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rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
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 Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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On my phone. I do have some NIH studies. Will try and link em http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/
Can't link any more than this. But there are plenty showing the affects of BPA and other plastic derived endocrine disrupters.http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine/
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nightsintodreams
Joined: 18 May 2010
Posts: 558
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| Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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| On your phone? Don't you know they cause cancer!?!? |
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timothypfox
Joined: 20 Feb 2008
Posts: 492
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:01 am Post subject: |
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| Plastic concerns aside - America and Canada use more power machine drying there laundry instead of hanging them. I've heard water use is also higher in America and Canada per household annually than in Japan too - perhaps due to the Japanese bathing culture? |
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Pitarou
Joined: 16 Nov 2009
Posts: 1116
Location: Narita, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:09 am Post subject: |
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| rxk22 wrote: |
| I do have some NIH studies. Will try and link em ... there are plenty showing the affects of BPA and other plastic derived endocrine disrupters. |
Your link kind of proves my point. The NIH has balanced the weak evidence of slight harm, balanced it against the strong evidence of great benefits, and made the following recommendation: keep using plastics as normal.
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| The NTP has negligible concern that exposure to bisphenol A will cause reproductive effects in non-occupationally exposed adults |
You have chosen to ignore their advice.
(Well ... it's not quite as straightforward as that, but there's certainly nothing for you to be worried about.)
By the way, the benefits of plastic are considerable, and it's a shame that we've been ignoring them in this discussion. This cheap, convenient, hygienic, hermetic food wrapping has been quietly saving lives for decades. More generally, the food packaging revolution of the 19th century, has made an enormous difference that we take for granted now. Are you really in such a hurry to give all this up on the basis of very weak evidence of marginal health effects? |
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Futureal
Joined: 27 May 2014
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 3:13 am Post subject: |
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Interesting thread. I wonder how many other cases of a highly symbolic compromise in lifestyle being substituted for one that would actually make a difference for the environment we can find.
When I was an undergrad and a big proponent of vegetarianism, I hated low-flow showerheads for similar reasons. With all the water wasted on livestock, saving a gallon once a day isn't a huge improvement. |
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TokyoLiz
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 1548
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 3:41 am Post subject: |
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Water and other resource use reminded me of this ecological footprint calculator -
http://footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/
It's enlightening to see the comparison between the UK, Canada, US and Japan footprints.
FWIW, I do not buy plastic wrap. I reuse any plastic containers that come into the house. As others have said, the hygiene benefits of plastic appear to outweigh any detrimental health effects.
I do, however, accept plastic bags at the supermarket about 10% of the time ( bring my own bags). I need the plastic bags for garbage disposal, because my city requires that garbage be placed in translucent bags :/
When I microwave something in a bowl, I place a plate on top of it. No plastic wrap necessary most of the time.
I like arare and sembei, which invariably come in plastic packaging.
I'm well aware that my efforts at reducing consumption don't really make a huge impact. For me, it's more of a personal discipline and simplicity thing in my home. I sometimes see a result on my utility bills, since I'm careful to use electric and gas carefully. But I don't think I'm more virtuous than other people. |
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Pitarou
Joined: 16 Nov 2009
Posts: 1116
Location: Narita, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 4:26 am Post subject: |
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| Futureal wrote: |
| Interesting thread. I wonder how many other cases of a highly symbolic compromise in lifestyle being substituted for one that would actually make a difference for the environment we can find. |
The Prius.
Anything involving hydrogen powered cars. (E.g. this. This is just a giant political / symbolic gesture on Hyundai's part. Producing hydrogen is a very inefficient process. It would make much more sense to just burn the poop to produce electricity, and use that to charge all-electric cars.)
CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration) is a ridiculous boondoggle, designed to appease coalminers.
Countries like Germany, that invested heavily in solar and wind power but forgot to upgrade to a "smart" electricity grid to accommodate the consequent fluctuations in supply.
There's no shame in using paper made with virgin wood pulp. If we truly had a closed wood-pulp cycle, the pulp would quickly deteriorate to the point where it's unusable.
In practice, fluorescent light bulbs aren't as good as their manufactures like to claim. Don't believe the label that says something like "this 20 Watt bulb has the same output as a 100 Watt incandescent bulb". In practice, it's often more like 60 Watts. (LED lightbulbs are much more impressive.)
The reusable "bag for life" shopping British supermarkets sell as an alternative to plastic bags. You'd have to use that bag more than 1000 times before it makes environmental sense. I don't think they last that long.
I could go on...
To be clear, I'm no enviro-skeptic. But I don't think the solution lies in tiny little pious acts, however well intentioned. I think the solution ultimately lies in government policies that offer the right incentives. But that's a whole other conversation. |
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Black_Beer_Man
Joined: 26 Mar 2013
Posts: 453
Location: Yokohama
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 11:19 am Post subject: |
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Tokyo Liz - regarding heating up food in a microwave, instead of plastic wrap, paper towls are often recommended for this job. Less hazardous I guess.
