There’s so much plastic lining that paper otherwise everything would get too soggy anyway. Yay for glass and metal. Reusable beats disposable, no matter what it’s made of
I'm doing my part
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Karmanopoly@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c6cee0a8-ae69-4d0c-ad4b-4a1732249c90.jpeg
Comments
qevlarr@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
peetabix@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Theres a plastic lining in aluminium cans too. So glass a the way.
alanjaow@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s quite thin for aluminum, and the downside with glass is the high energy cost of melting it. I’d like if we went back to washing and reusing bottles, but I suppose that’s a big shift in processing capabilities.
EarJava@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Not 100% win though:
Glass bottles of lemonade, iced tea, soft drinks and beer contained on average around 100 microplastic particles per litre, which is between five and 50 times more than plastic bottles or cans. Source
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
and tin cans. i think with tin it might be wax though
wunami@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Some poorly made reusable shopping bags rip or otherwise break before they get used enough times to break even with the single use disposable plastic shopping bags they are supposed to replace. Especially the cheap ones bring given out as freebies.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
That’s bullshit from the oil companies. They did a “study” that concluded that but if you read the methodology, they made the assumption that the reusable bag would be unusable after 20 uses.
Meanwhile I’ve been going to the grocery store every week for quite a few years using the same bags without much issue. I’ve had one strap on a bag break after ~10 years of use, so there’s that I guess. Still haven’t thrown it out, keep meaning to repair it which I never get around to doing.
Anyway, if you read between the lines of the study conducted by the oil companies, if you reuse the bag more than 20 times (half a year of going to the grocery store every week) you are reducing plastic waste.
autriyo@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
If they’re made from fabric they’re pretty repairable though.
diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
Glass is glass and glass breaks. Win win for overpopulation, though.
spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
A German talking about overpopulation. I don’t like where this is going…
mushroomman_toad@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Yeah, I want to be able shove my McDonald’s cups up my ass without ending up like the jar guy
agent_nycto@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Unlike plastic which never breaks ever
Phantaloons@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
Yay for glass and metal
MrSmith@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You’re discounting transportation and manufacturing costs.
Reusable only works if it’s manufactured fairly locally and actually gets recycled, which a lot of stuff doesn’t, even if it’s made from glass or metal.
We need to move away from packaging altogether.
Bring-your-own-container is the only way.
basxto@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
Wat? It’s great if it gets recycled, but it works if it gets reused
weirdcarrotmonster@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
There is actually a bit of sense in there. Paper cups weren’t simply paper - its tetrapak-like material with plastic coating inside. They are notoriously hard to recycle. Plain plastic cups on the other hand are made from single material, most likely PET. Moreover, they are transparent, without colouring additives.
There are two reasons why colour in plastic makes it harder to recycle. First, pigment is a completely different substance, which behaves differently from plastic itself. It makes it harder to “re-melt” into stable material. If you ever 3d printed anything with matte/gloss filament, you’ll know that it is more finicky than plain one. Second, uncoloured plastic can be coloured into anything, while other needs to be either sorted by colour or mixed with strong dye (black, gray, dark brown, etc) to have consistent colour.
PET itself is pretty easy to turn into something new, actually. A workshop near me had a live demo of the whole process - chipping it into small pieces, feeding to the heated tube, and then injection molded into trinkets. Industrial grade processing usually have “turned into pellets” step in between, but it’s basically the same.
Plastic-covered paper, on the other hand, should be somehow separated first, and then handled with two different approaches - one for paper, another one for plastic film. Doable, but much harder. Paper straw can probably decompose by itself, without any special conditions.
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
this would be a legitimate argument if any of the plastic was actually recycled … last time i checked it all goes into the incinerator to make electricity out of it.
the recycling of plastic is difficult, not because melting and re-shaping the plastic itself is difficult (it is not, it’s trivially easy); the problem is that you basically never get correctly-sorted garbage. when you get “plastic waste”, it has at least 20% things in it that are not plastic, including food waste, aluminum, paper, etc. some even throw toxic batteries in it, chemicals (soap), pharmaceuticals … then there’s the risk of infections on the plastic (viruses, bacteria, fungi). there’s absolutely no chance that you’re just gonna take plastic waste and mold it into a new shape that’s food safe. best you can do is to mix it with concrete and use it as a construction material in road construction.
turtlesareneat@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
Even if you perfectly sort the plastic out, it can only be recycled about 1.5 times before the structure changes so much it’s not suitable for the original use. Plastic recycling is a scam.
hansolo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I’ve worked with plastic recycling in West Africa at one factory, and just sorting plastic waste by hand is a decent job for a few dozen marginalized women because it demand real human level work.
