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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday June 20 2020, @05:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the have-your-cake dept.

Masks, visors, gloves or screens ... all are crucial accessories to keep COVID-19 at bay.

Other uses are manifold—from hairdressers using throwaway aprons to UN recommendations that airline food be distributed in blister packs to the bubble tents that allow some relatives to visit elderly and sick loved ones, touching them through a transparent plastic film.

Even California has had partially to lay aside its green credentials by dropping for two months a ban on single use plastic bags. In Saudi Arabia, some retail centres insist customers don wear-and-throw gloves.

Industry has been quick to highlight plastic's versatility. In March, one French plastics group stated that "without single use plastic you will no longer have wrapping to protect your food against germs."

In the long term, will fears over pandemics win out against fears over the environment?


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2020, @06:40PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2020, @06:40PM (#1010443)

    It isn't a choice between single use plastic or nothing. Nor, even single use plastic and re-usable glass and metal products. Before single use plastic exploded, there were alternative products to fit many of the niches plastic now holds. Plastic wrap replaced cellophane (which as its name suggests is made from cellulose [wood]). Plastic single use gloves (partially) replaced latex [milky plant sap based rubber] gloves. Plastic made from petroleum has a single property that has led to its popularity-- it is artificially cheap. If the true cost of environmental damage and the billions of subsidies to the petroleum industry were removed, plastic would cost significantly more (possibly no longer being price competitive to the non-pouting alternatives. It would be nice if we cut back on disposable products, in general, too, though.

    Using something that lasts forever for disposable products simply does not make sense.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2020, @07:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2020, @07:34PM (#1010447)

    You are almost correct other than the subsidies. 1 barrel of oil yields different amounts of gas, kerosene, etc.

    https://elsegundo.chevron.com/our-businesses/whats-in-a-barrel-of-oil [chevron.com]

    What is in it varies by region and type of oil. Most of our plastic would basically be waste anyway. As we are not giving up gas any time soon. If everything switches over to electric driving we would still want many of those plastics. As many have very good uses. But other things would take their place as the price would switch over.

    They probably would burn the stuff on the spot if we did not have it. It is one of the reasons I toss plastic in the garbage. It locks it into a pit instead of being burned (depending on region and your local power substations fuel sources).

    I used to argue with people about coal. People hate coal now. But I would tell them until you can beat the price of coal, coal was with us for a long time. Natural gas beat the price of coal. Within 10 years hundreds of plants were being turned off. The same is with plastic. You have to beat the price. You can try to distort the market with tax incentives. But the very large corps will just either eat the cost and pass it on or get a tax break to add 200 jobs somewhere.

    Beat the price of oil derivatives and plastic and you will change the world. Solve that. Remember plastic is basically gasoline production waste. So the price will be tough to beat. What I am saying is you can tax plastic usage. But that waste is not going away either. That junk will just be tossed into a landfill (if we are lucky). Or made into plastic and end up in a fairly stable form in a landfill eventually.

    I personally dislike the whole system. We have replaced huge industries with plastic junk. For what used to be a seriously good recycling system. For example soda bottles. For example the crying indian 70s commercials was sponsored by Pepsi and Coke to move us towards guilt tripping ourselves on recycling. They created the plastic bottles then made a big deal about how to recycle them. Leaving out that most plastics are terrible in recyclable value.

    Beat the price and change the world!