2 bad things about plastic you should probably know

[BIATCHabutuka]

one, i love plastic. it is mankinds greatest invention in probably the last 1000 years.

there are a couple of items i would feel guilty about though if i didn't warn Buckeyes and i see done way too often.

1. NEVER DRINK FROM A PVC/VINYL GARDEN HOSE. that is not a device approve for drinking water so we don't formulate it with any safety standards, it is a pure cost thing and almost 100% recycled in the hose core. there is definitely lead and cadmium in just about any pvc garden hose. lead is bad, cadmium is worse. by drinking from the garden hose you are exposing yourself to both of these metals and other stuff that you don't want either.

2. DILDOES AND BUTTPLUGS ARE NOVELTIES AND NOT DESIGNED FOR INSERTION IN THE HUMAN BODY. since it is a novelty, there is no standard for what is put in there chemically. they are largely cadmium stabilized and phthalate softened. bad and bad. don't let your girl use one of these. sadly i wrote a formula and produced samples (not shaped, just compound samples) that replaced the cadmium and phthalate plasticizer and it is almost cost neutral, but i can't get any traction in the industry. thought about doing a private start up, but lots of rumors of mob activity in the sex toy industry and those formulas sit in my formula book idle instead. i totally respect whatever business the mob wants, i just want to wet my beak too. i must admit i am highly motivated to get that info out there as i could profit from this knowledge going mainstream, but that doesn't make it any less true.


now my conscience is clear and i have done my marketing for the day. if anyone had any other environmental questions about plastic, feel free to ask. i will go with the truth, good or bad for the industy.

 

[Ted Haggard]

one, i love plastic. it is mankinds greatest invention in probably the last 1000 years.

there are a couple of items i would feel guilty about though if i didn't warn Buckeyes and i see done way too often.

1. NEVER DRINK FROM A PVC/VINYL GARDEN HOSE. that is not a device approve for drinking water so we don't formulate it with any safety standards, it is a pure cost thing and almost 100% recycled in the hose core. there is definitely lead and cadmium in just about any pvc garden hose. lead is bad, cadmium is worse. by drinking from the garden hose you are exposing yourself to both of these metals and other stuff that you don't want either.

2. DILDOES AND BUTTPLUGS ARE NOVELTIES AND NOT DESIGNED FOR INSERTION IN THE HUMAN BODY. since it is a novelty, there is no standard for what is put in there chemically. they are largely cadmium stabilized and phthalate softened. bad and bad. don't let your girl use one of these. sadly i wrote a formula and produced samples (not shaped, just compound samples) that replaced the cadmium and phthalate plasticizer and it is almost cost neutral, but i can't get any traction in the industry. thought about doing a private start up, but lots of rumors of mob activity in the sex toy industry and those formulas sit in my formula book idle instead. i totally respect whatever business the mob wants, i just want to wet my beak too. i must admit i am highly motivated to get that info out there as i could profit from this knowledge going mainstream, but that doesn't make it any less true.


now my conscience is clear and i have done my marketing for the day. if anyone had any other environmental questions about plastic, feel free to ask. i will go with the truth, good or bad for the industy.

What about cock rings? Am I good as long as I don't shove them up my ass?

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

never was asked to deformulate a cock ring so i am not sure. i must say i am glad this is going off track quickly. the whole reason i went there in the first place. figured we needed a good science of dildoes thread.

still remember the day my boss gave me a dildo to look at in the lab. weird moment for sure. never anticipated that showing up on my desk and not having a sexual harrassment suit in play. never thought a man could give me a dildo and not have a desire to whip his ass. fortunately we were both huge howard stern fans and knew what we could discuss without legal issues. probably a good thing he gave that job to a pervert like myself instead of one of the old ladies working in the lab.


if the cock ring is plastic and not inserted in the body, i wouldn't worry. if however you had a plastic piercing, that would probably be bad. no commentary as to whether the restricted blood flow is good or bad. i probably wouldn't wear it for an extended period of time though. the plastic isn't chemically bonded and all the additive chemicals are really held together only by the van der Waals forces so they are squeezing out the additives over time. basically, if the cock ring was plastic, it is possible that you could have some exposure to the skin, but nothing like insertion.

if you wanted a good materials recommendation for a cock ring, i would go with a more inert metal like gold or silver. silver has good antimicrobial properties and should be cheap enough to make a nice cock ring. i suspect that is what they are mainly made of, but i have honestly never seen a cock ring in real life so this is wild speculation.

enjoy.

note: while i like to joke around, lead and cadmium exposure are no joke and you really should never drink from a garden hose nor dildo people with jelly like plastics. that was good advice.

