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Comment by jamesrcole | Hacker News Reader

[downvoters: care to explain what is wrong with asking this question? I’ve received quite a few downvotes since asking this (the points have gone up and down) yet no-one has tried to explain why they object to asking the question. Seems there’s lots of ideological downvoting going on.]

"Disposable plastic is bad" is one of those things "everybody knows", that tends to be just accepted as true.

Are there rigorous arguments for it being bad? The common arguments against them tend to be fairly shallow, IMO.

I've heard that the actual issue is mostly poor waste management and recycling practices in certain countries and on ships, and that landfill isn't really a bad thing.

I'm willing to hear arguments against disposable plastic.

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I think these have been repeated over and over again, but:

* We don't really know what the long tail of plastic in the environment looks like. It could be relatively benign, but we're painting ourselves into a corner in terms of long-term management with our current rate of plastic production.

* Plastic is a petrochemical product. Like all petrochemical products its extraction and production steps are environmentally devastating, even if the end material is relatively inert. We also like to produce it in countries with poor environmental and safety controls.

* Current policies for managing plastic waste fall into two categories: we either put it in a hole and forget about it (see the long tail point above) or we externalize it to a significantly poorer country for "recycling" (read: dumping into waterways, burning as trash, putting in their own holes in the ground). The former is an unknown, the later is bad and unsustainable.

Thanks for the response.

> * We don't really know what the long tail of plastic in the environment looks like.

See my response to another reply - the problem with plastic in the environment seems primarily to do with poor waste management practices. They seem to be a better thing to address to address this issue.

Could there be long tail impacts? I don’t know, but “we don’t know” is not a terribly strong argument. Surely that could also be said for lots of things other than plastic.

> * Plastic is a petrochemical product. Like all petrochemical products its extraction and production steps are environmentally devastating

That seems a plausible concern. We’d have to see the specific evidence about just how damaging that is, and how damaging it is relative to the alternatives.

> * Current policies for managing plastic waste fall into two categories: we either put it in a hole and forget about it (see the long tail point above)

I’ve hear that this isn’t actually a bad thing. For one thing, it’s localized (as in concentrated in specific areas). And surely there are ways of ensuring minimal leaching of ‘bad things’ in surrounds (potential eg: choosing a spot with appropriate groundwater).

> or we externalize it to a significantly poorer country for "recycling" (read: dumping into waterways, burning as trash, putting in their own holes in the ground). The former is an unknown, the later is bad and unsustainable

But then why aren’t these specific issues being targeted rather than plastics per se?

I think this is going to go down a hole of defending environental claims that have already achieved consensus in the scientific community, so I'm going to limit my response to one point:

"Specific issues" are inseparable from waste production, and particularly plastic production, as a whole. Coming up with good ways to manage plastic (because we do need plastic) would be less of a problem if we produced less of it.

> I think this is going to go down a hole of defending environental claims that have already achieved consensus in the scientific community

(emphasis added)

That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for - rigorous evidence and arguments. But not abstract claims that they exist, the actual specific evidence/arguments themselves.

You asked about downvoting so I'll just say its is a bit silly to even try and play devils advocate on this topic. Expecting "rigorous evidence" and not accepting common sense deserves a downvote

There's plenty of evidence that "common sense" is often wrong.

If "common sense" is correct, it should be easy to provide a solid argument, backed up with data, that shows the "common sense" view is correct.

And I've repeatedly shown the details of poor waste management seeming to be the actual issue that needs to be addressed: https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution

> An estimated 20 percent of all plastic waste in the oceans comes from marine sources. In some regions, marine sources dominate: More than half of plastics in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) come from fishing nets, ropes and lines

"Marine sources" is an interesting phrase but I assume it refers to human rather than natural sources - presumably the source of the nets is fishing vessels and there may be a lot of other plastic that is dropped or dumped from ships directly into the ocean:

https://phys.org/news/2019-09-ocean-plastic-ships.html

That is my understanding as well.

Common sense does not mean uninformed. Informed does not mean correct. Correct doesn’t mean right. You’re view is very black/white.

This is the type of “is climate change real” argument that distracts people and governments for decades while big oil is doing it’s thing. Same thing happened with big tobacco. People centuries ago knew smoking was unhealthy but we didn’t have the science to prove it until 20th century. Were they wrong? Maybe right-wrong didn’t matter and not smoking was just the prudent action to take.

> Common sense does not mean uninformed. Informed does not mean correct. Correct doesn’t mean right. You’re view is very black/white.

Don't put strawman words into my mouth. You know I said "There's plenty of evidence that "common sense" is often wrong."

There is plenty of evidence that "common sense" is often wrong. You can pretty much say that the whole history of scientific advancements has been about challenging "common sense". I think you need to read a lot more about science and history.

