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Comment by smegger001 | Hacker News Reader

will this end up on the pile of other biodegradable plastic/plastic alternatives that we don't use as they are marginally more expensive. like the chitin bioplastic developed a few years back or the mycelium based bioplastic or the cellulose based...

and more all barely used.

how about we go back to what we used before single use plastic? waxed paper wrappers, small wicker punnet baskets for fruit burlap sacks for vegetables, infinitely recyclable glass and metal beverage container.

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I actually switched to store a lot of food related products in those wax-cloths. They are great! They are reusable, are breathable so that no moisture builds up but not breathable enough that, lets say bread for example, goes dry in it. And of course completely compostable as they are made of cotton and bees wax. If they get dirty you can just scrub them under warm running water.

Of course they are way more expensive than buying a roll of plastic bags, but I bought them one by one and made plastic bags basically obsolete (other than for freezing bread, as that does not fit in my freezer containers) in my house hold over the course of a year or so. And I expect them, based on experience over the last year, to hold for at least another 2 years without needing to reapply the wax layer or buying new ones.

There are a few problems with beeswax, given the very low supply and high demand the price of real beeswax is an order of magnitude greater than paraffin wax, so there is a very large incentive to at the very least mix in some paraffin. Also much of the beehive foundation sheets are made of adulterated wax. But even if you managed to find some real beeswax, given that bees are collecting pollen from many fields that have been treated with pesticide the harmful substances tend to accumulate in the beeswax and the concentration increases every year if not filtered correctly, and given how hard it is to filter it from fatty substance you might end up with some in the wax.

I agree, those are some cons to a otherwise great product. Everyone has to choose for themself, if those outweigh the cons of plastic bags.

Ideally, your government would tax the bad thing. But in most cases, the bad thing has powerful lobbyists and the government is not functioning properly.

>marginally more expensive

Also really annoying and impractical to, you know, actually use.

Want to fix plastic abuse? Find a way to get rid of third world satchets.

i am reminded of how we quite having biodegrade chip bags for sun chip when people found them to be too noisy. like sure lets give up environmental friendly alternative to the plastic chocking the planet just because the bag rattles a little more. maybe a minor annoyance is worth the hassle to not kill the only functional biosphere for our species can survive in.

> and more all barely used.

Barley used.

FTFY

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