Submitted by noob_tube03 t3_11f6ax0 in CambridgeMA
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jahymvi wrote
Almost no plastic waste in the oceans is actually from the US, right? I believe the Phillipines are the biggest contributor. I don't know if e.g. Amazon's operations are the right target here either.
noob_tube03 OP t1_jahzw36 wrote
But what is congress supposed to do about the Philippines? There is no reason we should say "those guys are worse so we don't need to do anything". Microplastics are everywhere, and companies like Amazon generates billions of tons of plastic every year, most of it single use. It's certainly going to help the planet much more to hold Amazon accountable than for you to stop using a plastic straw
SheeEttin t1_jai3qtl wrote
https://theoceancleanup.com/sources/
Mostly developing countries, China, and India.
But that's only for the oceans. The US puts its plastic waste in landfills instead. And yes, large-scale uses like shipping material is far more than what you use as an individual. Any time I get a pallet of something at work, I have to throw out so much plastic foam. At least we're the end consumer and not repacking it with new material to be shipped out again.
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jaie6pn wrote
Yeah, I only bring up oceans because OP specifically mentions them as the reason plastic production is bad in their letter.
Re. plastic foam, it's interesting: because it's so light, I'm guessing relatively little material is used in manufacturing what feels like so much wasted stuff. It's difficult for me at least to trust my intuitions about what policies are good for the environment: see the recent study showing that disposable K-cups use less energy than making coffee from scratch.
desicant t1_jaiu9g9 wrote
This thing with the energy component is that plastic may take less energy to produce but the pollution produced (the plastic itself) is worse than the energy component.
But again - we shouldn't be focusing on individual choices here. Plastic pollution (and energy waste) are driven by commercial and industrial practices not individual ones.
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jaivu8d wrote
> the pollution produced (the plastic itself) is worse than the energy component.
Worse on what axis? If the waste is handled appropriately, I don't see how it inherently causes harm independent of the energy and resources used in its creation .
> we shouldn't be focusing on individual choices here.
I'm not: I'm saying that theres reason not to blindly trust individual intuition as to what societal changes will actually help the environment.
desicant t1_jaixp14 wrote
It's just worse pollution.
Plastics don't biodegrade but instead fragment - leading to microplastics in the water, soil, and our insides. Plastics can also leach chemicals into the environment that are estrogen mimics or endocrine disruptors. These can cause developmental issues and cancer in humans and other life.
There is no way to ensure plastics are "handled appropriately" in the sense that the only alternative to waste burial is incineration - which costs more energy and requires gas and particulate scrubbers to remove the (now incinerated) pollution.
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jaiyiuq wrote
Right, I wholeheartedly agree that plastics are bad. But to show that they are worse, you need to compare them to the alternatives. My point is that it's so easy to point to all the harns you enumerate, and say "plastics bad! We should ban disposable plastic coffee cups!" when it's entirely possible that such a policy would cause harm to the environment on net.
desicant t1_jaiz5mx wrote
The example you used was k cups versus just grinding the beans.
Just grind the beans and minimize the plastic waste.
We don't actually need complete information to avoid obvious problems.
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jaj0g26 wrote
You are asserting that the harm from a K-cup's worth of plastic waste exceeds the harms of a cup of coffee's worth of energy. That is not at all self-evident.
desicant t1_jaj3is3 wrote
???
Yes. I am asserting that making more plastic (which doesn't break down, makes microplastics, and leaches endocrine disruptors into environmen) is bad compared to not making more plastic.
I don't think we have to wait until a final tally of the global chain of production, distribution, and consumption is performed to n-th levels of accuracy to take reasonable steps towards harm reduction.
And, just to be clear, it isn't k cups that matter - but the actions of corporations and their intransigence against removing plastic from their business model.
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jaj6jr6 wrote
You just aren't listening. Of course those things are bad. You haven't shown any evidence that they are worse: any comparison of the harms of additional plastic to the harms of additional energy use.
Unless you are asserting that there is no harm from energy use which could possibly be as bad as the harm from plastic, which is prima facie ludicrous.
desicant t1_jakbodt wrote
Right, so I am listening I just think I wasn't being clear in my response.
I'm rejecting your premise because it is flawed, specifically it commits the McNamara fallacy. This fallacy occurs when you have a complex or ill-defined situation (like "harm") and you've measured one part of it (CO2) and are ignoring the unmeasured parts (plastic pollution)
To be precise to your argument - the research you mention doesn't measure "harm" it only measures energy/CO2 per cup of coffee consumed. Plastic pollution and the impact it has on health and wellness can't be measured using energy/CO2.
Note that when the k cup research was written up by the Washington Post they actually had to post a correction and a quote from the Ocean Conservancy pointing this out. Essentially warning people to not over interpret from the limited data, specifically because the original research failed to take into account plastic pollution and what offsets that may have on health outside of CO2 production.
