The recycling warehouse fire reminds: plastics are a pollution nightmare | Hacker News Reader

The recycling warehouse fire reminds: plastics are a pollution nightmare

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38 pointsrntn9 comments

Humanity cannot exist without a living biosphere. It's past time for a sober, clear-eyed conversation about degrowth and limiting the amount of poison we're generating. We are headed for biosphere breakdown at this rate, which we (existing at the top of the food chain as we do) will not be well prepared to survive.

Well guess you are on the downvote train. But yes, I always hated plastics, I remember when glass was being phased out. I avoided plastic containers as long as I could, the last 20 years it has become impossible.

Time for the gov to put a large tax on all plastic containers to the point were glass becomes cheaper to use. But we both know that will never happen. So our decedents will live near large trash heaps of plastics, watching the heat from climate change melt the plastics.

I too much prefer glass containers whenever I can get them. But glass isn’t without problems either—for one, it’s much heavier than plastic, which results in higher fuel consumption when shipping glass-packaged goods.

Reducing our reliance on plastic may encourage more to be sold in bulk, or at least distributed in bulk, and packaged locally. Back in the day, Pepsi bottles were reused and not recycled.

If it turns out that preliminary research indicating that plastics are indeed highly responsible for increasing obesity (and all the problems that come with that) in the western world, it will be interesting to see how the world reacts to that.

Somewhat related:

I was visiting family in the countryside recently and was a bit shocked to see that the elderly neighbour was still using an 'incinerator' to dispose of their waste. Basically a 44 gallon drum in the backyard that was used to burn rubbish. Even though this was commonplace 40 or 50 years ago it's a rare site now - and probably illegal.

After thinking about it for a while, I considered that it wasn't a huge amount of waste each week (think a few plastic bread bags, a couple of milk bottles, a tetrapak, etc) and that maybe it wasn't as bad (relatively) as it appeared. The neighbour barely drives anywhere which got me thinking - in terms of carbon dioxide output, how much plastic would the neighbour have to burn to have the same impact as a typical vehicle owner driving a typical distance each year? Obviously I'm not considering the nasty particles coming out of the incinerator - just the co2 output. Would it be hundreds of kilograms?

The CO2 question is a good one, but I’m glad this isn’t commonplace where I live. I planned to stay and work remotely from Oaxaca for a month about a year ago. Unfortunately trash service isn’t very reliable and many people burn theirs at night. Air conditioning is rare as it never used to get very hot, although locals said this is changing. This meant that each night we had to choose between sweltering heat with the windows closed or relatively comfortable temps with an overwhelming smell of smoke. I enjoyed my time there but had to cut the trip after two weeks.

I wondered at the time if this would drive more carbon usage, people getting air conditioning so they can keep windows closed for good air quality. But rising temperature may make air conditioners inevitable regardless.

Yeah, there's nothing like visiting a beautiful village somewhere like Mexico (or Eastern Europe in my case)... such wonderful traditions, an old woman taking her goats and sheep out. An old man plowing a field with a horse and a wooden plow that looks no different than what his ancestors used 150 years ago. The best chicken soup you've ever had - made from an old rooster (good luck finding one of those for sale back home). Delicious sour homemade yogurt - made from the milk from the same old woman's flock!

Ah, yes, and the ever present smell of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from the partially combusted plastic in your neighbors bonfire. Just lovely, a smell that takes me back to my childhood when we used to burn those green plastic army men during battle...

Problem here is less the CO2 and more all the dioxins, chlorinated compounds, and other nasty, high toxicity contaminants generated by incomplete combustion of plastics.

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