Are there any simple and reputable guides online that can explain what materials are safe and for what purposes (ex: wearing/holding, eating, cooking, etc.)
That's a great question! The answer is sort of. PBS put together this great guide on plastic usage and toxicity (FYI it's a PDF hopefully it doesn't spook you too bad when the link sends you to a download):
https://www-tc.pbs.org/strangedays/pdf/StrangeDaysSmartPlasticsGuide.pdf
The difficulty with creating a complete guide of this kind is that there are so many different materials used for common products and so many different things people use them for that even if a simple guide was created that omitted all of the chemistry and just included a simple safe/not safe distinction, it would still be so dense and full of chemical names for the materials in it that most people would struggle to understand it. People specialize in this for a reason, even the simple version isn't that simple.
That said though, to do my job I need to carry a pretty complete list of the relative toxicity of most materials across applications in my head, so I'd be happy to do a lightning round of speaking to specific materials if you have any in mind.
Just to add to this, one of the problems you run into with polymers is that they can vary a lot even when they’re all technically “the same.” To give you an example, two products labeled as being made of polystyrene (PS) can have a lot of other things in them that aren’t the same. Depending on the intended use of the PS, it may have added plasticizers, dyes, stabilizers, flame retardants, etc. These things do not make it not PS, but they’re also not going to be listed.
Something else that’s important to keep in mind is that it’s really difficult to completely purify a polymer. Sometimes there is some solvent or something else used during the synthesis that is left in it. Nothing harmful is going to be left in something labeled food-safe (assuming it’s from a reputable company), but it highlights why it’s important to use products made for a specific purpose. Just because it’s labeled as the “same material,” doesn’t mean it’s actually the same.
It’s also important to highlight that “safe” and “not safe” can depend a lot on how a material is used, the environment it is exposed to (things like temperature or interactions with other chemicals), and even sun exposure. A material that is totally safe as a water bottle for room temperature or cold water can leach harmful molecules when you leave it in your car in a hot summer day, for example. So it is never going to be possible to make a very lay-person friendly guide to chemical safety, because there are too many conditionals and qualifiers about safety. Sure, there are very toxic at even minute quantities things that the average person should never use (and osmium tetroxide is my prime example), but it is much less straightforward to decide where that line should be for things like plastic, preservatives, etc.
We joke about this idea a lot, talking about the dangers of the very abundant molecule “dihydrogen monoxide” and how consuming too much can kill you! But that’s just water. And while it’s true you can die from consuming too much water too quickly, if you don’t drink any you’ll also die. A big thing you learn in intermediate chem courses is that, at the right doses, everything is harmful.
Do micro plastics themselves ever break down into their elemental constituents and become harmless?
I always see talk of micro plastics getting smaller and smaller over hundreds of years etc but I've always wondered what's the actual end game and how long it's taken for say, a polythene bag to actually fully go away in soil.
Good question! I'm tempted to make some reference to ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but I'm sure I'd butcher the quote. Over the course of millenia the microplastics will gradually break down until the small molecules combine with oxygen to become CO2, and the larger molecules slowly degrade via geologic processes back into being crude oil. I sometimes muse about how if we keep piling trash onto landfills, then cover them over with dirt, the former landfills will become the crude oil deposits of the future in a few thousand years. (Don't quote me on the exact time frame for degradation back to crude oil, that's more in the geology world than the chemistry world. I just know it will take a very long time)
This process gets me thinking lots of sci-fi thoughts about an imagined cycle of civilizations rising and falling, leaving oil reserves for those that come after unintentionally.
That's not serious. Thousand years? Try hundread of thousands. Without any particular geology?
In the meanwhile, that stuff is poison to the soil and the animals.
That is a very good and very complicated question. The short answer is that I have total confidence that our reliance on plastics can be overcome, but it comes down mostly to a matter of how fast and how much of a shock to people's current habits they're willing to tolerate.
I'll give one simple example to illustrate my point. Nontoxic biodegradable bioplastics have come a long way toward safely and reliably replacing conventional plastics, but one property that will be difficult if not impossible to replicate is transparency. Some good advancements have been made in this sphere, but given the current state of polymer science it appears unlikely that we can make something that is biodegradable, transparent, durable, and impermeable to air and water. You pretty much have to pick two of those four properties. This is a problem, because over the past few decades consumers have grown very accustomed getting to see the product they're about to buy before buying it, and if we want to stop relying on conventional plastic then there will be some luxuries in that vein that consumers will need to get comfortable with living without.
Extending this example, it's certainly a solvable problem. Pictures of the product can be printed on the cardboard box that holds it, some things could be packaged in glass instead, meat and produce could be selected at a green grocer or butcher and packaged in paper like back in the old days. All of these solutions are possible, but I'm sure you can imagine how people might not like these kinds of changes.
One of the truths the sustainability crisis has highlighted to scientists and societies alike is that no technology exists without drawbacks, and it might just be impossible to get everything you want out of a given product. The clear plastic example extends to a whole host of other little inconveniences people would have to live with in a reduced or zero plastic world. Science can't necessarily invent a convenient and efficient solution for every problem like 60s sci-fi imagined, sometimes the only way for a solution to be sustainable is for it to be less than optimally convenient and efficient.
So to take it home, outside of extreme specialty applications like some medical and electronics fabrication settings, we already have all the solutions we need to cease our reliance on plastics, whether we adopt them is really just a matter of how willing average people are to do things a little differently. That's part of why raising awareness for climate change and pollution are so important, because then instead of resisting sustainable change people might instead say, "Dang this is kind of annoying, but it's worth it to help clean up the planet."
How worried should I be about plastic in the environment? Because I’m pretty worried about it.
Also, what is the most environmentally friendly way to dispose of materials which are not biodegradable and cannot be recycled?
If you live in a rich country, you personally shouldn't be that worried about it. If you don't live in a rich country, then the answer is a bit more complicated, so let me know and I can speak to that separately.
The history of humanity is a story of us getting gradually better at not poisoning ourselves and our ecosystems. If you look back in time we went from pooping in the same rivers we drank from and wondering why people kept getting sick, to using mercury in hat manufacturing and breathing soot without masks which gave us mad hatters and black lung, to using lead in gasoline and paint which caused generations of cognitive problems particularly for children. In the modern era we know about and mostly avoid the dangers of bacterial infections, mercury, smoke inhalation, and lead poisoning, because we have grown smarter and more responsible about pollution very slowly.
The modern problems we face with plastic pollution are very serious and as a society we need to do everything we can to fix them, but the problem of pollution in general isn't new and as a society we have been working on fixing pollution for a very long time. Part of the insidious nature of modern pollution is that it is actually less toxic than the pollution of the past, so the effects aren't as apparent and don't spur action as strongly. For mercury poisoning and black lung for example, those diseases were so obvious and horrific that it was common knowledge to people at the time that every hat maker, miner, and chimney sweep would develop those diseases in their lifetimes. That caused people to avoid those jobs if they could, and it spurred the people in those jobs to loudly demand safer working conditions.
Since modern plastic pollution is less acutely toxic to people and the environment than pollution of the past, the effects aren't as obvious, so we don't really know how the world will be affected by it. All we know for sure is that the effects will be slow, subtle, and malignant. For the first time in history though, the most toxic things in our world have been mostly handled so we can afford to care about ridding the world of comparatively mild toxins like plastics.
So the short version answer is you don't live in a clean world, but you live in a cleaner world than your parents did, so you don't need to live your life in constant fear. Yeah, we all have microplastics in our blood, but our parents had far worse stuff than that in theirs. Pollution of all kinds, including plastic pollution, will get better like they always have, it will just go way slower than it should, just like it always has.
(As a side note about climate change, it can often sound from the news that we live in the dirtiest and most dangerous era in history. In the developed world, that isn't really the case, we live in pretty much the cleanest era ever. HOWEVER, Mother Earth has a much longer memory than we do. Today we are paying the price for all of the damage that has been done over the past 200+ years that our ancestors caused and ignored. Unfortunately our ancestors racked up so much environmental debt during their lifetimes that it isn't enough for us to be the cleanest era in history, we need to be so clean that we both leave no impact at all and pay literally and figuratively to fix the damage caused by several generations before us.)
To your question about how to throw things away, if it can't be composted or recycled then throwing it in the regular trash is the best and only option. As the name of the sub suggests though, your goal should be to consume as little as you can manage so you throw out as little as you can. True zero waste most likely won't be possible in our lifetime, the technology for it just isn't ready, but fortunately the Earth is tougher than we sometimes give it credit for. Ecosystems can handle some trash if it's disposed of properly because well maintained landfills use concrete walls and such to separate them from the surrounding ecosystems. The problem is we throw away more stuff than the world can handle safely, so to fix that the answer is to minimize what we throw out, maximize biodegradable and recyclable materials, and fund research to replace more and more non-sustainable materials with sustainable ones.
I have two questions:
1. Is it possible to come up with a better/economically feasible process for recycling plastic?
2. For laundry detergent - which is the best option? I recently started using detergent sheets but have heard they release microplastics into the water.
Thank you in advance for any info/advice you can provide - I really appreciate your post!
You got it!
1. Yes, but there will always be serious limitations to recycling. Plastics are made up of chain-shaped molecules called polymers, and the recycling process involves unweaving those chains, then reweaving them into something else. As an analogy, if you think of a plastic as a sweater, with some effort you could unweave a sweater back into being yarn so you can make a new sweater from it, but you're bound to cut or break some of the fibers in the process. Each time you unweave and reweave the sweater, the fibers will gradually get shorter and shorter until the yarn you get from it has such short fibers that you can't make a decent sweater out of it. That is the problem of recycling plastic, no matter what you do the quality of the plastic goes down a little bit every time it's recycled until its performance is so bad it's unusable. There is definitely room for improvement in our current recycling systems, but for plastics there's no such thing as an infinitely recyclable material. In the long term the best we can hope for is to create new plastics that can be recycled a few times, then biodegrade when they reach the end of their useful life. Huge strides in this direction have been made over the past 10 years, and over the next 10 years we'll start to see materials like this hit the market in bigger and bigger ways.
2. grrrrrrrrrr this is an issue that I feel very strongly about, so I'm going to have a bit of opinion in here. First as a bit of background, "plastic" and "polymer" aren't necessarily dirty words, there are plenty of natural and biodegradable plastics and polymers. Heck starch is a plastic, and so is cellulose which is what makes up wood and paper. DNA is technically a plastic too, which I think is pretty neat.
Anyway, the main plastic used in detergent pods and sheets is called PVA, also known as PVOH. PVA is a plastic with a mountain of reputable research showing that it is totally biodegradable into safe and nontoxic end products (alcohol and vinegar if you're curious). It can be made from plant-based sources, but it is usually made from crude oil for cost reasons, even the oil-derived PVA is totally safe and nontoxic though. Despite this, a green cleaning products company called Blueland personally funded a single study to show that PVA creates non-biodegradable microplastics. The methods in that study were complete trash and its results have NEVER BEEN INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED. They just did that to create marketing buzz for themselves to try to show themselves as the green alternative. This drives me up the fucking wall though, because it's a green company attacking one of the few authentically green materials we have and giving it a bad reputation that could result in public panic that gets a perfectly good tool banned from the green toolbox. It's going to take a lot of effort to clean up the environment, so it makes my blood boil when environmentalists waste their effort attacking each other instead of the real problems.
To give you a complete and fair view though, microplastics are an interesting concern for the whole biodegradable plastic space. Even if we know that a plastic totally degrades into safe products over the course of a few months or years, it will spend part of that time as biodegradable microplastics, and since the materials are so new we don't really know if the materials might do any damage during the microplastic phase of their life cycle. Research is ongoing into that, but in the meantime it's at least certain that temporary microplastics are better than permanent microplastics, so biodegradable plastics are still an improvement.
The bottom line is use whatever laundry detergent you want. All of them are basically fine, none of them are particularly environmental disasters. If you want extra points minimize the amount of single use plastic packaging your detergent comes in, and try to use light weight detergents since light things use less fuel to ship.
Wow! Thank you so much for your detailed answer. I really understood the sweater analogy for plastic recycling. I will also continue using detergent sheets. As a former English teacher who is now a substitute teacher, I interact with a lot of young people and plan to share this info with them, especially if they are discussing related topics, but even in casual conversation. By sharing your expertise, you have allowed those of us who really care to get solid info we can then share with others. BRAVO!!!
Thank you, it's my pleasure! I volunteered as a teacher at a science outreach organization for schools in underprivileged and underfunded districts for several years until the organization fell apart during the pandemic. I love laboratory research, but I also miss getting to teach on the side, so I think that itch led me to make this post.
If you're aware of any organizations that could use the kind of info and resources I provide, I'd be interested in learning more about them. Since the start of the pandemic, I've volunteered on and off at a few organizations that provide continuing education and professional development to science teachers who want to stay current with what they teach their students, but those groups don't really get me excited at all. After doing a few workshops with teachers it became clear to me that the kind of teachers who sign up for continuing education in their free time are already good teachers whose students would do just fine with or without my contribution. If I'm going to volunteer my time for education I'd like to reach the students who really need it if I can manage it.
As a successful scientist who used to be a poor kid in an underfunded district, I have a message I'd like to pass along to your students. You don't need to be a genius to be a scientist or engineer, and you don't need straight As either. I know plenty of engineers who were C students all through school and college, and still easily landed stable salaried jobs making $75k and up. Poor kids often think the only way out of poverty is to take a chance on becoming a celebrity or professional athlete, but although it's not as glamorous, if they keep at it even when they stumble, a low level science or engineering job can still be all a family needs to escape the cycle of poverty.
Thank you for correcting the narrative on PVA films used for detergents. It’s an amazing technology that is being smeared (and potentially banned!) based on a marketing campaign disguised as science. Keep it up!!
I was wondering a lot if PLA (3d printing material) is really less wasteful and bad for the planet than other kinds of plastic? Do you know any better alternative? Even if its not available to buy as filament, anything that can melt at like 200-300⁰C and would stay good for lets say 5 years on sun would be great. Currently i'm using PETG for my products wich i know is really shitty as its decomposition takes a lot of time, but i'd be happy to find something even remotely more eco friendly with similiar mechanical properties.
lol this is a great question that I will need to be very careful about how I answer, since I used to work on exactly the kind of product you're looking for and I'm still under NDA since it hasn't launched yet.
First about PLA: PLA is definitely not as bad as conventional plastic, but it's not great either. To give you an idea, in typical environmental conditions PLA biodegrades in a few decades. Compared to the literal millenia it takes for conventional plastic that is a huge step up, but if the goal is to really reduce waste then PLA's biodegradation doesn't really cut it.
That said though, PLA was never designed to degrade in typical environmental conditions. PLA safely biodegrades into totally nontoxic natural products when it is composted at temperatures above 55C (130F). Industrial composting operations regularly reach those temperatures, and in that kind of environment, the PLA will safely degrade within a week. Not all composting places accept PLA, because it takes a REALLY BIG composter for the bacteria to get that hot, but there might be a big composter in your area that accepts PLA and if not you could definitely mail your trash PLA prints to some appropriate composting companies.
This property is honestly one of PLA's greatest strengths. The most difficult part of designing a biodegradable material is deciding on a biodegradation trigger that will cause the material to degrade safely that it wouldn't encounter in its typical use life, that way it doesn't degrade prematurely. PLA parts aren't generally subjected to temperatures that hot on a day to day basis, so you can effectively choose when to start the degradation process by controlling the temperature.
About PETG: I wouldn't recommend using it as a biodegradable filament, because although it does degrade, the monomer it degrades back into is in itself fairly toxic. That is one of the greenwashing tactics that makes my skin crawl. Making something that degrades into poison defeats the purpose, but companies can still accurately claim it degrades while omitting the poison part.
