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Comment by BirAdam | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps the best way to prevent pollution of the environment with plastics is to ban the export of plastics as garbage. Currently, much of the plastic pollution is due to dumping in 2nd world and 3rd world countries where rules on disposal are very lax. So, while many people are actually quite conscientious and dispose of their waste in the appropriate manner, the garbage then just gets exported and not disposed of in any way that is responsible. Stopping the export also forces the originator of the garbage to deal with their waste creation... so dual benefit.

Of course, eWaste is also a sizable contributor to plastic pollution and most people don't even think about disposable of these items. They either sell them, or they toss them in the garbage... sometimes with lithium batteries still in them which is extremely hazardous.

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>Perhaps the best way to prevent pollution of the environment with plastics is to ban the export of plastics as garbage.

Strong disagree. There was a recent ourworldindata.org article that discusses this. It concludes:

>I estimate that a few percent of ocean plastics could result from trade from rich countries. A figure as high as 5% would not be unreasonable.

While 5% of ocean plastic waste isn't nothing, there are surely better ways to reduce overall plastic pollution than trying to target 5%. For instance, investing in better waste management systems in developing countries.

https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-waste-trade

It is not just about ocean plastic. Garbage is burned as fuel too in less developed countries. Stopping dumping of garbage in 2nd and 3rd world countries by developed/first world countries is going to benefit the environment in more ways than just reducing ocean plastics. We need to hold waste producers accountable. We need a systemic change, more push to reuse and recycle, better laws to limit production of single use plastics and a push towards repairability to limit production of e-waste.

> Garbage is burned as fuel too in less developed countries. Stopping dumping of garbage in 2nd and 3rd world countries by developed/first world countries is going to benefit the environment in more ways than just reducing ocean plastics.

what do you expect they'll burn for power if we stop paying them to take stuff to burn?

>It is not just about ocean plastic. Garbage is burned as fuel too in less developed countries. Stopping dumping of garbage in 2nd and 3rd world countries by developed/first world countries is going to benefit the environment in more ways than just reducing ocean plastics.

But if only 2% of plastics worldwide is traded (source: same article I linked in my previous comment), and most of that is traded within the same region, how much waste could possibly end up getting shipped to less developed countries and burned? You'd still be better off trying to reduce domestic garbage production/burning in those countries.

> Garbage is burned as fuel too

This is ideal, at least in arc and high temperature, scrubbed plants (because plastic recycling takes more energy than burning it cleanly.)

But you likely intended burned less as fuel and more as a disposal method.

Garbage is burned as fuel in developed countries too, e.g. https://www.viridor.co.uk/energy/energy-recovery-facilities/...

I don't know of good figures on how much worse it is to burn plastic rather than wash and reuse it.

Since every country still burn fossil fuels, burning oil (but used as plastic) should be not bad.

> For instance, investing in better waste management systems in developing countries.

How about we stop wasting tax payers’ money to pick up the tab of the externalized costs from all these companies selling single-use packaging?

At the end of the day these companies will gaslight you saying customers love plastic but the reason they do plastic packaging is because it reduces packaging and shipping costs (at a high cost for the environment, water cycle, and humans).

_Ban_single-use_plastic_, except for medical or lab applications.

That was the original proposal in the EC before the lobbyists watered it down to this farce of the ban on q tips and straws.

I personally like a lot of single use plastic. What’s the cheap alternative to keep food in an air tight seal from the factory to your home?

There is a lot of greenwashing around packing that’s more environmentally harmful to create because they decay when left outside. Except if both products are sent to the landfill then they don’t provide any advantages.

> What’s the cheap alternative to keep food in an air tight seal from the factory to your home?

Why do you need a tight seal? You can safely transport meat, fish, seafood from source to home with basic hygiene measures.

>You can safely transport meat, fish, seafood from source to home with basic hygiene measures.

You can, but it doesn't last nearly as long, which means more food waste due to spoilage. At my local supermarket meat that has been packaged in airtight bags have best before dates of 2-3 weeks. Meanwhile meat that's wrapped with non-airtight plastic wrap have best before dates of a week at most. The meats I get from the butcher counter do even worse.

If you are consuming meat in 3 weeks either buy it and freeze it or buy it in three weeks.

These plastic uses are solutions to problems that don't exist.

> If you are consuming meat in 3 weeks either buy it and freeze it or buy it in three weeks.

Freezing ruins the texture of the meat. Buying it in 3 weeks is more expensive because it's no longer on sale. Given the choice between slightly more plastic and saving $1+/lb, I'm choosing latter every time. Also, you focusing on the consumer side entirely misses the retail side. According to the USDA 7% of meat/seafood is lost due to spoilage at the retail level alone. This is with plastic packaging. Going back to wrapping everything with pink butcher paper will certainly be worse.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44306/10895_ei...

