it's also very, very easy to make it into cheap crap. Quality plastic has very very good characteristics.

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Mr_K_2u t1_j344dke wrote

Also easy for it to break down to a micro level and soon kill us all or do nothing at all. IDR if we ever found out what micro plastics do to us.

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Walkop t1_j34mzau wrote

Especially for cheap crap.

Microplastics would not be a big deal at all if we didn't turn plastic into a one time use product that fills the streets with untold millions of tons of garbage littered across the surface of the globe.

There's nothing wrong with plastic itself. It's the blatant and disgusting misuse of it that's the problem.

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oakteaphone t1_j3490fi wrote

>IDR if we ever found out what micro plastics do to us.

"Found" out?

We're actively finding out.

Some microplastics reduce sperm count and testosterone levels, though!

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Mr_K_2u t1_j34i7oi wrote

As in the actual totality of the affect. I remember being told what you said but I never looked into it.

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oragamihawk t1_j35rgrz wrote

CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastic) is becoming really common in automotive and aerospace

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UnfitRadish t1_j34lj35 wrote

That's wild. Our trash bins are stored outside in the sun year round and definitely don't make it that long. In the 25 years we've live in our house, they've been replaced twice and had to have the lids replaced roughly 7 or 8 times. The lids always become brittle much quicker than the rest. I assume because it's sitting flat and taking sunlight from sun up to sun down. They're nice bins, but the California heat and sun can be intense. Temperature range for us is 30 degrees to 115 degrees Fahrenheit. I will say the older ones we had were much more sturdy and lasted longer. They were round with really thick plastic and sort of domed lid. So nothing ever say on top and they never broke. The newer ones are identical to this and the lids are just a bit too thin.

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ent_bomb t1_j35rkqj wrote

The manufacturer may have cheaped out and not used a plastic with a UV stabilizer, so even a thicker lid would become brittle with sun exposure.

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Occhrome t1_j33n154 wrote

Hmm that’s true. Those lifetime brand chairs and tables will last forever.

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MadCybertist t1_j326l8s wrote

Where do you live that it gets down to negative 100F and only up to 0F? That sucks.

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HikeyBoi t1_j3355x7 wrote

It is a common typing convention to use two hyphens in place of an em dash if that does not come standard on the keyboard. Word processing software will sometimes correct two hyphens into an em dash. That is how I type them at work.

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MadCybertist t1_j33a9mt wrote

I mean, I get the em dash thing... but that doesn't really have anything to do with my comment. Unless I'm missing something.

There is a - in front of 100F making it negative 100F to 0F. Then -- comes after the 0F separating the temps and then finishing their sentence with 'and'.

​

Apparently Reddit doesn't like jokes - but what they wrote is negative 100F to 0F. Which is why I made my joke.

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HikeyBoi t1_j33b4ew wrote

The commenter attempted to use two em dashes kind of like parentheses for a quick informative aside.

If your comment was an attempt at humor, I recommend entertaining only yourself next time. Reddit has become clogged with unfunny halfwitted quips that add nothing to the user experience other than having to wade through them all for the good stuff.

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dakta t1_j359kyl wrote

For pedantry, those are hyphen/minus characters. The widths of hyphen/minus, en dash, and em dash are different. They're three completely different characters, different Unicode code points and everything:

- hyphen/minus
\– en dash
\— em dash

And you can get to them easily from the iOS keyboard by long pressing on hyphen/minus.

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Allidoischill420 t1_j32bdpl wrote

>--and

It's a double negative, 100 and -0

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HikeyBoi t1_j335d2t wrote

Some people are used to typing em dashes by using two hyphens since common word processing software will autocorrect two hyphens into an em dash

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