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> Of all our environmental problems, atmospheric CO2 is the biggest one, right?

We honestly don't know how bad micro-plastic is. Our experience with asbestos, another fibre that can penetrate cells, suggests "very bad" is on the list of potentials. We do know that it's in literally everything from dirt to water to air, and that it has circled the globe and got to places no human sets foot.

Like soil depletion and loss of insects, it's on the list of problems which aren't trendy to focus on right now, but might end up being really serious.

Yeah microplastics might indeed be worse. I didn’t know microplastics potentially had so much in common with asbestos.

>Yeah microplastics might indeed be worse.

Doubtful, not saying it's harmless but microplastics are everywhere, asbestos is not. We should research it but should not jump to the conclusion that it might be worse than a known horrible material.

Asbestos had clear links to various kinds of horrible conditions known all the way back to the early 1900s. Microplastics might increase some kinds of cancer and screw with some hormone signalling but we haven't seen such clear links yet to the same kinds of conditions.

And microplastics are still hydrocarbons that can be broken down into relatively harmless constituents, even if it takes some effort and energy.

Asbestos pretty much stays asbestos forever.

The hunch that asbestos is really bad for human health is very old. The Greek geographer Strabo and the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder both reported a sickness of the lungs in the slaves who wove asbestos into cloth.

Microplastics are a good reason to make sure your plastic makes it to a landfill instead of the ocean more than a reason to give up plastic entirely. Of course, not every country has government provided waste disposal so to the extent that our rich world preferences get foisted onto developing countries by default I guess that is a valid reason to want to reduce plastic use.

But on the third hand locking up hydrocarbons in plastics while we're dealing with global warming seems like a positive good.

From what I understand, most microplastics in the environment are from washing clothing made of synthetic fibers[1] instead of natural products like cotton. It's rare to find something made from 100% cotton - it's usually a blend of mostly synthetic and sometimes natural fibers. Every time you wash them millions of microfiber plastics are released into the sewer system and there is no filter system capable of removing them so they end up permanently in the water cycle. They even end up in rain and snowfall[2], and have been found in organs of the human body[3] and of course wildlife.

> Microplastic pollution caused by washing processes of synthetic textiles has recently been assessed as the main source of primary microplastics in the oceans.

[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43023-x

[2]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro...

[3]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/17/micropla...

It is not so rare to find 100% cotton clothing, most websites have an option to filter on the fabric. In physical stores this becomes harder though.

Rephrased for impact: The dominant source of microplastics is lint.

Fuzzy blanket (synthetic)? Microplastics.

Cozy sweater (synthetic or blend, but lets face it: usually synthetic)? Microplastics.

Microfiber towel? Microplastics.

Plastic straws, bags, and packaging? Landfill.

Also landfill becomes like a nuclear waste site, a burden on the future. You can't let it puncture, or be dug up (by humans or animals), or landslip, or flood. You have to cosset the damn thing in perpetuity, or until someone invents plastic-eating fungi (which dump it into the carbon cycle instead).

Eventually, once technology has sufficiently advanced, some people are going to make a lot of money mining landfill for raw materials.

If we just abandon all landfills for 1000 years with no maintenance, how much of that plastic do you estimate will end up released into the sea during that time? Will it be enough to cause a bigger ecological problem than what's already happened with plastic in the sea today?

Importantly, where did you get your data from? It can't be just your imagination because that's only a tool to reinforce what you already believe.

Modern US landfills are lined and capped water tight, and have been for decades. Permitting is a thoroughly reviewed process, by dozens of federal, state, and local government offices, and hundreds of officials and engineers. Monitoring wells ensure compliance.

Even if it's microplastic in that landfill water, it's not getting to the ocean. Worst case is it's captured with the decomposing gases and condensate, and reprocessed at a refinery or incinerated.

The plastic is much better deposited in US landfills than shipped overseas, where it may be directly spilled into the ocean, or dumped into open fields for the poor to manually sift for the most valuable material, and then there's no telling where the rest of it will end up once it rains.