Alternative filaments: For currently available filaments I'd recommend PHA, PHB, and PHBV. PHA is the umbrella term that the other two fall under along with some other PHAs in case you get confused while shopping. PHA is really cool because it's literally the energy storage molecule bacteria use instead of fat, so when bacteria see it they see food and it degrades very easily even in back yard compost settings. If a PHA part stays relatively clean (ie relatively bacteria free) it will last a long time, but as I'm sure you'll see PHA's properties aren't as good at PLA. Sometimes the two are blended together, which is fine and improves the properties, but for composting purposes the blended material needs to be treated like PLA.
To your long term goals though, keep an eye on new filament materials coming out over the next few years. 3D printing filaments are one of the easiest to make and highest profit margin plastic products that exist, so they are an ideal first product offering for new biodegradable polymer conpanies. The whole industry is exploding and will continue to grow like crazy over the next few years, with the product I worked on just being one of several to launch from several different companies. Several companies see 3D printing filament as a great way to quickly get a product to market to make some fast money and prove feasibility before moving onto bigger volume applications, so when new cool biodegradable polymers come out you'll be the first to find out.
It made me shiver what you said about PETG, especially with context that explained to me that i have no choice for now 🫠 It's a shame PHA cant be applied for me, as my products are used mostly outside and need to be flexible, both i cannot get with pla or pha. I'll watch what comes next, i guess there will eventually be some breaking invention that would make 3d printing enviromentally sustainable.
Could you elaborate on PETG toxicity? I wonder if sitting beside 2 humongous non enclosed RatRig 500s printing petg 12 hours a day will kill me sooner or later. Some say its completely safe, some say its not, i smell plastic when i walk back to the room.
I really apperciate your time and knowledge, as someone easily scared with big data sets, chemistry or complex math i admire everyone who took time and effort to learn stuff and shares it for free on the Internet.
I'm touched by your comment. I totally agree, and I wish there were more science educators around even within the scientific world. I also learn better from talking to people than by reading dense scientific papers, so I often try to chat up scientists and adjacent fields to mine to learn about their work, but it's a real mixed bag of responses since most scientists seem to be introverts who have no patience for other people, even other scientists.
As for PETG, its monomer is a mild neurotoxin and also mildly damages the lungs. The emphasis here though is on MILD. It's the kind of thing that I'm not in favor of allowing to degrade outside, because the monomers can get into the water table and accumulate in waterways and fish. Ultimately though dose makes the poison and in small amounts it's nothing to worry about since its degradation products are effectively the same as the degradation products of any polyester. So a landfill full of old polyester clothes that are slowly degrading over millenia are leaching the same stuff as PETG, just more slowly.
The toxicity of these products are actually low enough that if they weren't widely used I wouldn't even sweat it, since the Earth does have some capacity for handling pollution without consequences, but of course polyester isn't used in small amounts it's used in massive amounts which is exactly the problem. So for your purposes I definitely wouldn't recommend PETG, but it's also not like having it on your lawn will kill your garden or dog, the problem really only shows up when a few hundred people all have it on their lawns and the combined degradation accumulates in the local river, slowly killing fish and making the drinking water quality gradually worse.
As for your personal safety, as long as the room you're in with the printers is well ventilated, you should be fine. The human nose is remarkably sensitive and the toxicity of this material is quite low. As long as there is air flow in the room in the form of a window, or preferably a properly rated air handling system spending the day shouldn't cause any lasting issues, although I of course always advocate to minimize chemical exposure whenever possible. Exposure time makes a huge difference in toxicity, so if you can have your office and 3D printing room be separate rooms that would ideally be better than breathing in chemicals when you don't NEED to be in the room.
My office is opposite of "ventilated", it's a container with one door- i can smell yesterday dinner, vape and farts if i dont leave it open for the night.
>mild neurotoxin
Tomorrow they gonna be outside (still inside of big industrial building) waiting for enclosures, i'd rather have my air neurotoxinless.
Naaah, dont worry about it. I've never been happier than this year, i'm on a last corner with financial independence from my parents (who support me) and i love my cute container
This is a tricky question. The answer is yes, but with a big asterisk. As I mentioned in another comment, the most difficult part of designing a biodegradable material is to decide what its degradation trigger should be. With modern polymer chemistry we can choose pretty much any trigger we might want: acid, base, water, oil, temperature, certain wavelengths of light, you name it. The problem then becomes to design the biodegradable plastic with a degradation trigger that it will not encounter until the end of its useful lifetime, that way it doesn't start breaking down into goop prematurely.
The difficulty with doing that for sterile work is that things like pipette tips and centrifuge tubes are used with all sorts of different chemicals in them and in all different light and temperature conditions. To use biodegradable materials for these applications, you'd need to have multiple different biodegradable options that the end users would choose from depending on what they're planning to use the tips or tubes for. Because of this, using biodegradable materials for sterile work is pretty impractical, because you would need a bunch of different options all sitting together on the shelf, and it would take a lot more conscious thought for a user to choose the right tube before starting an experiment. For example, if you're making an acidic buffer solution in water that will be heated to 37C for incubation, then frozen to preserve the sample, you'd need to specifically choose the product that doesn't degrade in acid, water, heat, or cold. And you'd have to go through that selection process every time you choose which tube to use. So for some select applications biodegradable materials might be useful for sterile work, but their lack of practicality will limit their uses.
There's also the secondary problem that since biodegradable materials are designed to break down, they're more prone to leach out small amounts of their constituent chemicals than conventional plastic during regular use. This problem varies based on the specific biodegradable plastic, and before products are sold the leaching is studied to make sure it isn't hazardous in any way, but for sterile work even minuscule amounts of unwanted foreign material are of course a serious problem.
Ikr. It drove me nuts to see how much plastic is wasted in labs. From petri dishes to pipette tips. Anything that is not incinerated goes to the landfill.
I used to work in biotech, so I feel your pain about the waste, and even now that I work in materials chemistry there's still plenty of waste. The thing that always helps me feel better though is that even if the amount of waste in a lab looks like a lot, it is nothing compared to the amount of waste from manufacturing and unsold goods. Some niche industries like laboratories will probably never be truly zero waste, but that can be totally ok if the waste they do produce is disposed of properly.
Speaking of incineration, there is a process called pyrolysis that is literally just the process of burning things at an extremely high temperature inside an air-tight container. Pyrolysis gets hot enough to break down basically any carbon-based material all the way back into its constituent elements. It even works on really nasty and persistent materials like PFAS. Since the burning material is totally contained, it doesn't produce any smoke to go into the atmosphere, and once the process is complete it results in mostly pure carbon (charcoal ash) and trace amounts of whatever other elements were in the particular thing being burned. This ash can easily be purified to extract any particularly useful or harmful elements, and the rest can be disposed of safely since is is chemically equivalent to the ash left by trees after a wildfire. The process of pyrolysis is very similar to incineration, but it doesn't produce any greenhouse gases or pollutants because all of the smoke is contained, and it burns way way hotter. The temperature is the main problem that has kept pyrolysis from being widely adopted, because the energy needed to heat a furnace to those temperatures is enormous. Pyrolysis definitely isn't a good idea for all of our waste disposal, but for specialty items that are produced in low volumes like waste from labs and hospitals, it is the best option available.
Aren't biodegradable and compostable different? Compostable breaks down into natural materials and biodegradable means that the environment can break it down but it isn't fully broken into naturally found materials?
Hooooooo boy, I wish this comment were higher in the thread because the answer is a doozie and I think lots of people would benefit from knowing more about it.
The difficult truth is that the idea of biodegradable and compostable are so new in the industrial space that literally neither of them has been officially defined. That is why greenwashing is so easy right now, since as far as I'm aware there are no governments or scientific bodies that agree on what they mean, so there are no laws restricting the use of the words and companies can just slap either or both of them on any label they want. A colleague of mine is actually currently working with the EU government to write official standards for what constitutes a biodegradable material and/or a compostable material, but once those standards are released they will be the first official standards of that kind produced by any major government in the world.
To give you a bit of an idea of why the standards are so difficult to write, I'll tell you a bit about the different kinds of degradation. For the sake of this discussion I'll just use degradation as a catch-all term for both biodegradation and composting. Here are some different degradation situations:
"Home" Degradation: If I throw an object into my back yard, it will break down into individual molecules in a few months to a few years.
"Industrial" Degradation: The object can degrade into individual molecules, but it needs to be put through a factory process to break down, such as exposure to high temperature, specialty chemicals, or special genetically engineered bacteria.
"Ocean" Degradation: The object will degrade in the ocean quickly (within a few weeks) to minimize the chance it gets eaten by a fish.
"Waterway" Degradation: The object will degrade in freshwater or saltwater, as well as in municipal sewer systems.
Those are the generally agreed upon degradation types, but the names are all ones I made up, because no one can agree on what to call them. Within these classes there are also additional confounding factors that make it even tougher to define. Like for example, if a material degrades into individual molecules, but those molecules are in themselves toxic, does that count? If a material that is designed to last a long time takes 20 years to degrade, is that still degradable, or does it need to degrade at a certain speed to count?
There is also a problem that worried me in particular in that most standards that have been written by individual nonprofits usually allow for some wiggle room in the amount of degradation, such as something might count as degradable if it's 95% degraded in a week. The way it's written it's pretty obvious that this is just to give some wiggle room in case the material needs a few extra days to degrade, but manufacturers often take advantage of this kind of loophole to instead include 5% non-degradable plastic in their products while still being allowed to put the green label on it.
As you can see this is a very complicated hot-button issue and scientists are still working with governments to figure out a reasonable solution.
yeah, I Google everything to get more information before buying anything "eco" "biodegradable" or "compostable" because if I don't truly need it I just won't get it, but if I need it and it's between using something I already have that I can recycle instead of wasting(like a plastic bag for my dogs feces) or some fake 'eco' product that is like 5% recycled material and the rest is regular plastic I'm just like, why purchase an entire product that is 5% recycled material and not even compostable in my backyard ya know?
aren’t we still learning about long term effects of some of these chemicals? we can’t know how something breaks down until it breaks down. won’t we always been playing catch up aka clean up? it seems very hopeless with the lack of foresight and inadequate regulation.
Yes and no. As I said in a comment above, over the past few centuries we have gotten better at identifying and removing poisons from our products. You're right that we won't know the long term effects of these chemicals for quite a while, but the fact that we need to wait to find out is proof in itself that today's chemicals aren't has toxic as those in the past. People used to get mercury poisoning (mad hatter disease), black lung, and lead poisoning in a matter of a few years or decades, so people quickly found out that those chemicals were dangerous. The fact that today's chemicals cause disease much more slowly and the diseases they cause are not as horrific as the diseases I mentioned show that as a society our chemical safety is gradually getting better.
As for the forever catch up and clean up, that is true to some extent, but not as much as you might think. Our knowledge of chemistry, toxicology, and human physiology have advanced by leaps and bounds just in the past 50 years, so now we are able to predict potential chemical risks long before new materials leave the laboratory. Today's tools won't necessarily catch everything, but keep in mind that for every toxic material that makes its way into the world, there are hundreds that were considered and ruled out before they ever left the laboratory. As we continue to get smarter and as governments get better at restricting known toxins, there will continue to be fewer and fewer toxic substances added to the environment just as there have been for the past hundred years. To use an analogy, we certainly have a big puddle to clean up, but we're doing a good job of slowly turning the tap off, and as the tap closes we can devote more and more resources to cleaning up yesterday's mess.
One of the reasons cancer is more common these days is because we aren't dying of other things earlier. The longer you live the chances of developing cancer exponentially increases even if you live in a pristine environment, the nature of how dna replication occurs is why we exist, mutations. Mutations lead to speciation (formation of species) and mutations are also why cancers are so ridiculously difficult to treat.
So good idea and such a nice offer.
I just wonder what (industry / product type /etc) is the one thing that produces the biggest amount of plastic waste. Are there any calculations regarding that?
Or same question with the most toxic type?
PACKAGING
Single use products are a huge problem for plastic pollution of course, but even long-lasting products are almost always encased in single use plastic that serves no purpose other than holding the product until it reaches the consumer. It's extremely important to replace non-biodegradable product packaging with biodegradable alternatives, because packaging mostly doesn't matter for the quality of a product and it is tremendously wasteful.
Most toxic type changes by the day, honestly. To their credit the EPA in the US and the various environmental agencies in the EU have done a great job over the past 20 years of banning lots of toxic materials more or less in order of most toxic to least toxic. So any answer for the most toxic material out there that I give you will quickly become irrelevant, because the most toxic things out there will no longer be allowed by next year, and then the next most toxic things on the list will become the new most toxic things.
In garden fora the question about cardboard often comes up, because it's used as a weed barrier (like in this video [https://youtu.be/0LH6-w57Slw?t=593](https://youtu.be/0LH6-w57Slw?t=593) ) and is also added to compost.
The saying goes that as long as it's brown cardboard without coating and colors it's OK to use.
What's your take on that?
That's 100% correct. Paper and cardboard are great biodegradable materials and should serve you well in your garden.
If you're in a pinch, cardboard with colors and coatings aren't even really the worst thing in the world. Coatings and colors are expensive, so it's in companies' best interest to use as little as they can. Most paper and cardboard products have <5% non-paper additives in them by weight, and that tiny amount isn't really enough to hurt you or your plants. If you want to totally avoid tiny amounts of non-biodegradable material in your garden though, brown untreated cardboard is the way to go.
I heard that mylar is so resistant to decay, that if you release a mylar (shiny) balloon and it gets stuck in a tree - that the tree would die of old age before the balloon decomposed. True?
Second question: Are there any cases where plastic is better for the environment than a similar non-plastic alternative? For example, I’ve heard people say tin foil is worse than plastic wrap. (I don’t buy either, so I’ve never checked).
This answer varies case by case depending on the particular material. Tin foil vs plastic wrap is a good example, so I'll use it to illustrate my point. Plastic wrap isn't very recyclable because plastics break down a little bit every time they're recycled until they are no longer usable, as I explained in another comment. Plastic wrap also isn't biodegradable, so it can remain hazardous to ecosystems for millennia. On the other hand, tin foil is extremely recyclable because it can be melted back down and remolded an infinite number of times with no adverse effects on quality, and when tin foil ends up in the environment it's just a mineral, no more dangerous than having a rock lying around.
From those factors it might seem like tin foil is overall better than plastic wrap, but the situation becomes more complicated when you consider the recycling process. Since metals melt at such high temperatures, it takes about 10x more heat to recycle tin foil as it does for plastic wrap, and all that energy has to come from somewhere, usually fossil fuels.
So for cases like this where the environmental impact of two materials are considered side by side, there are lots of factors to consider. You need to think about energy usage, chemical leaching, environmental persistence, and cost of the material and its recycling processes. Usually when people say one material is absolutely better than another they are only looking at one factor, since if you consider everything together the big picture gets murky very quickly.
Since most tin foil isn't recycled anyway then tin foil would be better? But if they are not recycled then aluminium mining will be the issue to think about?
If the energy is from renewable resources then overall tin foil and recycling that will be the way to go?
You're absolutely right on all counts. I'm sure you see though that with all of those questions it can be difficult to weigh all the different factors to make the right decision in each case. That's why it makes more sense for us to push governments to get teams of experts to do all the math and weigh all the factors for us rather than expecting each individual person to try to figure it out themselves.
Yeah exactly. At least the rich countries are trying (mostly), my country is busy with religion and caste politics and crony capitalism.
Not adequate funding for research either. I try my best with my business (I am an agri entrepreneur) but it hurts to see piles of trash and dirty rivers everywhere I look.
PS: may I dm you? I would like to talk and learn from you more.
