Comments on: Plastic is made from oil. You knew that, right?

By: BethTerry

BethTerry — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:40:26 +0000

@Sian Thank you!

By: Sian

Sian — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:00:49 +0000

I find your honest, genuine approach to taking responsibility for your impact really refreshing.
Being an eco-warrior isn’t just about sticking coloured paper onto an old can and calling it upcycled because you can store pens in it. It’s also about going back to the source of the problem and working out, not just how we can slow it down, but how we can prevent it altogether.
It also isn’t just about entry after entry of new eco gear, which, whatever it’s made of, will have needed energy to manufacture. It’s also about making mundane, practical decisions that will help to achieve your aims, knowing that not everyone will understand. Sometimes the hardest, most frustrating, most inconveniencing thing about trying to make positive changes to your lifestyle is the negative attitudes of people who don’t know, understand or care about your values or motivations; it’s easier to criticise your choices than to “keep their own doorstep clean”.
Well, here’s one person who understands the logic of “if it doesn’t need to be manufactured, don’t cause it to be / if it already has been manufactured, don’t let it go to waste”!

By: BethTerry

BethTerry — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 03:21:18 +0000

@joel longstreth I left you a comment on your video about plastic being short for “thermoplastic.” ”Plastic” is commonly used to refer to all synthetic polymers, including thermosets like Bakelite. I bring this up because there was recently a company arguing that their product was plastic-free because it was made from a thermoset rather than a thermoplastic. Those distinctions are pretty meaningless to the average consumer.

By: BethTerry

BethTerry — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 03:19:43 +0000

@joel longstreth Hi Joel. It’s true that we need to focus on PVC and PC, some of the worst plastics. But the problem is that ALL plastics contain additives, and manufacturers don’t reveal their proprietary recipes. If you guys would let us know what’s in all the plastic products you sell, we could make informed decisions about our exposure.

By: joel longstreth

joel longstreth — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 20:44:55 +0000

here’s some background:’

http://info.brentwoodplastics.com/blog/bid/134350/BPA-free-is-irrelevant-to-most-plastics

the polymers you need to focus on are polycarbonate PC and polyvinyl chloride or PVC.

PC uses BPA as a catalyst which is used up in the reaction

PVC has some nasty stuff in it and outgasses as it degrades into dioxin

there are plenty of other polymers which are not in the same category
PE, PP, to name a few

but we do such a lousy job getting the truth out that people oversimplify

PVC replacement is a high development priority and it may be a fools errand.
http://www.brentwoodplastics.com/pvc_film_substitute.html

because nobody really cares
PVC is everywhere
commercial wallcoverings, 3 ring binders, billboards

next time you see the yellow caution tape at a construction site, remember it probably contains 1% lead which is leaching injto skin

nobody cares because the made in china is 60% less than heavy metal free made in the US

By: joel longstreth

joel longstreth — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 20:35:55 +0000

did you not see my post and my video ? you people really don’t want to be confused with the facts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP1myjnxOnA

By: awilkins

awilkins — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 10:10:45 +0000

@retiredranger @joel longstreth @BethTerry The Peace Corps?! Is that the organisation that assuages Liberal Guilt by sending naive youngsters to the developing world so that they can risk their lives and achieve very little?
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/05/16/the-peace-corps-at-50-whats-a-little-rape-murder-and-brutalization-of-women-between-friends/
Rather than family planning, the highest priority for the developing world is energy. That means efficient power stations and the infrastructure needed to distribute that power. That doesn’t mean useless and inefficient wind turbines or solar panels, instead it means fossil-fuel powered generators. A country’s birthrate declines as it’s population becomes wealthier and standards of living increase, through the supply of cheap power (specifically electricity). Waving condoms at poor Africans is not going to drag them out of poverty.
The reason my country (UK) managed to improve its standard of living was through the industrial revolution of the 19th Century. How was that achieved? By a steady supply of large amounts of reliable energy (Victorians would have no time for wind turbines powered by unicorn farts and uneconomic subsidies).
Why have you told me your 62? Is that because you believe in some sort of superiority through seniority? I imagine it’s more likely that you look back on a life of naive ideals and realise you’ve actually achieved very little, hence your “still time to make a 180 turn” statement.

Me? I feel I’ve achieved a lot and I’m proud of what I’ve done. I’m a mathematics teacher who has spent most of my career telling kids to think for themselves. In the last few years that has meant telling kids to really research the dodgy science behind the global warming scam – we look at the numbers and analyse the graphs and my students are shocked to see that throughout their whole lifetime the globally averaged temperature has not risen at all. We also analyse the numbers on ‘alternative energy’ technology and they get to see that the technology being foisted upon them by your generation is both hugely expensive and next to useless.

