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"biodegradable" plastics are chains of polymerized lactic acid. Proper disposal requires heat and time, but the chains do break down in nature, and lactic acid is everywhere, unlike many other "plastic" materials which are much more exotic. (talking about polylactic acid PLA)

It is also true that many plastics are active biologically, mimic hormones, etc. etc. BUT to temper this fear you have to realize that nearly everything is. Many foods, "essential oils", and natural plant and animal exposures have the same sort of hormone mimicry or other biological drug-like interactions which are poorly understood at best.

The point I am trying to get across is that your body is not an impenetrable fortress that new and evil synthetic compounds are attacking. Instead, biological interactions with small effects are everywhere, and while concern about some of them isn't unwarranted, it should be tempered by the idea that these influences abound.

Cool, thanks for those details. I'm certainly not succumbing to any sort of naturalistic fallacy, or any illusion that plastic is in an intrinsically unique category compared to other products. I'm more operating from a general Precautionary Principle, where I want the burden of proof to be on demonstrating long-term ecological and health safety, especially for substances that come into contact with food and water.

Absolutely reasonable.

21st century medicine (and many other fields), in my prediction, will be the century of small effects. The broad strokes are out of the way, mostly, and it's now time for the less glamorous and more numerous small details and ever more complex interactions.

It's difficult because ontologically you can never actually prove something is "safe". It's proving a negative (never any harmful effects).

Some harms are subtle or situation dependent, and small effects will only show up under widespread or frequent use.

Perhaps deliberately slowed or phased rollout could help.

It would also make materials science and the chemical industries "feel" a lot more like medicine. Companies would have to spend billions on studies to get new chemical formulations or materials to market which could have similar effects on innovation (and monopoly) to those we see in the drug market.

Not necessarily bad depending on what you value but the effects would be very far reaching.

Granted. I mean, strictly speaking, we can't prove that the gravitational constant won't change tomorrow. :) But I would like a substantial enough body of evidence from competent and disinterested assessment(s) so that our societies can take the right long-terms risks on new materials (where "new" = less than 100 years). Obviously easier said than done; I like the idea of putting it in the same category as medical treatments (though let's be frank, even that process is hardly flawless).

We only discovered recently that baby powder causes cancer, and it’s not “new”.

Shrug. You can define "safe" as an absolute and then argue absolute is impossible, yes. It's a bit of a straw man argument though.

Or you can drop the binary label and start developing statistics about known effects and outcome ranges. These things can be done; further understanding of bio-chemical systems and simulation makes discovery by widespread experiment less and less extant.

The issue isn't that looking for and finding effects positive or negative is hard, the issue is that few are trying and few are interested in the effort. (i.e. most people either have the conservative, 'everything is safe' attitude or the luddite 'everything is bad for you' attitude, and neither involve much discovery)

You can’t drop the binary label if your intent is to do something with the information. Ultimately there will be a “safety” threshold at which these materials would be allowed or not.

If the only statement is “we should generally be studying everything more, in an undirected manner with no stated purpose aside from the inherent value of simply knowing more about everything and letting each individual draw their own conclusions”, then yeah sure, but there’s nothing stopping this from happening now, aside from the fact that such a mission statement doesn’t provide particularly strong incentives.

Generally when it comes to hazardous materials, there's not a binary 'banned/OK'. There can be restrictions on use for given applications, restrictions on purchasing, etc. Rarely are materials completely banned outright.

This feels like a bizarre straw man. Yes, you can use lead paint on road markings because no one will lick them and lead paint is amazingly resilient to water damage -- but I think we all have a shared understanding in a casual conversation about what we mean when we say "lead paint is banned", there's no need for someone to say "well actually -- that's not strictly true, current regulations still allow for non-consumer use and old buildings are still grandfathered in if they have not been repainted, and additionally its not an outright ban but like most substances it means it has to fall under a certain percent content". Either way, these are still ultimately binary restrictions in their respective domains. It's a cascade of if statements, not a smooth function. Just because there are twenty binary decisions, or the decisions are in separate categories, does not make them non-binary. A non-binary approach would be something like having a gradient of punishments for a smooth spectrum of allowed percentages. It's hard to properly describe, because again, it's not really often seen.

