A Cambridge University team made the device with simple materials using a paint sprayer—offering a possible dual fix for plastic pollution and dirty hydrogen production
The problem isnt plastic, the problem is a disposable society.
as long as we have a disposable society, we’re gonna generate monstrous piles of of waste. And its gonna be the same for whatever replaces plastic, and then we’ll be having these conversations about that material.
No, the problem is definitely that we produce anything at all out of plastic that doesn’t strictly require it for whatever reason. Some medical applications are probably good examples. Anything that doesn’t strictly need to be plastic just grinds down to microplastics, contributing to their pollution of every last environment we check on earth. Every plastic product produced is one in which a business has forced their externalities onto the rest of society instead of addressing them themselves.
Copper pipes are about as close as we can get to perfect, and as solderless press-fit connections get better, is just as easy to install as any of the plastic options
For water it’s probably introducing more microplatics to your water. For waste pipes the are louder and a fire hazard. You can’t use them on 3 story plus buildings.
You need specialized tools to bend the copper pipes used in plumbing, and if you don’t, you’re using the wrong kind of copper or got scammed.
They’re a bit more expensive than plastic options, sure, but they also have a 2-3 times longer life expectancy, and in good conditions, copper pipes can last over a century without issue.
They may be heavier than plastic pipes, sure, but I wouldn’t classify a copper pipe as “heavy”, you know what I mean? Like, a child can carry around a few 10 foot sticks of 1/2 inch type L copper no problem. They’re more durable though, so they can actually support their own weight in a lot of situations where plastic pipes need extra support.
A 10 meter long 40 cm diameter copper pipe is quite heavy. If you have to dig the asphalt to fix something it isn’t that difficult to bend or perforate.
Sure, you’ll break a plastic pipe as well in that situation, but that is quite an easier fix.
Regarding how long they last, to be fair I have no idea. I’d imagine a PVC pipe can easily last some 30 years, I don’t know whether a copper pipe will last much longer. It could be I guess. What I can say, when I had to deal with copper pipes I was just happier to replace them with plastic pipes; much easier to work with. Want to take a section of the piping off to check what’s wrong? Very easy with plastic pipes, will take you a couple minutes without any tool. If you want to do the same with copper pipes most likely you have to cut them and then solder them back or attach them with some kind of fitting.
I don’t know whether a copper pipe will last much longer
I do. My house is nearly 70 years old, and still has the original copper piping throughout. I replaced some recently because I had to move things around for a bathroom renovation, but all the old stuff I took out was still in perfectly fine condition. I expect the rest of the copper in the house to last another 70 years.
Want to take a section of the piping off to check what’s wrong? Very easy with plastic pipes, will take you a couple minutes without any tool.
What kind of plumbing are you doing that lets you use threaded joints on everything? Anything under pressure usually requires glued slip joints, and those certainly can’t be taken apart without tools, or without having to use a fitting to get it back together.
What about glass pipes? They’re fragile but far more eco friendly and cheaper than pvc/plastic. Stainless steel could hold up to, clay is the oldest form of piping that isn’t harmful,
Cast iron could also be used if there’s no air introduced within the water supply though while popular among some we can easily say its a dumb and expensive idea.
Plastic wouldnt be produced by the megaton for disposable packaging, water bottles, etc, if we didnt have a disposable society. The waterways wouldnt be full of plastic trash and contamination if we didnt have a disposable society.
See, this is the problem with humanity. It always wants to hyper focus on the surface issue, and adamantly refuse to acknowledge the deeper, subsurface issues that made them sprout to begin with. Because humanity struggles to care about that which it can not see/easily acknowledge. Plastic is a big, visible problem everyone wants to deal with, but dealing with a disposable society? Thats to hard to think about. Thats too uncomfortable. That might affect me, personally, in an way that annoys me, so we just gotta keep soldiering on and ignore that.
and wax paper turns into smothering, suffocating mush, and glass becomes dangerous, sharp shards.
and thats what you’ll be dealing with until you deal with the root of the problem, which is a disposable society. Because that will not only stop the excess waste and production of disposable bullshit, not just containers and bottles, but TVs, electronics, etc etc. Much of that latter stuff being shipped off to third world where the desperate dissolve it in carcinogens and burn it to extract precious metals from the shit westerners throw away in excess.
One of the first steps to getting away from a disposable society is by advocating for more non-disposable container options, like glass. You don’t jump straight to tackling the incredibly difficult disposable electronics problem and ignore the easy problem of reusable and recyclable containers.
