Plastic represents everthing wrong in todays society-doesn't it?

"They did have sterile things before plastic. I remember back in 60s when they hung up glass bottles of solution to rehydrate people" Well, sure they did. And they took up a lot of space and were easily broken. But hey, lets go back to glass bottles and glass syringes and rubber hoses. Now THERE were some infectious nightmares.

"Maybe we should make pre-packaged sterialized hands for doctors since they dont wash them often enough"...
"After all they think of themselves as demi-gods deserving mega bucks by devine right, so I suppose they dont think they need to wash up...." Uhmm... I have not personally ever had a physician insert an i.v. or hang a drip. It's usually the RNs and LVNs. Do they also consider themselves 'demi gods'? If so, she was a very nice, congenial young demi god. "deserving mega bucks by devine right" Huh. They spend years getting through medical school, which is no mean feat, so yeah, they should earn as much $$$ as they want. It's their choice, not yours, and not Obamas or anyone else's. This is not evil, despite what the anti-medical bed wetters think.

Funny thing is, when the anti-medical types start drooling from a stroke or they get a funny hard lump somewhere that keeps growing or their husband or wife or child has a life threatening medical emergency---well, they DEMAND that the physicians spare NOTHING, right? What hypocrisy. What rubbish.

"I could care less about 40 inch tvs. A 17inch tube monitor for computer is fine and cant see any need for more than a 19 inch tv if I need a tv at all. I only use mine to watch the local news/weather and to play dvd movies. A 40 inch tv hanging on the wall wouldnt give me any more enjoyment. Just because something exists for sale doesnt mean I need to buy one nor does it mean that it would improve my life. It just means somebody had an idea and is trying to talk people into giving him their money." So what? Maybe other people DO want these things.

I use plastic, recycle it or re-purpose it and use it again. I don't hate it like some here do. It is useful and inexpensive and recyclable.

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I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam.

Popeye

i think that packagers and producers of this stuff should be made to be more responsible..there is a lot of overpackaging of things into plastic that is not necessary..and that should be banned (before sugar and salt by the way)
but plastic has its place too...esp in medicine..what would the hospitals do without all the plastic that saves lives now.

there are a lot of foolish things..like making cars out of plastic..when we can produce steel fairly easily..and plastic cars cave in..in an accident..sure plastic is lighter..and i know all the arguments..but good grief..you can't recycle a plastic car..you can a metal one...and plastic food containers are ridiculous..they pollute your food, and there is a lot of nice steel cans out there ..say for v8..it is a matter of priorities and common sense..

or should i say now adays..UNcommon sense

A lot of plastic used in food products now is because of its microwavable properties.
You sure can't use a metal can, pot, or kettle in one.
Just now I am microwaving a Jimmy Dean Pancake & Sausage on a stick.
Now it is Wrapped in plastic, But you take it out of that and wrap in a paper towel while heating it up in the microwave.
You know it is just like others say we sure go back to farming like in the old days.
Well we can't, there are more people then even on this earth being fed better then ever before, because of the huge farms, same things goes for plastic, it is here to stay and no one wants to go back to the "dark Ages" and be without it.

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The cost of recycling the materials out of product should be added to the up front cost. Shipping boat loads of defunct electronics to China or someplace for them to be burned in huge piles cause we dont wan to pay to properly recycle them isnt acceptable.

You want products made from a conglomeration of not easily recycled plastics, then you should pay the huge premium up front to properly dispose of it when you no longer want it.

Thats fair enough isnt it? My metal bucket is easily recycled, it just gets melted down with other sheet steel at end of its life. No real disposal fee on initial purchase necessary. Your 40 inch tv requires those circuit boards be meticulously taken apart and the individual components properly recycled or disposed of.

This reduces demand for hard to recycle products.

And glass is easily sterialized. Its a super stable product. You just have to do it. But again want to exempt medical uses of plastic, fine, its a small drop in bucket of plastic production.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

So how exactly do you recycle or re-purpose that old 40 inch tv or computer monitor? What do you do with old circuit boards? How about that all that plastic medical waste from your last visit to a hospital? Enquiring minds want to know.

Face it very little plastic gets recycled unless its single variety plastic like pop bottles or milk jugs. And if price isnt up for that particular plastic scrap, the recycling places dont store it forever, just send it on to the landfill. Plastic used outdoors degrades and breaks into small plastic particals that live forever, just not in a useful way.

Last night I used some charcoal lighter fluid in a plastic bottle. Too old, the bottle just crumbled in my hand getting lighter fluid all over my arm when I tried to squeeze the bottle. A metal can wouldnt have done that.

Tell me again what a wonderful thing plastic is......

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

Forever more I will picture you knawing on your pancake and sausage on a stick. What do they call them? Porksickles?

Did you ever think your lifestyle/food choices are a factor in your medical problems?

