Anthropocene

That's a hard one, so many things are only available in plastic. Our house is trying to go away from single use plastic. These are pretty cool, but I haven't had them long enough to really judge the durability. https://www.beeswrap.com/

I just found out about these as well from a coworker, she said she's had a few different kinds, and for dry food she's had them last several years, but sounds like if you "pucky" them up and have to wash them they don't last as long. Definitely going to try these.
 
Actually, the contaminant in water that scares me the most are pharmaceuticals. I think they have a far greater chance of being detrimental to everyone's health. There is no natural mechanism that will remove hormones, synthetic pharmacological wastes, antibiotics, etc that pass through the human body into the wastewater stream. Microbes have little to no use for the stuff, so they won't consume it as an energy source, and settle out as biosolids for disposal, which is the primary way that biological treatment works. Those that do settle out leave you with a bunch of sludge to landfill. If you take a chance on land application of the sludge, which is a "green" process, you run the risk of accumulating these substances in the soil and causing a whole separate issue....essentially just recirculating the pharma waste back in to the streams through runoff, back through groundwater, back through drinking water, etc, etc.

They can be filtered, which goes back to my comment about expensive treatment earlier. That can mean a several times increasedin treatment costs. It's going to be a long time before people will be willing to pay $200-300 a month water and sewer bills. Probably never.
 
We're introducing a whole new set of selective pressures to all forms of life on the planet, would be interesting to see what life on this planet looks like in another million or hundred million years.
 
We're introducing a whole new set of selective pressures to all forms of life on the planet, would be interesting to see what life on this planet looks like in another million or hundred million years.

i always think about the planet Mars when people say "those who don't know are history are doomed to repeat it"
 
Actually, the contaminant in water that scares me the most are pharmaceuticals. I think they have a far greater chance of being detrimental to everyone's health. There is no natural mechanism that will remove hormones, synthetic pharmacological wastes, antibiotics, etc that pass through the human body into the wastewater stream. Microbes have little to no use for the stuff, so they won't consume it as an energy source, and settle out as biosolids for disposal, which is the primary way that biological treatment works. Those that do settle out leave you with a bunch of sludge to landfill. If you take a chance on land application of the sludge, which is a "green" process, you run the risk of accumulating these substances in the soil and causing a whole separate issue....essentially just recirculating the pharma waste back in to the streams through runoff, back through groundwater, back through drinking water, etc, etc.

They can be filtered, which goes back to my comment about expensive treatment earlier. That can mean a several times increasedin treatment costs. It's going to be a long time before people will be willing to pay $200-300 a month water and sewer bills. Probably never.
Those are also scary. https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/news/features/wastewater_carries_contaminants/index.cfm
 
Wow, really not good.
 
Plastic gets a bad rap. Like DDT, it only becomes a problem when overused. We should treat it as a durable products material, not the cheap single-use nonsense. Its one thing to make a chair out of plastic. That might see 10-20 years of use. Quite another to have everything wrapped in plastic. That, I suspect, is where the bulk of junk plastic comes from.

Plastic has saved countless lives through medical equipment, sterile products, safe water pipes, etc. It is not as cut-and-dry as environmentalists would have you believe. Still, it would be nice to see some of the older methods return. Remember the styrofoam egg cartons and McDonald's packages from the 70s? We were able to do away with those and the world didn't miss them.

And I'll start a flame here - I prefer synthetic rifle stocks!
 
Remember the "ban all plastic straws, food containers, plastic shopping bags" craze that was raging and fashionable right before Covid hit? Boy, that one sure died a quiet death! I can't remember a time in my life that I've seen more garbage on the ground than right now, masks, plastic food containers, straws, single-use everything, etc. We as a population are proving to be very, very short-sighted.
 
Disposable plastic is fine when warranted for hygienic reasons, but we seem to overdo it a bit because its so cheap. A $3 frozen pizza in a box, with a cardboard base, plastic wrap and a paper label seems over-the-top. Individually plastic wrapped fruit is another one.

I am a fan of the plastic shopping bags though, because they usually see several uses. Many of us reuse them after bring the groceries home. And don't get me started on those worthless face placebos!
 

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