 

[Buckeye513]

Trois: Pacific Trash Vortex

 

[JohnnyCockfight]

God bless you Vanilla Gorilla. And your thread.

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

as for the trash island in the pacific, it is totally recyclable material (probably consists of mainly polypropylene or polyethylene). if i had a boat and knew where it was i would go get it myself and remelt it. i can make good margin on free material (expenses in getting though for sure).

i will buy the rights to that vortex of plastic for $0.15 per pound baled and delivered west coast if you want to go get it for me. let me know. if you can take it to China for me, i can pay more.

no limit on quantity.

plastic trash is not a problem. littering and lack of recycling is the problem.

if you don't like it floating, i can reduce the cost and make it sink if it helps. just add a little CaCO3 filler and that [Mark May] will sink no problem.

that plastic island is an eyesore for the industry no doubt. i wish someone would just go get it. i do find it funny when you see environmentalists take pictures of it but not clean it up. if you are already out there, why not profit by grabbing a bunch of free plastic. makes no sense to me at all unless it is more valuable as propaganda than scrap.

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

speaking of trash islands, if anyone wants to build their own private island out of trash, it is quite easy. totally legal to live on the river in Ohio too as long as you don't block the waterway.

one, nail a bunch of wood pallets together. that is your land.

two, put 13 2 liter bottles under your floating surface per standard skid. that shit will float forever. leave a hole in the middle so you can jam more trash (netted trash so it doesn't float away, don't litter) to add more floating capacity. add 13 more 2 liter bottles per 50 pounds of weight you add to the deck. add some more for safety. add some more for body weight and some more for ladies and beers and a grill. leave a hole in the middle to add more trash and fish out of.

the miracle of plastic in action.

you can scale it as big as you want. i have seen a two story tiny house built on a private trash island. you would never know it wasn't a real island either other than you can pull up anchor and drive your island away.

note: do your own engineering and legal research, but this shit works for me.

enjoy.

 

[Thump]

Good documentary called "Bag It" that has been running on the Documentary Channel.

Channel 267.

About the overuse of plastic bags and other plastic products.

You may want to check it out.

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

but is the problem with the plastic or the human actions in not recycling and littering.

plastic bags are cheaper and perform better than the paper alternative.

why should the [Mark May]ty action of humans have any impact on material selection?

can't watch it. i freed my mind by cutting the cable. if you bring up specific points though, i will deal with them as honestly as i can.

chemicals are harmless, the way people use them is what causes harm. punish the bad actors like the military base that [censored]ed up Clarity. the chemical is an innocent party. it takes a human to act outside of the safety rules to cause harm.

i will buy all the plastic scrap in the world at a certain cost if you sort, bale, and deliver it. problem solved with the material, now just get those pesky humans to act in their best interest.

the fact that they don't degrade is what makes plastic great. just grind it up and remelt it. thermoplastics are gods gift to mankind. they save more fossil fuels than they consume in lightweighting cars. they save millions of lives through better hygiene in medicine. without plastic we would be so much more [censored]ed than we already are, it isn't funny.

attacking the material is just enabling laziness.

 

[Thump]

but is the problem with the plastic or the human actions in not recycling and littering.

plastic bags are cheaper and perform better than the paper alternative.

why should the [Mark May]ty action of humans have any impact on material selection?

can't watch it. i freed my mind by cutting the cable. if you bring up specific points though, i will deal with them as honestly as i can.

chemicals are harmless, the way people use them is what causes harm. punish the bad actors like the military base that [censored]ed up Clarity. the chemical is an innocent party. it takes a human to act outside of the safety rules to cause harm.

i will buy all the plastic scrap in the world at a certain cost if you sort, bale, and deliver it. problem solved with the material, now just get those pesky humans to act in their best interest.

the fact that they don't degrade is what makes plastic great. just grind it up and remelt it. thermoplastics are gods gift to mankind. they save more fossil fuels than they consume in lightweighting cars. they save millions of lives through better hygiene in medicine. without plastic we would be so much more [censored]ed than we already are, it isn't funny.

attacking the material is just enabling laziness.