I didn’t put word in your mouth. Every thing I said is from my point of view. Alas, I think you’re just here to argue. Bye

You reply implied I had said things I didn’t.

Many plastics are known endocrine disruptors. They mimic estrogen and their exact effects on the human body are unknown. But because of the nature of plastics, the don't decompose but just break down into smaller and smaller pieces. They find microplastics everywhere they look. In the Mariana Trench and on Mt Everest[1], and in 90% of table salt tested[2]. One recent study says the average person consumes about a credit card sized amount of microplastics every year[3]. While we're not certain it's dangerous, there are a lot of reasons to be very concerned

Edit: And just To make it clear, in my mind the danger is just about certain. I'm speaking conservatively with my claims, but I really believe this is a large concern. Especially for developing kids and teens.

1- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/microplastics-pol...

2- https://www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/dist.... (Amp to get around reading limit;)

3-https://qz.com/1644802/you-eat-5-grams-of-plastic-per-week/

So, plastics are the actual "soy" right wingers were talking about.

I appreciate the reply. I’ve given reasons in other responses that (it seems) the way to address this is to address poor waste management practices. That they’re the problem, not plastics per se.

I'm not convinced this will work. Clearly it hasn't yet. Some people just can't be trusted to be responsible. Rather than teach people to be responsible with plastic, the most responsible thing might be to just put less out these. But I see where you're coming from. I think that can work in certain areas, maybe the more well to do ones

Plastics create the management issue in the first place. That’s ok, we get value from plastics, so you’re right in that we can just better manage the plastic problem and have less of a problem. but the plastic problem, even if reduced, still scales with net plastic creation.

I can agree with you fully, and still think it’s a good idea to reduce plastic creation.

i’m curious why you don’t think it’s a reasonable value to also reduce plastics? if we tackle from both sides it’s even more effective.

(btw sorry i cannot give you what you want in terms of rigorous scientific proofs, i’m a philosophizer)

> i’m curious why you don’t think it’s a reasonable value to also reduce plastics?

If they’re not actually the problem, then why reduce them? Lots of things would be bad if sufficient quantities got into the environment, but we manage them well to avoid that, so don't consider them problems.

But say they are somewhat of a problem, we have to ask how much, and how this compares to alternatives. People talk of things like glass. But they tend to just imply that glass is better. Is it? For example, I think it requires much more energy to produce (and possibly to recycle). It’s heavier, so that means more energy used to transport it. I don’t know myself what the exact tradefoffs are. Again, I’d like to see rigorous arguments/evidence.

Microplastics are in literally every synthetic clothing item we wear. I don't see us ever getting rid, or cutting down on microplastics if thousands of companies, even self-proclaimed eco-friendly ones, sell these as their main product.

https://www.patagonia.com/stories/an-update-on-microfiber-po...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

[edit: this by itself isn’t an an argument against plastics. See the provided link with details about poor waste management practices (such as in marine vessels and certain countries). They appear to be the issue, not plastics per se]

That might be a serious issue, but simply mentioning it isn’t a serious argument against plastics themselves. See https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution

i’m no export so there will be no citations. i was just thinking, the current state of plastics is they pollute oceans and jeopardize entire ecosystems. and they’re made from oil.

an idealized argument for how, strictly speaking, this outcome doesn’t have to be the case, is not really that useful?

we don’t really recycle plastics because it’s cheaper to just make new plastics. saying all we have to do is recycle plastics is not an actual economic solution?

i never comment anymore. thought i’d give it a shot heh

Thank you for the response.

What I’ve heard is that plastics don’t pollute, per se, its poor waste management practices. When those practices are sufficient the plastic isn’t an issue (or is much less of an issue).

https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#where-does-our-...

The summary of those details from that document:

“However, it is the management of plastic waste that determines the risk of plastic entering the ocean. High-income countries have very effect waste management systems; mismanaged waste – and plastic that ends up in the oceans – is therefore very rare. Poor waste management across many middle- and low-income countries means that these are the main sources of global ocean plastic pollution This makes the improvement of waste management systems across the world critical to reducing plastic pollution. An estimated 20 percent of all plastic waste in the oceans comes from marine sources. In some regions, marine sources dominate: More than half of plastics in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) come from fishing nets, ropes and lines”.

If this is true, then the best way to address the pollution would be to address those poor practices.

that’s helpful information to think about! thanks. in other words, there are things we can do to manage the situation we’re in.

i kind of assume you’re familiar with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24714880 so that’s why i suppose i’m necessarily oriented more toward an economic-based view/incentive solution. because this plastic problem is economic capitalistic abuse/exploitation.

i didn’t downvote you btw but i think your initial comment is triggering because like... nobody needs the absurds amount of shitty disposable plastic crap being created. it’s cheap and people can make a buck and it’s simple as that.

anyway, thanks for the link!

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