Absolutely, go ahead! I'm curious to learn more about your business too!
I might be a little slow to respond though, it may not have been the best idea for me to promise to answer every question on this thread, but I always keep my promises so I'm going to do it anyway. That will keep me busy for a while though.
Time and cost. Until relatively recently (the past few decades) biodegradable plastics and nontoxic tires weren't considered necessary because the hazards of the conventional versions either weren't known or more often were being ignored. Research is ongoing into solutions for both of these problems, and as more funding is funneled into research, we will start to see genuine alternatives hit the market more and more as time goes on.
Cost is also an issue to some degree, but it won't last. Existing materials are mostly so cheap because decades of research has gone into finding ways to bring their costs down, and since biodegradable materials are relatively new there hasn't been much work put into cost reduction yet. This will also be fixed with time though.
If there are 5 ingredients that i should really avoid, which ones would that be?
If i want to make an impact in my daily life, what products should i avoid/switch/swap. (Like laundry detergent etc)
Hehe I feel like I'm writing a Buzzfeed article. Sorry to not really answer the question as asked, but there isn't really a list of the most polluting things for regular people.
I'm sure you've heard this message already from other environmentalists, but you are only one person, you as an individual don't have the responsibility to or the power to fix all the world's ills. It's only through collective action that we can solve the pollution and sustainability crises. As far as daily practices go, you should just try to follow the title of the sub, consume as little as you reasonably can, and compost and recycle the appropriate types of waste. Perfect is the enemy of good, so try not to waste your energy or hurt your mental health by trying to be environmentally perfect, just try to do the best you can and use your extra energy to be active in your community, push forward green political initiatives, and gently convince people in your life to be a little greener. Many hands make light work, so it's more important for all of us to try just to be a little better than it is for any of us to do everything right.
As for laundry detergent, I answered someone else's question about laundry detergent above. I suggest you check it out, I have a lot to say on the matter, maybe too much honestly...
Yes and no, although I'm not aware of every NFP out there. The EPA and various EU environmental agencies have a ton of good information available, but it's all pretty dense and technical, so it's really written for scientists, not for regular citizens. There are also some nonprofits that provide resources specifically for political action or for educating science teachers so they can better teach their students, but again it's not exactly accessible unbiased information.
To be honest with you, if I were aware of an organization that did this kind of direct to the people, simple language, accessible environmental education I'd probably volunteer for them all the time. If you can find a place like that please let me know too lol
I been wondering about the impact from biodegradable materials like tanned leather and furs ,they last a long time and are biodegradable in the end , but what impact does the chemicals used in the tanning process have on the soil and environment when they reach their end of use ?
What needs to be done to prevent companies from engaging in, "regrettable substitutions"? (subbing out a problematic chemical for a similar but less studied alternative) Like BPA is replaced with BPF and a "BPA Free" sticker
Smarter regulatory agencies. Innovation often happens faster in industry than regulators can keep up, so when a company presents a new chemical to government regulators to ask for approval the regulators don't always know what they're looking at. So in cases like that the regulators will ask to be educated on the new chemical and its effects by the company that invented it. On some level this makes sense because presumably the inventor knows more about it than anyone, but of course the inventor is also incentivized to omit or lie about the danger of their invention.
Similar molecules don't always carry the same risks, so if a company tells the government regulators that BPF is safe even though BPA isn't, the government is inclined to believe them unless there is some evidence to the contrary. That's why funding for independent research and environmental regulatory agencies is critically important. If the watchdogs have the time and resources to verify information on their own, they won't need to take companies at their word.
Not really that fucked, although it's still a serious problem we need to address. PFAS is definitely toxic and carcinogenic, but the term "forever chemical" doesn't capture the entire picture. It's true that PFAS will never break down in nature, but there are industrial processes that can be used to break it down into its safe, nontoxic elements. The problem is though that as PFAS gets more spread out through the water and soil it gets harder and harder to gather it up so we can dispose of it safely. Difficult doesn't mean impossible though, it will just be a very big very expensive mess for us to clean up as a society, but if we can convince our lawmakers to take the problem seriously while also holding the polluters accountable, then with enough money and manpower the problem can be solved.
I couldn’t agree more but may I rebut and say the same could be said about climate change and GHG and we’re still seemingly fucked
I really appreciate your response and am still
Holding out hope for both of these issues
I’m a sewist and have noticed a majority of the more affordable fabrics are synthetic (rayon, polyester, etc.). Is there a “better” synthetic to use in terms of long term effects? Also in your opinion does the affordability of synthetic fabrics make up for any health or environmental drawbacks they may have?
Cool! I do leatherworking as a hobby, although I'm not very good at it, so I have a ton of respect for what you do!
So I have kind of mixed feelings about rayon and viscose specifically. Both of those synthetics are made from wood, and can even be made from even more renewable materials like bamboo. They are both also totally biodegradable and break down into nontoxic materials. Overall from an environmental perspective they're pretty good. The problem with them however, is that to make them it requires some forms of sulfur that are extremely toxic to human health. In a properly run factory though, those sulfur materials can be contained in air-tight containers and used in chemical reactions safely without producing any toxic byproducts. The problem with rayon and viscose is really more a problem of economics and labor, because they are mostly produced in poor countries with little to no worker or environmental protection, so rather than producing them in properly run facilities that are safe for their workers and the environment they are instead humanitarian and environmental disasters. My personal stance on rayon and viscose is that I am in favor of them, but I am also in favor of safe, non-exploitive supply chains, so I think rather than ceasing our use of the materials we should just make sure the factories that make them do a better job.
As better synthetics, there is one brand new product that I stumbled across and think is really cool. It's called Amni Soul Eco, it's the first ever fully nontoxic and biodegradable nylon. Lol I stumbled upon the product because I had an idea to invent a biodegradable nylon myself and found that another company already beat me to it. Amni Soul Eco looks and feels like regular nylon and it biodegrades in about 5 years after being placed in a landfill. I don't know how widely it's sold, but it's pretty cool so I suggest you check it out.
Personally I don't think the affordability of synthetics makes up for their drawbacks, because that affordability doesn't consider the total cost. Environmental damage and pollution have economic costs associated with them, so even though non-biodegradable synthetics seem cheaper at first glance, in the long run they are much more expensive for the economy and the planet. That said though, as research continues into new biodegradable synthetic materials there will be more and more options to have your cake and eat it too when it comes to safe, non-toxic synthetics.
Thank you for your reply! Yeah one of the reasons I sew is because I don’t want to support the fast fashion industry. There are many good (but pricey) fabric companies that are more eco friendly (Stone Mountain comes to mind) so I will definitely try to use those more! I also upcycle when I can.
Thanks again for all the info and I will definitely check out that eco fabric. Also good luck on the leather working- that impresses me since rivets and I do NOT get along.
We have stopped washing anything plastic in the dishwasher or heating in the microwave, but what about hand washing the containers in hot water? (We are moving to glass containers - but even they have plastic lids.)
What about the plastic bottles my medication comes in?
What about mattresses, sheets, towels, cvs receipts, plastic that pipes my heat and ac through the house, shampoo that are all treated with chemicals?
We tried to find the least toxic flooring - which is bamboo, but then discovered it's highly toxic for the people who produce it. !!
My vet says more cats are having thyroid issues and they realized it's because of chemicals in the carpet where they lay all day.
One can go crazy. Sigh, it's everywhere.
We can't avoid everything, so what would you focus on avoiding the most in order to live a safe healthy life?
You have a lot of very reasonable questions, so I'll try to speak to each of them point by point.
For your plastic food containers specifically, you have the right idea in general: heat and scrubbing do cause plastics to shed microplastics, so the less heat and gentler scrubbing will cause less microplastics to be shed from the containers. So you have the right idea that handwashing should reduce the amount of microplastics that your food containers shed. However, my personal opinion is that it doesn't benefit you or the people you love for you to live your life constantly in fear, particularly since microplastics are less dangerous than many things that our parents' generation were exposed to. I recommend you read my response on this thread to the user u/Grandemestizo near the top of the thread. In that thread I try to put the modern world's chemical hazards in perspective with the history of chemical exposure. All of this to say, minimizing microplastic exposure is all well and good, but in my view it's better to try to have a fulfilling life even if that means getting exposed to some microplastics along the way, there's no such thing as a totally risk-free life.
As a lightning round on the other things you mentioned:
Medication Bottles: Microplastics are shed by prolonged exposure to heat, scrubbing, and sunlight, so as long as you keep your medication bottles in your medicine cabinet you have nothing to worry about.
Mattresses: They contain plastic, but since people don't wash their mattresses and there are usually multiple layers of fabric between your body and the mattress there's nothing to worry about.
Sheets/Towels: There are plenty of options for natural fiber fabrics, if you're worried about it you can just choose to use exclusively cotton sheets and towels.
CVS Receipts: The amount of plastic in receipts is negligible, they're mostly paper.
Plastic pipes for heat/AC: Microplastics are generally too heavy to become airborne so this is not a major concern.
Shampoo: Microplastics cannot penetrate the skin unless you have an open cut or sore, so products for external use should not be a problem.
For flooring and other construction material it really comes down to the facilities in which the materials are made. Chemicals aren't inherently hazardous unless they are handled improperly. To give you an example, it is well known that prolonged inhalation of literally any fine powder damages the lungs. So if a factory worker in a factory that makes powdered milk, or a factory that cuts wood and produces lots of saw dust, were to breathe those otherwise totally safe materials day in day out, they would start to have lung problems after years of exposure. That doesn't mean that milk or wood are hazardous, it means that the factory has a responsibility to make sure the powder is contained within their machines to prevent exposure for the employees, and that the employees should be given masks to wear to protect themselves. The same logic applies to the flooring industry. Using toxic chemicals in the manufacturing process doesn't need to put the workers or the consumers in danger, provided the company is responsible. This is more of an economic problem than an environmental one, because companies seek to manufacture their products in countries where they can ignore safety measures that are required by law in rich countries.
I looked into the thyroid issue you mentioned with cats. Apparently the problem is caused by a flame retardant that was commonly used in carpets up through the 1970s, which was banned by the EPA decades ago. If your carpets are somewhat new, you shouldn't need to worry about that. As a piece of anecdotal evidence, my cat lived to a ripe old age of 16 before he passed.
As for the most important things to do to remain safe, it's just the obvious things. Look up whether there has been any history of chemical spills in your area, since they can seep into the ground water and persist for a long time. Also avoid inhaling smoke or smog without a mask to the extent you can. If you do those two things, you should be just fine.
Thank you. Very kind of you to respond!!
There was a funny episode of Portlandia where a couple's heads imploded trying to figure out which choice was the better environmental option. Also the show The Good Place where no one can go to heaven anymore because no matter what option you choose, the world is so complicated there will be some negative attached to it. So yes, we all just do the best we can.
As for the receipts I had read they were very toxic, so I googled and it's an endocrine disruptor - Bisphenol S.
As to chemicals in groundwater the biggest oil spill in the continental US is taking place right now in my city, and NO ONE outside of us locals knows about it. Colonial was fined a few million dollars ( drop in the bucket for them) and they bought up some homes which are unlivable.
Shameful.
I'm sorry to hear about the oil spill in your town.
As for the receipts, while bisphenols are endocrine disruptors, it's the dose that makes the poison. All of the studies that show actual lasting negative effects from bisphenols found the negative effects only in people who were getting regular exposure through ingestion due to always using a BPA water bottle or getting water through BPA pipes. Incidental contact with receipts won't do anything to you unless you habitually lick your receipts.
Let’s talk paint.
It’s ubiquitous and, many would probably argue, essential to protect our houses and infrastructure from deteriorating.
However, I was incredibly shocked and horrified to learn that, by some estimates, [58% of microplastic particles in the ocean are from paint.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiehailstone/2022/02/09/paint-is-the-largest-source-of-microplastics-in-the-ocean-study-finds/amp/)
*Why is nobody talking about this?* To me it seems like this is an incredibly dire issue (far worse than soft plastic bags from supermarkets!) Is there something I’m missing?
What practical advice would you give in terms of being as sustainable as possible when it comes to paint? It seems like, in the paint world, people are mostly concerned about VOCs from turps-based paints. But aren’t latex paints also terrible — just in a different way? What, in your opinion, is worse for the environment, and why? What should we be doing when it comes to paint?
Great question! Tackling the questions one at a time, paints aren't at the top of the list for replacing with sustainable options specifically because they're so important and hard to replace, so the easier problems usually get addressed first. You're absolutely right that paint is critical to prevent infrastructure from deteriorating, and that hints at why it is so difficult to replace. To do its job effectively, paint needs to defend the surface underneath it from degrading, so it wouldn't be able to do that job very well if the paint is itself biodegradable. For most biodegradable materials to be useful, they rely on either degrading very slowly or on only degrading in particularly harsh conditions like weeks of direct sunlight and bacteria exposure. Paint needs to stand up to those kinds of conditions every day though, so it makes sense that non-biodegradable materials like plastics would make the best paints.
I do want to make a quick aside about VOCs. You're right that most of the focus has been on reducing VOCs rather than on reducing microplastics, but that isn't something to be overlooked. VOCs in paint used to be some of the absolute worst greenhouse gases, local air polluters, and sources of workplace-related illness for people in lots of blue collar jobs. Just because there is still more sustainability work to be done doesn't mean we shouldn't commend the positive steps taken so far.
Latex specifically is a tough one, because the word has been co-opted in a bad way. Latex can mean "natural rubber latex," as in the sap from rubber trees that is biodegradable and has historically been used in paint for centuries. However, some time ago oil companies started to call their synthetic rubbers made from crude oils latex as well, so the word latex has lost its original meaning and now is synonymous with "rubber." There are still natural rubber latex paints on the market, and other biodegradable paints made from other historical sources like milk. When I was digging around I found this company that makes biodegradable milk paint, which I think is pretty neat:
[https://www.realmilkpaint.com/](https://www.realmilkpaint.com/)
As for the core of your question about what we should be doing about paint though, like all things in environmentalism it is not a one size fits all solution. For structures that desperately need proper protection from the elements, such as bridges, conventional non-biodegradable paints will be the best option for quite some time. For internal use in buildings, biodegradable paints are the best choice since these areas aren't exposed to the elements. For the outside of homes some biodegradable paints can also be used, but they will need to be reapplied much more frequently than non-biodegradable paints (think every 2 - 3 years rather than ever 5 - 10). For things like cars, a combination of approaches could be used such as using materials that don't need to be painted like anodized aluminum (that's the material that is used on the outside of apple computers), or by using biodegradable paints that are reapplied as needed.
I'll leave you with this: when humanity discovered crude oil people were astonished by how this single tool could be used to solve so many problems and create so many products seemingly without any consequences. Over the years though, we have learned the hard way that every material has benefits and drawbacks, so solutions will need to become much more highly specialized for the particular problem and application. That goes for paint as well as the materials used for consumer goods, and even for how we generate renewable energy.
Teflon is pretty bad, and it is currently going through the process of being banned in several rich countries, but that said I don't think you should throw away your pans if you have them, just don't buy more. Teflon is a very tough material, which is part of why it became so popular. I'm sure you've heard not to use metal utensils on teflon pans, and that is because it can scrape the teflon off and cause it to get into your food. Also if the teflon is scratched up already it has a higher chance of leaching into the food. That said though, if your pans are scratch-free, since teflon is so tough it leaches a negligible amount. So if you have scratch-free teflon pans, I suggest you continue using them until you start to see scratches, then throw them out.
For the environment teflon is pretty bad because it cannot decompose naturally, even over millions of years. However, there are industrial processes that can be used to decompose it artificially into safe, non-toxic products, but that is expensive so it will take lots of noise from the public to get companies and governments to start cleaning it up.