In countries such as Ireland they have imposed a plastic grocery bag fee and plastic bag consumption is down 90%. This was as of 2010.

Not all plastics can be remelted either.

Some plastics can only be recycled once and that is it.

I do remember #6 and #7 being highly unrecycleable plastics.

Also, all caps on milk/juice jugs are unrecycleable.

The author makes the point, since when did paper milk cartons need a plastic cap on them?

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

In countries such as Ireland they have imposed a plastic grocery bag fee and plastic bag consumption is down 90%. This was as of 2010.

So they add an artificial cost to it and consumption is down. what in the world does that have to do with material science. of course if you lay a tax on an item, people use it less. econ 101 and wholly unrelated to a materials science discussion. ideally they use those funds to promote recycling of plastics, i would even support that tax and i hate all taxes. oh and irish consumers are worse off financially as a result.

Not all plastics can be remelted either.

by definition, all thermoplastics can be remelted. thermosets can not be, correct. there are no volume thermosets out there though so that isn't really relevant at all either. certainly no major consumer streams of trash are thermoset. i can also cryogenically pulverize them to recover the material. if there is a will there is a way. human laziness is no excuse.

Some plastics can only be recycled once and that is it.

Name one. The most difficult plastic to recycle is PVC bar none and it is infinitely recyclable. you may need to write an adjustment batch formula out of virgin material to restabilize or lubricate, and i will charge you for that, but that is how you tailor the properties anyway. I can recycle PVC as many times as I want. Even if you couldn't (say chain scission in severely degraded polypropylene), i can chemically recycle it and capture the energy. Everything is recyclable.

I do remember #6 and #7 being highly unrecycleable plastics.

incorrect, #3 is by far the most difficult to recycle and there is no infrastructure supporting it. yet somehow i am able to purchase millions of dollars worth of this material without issue still. if there is a will, there is a way. #6 is polystyrene. I have bought millions of dollars of scrap PS for the sole purpose of reducing my costs (ignoring the boner that marketing jerk offs get from recycled content and the supposed sales lift they give me). if there was more out there, we would buy it too. #7 is miscellaneous, aka wildcard. it does need sorted by type to be recycled (unless i just want to convert it to energy then i don't care). Generally these are low volume and all lumped in together to keep it simple. if you are worried about #7, define more categories and that solves that problem.

Also, all caps on milk/juice jugs are unrecycleable.

Often the cap issue is just a different material than the bottle. in pop bottles for example the bottle is PET and the cap is PP. a great Ohio company (Evergreen Plastics) employs hundreds of people sorting this trash and recycling it. When they hit their first year of $50 million in sales, they took every employee and their entire family on a free Carribean cruise. seems like a profitable business model to me. it needs removed and hand sorted. these hand sorting jobs are labor intensive and not done by robots. sounds like a great way to increase employment to me. Laziness by the consumer or lack of infrastructure doesn't make it not recyclable, it is a cost and an opportunity for employment though.

The author makes the point, since when did paper milk cartons need a plastic cap on them?

plastic is cheaper than the plastic coated paper cartons and performs better. plastic also does a better job of preserving the product and has less product loss from damages. nobody is trying to melt the plastic coating off the paper either so that is not recyclable, good point there. we should ban paper cartons for the sake of the environment.



the real issue is lack of recycling and littering, a fault with human beings, not the material. I would support the taxation at the reactor to support the implementation of better recycling programs though and you do have a valid point there.

any other environmental concerns out there for this miracle material?

NOTE: if anyone does build their own private trash island, i expect an invite. I know lots of strippers and generally show up flush with beer so it will be fun. let me know.

