It’s a bit frustrating how difficult (near impossible) it can be to not buy plastic products. I try to avoid it as much as possible but more often than not, the only option (other than not being a consumer) is to purchase a product contained in plastic.
I’ll use the simple example of dental floss. When I was younger, you could purchase dental floss in a small circular metal container. Today, almost every option of dental floss available for purchase is in an often oversized / non-recyclable plastic container with non-recyclable plastic packaging.
This actually prompted me to once again go on the hunt for that little metal container of dental floss from my youth, and I actually found an option! A US company called Poh sells dental floss in metal container. Just thought I’d share, for anyone else that is dumbfounded when they have to buy more plastic wrapped plastic products to practice good dental hygiene.
I am actually working on a plastic free toothpaste alternative, we are planning to launch in the next few months. Its not a paste but rather tooth tablets that you crush with your teeth and as they dissolve you brush your teeth as you would normally. Zero plastic, refillable aluminum container, refill packaging made out of paper, and we plan to put free floss and toothbrush for the monthly subscription. Do you want me to add you to our waitlist? Deliquify.com is our website that i hacked together very quickly, but we will rebrand soon.
Tooth tabs are already a thing. One of them (Bite) has been flacking itself pretty heavily in podcasts.
The floss and toothbrush are a nice touch, though. Perhaps a wooden toothbrush? (Bristles will still have to be plastic, I'm sure; anything else would be too expensive.)
Tooth tabs are already a thing but theyre quite expensive because none of these companies manufactures for themselves. They all use third party manufacturers and the prices get inflated three-fold. Its still a very up and coming market, and we believe theres quite a lot we can do to make them better and cheaper.
Unfortunately plastic free toothbrushes and flosses are somewhat difficult to sell because people think they want them, but then they realize they fall apart easily and they dont buy them anymore. This is why its tough to find them on the market. But i will keep on the lookout if something comes up
It's very much a matter of of marketing. I think the explanation for why partially hydrogenated oils have been replaced is because there was a viable alternative (palm oil, mainly) and no one was devious enough or saw profit in countering the honest narrative that they were hurting everyone's health. That's unlike tobacco or oil industry games. They spend as much as needed to protect their profits, consequences be damned. More importantly, I think, plastics are actually wonderful materials and the cost of overproducing is hard to convince people of. It's like the abuse of antibiotics or CO2 pollution. Some people try being alarmist to compensate for how little most people care about these serious problems. But most people go on uninformed or just don't care, even if they are informed.
> ... "or just don't care, even if they are informed."
Or have realized the absolute futility of trying to convince those who are informed and don't care, or those who aren't informed and actively fight against becoming informed. Some of use who've fought this battle all our lives are becoming exhausted and hopeless at this point...
I sympathise. People just have "bigger" problems that are personal to them. I think i could convince someone not to litter if i knew someone who did, but convincing them they should refuse gifts derived from petroleum, or stop wearing synthetic fabrics, or not buy a home dense with plastics, and so on? It's so far down on most peoples list of struggles
I tried to find a coffee maker once. There's one automated product in the $1000 price range. I just use my all metal french press.
FYI: They do sell cotton dental floss in paper packaging.
Also, here's an unintuitive thing people may not be aware of. Beverages in glass bottles contain about 10x the dissolved plastics in the liquid. This is believe to be from the paint and coatings used on the cap.
Plastic is magic. Non-reactive, sterile, cheap, strong, lightweight, an electrical isolator. Using something like metal instead of it is complete utter madness from a product design standpoint. Something like corn based PLA is probably still the more cost effective option.
Think of the package designers! Honestly, I worked on a team with "Package Designers" back in the early 2000s... they were consumer junkies, looooathed blister packs, but wouldnt hesitate to overuse plastic to promote their fancy visual designs that went into labels.
I’ll use the simple example of dental floss. When I was younger, you could purchase dental floss in a small circular metal container. Today, almost every option of dental floss available for purchase is in an often oversized / non-recyclable plastic container with non-recyclable plastic packaging.
This actually prompted me to once again go on the hunt for that little metal container of dental floss from my youth, and I actually found an option! A US company called Poh sells dental floss in metal container. Just thought I’d share, for anyone else that is dumbfounded when they have to buy more plastic wrapped plastic products to practice good dental hygiene.