Plastics is an example when market economy fails. Plastics is to cheap to buy and manufacture so it’s found everywhere. Ie plastics is an example of tradegedy of the commons where to purchaser of plastics benefits but everyone else sees a loss of the environment.<p>Trying to explain we need to develop an economic model better than market economy or else earth will become a big waste dump. Ie we need to prize the waste.<p>Tragedy of the commons
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_common" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_common</a><p>Environmental economics
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics</a>
It makes me wonder if, in 50-100 years, plastics will be the "lead paint" of my generation.<p>Plastics are undeniably useful, but it does seem like the unforeseen consequences might be too large to ignore at this point. I just hope that it doesn't have neurological problems.
By the way there is a solution to this plastic issue. Compostable plastics are a reality. See, for example, www.naturtec.com.<p>We could have a world where all cheap plastics that are not expected to last (e.g., water bottles, cutlery, packaging, bags) are compostable, and the expensive high performance long lasting plastics (e.g., those that are part of cars, computers, etc.) are made of traditional plastics. The latter will not create waste because they are expensive and would not be discarded willy nilly in large quantities. Hopefully they will be thrown in a proper landfill. The former will simply decompose regardless of how they are discarded (although for purely aesthetic reasons it is preferable they be discarded in a designated compost bins).<p>At this point the barrier is not technological, it is purely political. We just need to address the externality and force everyone to use compostable plastics for things that are expected to be discarded quickly.
This along with antibiotic resistance, ocean acidification and others are silent civilization killers. Male fertility has been dropping for the past several decades and accumulation of microplastics has been suggested as a possible cause. Will the species become infertile because of this? Will we sterilize our oceans? Will we go back to the 1800s medically where invasive surgeries will be nearly impossible due to no working antibiotics? Few people are aware of these problems and even fewer are working on solutions.
Relevant reading from April 2020: <i>"Atmospheric microplastics: A review on current status and perspectives"</i><p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001282521930621X" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001282521...</a>
Can't interpret these results, without knowing the concentrations resemble anything like what is found in agriculture today. I suspect, but cannot seem to find it mentioned, that very large concentrations were used to make any effect easily measurable.
Here is a post summarizing the paper:
<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200622152542.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200622152542.h...</a>
Every Sunday, I'm riding and collecting plastic trash along a bike lane. coke/beer cans and all sort of plastic and paper wrappings (+masks/gloves/gel bottles since covid19), in all sort of state (it's annoying when they start fragmenting)
This makes me wonder if we could find out what else accumulates we might not have thought of. Perhaps certain carbon structures or metals that may not directly pollute but accumulate all the same to a point where it does become an issue; somewhat like the (iirc) mercury in some fish.
<a href="https://biggreen.company" rel="nofollow">https://biggreen.company</a> We're working on this specific problem. Our mission is to eliminate all single use plastic bags.
<a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Graduate" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Graduate</a> (1967)<p><pre><code> Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?</code></pre>
Plants across the globe are thriving, with enhanced CO2 fertilizing driving record growth, and yet we still get sensational arguments about nanoplastics.
<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...</a>
I can't imaging a just Mother Earth that would reward the massive destruction of the environment (r<i></i>* and pilliage some would say) with a result that does not end in poisoning of the organisms that "benefit" from said activity.
OT/meta: It's really nice to see submissions linking directly to Sci-Hub :)<p>(It isn't yet that popular: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sci-hub.tw" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sci-hub.tw</a>)
Plastics are so enormously useful in modern life that I'm willing to accept the seeming low health costs associated with their pollution.<p>Yes they may be associated with certain cancers or endocrine disruption but the effects seem to be rather tiny in comparison to the myriad of ways in which plastics improve our quality of life.