Posted on 10/09/2019 4:45:07 PM PDT by grundle
Good, VK. I’ve also thought that the whole plastics program could go away if the packages could disintegrate in 20 years. Or maybe a simple chemical reaction in the landfill could start an accelerated decomposition.
If American ingenunity put a television and the web in the palm of my hand, why can’t this problem be solved.
May be an opportunity to Trump and his administration to lead! Not regulate but publicize and encourage more prudent and innovative packaging.
Yes, packaging solutions (give me back the old glass bottled containers of milk) can reduce waste.
Also. most shampoos, without reducing their effectiveness, can be delivered as a bar, like a bar of soap.
The non-active liquid in them is mostly water (80% of the content). The chemicals can be delivered in a bar form without the water. You’re going to add the water in the shower as you use it. It does not need to drizzle out of a container. As the bar is scrubbed against the hair, the lather will get spread around the hair.
One of the solutions needed is a reusable material for pill bottles. The common plastic pill bottle cannot be used to fill a new prescription, so it can’t be returned to the pharmacy, sterilized and reused. The plastic it is made of would melt if subjected to the temperature needed to rid it of all possible traces of contaminants and the previous medicine that was in it. And, no one has come up with another plastic that could be used for a reusable medicine bottle.
Glass would do it (it could be sterilzed again and again), but the safety nannies would scream.
Locally, a very large chemical copany and a very large waste disposal company joined up to develop an extensive recycling capability. The minds of both companies are very capable. Their resources are huge.
They constructed a fairly large facility to receive both city and county recycled wastes. The effort lasted about 5 years before it was abandoned.
Recycling is just not feasible.
A shame they can’t use paper flapped envelopes. IIRC, in the ‘olden days’ (before plastic) drugs were sold using the paper env. as a container.
The plastic bottles collected here run from mini size to those large containers standing 6-8” in height. Have yet to find any good recommendation to recycle, reuse or re-purpose (a craft, for instance)
“A shame they can’t use paper flapped envelopes. IIRC, in the ‘olden days’ (before plastic) drugs were sold using the paper env. as a container.”
Yes, I remember that, back when I was very young.
I guess someone said: But it has no safety cap to keep the kids from opening it. (parents needed safety caps because they were too dumb to keep medicines where tiny tots couldn’t get ‘em /sarc)
If someone will pay you money for it (aluminum), then recycling is both cost effective and reasonable.
If you have to pay them to take it, (pretty much everything else) it's a scam.
hahhahahaha! Classic. Might just have to use that one soon.
Aah, the infamous ‘safety cap’. Druggist to patient, or family member. From mfg directly to consumer.
Once home, parents no longer find the need to keep these medicines out of reach, safety cap = once again, gov. steps in to ‘parent’ our children. Granted some parents find this to be right up their alley. In the ‘old days’ (before plastic) parents were well aware of the hazards and paid close attention to warnings and such. Today’s parents seem to be only ‘part time parents’ or totally absent.
Thanks for the insight Wuli. :-) this paper envelope memory was brought to mind from the movie “It’s a Wonderful life” when the druggist boxed the ears of ‘little’ Jimmy Stewart.
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic.
The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”
Plastic… a$$hole.
George Carlin
Oh, carbon taxes... Ef you, OHole.
Yeah, he can take a hike on that. But double runs of the trash trucks for recyclables probably causes more pollution than the recycling saves. That’s the only part I’m on board with.
Here in New Hampshire, I watched a recycle station employee remove "my" recycled black dinner dish. I asked why, "Why? It's a "7", and you take "7s".
His answer was, "It's black, and turns off the transport belt at the (downstream) recycle station.
>>Shrug<<
“Thanks for the insight Wuli. :-) this paper envelope memory was brought to mind from the movie “It’s a Wonderful life” when the druggist boxed the ears of ‘little’ Jimmy Stewart.”
At the time I remember seeing the medicine envelopes my mom occasionally got out, I was somewhere between 3 and 5 years old. We never saw where she put them. She had them kept somewhere in her bedroom, not the medicine cabinet. We would only see her get an envelope from her bedroom, and then return it there.
That did not mean I for one never climbed up and made a mess of stuff from the bathroom medicine cabinet. Which I did. And mom got brutally creative in my punishment.
“mom got brutally creative in my punishment.”
_________________________________
Moms were required to attend disciplinary school back then” :-)
When they were at a loss, we were told “just wait till your dad gets home!”.
On that occasion:
My mom first cleaned up the bathroom; but not me.
Then she went to her bedroom and got two of my dad’s belts.
Then she took me downstairs to just inside of the front door and told me to wait there.
She came back with a dining room chair.
She took me and the chair to the front porch.
She used the two belts to tie me to the chair.
She took me, tied to the chair, to the end of the sidewalk leading from the front porch.
Before going in the house she told me she’d keep me there until the older kids got home from school and “they can get a good look at you”. I probably had something from everything in the medicine cabinet on my face and T-shirt.
I don’t remember being embarrassed. May I was too young.
Perhaps, but not true in Japan or Russia. (Kiev)
And that’s directly, not indirectly.
So what are we going to do with the spent fuel rods worldwide?
Better off with increasing renewable like solar panels and panels that make hot water, even in the winter. 1970’s technology.
All of those spent fuel rods, which are highly radioactive with plutonium ( with a half life of 250 THOUSAND years are sitting atop of every nuclear facility in the world.(Just like they are in Fukushima)
Nice, eh? Better off with clean coal technologies.
We’ve already effed ourselves by using GE technologies.
They bring good things to life? Yes, but only temporarily. Then you have hell to pay, with cancer, dead wildlife. Dead Pacific Ocean. Nice, eh? All covered up for now.
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Great Wuli, it’s interesting.
I used dandruff shampoo for years when I was younger. Never really worked.
Then my wife shifted me to only bar soap, and the dandruff went away.
Brilliant!
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