 

[scarletmike]

plastic is cheaper than the plastic coated paper cartons and performs better. plastic also does a better job of preserving the product and has less product loss from damages. nobody is trying to melt the plastic coating off the paper either so that is not recyclable, good point there. we should ban paper cartons for the sake of the environment.

This particular section caught my attention because I never really thought about the cartons being coated with plastic (though it makes sense now that I think about it), and also because they just started single-stream recycling in my county, and they have these containers (like orange juice cartons, haven't seen milk in them down here) listed as recyclable. How would they recycle these if they're not melting the plastic coat, or is that just a "feel good" item and it actually just gets tossed back in the trash? Oh, and the company that does waste for my area is Waste Management, if that is of interest/helps.

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

never seen it or did it myself so i was speculating there. you could possibly melt the plastic off the paper since it melts at a lower temp than the paper burns i guess. they could be doing that perhaps, but it doesn't sound like i could make any money doing that though so unlikely in my opinion.

the more i think about this, maybe my material bias is showing. maybe they are after the paper fibers instead of the plastic.

maybe they are just trying to recycle the paper part by shredding it to get inside the plastic and then wetting it down to get the paper pulp fibers and then the remaining plastic could be recaptured in theory as the remainder. the more i think about it, that is probably the only way to recapture all the material. i suspect they don't reclaim the plastic portion at all though or it should have been offered for sale to me at some point. if you replace your swimming pool liner ever, i have probably bought it. i have even bought the plastic bits stripped from wire and then melt filtered out the remaining copper so it didn't get in my product.

i know the guys at Renew plastics in wisconsin really well. they dominate the milk jug recycling market (located right beside a milk plant; they make plastic lumber and sheeting out of the scrap; i bought one of their old lines awhile back). i didn't see them recycle anything other than the plastic jugs though. no paper coated stuff at all.

i know jack [Mark May] about the cardboard industry, but i know WM is a major player in that area. literally every single pizza box in the world was trash about 3 weeks before they ship it out. cardboard recycling is big business. Pratt cardboard by policy is always 100% recycled and most of their feedstock comes from consumer trash. they are the only ones to go 100% though. they are very good at it too.

mixed materials is a major problem in recycling though. a pure plastic container is so much simpler, just as a pure paper product would be simple. the caps complicate things, but there is big business in sorting the caps out from bottles and i have seen it with my own eyes and paid for the material they produce (both the PET and the PP) so i know that is true. still can't believe how great the guys at Evergreen treat their employees. The main engineer brother / owner is an OSU grad too. Great guys. Great business. Man does their factory yard stink though with all those dirty pop and juice bottles sitting in the sun.

good question though. don't accept my answers as gospel. challenge me to think on them, i like that, its how you learn.

the more i think about this, i am in a fantasy football league with one of the commissioners of the tri county recycling committee (probably butchered their name, but they handle my area and Canton Ohio too). i will ask Mike what they do with them next time I see him. He should know.

 

[CleveBucks]

How do you recycle plastic gift cards? I have a stack close to a foot high that I hate throwing away.

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

depends on the type of plastic. if it is whitish in color or turns white when you bend it, it is probably PVC with a CaCO3 filler in it. that is #3. me, i would just toss it in with your recycling and let someone get paid to sort them out. most all of them are PVC, but they do make them bio based too (marketing mumbo jumbo; though the new bio based PP is great and only available in Brazil for production).

before they sold the business, a local company used to produce credit card / gift card stock in my area (was in Newcomerstown OH, now in NC). all their trim scrap and rejects are recycled 100%. the material is simply too valuable to pitch. if you had a truckload of them, i could sell them all day at about $0.15 - 0.25 per pound picked up in Ohio. there is a big pvc grinder in Cleveland who put a buddy of mine into early retirement they are so good at it. they probably are buying the curbside in your area. if your curbside takes #3, just toss them in your recycling.

never seen one actually recycled with a magnetic strip though. they would screw up production in the plastic and then pay my buddy to grind it and return it clean to remelt for about 5 - 10 cents per pound before the strip was put on it. i suspect they may end up tossing out the magnetic strip after trimming it off. no clue there. The cleveland grinder does it cheap. Coll Materials is a great grinding company too.