Wouldn't a limited version the naturalistic fallacy be somewhat appropriate here?

Until we have better science on the subject[1], it seems reasonable to me to assume that our bodies have had time to evolve and adapt to naturally occurring substances in a way that they haven't to man made chemicals. Of course I'm sure this doesn't apply perfectly, but it seems like a reasonable heuristic.

[1] An additional problem is that, even when there is "science", I am often not equipped to determine if it was a sham funded by industry, whether a given chemical is just some functionally identical variant of a potentially unsafe substance, etc.

Late reply, but yeah, this is roughly my view. I think the Naturalistic Fallacy label should be applied to absolutism: the old/"natural" thing must be good, the new/"unnatural" thing must be bad, both of which are clearly false. But I think there's an argument for taking the history of selection pressures (or lack thereof) into account when making risk assessments. This could also be compared to Chesterton's Fence [0], or even the Lindy Effect [1].

> I am often not equipped to determine if it was a sham funded by industry

Yeah, this is a problem. :( While I trust that there are good actors in most subfields of scientific inquiry, many domains (health in particular) are exorbitantly expensive to empirically research, inevitably leading to perverse incentives, or at least the absence of incentives to do thorough and holistic research.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

I wonder how much time they require in a natural environment. I left a small chunk of PLA outside for weeks and saw literally no signs of biodegrading. It might be better than regular plastic but its no banana peal.

No, PLA won't just rot. In industrial composting environments it will be completely gone. In cool dry environments it will last for a long long time.

They use PLA in dissolvable stitches (one of a few options) and those thin fibers are dissolved within a few days to a few months. It depends much on environment.

Metal cans are lined with plastic. You're basically limited to glass and wax paper.

And while it is possible to recycle glass, in practice it is tough. Glass is heavy and therefore costly to transport. It also generally has to be sorted by color before it is recycled (and this is a problem with U.S. multi stream recycling collection). https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/glass-recy...

The other thing I wonder about is all the extra crap on nearly all bottles: glue and stickers and wrappers and ink. I suspect some/most of what I put into recycling just ends up in a landfill anyway. And what kills me is, if our E2E supply chain was anything resembling sanity, there's no reason the identical bottle couldn't be shipped back to the manufacturer to be washed and reused directly! (...pandemics notwithstanding)

Maybe it's unrealistic, but in light of the efficiency and innovation created by standard-sized shipping containers, I wonder if it would be worthwhile to try to push manufacturers to standardize on various glass bottle shapes and sizes, to make them easy to reuse directly across different products and locations.

I think package standardization would be a revolutionary benefit to humanity, beyond even what the shipping container has achieved.

I remember visiting Japan and being blown away when I walked into a bookstore - almost every book was a standard size. This means bookshelves can be a standard size. This means people can fit books into their small homes efficiently. Boxes are designed to fit the books perfectly. Cloth book-covers fit library books perfectly. Coming back to North America, it felt that bookshelves were a war between publishers to produce the most awkwardly shaped book that would stick out from the shelf more than any others.

In an age where Amazon will ship you a toothbrush in a 1' box stuffed with paper, where a lot of consumers don't even see the product on a shelf so the attractiveness of the box doesn't matter, think of the benefits that package standardization could have.

Apparently the USSR would wash and reuse glass bottles, and the container shape would be the same whether it contained pickles or whatever. I've only heard this anecdotally though.

How will they wash the bottles? A friend of mine used to work for coke (now retired), he always drank from cans or plastic bottles because he didn't think they washed glass good enough).

Well they can wash and desinfect medical equipment at hospitals (admittedly not everything) and restaurants wash glasses and cuttlery every day. Why should we not be able to wash bottles?

