frantone
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Should We Worry About Plastics & Aluminum?
🕑 Added 2025-05-27 18:58:39 +0000 UTCThe best answer is probably that there is little if anything that we can do about it, but the longer answer might be that there's really no way to know one way the another. Enjoy!
Comments
Circuitmike
I *hate* plastic bag bans. They're well intentioned but the alternatives are actually worse for the environment, but nobody wants to hear that. One study famously concluded that a canvas bag would have to be used something like 26,000 times before it offset the environmental impact of its creation. They also feel like a corporate giveaway - I have to either buy bags or pay per-bag for paper (again, much worse for the environment because paper production is so destructive). I wish, if we're going to insist on having these bans, that they'd at least make exceptions for things like grocery pickup. I almost never physically walk into grocery stores any more because I hate grocery shopping - I order online and pick up at the store. And since our local bag ban went into effect a few years ago I've been stuck with shitty paper bags (the store managers buy the worst possible bags) for my orders. And now unloading the car takes 10+ trips instead of, like, two, because paper bags with handles are apparently never going to be an option. Our local grocery store gets bonus points for using paper bags so shitty that the employees often double-bag anything remotely heavy, or only put a handful of items in each bag, because otherwise they'll rip.
Robin Capper
I just happened to see this, this evening. Talks about microplastics in New Zealand environment “Detecting similar amounts in a remote area and a big city indicates there is a lot of plastic coming to us from the ocean,” Rindelaub says. https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2025/05/26/much-more-plastic-detected-in-indoor-air-than-outdoors-n-nz-rese.html