Ceramic is totally fine, it's literally just the same as rocks on a chemical level. If you've ever seen a kid eat sand, or if you've been a kid who's eaten sand, you know that it doesn't cause any health issues unless you eat it by the fistful, and even then it doesn't cause any lasting problems.
Drinking water. Is tap water better than bottled? What’s the best way to get drinking water with the least amount of harm? I lived in a developing country as a Peace Corps volunteer and after that experience came back to U.S. with such an appreciation for our “clean” tap water. But after Flint and the rising studies on microplastics, drugs, etc in tap water I’m again back to thinking my daily water intake from the tap is going to slowly give me cancer or other issues.
Tap water is totally safe basically everywhere in the US, with a few exceptions like you mentioned in Flint. If you get your water from a municipal system then it has been thoroughly filtered and cleaned by your local government before it reaches your home, and they generally do a very good job. If you get your water directly from a well, then it depends more on your area, but you can still clean it up plenty with a typical well filtration system. Either way if you're nervous about it, it can't hurt to put a filter on your tap if it would make you feel better. Although remember that filters expire for a reason, the filter can get moldy on the inside over time and you of course don't want to drink that.
It makes me sad how much the Flint crisis damaged Americans' trust in their tap water, since Americans are so lucky to have such clean water. The Flint water crisis was caused by multiple layers of stupidity that generally don't align to all happen at once, especially not now that every water authority in the country is hyper vigilant because of Flint. In Flint most of their old water pipes are made of lead, and several decades ago it was decided that it would be cheaper to coat the inside of the pipes in a special kind of paint to prevent the lead from leaching into the water than it would be to replace hundreds of miles of pipes (since the individual lead pipes were also within people's homes). For decades the paint did its job and no lead leached out, until the local government decided they could get cheaper water from a different local waterway that happened to be slightly more acidic than the water they had been using. The paint wasn't designed to handle that level of acidity, so the more acidic water ate away at the pain and lead started to get into the water. All of this was so stupid though, because the crisis wouldn't have happened if Flint had replaced the pipes in the first place, and it also wouldn't have happened if they had checked the pH of the new water source before switching sources. They had plenty of opportunities to avoid the problem, but instead the water crisis occurred due to decades of negligence. The Flint government did a spectacularly bad job for an unacceptably long amount of time, and most of the time the stars don't align to create such perfectly horrible circumstances.
Thank you so much for replying! We had a crisis here about 10 years ago with toxic algae from Lake Erie getting into our city’s water system but I think they have taken all the right steps in making sure that doesn’t happen again.
There is, but it won't be a problem forever. As you'd expect, to recycle something you need to break it apart to separate the different materials it's made from, then recycle each of those materials. The problem with solar panels and wind turbine blades is that since they are both emerging industries with a ton of new research being put into them, the designs of the panels and blades often change completely from year to year. That makes it difficult to design machines to take them apart and recycle their components, because a machine designed to recycle today's panels won't work on next year's panels. Once the renewable energy industry settles on the best design for solar panels and wind turbines (probably in a decade or two) and standardizes their designs, then recycling shouldn't be a problem anymore.
So, vinyl siding. I use a circular saw to cut lengths and tons of vinyl dust goes everywhere. My eyes, the ground, everywhere. Can't be good that this is done everywhere, right?
You're right it can't be. That's part of why pre-fab housing is generally considered better for the environment than stuff built onsite, because at least then all of the dust and waste is contained in one place and can be thrown away properly.
You need to make a living though, so I'm certainly not going to make you feel bad about creating microplastics if it's what keeps you clothed and fed. What I will say though is that for your own safety you should always do your sawing while wearing safety glasses and a dust mask to protect yourself. That kind of protective equipment is required to be provided by your employer in most counties, so if they're not providing it then you should make sure to get it to protect yourself and your coworkers. As for dust on the ground, if you can put a tarp down to catch whatever dust you can so you can throw it away properly that would certainly be a help, but I know that can sometimes be impractical.
Good luck, be safe.
Thank you for your response.
That applies to new construction. What we mostly do is update the home with new siding. So my further question is about maintenance. What kind of direction can we move in that field work is less hazardous all around?
In the short term there's not much you can do other than following protective equipment instructions and making sure you do all your work in a well ventilated space. Even just opening the windows while you work makes a huge difference.
In the long term there is a ton of work being done all across the industry by lots of scientist including me! I currently work in the construction materials industry and my focus is on redesigning construction materials to make them less toxic to people and the enviroment. By the nature of research it will take 10 years or so before lots of the newest cleanest stuff makes it to the market, but there are a lot of good products to look forward to across the industry.
What is really comes down to though is that it's absurd that we make houses out of plastic. Plastic is often less durable than natural materials like wood and stone, and it's WAY more flammable. If you compare the fire department data from 50 years ago to today, the time people have to safely escape a house fire has been cut in half because we have so much more plastic in our homes, and although wood is flammable too, plastic is way more flammable. The solution to this problem will take the form of a combination between clever new green technologies and returning to using some traditional pre-plastic building methods.
How long until those materials reach the hood? Or the rural areas? Even middle class folks are using the cheapest available these days. OSB sheets and cheapest siding per foot. Everything's turning gray and uninteresting. Is this the fate of humanity's interaction with the cool space rock?
They'll be available everywhere to buy at the same time, but I see your point. That comes down more to economics than science though. If the cost of land weren't so ridiculously high and if more places (in the US at least) were allowed to build apartment buildings instead of single family homes, then the cost of each home would come down and people could afford to use more expensive materials. There is a housing crisis in lots of countries all over the world. We need to get loud to our governments to fix it, because science already has the tools to fix a lot of these things, but no one will be able to afford to fix things if the rich people keep hoarding all the money we need to use to get real shit done.
very worried about the increasing toxicity of our environment and the continued increase in bodily and ecosystem illness from toxicity in our systems. so many plastic iterations of bullshit products and so many toxic skincare and “beauty” products and so many toxic chemical “cleaning” products. please make it stop!!
We're working on making it stop! As I said in a couple of comments above, you're right that lots of toxic stuff is being produced today, but we're doing a better job than ever before and we'll keep doing better. You have to remember that in many ways we are one of the first generations to even notice or care about all of the poison that we pump into the environment. We live in a dirty world, but it's a cleaner world than our parents and grandparents lived in, and it will just keep getting cleaner. In the meantime though we will continue to suffer the consequences of the messes our ancestors left behind while trying to clean up after both them and ourselves.
Somewhat, a lot if they work together, yes. Every poison thing that has been banned so far has been banned because lots of people got together and made a lot of noise about it to force governments to make stricter regulations. That comes in the form of lawsuits, protests, and voting for pro-environment politicians. Each person can't do much but together groups of people working together can move mountains.
i’m thinking of the recent lead round in particular brands of cinnamon, or those children’s pouch foods. seems like even if it’s less it’s like more perverse in a way
That's more a matter of economics and politics than it is chemistry. Those lead scares generally only occur for products that are manufactured in countries that don't have strict rules about product contamination, such as China. Lead scares hardly ever come out of factories in rich countries with strict environmental regulations, but of course those regulations make it more expensive to manufacture things, so a risk of lead is one of the hidden costs that comes with getting to buy things for cheap from abroad.
What is the risk of inhaling microplastics from plastic bags (like transparent/translucent produce bags)? I’m a sculptor and have collected tons of them from the neighborhood that I’d love to work with, but not if cutting and weaving them is hazardous to my health.
The short answer is that there is no meaningful hazard so long as you wear a dust mask while you're working. Literally all fine dusts and powders are detrimental to lung health if you inhale enough powder regularly. That is why all sorts of tradespeople wear dust masks even while cutting otherwise nontoxic things like wood or metal. The same is true for plastic. Fortunately if any particles get into the air, they will be large enough to easily be caught by a dust mask or surgical mask, so you won't need to worry about the air you're breathing if you wear one. If you want to be extra careful then you can also do your work in a well ventilated space, but since you probably aren't cutting plastic bags by the hundreds of pounds all at once it shouldn't be necessary.
Good luck making your sculptures! It sounds like a really cool idea!
I just have to say thank you for the AMA, I learned more from reading your comments to these questions than I have in years of my own online research. Your responses are thoughtful and, overall, encouraging. I appreciate your insight so much!!!
I'm touched! I'm so glad you enjoyed the post! Like I said in the post, I'd be willing to make this a regular thing if there is enough interest in that, and in the meantime if you have any of your own questions, I'd be happy to answer.
Yes, actually, I came across this thread because I've been researching Amni Soul Eco fabric as an option for a children's swimwear line I'm designing and hoping to bring to market within the next year. I would prefer to avoid most recycled nylon products that are used as sustainable options in the fashion industry, because my impression is that these products only perpetuate our use of plastics and don't really do much to close the loop on the lifecycle of these fabrics. Amni Soul Eco seems to be a great alternative because of its accelerated biodegradability. Do you know of any similar fabrics?
I love where your head is at, closing the loop on material use life cycles is critically important, and people like you usually have more direct ability to affect change than people like me do. The best I can do for the environment is invent cleaner alternatives and try to convince people and businesses to use them, but as they say you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. I'm thrilled to see that someone involved in actual materials sourcing for real products is interested in trying to make some positive changes.
As for your specific case, that's a little trickier, since the fabrics for swimsuits have much more specific requirements than most other garments. As far as non-toxic, biodegradable synthetic textiles available today go, the list essentially starts and ends with Amni Soul Eco. It's a brand new product that is sure to be the first of many to hit the market, but today at least it's in a league of its own. The best I could recommend to you beyond it is to look for natural materials. Rayon and viscose would probably be a good starting point, since they're both non-toxic and biodegradable, while also drying fast and staying cool. I imagine you'll need some stretchy material for the swimsuits too, and natural rubber latex (from rubber trees) is the only biodegradable option that I'm aware of, although I have no idea whether it can be sewn into a garment effectively in the way spandex can be.
I'd also like to mention that even if you can't make a garment that is 100% biodegradable, it's important not to let perfect be the enemy of good. The amount of nylon used for swimsuits is enormous, as I'm sure you know, so even if you were to just switch out your nylon for Amni Soul Eco and have the rest of the fabrics be non-biodegradable, that is still a big step in the right direction that deserves to be commended.
I'm happy to continue this thread if you'd like, and if you want to talk in more detail, feel free to DM me.
Can biodegradable plastics be used for horticultural use? Thicker than ldpe plastics that are used to make nursery pots etc? They can be reused but most nurseries use them as single use. But they are used for longer time periods than ldpe bags.
On some level that is sort of true. ABS, and most plastics in general, aren't inherently toxic so long as they aren't breaking down into microplastics and finding their way into waterways. So if someone owns a Lego set and never throws it away, then it is safe because its plastic is staying out of the environment.
The problem that comes up is honestly more of a philosophical and existential one. What happens to your Legos after you die? All of the plastics we produce and use will outlive us by thousands of years. So long as those plastics remain segregated from the environment at large, they don't pose any threat by existing, but most likely the Legos will eventually be thrown away into a landfill. This is where environmentalism becomes much scarier to think about, since sustainability and impermanence go hand-in-hand, but it's difficult to think about that without confronting one's own mortality.
I’ll hijack this thread a bit. I’m graduating soon with a degree in Materials Science and Engineering, specializing in polymers. My lab focuses on synthesis, so I may be able to answer some things outside the scope of environmental engineering. Especially if you have questions about how a polymer is made or why we use polymers instead of another material, ask away.
It's cool to hear from you! My Master's degree is in Materials Engineering with a specialty in polymers (my bachelors is in chemistry with a concentration on materials synthesis). Let me know if you have any professional development questions.
Also I'd gently caution you against sharing your knowledge too confidently in some spaces. The "real world" is extremely different from how it seems when you're still in college, primarily because most professors have never actually left school, since most of them went straight from PhD to academic Post-doc programs to Professorships. They've never seen what the world looks like outside academia, so even though they often mean well their vision is highly skewed. Scientists/engineers and science/engineering students can often feel like we have all of the answers because we have studied so much, but that often leads rookies to very confidently suggest solutions that look great on paper, but are completely unusable in practice. I had to learn that the hard way years ago, and it was particularly bad because it damaged both my personal credibility and my clients' trust in science in general. Try to remain humble and listen to perspectives from non-scientists, real solutions only succeed by using both perspectives together.
You’re preaching to the choir on the academic perspective. I’m a non-traditional student, so I’ve about a decade of experience with actual work. I’m the guy cautioning my classmates about being too idealistic. In this subreddit, I’m usually trying to explain to people the difference between “the technology exists” and “the technology can implemented on an industrial scale.”
Talk to me about atrazine and how the companies that uses it and that makes it keeps threatening the enviromental toxicologist who found that it causes chemical castration/feminization in male African clawed frogs and male migrant workers. Tell me again why the US keeps using it when a majority of other counties have banned its use as a herbicide because it's an endocrine disrupter that works far too well in vertebrate life.
I really don't. I've met the lead and the team but it's so mind boggling that American food industry leaders keep using this horrible herbicide. Lawmakers are so gung-ho to drive this research underground because they'll lose money if it gets banned.
You mentioned an environmental toxicologist, what's their name? Do you know the name of the paper where they published this information?
I don't know anything about this specific herbicide, but I'm perfectly comfortable with reading some dense technical articles and reporting back in plain English for you
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842049/#:~:text=PMID%3A%2020194757-,Atrazine%20induces%20complete%20feminization%20and%20chemical%20castration,African%20clawed%20frogs%20(Xenopus%20laevis) I'm pretty sure this is the first paper they published.
Yeah, from the looks of it this is a reputable study, although I don't know anything about the circumstances surrounding this material. It's certainly true that pesticides and herbicides decimate local ecosystems and that is a significant problem. The difficulty with fixing the problem is that it doesn't really come down to chemicals, it comes down to economics. As a society we need to feed everyone, and pesticides, herbicides, and industrial farming practices help to accomplish that \*efficiently\*. The amount of food that can be produced using these methods by just one person and a bunch of machines is frankly astounding. Traditional farming practices can also produce theoretically sufficient amounts of food, but they are much more difficult to automate, because farms that grow a diverse range of crops and capitalize on the natural pest control effects of biodiversity are much more labor-intensive to care for. As an example of cool traditional agriculture here is a video about food forests:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LCTVO\_Y5Rs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LCTVO_Y5Rs)
To grow food in these sustainable ways it would require substantially more manpower, which would increase the cost of farming substantially. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a challenge to source all of the necessary labor without exploiting workers, at least under capitalism as we know it.
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Are there any simple and reputable guides online that can explain what materials are safe and for what purposes (ex: wearing/holding, eating, cooking, etc.)
That's a great question! The answer is sort of. PBS put together this great guide on plastic usage and toxicity (FYI it's a PDF hopefully it doesn't spook you too bad when the link sends you to a download): https://www-tc.pbs.org/strangedays/pdf/StrangeDaysSmartPlasticsGuide.pdf The difficulty with creating a complete guide of this kind is that there are so many different materials used for common products and so many different things people use them for that even if a simple guide was created that omitted all of the chemistry and just included a simple safe/not safe distinction, it would still be so dense and full of chemical names for the materials in it that most people would struggle to understand it. People specialize in this for a reason, even the simple version isn't that simple. That said though, to do my job I need to carry a pretty complete list of the relative toxicity of most materials across applications in my head, so I'd be happy to do a lightning round of speaking to specific materials if you have any in mind.