One of the first steps to getting away from a disposable society is by advocating for more non-disposable container options, like glass
I am assuming I’m the only one around here old enough to remember when it was dangerous to go barefoot because of the preponderance of broken glass everywhere due to disposable society treating glass bottles and other glass products like they treat plastic today.
Glass doesnt magically make society non disposable. As I have said, repeatedly. Getting rid of plastic wont cure a disposable society, it will only just make whatever replaces plastic the new waste dejure to end up everywhere and threaten everything in its own new ways, until you fundamentally change society by having strict fines, personal repercussions, and public shaming. . as well as education and wide spread access of disposal receptacles, and a waste recycling system that doesnt just dump 90% of its collected recyclables into a landfill.
Everyone wants to keep hyper focusing on plastic, plastic isnt the issue. Plastic is just the fever. The fever isnt what is making you sick. its the appendix about to detonate in your lower abdomen, but everyone wants to ignore the appendix and hyper focus on the fever, because the fever is easy to see.
Glass doesnt magically make society non disposable
I know, I didn’t claim that. You seem to be arguing against using glass at all though, which is stupid.
I understand that it’s only a small part of the solution. But it is a part of the solution, and should be advocated for, even if we don’t have all the pieces of the rest of a perfect solution in place yet.
Wax paper is compostable and glass is reusable and recyclable indefinitely (unlike plastic)
Neither glass nor paper contains carcinogens.
We have to do both. Passing laws mandating beer bottles to use standard sizes and have deposits is usually the first step. Then you can do that with soda and every other item sold in plastic.
We have to do both. Passing laws mandating beer bottles to use standard sizes and have deposits is usually the first step. Then you can do that with soda and every other item sold in plastic.
I love how you are arguing against dealing with a disposable society, by using examples and arguments on how to deal with a disposable society.
We could ALSO stop producing and using so much damn plastic. Just sayin’.
We could recycle bottle plastic instead of burning it to make hydrogen. Take two steps back an this is stupid.
The problem isnt plastic, the problem is a disposable society.
as long as we have a disposable society, we’re gonna generate monstrous piles of of waste. And its gonna be the same for whatever replaces plastic, and then we’ll be having these conversations about that material.
No, the problem is definitely that we produce anything at all out of plastic that doesn’t strictly require it for whatever reason. Some medical applications are probably good examples. Anything that doesn’t strictly need to be plastic just grinds down to microplastics, contributing to their pollution of every last environment we check on earth. Every plastic product produced is one in which a business has forced their externalities onto the rest of society instead of addressing them themselves.
I like plastic pipes. They’re not strictly necessary, but I figure they’re better than lead and brass pipes.
Brass pipes? Are you thinking of copper?
Copper pipes are about as close as we can get to perfect, and as solderless press-fit connections get better, is just as easy to install as any of the plastic options
Expensive, bend easily, much more heavy. I just see advantages in plastic pipes and no disadvantages.
For water it’s probably introducing more microplatics to your water. For waste pipes the are louder and a fire hazard. You can’t use them on 3 story plus buildings.
You need specialized tools to bend the copper pipes used in plumbing, and if you don’t, you’re using the wrong kind of copper or got scammed.
They’re a bit more expensive than plastic options, sure, but they also have a 2-3 times longer life expectancy, and in good conditions, copper pipes can last over a century without issue.
They may be heavier than plastic pipes, sure, but I wouldn’t classify a copper pipe as “heavy”, you know what I mean? Like, a child can carry around a few 10 foot sticks of 1/2 inch type L copper no problem. They’re more durable though, so they can actually support their own weight in a lot of situations where plastic pipes need extra support.
A 10 meter long 40 cm diameter copper pipe is quite heavy. If you have to dig the asphalt to fix something it isn’t that difficult to bend or perforate. Sure, you’ll break a plastic pipe as well in that situation, but that is quite an easier fix.
Regarding how long they last, to be fair I have no idea. I’d imagine a PVC pipe can easily last some 30 years, I don’t know whether a copper pipe will last much longer. It could be I guess. What I can say, when I had to deal with copper pipes I was just happier to replace them with plastic pipes; much easier to work with. Want to take a section of the piping off to check what’s wrong? Very easy with plastic pipes, will take you a couple minutes without any tool. If you want to do the same with copper pipes most likely you have to cut them and then solder them back or attach them with some kind of fitting.
