I don’t think anyone is saying that we can’t get rid of it, but it’s not realistic to think that industrialized societies are going to give it up without alternatives that have little/no drawback, and that’s going to take a lot of time and effort to develop. I’m not sure I see that sort of thing being properly incentivized unless we have conclusive data on plastic toxicity.
I did not at any point advocate for the status quo or claim that there isn’t mounting evidence that microplastics are toxic. Please don’t mischaracterize my statement.
You claimed that unless there are alternatives with no drawbacks that we are doomed to this in industrialized societies.
I disagree.
When the drawback of plastic is that it is toxic to our health, it seems like all sorts of things we used to use should be back on the table, just for starters, drawbacks and all.
My claim is that alternatives with minimal drawbacks are going to be required in industrialized societies, yes, because plastic is very deeply ingrained in our industry, and has been critical to many of the advances that we’ve had in the last few decades (especially medicine and healthcare).
If we’re talking about just the food supply chains, that’s a little bit different because people are more willing to suffer inconvenience if the perceived health risk is large enough (because health depends on our diets). The problem is that the perceived risk, for the vast majority of people, is fairly small. Plastic ingestion poses chronic issues, not acute ones (mostly). This means that we’ve already addressed most of the more acute toxicity concerns, and the chronic concerns are going to require more conclusive data to persuade people to care now and not dismiss it by saying “I’ll worry about that later, we have more important problems now”.
That said, I never said we were “doomed”. In fact I think that we’re going to develop better and safer technologies, and plastic and how it reacts with living organisms will be better understood. But, I think that’s going to take some time. In the mean time, I think we’re going to start to go back to older materials (particularly in the food supply chains) where the additional cost is manageable. Plastic isn’t going to go away completely though. Not now, not ever. The best we can do is make it safer, and mandate other materials where it’s most important.
I don’t think anyone is saying that we can’t get rid of it, but it’s not realistic to think that industrialized societies are going to give it up without alternatives that have little/no drawback, and that’s going to take a lot of time and effort to develop. I’m not sure I see that sort of thing being properly incentivized unless we have conclusive data on plastic toxicity.
It is killing us. The evidene is mounting. Keep advocating for the status quo if you like, but it is insane to me.
I did not at any point advocate for the status quo or claim that there isn’t mounting evidence that microplastics are toxic. Please don’t mischaracterize my statement.
You claimed that unless there are alternatives with no drawbacks that we are doomed to this in industrialized societies.
I disagree.
When the drawback of plastic is that it is toxic to our health, it seems like all sorts of things we used to use should be back on the table, just for starters, drawbacks and all.
My claim is that alternatives with minimal drawbacks are going to be required in industrialized societies, yes, because plastic is very deeply ingrained in our industry, and has been critical to many of the advances that we’ve had in the last few decades (especially medicine and healthcare).
If we’re talking about just the food supply chains, that’s a little bit different because people are more willing to suffer inconvenience if the perceived health risk is large enough (because health depends on our diets). The problem is that the perceived risk, for the vast majority of people, is fairly small. Plastic ingestion poses chronic issues, not acute ones (mostly). This means that we’ve already addressed most of the more acute toxicity concerns, and the chronic concerns are going to require more conclusive data to persuade people to care now and not dismiss it by saying “I’ll worry about that later, we have more important problems now”.
That said, I never said we were “doomed”. In fact I think that we’re going to develop better and safer technologies, and plastic and how it reacts with living organisms will be better understood. But, I think that’s going to take some time. In the mean time, I think we’re going to start to go back to older materials (particularly in the food supply chains) where the additional cost is manageable. Plastic isn’t going to go away completely though. Not now, not ever. The best we can do is make it safer, and mandate other materials where it’s most important.