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shironineja

It is pervasive in our ecosystem. There is no escaping microplastics if you are part of the human experience.

It is in the air you breathe:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S246858441...

I wonder about our insect friends who have been recently disappearing:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2018/09/29/microp...

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The compost from the city yard waste collection facilities is full of pea sized pieces of plastic, especially produce code stickers. If there’s plastic I can see and pick out, you just know there’s a bunch you can’t.

What do you suppose it would take to get plastic produce stickers banned in favor of biodegradable versions?

Either an outright ban, or taxes that gradually increase. However, what's also needed is an alternative that's readily available and not ridiculously overpriced. With produce stickers, I'm actually thinking: are stickers on produce actually useful/necessary? If we really care to tag products, could we just laser engrave them quickly?

Food-safe dyes and little airbrush template.

These exist, are in use and have been commercialised.

If you look very closely at the expiry date printed on packaged products you'll often find it's actually laser etched, not printed. It's considerably more reliable and readable, particularity for small fonts.

In terms of used on fruit, see: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jan/16...

Yeah, laser engraving has become a lot cheaper. However, it can't be mass-produced before the fruit (and labor to engrave is likely to be way more expensive).

Laser engraving produce is not labour intensive at all. It can be done easily by machines on a conveyor belt.

Get a couple of the largest cities or states to ban them so it ends up making the most sense to switch across the board.

I’d like to see them banned for no other reason than because it’s annoying to have to peel them off and dispose of them all the time.

I'm pretty sure that produce stickers are safe to consume (and thus biodegradable), at least in the US: https://www.advantagelabel.com/products-services/prime-label... (couldn't find a better source)

Safe to consume doesn't mean biodegradable, likely it passes right through you.

Goobingling around I see a few biodegradable produce stickers marketed as "not like those other nonbiodegrable produce stickers" but that's not conclusive either.

If they are surviving commercial composting (high temperature) they are not biodegradable.

I do not think it outside the realm of possibility that we will some day contain plastic-eating gut bacteria.

Mealworms and waxworms have gained this ability:

https://www.popsci.com/bacteria-enzyme-plastic-waste#page-2

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