Plus landfill plastic is sequestered carbon.

Even places that certify plastic recycling into a new end user product are often making worthless items that are given away so that they can claim zero waste. The material ends up as construction fill for hydraulic detention infrastructure, playground surfaces and sports fields, or even those "green" children's toys. Or cheap fleeces. Lots and lots of cheap fleeces, blankets, and snuggies.

The exact places we don't want that plastic to end up.

Right, except that plastics do not biodegrade for hundreds of years or more. Will landfills continue to be as well managed as you claim they are now in perpetuity? Unlikely.

Oil doesn't biodegrade either.

Oil is a product of biodegradation, and can be biodegraded by some fungi.

It also degrades in the marine environment.

There are microbes that break down hydrocarbons for energy, but they aren't necessary for oil to break down.

Hydrocarbons can break down on their own, which is why you are supposed to change your cars oil every 3 months regardless of how many miles you drive.

The linings are also non biodegradable, and a solid multi-foot layer of non-permeable clay goes under that. The cap is also non-permeable clay.

The hydraulic conductivity of this clay is measured in millions of years per inch. It's water tight, and it's super absorbent.

Yes, perpetual containment is what they are designed for.

> Our experience with asbestos, another fibre that can penetrate cells, suggests "very bad" is on the list of potentials.

On the other hand, the issue seems to be animals ingest microplastics, mistaking them for food. The thing is, the vast majority of any environment is "not food". Tiny sand particles, dust, lignin, volcanic ash. If there is one thing life is phenomenally good at, it's distinguishing "not food" from food. Introducing a poison like pesticides into the environment, or wholesale environmental change like CO2 is doing - that could and indeed is wiping out a lot of species. But I have a hard time believing another source of "not food" will cause the same scale of damage.

> If we're advocating for using paper bags over plastic bags, that means we're advocating for way more CO2 in the atmosphere.

Not exactly. The point is not to use paper bag, but to use durable/persistent bag from any material (even plastic) as long as you can.

For example, I almost never use one-time plastic bags, because I have backpack, so when I go to a grocery store, all the things placed into the backpack.

In such case (from energy perspective) it's easier to peoduce 1 backpack (32l) for several years of daily use instead of paper/plastic/etc ONE-TIME bag.

Unfortunately, that approach doesn't work with other things. For example, it's impossible to buy yogurt not in one-time plastic package and we didn't find a "mass market" solution to that problem. Same goes for any other ONE-TIME package

> For example, it's impossible to buy yogurt not in one-time plastic package and we didn't find a "mass market" solution to that problem. Same goes for any other ONE-TIME package

Actually there are completely package-free supermarkets in Europe (and probably the US, too) now, where you bring your own container and pay by weight. It's very niche now but I can imagine it increasing in popularity.

Can you please name them? This is my dream. I would like to learn more.

https://scoopwholefoods.com has stores in Australia, Singapore, and the UK, although I'm not sure if it has yogurt.

Every household in Australia has a yellow recycling bin that is collected every fortnight. Given that this article tells us there is no way to recycle plastic, what actually happens to all the trillions of plastic containers that pass through these yellow bins?

Relevant Dilbert https://dilbert.com/strip/1997-08-16

This was in the news back in 2018, and at the time I think local councils were instead sending plastics to landfill.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/malaysia-bans-waste-import...

I’m not sure how the situation has changed since.

More here: http://environment.gov.au/protection/waste/how-we-manage-was...

Coles and Woolworths in Australia both accept soft plastic recycling. Their store brands all list what soft plastic items are recyclable

A keyword search would be “zero waste store $city”

https://reuprefills.org/ in Oakland.

https://www.azurestandard.com/ has drop off points across the country. They are amazing.

https://dispatchgoods.com/ for Bay Area delivery food in reusable metal containers.

Most health food grocery stores do something similar with their bulk foods and soaps.

