Non-DL Friend Says Disposables are Wasteful

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I have been starting to wonder if/when they might ban disposable nappies, given the debate around single use plastics. They would have to heavily subsidise washable alternatives, so it is probably (hopefully!) a long way off. Maybe they will just tax the crap out of them...
 
ChocChip said:
I have been starting to wonder if/when they might ban disposable nappies, given the debate around single use plastics. They would have to heavily subsidise washable alternatives, so it is probably (hopefully!) a long way off. Maybe they will just tax the crap out of them...

I would say no fear of them being banned, only governments could ban them and too much money gets made by big business for the government to be allowed to do such a thing.

The tax thing is a huge worry though, personally I wouldn’t mind if they had a tax that was specifically created to pay for household disposal bins, trucks to collect them and new recycling facilities just for nappies but of course you can’t trust governments to do that sanely.... the tax money just goes to their huge pool they waste.
 
Slomo said:
Truthfully this is how I understand it as well. Hence why I keep telling everyone you WANT to throw out disposables in the trash. Its oil from the ground, and eventually ends up as oil in the ground. Right where it should be.
On earth there is no resource that gets used up and its gone for good every thing eventually gets replaced so I say drill baby drill and do not worry about effects from incineration or burning wood for heat as each year there are more trees matured to adequately supply the world so I aint worried about using materials at all.
 
Everything has a cost/benefit. In my case, I believe fewer overall resources are used when I wear disposables for bed wetting. Otherwise, lots of laundry would need to be done, furniture, clothing, and mattresses frequently replaced, etc.

Where I live, I know most of my trash goes to a nearby landfill since it is hauled by a family-owned company. There's probably close to 17,000 of my used adult diapers just in that one landfill based on how much I normally wear, taking travel into consideration, and this number doesn't include the Goodnites I wore as a teenager and my baby diapers. The number would be much higher if I wore 24/7. But all my used diapers along with everyone else's diapers are really just a very small percentage of the waste in there.
 
This makes me giggle. Just remember, it's not his decision, anyway.
 
xpluswearer said:
On earth there is no resource that gets used up and its gone for good every thing eventually gets replaced

I'm gonna troll around a little and whisper..... helium ;)
 
bambinod said:
I'm gonna troll around a little and whisper..... helium ;)
Can always get another balloon or bottle of Helium LOL Have not heard of Helium extinction..
 
xpluswearer said:
Can always get another balloon or bottle of Helium LOL Have not heard of Helium extinction..

Helium is an interesting material, and was considered a strategic war material in ww1/2, along with things like steel, nylon, and rubber. The primary source of helium, iirc, is as a byproduct of natural gas drilling. Helium doesn't combine easily with other atoms, so is almost exclusively found as a gas. (and you need to get it insanely cold to get even a liquid) Being lighter than air, any that makes it to the surface disappears high into the atmosphere where it eventually bleeds off into space. None of it ever comes back or is recycled in any way. By comparison, technically the earth is still making oil even today, we're just using it faster than it can be replenished. And chemically, we can make more oil anytime by combining the raw materials with energy. (ethanol is a more common example) Helium is just an element, so we can't just make more of it - what's here on earth is all we have to work with, and it's constantly leaving. Groups have tried banning its use in things like party balloons because we may regret how rare it gets years from now. Years ago it was just vented into the atmosphere as a waste product when drilling for gas and oil - but now they capture it because of how expensive it has gotten. Go look up the Strategic Helium Reserve, they actually stored helium in a giant mostly-airtight cave back when airships were the rage.
 
bambinod said:
Oil's a renewable resource, it just takes longer to renew ;) Now something like nuclear power... THAT'S truly not renewable!



Actually Nuclear is the ultimate renewable. The sun is a huge fusion reactor there for solar pwr, wind, even oil are all results of fusion energy heating the earth. I actually believe thorium is our best intermediate solution for clean energy and the only base load option that will actually reverse carbon levels. Until such time we have fusion online. Oh well in the mean time I will stay warm and comfy with the help of ABU [emoji6]



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
ChocChip said:
I have been starting to wonder if/when they might ban disposable nappies, given the debate around single use plastics. They would have to heavily subsidise washable alternatives, so it is probably (hopefully!) a long way off. Maybe they will just tax the crap out of them...

I'm surprised CA hasn't pulled a stupid stunt like this yet. After all the other crap they do, like charge money for a bag, ban straws, plus who knows what else. Thank God I don't live in CA.
 
12srepaid said:
I'm surprised CA hasn't pulled a stupid stunt like this yet. After all the other crap they do, like charge money for a bag, ban straws, plus who knows what else. Thank God I don't live in CA.
Imagine reusable medical equipment hey we will reuse this IV Tube that has penicillin in it in a patient that is deadly allergic to penicillin or reusing blood needles from a AIDS patient into someone that has no AIDS that is a way of population control huh? Or just let that sponge dry out and reuse it in the next surgery. Why wash the laundry just use the scabies. Ebola, MRSA infected gown on the next sucker Way to go Moonbeam and tree huggers! God help us and save us from this madness!!!
 
Argent said:
I would say no fear of them being banned, only governments could ban them and too much money gets made by big business for the government to be allowed to do such a thing.

