this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/41907712

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Likely far more energy and pollution needed to manufacture this though so overall a loss for the earth.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (2 children)

But most steel is recycled and most plastic is not.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You still need a lot of energy to recycle steel. Less than mining by far but still a lot.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago

In a sustainable world, energy can and should be cheaper than raw materials. We are only harvesting a tiny fraction of the solar energy hitting the earth, to say nothing of wind and geothermal power. Rolling out more renewables and energy storage and using some of the surplus power to switch from extracting new resources to recycling our waste would greatly lower our footprint.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

But compared to plastic from virgin fossil fuels?

We as a society are going to need memory cards.

What do you think they should be made out of?

[–] Num10ck 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Sorry, that’s not Kosher.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Need to be examined on e case by case basis but plastic often comes out aheadi

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

If you penny pinch and don’t want to pay the environmental cost, sure plastic might come out cheaper.

But when you take into account the triple bottom line, plastic comes out behind.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Plastic in a landfill is a lot less harmful than co2 in the atmosphere.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Which is why you use renewable green energy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Sure but do you have any proof they are doing that? some places are really good and others really bad. Overall my guess is iron is still worse than plastic but there are exceptions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Is anyone going to bother recycling the one gram of metal in this card though?

[–] Luvs2Spuj 12 points 3 months ago

Energy needs can be met and shouldn't be an argument for using plastic.

The pollution could be more dependending on how you look at that statement, but making something without plastic results in less plastic pollution and you can't claim that to be an overall loss for the earth.

[–] cm0002 9 points 3 months ago

You can swap out centralized energy sources (relatively speaking) overnight as greener sources become cheaper/more available compared to retooling whole industries away from plastic

It's the same thing with electric cars, yea it might plug in now to a dirty energy source, but that energy source could be a green energy source tomorrow without you ever knowing and importantly not having to buy a new car or change any other infrastructure to take advantage of it

A power line is a power line, it doesn't care if the electricity going through it was derived from a dirty power plant or solar or nuclear