{"id":1406,"date":"2018-06-05T13:57:22","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T20:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/?p=1406"},"modified":"2018-06-05T13:57:36","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T20:57:36","slug":"do-i-avoid-plastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/05\/do-i-avoid-plastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Do I avoid plastic?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been drafting this follow-up to the <a href=\"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/28\/one-want-reduce-plastic-usage\/\">pros\/cons of plastic post<\/a> for a long time, but can&#8217;t quite articulate my thoughts (which probably means they are irrational&#8230;). This is my best attempt.<\/p>\n<p>I try (although not suuuuuper hard) to avoid disposables, plastic or not. Plastic is of particular concern when in contact with food because of leaching concerns, but I also avoid multi-use plastic products. When buying something, I consider these characteristics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Apparent quality.\u00a0I perceive metal, wood, glass, and natural textiles to be higher quality than plastic. Part of this is correlation, since companies often make higher-quality products out of non-plastic (i.e. more expensive) materials, and part of it is an appeal to nostalgia and tradition.<\/li>\n<li>Repairability.<\/li>\n<li>Durability.<\/li>\n<li>Recyclability\/end-of-life concerns. If it breaks, will I be able to dispose of it so that it can be reused in some way?<\/li>\n<li>Safety. Does it offgas? Does the material have a long history of use? Is there any doubt about the material&#8217;s safety? (That aluminum pressure cooker is still on probation.)<\/li>\n<li>Does it have desirable qualities for the intended purpose? For example,\n<ul>\n<li>Plastic food storage isn&#8217;t dishwashable without a degradation in quality. For example, tupperware seals worse after enough dishwashes.<\/li>\n<li>Cooking utensils must withstand high temperatures without degrading or melting. Plastic is particularly bad for this purpose.<\/li>\n<li>Synthetic textiles often don&#8217;t breath well or age well (pilling, sagging, smells), although this is also true of low-quality natural fibers, and contribute to microfiber pollution during their lifetimes. They perform poorly in various late-in-life textile uses (e.g. you definitely want natural fiber rags), and often feel strange. They require polluting, sometimes toxic synthetic dyes, since most natural dyes won&#8217;t adhere to synthetic fibers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Is there a good non-plastic, non-electronic, non-electric alternative available? E.g. Teflon pans are easily replaced with cast iron; plastic cooking utensils are easily replaced with metal or wood utensils.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The only areas I can think of where synthetics clearly win are in backpacking, where gear needs to be lightweight, flexible, and waterproof, and electronics.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t avoid plastic entirely, but definitely lean away from it. If I need to buy something plastic, I try to buy it used. I avoid disposable plastics and plastic items that I know to be less than durable (e.g. Teflon cookware).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been drafting this follow-up to the pros\/cons of plastic post for a long time, but can&#8217;t quite articulate my thoughts (which probably means they are irrational&#8230;). This is my best attempt. I try (although not suuuuuper hard) to avoid disposables, plastic or not. Plastic is of particular concern when in contact with food because &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/05\/do-i-avoid-plastic\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Do I avoid plastic?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1406"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1411,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406\/revisions\/1411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beansproutadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}