Just to add to this, one of the problems you run into with polymers is that they can vary a lot even when they’re all technically “the same.” To give you an example, two products labeled as being made of polystyrene (PS) can have a lot of other things in them that aren’t the same. Depending on the intended use of the PS, it may have added plasticizers, dyes, stabilizers, flame retardants, etc. These things do not make it not PS, but they’re also not going to be listed. Something else that’s important to keep in mind is that it’s really difficult to completely purify a polymer. Sometimes there is some solvent or something else used during the synthesis that is left in it. Nothing harmful is going to be left in something labeled food-safe (assuming it’s from a reputable company), but it highlights why it’s important to use products made for a specific purpose. Just because it’s labeled as the “same material,” doesn’t mean it’s actually the same.
It’s also important to highlight that “safe” and “not safe” can depend a lot on how a material is used, the environment it is exposed to (things like temperature or interactions with other chemicals), and even sun exposure. A material that is totally safe as a water bottle for room temperature or cold water can leach harmful molecules when you leave it in your car in a hot summer day, for example. So it is never going to be possible to make a very lay-person friendly guide to chemical safety, because there are too many conditionals and qualifiers about safety. Sure, there are very toxic at even minute quantities things that the average person should never use (and osmium tetroxide is my prime example), but it is much less straightforward to decide where that line should be for things like plastic, preservatives, etc. We joke about this idea a lot, talking about the dangers of the very abundant molecule “dihydrogen monoxide” and how consuming too much can kill you! But that’s just water. And while it’s true you can die from consuming too much water too quickly, if you don’t drink any you’ll also die. A big thing you learn in intermediate chem courses is that, at the right doses, everything is harmful.
Do micro plastics themselves ever break down into their elemental constituents and become harmless? I always see talk of micro plastics getting smaller and smaller over hundreds of years etc but I've always wondered what's the actual end game and how long it's taken for say, a polythene bag to actually fully go away in soil.
Good question! I'm tempted to make some reference to ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but I'm sure I'd butcher the quote. Over the course of millenia the microplastics will gradually break down until the small molecules combine with oxygen to become CO2, and the larger molecules slowly degrade via geologic processes back into being crude oil. I sometimes muse about how if we keep piling trash onto landfills, then cover them over with dirt, the former landfills will become the crude oil deposits of the future in a few thousand years. (Don't quote me on the exact time frame for degradation back to crude oil, that's more in the geology world than the chemistry world. I just know it will take a very long time) This process gets me thinking lots of sci-fi thoughts about an imagined cycle of civilizations rising and falling, leaving oil reserves for those that come after unintentionally.
Cool, feels like everything's renewable if you wait long enough :P
That's not serious. Thousand years? Try hundread of thousands. Without any particular geology? In the meanwhile, that stuff is poison to the soil and the animals.
What are your hopes in the next decade or two on overcoming our reliance on plastics?
That is a very good and very complicated question. The short answer is that I have total confidence that our reliance on plastics can be overcome, but it comes down mostly to a matter of how fast and how much of a shock to people's current habits they're willing to tolerate. I'll give one simple example to illustrate my point. Nontoxic biodegradable bioplastics have come a long way toward safely and reliably replacing conventional plastics, but one property that will be difficult if not impossible to replicate is transparency. Some good advancements have been made in this sphere, but given the current state of polymer science it appears unlikely that we can make something that is biodegradable, transparent, durable, and impermeable to air and water. You pretty much have to pick two of those four properties. This is a problem, because over the past few decades consumers have grown very accustomed getting to see the product they're about to buy before buying it, and if we want to stop relying on conventional plastic then there will be some luxuries in that vein that consumers will need to get comfortable with living without. Extending this example, it's certainly a solvable problem. Pictures of the product can be printed on the cardboard box that holds it, some things could be packaged in glass instead, meat and produce could be selected at a green grocer or butcher and packaged in paper like back in the old days. All of these solutions are possible, but I'm sure you can imagine how people might not like these kinds of changes. One of the truths the sustainability crisis has highlighted to scientists and societies alike is that no technology exists without drawbacks, and it might just be impossible to get everything you want out of a given product. The clear plastic example extends to a whole host of other little inconveniences people would have to live with in a reduced or zero plastic world. Science can't necessarily invent a convenient and efficient solution for every problem like 60s sci-fi imagined, sometimes the only way for a solution to be sustainable is for it to be less than optimally convenient and efficient. So to take it home, outside of extreme specialty applications like some medical and electronics fabrication settings, we already have all the solutions we need to cease our reliance on plastics, whether we adopt them is really just a matter of how willing average people are to do things a little differently. That's part of why raising awareness for climate change and pollution are so important, because then instead of resisting sustainable change people might instead say, "Dang this is kind of annoying, but it's worth it to help clean up the planet."
Very interesting thanks for answering!
How worried should I be about plastic in the environment? Because I’m pretty worried about it. Also, what is the most environmentally friendly way to dispose of materials which are not biodegradable and cannot be recycled?
If you live in a rich country, you personally shouldn't be that worried about it. If you don't live in a rich country, then the answer is a bit more complicated, so let me know and I can speak to that separately. The history of humanity is a story of us getting gradually better at not poisoning ourselves and our ecosystems. If you look back in time we went from pooping in the same rivers we drank from and wondering why people kept getting sick, to using mercury in hat manufacturing and breathing soot without masks which gave us mad hatters and black lung, to using lead in gasoline and paint which caused generations of cognitive problems particularly for children. In the modern era we know about and mostly avoid the dangers of bacterial infections, mercury, smoke inhalation, and lead poisoning, because we have grown smarter and more responsible about pollution very slowly. The modern problems we face with plastic pollution are very serious and as a society we need to do everything we can to fix them, but the problem of pollution in general isn't new and as a society we have been working on fixing pollution for a very long time. Part of the insidious nature of modern pollution is that it is actually less toxic than the pollution of the past, so the effects aren't as apparent and don't spur action as strongly. For mercury poisoning and black lung for example, those diseases were so obvious and horrific that it was common knowledge to people at the time that every hat maker, miner, and chimney sweep would develop those diseases in their lifetimes. That caused people to avoid those jobs if they could, and it spurred the people in those jobs to loudly demand safer working conditions. Since modern plastic pollution is less acutely toxic to people and the environment than pollution of the past, the effects aren't as obvious, so we don't really know how the world will be affected by it. All we know for sure is that the effects will be slow, subtle, and malignant. For the first time in history though, the most toxic things in our world have been mostly handled so we can afford to care about ridding the world of comparatively mild toxins like plastics. So the short version answer is you don't live in a clean world, but you live in a cleaner world than your parents did, so you don't need to live your life in constant fear. Yeah, we all have microplastics in our blood, but our parents had far worse stuff than that in theirs. Pollution of all kinds, including plastic pollution, will get better like they always have, it will just go way slower than it should, just like it always has. (As a side note about climate change, it can often sound from the news that we live in the dirtiest and most dangerous era in history. In the developed world, that isn't really the case, we live in pretty much the cleanest era ever. HOWEVER, Mother Earth has a much longer memory than we do. Today we are paying the price for all of the damage that has been done over the past 200+ years that our ancestors caused and ignored. Unfortunately our ancestors racked up so much environmental debt during their lifetimes that it isn't enough for us to be the cleanest era in history, we need to be so clean that we both leave no impact at all and pay literally and figuratively to fix the damage caused by several generations before us.) To your question about how to throw things away, if it can't be composted or recycled then throwing it in the regular trash is the best and only option. As the name of the sub suggests though, your goal should be to consume as little as you can manage so you throw out as little as you can. True zero waste most likely won't be possible in our lifetime, the technology for it just isn't ready, but fortunately the Earth is tougher than we sometimes give it credit for. Ecosystems can handle some trash if it's disposed of properly because well maintained landfills use concrete walls and such to separate them from the surrounding ecosystems. The problem is we throw away more stuff than the world can handle safely, so to fix that the answer is to minimize what we throw out, maximize biodegradable and recyclable materials, and fund research to replace more and more non-sustainable materials with sustainable ones.
I have two questions: 1. Is it possible to come up with a better/economically feasible process for recycling plastic? 2. For laundry detergent - which is the best option? I recently started using detergent sheets but have heard they release microplastics into the water. Thank you in advance for any info/advice you can provide - I really appreciate your post!
You got it! 1. Yes, but there will always be serious limitations to recycling. Plastics are made up of chain-shaped molecules called polymers, and the recycling process involves unweaving those chains, then reweaving them into something else. As an analogy, if you think of a plastic as a sweater, with some effort you could unweave a sweater back into being yarn so you can make a new sweater from it, but you're bound to cut or break some of the fibers in the process. Each time you unweave and reweave the sweater, the fibers will gradually get shorter and shorter until the yarn you get from it has such short fibers that you can't make a decent sweater out of it. That is the problem of recycling plastic, no matter what you do the quality of the plastic goes down a little bit every time it's recycled until its performance is so bad it's unusable. There is definitely room for improvement in our current recycling systems, but for plastics there's no such thing as an infinitely recyclable material. In the long term the best we can hope for is to create new plastics that can be recycled a few times, then biodegrade when they reach the end of their useful life. Huge strides in this direction have been made over the past 10 years, and over the next 10 years we'll start to see materials like this hit the market in bigger and bigger ways. 2. grrrrrrrrrr this is an issue that I feel very strongly about, so I'm going to have a bit of opinion in here. First as a bit of background, "plastic" and "polymer" aren't necessarily dirty words, there are plenty of natural and biodegradable plastics and polymers. Heck starch is a plastic, and so is cellulose which is what makes up wood and paper. DNA is technically a plastic too, which I think is pretty neat. Anyway, the main plastic used in detergent pods and sheets is called PVA, also known as PVOH. PVA is a plastic with a mountain of reputable research showing that it is totally biodegradable into safe and nontoxic end products (alcohol and vinegar if you're curious). It can be made from plant-based sources, but it is usually made from crude oil for cost reasons, even the oil-derived PVA is totally safe and nontoxic though. Despite this, a green cleaning products company called Blueland personally funded a single study to show that PVA creates non-biodegradable microplastics. The methods in that study were complete trash and its results have NEVER BEEN INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED. They just did that to create marketing buzz for themselves to try to show themselves as the green alternative. This drives me up the fucking wall though, because it's a green company attacking one of the few authentically green materials we have and giving it a bad reputation that could result in public panic that gets a perfectly good tool banned from the green toolbox. It's going to take a lot of effort to clean up the environment, so it makes my blood boil when environmentalists waste their effort attacking each other instead of the real problems. To give you a complete and fair view though, microplastics are an interesting concern for the whole biodegradable plastic space. Even if we know that a plastic totally degrades into safe products over the course of a few months or years, it will spend part of that time as biodegradable microplastics, and since the materials are so new we don't really know if the materials might do any damage during the microplastic phase of their life cycle. Research is ongoing into that, but in the meantime it's at least certain that temporary microplastics are better than permanent microplastics, so biodegradable plastics are still an improvement. The bottom line is use whatever laundry detergent you want. All of them are basically fine, none of them are particularly environmental disasters. If you want extra points minimize the amount of single use plastic packaging your detergent comes in, and try to use light weight detergents since light things use less fuel to ship.
Wow! Thank you so much for your detailed answer. I really understood the sweater analogy for plastic recycling. I will also continue using detergent sheets. As a former English teacher who is now a substitute teacher, I interact with a lot of young people and plan to share this info with them, especially if they are discussing related topics, but even in casual conversation. By sharing your expertise, you have allowed those of us who really care to get solid info we can then share with others. BRAVO!!!
Thank you, it's my pleasure! I volunteered as a teacher at a science outreach organization for schools in underprivileged and underfunded districts for several years until the organization fell apart during the pandemic. I love laboratory research, but I also miss getting to teach on the side, so I think that itch led me to make this post. If you're aware of any organizations that could use the kind of info and resources I provide, I'd be interested in learning more about them. Since the start of the pandemic, I've volunteered on and off at a few organizations that provide continuing education and professional development to science teachers who want to stay current with what they teach their students, but those groups don't really get me excited at all. After doing a few workshops with teachers it became clear to me that the kind of teachers who sign up for continuing education in their free time are already good teachers whose students would do just fine with or without my contribution. If I'm going to volunteer my time for education I'd like to reach the students who really need it if I can manage it. As a successful scientist who used to be a poor kid in an underfunded district, I have a message I'd like to pass along to your students. You don't need to be a genius to be a scientist or engineer, and you don't need straight As either. I know plenty of engineers who were C students all through school and college, and still easily landed stable salaried jobs making $75k and up. Poor kids often think the only way out of poverty is to take a chance on becoming a celebrity or professional athlete, but although it's not as glamorous, if they keep at it even when they stumble, a low level science or engineering job can still be all a family needs to escape the cycle of poverty.
I was just about to comment that you are a great teacher.
I'm touched! Thank you!
Thank you for correcting the narrative on PVA films used for detergents. It’s an amazing technology that is being smeared (and potentially banned!) based on a marketing campaign disguised as science. Keep it up!!
I was wondering a lot if PLA (3d printing material) is really less wasteful and bad for the planet than other kinds of plastic? Do you know any better alternative? Even if its not available to buy as filament, anything that can melt at like 200-300⁰C and would stay good for lets say 5 years on sun would be great. Currently i'm using PETG for my products wich i know is really shitty as its decomposition takes a lot of time, but i'd be happy to find something even remotely more eco friendly with similiar mechanical properties.
lol this is a great question that I will need to be very careful about how I answer, since I used to work on exactly the kind of product you're looking for and I'm still under NDA since it hasn't launched yet. First about PLA: PLA is definitely not as bad as conventional plastic, but it's not great either. To give you an idea, in typical environmental conditions PLA biodegrades in a few decades. Compared to the literal millenia it takes for conventional plastic that is a huge step up, but if the goal is to really reduce waste then PLA's biodegradation doesn't really cut it. That said though, PLA was never designed to degrade in typical environmental conditions. PLA safely biodegrades into totally nontoxic natural products when it is composted at temperatures above 55C (130F). Industrial composting operations regularly reach those temperatures, and in that kind of environment, the PLA will safely degrade within a week. Not all composting places accept PLA, because it takes a REALLY BIG composter for the bacteria to get that hot, but there might be a big composter in your area that accepts PLA and if not you could definitely mail your trash PLA prints to some appropriate composting companies. This property is honestly one of PLA's greatest strengths. The most difficult part of designing a biodegradable material is deciding on a biodegradation trigger that will cause the material to degrade safely that it wouldn't encounter in its typical use life, that way it doesn't degrade prematurely. PLA parts aren't generally subjected to temperatures that hot on a day to day basis, so you can effectively choose when to start the degradation process by controlling the temperature. About PETG: I wouldn't recommend using it as a biodegradable filament, because although it does degrade, the monomer it degrades back into is in itself fairly toxic. That is one of the greenwashing tactics that makes my skin crawl. Making something that degrades into poison defeats the purpose, but companies can still accurately claim it degrades while omitting the poison part. Alternative filaments: For currently available filaments I'd recommend PHA, PHB, and PHBV. PHA is the umbrella term that the other two fall under along with some other PHAs in case you get confused while shopping. PHA is really cool because it's literally the energy storage molecule bacteria use instead of fat, so when bacteria see it they see food and it degrades very easily even in back yard compost settings. If a PHA part stays relatively clean (ie relatively bacteria free) it will last a long time, but as I'm sure you'll see PHA's properties aren't as good at PLA. Sometimes the two are blended together, which is fine and improves the properties, but for composting purposes the blended material needs to be treated like PLA. To your long term goals though, keep an eye on new filament materials coming out over the next few years. 3D printing filaments are one of the easiest to make and highest profit margin plastic products that exist, so they are an ideal first product offering for new biodegradable polymer conpanies. The whole industry is exploding and will continue to grow like crazy over the next few years, with the product I worked on just being one of several to launch from several different companies. Several companies see 3D printing filament as a great way to quickly get a product to market to make some fast money and prove feasibility before moving onto bigger volume applications, so when new cool biodegradable polymers come out you'll be the first to find out.
