this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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‘They lied’: plastics producers deceived public about recycling, report reveals | Recycling (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Shock horror. The famously corrupt industry that gets paid both to take waste and to sell their byproducts is corropt and doesn't deal honestly.

Also, FYI biodegradable plastic is a con. Plastic is polyethylene, which is a long chain of repeating ethylene molecules. To make it biodegradable they just put starch molecules in the chain every so often. Bacteria break down the starch leaving tiny microscopic ethylene chains you can't see - aka microplastics. Biodegradable plastics are in fact more polluting.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago

Plastic is polyethylene, which is a long chain of repeating ethylene molecules. To make it biodegradable they just put starch molecules in the chain every so often.

A lot of plastic is polyethylene, but nowhere near all of it. There are plenty of polymers that can break down naturally, mostly polyesters like PLA (which breaks down into lactic acid, the same naturally produced compound that causes muscle soreness after workouts). A lot of work is being put into making PLA have better material properties so it can replace more of the conventional plastics. It's also generally made from corn and can be pretty close to carbon-neutral. So long story short some biodegradable plastics are worse, but some have legitimate applications and are genuinely better than current options.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

I had some doubts at first but then I read this article from BBC:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191030-why-biodegradables-wont-solve-the-plastic-crisis

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The plastics companies that did this should be made to pay for the cleanup.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

Forcing companies to clean up their own mess!?! Found the communist! /s

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

ShockedPikachuFace.jpg

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Been recycling since the 1990s. Like many people, i was fanatical about it .

I Don’t really bother with it any more unless I have to

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago

Plastic recycling is sort of a scam, but other materials (paper, clothes, metal) are very much recycleable

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

i stopped most of my recycling many years ago. will still recycle things like car batteries

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The article doesn't make it clear if this is a problem of economics or a technical problem. Or a research and regulate problem.

If there are theoretical plastics that can be manufactured sustainably and recycled, if there are theoretically possible robot machines to sort (spectral lines) and if those plastics can cover the most common use cases, then plastics ARE recyclable. We just don't care to do it properly because of capitalism.

I'd really love to know the science on this. Unfortunately scientific papers also often say things like "not possible" when it's just a question of the current economic structure (ownership, patents, lack of R&D).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Most likely a technical problem. Even bacterias break it down into micro plastics, which is even more a problem.