If you start outlawing plastics due to their harm, the alternative becomes the primary choice. I don’t think we need to argue plastic incurred harm, it should be obvious.
Plastics are ESSENTIAL for everything from medical devices, electrical insulation, to pipes. There are simply no alternatives. We are not going to replace PE or PVC jacketing for wires with cork.
Of course, cork isn’t the solution to all plastic use cases, just a potential replacement in some use cases. Like phasing out combustion vehicles, you have to signal that you’re forcing the sunset of the material so alternatives are identified and supply chains can reconfigure accordingly.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/12/1...
In the case of asbestos the harm was much greater and the substitutes much better and more readily available and the use range of the original material was much narrower.
The blind, ignorant hate for "plastics" online just goes to show how people can be led to believe anything.
For example polyethylene, used in milk jugs and water pipes is absolutely harmless. You could swallow a fist full of PE pellets per day and they would simply pass right through you unchanged. This is a scientific fact. If a PE container can hold concentrated sulfuric acid your stomach is going to do nothing to it. Yet for some reason drinking out of a plastic milk jug is bad because some random person online said so.
We did it for leaded gasoline.
What about hemp?
It is really bizarre to me how people online have jumped in the plastic hate bandwagon with zero understanding of how industrial processes that make the modern world possible actually work.
Why not replace the dirty rubber in tires with wooden wheels?
Just one tip:
It’s not the worst thing to assume good faith when somebody asks a follow up question. Especially here.
You might even assume that the person asking might not know your pet peeve trigger subject too well.
There’s even a chance they were genuinely curious to understand your point of view — until, through a rude rant-reply, they realised they were speaking to a tormented Twitter chatbot and dropped the subject instead.
And yet: Funkopops.
And yet: the biggest source of plastic pollution on the planet is apparently the Coca Cola corporation.
Yeah, keep plastic for where it's essential, but banning or regulating plastic use is essential to the our, and the biosphere's, long term survival.
Vinyl flooring exists because linoleum was superseded but it stands as an example of a niche where cork did function. I know why people wanted to stop using linoleum, it doesn't mean it doesn't "work"
? I'd like a clear and obvious reference.
"There is plastic in the environment"
It does not say "plastic harms this or that".
The equality "plastic presence"=="plastic harm" is not obvious to me
To me it is just like "man-made electromagnetic waves are everywhere, they are not natural, ergo this harms the environment"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_pollution#Effects
It's fairly well sourced. Some examples of harm from plastics, mostly on the environment:
> Degradation (changes in the ecosystem state) and modifications of marine systems are associated with loss of ecosystem services and values.
> in 2019, production and incineration of plastic will contribute greenhouse gases in the equivalent of 850 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere
> For example, in Bangkok flood risk increases substantially because of plastic waste clogging the already overburdened sewer system.
> Marine wildlife such as seabirds, whales, fish and turtles mistake plastic waste for prey; most then die of starvation as their stomachs become filled with plastic. They also suffer from lacerations, infections, reduced ability to swim, and internal injuries.
> When analyzing the effect of polyethylene microbeads (origin: cosmetic exfoliants) on the aquatic macrophyte L. minor, no effect on photosynthetic pigments & productivity was found, but root growth and root cell viability decreased.
But this one's about humans:
> By affecting the thyroid hormone axis, BPA exposure can lead to hypothyroidism.