| ▲ | andrenotgiant 3 hours ago |
| I think hate of plastics is an emergent form of elitism. Upwardly mobile middle/upper class people who've sort of "maxed out" the amount of personal identity they can buy with regular plastic things can unlock a new level of identity by deciding that plastics are bad for them and eliminating plastics from their life, a process which conveniently requires buying a whole new set of things that distinguish them from their peers. This is the only way I can explain how irrational and inconsistent plastic-haters behavior is. There is so much invisible plastic in their life that they don't seem to care about. |
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| ▲ | titzer 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| I've picked up enough plastics off the beaches of the world already. Plastic ruins ecosystems and is a scourge on this planet. It's too late to fix, it's everywhere. 8 million tonnes of plastics enter the oceans every year, and it just keeps accumulating. We're ruining marine ecosystems. |
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| ▲ | cobbzilla 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > requires buying a whole new set of things that distinguish them from their peers No, it requires buying a whole new set of things to fit in with and be accepted by their peers, to distinguish themselves from the outgroup, the plastic users. I don’t necessarily believe this is some emergent elitism; I see it more as a modern religion with many many rules about eating and consumption (using plastic is now a sin). Like any religion, sinners (for example plastic users) are mostly pitied because they are ignorant, but those who know and choose to use plastic anyway, well, it’s OK to hate them. |
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| ▲ | beej71 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't get this whole attitude. Moving away from plastics in our kitchen was basically zero extra cost. Something busted, and we replaced it with non-plastic. Even bamboo scrubbers don't cost more than plastic (maybe even a little less) and I can't see any particular longevity difference. I think the fact that I volunteer to clean up trash on public lands and know that weathered plastic is the period worst period to remove makes me move away from plastic in general. Plus, a solid $3 wooden spoon is just a joy to cook with. They outlast the plastic ones, too. Microplastic ingestion? Well, I'm not sure the effects or the relative quantity compared to tire shed and other industrial factors. But if I were forced by some diety to bet my life on if plastics in the kitchen or on clothing had a negative health effect, I'd make that bet. But the main thing I don't get about the attitude stems from the fact that I don't really care what other people use in their kitchens. I recommend it. Just please don't litter. :) | | |
| ▲ | topgrain2 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Things like glass food storage containers are really expensive compared to plastic. And they still have plastic lids; like, I don't know what you'd even do without at least the seal-part being some kind of plastic, I guess you'd need to use natural-sourced wax to make it seal, or something? And on the topic of cost, I'm certain my kids have broken between 50 and 100 glass and ceramic drinking cups, storage containers, plates, and bowls in a little over a decade. They destroy plastic items at a way, way lower rate. Consider the use case of packing a kid's lunchbox. Plastic is... very tempting, for practical reasons. And cheaper. Last I checked, plastic vs. wood on an otherwise identical stamped metal Victoronix knife costs you an extra $15-$20, which is a notable percentage of the total cost of the item. I sprung for the wood on my latest replacement just for the aesthetics, but it cost enough more that I did give it a good think first. > Even bamboo scrubbers don't cost more than plastic (maybe even a little less) and I can't see any particular longevity difference. Are those actually just bamboo? Maybe they are, I dunno, I can't recall seeing one. Lots of the "bamboo" materials I've encountered have turned out to contain (at least some) plastic. > Plus, a solid $3 wooden spoon is just a joy to cook with. They outlast the plastic ones, too. That's just true. Plastic spoons for cooking suck, wood and (where it makes sense and won't damage other things) metal are way better. Wooden ones aren't even expensive. The popularity of plastic ones is baffling. One thing that's surprised me is the cost and/or total lack of availability of glass blender jars, even on fairly high-end brands (both the fake-high-end ones that are just expensive, and the actually-good ones). I remember my parents' assuredly cheapest-thing-in-the-store blender that they probably bought in the 70s or 80s had a glass jar, because that was just... standard. Meanwhile my as-awesome-as-I'd-hoped-thank-god expensive-ass Vitamix came with a plastic jar, and they do not make glass replacements. (I'm just checking and it looks like they might finally make one in stainless, though? Still, I'd prefer glass because being able to see what's going on in there is very nice, but I'm gonna have to look into that...) | | |
| ▲ | beej71 32 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't have a good answer for kids breaking stuff. And I do wonder what glues are used in the bamboo scrubbers, but I have no way of finding out. The scrapers are at least a solid single piece. They're either definitely bamboo or some very skillfully-engineered plastic to look exactly like it. ;) There are a lot of cheap glass blenders on [ONLINE STORE]. But yeah, the high end ones--maybe they're trying to avoid that 50s look. We just run with the plastic lids with glass tupperware. The only other sensible replacement we've found is reused jars and Ball jars, but all those lids have plastic liners, too. We don't cook the lids and food contact is limited. Would be nice to have something else. Silicone lids? We have some of those we picked up for Ball jars at some point. But this seems like a lower potential issue than cooking with plastic materials. For really inexpensive stuff like blenders and glass containers is the second-hand store. | |