A pitfall of plastic that no one has mentioned here is that they're made with oil, a finate resource. One of the worst food products that anybody can buy is bottled water. The bottles are made with oil. When emptied, they're not recycled back into bottles, but downcycled into less useful materials such as pellets for packing. Groundwater sourced are sucked dry and more oil is used to truck the water to the distribution centers and stores.
Anyway, oil. Unnecessary plastic consumption is a waste of oil. |
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Pitarou
Joined: 16 Nov 2009
Posts: 1116
Location: Narita, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 11:33 am Post subject: |
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| Black_Beer_Man wrote: |
| Anyway, oil. Unnecessary plastic consumption is a waste of oil. |
Yet again, you have to get these things into proportion. Gnats and camels.
How much oil goes into making a plastic bag? Just by comparing the price of oil (Brent Crude currently trading at $109 / barrel) to the price of a plastic bag (a tiny fraction of a cent) I can tell you the answer: very little indeed. Certainly far less than is wasted by people who alternate between stomping the accelerator and brakes while driving, or by poor home insulation. |
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rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 11:59 am Post subject: |
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| Pitarou wrote: |
Your link kind of proves my point. The NIH has balanced the weak evidence of slight harm, balanced it against the strong evidence of great benefits, and made the following recommendation: keep using plastics as normal.
| Quote: |
| The NTP has negligible concern that exposure to bisphenol A will cause reproductive effects in non-occupationally exposed adults |
You have chosen to ignore their advice.
(Well ... it's not quite as straightforward as that, but there's certainly nothing for you to be worried about.)
By the way, the benefits of plastic are considerable, and it's a shame that we've been ignoring them in this discussion. This cheap, convenient, hygienic, hermetic food wrapping has been quietly saving lives for decades. More generally, the food packaging revolution of the 19th century, has made an enormous difference that we take for granted now. Are you really in such a hurry to give all this up on the basis of very weak evidence of marginal health effects? |
That I have, I believe that that since BPA is in 90% of Americas, that we are being exposed to it. Well that is a fact, but I don't believe that constant exposure is a good thing, or even neutral.
I avoid plastics in my foods, and toys for my kid. I use glass Tupperware, which lasts longer than plastic anyways.
And, no I am not a vaccine avoider or anything nutty like that. I just choose not to expose myself to things that seem suspicious. |
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rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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| timothypfox wrote: |
| Plastic concerns aside - America and Canada use more power machine drying there laundry instead of hanging them. I've heard water use is also higher in America and Canada per household annually than in Japan too - perhaps due to the Japanese bathing culture? |
Dryers are pretty wasteful imho. But in Japan, they use dehumidifiers a lot when they dry their clothes, which may end up being just as bad. Well when hung inside that is. |
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Pitarou
Joined: 16 Nov 2009
Posts: 1116
Location: Narita, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:15 pm Post subject: |
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| rxk22 wrote: |
| I avoid plastics in my foods, and toys for my kid. |
In your kid's toys!? Okay, there's a case for avoiding it in saran wrap. Recommendations do change from time to time after all. But when you avoid plastic toys, you're definitely going way OTT. |
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rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Pitarou wrote: |
| rxk22 wrote: |
| I avoid plastics in my foods, and toys for my kid. |
In your kid's toys!? Okay, there's a case for avoiding it in saran wrap. Recommendations do change from time to time after all. But when you avoid plastic toys, you're definitely going way OTT. |
Depends. I do have plastic toys, but if I can buy wooden ones, I do instead of similar plastic ones. Like a wooden car, or a castle. I am not getting rid of plastics, just trying not to have everything plastic. |
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Pitarou
Joined: 16 Nov 2009
Posts: 1116
Location: Narita, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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| rxk22 wrote: |
| Dryers are pretty wasteful imho. But in Japan, they use dehumidifiers a lot when they dry their clothes, which may end up being just as bad. |
It depends on the precise conditions but, in principal, yes, it's much better to use a dryer than a dehumidifier.
Look at it this way. A room dehumidifier is not designed for drying clothes. So it would be unreasonable to expect it to do that task as efficiently as a purpose-built dryer can. |
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rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010
Posts: 1629
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Pitarou wrote: |
It depends on the precise conditions but, in principal, yes, it's much better to use a dryer than a dehumidifier.
Look at it this way. A room dehumidifier is not designed for drying clothes. So it would be unreasonable to expect it to do that task as efficiently as a purpose-built dryer can. |
Dryers are wasteful when compared to hanging laundry outside. So yes, the dehumidifiers, I suspect would be pretty inefficient. Also, dehumidifying isn't a low energy task, it is pretty intensive.
Also, hand washing dishes is pretty inefficient too, unless you go all out like the people who use only a cup of water per plate.
Speaking of crazy wastefulness, I went to my embassy recently, and there were AC units at the station, blowing cold air unto the people who were waiting for the trains. Even though this was underground, there are no barriers to the air, which means tons of waste. |
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