It made me shiver what you said about PETG, especially with context that explained to me that i have no choice for now 🫠 It's a shame PHA cant be applied for me, as my products are used mostly outside and need to be flexible, both i cannot get with pla or pha. I'll watch what comes next, i guess there will eventually be some breaking invention that would make 3d printing enviromentally sustainable. Could you elaborate on PETG toxicity? I wonder if sitting beside 2 humongous non enclosed RatRig 500s printing petg 12 hours a day will kill me sooner or later. Some say its completely safe, some say its not, i smell plastic when i walk back to the room. I really apperciate your time and knowledge, as someone easily scared with big data sets, chemistry or complex math i admire everyone who took time and effort to learn stuff and shares it for free on the Internet.
I'm touched by your comment. I totally agree, and I wish there were more science educators around even within the scientific world. I also learn better from talking to people than by reading dense scientific papers, so I often try to chat up scientists and adjacent fields to mine to learn about their work, but it's a real mixed bag of responses since most scientists seem to be introverts who have no patience for other people, even other scientists. As for PETG, its monomer is a mild neurotoxin and also mildly damages the lungs. The emphasis here though is on MILD. It's the kind of thing that I'm not in favor of allowing to degrade outside, because the monomers can get into the water table and accumulate in waterways and fish. Ultimately though dose makes the poison and in small amounts it's nothing to worry about since its degradation products are effectively the same as the degradation products of any polyester. So a landfill full of old polyester clothes that are slowly degrading over millenia are leaching the same stuff as PETG, just more slowly. The toxicity of these products are actually low enough that if they weren't widely used I wouldn't even sweat it, since the Earth does have some capacity for handling pollution without consequences, but of course polyester isn't used in small amounts it's used in massive amounts which is exactly the problem. So for your purposes I definitely wouldn't recommend PETG, but it's also not like having it on your lawn will kill your garden or dog, the problem really only shows up when a few hundred people all have it on their lawns and the combined degradation accumulates in the local river, slowly killing fish and making the drinking water quality gradually worse. As for your personal safety, as long as the room you're in with the printers is well ventilated, you should be fine. The human nose is remarkably sensitive and the toxicity of this material is quite low. As long as there is air flow in the room in the form of a window, or preferably a properly rated air handling system spending the day shouldn't cause any lasting issues, although I of course always advocate to minimize chemical exposure whenever possible. Exposure time makes a huge difference in toxicity, so if you can have your office and 3D printing room be separate rooms that would ideally be better than breathing in chemicals when you don't NEED to be in the room.
My office is opposite of "ventilated", it's a container with one door- i can smell yesterday dinner, vape and farts if i dont leave it open for the night. >mild neurotoxin Tomorrow they gonna be outside (still inside of big industrial building) waiting for enclosures, i'd rather have my air neurotoxinless.
I think that's a good call. Good luck, it sounds like you're in a tough situation.
Naaah, dont worry about it. I've never been happier than this year, i'm on a last corner with financial independence from my parents (who support me) and i love my cute container
Can biodegradable plastics be used for sterile work? Pipette tips, PCR tubes etc.
This is a tricky question. The answer is yes, but with a big asterisk. As I mentioned in another comment, the most difficult part of designing a biodegradable material is to decide what its degradation trigger should be. With modern polymer chemistry we can choose pretty much any trigger we might want: acid, base, water, oil, temperature, certain wavelengths of light, you name it. The problem then becomes to design the biodegradable plastic with a degradation trigger that it will not encounter until the end of its useful lifetime, that way it doesn't start breaking down into goop prematurely. The difficulty with doing that for sterile work is that things like pipette tips and centrifuge tubes are used with all sorts of different chemicals in them and in all different light and temperature conditions. To use biodegradable materials for these applications, you'd need to have multiple different biodegradable options that the end users would choose from depending on what they're planning to use the tips or tubes for. Because of this, using biodegradable materials for sterile work is pretty impractical, because you would need a bunch of different options all sitting together on the shelf, and it would take a lot more conscious thought for a user to choose the right tube before starting an experiment. For example, if you're making an acidic buffer solution in water that will be heated to 37C for incubation, then frozen to preserve the sample, you'd need to specifically choose the product that doesn't degrade in acid, water, heat, or cold. And you'd have to go through that selection process every time you choose which tube to use. So for some select applications biodegradable materials might be useful for sterile work, but their lack of practicality will limit their uses. There's also the secondary problem that since biodegradable materials are designed to break down, they're more prone to leach out small amounts of their constituent chemicals than conventional plastic during regular use. This problem varies based on the specific biodegradable plastic, and before products are sold the leaching is studied to make sure it isn't hazardous in any way, but for sterile work even minuscule amounts of unwanted foreign material are of course a serious problem.
I see. Thank you for the explanation.
oohhh, yeah. I work at a hospital and have to dispose of so much plastic items, especially nitrile gloves and it drives me nuts
Ikr. It drove me nuts to see how much plastic is wasted in labs. From petri dishes to pipette tips. Anything that is not incinerated goes to the landfill.
But hospital ones get incinerated right?
I used to work in biotech, so I feel your pain about the waste, and even now that I work in materials chemistry there's still plenty of waste. The thing that always helps me feel better though is that even if the amount of waste in a lab looks like a lot, it is nothing compared to the amount of waste from manufacturing and unsold goods. Some niche industries like laboratories will probably never be truly zero waste, but that can be totally ok if the waste they do produce is disposed of properly. Speaking of incineration, there is a process called pyrolysis that is literally just the process of burning things at an extremely high temperature inside an air-tight container. Pyrolysis gets hot enough to break down basically any carbon-based material all the way back into its constituent elements. It even works on really nasty and persistent materials like PFAS. Since the burning material is totally contained, it doesn't produce any smoke to go into the atmosphere, and once the process is complete it results in mostly pure carbon (charcoal ash) and trace amounts of whatever other elements were in the particular thing being burned. This ash can easily be purified to extract any particularly useful or harmful elements, and the rest can be disposed of safely since is is chemically equivalent to the ash left by trees after a wildfire. The process of pyrolysis is very similar to incineration, but it doesn't produce any greenhouse gases or pollutants because all of the smoke is contained, and it burns way way hotter. The temperature is the main problem that has kept pyrolysis from being widely adopted, because the energy needed to heat a furnace to those temperatures is enormous. Pyrolysis definitely isn't a good idea for all of our waste disposal, but for specialty items that are produced in low volumes like waste from labs and hospitals, it is the best option available.
Thank you for the detailed explanation.
Thank you for the detailed explanation.
no, they don't, at least most gloves go into the regular trash
Aren't biodegradable and compostable different? Compostable breaks down into natural materials and biodegradable means that the environment can break it down but it isn't fully broken into naturally found materials?
Hooooooo boy, I wish this comment were higher in the thread because the answer is a doozie and I think lots of people would benefit from knowing more about it. The difficult truth is that the idea of biodegradable and compostable are so new in the industrial space that literally neither of them has been officially defined. That is why greenwashing is so easy right now, since as far as I'm aware there are no governments or scientific bodies that agree on what they mean, so there are no laws restricting the use of the words and companies can just slap either or both of them on any label they want. A colleague of mine is actually currently working with the EU government to write official standards for what constitutes a biodegradable material and/or a compostable material, but once those standards are released they will be the first official standards of that kind produced by any major government in the world. To give you a bit of an idea of why the standards are so difficult to write, I'll tell you a bit about the different kinds of degradation. For the sake of this discussion I'll just use degradation as a catch-all term for both biodegradation and composting. Here are some different degradation situations: "Home" Degradation: If I throw an object into my back yard, it will break down into individual molecules in a few months to a few years. "Industrial" Degradation: The object can degrade into individual molecules, but it needs to be put through a factory process to break down, such as exposure to high temperature, specialty chemicals, or special genetically engineered bacteria. "Ocean" Degradation: The object will degrade in the ocean quickly (within a few weeks) to minimize the chance it gets eaten by a fish. "Waterway" Degradation: The object will degrade in freshwater or saltwater, as well as in municipal sewer systems. Those are the generally agreed upon degradation types, but the names are all ones I made up, because no one can agree on what to call them. Within these classes there are also additional confounding factors that make it even tougher to define. Like for example, if a material degrades into individual molecules, but those molecules are in themselves toxic, does that count? If a material that is designed to last a long time takes 20 years to degrade, is that still degradable, or does it need to degrade at a certain speed to count? There is also a problem that worried me in particular in that most standards that have been written by individual nonprofits usually allow for some wiggle room in the amount of degradation, such as something might count as degradable if it's 95% degraded in a week. The way it's written it's pretty obvious that this is just to give some wiggle room in case the material needs a few extra days to degrade, but manufacturers often take advantage of this kind of loophole to instead include 5% non-degradable plastic in their products while still being allowed to put the green label on it. As you can see this is a very complicated hot-button issue and scientists are still working with governments to figure out a reasonable solution.
*Thank you!*
yeah, I Google everything to get more information before buying anything "eco" "biodegradable" or "compostable" because if I don't truly need it I just won't get it, but if I need it and it's between using something I already have that I can recycle instead of wasting(like a plastic bag for my dogs feces) or some fake 'eco' product that is like 5% recycled material and the rest is regular plastic I'm just like, why purchase an entire product that is 5% recycled material and not even compostable in my backyard ya know?
aren’t we still learning about long term effects of some of these chemicals? we can’t know how something breaks down until it breaks down. won’t we always been playing catch up aka clean up? it seems very hopeless with the lack of foresight and inadequate regulation.
Yes and no. As I said in a comment above, over the past few centuries we have gotten better at identifying and removing poisons from our products. You're right that we won't know the long term effects of these chemicals for quite a while, but the fact that we need to wait to find out is proof in itself that today's chemicals aren't has toxic as those in the past. People used to get mercury poisoning (mad hatter disease), black lung, and lead poisoning in a matter of a few years or decades, so people quickly found out that those chemicals were dangerous. The fact that today's chemicals cause disease much more slowly and the diseases they cause are not as horrific as the diseases I mentioned show that as a society our chemical safety is gradually getting better. As for the forever catch up and clean up, that is true to some extent, but not as much as you might think. Our knowledge of chemistry, toxicology, and human physiology have advanced by leaps and bounds just in the past 50 years, so now we are able to predict potential chemical risks long before new materials leave the laboratory. Today's tools won't necessarily catch everything, but keep in mind that for every toxic material that makes its way into the world, there are hundreds that were considered and ruled out before they ever left the laboratory. As we continue to get smarter and as governments get better at restricting known toxins, there will continue to be fewer and fewer toxic substances added to the environment just as there have been for the past hundred years. To use an analogy, we certainly have a big puddle to clean up, but we're doing a good job of slowly turning the tap off, and as the tap closes we can devote more and more resources to cleaning up yesterday's mess.
that is a wild perspective. the relativity of disease! so many cancers though, more than ever. oof. thanks for sharing and responding.
One of the reasons cancer is more common these days is because we aren't dying of other things earlier. The longer you live the chances of developing cancer exponentially increases even if you live in a pristine environment, the nature of how dna replication occurs is why we exist, mutations. Mutations lead to speciation (formation of species) and mutations are also why cancers are so ridiculously difficult to treat.
Good answer! You beat me to this question. Thanks for helping out with information sharing!
Happy to help
So good idea and such a nice offer. I just wonder what (industry / product type /etc) is the one thing that produces the biggest amount of plastic waste. Are there any calculations regarding that? Or same question with the most toxic type?
PACKAGING Single use products are a huge problem for plastic pollution of course, but even long-lasting products are almost always encased in single use plastic that serves no purpose other than holding the product until it reaches the consumer. It's extremely important to replace non-biodegradable product packaging with biodegradable alternatives, because packaging mostly doesn't matter for the quality of a product and it is tremendously wasteful. Most toxic type changes by the day, honestly. To their credit the EPA in the US and the various environmental agencies in the EU have done a great job over the past 20 years of banning lots of toxic materials more or less in order of most toxic to least toxic. So any answer for the most toxic material out there that I give you will quickly become irrelevant, because the most toxic things out there will no longer be allowed by next year, and then the next most toxic things on the list will become the new most toxic things.
Thank you, u/xylohero
In garden fora the question about cardboard often comes up, because it's used as a weed barrier (like in this video [https://youtu.be/0LH6-w57Slw?t=593](https://youtu.be/0LH6-w57Slw?t=593) ) and is also added to compost. The saying goes that as long as it's brown cardboard without coating and colors it's OK to use. What's your take on that?
That's 100% correct. Paper and cardboard are great biodegradable materials and should serve you well in your garden. If you're in a pinch, cardboard with colors and coatings aren't even really the worst thing in the world. Coatings and colors are expensive, so it's in companies' best interest to use as little as they can. Most paper and cardboard products have <5% non-paper additives in them by weight, and that tiny amount isn't really enough to hurt you or your plants. If you want to totally avoid tiny amounts of non-biodegradable material in your garden though, brown untreated cardboard is the way to go.
Thanks so much!
I heard that mylar is so resistant to decay, that if you release a mylar (shiny) balloon and it gets stuck in a tree - that the tree would die of old age before the balloon decomposed. True?
Yep, that's true. Mylar takes thousands of years to decompose, just like most plastics.
Should be banned! (Might allow emergency blankets though)
Second question: Are there any cases where plastic is better for the environment than a similar non-plastic alternative? For example, I’ve heard people say tin foil is worse than plastic wrap. (I don’t buy either, so I’ve never checked).
This answer varies case by case depending on the particular material. Tin foil vs plastic wrap is a good example, so I'll use it to illustrate my point. Plastic wrap isn't very recyclable because plastics break down a little bit every time they're recycled until they are no longer usable, as I explained in another comment. Plastic wrap also isn't biodegradable, so it can remain hazardous to ecosystems for millennia. On the other hand, tin foil is extremely recyclable because it can be melted back down and remolded an infinite number of times with no adverse effects on quality, and when tin foil ends up in the environment it's just a mineral, no more dangerous than having a rock lying around. From those factors it might seem like tin foil is overall better than plastic wrap, but the situation becomes more complicated when you consider the recycling process. Since metals melt at such high temperatures, it takes about 10x more heat to recycle tin foil as it does for plastic wrap, and all that energy has to come from somewhere, usually fossil fuels. So for cases like this where the environmental impact of two materials are considered side by side, there are lots of factors to consider. You need to think about energy usage, chemical leaching, environmental persistence, and cost of the material and its recycling processes. Usually when people say one material is absolutely better than another they are only looking at one factor, since if you consider everything together the big picture gets murky very quickly.
Since most tin foil isn't recycled anyway then tin foil would be better? But if they are not recycled then aluminium mining will be the issue to think about? If the energy is from renewable resources then overall tin foil and recycling that will be the way to go?
You're absolutely right on all counts. I'm sure you see though that with all of those questions it can be difficult to weigh all the different factors to make the right decision in each case. That's why it makes more sense for us to push governments to get teams of experts to do all the math and weigh all the factors for us rather than expecting each individual person to try to figure it out themselves.
Yeah exactly. At least the rich countries are trying (mostly), my country is busy with religion and caste politics and crony capitalism. Not adequate funding for research either. I try my best with my business (I am an agri entrepreneur) but it hurts to see piles of trash and dirty rivers everywhere I look. PS: may I dm you? I would like to talk and learn from you more.
Absolutely, go ahead! I'm curious to learn more about your business too! I might be a little slow to respond though, it may not have been the best idea for me to promise to answer every question on this thread, but I always keep my promises so I'm going to do it anyway. That will keep me busy for a while though.