The reason why is pigment and color. They could recycle yellow into yellow or tan, red into red, green into green. But blue and black were the deal breakers. Black being probably already recycled plastic that uses black pigment to mix colors.
Everything after the sorting is trivial. Shredding, re-peletizing, molding, all easily done.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
UPD: Be wary that recycling is not a panacea. There’s multiple videos about how recycling plastic isn’t actually a thing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=68zjxTTl5Ik for example.
Yeah, there’s a reason “recycle” is only number three on the “reduce, reuse, recycle” list. Recycling is the last (and worst) option, and only really makes the list because it’s hopefully not contributing to landfill issues. It’s not the very first thing people should rely on.
m_f@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
turbowafflz@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Still waiting on straws made of dry pasta. Biodegradable, strong, edible if you really want
irq0@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Wouldn’t those significantly alter the taste of whatever they’re sitting in?
Anivia@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Also, fuck people with gluten allergy I guess 🤷
sbv@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Could we do Twizzlers instead?
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
bucatini is a pasta coffee swizzler basically if you want to try that. makes damn good pasta too
NastyNative@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
Many people don’t understand why plastic straws are considered more harmful than plastic cups. The key issue is that straws are far more likely to escape waste management systems due to their small size, allowing them to pass through filtration screens and enter waterways. As a result, they reach the ocean at a higher rate and pose a greater threat to marine life, including sea turtles. Larger items like plastic cups are generally easier to capture and contain before they become environmental hazards.
Earthman_Jim@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Sorry, people don’t give a shit about nuance and technicalities anymore. It’s all vibes, baby.
matlag@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Then they reach the ocean where they account for 0.2% (-ish?) of the plastic out there, 50% of the plastic in the ocean is fishing equipment (nets, etc.) for which we did… absolutely nothing.
And no, I’m not advocating in favor of plastic straws. I wish the rules worldwide would have been to make cups and straws mandatory complementary fees. Everyone would bring their own re-usable cups. Then onto disposable cutlery, etc. We managed to ban plastic bags at supermarkets, sure we could get a habit of carrying cups.
Because at the end, the better solution is not to recycle wastes, it’s to stop producing them.
T00l_shed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I mean waxed paper cups aren’t super, they are likely better than plastic, but the wax is likely a fossils fuel byproduct
turdas@suppo.fi 2 weeks ago
I believe they increasingly use PLA which is a bioplastic. But yeah it used to be, and in many cases likely still is, polyethylene which is an oil product.
Axiochus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
PLA is not compostable or anything of the sort. So honestly it’s more of a “this plastic could be recycled, given that it’s sorted out from the other plastic, and given financial viability”.
CIA_chatbot@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yup, just looked it up from your comment because it made me realize that I had no idea what wax was actually made of.
Paraffin wax is a colorless solid derived from petroleum, coal, or oil shale, consisting of hydrocarbon molecules
FireRetardant@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It is also a mixed material which makes it difficult to recycle
candyman337@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
Not if they use beeswax
T00l_shed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hence the likely a fossil fuel byproduct. But let’s be real the cost associated with using beeswax would be unbelievable
cattywampas@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The real trick all along was always reducing your consumption of disposable products.
Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 2 weeks ago
As I said to a college professor when he was pointing out how the "Reduce" in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is often ignored or at best whispered, reducing our consumption isn't profitable.
r1veRRR@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
It’s not just profitable, it also requires most people in the west (probably 99% of people here) to realize there understanding of what a “basic level of quality of life” is is completely scewed by our immense privilege. Globally speaking, we are all part of the top 10% destroying the planet the most. From memory, a single american going vegan can make up for a families worth of emissions in a poorer country.
There’s no amount of rich people we can eat or corporations we can destroy that will allow us to just live like we are at the moment. Nowhere close.
Goun@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
The real trick all along was always reducing your consumption.
Ftfy
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I mean you still gotta eat
Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ll take a PLA cup over a paper cup lined with PFAS, BPA, etc.
There should really be a law that people should be able to bring their own reusable drink cup for any drink.
ironycanal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
But then they might get extra drink! Unconscionable!
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
if people knew just how little the typical fountain drink cost, cups and straws included, they would riot over the costs.
unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Sidenote: all 4 include plastic.
Aarkon@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
Fair point. IIRC though the primary reason for banning plastic straws was not CO2 emissions but wildlife protection, as plastic straws are (or were) the single most frequently found foreign object in the stomachs of dead sea turtles.
