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submitted 8 months ago by littlecolt@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

Plastic seals food, sterile medical implements, medicine, beverages, etc... it's seems like plastic is used as a way to seal things safely. Post pandemic rising, I see even more. My work used to be have plastic utensils in the cafeteria, for example, an already wasteful thing. Now, post-2020, every fork, knife, and spoon is individually wrapped in a plastic wrapper. I feel like the more my desire to escape plastic intensifies, the more plastic I see all around me everywhere.

How can we get away from plastic as a safety layer?

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[-] doingthestuff@lemmy.world 45 points 8 months ago

Getting rid of cars is generations away in the US, at minimum.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 65 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Guess we'd better get started right away, then.

[-] IndefiniteBen@leminal.space 52 points 8 months ago

The best way to get people out of cars is to give them good alternatives, so I think you need to start by improving infrastructure and public transport.

[-] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago

Yep. The big issue is that the US landscape was designed for cars from the get go va Europe where cars were an afterthought. You don’t get rid of cars by making them forbidden or too expensive you get rid of them by making useless or less useful than alternative options a.

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 22 points 8 months ago

Some US cities came after the car, but anything on the eastern side existed well before cars. Those cities had walkable neighbourhoods, dense downtowns and public transit. A lot of that was bulldozed to make the roads wider and provide parking for the car. North American cities were not built for the car, they were bulldozed for it.

[-] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

That’s my point.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 14 points 8 months ago

American cities were designed before cars as well. The difference is that the car and fossil fuel industries lobbied for cities to be completely redesigned around cars in the 50s and 60s. And governments all across the US bulldozed their own cities to do it.

[-] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

Suburban areas were designed after.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yes but the highways that connected them to urban and productive areas were made by destroying the old downtowns

[-] FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

Getting rid of Internal combustion engined cars more reasonable. EVs aren't perfect, but they are much better than ICE cars as far as pollution goes.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago

In the context of micro plastics, it's the same. It comes from the rubber tires wearing out.

[-] blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Then instead of roads let use tires made of metal and put them on some kind of road that also has metal. Let's make it electric too...

[-] semperverus@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Maybe we could connect many cars together on this system, and make it so the front or the back car is a special one thats more powerful and pulls the other cars behind or pushes the ones in front of it that carries all the passengers. For convenience, we could make nice loading and unloading areas.

[-] onion@feddit.de 3 points 8 months ago

That's outdated tech tho, these days distributed motors are all the rage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_multiple_unit

[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

Right, but we're talking about microplastics here. Those mainly come from tires and braking systems, so the switch won't help this specific problem.

[-] Hawke@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Serious question, do brakes emit any plastic particles? I was under the impression they were mostly ceramic these days (or asbestos way back when)

[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

An important source of plastics is road traffic emissions. Kole et al. reported global average emissions of tyre wear particles (TWPs) of 0.81 kg year−1 per capita, about 6.1 million tonnes (~1.8% of total plastic production). Emissions of brake wear particles (BWPs) add another 0.5 million tonnes. TWPs and BWPs are produced via mechanical abrasion and corrosion.

[...]

Most car braking systems consist of a disc or drum with either a pair of shoes or pads mounted in callipers. Brake linings consist of binders, fibres, fillers, frictional additives or lubricants and abrasives. Thus, BWPs are a complicated mixture of metal and plastic. BWP emissions depend on the bulk friction material on the frequency and severity of braking speed, weight, condition and maintenance of the automobile and the environmental conditions.

From this article.

[-] hglman@lemmy.ml -1 points 8 months ago

Wait till energy costs 10x in the next decade. Car use will go to nothing real quick.

[-] doingthestuff@lemmy.world 0 points 8 months ago

If energy costs 10x more everything else will be at least 8x more. It's just inflation on everything at that point.

this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
210 points (94.9% liked)

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