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Loreav

Listed below are comments made by Loreav between Sunday, 17th August 2008 and Wednesday, 3rd September 2008.

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Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 01:13am on 03 Sep 2008 #35 My point remains the same. It's conservation of mass.
If you must use new plastic (maybe mixed with recycled) for some purposes - like milk bottles - and the demand for plastic stays roughly the same -
that means that plastic is being thrown away. By either the consumer or the recycler.
If 30% of the plastic is recycled, then plastic is being thrown away at 70% of the rate that it would be thrown away if there's no recycling.
It is an atrocious thing that we as a civilization are doing - producing this waste that lasts almost forever. Recycling only scales down the problem a little.
Laura
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 01:16am on 01 Sep 2008 Suppose the demand for plastic is constant over time.
If all of the plastic used (of a certain type) is recycled, then the supply of recycled plastic is the same as the demand for plastic.
So, unless the plastic used is 100% recycled, plastic is going to be thrown away. By consumers or by the recycler.
That wouldn't necessarily happen if the demand is rapidly increasing - but we're hoping that won't happen - hoping the opposite, actually, that people react against using plastic.
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 01:04am on 01 Sep 2008 No, what I'm saying is that there's a certain demand for plastic, and a certain supply of recycled plastic.
If all the plastic were recycled, there wouldn't be any "room" for the new plastic.
So any situation where new plastic is used has to involve throwing away plastic.
Anyways, people aren't going to be recycling plastic perfectly. Lots of bottles by the roadside and in the trash. Since it's a substance that lasts for a long, long time, that is a big disadvantage to plastic. Not so awful if someone throws a paper bag away in the wilderness, it'll decay.
Laura
Back to plastic? 9:40pm on 31 Aug 2008 My first reaction to Chris' experiment was that I'm already doing well environmentally, since I don't have a car, bike everywhere (I rent cars, but only a few times/year), I use cloth grocery bags, recycle the recyclable stuff. I rarely put out a trash can.
But it made me realize how much plastic is in my life *anyways*, and that there are other things I can do. When you go to solve a problem - the answer that you find when you go to the store, is often: Plastic.
One gets numb to it. It makes me wince a little to throw out plastic, and over time, not knowing what to do about it and not enjoying wincing, I become less conscious of it ...
One might ask, if you drive and are careful not to use plastic, does the driving outweigh the environmental benefits of not using plastic by so much that it's only a symbolic feel-good measure?
I don't know - but it would be interesting if some car-addicted person would do a similar blog: not driving for a month!!!
Or is that unthinkable, and its unthinkability itself a comment?
It would be pretty timely. There are a lot of wobbly new bicyclists since gas has gotten so much more expensive, in the US at least.
Laura
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 9:26pm on 31 Aug 2008 Chris Jeavans writes:
"So a milk bottle could become a new milk bottle (or, to be precise it could become a percentage of a new milk bottle as 100% recycled does not always have the same strength qualities as, say, 40% recycled, 60% virgin plastic.)"

This still implies plastic waste. Only 40% of the plastic could be recycled this way (if more than 40% were returned for recycling they'd have to start throwing it away).

I remember a hearing about plastic bag recycling at the grocery store. The bags were recycled once and the recycled bags tore very easily ...
Laura
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 2:48pm on 31 Aug 2008 My impression has been that recycling plastic isn't much of a justification for its use, because it can only be partially recycled, and recycled plastic is "downcycled", not reused for the same thing. And the downcycled products are maybe just thrown away after they wear out.
This may change. But the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_recycling says that #2, HDPE, the most often recycled plastic, is downcycled, and explains the limitations of recycling plastic in general. Much better not to use it in the first place. Says it's harder to recycle than glass or metal.
Laura
London bans plastic water bottles 01:10am on 30 Aug 2008 The aluminum water bottles are coated with a liner inside, but the liner might wear away and expose you to aluminum. But the amount of aluminum you'd get from a water bottle is very small and unlikely to affect you.
Aluminum in sufficient quantities causes neurological damage, though, and if I were looking for a water bottle I might avoid it. I don't have aluminum cookware either.
Laura
Soleful 7:21pm on 22 Aug 2008 The thing about plastic is that it lasts almost forever ...
I don't have a car, I bike around. But I still try not to consume plastic bags. If I really could consume them it'd be fine, but they're not that biodegradable :)
I'm starting to miss plastic... 2:19pm on 17 Aug 2008 It helps to know that other people are also conscious of plastic waste. I try to avoid plastic. I used cloth shopping bags and I've never bought plastic wrap. I use wax paper to wrap things for freezing. But sometimes you can feel alone in that. I wince when they ask other people at the store if they want a (plastic) bag and they go "of course" with no apparent dislike of getting something that will be here for a thousand years.
If many people try to avoid plastic, plastic-free options would become more available just as organic food is available now.
Plastic is very useful. I ended up getting plastic spatulas, because they're thin and strong and they don't scrape non-stick pans.
Maybe what will happen in the end is that plastic'll be made so it degrades in a shorter time. Probably that hasn't been done because there hasn't been a financial incentive. Not because it's difficult.
While trying to avoid plastic completely would be more work than most people want to put into their lifestyle, your plastic-free month serves a useful purpose in illustrating how pervasive it is and getting people thinking about things they can do to use less plastic. You've started me thinking about it.
Laura
Toothy grin? 1:41pm on 17 Aug 2008 I use baking soda to brush my teeth, because of food intolerances I can't use any regular toothpaste. You get used to it. I get fluoridated baking soda from a compounding pharmacy.

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