9 replies to this topic

[Kalimaster]

Yesterday, my favored place to eat got rid of their plastic straws. Now I have not really objected to having a straw, but then I was told about how dangerous they are, leading to mass shootings because they are a gateway weapon. The officer behind me about fell out of his chair laughing. Still I understand that they have become a problem. I found some reusable straws in the camping section of one of my local stores, and I thought that was a great idea. So I picked some up. Yet there is one organization that has committed itself to cleaning the oceans of items such as plastic straws called 4 ocean (and can be found at 4ocean.com). Now while I would have liked to have had a straw so I don't make contact with the rim of a cup that the waitress who just picked up a dirty plate brings my drink. Guess I'll be packing camping straws.

https://i.imgflip.com/2fc7pi.jpg

Edited by Kalimaster, 01 June 2019 - 07:47 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Stupid nonsense, the straw isn't polluting anything it's humans bad way what to do with the garbage. And then it doesn't matters if it's plastic in bag, straw or whatever form.
Pretty sure when I use a plastic straw here in Germany and throw it in an urbie shaped can it ends up just in the power production of a local city power plant. But surely not in the sea.
You know what ends in a sea more likely? Every rollerbladers microaplastic abrasion of their tires, it lands directly in the local environment around us, and wind might even blow it into our lungs. And when it rains it just gets washed into ground, streams or rivers and the sewers and might end up much more likely into the sea.
Also, how many plastic straws can I make out of the plastic resources that a PS4 is made of? quite a loooooooooooooot. So why is "drinking entertainment" now more "evil" than gaming entertainment? Ah yeah pseudo fake pro nature activists said so. But then we should not allow any movie productions around the world anymore. Because am pretty sure flying all that LOTR staff to new Zealand had a quite unnecessary(because just entertainment) consumption of resources.
So stop telling straws are some bad stuff, otherwise I bring 100's of examples of equally useless plastic consumption which people do daily and is equally "unnecessary". But then those people get mad because they would loose things they like and think they "need" it or is part of their daily Life.

However, yes you could use reusable glass straws, or metal ones.
You could also ask your favorite place if they wanna change to some ecological straws, thy exist made from sugarcane plant fibers and some minerals. They surely might not be as cheap as regular ones but customers can then still enjoy their drinks with straws.
https://www.livingci...lear-conscience

still questionable if straws shipped around half the globe with heavy oil fueled ships is any sort of proper nature positive thing.

[Davegt27]

I was around when plastic straws first came out
before that we had paper straws covered in wax
no one asked for plastic straws they where forced on us

same with plastic bags they forced plastic bags on us because we had to save the trees lol

also the aluminum can pull tabs we had to save the fish

[LordNothing]

bigger issue is food packaging. they give you a container that is only 3/4 the way full. thus you need a larger container for less product. all so that the brand gets more shelf presence. all that plastic stacks up and ends up places it shouldn't go. i cant believe we still haven't come up with a cheap biodegradable food safe substance suitable for food packaging. would also work for straws.

people also go nuts over grocery bags. they see one on the ground and freak out. sure they take up a lot of surface area, but they are 3 drops of plastic when you melt them down. the real waste is in small size convenience packaging. something about the volume going up with the cube of size where the surface area goes up with the square. therefore larger capacity containers will always have better efficiency.

[HimseIf]

I seem to recall paper with wax that rotted away to nothing if it was left in a gutter for several weeks.
Haven't seen it since i was a kid.

[Strength Damage Cliff Racer]

Fun stuff: all single-use stuff like straws can be made of usual paper treated with sulfuric acid. This "destroys" the structure, allowing to get you super smooth paper which becomes surprisingly resistant to occasional droplets.
Then you wax it a little bit (I mean come on, we used the waxed paper discs to make patty press work like charm for about as long as we have hamburgers!) or oil it — voila, bio-degradable ultra-light single use tableware!

LordNothing, on 07 June 2019 - 09:20 PM, said:

bigger issue is food packaging. they give you a container that is only 3/4 the way full. thus you need a larger container for less product. all so that the brand gets more shelf presence. all that plastic stacks up and ends up places it shouldn't go. i cant believe we still haven't come up with a cheap biodegradable food safe substance suitable for food packaging. would also work for straws.

It's not only food. Let's take for example last mouse I bought.
Box got 2 (!) "Superwraps" on it, box itself got extra plastic layer with metallic elements underneath, some stupid magnets for something which will be probably only opened once, mouse itself got protective film on it, wire wrapped in plastic, each spare part wrapped into individual zip-lock bag. I mean come on, what's wrong with smartly composed waxed corrugated fiberboard box? My old PMP came in one and it still works after 11 years in use!

[LordNothing]

i got this cheap chinese mouse, it came in a hard plastic case which has made a great project box for my electronics projects. other than a thin vacuuformed polycarbonate insert that was the only packaging. they just put the postage sticker right on the case and put some tape around it. the mouse doesn't work anymore but i really like the box it came in.

ok the mouse actually does work, since i know how to fix problems, but its hardly original equipment anymore. and thanks for not scrubbing the markings off the optical sensor like logitech does, i was able to get a data sheet for it and can now talk to it with an arduino.

Edited by LordNothing, 26 June 2019 - 03:21 PM.

[HimseIf]

Strength Damage Cliff Racer, on 26 June 2019 - 07:08 AM, said:

It's not only food. Let's take for example last mouse I bought.
Box got 2 (!) "Superwraps" on it, box itself got extra plastic layer with metallic elements underneath, some stupid magnets for something which will be probably only opened once, mouse itself got protective film on it, wire wrapped in plastic, each spare part wrapped into individual zip-lock bag. I mean come on, what's wrong with smartly composed waxed corrugated fiberboard box? My old PMP came in one and it still works after 11 years in use!

I know right? I do wonder why all the packaging exists. Thought it might be some law against contamination or something.

[undeadasharak]

hey strength it didnt happen to be a razer mouse you bought was it they always seem to package their stuff in over the top packaging to make them seem more "fancy" dont get me wrong i love my razer naga 2014 its a great mouse but it was packed similairly to what a lot of current smartphones are packaged but almost more over the top but hey the box with the magnet it came in is good for litttle bits and bobs for my hobbys

[LordNothing]

i dont throw anything away if i think i can use it in a project somewhere.

for example old flat screen monitors. each one has a good sized chunk of acrylic in it to defuse the edge mounted fluorescent bulbs. i figure i could use them to build a project enclosure. though im leaning towards using them to build a cnc pcb mill, provided i can acquire the tooling needed to make clean, precise cuts in acrylic. i even do part salvage from old electronics. i can cleanly desolder most smd parts aside from bga chips, though i still need an l/c meter to determine some of the inductor/cap values (somehow they can still fit number codes on smd resistors, which tend to be smaller).

Edited by LordNothing, 02 July 2019 - 10:46 PM.