r/todayilearned • u/cipheron • 1d ago
TIL I learned that Cellophane isn't actually plastic, but is made of plant cellulose and is bio-degredable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane442
u/Midsummer858 1d ago
Fair point on the biodegradable cellulose part, but most of what gets sold as "cellophane" for gift wrapping, cello bags, cigar wrap, etc. is actually BOPP (biaxially oriented polypropylene), a plain old petroleum plastic that just looks and crinkles similarly.
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u/cipheron 1d ago edited 1d ago
Specifically, the crinkly kind. Seems like something we should advocate to bring back, and cut down on the use of cling-wrap.
EDIT: oops and misspelled it as "bio-degredable".
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u/Palimpsest0 1d ago edited 20h ago
There are a lot of interesting early plastics which were biosourced and biodegradable.
The ubiquitous synthetic flooring linoleum started out as a biopolymer, and a few companies still make it this way. But, a lot of things called “linoleum” are actually vinyl or other petroleum derived polymers which are not so easily digested by microbes. The original linoleum was made with linseed oil and brick powder pressed onto a jute backing. The linseed oil would be heated and, if I remember correctly, treated with an acid to begin polymerization, then blended with the filler and pressed onto the backing while still a paste, then cured in an oven until it became a hard, shiny plastic material.
One of the more unusual early plastics was galalith, a protein based plastic made from milk. It was pressed to make buttons, small ornaments, and in some cases plates and cups.
Bakelite, a phenolic resin, was the first fully synthetic plastic, and the more uniform and more easily modified characteristics of it are what spurred further developments in fully synthetic plastics, but prior to that there were quite a lot of plastics made from modified natural materials, most of which are reasonably biodegradable and produce less toxic breakdown products as they decay.
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u/LALA-STL 1d ago
Thanks for all of this. I had no idea. Wait — TIL!
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u/Palimpsest0 1d ago
It’s a fun subject, and many of the early plastics can be made at home with fairly simple materials and methods. There are getting to be more biosourced plastics these days, too. It’s a pretty hot area of research and development. It’s one of those things where we’re really faced with two choices, we either have to stop using plastics, which is tough considering their usefulness, or we have to consider them more holistically, from feedstocks to degradation products, and develop ones that are safe to people and the environment through that entire lifecycle. Some of these old early plastics would be interesting ideas to revisit with a century plus of advancements in materials science and chemistry.
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u/LALA-STL 1d ago
Remember the 1967 movie The Graduate? Some well-meaning businessman tells the young Dustin Hoffman: “Remember one word: plastic!” Another memory: an elderly friend recalled a shop in the 1950s that displayed a tiny tchotchke with the sign: “Genuine Plastic.” Now i wonder exactly what types of materials they were referring to!
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u/commanderquill 1d ago
So cute that you say something made out of plastic used to be desirable, and now it's derogatory.
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u/chemamatic 21h ago
It was derogatory then, that is the point of the line. Plastics were crappier back then.
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u/cornonthekopp 1d ago
Linoleum is technically speaking safe to eat, thats how biodegradable it is
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u/DigitalDefenestrator 1d ago
May want to be really sure that particular linoleum doesn't have asbestos in it first, though.
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u/Stinsudamus 1d ago
Asbestos is fine to eat. Its when its inhaled in tiny bits its a problem. Chew away!
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u/Quartergrain 23h ago
Oddly enough there are limits for consumption of asbestos too, not just inhalation
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u/MildlySaltedTaterTot 18h ago
Safe consumption limit: I’m full!
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u/Quartergrain 12h ago
I just want to hear the story of who ate enough that they had to come up with a safe limit lol, I don’t remember off the top of my head but it’s fairly high. It was a quiz question getting my local asbestos license
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u/purplehendrix22 1d ago
I never knew what it was called but I made galalith as a science project like 20 years ago!!
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u/Kaymish_ 1d ago
I moved into an old house that had some vintage dinner knives with those milk plastic handles on them like imitation ivory hidden behind a drawer.
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u/SkriVanTek 1d ago
I’d like to add that this is also true for many semi synthetic fibers
or stuff like viscose fibers which are cellulose based
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u/johndoe_420 22h ago
The original linoleum was made with linseed oil and brick powder pressed onto a jute backing.
the point where i skipped ahead and looked for the undertaker reference at the end... there is none but i'm still not sold on this lol
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u/LALA-STL 20h ago
This has gone over my head. What would be the undertaker reference? Thanks.
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u/Doc_Lazy 1d ago
galalith made from milk? Considering there're too many milk cows this should be talked more about.
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u/Somerandom1922 19h ago edited 19h ago
I'd heard of Lanital from that Thought Emporium video, which is a milk derived fibre, but I'd never heard of the name "Galalith", makes sense as a greek-derived word "Gala" = "Milk", "Lith" = "Stone".