Bulk Barn in Canada (no yogourt though).

In Germany they are called Unverpackt (unpackaged).

In India you can buy yogurt in biodegradable clay pots.

SciShow did a great episode on this very issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvzvM9tf5s0

Thanks a lot, will check this out.

Heh, I just posted this in reply to two other comments. It's good (counterintuitive) info.

Great episode. Thanks for sharing.

> The point is not to use paper bag, but to use durable/persistent bag from any material (even plastic) as long as you can.

Of course. I was referring/responding to the parent comment.

Using your backpack for a year makes it maybe superior to single-use plastic if you don't use the single-use bag for trash later on: https://youtu.be/JvzvM9tf5s0

Good thing I don't have to buy a new backpack every year!

> it's impossible to buy yogurt not in one-time plastic package and we didn't find a "mass market" solution to that problem.

In Nordics most yoghurt is sold in one-liter Tetra Pak style cartons, similar to milk. I've noticed it's next to impossible to find these in Central Europe though, for whatever reason.

Is there a recycling process for Tetra Pak products?

I know they’re made from recyclable products, aluminium and paper, but they’re also an awkward combination of glossy paper glued to aluminium, which—last time I checked—were sent directly to landfill here.

Tetra Paks aren't put to generic waste, they go in a semi-specific packaging materials bin that depends on country. I assume almost all of them are incinerated for energy.

Not here in Australia.

Here’s the Tetra Pak website about recycling for Australia, where it goes on for a bit to vaguely avoid saying they go to landfill as the aluminium isn’t a sufficiently concentrated source, and nobody cares to reuse the low grad paper that could be reclaimed.

https://www.tetrapak.com/en-anz/sustainability/planet/carton...

In Nordics a large part of household waste is incinerated for energy, I don't have recent numbers but 50% already in 2015 in Finland and Sweden. In addition some part is of course recycled/composted (glass, paper, metal, bio). Landfills get just a tiny slice.

Locally they are recycled into roofing material. https://www.mwatoday.com/waste-recycling/recycling-disposal-...

> extruded polymers like plastic bags, wraps and containers are almost always synthesized from waste products of fossil fuel refinement

That's almost completely false.

It obviously depends on the kind of plastic. PE and PP are made from ethene and propene, which are indeed byproducts of fuel refining. But demand far outstrips supply now, so these are now made on purpose. PS is made from styrene, which is not a byproduct. It is made from low-value chemicals, so it's upgraded waste. PET is made from terepthalic acid, which is very much not a waste product of any process.

Even if there were any waste products from fuel refining, they would certainly not be vented. They'd be burned as fuel. Which is also a sensible thing to do with waste plastics. (Someone is going to object that this releases CO2. It does. Burning fuel releases CO2. We can come back to this point once we longer burn coal or methane for energy.)

Wiki and some other sources say that PE is made from crude oil byproducts https://extension.psu.edu/how-plastic-is-made-from-natural-g...

Thank you for the check.

> PE and PP are made from ethene and propene, which are indeed byproducts of fuel refining.

When we're talking about things like plastic bags and wraps, aren't we talking about PE/PP?

> Even if there were any waste products from fuel refining, they would certainly not be vented. They'd be burned as fuel.

This makes a lot of sense. But what if a refinery is not equipped to do this? What if the refinery is in a place with poor or non-existant environment regulation/enforcement?

> But demand far outstrips supply now, so these are now made on purpose.

This is the kicker. So how do we make PP/PE when supply of precursors from crude refinement is not sufficient?

> PS is made ... PET is made from ...

I shouldn't have used the word extruded, I guess? I was thinking more about PE/PP.

> So what we should actually be advocating for is mandating that people reuse bags

Except that many reusable bags are likely a waste of resources:

Danish study: "polypropylene bags (most of the [] reusable bags found at supermarkets) should be used 37 times paper bags should be used 43 times, cotton bags should be used 7,100 times."