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
paper straws are quite literally a strawman project against environmental pollution. they do not actually solve environmental pollution while pretending they do …
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
its actually propaganda, a campaign by the oil/gas industry to avoid reducing thier own emissions or pollutions, thats why many countries arnt very keen on reducing it. they funded things like “how to reduce your carbon footprint, use less gas, or electricity” plus all those climate protesters you heard about defacing historic places, are funded by them.
manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Paper cups still have a plastic lining, and it’s related to PFAS chemicals iirc
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Go back to them being wax coated.
starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
As do metal soda cans to keep them from corroding
brap@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve never seen the one on the right. I’m guessing this is an American thing?
frog@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Yes, corporations guilt tripped Americans to use shittier products while they spill their garbage in the water.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
They went to styrofoam for a while, but that’s hated now, so they’ve gone to the clear plastic. I hate it, it sweats in the cup holder, a lot. And the ice melts, and the drink warms up much faster.
They have biodegradable styro, but people don’t understand the difference, so they get just as worked up over the good styrofoam as the bad. So they just pivot to the worst possible option, plastic.
IckabodKobain@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
The cup wasn’t just made of paper. It was paper with a Wax Coating.
huey_m@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
There needs to just be a blanket, punitive, 100+% tax on any and all single use plastics that are not medical devices. Obviously there’s lots of other bigger environmental issues that need to be tackled but this really seems like a pretty obvious one imo.
whereitsat@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
i remember the great plastic transition of 1995. i asked my mom why there were so many plastic bottles and she replied ‘we’re like pioneers’ and she referenced little house on the prairie and i still didn’t understand so she slapped some sense into me right in the aisle of GRAND UNION supermarket right there and i pretended to understand just so she’d leave me alone.
a few weeks ago my MD said that i have colon cancer and i assume that’s from pounding cases of fruitopia when it was in vogue but who am i gonna sue? is big plastic a thing?
i tried to tell my mom it was her fault but when i tried to call all i heard was a dial tone. i thought that was a weird at the time because cell-phones don’t have dial tones but my therapist said i was hallucinating. she still won’t prescribe me xanax.
SaintNyx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ppl have been mentioning the plastic in the paper cups but I haven’t seen anyone mention that large cups used to all be Styrofoam. Some places all the cups were Styrofoam. And that was god awful for the environment. They were amazing though. Getting a giant sweet tea in a cup that never sweated was phenomenal. Shame they suck so bad.
bloogoose@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
The irony of this post using McDonald’s cups isn’t lost on me. Where does a their meat come from I wonder…
clifmo@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Set aside the asinine idea that those cups were “paper.” Absolutely nobody has a choice in where McDonald’s serves them. McDonald’s stocks what it thinks is profitable. And zero people falsely believe they’re “saving the planet” by consuming McDonald’s products.
plutopos@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I like the meme but I would like it more if it didn’t have a wojak in it
Zier@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
Neither of those containers can be recycled.
zerofk@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I can’t remember the last time I used either of those. Real glasses and cups exist, and don’t require straws.
darthsundhaft@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I just hold my hands out and make a bowl with my hands. Works every time. Free refills too.
WildPalmTree@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve had paper straws served in plastic packaging!
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Corporations are bad and therefore I cannot make any changes myself!
Forbo@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Just implement a carbon tax already FFS.
nullspace@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Fuck people for trying anything, I guess.
drath@lemmy.drath.ru 2 weeks ago
The only reason you even need a straw in the first instead of drinking from the cup like a normal human being, is because fast food chains dilute your drinks with frozen water.
PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Are they not cornstarch PLA? That’s biodegradable, indeed hot-compostable, and not a plastic
phx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Glad to see somebody else notice this. I find getting a large plastic cup with these “disintegrate halfway though” paper straws bloody ridiculous.
I never had an issue with the paper cups. He’ll, I’d be more than happy if more places offered discounts to fill your own and I could just keep a clean tumbler in my bag/car.
OS2Warp@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Image
JustJack23@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Jeff Bezzos:
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TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So I’ve wanted to do this for a minute…
But how many paper straws would you have to use to offset one of these explosions? How long would it take to offset one of these explosions through straw use?
Writing this now I was surprised by the results…
Source for plastic v paper straw data
So apparently plastic straws are actually more carbon neutral than paper straws, but for the purposes of this analysis I’m going to carry it through to find out how long it takes to create equivalent emissions.
