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?
We don’t need to ban every single bit of plastic. It’s fine to keep it where it’s absolutely necessary. Some of the examples you provided definitely aren’t necessary though, like individually wrapped cutlery (wtf) or beverages (can use glass).
So many things are unnecessarily wrapped in plastic. We use bubble wrap in situations where paper would be a perfectly fine buffer for shipping. We use plastic bags when paper and reusable bags work perfectly well.
I get so frustrated about it not even because I’m scared of the environmental impact of all this plastic floating around, although that does suck, but because plastic is currently absolutely crucial for modern medicine. One day maybe we’ll find alternatives but until then I think a rational society would be preserving the limited life-saving miracle material for uses that aren’t as basic as “use it to take home groceries, then throw it away.”
the same issue is happening with helium. its crucial for a lot of forensic processes and scientific research but we are rapidly running out of helium. but haha balloon go up!
This has never been true. The ‘great helium shortage’ was just complaining about not being able to get cheap helium.
We are more than capable at capturing it from fracking and other sources. We just didn’t want to since it costs money lol.
Why the news ran with it for years is beyond me when it was one google search away from being debunked lol.
https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/how-helium-gas-obtained/32109/
Doesn’t the truth still remain through that it’s not an unlimited resource, it’s absolutely crucial for modern life, but also we use large quantities of it on absolutely mundane bullshit?
I thought fracking was extremely harmful to the environment. Whatever other sources there are might be ok though?
It’s not particularly worse compared to any other form of hydrocarbon extractions
Aren’t those different isotopes?
No, it’s just liquid helium, which is normal He cooled to like 4K or so.