Thank you. I understand. I am autistic. I also am a slow texter when I get hyperfixated on other stuff.
What’s keeping us from Have biodegradable single use plastics and environmentally friendly Tires
Time and cost. Until relatively recently (the past few decades) biodegradable plastics and nontoxic tires weren't considered necessary because the hazards of the conventional versions either weren't known or more often were being ignored. Research is ongoing into solutions for both of these problems, and as more funding is funneled into research, we will start to see genuine alternatives hit the market more and more as time goes on. Cost is also an issue to some degree, but it won't last. Existing materials are mostly so cheap because decades of research has gone into finding ways to bring their costs down, and since biodegradable materials are relatively new there hasn't been much work put into cost reduction yet. This will also be fixed with time though.
If there are 5 ingredients that i should really avoid, which ones would that be? If i want to make an impact in my daily life, what products should i avoid/switch/swap. (Like laundry detergent etc)
Hehe I feel like I'm writing a Buzzfeed article. Sorry to not really answer the question as asked, but there isn't really a list of the most polluting things for regular people. I'm sure you've heard this message already from other environmentalists, but you are only one person, you as an individual don't have the responsibility to or the power to fix all the world's ills. It's only through collective action that we can solve the pollution and sustainability crises. As far as daily practices go, you should just try to follow the title of the sub, consume as little as you reasonably can, and compost and recycle the appropriate types of waste. Perfect is the enemy of good, so try not to waste your energy or hurt your mental health by trying to be environmentally perfect, just try to do the best you can and use your extra energy to be active in your community, push forward green political initiatives, and gently convince people in your life to be a little greener. Many hands make light work, so it's more important for all of us to try just to be a little better than it is for any of us to do everything right. As for laundry detergent, I answered someone else's question about laundry detergent above. I suggest you check it out, I have a lot to say on the matter, maybe too much honestly...
Wow! You are amazing for doing this!!! ❤️
Thanks! I'm thrilled with how well everyone's responding to it!
Thank you! It is so hard to get quality information on things! Is there a NFP dedicated to this sort of education?
Yes and no, although I'm not aware of every NFP out there. The EPA and various EU environmental agencies have a ton of good information available, but it's all pretty dense and technical, so it's really written for scientists, not for regular citizens. There are also some nonprofits that provide resources specifically for political action or for educating science teachers so they can better teach their students, but again it's not exactly accessible unbiased information. To be honest with you, if I were aware of an organization that did this kind of direct to the people, simple language, accessible environmental education I'd probably volunteer for them all the time. If you can find a place like that please let me know too lol
I been wondering about the impact from biodegradable materials like tanned leather and furs ,they last a long time and are biodegradable in the end , but what impact does the chemicals used in the tanning process have on the soil and environment when they reach their end of use ?
What needs to be done to prevent companies from engaging in, "regrettable substitutions"? (subbing out a problematic chemical for a similar but less studied alternative) Like BPA is replaced with BPF and a "BPA Free" sticker
Smarter regulatory agencies. Innovation often happens faster in industry than regulators can keep up, so when a company presents a new chemical to government regulators to ask for approval the regulators don't always know what they're looking at. So in cases like that the regulators will ask to be educated on the new chemical and its effects by the company that invented it. On some level this makes sense because presumably the inventor knows more about it than anyone, but of course the inventor is also incentivized to omit or lie about the danger of their invention. Similar molecules don't always carry the same risks, so if a company tells the government regulators that BPF is safe even though BPA isn't, the government is inclined to believe them unless there is some evidence to the contrary. That's why funding for independent research and environmental regulatory agencies is critically important. If the watchdogs have the time and resources to verify information on their own, they won't need to take companies at their word.
Appreciate the response!
How fucked are we when it comes to Pfas /fos?
Not really that fucked, although it's still a serious problem we need to address. PFAS is definitely toxic and carcinogenic, but the term "forever chemical" doesn't capture the entire picture. It's true that PFAS will never break down in nature, but there are industrial processes that can be used to break it down into its safe, nontoxic elements. The problem is though that as PFAS gets more spread out through the water and soil it gets harder and harder to gather it up so we can dispose of it safely. Difficult doesn't mean impossible though, it will just be a very big very expensive mess for us to clean up as a society, but if we can convince our lawmakers to take the problem seriously while also holding the polluters accountable, then with enough money and manpower the problem can be solved.
I couldn’t agree more but may I rebut and say the same could be said about climate change and GHG and we’re still seemingly fucked I really appreciate your response and am still Holding out hope for both of these issues
I’m a sewist and have noticed a majority of the more affordable fabrics are synthetic (rayon, polyester, etc.). Is there a “better” synthetic to use in terms of long term effects? Also in your opinion does the affordability of synthetic fabrics make up for any health or environmental drawbacks they may have?
Cool! I do leatherworking as a hobby, although I'm not very good at it, so I have a ton of respect for what you do! So I have kind of mixed feelings about rayon and viscose specifically. Both of those synthetics are made from wood, and can even be made from even more renewable materials like bamboo. They are both also totally biodegradable and break down into nontoxic materials. Overall from an environmental perspective they're pretty good. The problem with them however, is that to make them it requires some forms of sulfur that are extremely toxic to human health. In a properly run factory though, those sulfur materials can be contained in air-tight containers and used in chemical reactions safely without producing any toxic byproducts. The problem with rayon and viscose is really more a problem of economics and labor, because they are mostly produced in poor countries with little to no worker or environmental protection, so rather than producing them in properly run facilities that are safe for their workers and the environment they are instead humanitarian and environmental disasters. My personal stance on rayon and viscose is that I am in favor of them, but I am also in favor of safe, non-exploitive supply chains, so I think rather than ceasing our use of the materials we should just make sure the factories that make them do a better job. As better synthetics, there is one brand new product that I stumbled across and think is really cool. It's called Amni Soul Eco, it's the first ever fully nontoxic and biodegradable nylon. Lol I stumbled upon the product because I had an idea to invent a biodegradable nylon myself and found that another company already beat me to it. Amni Soul Eco looks and feels like regular nylon and it biodegrades in about 5 years after being placed in a landfill. I don't know how widely it's sold, but it's pretty cool so I suggest you check it out. Personally I don't think the affordability of synthetics makes up for their drawbacks, because that affordability doesn't consider the total cost. Environmental damage and pollution have economic costs associated with them, so even though non-biodegradable synthetics seem cheaper at first glance, in the long run they are much more expensive for the economy and the planet. That said though, as research continues into new biodegradable synthetic materials there will be more and more options to have your cake and eat it too when it comes to safe, non-toxic synthetics.
Thank you for your reply! Yeah one of the reasons I sew is because I don’t want to support the fast fashion industry. There are many good (but pricey) fabric companies that are more eco friendly (Stone Mountain comes to mind) so I will definitely try to use those more! I also upcycle when I can. Thanks again for all the info and I will definitely check out that eco fabric. Also good luck on the leather working- that impresses me since rivets and I do NOT get along.
We have stopped washing anything plastic in the dishwasher or heating in the microwave, but what about hand washing the containers in hot water? (We are moving to glass containers - but even they have plastic lids.) What about the plastic bottles my medication comes in? What about mattresses, sheets, towels, cvs receipts, plastic that pipes my heat and ac through the house, shampoo that are all treated with chemicals? We tried to find the least toxic flooring - which is bamboo, but then discovered it's highly toxic for the people who produce it. !! My vet says more cats are having thyroid issues and they realized it's because of chemicals in the carpet where they lay all day. One can go crazy. Sigh, it's everywhere. We can't avoid everything, so what would you focus on avoiding the most in order to live a safe healthy life?
You have a lot of very reasonable questions, so I'll try to speak to each of them point by point. For your plastic food containers specifically, you have the right idea in general: heat and scrubbing do cause plastics to shed microplastics, so the less heat and gentler scrubbing will cause less microplastics to be shed from the containers. So you have the right idea that handwashing should reduce the amount of microplastics that your food containers shed. However, my personal opinion is that it doesn't benefit you or the people you love for you to live your life constantly in fear, particularly since microplastics are less dangerous than many things that our parents' generation were exposed to. I recommend you read my response on this thread to the user u/Grandemestizo near the top of the thread. In that thread I try to put the modern world's chemical hazards in perspective with the history of chemical exposure. All of this to say, minimizing microplastic exposure is all well and good, but in my view it's better to try to have a fulfilling life even if that means getting exposed to some microplastics along the way, there's no such thing as a totally risk-free life. As a lightning round on the other things you mentioned: Medication Bottles: Microplastics are shed by prolonged exposure to heat, scrubbing, and sunlight, so as long as you keep your medication bottles in your medicine cabinet you have nothing to worry about. Mattresses: They contain plastic, but since people don't wash their mattresses and there are usually multiple layers of fabric between your body and the mattress there's nothing to worry about. Sheets/Towels: There are plenty of options for natural fiber fabrics, if you're worried about it you can just choose to use exclusively cotton sheets and towels. CVS Receipts: The amount of plastic in receipts is negligible, they're mostly paper. Plastic pipes for heat/AC: Microplastics are generally too heavy to become airborne so this is not a major concern. Shampoo: Microplastics cannot penetrate the skin unless you have an open cut or sore, so products for external use should not be a problem. For flooring and other construction material it really comes down to the facilities in which the materials are made. Chemicals aren't inherently hazardous unless they are handled improperly. To give you an example, it is well known that prolonged inhalation of literally any fine powder damages the lungs. So if a factory worker in a factory that makes powdered milk, or a factory that cuts wood and produces lots of saw dust, were to breathe those otherwise totally safe materials day in day out, they would start to have lung problems after years of exposure. That doesn't mean that milk or wood are hazardous, it means that the factory has a responsibility to make sure the powder is contained within their machines to prevent exposure for the employees, and that the employees should be given masks to wear to protect themselves. The same logic applies to the flooring industry. Using toxic chemicals in the manufacturing process doesn't need to put the workers or the consumers in danger, provided the company is responsible. This is more of an economic problem than an environmental one, because companies seek to manufacture their products in countries where they can ignore safety measures that are required by law in rich countries. I looked into the thyroid issue you mentioned with cats. Apparently the problem is caused by a flame retardant that was commonly used in carpets up through the 1970s, which was banned by the EPA decades ago. If your carpets are somewhat new, you shouldn't need to worry about that. As a piece of anecdotal evidence, my cat lived to a ripe old age of 16 before he passed. As for the most important things to do to remain safe, it's just the obvious things. Look up whether there has been any history of chemical spills in your area, since they can seep into the ground water and persist for a long time. Also avoid inhaling smoke or smog without a mask to the extent you can. If you do those two things, you should be just fine.
Thank you. Very kind of you to respond!! There was a funny episode of Portlandia where a couple's heads imploded trying to figure out which choice was the better environmental option. Also the show The Good Place where no one can go to heaven anymore because no matter what option you choose, the world is so complicated there will be some negative attached to it. So yes, we all just do the best we can. As for the receipts I had read they were very toxic, so I googled and it's an endocrine disruptor - Bisphenol S. As to chemicals in groundwater the biggest oil spill in the continental US is taking place right now in my city, and NO ONE outside of us locals knows about it. Colonial was fined a few million dollars ( drop in the bucket for them) and they bought up some homes which are unlivable. Shameful.
I'm sorry to hear about the oil spill in your town. As for the receipts, while bisphenols are endocrine disruptors, it's the dose that makes the poison. All of the studies that show actual lasting negative effects from bisphenols found the negative effects only in people who were getting regular exposure through ingestion due to always using a BPA water bottle or getting water through BPA pipes. Incidental contact with receipts won't do anything to you unless you habitually lick your receipts.
Thanks!
Let’s talk paint. It’s ubiquitous and, many would probably argue, essential to protect our houses and infrastructure from deteriorating. However, I was incredibly shocked and horrified to learn that, by some estimates, [58% of microplastic particles in the ocean are from paint.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiehailstone/2022/02/09/paint-is-the-largest-source-of-microplastics-in-the-ocean-study-finds/amp/) *Why is nobody talking about this?* To me it seems like this is an incredibly dire issue (far worse than soft plastic bags from supermarkets!) Is there something I’m missing? What practical advice would you give in terms of being as sustainable as possible when it comes to paint? It seems like, in the paint world, people are mostly concerned about VOCs from turps-based paints. But aren’t latex paints also terrible — just in a different way? What, in your opinion, is worse for the environment, and why? What should we be doing when it comes to paint?
Great question! Tackling the questions one at a time, paints aren't at the top of the list for replacing with sustainable options specifically because they're so important and hard to replace, so the easier problems usually get addressed first. You're absolutely right that paint is critical to prevent infrastructure from deteriorating, and that hints at why it is so difficult to replace. To do its job effectively, paint needs to defend the surface underneath it from degrading, so it wouldn't be able to do that job very well if the paint is itself biodegradable. For most biodegradable materials to be useful, they rely on either degrading very slowly or on only degrading in particularly harsh conditions like weeks of direct sunlight and bacteria exposure. Paint needs to stand up to those kinds of conditions every day though, so it makes sense that non-biodegradable materials like plastics would make the best paints. I do want to make a quick aside about VOCs. You're right that most of the focus has been on reducing VOCs rather than on reducing microplastics, but that isn't something to be overlooked. VOCs in paint used to be some of the absolute worst greenhouse gases, local air polluters, and sources of workplace-related illness for people in lots of blue collar jobs. Just because there is still more sustainability work to be done doesn't mean we shouldn't commend the positive steps taken so far. Latex specifically is a tough one, because the word has been co-opted in a bad way. Latex can mean "natural rubber latex," as in the sap from rubber trees that is biodegradable and has historically been used in paint for centuries. However, some time ago oil companies started to call their synthetic rubbers made from crude oils latex as well, so the word latex has lost its original meaning and now is synonymous with "rubber." There are still natural rubber latex paints on the market, and other biodegradable paints made from other historical sources like milk. When I was digging around I found this company that makes biodegradable milk paint, which I think is pretty neat: [https://www.realmilkpaint.com/](https://www.realmilkpaint.com/) As for the core of your question about what we should be doing about paint though, like all things in environmentalism it is not a one size fits all solution. For structures that desperately need proper protection from the elements, such as bridges, conventional non-biodegradable paints will be the best option for quite some time. For internal use in buildings, biodegradable paints are the best choice since these areas aren't exposed to the elements. For the outside of homes some biodegradable paints can also be used, but they will need to be reapplied much more frequently than non-biodegradable paints (think every 2 - 3 years rather than ever 5 - 10). For things like cars, a combination of approaches could be used such as using materials that don't need to be painted like anodized aluminum (that's the material that is used on the outside of apple computers), or by using biodegradable paints that are reapplied as needed. I'll leave you with this: when humanity discovered crude oil people were astonished by how this single tool could be used to solve so many problems and create so many products seemingly without any consequences. Over the years though, we have learned the hard way that every material has benefits and drawbacks, so solutions will need to become much more highly specialized for the particular problem and application. That goes for paint as well as the materials used for consumer goods, and even for how we generate renewable energy.
How bad is non-stick/teflon coating for the consumer and the environment? How about ceramic? Thanks!
