However I heard "from the system" that manufacturers are not interested in the world knowing exactly what they produce, why, where it ends up and what their contribution to our plastic soup is (surprise surprise). It's a sick system of you ask me. The law (so us citizens) should set the incentives.
Still, people making nice things from waste is always good. But I would be a bit worried about the fumes and dusts coming from these materials though. Where I worked we didn't laser-cut poly-carbonate for example because it would produce airborne endocrine disrupting substances...
[0] https://research.qut.edu.au/cms/projects/macromolecular-barc...
The laser cutter is not necessarily a good comparison for safety considerations. By definition, a laser cutter burns the materials it cuts. With equipment that melts plastic - like injection molding machines or FDM 3D printers - burning the material just means that you did it wrong, your temperature was too high - and you will not get a useful product.
What people do on their own is another matter - but hey, that's apparently just human (see all the chainsaw heroes in safety flip flops, the people running SLA printers in their dorm room, all the soldering that goes on without a fan/filtration, ...)
We have a lot of knowledge on how to literally burn plastic and not pollute anything- waste really doesn't have to be an issue.
The micro plastics that studies find in the human body are probably from sources no one cares to address- acrylic paint, tires, polyester clothing, things that are constantly being ground into nano particle size bits that are omni-present in all environments (and no one even considers getting rid of).
If you live in a first world country the ocean plastic isn't from you- if you drink from a plastic straw or not it probably doesn't matter. That plastic is most likely from fishing nets and from a few countries where people throw their waste directly into a few rivers.
People would rather focus on shaming those who don't sort their trash and drink from plastic straws.
> If you live in a first world country the ocean plastic isn't from you
I live in Ireland and I’m not sure that’s the case for us. Plastic was collected in the recycling bins and then shipped to China for processing. I was always skeptical of the environmental soundness of shipping plastic to the other side of the planet – and the lack of transparency about what happens to the plastic waste after. I always wondered if any plastic that wasn’t PET was just dumped in a river or the sea. A few years ago, China stopped accepting plastic refuse from Western countries so the plastic was sent to other Southeast Asian countries but they also find it to be not economically viable to process. I looked into this issue before but found it hard to get solid evidence that the plastic is actually recycled. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the plastic that is collected in the West for “recyling” ends up in the ocean, while we in the west pat ourselves on the back for doing the “right thing”.
Personally, I do my best to Reduce and Reuse rather than Recycle.
In that sense, saying "recycle or it'll end up in the ocean" is like saying "eat your food because people are starving in africa". Not only are the cause and effect not related but then people ignore the true underlying causes.
It is your personal choice to consume goods packaged in plastic. If you, as a consumer, continue to eat pre-packaged peaches and apple slices rather than just eating apples and peaches, you are consciously adding to the known problem. Blaming "someone else" doesn't change the decision that you, as an autonomous individual, have made.
Your stance uses the same logic that people use to excuse their impact on climate change. People who are generating trash (specifically plastic trash) are at fault for worsening the problem of excessive plastic trash, full stop. The same way that burning coal worsens the climate problem. The justification that the problem is so big that individuals can't (or shouldn't) change their behaviors is a coping mechanism. It's borderline nihilistic.
You can be absolutist about personal moral choices, but writing this reply used precious resources that are destroying the planet, on a device that almost certainly also contributed to pollution and human misery.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't be informed and make moral and politically influenced decisions, just that the impact of those choices is probably overstated and people weaponize their choices against others for their own gain.
Everyone can individually decide what they can accept, but I don't like it when people say I should buy their thing made out of recycled plastic like it's better for the earth if I do. I don't think that equivalence is obvious if you look at the whole problem.
Fortunately, I live in a state with some of the greenest energy sources in the country. Living here is a choice I make.
I also made the choice to write my comment and "use" those resources. I own that choice and the consequences. My comment simply suggests that you should own your choices and their consequences, too.
==people weaponize their choices against others for their own gain.==
It feels like you are doing a form of this when you dismiss the individual's contributions to global trash issues and outsource the blame to "others." You have gained peace-of-mind by convincing yourself you aren't part of the problem.
The "known problem" is plastic going to the landfill, which is barely a concern. awongh's original comment mentioned two plastic problems worthy of concern - microplastic and ocean plastic. Neither of that is related to disposable plastic going to the landfill.
I think the "known problem" is the consumption of too many products made out of plastic or with plastic packaging which leads to plastic trash. This over-dependence ties directly to the microplastic and ocean plastic problem. According to the WWF [0], there are three main ways that plastic ends up in the ocean:
1. Throwing plastic in the bin when it could be recycled. Plastic you put in the bin ends up in landfill. When rubbish is being transported to landfill, plastic is often blown away because it’s so lightweight. From there, it can eventually clutter around drains and enter rivers and the sea this way.
2. Littering. Litter dropped on the street doesn’t stay there. Rainwater and wind carries plastic waste into streams and rivers, and through drains. Drains lead to the ocean!
3. Products that go down the drain. Many of the products we use daily are flushed down toilets, including wet wipes, cotton buds and sanitary products. Microfibres are even released into waterways when we wash our clothes in the washing machine.
[0] https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/how-does-plastic-end-ocean
Clothing companies often tout how much of their polyester fibre is from recycled sources. It's ironic how plastic recycling being perceived as "good" contributes to the problem.
Also anecdotally when staying with a friend in a different city I had to break the news that the bin they thought was recycling went into the same truck. They had been separating their recyclables for months. You can try but it might not matter cuz they don't care.
I still try but would be lying if I wasn't a bit bitter they successfully shifted blame onto consumers.
On the issue of transparency, most people think that the Green Dot symbol¹ means an item can be recycled. It was only about 10 years ago that I learned that this just means that “suppliers and producers have contributed financially to the recycling of packaging in Europe”². In Ireland, Repak is an industry-led NGO that was created as a form of green-washing regulatory capture and I presume other European countries have their own equivalent.
¹ https://repak.ie/images/uploads/icons/The_Green_Dot_Symbol.p...
https://wts.com/global/publishing-article/20240508-plastic-t...
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/plastics/single-use-...
People with brooms are not an argument for people making a mess to carry on what they are doing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibili...
> Passing responsibility to producers as polluters is not only a matter of environmental policy but also the most effective means of achieving higher environmental standards in product design
It's a super material, it needs to cost as much as competing natural materials: nylon - silk, whatever plastic bottles are made of - glass/aluminum, whatever packaging is made of - paper/textiles, whatever containers are made of - wood/steel/aluminum/etc. Similar story for paints.
Basically, excises, but for plastic instead of just alcohol and tobacco.
We do this, plastic starts being used just where it really makes sense.
Down voters: why not comment why not? The market is clearly failing. I count a possible solution is 50+ years as failure.