“First I think the off white chairs and the large chairs should be kept in the rear and will someone please tell the band to stop playing? ” Sorry squire, I haven’t a clue what your trying to say with that daft statement. Is it supposed to be some sort of witty literary reference?

By: retiredranger

retiredranger — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:55:25 +0000

%I also have 20 year old Subaru with 150,000 miles. I agree with you about how cars are running longer, more efficiently and with increased safety. Plastics are a part of that. What I object to is the waste of plastics. Two examples, we seem to have been duped that water in plastic bottles costing at minimum about $1.00 per gallon even though we can get safer water out of our taps. At least those taps fed by a public water system where the requirements and standards are the best in the world. On the other hand, water in bottles is not subject to stringent requirements. We are shipping water, that usually comes out of a tap anyway and using huge amounts of oil to produce the bottles and ship them to stores for the consumer to purchase. After they are used 95% of them end up in a landfill.

I also object to excessive packaging. I can’t see the reason for it. The loss prevention folks might disagree with me, but we are subjecting ourselves to huge costs of creating, managing and maintaining the liability of its existence for many decades. I object to low cost appliances, and even some higher cost appliances that can’t be taken apart for repairs.

We need to catch up and make widespread and fundamental changes in our waste stream. It has started but much more needs to be done. The cities that have done the best need to be supported nationwide and haven’t gotten as far as we need to get. We need fundamental changes in energy use. The marketplace decisions are not moving us as far and as fast as we need to do. We can’t have trucks delivering bottled water with distances of more than a thousand miles from source to use, returning to the source empty (deadheading). We have trucks deadheading and wasting energy. Plastics, population, and energy, et. al., need to be addressed.

As far as technology solving increasing population, remember that technology has been responsible for many improvement in our lives, but has also allowed us to make the crisis worse. There are limited resources on the earth, there are huge ecosystems that sustain us and we can’t build them. We’ve already lost the North Atlantic cod fishery and tuna is expected to be extinct in years. It has already gone from some large fisheries.

As for getting two crops due to global warming, the effect of drought will likely negate that. The Ogallala aquifer is already been drown down to the point that acreage in the grain belt is no longer suitable for crops. We have to accept our limits or we are going to have them given to us. The disaster that would result would be far worse than the plagues that have occurred in the past. Check out the book “The Coming Plague” to understand what increased population density is playing a role in the author’s conclusions.

The writings I read are all from credible scientists, of course remembering that a scientist without credibility is an oxymoron.

By: retiredranger

retiredranger — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:40:32 +0000

@awilkins @joel longstreth @BethTerry @retiredranger

I now know, by just reading your post that you are completely correct, Better we should stay at home, ignore high infant mortality rates, not send our doctors and nurses to provide for and educate people on health care, not educate women about birth control and not empower women by means of education. Oh, and I forgot, we should end the Peace Corps program, one I have experience with, as its never been effective anywhere at any time. This no matter that eventually people adapt to what works and thank you profusely for living in their country just to help them. No matter that the effort is not to give a man a fish but to teach them how to build their own fishing pole. No, it would be far better if we stayed at home and continued to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

You’ve lumped me in with some others whose comments I don’t agree with. But wait, I think your stereotyping is dead on. Wow, I’ve been living and working me entire life, living in radically different cultures than the one I grew up in and know I realize that all of it was a myth. Thanks, I’m 62 now and there is still time to make a 180 turn here. First I think the off white chairs and the large chairs should be kept in the rear and will someone please tell the band to stop playing?

By: awilkins

awilkins — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:29:00 +0000

@joel longstreth @BethTerry @retiredranger ”Voluntary Extinction”? Tell me you’re not serious! Do you really think people are going to give up on their most primal urge – procreating?
If you go to the following link
http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/infopays/rank/fecondite2.html
(hope it works!), you’ll see that the developed countries of the world have birthrates of 2 or less children per mother i.e. their populations are stable or declining. The countries with growing populations are those in the less developed regions of the world. Are you going to be the one who goes to Niger and tell them to stop having children? I think you’ll find they’ll laugh at you and then give you a good kick up the backside for being such an arrogant little person who thinks he can tell someone living in a shanty town what to do, whilst he sits in the air-conditioned living room of his lovely house in the West.