RE: [GreenYes] Plastics and TRUE recycling

[Jay Donnaway <jdonnawa@dca.state.ga.us>]

Muna, what is toxic about polyethylene?  The product leaches nothing into
foods, prevents untold waste of food, and has reduced the weight of
transport packaging several times over.  And, if burned at the proper
temperature as a supplemental boiler fuel, releases nothing more (and often
less) into our atmosphere than the gasoline, fuel oil and coal that you
depend on every day. Granted, the manufacture of plastics leaves much to be
desired.  In consideration of alternate containers though, even the messiest
drillsites are minor in scale compared to the devastated land left behind
from the mining of metal ores used to make steel and aluminum cans, not to
mention the energy intensity of those production processes.  Even wonderful
glass uses much more energy to produce than plastic containers, and glass
plants are also 100% reliant on .....fossil fuels.  After lifecycle
analysis, even the glass industry itself admits that "HDPE tends to have the
lowest emissions of criteria pollutants" (Cole & Brown; Advantage Glass
report, 1993)
Jay

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Muna Lakhani [SMTP:muna@iafrica.com]
> Sent:	Monday, December 17, 2001 5:13 AM
> To:	Jay Donnaway
> Cc:	'Paul Goettlich'; C E F G; GreenYes
> Subject:	Re: [GreenYes] Plastics and TRUE recycling
> 
> Jay Donnaway wrote:  Until we get much further down
> > the road to a biobased economy, plastics recycling is an imperfect
> process
> > that requires constant attention, and energy recovery should be an
> option.
> 
> No - I simply cannot agree - what planet-given right does anyone have to
> continue the use of known toxic products and processes? to justify it
> "because it is there" is either supreme naivety of how the world works,
> or a simple desire not to accept truth - if plastics were banned, for
> example, what bets that industry will come up with workable alternatives
> ASAP? McDonalds, in China, was given notice to stop using polystyrene
> packaging - they were able to use a bamboo (I think) based product that
> was compostable, and it was introduced within something like 30 days!!
> 
> so we do NOT have to live with toxics.. should we use the same argument
> for radiation? or thalidomide? 
> 
> take care all...
> 
> Muna
> 
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