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Some scientists want to ban glitter, a microplastic that can contribute to contamination of the world's oceans:
It's sparkly, it's festive and some scientists want to see it swept from the face of the Earth.
Glitter should be banned, researcher Trisia Farrelly, a senior lecturer in environment and planning at Massey University in New Zealand, told CBS. The reason? Glitter is made of microplastic, a piece of plastic less than 0.19 inches (5 millimeters) in length. Specifically, glitter is made up of bits of a polymer called polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which goes by the trade name Mylar. And though it comes in all sizes, glitter is typically just a millimeter or so across, Live Science previously reported.
Microplastics make up a major proportion of ocean pollution. A 2014 study in the open-access journal PLOS ONE estimated that there are about 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic weighing a total of 268,940 tons (243,978 metric tons) floating in the world's seas. Microplastics made up 92.4 percent of the total count.
NOAA and Plymouth University pages on microplastics.
Also at NYT and National Geographic.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 03 2017, @11:12PM (9 children)
As for grocery bags, pick your poison:
Paper, much more material used to carry the same groceries. Pound per pound paper is more environmentally friendly than plastic, but when you consider the multiple of paper required to carry the same groceries, it's a huge loser.
Thin plastic, horrid looking wasteful appearing single-use bags - but massively efficient. You can actually use them two or three times each, if you care, and overall they're probably the least impactful option to the environment per grocery-year of totage.
Reusable bags: stylish, shows the user cares, theoretically you buy once and use forever, but in real life not so much. Sooner or later they require washing, repair (when is the last time your mom or wife fixed a bag with needle and thread?) and they do eventually wear out. And, when that happens, how many groceries have they carried, really? Not in an ideal world where the bag is used optimally until it is completely worn out, in the real world where bags get lost, forgotten, left out in the rain to rot, etc.? Stack up the equivalent thin plastic bags to carry the same amount of groceries and you're usually winning with thin plastic again.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @04:07AM
I've never had to wash or repair a reusable bag, and they hold way more groceries than plastic bags do. The only problem I have with them is remembering to bring them.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 04 2017, @11:01AM (6 children)
My wife chose the canvas bag option. It's been years now and they show no significant degradation. None lost or left to rot.
Of course, rotting = return to nature. What you really don't want is continuing to exist in more or less the same form after being discarded.
To be fair, if the disposable bags are recycled, the environmental impact is much lower.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 04 2017, @01:29PM (5 children)
If you are conscientious with the canvas bags, they can be better. Our #1 problem with the reusable bags is that they're not always handy - sometimes we get a $50 load of groceries, sometimes $400, and even if we have enough reusable bags to carry $400, are they all in the car that we took to the store that day? Did we remember to bring them all in when we started? Worse: my wife sells "designer" bags, so with the pyramid commission scheme on the price of those, you're looking at a whole other expense (good for the economy, I suppose, but the jet travel that the top level commission is paying for certainly is not good for the environment...)
The thing that really complicates the matter is that: single use recyclable can be better, not always, but in some cases it really is clearly better for the environment.
Now, glitter - that lacks an effective recycling channel, not even biodegradation.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 04 2017, @05:44PM (4 children)
It's not that uncommon that we have one or 2 "overflow" items that end up in plastic, but that's just a bag rather than a fistfull. It still comes out ahead.
As for glitter, it should probably use biodegradable starch based plastic as the backing.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 04 2017, @07:34PM (3 children)
Should, but I can already hear the moans: "oh, the good old glitter we used to have would just rinse right off, but this new stuff gets all gooey and sticks to everything..."
I dated a girl in the 1980s who wore sparkly makeup - I'm just now picturing those shiny little dots jamming up the liver capillaries of some fish, and the fish that eats its corpse, and the fish that eats that corpse... for the next 500 years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 04 2017, @09:40PM (2 children)
The breakdown actually takes a few months of exposure to the environment. Water won't turn it gummy.
Just add the glitter to horse feed then tell people you have a rare horn-less unicorn.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 04 2017, @10:37PM (1 child)
Breakdown of the starch based plastics, yes. Breakdown of the current mylar? I'm seeing somewhat believable references to the 350-600 year ranges.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 05 2017, @03:30AM
Yes, I meant of the starch based plastics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @12:56PM
> when is the last time your dad or husband fixed a bag with needle and thread?
FTFY