I do. My house is nearly 70 years old, and still has the original copper piping throughout. I replaced some recently because I had to move things around for a bathroom renovation, but all the old stuff I took out was still in perfectly fine condition. I expect the rest of the copper in the house to last another 70 years.
What kind of plumbing are you doing that lets you use threaded joints on everything? Anything under pressure usually requires glued slip joints, and those certainly can’t be taken apart without tools, or without having to use a fitting to get it back together.
Ok you’re talking a very different beast. Copper doesnt work at that scale.
I have copper for mains, but the irrigation is HDPE. Because one of these will face more interference and potential damage than the other.
What about glass pipes? They’re fragile but far more eco friendly and cheaper than pvc/plastic. Stainless steel could hold up to, clay is the oldest form of piping that isn’t harmful,
Cast iron could also be used if there’s no air introduced within the water supply though while popular among some we can easily say its a dumb and expensive idea.
Plastic pipes have great advantages over all those materials: they’re cheap, light and sturdy.
If properly disposed they don’t pollute much since they last many years and basically do not degrade.
I doubt making a city pipeline out of glass pipes would be viable.
Mm that’s totally fair. Just hope that the material can be better recycled/decomposed in some way :P
Glass takes a huge amount of energy to make.
It is? Ah damn :(
That problem is actually just billionaires even existing but blamed on the little guy
The problem is plastic.
Plastic wouldnt be produced by the megaton for disposable packaging, water bottles, etc, if we didnt have a disposable society. The waterways wouldnt be full of plastic trash and contamination if we didnt have a disposable society.
See, this is the problem with humanity. It always wants to hyper focus on the surface issue, and adamantly refuse to acknowledge the deeper, subsurface issues that made them sprout to begin with. Because humanity struggles to care about that which it can not see/easily acknowledge. Plastic is a big, visible problem everyone wants to deal with, but dealing with a disposable society? Thats to hard to think about. Thats too uncomfortable. That might affect me, personally, in an way that annoys me, so we just gotta keep soldiering on and ignore that.
Plastic isn’t durable. Eventually it degraded to UV and needs to get thrown away.
The solution is to use paper and glass, not plastic, where possible
and wax paper turns into smothering, suffocating mush, and glass becomes dangerous, sharp shards.
and thats what you’ll be dealing with until you deal with the root of the problem, which is a disposable society. Because that will not only stop the excess waste and production of disposable bullshit, not just containers and bottles, but TVs, electronics, etc etc. Much of that latter stuff being shipped off to third world where the desperate dissolve it in carcinogens and burn it to extract precious metals from the shit westerners throw away in excess.
One of the first steps to getting away from a disposable society is by advocating for more non-disposable container options, like glass. You don’t jump straight to tackling the incredibly difficult disposable electronics problem and ignore the easy problem of reusable and recyclable containers.
I am assuming I’m the only one around here old enough to remember when it was dangerous to go barefoot because of the preponderance of broken glass everywhere due to disposable society treating glass bottles and other glass products like they treat plastic today.
Glass doesnt magically make society non disposable. As I have said, repeatedly. Getting rid of plastic wont cure a disposable society, it will only just make whatever replaces plastic the new waste dejure to end up everywhere and threaten everything in its own new ways, until you fundamentally change society by having strict fines, personal repercussions, and public shaming. . as well as education and wide spread access of disposal receptacles, and a waste recycling system that doesnt just dump 90% of its collected recyclables into a landfill.
Everyone wants to keep hyper focusing on plastic, plastic isnt the issue. Plastic is just the fever. The fever isnt what is making you sick. its the appendix about to detonate in your lower abdomen, but everyone wants to ignore the appendix and hyper focus on the fever, because the fever is easy to see.
I know, I didn’t claim that. You seem to be arguing against using glass at all though, which is stupid.
I understand that it’s only a small part of the solution. But it is a part of the solution, and should be advocated for, even if we don’t have all the pieces of the rest of a perfect solution in place yet.
Wax paper is compostable and glass is reusable and recyclable indefinitely (unlike plastic)
Neither glass nor paper contains carcinogens.
We have to do both. Passing laws mandating beer bottles to use standard sizes and have deposits is usually the first step. Then you can do that with soda and every other item sold in plastic.
I love how you are arguing against dealing with a disposable society, by using examples and arguments on how to deal with a disposable society.
Literal cant see the forest for the trees moment.
I’m not arguing against ending a disposable society. I’m saying we need to do both. And I’m explaining how we do both.