| ▲ | verall 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Just chiming in because you might be interested - > That's just true. Plastic spoons for cooking suck, wood and (where it makes sense and won't damage other things) metal are way better. If you have ever used nice commercial high-temp silicone spatula, it's an incredibly versatile and easy to clean spoon for cooking. A bit expensive at like $20 though. Pair with nice nonstick pan and polycarbonate cutting board (dishwashable) for the easiest and most out of fashion cooking and cleaning experience. > One thing that's surprised me is the cost and/or total lack of availability of glass blender jars My cheapest in the store oyster blender is glass, I think they mostly still are. | | |
| ▲ | topgrain2 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If you have ever used nice commercial high-temp silicone spatula, it's an incredibly versatile and easy to clean spoon for cooking. A bit expensive at like $20 though. Pair with nice nonstick pan and polycarbonate cutting board (dishwashable) for the easiest and most out of fashion cooking and cleaning experience. Those, I do use! My wife insists on keeping one non-stick pan, mostly for eggs (I just cook them in stainless, whatever) so we've got a couple around for that specific use case, but I grab them sometimes for other things, too. They're great for scraping little bits of sauce out of the edge of a pan, things like that. > My cheapest in the store oyster blender is glass, I think they mostly still are. Ha! Really? I killed one blender before upgrading (the old "buy a cheap one, and if you wear out out, buy the expensive one" approach) and that was also plastic, but it probably wasn't Oyster. Hm. All of those were glass when I was a kid, it seems really weird to me that the pricey ones are usually plastic now. I'm not even (that) worried about the health effects of it, I mostly just like the way the contents move & pour in glass better, the plastic's too "sticky" (though I do cringe a little when we blend a near-boiling sauce in the plastic jar) |
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| ▲ | Apocryphon 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I've addressed this idea in a sibling comment. I think at least some superstition is inevitable in any subculture. Consider how many tech 'holy wars' might involve baseless beliefs about how a text editor or programming language or whatever being not only superior because of personal preference but because it's inherently more optimized. Treating anti-micro-plastics as a "religion" rather than a subculture based on a meme deserves a bit more nuance. 1. Is it based on inherently irrational, unfactual beliefs, e.g. anti-vaccination or anti-5G myths? 2. If we consider religion as a way to explain complex phenomena using just-so stories (the pop anthropology / layman idea of primitive man inventing Zeus to explain lightning), then what intellectual or emotional need does anti-microplastics belief validate? | | |
| ▲ | sublinear 31 minutes ago | parent [-] | | All culture is shared ignorance. These comparisons to religion are inverted. Religion was born out of cultures needing to herd their people. You're right that the debate about plastics is mostly meaningless noise by people who don't really care. Taking advantage of uncertainty while it still exists is a lucrative game. None of this is comparable to software. Writing software is a choice and the users don't have to care beyond the UI. It's apathy, not ignorance, that holds software back. Text editors and programming languages are not usually the highest priority choice to make. The majority of software tends to be specialized one-off solutions. We don't exactly have chemists cooking up their own kitchenware materials on the weekend. | | |
| ▲ | Apocryphon 17 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Software development creates subcultures, just like any other occupation, craft, human activity. Tech holy wars is a thing, and I'm sure a lot of it dealt with articles of faith just like any other source of controversy. https://gwern.net/holy-war https://wiki.c2.com/?HolyWar I brought them up to illustrate that any endeavor will end up pockets of irrationality as part of the general culture. Doubtless in academia, scientific research, other forms of engineering, etc. there are little superstitions as part of the subculture. That said, sure; the movement against microplastics is a pop health fad, which is different because it's a consumer-oriented activity whose actual effects are probably impossible to quantify. (As pointed out in a different comment in this discussion thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48836691) Building software produces tangible, measurable outcomes. Though likely far less measurable compared to other forms of engineering! > It's apathy, not ignorance, that holds software back. That's somewhat debatable, in that compared to the physical sciences, it sure seems like software engineering involves a fair amount of following traditions of preexisting practices and there's a lot of cargo culting that ends up happening. More of a craft than a science. But that's tangential to this discussion. |
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| ▲ | dlcarrier 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Health in general has always worked like this, from supplements, to organic food, to avoiding ultra-processed foods, to gluten-free diets, pretty much every popular health fad has no provable causative effect on health. Most of human behavior is irrational. If we were all perfectly rational, we would have healthy diet and exercise habits from the get go, and we'd have plenty of time to prepare food and exercise, because we wouldn't waste any time on entertainment. |
