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Is this going to be one of those things where in a 100 years people laugh at us for putting everything in plastic like we look back at romans etc using lead and
by FugeDaws 1y ago
Is this going to be one of those things where in a 100 years people laugh at us for putting everything in plastic like we look back at romans etc using lead and mercury for stuff
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- __alexs 1y agoLead is so obviously bad for that we have known it for thousands of years.
- FugeDaws 1y agoyet as late as the 19th century lead was in make up
- moooo99 1y agoThe time it takes us from finding out something is dangerous to finally doing something about it is astonishingly long. Lead, Asbestos, CFCs, PFAS, etc
- simplify 1y agoYes. Humans in general are very bad at dealing with delayed consequences.
- EasyMark 1y agoAnd we have a President currently trying to bring back clean, beautiful asbestos (it's still used in a few places actually). A wonder material, good for protecting against hot stuff.
- tessierashpool 1y agoThe EPA is currently reviewing its ban on asbestos.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- cjrp 1y agoIt's not uncommon for the pipe supplying mains water to (older) houses in the UK to still be lead.
- EasyMark 1y agoWIth the right mix of minerals in water it's generally safe, but like in Flint municipalities can screw up that content of ions/minerals in water and leach it out (remove the protective patina)
- graemep 1y agoIts not really common either. much as been replaced. In areas where it is common the pipes are often old enough that the lead is covered with limescale sealing it off from the water (lead pipes would now be many decades old), and I have read that water supplies in some areas have additives to seal off lead too. You can also have your supply tested (free AFAIK).
- bamboozled 1y agoDoes lead leach into the water like plastic pipes do ?
- WillAdams 1y agoYes, depending on alkalinity and so forth --- see Flint, Michigan in the news a while back, or on-going efforts to remove solder containing lead from the plumbing aisle.
- skeezyboy 1y ago[dead]
- dtech 1y agoYes, the only reason we are ok with some old lead pipes left is because they're coated in scale build up. As long as that's not disturbed it's not dangerous anymore.
- 1y ago
- uncircle 1y ago> Lead is so obviously bad Yeah, though I’m much more concerned about those that are not so obviously bad, that we still don’t know how terrible they are. You know, the unknown unknows.
- nativeit 1y ago…and yet we actively used it in water pipes, painted our walls with it, and poisoned the air by putting it in gasoline—all in the 20th-century.
- __alexs 1y agoIt's almost like the net benefit of lead was actually quite high or something.
- swayvil 1y agoHow does this obvious badness manifest, exactly? I can drink water from a lead pipe all day and suffer not even a headache. EDIT I'm serious. What is the obvious manifestation? Because the manifestations I've heard of aren't so obvious.
- westward 1y agoAnd it wasn't until the 1970s that the US banned lead paint in houses. 200 years after Ben Franklin wrote that it was bad. Like, clearly plastics are bad. And yet, humans like the convenience, the utility.
- qqtt 1y agoAlso, as a reminder, leaded gas (avgas) is still used all over the United States pumping lead into the environment. If you live near an airport you are especially at increased risk of lead exposure in the environment.
- Plasmoid 1y agoThe FAA finally approved 100UL gas for small airplanes. I'm not sure how widely it's available now.
- ToucanLoucan 1y agoAlso also, shit tons of poor folk all over the country live in homes full of lead pipes and paint that their landlords are too cheap to fix. Asbestos too, though that's less threatening as long as it's not being actively fucked with.
- zdragnar 1y agoGenerally speaking, it's better to cover up asbestos than it is to remove it. Remediation attempts can easily go wrong, moving the asbestos from "hidden and staying put under tiles" to "free floating dust in the air and your lungs". One of my parents' friends got mesothelioma from doing just that.
- sevensor 1y agoThis is just for general aviation though. Jet fuel has no lead in it. Not that this means it’s healthy, just that jet exhaust pollution does not include appreciable amounts of lead.
- neves 1y ago
- nikbackm 1y agoClean, beautiful lead.
- mlinhares 1y agoI can hear him saying it, shit.
- tylerflick 1y agoI’ve been joking he’s going to try and bring back leaded gas.
- Lerc 1y agoDo we laugh at Romans for using lead and mercury? I'd say they did things that were harmful that they did not know they were harmful. Unless they did it in the face of clear evidence of the harm, what is there to mock? I expect the people in 100 years from now will laugh at us for doing all of the things that we absolutely know are harming the environment right now. Perhaps they will even laugh at us for hand wringing about plastics on the possibility that they might be harmful while doing next to nothing about the things we do actually have evidence for,
- vladms 1y agoIt is optimistic to think they will "laugh" about the environments harm. That would mean they would not suffer a lot of the consequences of said harm. Let's hope it will not be that bad to become fanatical about it.
- reactordev 1y agoWhere there’s an engineer, there’s a way - it just may not be the solution you seek.
- realo 1y agoThe environment? In 100 years? Laughing? Come on ...
- FugeDaws 1y agoI mean laugh out of context I dont think anyones specifically laughing at something they didnt know but in the context of smuggness of what we know now We wont do a damn thing about the dangers of micro plastic now until it gets incredibly bad that we cant ignore it. Id say they would actually laugh at us for that though in the future
- Lerc 1y agoWhat are the confirmed dangers of micro plastics? I'll concede that they are everywhere, and they are detectable. What is the established consensus on the harm that they cause?
- aa_is_op 1y agoLike asbestos? Oh nevermind... that's legal again
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoI would like to thank the activists at r/asbestosremovalmemes for normalizing eating it, first step in normalizing it and making sure everyone will be entitled to compensation.
- swayvil 1y agoThey'll laugh at us for trusting any information we get from social media, too. It's the epistemological equivalent of licking the floor of a public restroom.
- DanielHB 1y agoI don't think so, plastic wrapping is a massive boost for keeping food hygienic in transport and both to avoid waste and reduce pathogen contamination. Probably a much bigger benefit than the microplastic contamination. It might be they will be like "shame they didn't have this awesome new material that has 0 environmental/health impact that we have today" though. There are no clear substitutes for plastic in a lot of applications even when you disregard price.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoI think most people would be okay if "only" the 80% of food that could manage paper packaging switched.
- bell-cot 1y agoIf asked their opinions, probably true. If you watched their actual choices, when confronted with shiny transparent-and-or-colorful familiar plastic vs. paper replacements...yeah. (And as soon as you have paper packaging, the big companies want to "improve" it with 57 varieties of chemicals & coatings & treatments & crap. Not to say that manufacturing paper is anything resembling clean & green, either.)
- taeric 1y agoI'm curious what paper packaging you have in mind, that isn't also lined with plastics. Maybe we could use more wax lined items? I don't know. But it is down right comical how people will avoid some macro plastic things only to be using something that has micro plastic by design.
- BobaFloutist 1y agoFor that matter, what's wax? I bet at least some waxes are basically plastic these days.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoWaxes are pretty similar to plastics and can be produced by similar processes from the things. The main difference is that they're a lot more biodegradable.
- tokai 1y agoYes, but its going to be like the romans where their use of lead was nowhere as problematic as people like to think.
- p3rls 1y agoAre... you under the impression that people who actually study history mock the Romans for their... use of lead? You need to read more actual sources than the hindustanitimes.com listicles if you're coming to this impression.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoAnd ironically the best way to get the plastics out of our systems is blood letting. So in the future, we are the backwards ones, and the modern peoples use leeches to make themselves healthy.