Paper straws:
Image
Call it 1430 grams of emissions per straw (which is wild btw)
Plastic straws:
Image
Call it 610 per plastic straw. Still wild for something which weighs less than a gram.
This is also from the thesis
Image
So yeah… not great.
Gonna be using 825 tons of carbon dioxide emitted from Hank Green’s video.
I think Hank is working in US standard units here… which is also weird and annoying but whatever… We’re getting to units of rocket explosion per straw so it’s fine…
And I’m going to be using 500 million straws per day, which is cited in the thesis from a 2017 study and repeated elsewhere in other studies on this.
Image
It’s not great but what even are we doing here…
I don’t know how we get a plastic straw versus compostable straw use rate (what proportion of straws are still plastic versus how many are now paper or some other alternatives)
But we get 820 additional grams of emissions for each straw swapped.
500 tons to grams is:
838238016
Divided by the difference in co2e foot print per straw…
838238016 / 820 is about 1022240, in other words, about a million.
So for about every million straws swapped from plastic to paper, one giant fiery rocket explosion of CO2 emissions occurs.
The US consumes straws at a convenient rate of 500 million a day, so if ALL of those straws were converted to paper, we’re setting off about 500 of those explosions per day.
spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Have you noticed the intense UV this summer? I think he legit ripped a hole in the ozone layer with that explosion.
helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
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Photonic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This image looks like right wing corpo propaganda to me. It not only does it divert the attention away from the handful of megacorporations emitting 80% of all green house gases, it is attacking a moderate leftist – who admittedly causes a relatively large amount of greenhouse gases.
But Taylor Swift is not making most of those flights on a personal basis. It’s to provide a service to fans. So in that sense we can regard the emissions as those of Taylor Swift the company. And in that sense they are much lower than many other companies who we often give a free pass.
So, yes hold the big emitters responsible, but let’s start with the 57 on the list and work our way down to Taylor Swift.
JDPoZ@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Bingo.
It invites hatred from a sizeable (though perhaps potentially less politically-aware) fan base that might otherwise be receptive.
Using someone as popular as Swift as a target for less-pop-culture-interested folks who are politically informed is clearly kicking the hornets’ nest to stir up in-fighting among the working class.
Next time use Bezos or one of the other folks who showed up in that “Dialog” secret society since they also use private jets in the same way someone like Swift does, but in addition are far worse in every other way and who also lobby with their billions towards worsening the world in every way imaginable.
spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Taylor swift is a left is just like my racist boss has a black friend and is thus not racist.
mushroomman_toad@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
There are no ethical billionaires
OS2Warp@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
If you make a snappy meme about it, I’ll start using it.
thetentacle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m blown away every time anew how some people on lemmy, like you here, effortless cut through obvious manipulation. Reflecting on the state of the internet it’s sadly delightful and refreshing.
Gloomy@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
As i do every time somebody posts this article:
The headline is misleading. It’s not 57 “companies”. The original source speaks of “Entities”.
Number one on that List of 57? The former Soviet Union. Good luck holding them responsible. Next to several state controlled Actors like Gazprom (6th) or Saudi Armaco (3rd), some privat companies like ExxonMobile (5th), there are entities like Chinas Coal production from 1945 - 2004 (2nd) North Korea (57th) or Cinas Cement production (13th).
The list shows that oil companies cause a lot of emissions (but apparently not as much as the former soviet union). To absolutly nobodies suprise.
Next to holding them accountable for their emissions (and their lobbying, pro oil propaganda, etc) we need to find ways to reduce emissions in our lives. Those companies will only stop if their products is less and less needed.
r1veRRR@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
It’s crazy how long that misrepresented study stays alive. The point wasn’t to find fault, it was to figure out how much comes from people in general. After all, nature does create it’s own green house gases.
By the logic of the study, the oil company that sold Swift her kerosene is 100% responsible for it. By that studies logic me, you and Swift are EQUALLY not responsible for ANY oil we use, ever. That’s obviously stupid.
RustyEarthfire@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s just nonsense.
It’s completely ridiculous to say that it doesn’t matter that someone burns 1,000 gallons of fuel a day because a big company sold it to them.
Targetting individuals people or companies is useless. There’s over a billion co-contributers, not a handful. Systematic changes like a carbon tax are necessary.
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
taylor swift’s private plane is a 1947 boeing b-47 stratojet?
girl’s got style.
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I thought that was a lobster disintergrating at first
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Everything looks like a lobster disintegrating when your only tool is a lobster reintegrator.