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| ▲ | gruez 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | >pretty much every popular health fad has no provable causative effect on health. Isn't this almost true by definition? If it actually works, it's not a "fad", just "science" or whatever. Advice like "eat more vegetables" and "don't drink alcohol" probably do work, but they're ingrained enough that nobody thinks they're "fads". |
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| ▲ | ButlerianJihad 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Even more so: plastics are not a specific chemical and they are not a specific material. Plastic is a category of materials that is very broad and very wide. You can make plastics out of almost anything. Therefore, to hate on plastics is to basically hate on an entire category of engineering and material design but not to actually know what a plastic is... sheer ignorance. |
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| ▲ | estearum 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, it's a category of materials that is overwhelmingly populated by a much more specific, ultra-cheap and therefore ultra-pervasive, set of chemicals which are shown in study after study to have worrying characteristics. Anything that shows evidence of omnipresence, endocrine disruption, bioaccumulation, and inter-generational transmission should be extremely, extremely closely scrutinized. To think otherwise is absolute braindead contrarianism, full-stop. | | |
| ▲ | ButlerianJihad 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Personally, I think that the Microplastics Moral Panic is a textbook study of F.U.D. There is practically nothing that ordinary people can do for prevention, mitigation, diagnosis or treatment of microplastics in our bodies, so I therefore conclude that it is futile and wasteful to worry or argue about it, unless you have abundant free time and resources to get paranoid strangers all in a frenzy, for no good reason. | | |
| ▲ | topgrain2 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I half-assed try to avoid plastic in contact with (especially very) hot food or drink, and avoid it in long-term food containers, in no small part because I've seen things like plastic cooking spoons losing non-microscopic parts of themselves in food, and I find the stains plastic storage containers acquire after a little use kinda worrisome (I'd rather my reusable storage containers not be that permeable, thank you very much), but otherwise agree that any real amount of effort to avoid microplastics would probably do more good if it took the form of a 20-minute jog per week, i.e. "don't even consider worrying about it unless you've really, really got all your other health stuff sorted out" Like I'm pretty sure the bigger health risk with a plastic soda straw is the soda, not the straw, you know? | |
| ▲ | estearum 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Did this apply to people freaking out about lead a couple decades ago? What about those advocating for smoking bans in shared spaces? Cholera outbreaks near the city water wells? Or are microplastics special in some way? | | |
| ▲ | marcosdumay 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | We didn't ban water or metals because of the things in your examples. Discover what plastic is harmful and we can't start to talk. |
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| ▲ | guelo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Why was that we used to be able to ban environmental toxins such as leaded gasoline without this weird psycho-social-political analysis that has become the fashion in some circles? |
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| ▲ | Apocryphon 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You could just liken it to any pop health, dietary, or environmental fad instead of trying to portray a banal "people turn consumer choices into personal identity/lifestyle" trend as a whole new class of phenomenon. Crunchy hippies shop organic and audiophiles buy gold-plated premium wires; every subculture has at least a little bit of superstition. |
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| ▲ | reducesuffering 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Interesting theory but doesn't really coincide with on the ground facts. We know there has been an increase in hormonal issues. We can barely even get anyone to stop heating up and microwaving plastic to be ingested, which we know causes issues. The European Food Safety Authority completed a re-evaluation into the risks of BPA in 2023, concluding that its tolerable daily intake should be greatly reduced. BPA was everywhere, every can and receipt. Just because people can't identify all the ways plastic is ubiquitously ingested in their life, it means they're hypocritical and don't care about the unknowns? |
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| ▲ | globular-toast 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Are you sure it's all irrational? I, for one, prefer other materials for many things because they are more durable, hygenic or simply feels nicer. Seems perfectly rational to me. An irrational choice would be something like carrying a heavy canvas tent with wooden poles just because you hate plastic. Do you know anyone who does that? |
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| ▲ | Der_Einzige 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Every plastic object replaced with a metal, or similarly strong/more solid material is an upgrade. |
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| ▲ | estearum 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > There is so much invisible plastic in their life that they don't seem to care about. Huh? You think it's hypocritical for people not to "seem to care about" things that, by your own definition, they are ignorant of? |