I strongly disagree, plastic wrapping is the same as clorinating chicken.

You are introducing an extra industrial step to save the additional cost of maintain sanitary conditions throughout the supply chain.

> Freezing ruins the texture of the meat.

Unless you are grilling some very premium beef cut and eating it without any rub or marination, I strongly doubt the majority of people would even know the 'texture' difference in a blind test.

It’s not just about the cost at the supply chain. If hypothetically 3% more food spoils, that’s roughly equivalent to 3% of all environmental impact of all farming and fishing. All the pesticides, land use, runoff fertilizer, fuel, methane production etc adds up to vastly more than the costs from plastics.

We think of costs in terms of money but shipping more crap means more fuel and thus more global warming etc.

> I strongly disagree, plastic wrapping is the same as clorinating chicken.

>You are introducing an extra industrial step to save the additional cost of maintain sanitary conditions throughout the supply chain.

Vacuum packing meat increases shelf life because the lack of air halts aerobic decomposition. That's not something that can be replicated by "sanitary conditions".

I find I frequently end up throwing out expired unopened plastic packages of food that have been sitting in the back of my fridge for weeks. Whereas whenever I get meat from the butcher counter I eat it that very day or the next.

A container with a lid?

Without an airtight seal you get increased spoilage. Something like 3% increased food spoilage might not sound like much but it’s equivalent to increasing the total environmental impact of farming, fishing, and food packaging industries by over 3%, which is massive.

Ok... but a container with a lid is usually sealed air tight, no? A ziploc bag is airtight. A jar is air tight. A screw on cap is air tight, etc. etc.

Am I missing something?

Your ziplock bag is plastic, cheap non plastic containers aren’t generally airtight. A cereal boxes and similar items have a sealed plastic bag inside to prevent the food from going stale by the time you open it.

Sure a glass jar with a rubber gasket works as would a tin can etc, but they require a lot of energy and resources to make which means real environmental costs. Aluminum foil is one of the better options cost wise but it requiers a lot of energy and it’s even less biodegradable than plastic.

As other commenters have mentioned, most of the mismanaged plastic comes from developing countries, which aren't exactly paragons of good governance and civil activism. Therefore I'm very skeptical that your policy proposal would actually reduce pollution from mismanaged plastic in any meaningful way. It might be the righteous choice, but if you care about stopping plastic from entering oceans it's a horrible proposal.

>_Ban_single-use_plastic_, except for medical or lab applications.

>That was the original proposal in the EC before the lobbyists watered it down to this farce of the ban on q tips and straws.

And how much of EU plastic waste is mismanaged?

No this is not feel good policy like 'recycling'. If the EU and the US ban single-use plastics, the world consumption of plastic would fall an order of magnitude.

It doesn't matter if 'developing' countries mismanage waste, their total plastic waste is still fractional in comparison to where most of the consumer spending is happening in the world.

Also it adds friction to the business model of these giants like: Coca-Cola, Nestle, Pepsico, P&G, Unilever, etc.

A big part of their savings is in economy of scale. If they now have to keep packaging solutions exclusive for a market but not another it will likely move the needle to single uniform packaging that abides with the strictest standard. This is a well studied effect in many industries.

> No this is not feel good policy like 'recycling'. If the EU and the US ban single-use plastics, the world consumption of plastic would fall an order of magnitude.

>It doesn't matter if 'developing' countries mismanage waste, their total plastic waste is still fractional in comparison to where most of the consumer spending is happening in the world.

Why focus on total plastic waste, rather than mismanaged plastic waste? Surely you must agree that a plastic bottle that's tossed into the Ganges river is orders of magnitude worse for the environment than one that's sitting in a properly engineered and monitored landfill?

>Also it adds friction to the business model of theses giants like: Coca-Cola, Nestle, Pepsico, P&G, Unilever, etc.

>A big part of their savings is in economy of scale. If they now have to keep packaging solutions exclusive for a market but not another it will likely move the needle to single uniform packaging that abides with the strictest standard. This is a well studied effect in many industries.

I'll need numbers for this. The factors working against your argument are:

1. while economy of scale is a thing, the gains you get decrease as you scale up. If you only have bottle factory and it only produces glass bottles, it would be tremendously expensive for you to start producing plastic bottles, because you have to build a whole new factory from scratch. However, if you have dozens of bottle factories around the world, then having separate plastic/glass bottle factories effectively cost you nothing. Yes, there is small efficiency gains to be had, but I doubt that they're significant enough to drive plastic bottles out of business.

2. as developing countries get richer, their plastic consumption will go up as more people can afford consumer products. The same isn't true for rich countries. After all, you being 10x richer won't cause you to use 10x more shampoo.