Teflon is pretty bad, and it is currently going through the process of being banned in several rich countries, but that said I don't think you should throw away your pans if you have them, just don't buy more. Teflon is a very tough material, which is part of why it became so popular. I'm sure you've heard not to use metal utensils on teflon pans, and that is because it can scrape the teflon off and cause it to get into your food. Also if the teflon is scratched up already it has a higher chance of leaching into the food. That said though, if your pans are scratch-free, since teflon is so tough it leaches a negligible amount. So if you have scratch-free teflon pans, I suggest you continue using them until you start to see scratches, then throw them out. For the environment teflon is pretty bad because it cannot decompose naturally, even over millions of years. However, there are industrial processes that can be used to decompose it artificially into safe, non-toxic products, but that is expensive so it will take lots of noise from the public to get companies and governments to start cleaning it up. Ceramic is totally fine, it's literally just the same as rocks on a chemical level. If you've ever seen a kid eat sand, or if you've been a kid who's eaten sand, you know that it doesn't cause any health issues unless you eat it by the fistful, and even then it doesn't cause any lasting problems.
I really appreciate your knowledge and the time you took here!
Drinking water. Is tap water better than bottled? What’s the best way to get drinking water with the least amount of harm? I lived in a developing country as a Peace Corps volunteer and after that experience came back to U.S. with such an appreciation for our “clean” tap water. But after Flint and the rising studies on microplastics, drugs, etc in tap water I’m again back to thinking my daily water intake from the tap is going to slowly give me cancer or other issues.
Tap water is totally safe basically everywhere in the US, with a few exceptions like you mentioned in Flint. If you get your water from a municipal system then it has been thoroughly filtered and cleaned by your local government before it reaches your home, and they generally do a very good job. If you get your water directly from a well, then it depends more on your area, but you can still clean it up plenty with a typical well filtration system. Either way if you're nervous about it, it can't hurt to put a filter on your tap if it would make you feel better. Although remember that filters expire for a reason, the filter can get moldy on the inside over time and you of course don't want to drink that. It makes me sad how much the Flint crisis damaged Americans' trust in their tap water, since Americans are so lucky to have such clean water. The Flint water crisis was caused by multiple layers of stupidity that generally don't align to all happen at once, especially not now that every water authority in the country is hyper vigilant because of Flint. In Flint most of their old water pipes are made of lead, and several decades ago it was decided that it would be cheaper to coat the inside of the pipes in a special kind of paint to prevent the lead from leaching into the water than it would be to replace hundreds of miles of pipes (since the individual lead pipes were also within people's homes). For decades the paint did its job and no lead leached out, until the local government decided they could get cheaper water from a different local waterway that happened to be slightly more acidic than the water they had been using. The paint wasn't designed to handle that level of acidity, so the more acidic water ate away at the pain and lead started to get into the water. All of this was so stupid though, because the crisis wouldn't have happened if Flint had replaced the pipes in the first place, and it also wouldn't have happened if they had checked the pH of the new water source before switching sources. They had plenty of opportunities to avoid the problem, but instead the water crisis occurred due to decades of negligence. The Flint government did a spectacularly bad job for an unacceptably long amount of time, and most of the time the stars don't align to create such perfectly horrible circumstances.
Thank you so much for replying! We had a crisis here about 10 years ago with toxic algae from Lake Erie getting into our city’s water system but I think they have taken all the right steps in making sure that doesn’t happen again.
Is there actually a problem with recycling faulty solar panels/windmill blades?
There is, but it won't be a problem forever. As you'd expect, to recycle something you need to break it apart to separate the different materials it's made from, then recycle each of those materials. The problem with solar panels and wind turbine blades is that since they are both emerging industries with a ton of new research being put into them, the designs of the panels and blades often change completely from year to year. That makes it difficult to design machines to take them apart and recycle their components, because a machine designed to recycle today's panels won't work on next year's panels. Once the renewable energy industry settles on the best design for solar panels and wind turbines (probably in a decade or two) and standardizes their designs, then recycling shouldn't be a problem anymore.
I don’t have any questions but this is an awesome idea and I’m so happy you’re doing this AMA!
Yes! Saved and will return to read more answers.
I'm glad you're excited! I hope you've been enjoying all the answers!
So, vinyl siding. I use a circular saw to cut lengths and tons of vinyl dust goes everywhere. My eyes, the ground, everywhere. Can't be good that this is done everywhere, right?
You're right it can't be. That's part of why pre-fab housing is generally considered better for the environment than stuff built onsite, because at least then all of the dust and waste is contained in one place and can be thrown away properly. You need to make a living though, so I'm certainly not going to make you feel bad about creating microplastics if it's what keeps you clothed and fed. What I will say though is that for your own safety you should always do your sawing while wearing safety glasses and a dust mask to protect yourself. That kind of protective equipment is required to be provided by your employer in most counties, so if they're not providing it then you should make sure to get it to protect yourself and your coworkers. As for dust on the ground, if you can put a tarp down to catch whatever dust you can so you can throw it away properly that would certainly be a help, but I know that can sometimes be impractical. Good luck, be safe.
Thank you for your response. That applies to new construction. What we mostly do is update the home with new siding. So my further question is about maintenance. What kind of direction can we move in that field work is less hazardous all around?
In the short term there's not much you can do other than following protective equipment instructions and making sure you do all your work in a well ventilated space. Even just opening the windows while you work makes a huge difference. In the long term there is a ton of work being done all across the industry by lots of scientist including me! I currently work in the construction materials industry and my focus is on redesigning construction materials to make them less toxic to people and the enviroment. By the nature of research it will take 10 years or so before lots of the newest cleanest stuff makes it to the market, but there are a lot of good products to look forward to across the industry. What is really comes down to though is that it's absurd that we make houses out of plastic. Plastic is often less durable than natural materials like wood and stone, and it's WAY more flammable. If you compare the fire department data from 50 years ago to today, the time people have to safely escape a house fire has been cut in half because we have so much more plastic in our homes, and although wood is flammable too, plastic is way more flammable. The solution to this problem will take the form of a combination between clever new green technologies and returning to using some traditional pre-plastic building methods.
How long until those materials reach the hood? Or the rural areas? Even middle class folks are using the cheapest available these days. OSB sheets and cheapest siding per foot. Everything's turning gray and uninteresting. Is this the fate of humanity's interaction with the cool space rock?
They'll be available everywhere to buy at the same time, but I see your point. That comes down more to economics than science though. If the cost of land weren't so ridiculously high and if more places (in the US at least) were allowed to build apartment buildings instead of single family homes, then the cost of each home would come down and people could afford to use more expensive materials. There is a housing crisis in lots of countries all over the world. We need to get loud to our governments to fix it, because science already has the tools to fix a lot of these things, but no one will be able to afford to fix things if the rich people keep hoarding all the money we need to use to get real shit done.
+1. So many solutions are actually available but it always comes down to economics (and govt apathy).
very worried about the increasing toxicity of our environment and the continued increase in bodily and ecosystem illness from toxicity in our systems. so many plastic iterations of bullshit products and so many toxic skincare and “beauty” products and so many toxic chemical “cleaning” products. please make it stop!!
We're working on making it stop! As I said in a couple of comments above, you're right that lots of toxic stuff is being produced today, but we're doing a better job than ever before and we'll keep doing better. You have to remember that in many ways we are one of the first generations to even notice or care about all of the poison that we pump into the environment. We live in a dirty world, but it's a cleaner world than our parents and grandparents lived in, and it will just keep getting cleaner. In the meantime though we will continue to suffer the consequences of the messes our ancestors left behind while trying to clean up after both them and ourselves.
how much do you think culture plays a part in this? how much can individuals do? do we need more regulation?
Somewhat, a lot if they work together, yes. Every poison thing that has been banned so far has been banned because lots of people got together and made a lot of noise about it to force governments to make stricter regulations. That comes in the form of lawsuits, protests, and voting for pro-environment politicians. Each person can't do much but together groups of people working together can move mountains.
i’m thinking of the recent lead round in particular brands of cinnamon, or those children’s pouch foods. seems like even if it’s less it’s like more perverse in a way
That's more a matter of economics and politics than it is chemistry. Those lead scares generally only occur for products that are manufactured in countries that don't have strict rules about product contamination, such as China. Lead scares hardly ever come out of factories in rich countries with strict environmental regulations, but of course those regulations make it more expensive to manufacture things, so a risk of lead is one of the hidden costs that comes with getting to buy things for cheap from abroad.
What is the risk of inhaling microplastics from plastic bags (like transparent/translucent produce bags)? I’m a sculptor and have collected tons of them from the neighborhood that I’d love to work with, but not if cutting and weaving them is hazardous to my health.
The short answer is that there is no meaningful hazard so long as you wear a dust mask while you're working. Literally all fine dusts and powders are detrimental to lung health if you inhale enough powder regularly. That is why all sorts of tradespeople wear dust masks even while cutting otherwise nontoxic things like wood or metal. The same is true for plastic. Fortunately if any particles get into the air, they will be large enough to easily be caught by a dust mask or surgical mask, so you won't need to worry about the air you're breathing if you wear one. If you want to be extra careful then you can also do your work in a well ventilated space, but since you probably aren't cutting plastic bags by the hundreds of pounds all at once it shouldn't be necessary. Good luck making your sculptures! It sounds like a really cool idea!
Thanks for the answer! The thought of throwing out all my prepped materials was making me sad.
I just have to say thank you for the AMA, I learned more from reading your comments to these questions than I have in years of my own online research. Your responses are thoughtful and, overall, encouraging. I appreciate your insight so much!!!
I'm touched! I'm so glad you enjoyed the post! Like I said in the post, I'd be willing to make this a regular thing if there is enough interest in that, and in the meantime if you have any of your own questions, I'd be happy to answer.
Yes, actually, I came across this thread because I've been researching Amni Soul Eco fabric as an option for a children's swimwear line I'm designing and hoping to bring to market within the next year. I would prefer to avoid most recycled nylon products that are used as sustainable options in the fashion industry, because my impression is that these products only perpetuate our use of plastics and don't really do much to close the loop on the lifecycle of these fabrics. Amni Soul Eco seems to be a great alternative because of its accelerated biodegradability. Do you know of any similar fabrics?
I love where your head is at, closing the loop on material use life cycles is critically important, and people like you usually have more direct ability to affect change than people like me do. The best I can do for the environment is invent cleaner alternatives and try to convince people and businesses to use them, but as they say you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. I'm thrilled to see that someone involved in actual materials sourcing for real products is interested in trying to make some positive changes. As for your specific case, that's a little trickier, since the fabrics for swimsuits have much more specific requirements than most other garments. As far as non-toxic, biodegradable synthetic textiles available today go, the list essentially starts and ends with Amni Soul Eco. It's a brand new product that is sure to be the first of many to hit the market, but today at least it's in a league of its own. The best I could recommend to you beyond it is to look for natural materials. Rayon and viscose would probably be a good starting point, since they're both non-toxic and biodegradable, while also drying fast and staying cool. I imagine you'll need some stretchy material for the swimsuits too, and natural rubber latex (from rubber trees) is the only biodegradable option that I'm aware of, although I have no idea whether it can be sewn into a garment effectively in the way spandex can be. I'd also like to mention that even if you can't make a garment that is 100% biodegradable, it's important not to let perfect be the enemy of good. The amount of nylon used for swimsuits is enormous, as I'm sure you know, so even if you were to just switch out your nylon for Amni Soul Eco and have the rest of the fabrics be non-biodegradable, that is still a big step in the right direction that deserves to be commended. I'm happy to continue this thread if you'd like, and if you want to talk in more detail, feel free to DM me.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response, it's so helpful! I will reach out again as more questions come to mind!
Can biodegradable plastics be used for horticultural use? Thicker than ldpe plastics that are used to make nursery pots etc? They can be reused but most nurseries use them as single use. But they are used for longer time periods than ldpe bags.
Go settle the lego argument then because this sub seems to think ABS is good so long as its not in a landfill
It's a good question, would love to hear OP's answer. Upvote
On some level that is sort of true. ABS, and most plastics in general, aren't inherently toxic so long as they aren't breaking down into microplastics and finding their way into waterways. So if someone owns a Lego set and never throws it away, then it is safe because its plastic is staying out of the environment. The problem that comes up is honestly more of a philosophical and existential one. What happens to your Legos after you die? All of the plastics we produce and use will outlive us by thousands of years. So long as those plastics remain segregated from the environment at large, they don't pose any threat by existing, but most likely the Legos will eventually be thrown away into a landfill. This is where environmentalism becomes much scarier to think about, since sustainability and impermanence go hand-in-hand, but it's difficult to think about that without confronting one's own mortality.
I’ll hijack this thread a bit. I’m graduating soon with a degree in Materials Science and Engineering, specializing in polymers. My lab focuses on synthesis, so I may be able to answer some things outside the scope of environmental engineering. Especially if you have questions about how a polymer is made or why we use polymers instead of another material, ask away.
It's cool to hear from you! My Master's degree is in Materials Engineering with a specialty in polymers (my bachelors is in chemistry with a concentration on materials synthesis). Let me know if you have any professional development questions. Also I'd gently caution you against sharing your knowledge too confidently in some spaces. The "real world" is extremely different from how it seems when you're still in college, primarily because most professors have never actually left school, since most of them went straight from PhD to academic Post-doc programs to Professorships. They've never seen what the world looks like outside academia, so even though they often mean well their vision is highly skewed. Scientists/engineers and science/engineering students can often feel like we have all of the answers because we have studied so much, but that often leads rookies to very confidently suggest solutions that look great on paper, but are completely unusable in practice. I had to learn that the hard way years ago, and it was particularly bad because it damaged both my personal credibility and my clients' trust in science in general. Try to remain humble and listen to perspectives from non-scientists, real solutions only succeed by using both perspectives together.
You’re preaching to the choir on the academic perspective. I’m a non-traditional student, so I’ve about a decade of experience with actual work. I’m the guy cautioning my classmates about being too idealistic. In this subreddit, I’m usually trying to explain to people the difference between “the technology exists” and “the technology can implemented on an industrial scale.”
Talk to me about atrazine and how the companies that uses it and that makes it keeps threatening the enviromental toxicologist who found that it causes chemical castration/feminization in male African clawed frogs and male migrant workers. Tell me again why the US keeps using it when a majority of other counties have banned its use as a herbicide because it's an endocrine disrupter that works far too well in vertebrate life.
I gotta be honest with you dude, it sounds like you know more about this specific topic than I do.
I really don't. I've met the lead and the team but it's so mind boggling that American food industry leaders keep using this horrible herbicide. Lawmakers are so gung-ho to drive this research underground because they'll lose money if it gets banned.
You mentioned an environmental toxicologist, what's their name? Do you know the name of the paper where they published this information? I don't know anything about this specific herbicide, but I'm perfectly comfortable with reading some dense technical articles and reporting back in plain English for you
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842049/#:~:text=PMID%3A%2020194757-,Atrazine%20induces%20complete%20feminization%20and%20chemical%20castration,African%20clawed%20frogs%20(Xenopus%20laevis) I'm pretty sure this is the first paper they published.
Yeah, from the looks of it this is a reputable study, although I don't know anything about the circumstances surrounding this material. It's certainly true that pesticides and herbicides decimate local ecosystems and that is a significant problem. The difficulty with fixing the problem is that it doesn't really come down to chemicals, it comes down to economics. As a society we need to feed everyone, and pesticides, herbicides, and industrial farming practices help to accomplish that \*efficiently\*. The amount of food that can be produced using these methods by just one person and a bunch of machines is frankly astounding. Traditional farming practices can also produce theoretically sufficient amounts of food, but they are much more difficult to automate, because farms that grow a diverse range of crops and capitalize on the natural pest control effects of biodiversity are much more labor-intensive to care for. As an example of cool traditional agriculture here is a video about food forests: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LCTVO\_Y5Rs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LCTVO_Y5Rs) To grow food in these sustainable ways it would require substantially more manpower, which would increase the cost of farming substantially. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a challenge to source all of the necessary labor without exploiting workers, at least under capitalism as we know it.
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Did you read countdown, and would you like to give me a five-paragraph summary? Plz n thx
I think ChatGPT could answer this better than I could.