Now - I challenge you to consider that we don't actually need to measure "harm" in this case because we don't need to find the optimal solution to find a solution that mitigates harm. Indeed, demanding that level of evidence is similar to tobacco companies claiming that no one's ever 'proved' that smoking causes cancer.
Instead consider that with increasing energy production coming from renewable resources and carbon sequestration technologies focusing on atmospheric CO2 capture it seems like these concerns can be addressed using near term scalable technologies.
Conversely, plastics and microplastics, get mixed into the soil, water, and biological tissues in ways that make it hard, if not impossible, to separate out. There is no near term technology that can sort microplastics from soil. It presents a permanent problem. And, unlike the shift in energy production towards renewables, plastics are only being produced in ever greater abundances.
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jakbykg wrote
Ok, I understand what you're saying here. I appreciate the really in-depth response! I'm not sure I agree 100%, but I'm at least convinced that you have really good reasons for your position.
desicant t1_jakcpza wrote
Thanks for taking the time to have this conversation with me.
This has helped me think more clearly about my assumptions as well.
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jamdqu5 wrote
It seems like this logic would also rule out e.g. current electric vehicles, which cause permanent environmental damage in the name of reducing emissions.
desicant t1_jan32td wrote
Like, hypothetically, you have to get a car - it's not a choice - you only get to choose what kind and you can't wait for things to change or improve?
And, to be clear, if you want to 'reduce emissions' that is going to be something separate from 'rare earth mining and slave labor' - so it will be hard to compare directly.
But you could apply a heuristic that considers the long term consequences of one versus the other. The gas powered vehicle relies on gas industry infrastructure after all, and so buying a gas powered car reinvests in that infrastructure. And EVs, in contrast, do not - the purchase of an EV invests in the development of a non-carbon based energy system. So both have long term consequences, it's kind of a wash.
But ultimately how do you know if reduced emissions would offset the impact of rare earth mining? It's terribly difficult to see how that could even be measured, let alone evaluated. And because of the absence of any obvious choice it would probably just come down to making a personal, subjective, choice.
Like this "logic" is just trying to reason with limited information - and sometimes, as individuals, we must make choices before we have all the information we would like. Like we should definitely do more research, get more information, get better batteries, organize labor, de-colonize the countries being exploited by extraction industries - but those are long term projects that, if you have to buy a car to get to work tomorrow, aren't really going to help.
bostonguy2004 t1_jameyqx wrote
Do you have a link to that study? That doesn't make any sense.
Also, what about the hot water running through the plastic k-cup and contaminating the coffee with endocrine disruptions and nasty flavors?
This study showing lots of endocrine disruptors, including BPA, in plastic capsule coffee is pretty clear:
"Benzophenone was the most frequently detected estrogenic chemical in capsule coffee (mean concentration ± SD: 20.37 ± 47.07 ng/mL, n = 6), followed by bisphenol A (BPA, 0.31 ± 0.71, n = 4), dibutyl phthalate (1.41 ± 3.58, n = 3), 4-nonylphenol (0.67 ± 1.82, n = 3) and bisphenol F (BPF, 0.49 ± 1.54, n = 2). BPA and BPF were each detected in 3 French press coffee samples (0.29 ± 0.58 and 0.85 ± 1.75 ng/mL, respectively).
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7451997/
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jamk641 wrote
bostonguy2004 t1_jamqb5g wrote
Never heard of that website?
And it's not peer-reviewed scientific research, just a news article, so not super reliable, right?
Opposite_Match5303 t1_jamqs90 wrote
The authors link to the peer-reviewed full study in the article, this is just the readable version https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.12487
This was picked up by major news outlets (WaPo most notably) when it came out.
bostonguy2004 t1_jamrafx wrote
Thanks for sharing.
It shows that French Press was actually less wasteful than capsule coffee, so not so clear cut as you claimed.
bostonguy2004 t1_jamec4d wrote
Not exactly, and it's a much larger problem than just plastic in waterways.
Most plastic waste, such as that from from plastic bottles and bags, is not recycled and is either incinerated like at the huge incinerator up in Saugus, or at 10+ other incinerators across Massachusetts, or put in landfills.
When you burn plastic, its releases all kinds of toxic chemicals into ghe air and water, which have severe health impacts (Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187802961630158X ).
"The hazardous brominated compounds act as carcinogens and mutagens. Dioxins settle on the crops and in our waterways where they eventually enter into our food and hence the body system. These Dioxins are the lethal persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and its worst component, 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), commonly known as agent orange is a toxic compound which causes cancer and neurological damage, disrupts reproductive, thyroid and respiratory systems."
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