The so called "Normbrunnnenflasche" was introduced in 1969 by German mineral water bottling companies to have exactly this: [1]

* Standardized size (holds 0,7 l)

* Can withstand pressure, therefore suitable for sparkling water

* Can be used roughly 50 times: the bottle develops a matte ring through repeated handling indicating the approximate number of refills

* Any nearby retailer can take it back, and

* Any nearby bottling company can then use it for their own beverages

The important takeaway here is that it's REUSE, not RECYCLE, that might have the potential to reduce plastic production. Legally, producers and retailers (!) have to clearly indicate which beverage containers are reusable (Mehrweg) and which ones are single-use (Einweg). [2] This is a great example of nudging people into environmentally positive behavior. Single-use deposits are higher than reusable deposits.

[1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normbrunnenflasche [2]: https://www.volle-pulle-umweltschutz.de/ by the BMU

Foamglas is a great use for recycled glass

https://www.buildinggreen.com/blog/foamglas---my-new-favorit...

We could alleviate that problem by standardizing glass containers, eg: have one or two standard soft drink containers. Same for wine bottles, milk jugs. Glass containers don't need to be re-melted. They can be washed and reused in a plant.

Ouch. Even the classic aluminum coke/beer can? Or tuna/sardine can etc?

Always just assumed that was the only practical recyclable container. Apparently even those have plastic? Wow.

Yes they are all lined with BPA or equivalent, to protect the can from corrosion.

Perhaps this video will answer your question. I was also shocked to learn this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQHFQoFoxvQ

They use a thin plastic liner to prevent reaction with the Aluminum. These will burn off when the Al is melted for recycling.

Great video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQHFQoFoxvQ

The funny thing is, aluminum is even more toxic than plastic is, so they fix one mistake with another :)

Wax paper uses synthetic wax (or silicone for parchment paper), which might as well be plastic.

Peaches and pineapple are some of the few foods still distributed in tin-plated cans without a plastic lining.

Could you line metal cans with wax?

I see plastics as our generations asbestos.

Analogy isn't perfect, but it's a material we saw as benign that could end up having untold impact on our bodies.

Plastic is an amazing product and it is responsible for saving much more lives than it takes.

It's important to always think about both the positive and the negative impacts of anything we humans use, not just the negative or positive.

I think this is an excellent comment when taken by itself.

As a defensive human however, I think it assumes something about my original comment that is not there.

Well I think the analogy is not just not "not perfect" it's very very misleading IMO.

I don't think you can use a scale to weigh the outcomes of technology, there WILL be positive and negative impacts. It's also useful to think about how a technology changes our culture, way of life and way of thought.

There are many positives that can be said about plastics, but it has shifted us into a "throwaway lifestyle", i.e. packaging, containers. Many plastics are used in a very ephemeral manor, which is great if you want to consumerism. But i suspect this obsolescence is baked into plastics.

These throwaway lifestyle items is someone elses business, someone elses jobs, someones elses ability to put food on their childrens table.

I totally get the "war on plastic" tendencies when you see how it's hurting our oceans but it's very important to separate that which is something that can be fixed with some underlying idea that plastic in itself is a problem. It's not. It's literally right now saving lives through the ability creating single use masks, gloves, medical instruments, part of ventilators and I could go on.

We are getting a taste of what the world would look like without consumerism and the use of fossil fuels etc. I don't know about you but I prefer consumerism to what we have now.

I actually like the non-consumerist, non-fossil-fuel-consuming aspects of our current situation. If it wasn't for the omnipresent dread and social isolation, I'd say things were pretty good. The air is clear, there are people walking outside, CO2 emissions are down.

I agree, that are unintended positive consequences.

I worry more about the economic impact this will have in the long run. Hopefully, it's a hiccup.

You also like the destruction of the economy, the 30% unemployment, the lost retirements, the collapsing mortgage market?

If you just think this is a short break before we get back to normal you are in for a rude awakening.

This will change everything both for us, our children and their children.

Millions of companies are going to go bankrupt and people are going to get poorer which means more people are going to die from this not the least from famine.

I think I already mentioned the specific aspects I liked. But sure go ahead and be outraged about a bunch of things I didn't say.

> more people are going to die from this not the least from famine.