UK study: "paper bags should be used three times low-density polyethylene bags (the thicker plastic bags commonly used in supermarkets) should be used four times, non-woven polypropylene bags should be used 11 times, cotton bags should be used 131 times."

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-reuse-bags.html

A simple approximation for environmental damage is the cost in $. If a plastic bag costs 1c, and a jute bag costs $2, then you can guess crossover point is 200 usages (weekly shopping for 4 years to reach breakeven also presuming you value your extra time and hassle at zero).

Reusable bags are a huge waste IMHO.

I dropped a bottle of wine the other day because I didn't have a plastic carry bag - cost equivalent of 1000 plastic bags... Arrrrghhh!

> A simple approximation for environmental damage is the cost in $.

Neglecting externalities seems like the exact opposite of what you'd want to do in a discussion about environmental impact.

Yeah. But there is no fundamental reason to assume that the externalities of a cheap option are different from an expensive one.

And price is generally an extremely good indicator of how much energy it took to produce something.

I wish you the best luck finding a good proxy for the externalities of any purchase!

7100 times is quite a lot. If used once a day, that would mean approx. 20 years of use.

When I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, we mostly had cotton shopping bags for everyday use. Nicely printed, colorful plastic bags were a bit of a luxury. But our cotton shopping bags rarely lasted more than two or three years. The wear and tear was significant. A lot of food comes in edg-y or point-y packaging, which is not friendly towards the bags.

> Isn't that the critical point? Of all our environmental problems, atmospheric CO2 is the biggest one, right?

Energy is important, but the energy consumption of a grocery bag is small compared to the energy consumption of most of the things in the grocery bag, and if you drive a car to the grocery store, the energy consumption of the car for the roundtrip (~0.3 kWh per mile).

I'd say for grocery packaging the ecological impact should be the bigger concern.

Honestly the solution is easy, change the $0.10 grocery bag surcharge to $1.00 and people will stop using single-use grocery bags tomorrow. $0.10 is not enough for people to care.

Even better solution. Charge $100 to go into the grocery store and that will greatly reduce people driving to stores, shopping and using single-use bags.

I'm assuming you are being facetious in order to highlight an alleged absurdity of the suggestion. Though in reality the suggestion seems quite sensible to me.

Where I am, we've been under the effect of a pretty steep tax on plastic grocery bags that get noticeably passed along to the consumer. The result, from my personal experience, seems to have been a widespread adoption of tote bags. These last a very long time, 5+ years in my own experience. It has not resulted in a decrease in supermarket visits, to the best of my knowledge.

Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding your comment.

I can walk to the grocery store, now I will have to drive to a bigger store because I have to buy everything in bulk.

Your fine isn't tied to any externality so it is stupid.

If you factor in cleaning into the reuse process you might end up with more waste:

- cleaning products (with plastic containers

- water (warmed by burning gas)

- spending time which could be used in any other way

- who knows what else

Jokes on you: I never wash anything!

I feel these sorts of arguments are just excuses to be inefficient.

In many office kitchens, I see so many people using the hot water to wash when the cold would suffice. Using massive amounts of washing liquid when you only need a little. Keeping the faucet on while they scrub their dishes.

And depending on your household situation, you can do dishes for a family of 4 in under 30 mins. Cleaning a single plate during the day takes seconds. Or even just learn to pack your dishwasher properly. Let’s not pretend that doing a few menial tasks everyday is what’s stopping you from being that extra bit more efficient.

Unfortunately there is no winner take all solution for environmental impacts, it is a many-fronted theater.

So better plastics solidified and made useful than released as fumes, but your decisive line of argument omits the carbon sequestration possible with large-scale paper for one thing (just not the kind that spills outflow directly into waterways), and the general degradation of the living oceans.

If what we are talking about is energy use, then we are probably wasting our time talking about bags, because the goods the bags are carrying probably take an order of magnitude more energy to generate. Refuse and energy consumption are separate but related problems.