How will we ever get away from plastics when they are ubiquitous for safety
How will we ever get away from plastics when they are ubiquitous for safety
Plastic seals food, sterile medical implements, medicine, beverages, etc... it's seems like plastic is used as a way to seal things safely. Post pandemic rising, I see even more. My work used to be have plastic utensils in the cafeteria, for example, an already wasteful thing. Now, post-2020, every fork, knife, and spoon is individually wrapped in a plastic wrapper. I feel like the more my desire to escape plastic intensifies, the more plastic I see all around me everywhere.
How can we get away from plastic as a safety layer?
We don't need to ban every single bit of plastic. It's fine to keep it where it's absolutely necessary. Some of the examples you provided definitely aren't necessary though, like individually wrapped cutlery (wtf) or beverages (can use glass).
So many things are unnecessarily wrapped in plastic. We use bubble wrap in situations where paper would be a perfectly fine buffer for shipping. We use plastic bags when paper and reusable bags work perfectly well.
I get so frustrated about it not even because I'm scared of the environmental impact of all this plastic floating around, although that does suck, but because plastic is currently absolutely crucial for modern medicine. One day maybe we'll find alternatives but until then I think a rational society would be preserving the limited life-saving miracle material for uses that aren't as basic as "use it to take home groceries, then throw it away."
Well for one: most of the things listed already have a solution:
Food? Glassware and Metal containers. Or Even reusable single type plastic containers, like a tupperware.
Sterile medical supplies already are packed in a paper bag. The ones that are in plastic actually aren't.
Medicine can also be packed into glass and metal containers.
Beverages can be put in cans or Reusable Glass bottles or you simply drink tap water. (I know in some countries that's not safe but it should be)
And honestly your cafeteria is the most ridiculous example. Get a dishwasher and use real cutlery. Or bring your own cutlery from home. (Is it actually a cafeteria or just a glorified break room?)
Sterile medical supplies already are packed in a paper bag. The ones that are in plastic actually aren't.
Uh... What? Sterile medical instruments are absolutely packed in plastic, paper is too permeable and will lead to contamination. Even if it looks like paper it's still lined with plastic. Have you ever worked in a medical setting before?
Same for science. I have autoclaved thousands of things. Most get packed into something like these.
Me putting paper into the autoclave for the sake of the environment
I'm pretty sure it's wax lined paper they use
My only note here is that canned beverages have a layer of non-recyclable plastic on the inside to prevent chemical interactions between the contents and the metal. Glass bottles are fine though as (aside from plastic labels) they're fully recyclable.
Even better, they are reusable
Tangentially related, I work in a medical laboratory, and the amount of daily trash we generate (not talking plastic specifically) is quite frankly horrifying. But there isn't a good solution for my field.
Glorified break room with a shop area, convenience store food/snacks. Sometimes catering comes in from places but otherwise, yep, big break room. I never use their awful cutlery. I've been known to purchase pizza rolls because yum. And hey, those come.in a totally cardboard container lol
Canada is in the process of "banning single-use plastics". Although you still see them everywhere, there are many places that have switched some stuff like plastic grocery bags, plastic straws and plastic utensils to cloth grocery bags, paper straws and wooden utensils.
The point OP is making still holds true in Canada though. I can’t go buy a plastic bag at my grocery store, but the store can use a ridiculous amount of wrap to sell produce, and there are tons of food products where you buy a bag full of smaller bags(and some full of even smaller bags. Pre-made salad is a big one) that I can buy easily and usually for fairly cheap.
It turns out that industry has more lobbyists than consumers.
You're absolutely correct. We're not close to eradicating it despite the strong wording of "single use plastic ban" but we are taking baby steps.
Start with the easy wins and replace the others as options come available. We don't have to fix everything at once.
One way is to keep the plastic but make it out of something renewable instead of out of petroleum products. It can have the same short term properties but eventually disintigrate instead of turning into microplastics or releasing harmful particles when burned.
What does the source of the monomer have to do with disintegration, microplastics and harmfulness when burned? PE is the most commonly used plastic in the world. It's made out of ethylene, which is about as simple as a molecule can be. Nothing prevents you making renewable PE, except it's cheaper to make from fossil sources.
They're called bioplastics.
Single use consumer plastics should be banned.
Bioplastic - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic
The solution is not perfect though...
Life cycle analysis studies show that some bioplastics can be made with a lower carbon footprint than their fossil counterparts, for example when biomass is used as raw material and also for energy production. However, other bioplastics' processes are less efficient and result in a higher carbon footprint than fossil plastics.
I don't think individual shrink wrapping of utensils is a necessary use, every time I pull that thin plastic off something I think we are all going to hell.
But as others have noted, we don't need to eliminate all use, we need to radically reduce use and find a technology to deal with the remaining amount.
And the plastic on some of those shrink wraps have a terrible squeak.
Plastic isn't the problem, capitalism is.
IMO this is an unpopular opinion mainly because capitalism is a terribly polarizing word which now means different things to different people. On the left, it's associated with imperialism and oppression. Among moderates and liberals it means the flawed ideology which beat something even worse, i.e. communism.
But the original meaning of capitalism was basically: accumulation. In other words, economic growth. And I think the jury is now in on this one. In the end, exponential growth is just not compatible with a living planet. The evidence is mounting on all sides. One example: the only period in recent history when the environmental indicators were all pointing the right way was the short deep recession that followed the financial crisis. That says an awful lot.
As a liberal I've changed my mind on this subject and I now agree with you.
It'd be better to come up with ways to efficiently break them down chemically so they can be remade into new plastic.
I’m probably going to hell for saying this, but… I’m not that worried about plastic pollution? Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to minimize single use items and plastic ending up places it shouldn’t, but if it’s the best option for food / medical safety or cheaply producing something with a lower carbon footprint… we should probably just use it without too much guilt? The world is almost certainly better because of plastic in my opinion.
You can buy bamboo utensils individually wrapped in wax and brown paper. For most one time use items we already have a non-plastic alternative, it's just less convenient.
We did rather fine in ancient times without plastic. We will find a way.
Lots more people died of easily preventable and treatable diseases, so fine is pushing it.
Yeah, that's what a lack of medical knowledge does. Not sure how that's dominantly related to plastic.
Narrator voice: We didn't
Plastic was invented in 1907.
Everyone should read the Plastics Paradox. It's good to be well informed.