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

You keep saying this when since the 1990's that just is not true anymore.
All sorts and kinds of plastics get recycled.
So it is not just those 2 things anymore that get recycled.
Many many things now are made form mixing all sorts of plastics Together, Even in my area we have one of those "Composite Recyclers"
Making Pallets from plastic being recycled. And my goodness the trucking industry uses a bunch of those as well as many warehouses.
http://www.ehow.com/about_5076957_re...stic-made.html

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As for electronics, there is a drop-off for these guys in town, where the TV's and other electronics go. http://www.ecycleenvironmental.com/

At our place in the burbs we have recycle bins provided by the city where plastics, glass, metal and paper go. We take cans and bottles in for the cash value and they are recycled.

Medical waste is a whole nother ball game. I believe it isn't recycled, but rather incinerated, but I may be wrong on that one. It is treated separately to avoid bio contamination.

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I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam.

Popeye

HermitJohn, I second the motion! With you all the way!

Since putting up this post, it surprising to see the split camp on this topic.

Regrettably, where there is use, its outweighed by abuse.


Diane http://www.frombeyondthegrid

Some food for thought...

If we'd never discovered the blessings of oil, and it's byproducts, such as plastic, odds are, 90% of us wouldn't be here. The human population grew ever so slowly for millenia. After oil, the population grew geometrically with the advances made possible with labor saving machinery.

So, to curse the blessings, that allowed your existence, is sorta (I can't think of the word). Sorta like people that curse the military, yet are sheltered by the selflessness of those who do serve and protect them.

So, forget about plastic, just curse oil... and to be honest and pure, cordon off your homestead from every single aspect of oil... use no product that was manufactured from or transported by oil... have nothing to do with anything that utilized oil in any of it's life history. So, no outside food, no mechanical tools, unless you smelt the ore and forged them yourselves (without oil of course), no clothes, no movies, no music, no radio, tv, nothin. Strip thyself naked, and go forth, and create a world free of oil.

When I was a teenager, several of us decided we'd see how the cavemen lived... we spent all day trying to gather our food, stripped to our shorts.... at the end of the day, we were sunburnt, eaten by mosquitoes, and very hungry. We joyously rejoined civilization, feasted, put on mosquito dope, clean clothes.

Life without Oil will not be fun. For some it will be dreadfully miserable. For most, it'll be nothing... as in the Grand Nothing, death.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Now lets just take a look at such a statement as that.
I have had RA since the early 70's which I was just out of HS at the time.
So any eating activities I have done over the past few years by eating prepared foods did not get me this RA.
So that blanket sarcastic statement is out of line and on called for as you do not know how long I have suffered with my RA.~!!! And this post is about Plastic and not my eating habits which has nothing to do what so ever with plastic and how I use the plastic and eat the food today.
That Jimmy Dean things was one for breakfast. Along with orange juice and vitamins etc. For the Noon mean I had a nice roast beef and potatoes, and carrots, that I fixed in my Slow cooker.
And BTW if you really want to know about things I raise my Own Beef, so that roast was my won homegrown steer. AND BTW I have another steer in 2 months to also be put in the freezer.~! So there you have it.
And this thread is about Plastic not about me... But now you know some more about me then you did.

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AK, I don't know why, but you have been the subject of some very unfair personal attacks, and I don't like it one bit.

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I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam.

Popeye

You ate totally natural and healthy from birth through HS? Wasnt exposed to any chemicals, plastics, or other modern miracles that might have influenced your health during that time? You were basically raised as "the bubble boy" totally isolated from any potentially harmful influences? Your mother wasnt exposed before you were born? Her mother before her? You see we are not somehow isolated from the world. What came before us and what happened to us in our childhood and beyond all contribute.

Doing more of the same expecting a different result doesnt work either.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

No, it is a wonderful material. Oil is one of the ways to make it but there are many sources of raw materials. Plastics can be made into many very useful things. One of the greatest inventions of our time is 1" black plastic water pipe. Wonderful stuff. The shame is burning oil rather than making something useful out of it.

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You mean like how the population grew exponentially in India and China before they started industrializing en masse?

__________________
"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4586903n This story wasnt from the 1990s. Plastics dont get widely recycled. Most places only take a very small amount of post consumer plastic if any at all. Plastic recylcing you hear about is clean scrap from factories that use it. Used consumer plastics mixed together are valueless and 99.9% goes to landfill. There isnt a market for mixed post consumer plastic since it isnt economical to process it.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

You have to think it through its entire life cycle. Again how do you recycle your mixed plastics effectively. It may seem like a miracle until you have it degrading all over the planet and causing problems we arent even aware of yet.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

yes the use is growing day by day.
Even plumbing now has even better plastics for piping around, and we have plenty of oil for the future so newer products to come on line and the recycling will continue to grow.
From making railroad ties to shipping pallets all from mixing different plastics together. We need the Space Program to continue also as that helps in the development of many things for mankind.

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the love of money is the root of evil, not plastic

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