The tax thing is a huge worry though, personally I wouldn’t mind if they had a tax that was specifically created to pay for household disposal bins, trucks to collect them and new recycling facilities just for nappies but of course you can’t trust governments to do that sanely.... the tax money just goes to their huge pool they waste.
It would be pretty embarrassing as a "recreational" adult nappy wearer, to have to put nappy recycling bags/bins out in public view though...
 
Slomo said:
Truthfully this is how I understand it as well. Hence why I keep telling everyone you WANT to throw out disposables in the trash. Its oil from the ground, and eventually ends up as oil in the ground. Right where it should be.

Not.

That’s stretching “eventually” to include “after having crumbled to tiny particles that eventually find their way into the food chain and cause god knows how many problems first”.

Plastics like pvc are not made from oil alone. Vinyl contains chlorine and doesn’t break down easily.

From Wikipedia:
Degradation during service life, or after careless disposal, is a chemical change that drastically reduces the average molecular weight of the polyvinyl chloride polymer. Since the mechanical integrity of a plastic depends on its high average molecular weight, wear and tear inevitably weakens the material. Weathering degradation of plastics results in their surface embrittlement and microcracking, yielding microparticles that continue on in the environment. Also known as microplastics, these particles act like sponges and soak up persistent organic pollutants (POPs) around them. Thus laden with high levels of POPs, the microparticles are often ingested by organisms in the biosphere.

So until plastic waste is managed in a way that doesn’t allow the microplastics to enter the biosphere as happens when dumping disposabe diapers in landfills, it is not[/] a good idea to throw them in the trash.

I hope that they will ban using plastics in disposables. There is no justification for having plastics in disposable diapers. It is perfectly possible to produce disposable diapers that are exactly like the ones today, but just without waterproofing.
The only reason they exist is because marketing targets people’s laziness, so that they don’t need to use separate waterproof pants.

It comes down to throwing your car away every time you’re refilling the petrol [emoji35]
 
ChocChip said:
It would be pretty embarrassing as a "recreational" adult nappy wearer, to have to put nappy recycling bags/bins out in public view though...

I was thinking that the bins would be for all sanitary products made of fluff pulp etc but sorry the more I think about it the more I realise you would be required to wheel your diaper bin out to your curb with your diapee on display.... :biggrin:
 
I'm sure there's much more pressing environmental issues than a group of people who wear disposable diapers for fun. I wouldn't worry about it.
 
Iraina said:
I hope that they will ban using plastics in disposables. There is no justification for having plastics in disposable diapers. It is perfectly possible to produce disposable diapers that are exactly like the ones today, but just without waterproofing.
We can say the detergent that we use for washing Cloth diapers as well as the cloth diapers themselves are as harmful as disposable diapers. If I wash my regular clothes I wash 2 set of clothes white and colour once a week. Diapers, on the other hand, You would want to wash them 3 or 4 times a week plus the colour and white cloths. Plus all the water you waste washing those cloth diapers in a state like CA that has water restrictions. You can be fined for washing your car. Watering Yard at the wrong time. Using to much water to water your Yard.

The compounds in detergents get concentrated in rivers and lakes and increase growth of Algae and invade the area and It ends up the fish die of asphyxiation. End up the lake smelling like rotten eggs and it unsafe to drink, Swim or be near it.

The only reason they exist is because marketing targets people’s laziness, so that they don’t need to use separate waterproof pants.
Well in my area it to save water vs WASTE water.
 
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Solar is a great option of course. But wood burning---as much I love yummy smoked meats---is absolutely awful. The tar and soot that comes from that causes myriad problems environmental and to people.

As for the diapers... I suppose it's really only the plastic backing that's the issue, right? Well, at the end of the day we need to not use plastics for everything (not the case here) and use biodegradable ones where it is necessary (like in diapers). These are huge research, government and private problems requiring huge amounts of capital to solve. I wouldn't beat yourself up just because disposable diapers happen to be your particular little sin. Do what you can where you can. But we can't fix everything.
 
Iraina said:
I hope that they will ban using plastics in disposables. There is no justification for having plastics in disposable diapers. It is perfectly possible to produce disposable diapers that are exactly like the ones today, but just without waterproofing.
The only reason they exist is because marketing targets people’s laziness, so that they don’t need to use separate waterproof pants.

It comes down to throwing your car away every time you’re refilling the petrol [emoji35]

Biodegradable plastic is the way they will go; starch-based bioplastics (made primarily from corn) get broken down by bacteria into carbon and water, and it takes only a year or two rather than millenia. I think that 50 years from now, all non-biodegradable disposable plastic will be illegal.
 
downtide said:
Biodegradable plastic is the way they will go; starch-based bioplastics (made primarily from corn) get broken down by bacteria into carbon and water, and it takes only a year or two rather than millenia. I think that 50 years from now, all non-biodegradable disposable plastic will be illegal.
would all the plastic made before that law being passed be grandfathered in or what? that would be the 64,000 dollar question ..
 
xpluswearer said:
would all the plastic made before that law being passed be grandfathered in or what? that would be the 64,000 dollar question ..

I would expect that such a law would be announced far enough in advance that the non-biodegradable stuff already made could be used up before the law passes, and anything left over at the end would be recycled into non-disposable products.
 
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