Because one country you have a say in and the others you don't? Why should any other country mandate a switch if even wealthy countries don't bother?

>Because one country you have a say in and the others you don't?

Yeah but what's the point of your activism? Is it to tick off a box and say that you did "something"? Or is it to improve the world by some metric (ie. microplastic pollution)? If it's the latter, then it's pretty obvious that you should devote your effort into the highest impact projects regardless of whether it's righteous or not (ie. even if it means picking up "the tab of the externalized costs from all these companies selling single-use packaging").

>Why should any other country mandate a switch if even wealthy countries don't bother?

They shouldn't because I never made such a proposal. My original comment mentioned "investing in better waste management systems in developing countries".

these companies will gaslight you saying customers love plastic but the reason they do plastic packaging is because it reduces packaging and shipping costs

But that’s what customers love: undamaged, well packed goods at low prices.

I don’t think there’s anyone claiming that people just “love plastic” in the abstract.

I don’t disagree with you that regulation is likely the only way to enforce more responsible plastic use. The only other way is to find more responsible alternatives that do the things plastic does at similar or ideally lower cost.

You just picked some random sentence from that article.

I can pick some other sentences from that article and give another picture: "Most of the plastic that enters the oceans from land comes from rivers in Asia.1 More than 80% of it.

Only a small amount comes from rivers across Europe and North America. Together, these regions contribute just 5% of the global total. This would suggest that the world’s richest countries don’t contribute much to the problem of plastic pollution.

But, these numbers only look at the plastic that is emitted domestically. They don’t consider the fact that many countries export plastic waste overseas."

Overall I would say that article contradicts itself and makes no sense.

Uh, dude.

The article is pointing out that:

1. Most ocean plastic enters the ocean from East Asia (80%)

2. Only about 5% of its enters the ocean from North America or Europe

3. But some plastic waste is exported form North America or Europe to Asia.

4. So is it plausible that the true waste share of NA and Europe is higher?

5. It concludes, yes, North America and Europe contribute as much as 5% of ocean plastic directly and then up to a further 5% via waste export.

It doesn't contradict itself, your parent poster didn't "just pick a random sentence from the article," and you should maybe read more carefully.

> You just picked some random sentence from that article.

It's literally the bolded conclusion to the section named "How much do rich countries contribute to plastic pollution through their exported waste?". Given that the parent comment was talking about banning plastic exports, I think that's very relevant to this discussion. Saying that it was a "random" sentence is an extremely unfair characterization.

>I can pick some other sentences from that article and give another picture: "Most of the plastic that enters the oceans from land comes from rivers in Asia.1 More than 80% of it.

>Only a small amount comes from rivers across Europe and North America. Together, these regions contribute just 5% of the global total. This would suggest that the world’s richest countries don’t contribute much to the problem of plastic pollution.

>But, these numbers only look at the plastic that is emitted domestically. They don’t consider the fact that many countries export plastic waste overseas."

>Overall I would say that article contradicts itself and makes no sense.

What exactly is contradictory here?

Not sure why banning exporting would change anything.

Plastic would just wind up in domestic landfills. It's not like countries are running out of landfill space.

I suspect that is the parent commenter's point: If you can't externalize the problem, you are forced to deal with it. If you have to deal with it, chances are you won't just dump it in a landfill.

The parent's point was that, given the non-scarcity thereof, they would just dump it in a landfill.

Landfills almost do not pollute. Plastic pollution is caused by bad management of it (and accidental loss) that spreads it into nature.

Placing them in landfills is the right thing to do.

> Plastic pollution is caused by bad management of it (and accidental loss) that spreads it into nature.

The idea that nature is over there, not here and that the landfill site is somehow ok to ruin has strong vibes of the (fantastic) comedy segment where the oil spill happens outside the environment.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

There is quite a bit of difference between an spill and some contained contamination of a very small volume.

My home directly overlooks the River Thames. From my perspective, "contained" isn't the right word.

Okay...? Contained would mean not going in rivers, obviously.

Why is it not the right word?

"Contained" implies that the problem is under control. It isn't.

That's what it would be if the bad management was removed. The problem being fully under control is theoretical, so pointing out the real world isn't under control is not a counterargument.

That is a humorous distraction. We need to put waste plastic into a billion bins, the billion bins empty into fewer larger bins and landfills are the final bins. The landfill area required for this eventuality is tiny relative to the area of environment which we consume for many other things - even car parks alone consume far more of Earths environment than landfills. Airports too, and Mines, Roads... all themselves dwarfed by agriculture. Properly situated 'big bins' have far less impact on surrounding places than those things.

> Plastic would just wind up in domestic landfills.

Precisely. That's where they should end up.

In this case, if you want to do your part, stop recycling plastic and start putting it in the trash where it belongs.

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