That didn't happen in the last recession - mortality rates apparently went down overall[1], though suicides were up[2]. And farm work isn't going to stop, so it isn't clear why there would be a famine.

Anyway, stay safe and take care. It's obviously a tense time for everyone, and I hope you and your family and friends are all well.

1. https://www.npr.org/2018/01/09/576669311/hidden-brain-great-...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Great_Recession

Last recession was vacation compared to this. This is a very very different scenario. This is like being in war, business cant happen even if you wanted to, even if there are customers.

I am not outraged, i just pointed to the consequences of what you are enjoying so much.

I've been thinking the same thing. It's really nice being able to go for a walk or bicycle ride without so many cars out on the road. It's neat hearing about people starting gardens, and exciting that businesses are finally being forced to take telecommuting seriously.

Obviously people dying is horrible, and the economic damage could be problematic, but I do hope that whenever this is all over, some good may come of it.

I'm not making a case for plastic being/creating a "problem". Plastic as a technology has allowed us to make cheap, single use products that are easy to replace and hard to repair. Like you are saying masks, gloves, etc.

In the broader sense, human thinking has shifted to this mode. We can't fix this start over, it reduces the pride of ownership and being accountable for your things. When you have no pride of your material possession, why would you develop pride for culture, institutions, countries. These are all things that we can just make to our pleasing.

I would argue that this might not be a global pandemic if it were not for global trade/consumerism.

Sure, neither would a billion have been lifted out of poverty the last couple decades.

Poverty is not the absence of material wealth.

You tell that to the people who can't make ends meet.

Absence of opportunity is poverty. If the opportunities go away so does the prospect of getting out of your situation.

What situation requires getting out of?

Not having enough for food.

Not being able to pay your bills

I completely agree (disposable plastic bags are an underappreciated marvel of both engineering and manufacturing, despite their faults) but exactly the same thing could be said about asbestos.

And even the safe uses of asbestos are now (mostly) off-limits because of the taboo.

I'm not sure if asbestos was seen as benign, it always seemed more like a case of an indispensable wonder product to which nothing else came close.

When I was living in Melbourne I recall reading a story about the asbestos plant in sunshine (suburb of Melbourne). It was talking about how the kids used to play in the mountains of asbestos dust on the property and how on windy days the asbestos would fly through the town and give the impression it was snowing (quite scary to read this with today's knowledge). It was definitely considered harmless for a significant time.

It seems to me that for applications other than food/beverage containers there's probably not an issue as long as it isn't used to create a throw away product by replacing more durable materials.

Synthetic fabrics could be an issue due to micro-plastics; however, unfortunately there just aren't good alternatives for many applications; particularly for vegans. For example, for cold weather gear you basically have synthetics or wool. For rain gear the only non-synthetic options that I can think of are leather, oil-skin, and waxed cotton.

BPA has just been replaced with almost chemically identical compounds that are technically not BPA that have unknown safety profiles.

Progress!

So, it that motherjones.com article you link, it's clearly BPA they are talking about, an additive to plastic, not plastic itself.

> According to Bittner’s research, some BPA-free products actually released synthetic estrogens that were more potent than BPA.

I don't know if that means that "BPA-free" is often deceptive advertising, or it's referring to different additive that's technically not BPA but problematic for other reasons, or what. (Bear in mind, as a layman, my mindset on this stuff is that the burden of proof should be on proving safety, not on proving harm.)

> As much as I applaud the effort to use cloth bags at the grocery store ...

Maybe that's worth a little less applause during a pandemic. E.g. the governor of Massachusetts just reversed the ban on plastic bags ... and banned reusable shopping bans, during the emergency. Fear of pollution is getting pushed back by fear of germs.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/gov-baker-grocery-store-pharmac...

Did Gov. Baker previously support the ban on plastic bags?

Unfortunately, metal cans have a plastic liner too. We use plastic in so much it'll be really hard to get away from it.

The film is thin, and it will burn away during melting. So it will certainly help to reduce the plastic pollution compared to pure plastic bottles and cans.