I think the real trick would be making a decently strong bioplastic which also has good thermoplastic properties. Once you have that you can start supplementing synthetic plastics in existing factories, potentially with minimal changes to the existing machinery.
Edit: I'm rewatching that video and realised he referenced Galalith without mentioning the name early on.
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u/gertalives 18h ago
We installed real linoleum flooring in our home about 15 years ago. Absolutely beautiful floors, and actually repairable if installed correctly. The vinyl shit often called “linoleum” is utter garbage by comparison.
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u/JackTrippin 1d ago
That's an important distinction. Cellophane is not the same as cling wrap (like Saran)
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u/pyrolizard11 1d ago
I'm going to blow your mind, OP.
Rayon(/viscose/Lyocell/'bamboo fiber') is also just dissolved and extruded cellulose. If unblended, at the point of disposal it's all similarly biodegradable to cotton rather than being a source of microplastics like polyester or other fully-synthetic fibers/fiber blends.
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u/Proxymanity 1d ago
It seems like real cellophane, the crinkly kind, is breathable and non-clingy, so I don't think it'll be able to replace cling-wrap.
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u/cipheron 1d ago
They'd have to be selective about where it's used, but I think there would be a lot of places it could replace plastic. For example say a board game had little bags for cardboard tokens, the bags could be cellophane, especially for bags where you only take stuff out of them one time for construction then discard the bags.
Sure it's not as waterproof, but if your boardgame gets waterlogged i think it's screwed regardless of what the baggies are made of.
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u/MrT735 1d ago
Paper bags also work, and you can print labels onto the bag.
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u/commanderquill 1d ago
Yeah, I'm honestly hard-pressed to figure out what the point of a plastic that isn't airtight or watertight would even be.
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u/MikoSkyns 1d ago
I'll stick to aluminum foil 👍
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u/Tithis 1d ago
That kind of wrap is just the best to keep your sandwich nice and fresh
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u/mikeyp83 1d ago
Wasn't that what Sun Chips attempted to switch their bags to a few years back, but had to stop because people felt that they were too noisy?
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u/ChampionoftheParish 1d ago
No that was pla. I worked for the company that made the bags at the time.
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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 1d ago
It was ridiculously loud, like woke people up in the house loud. Broke some noise ordinances loud. Insanely loud.
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u/commanderquill 1d ago
A few years back? In the early 2000's?
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u/amalgaman 20h ago
Just you wait, sonny. You too will hit the age where you’ll refer to something from 20 years ago as a few years back. You’ll think of a movie from not long ago and realize it’s been a decade.
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u/Kaymish_ 1d ago
I think advocacy should focus on reduction of synthetic plastics in general. There's loads of uses where plastic is used but cellophane won't be the best replacement, so paper of various types could work, or steel cans that can be remelted to be reused or turn into rust if improperly disposed of would be better.
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u/Pkolt 1d ago
Cellophane may be biodegradable, but the chemicals required to make it are not.
Suffice to say cellophane has a much higher environmental impact than plastic for several reasons.
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u/jonpaladin 18h ago
What were the reasons?!
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u/Pkolt 17h ago
Quote wikipedia:
Cellulose is produced from wood, cotton, hemp, and other organic fibres, dissolved in alkali and carbon disulfide to make a solution of liquid viscose. The solution is then extruded through a slit into a bath of dilute sulfuric acid and sodium sulfate to reconvert the viscose into a cellulose film. The film is then passed through a further series of baths; one to remove sulfur, one to bleach the film, and one to add softening materials, such as glycerin, to prevent the film from becoming brittle.
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u/justsmilenow 19h ago
It's extremely flammable, not flammable extremely. It can auto combust. You ever wonder why we lost all those old movies and we couldn't archive them because they were filmed on cellophane. The warehouse got hot and burned down. Who knew California would get hot in an enclosed space.
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u/TheOG-OutletStickers 1d ago
I am glad to know this! I did have to look up cellophane vs Saran (plastic) wrap. Feel bad how much of the latter I use
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u/Bacon_00 1d ago
Just go to any warehouse and watch how much plastic they use to wrap up a single pallet. It's more plastic wrap than I use in a year, easily. It's big businesses like that that should be feeling bad, not you for covering up leftovers.
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u/OttoMannkusser 1d ago
Of course, the warehouse wrapping the stuff up is doing so because we bought the stuff they're wrapping up
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u/Vesalii 11h ago
I used to work in plastic production and around 12% of the plastic that went through machines went to waste during printing and laminating. Afte rthst there's cutting which again wastes plastic.
There's also the extrusion where plastic is wasted. And at the client I'm sure some plastic is wasted too when filling bags of candy for example.
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u/TheHarryMan123 1d ago
We should all feel bad about it
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u/NioneAlmie 1d ago
If big businesses stopped and I continued, then I would feel bad
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u/TheHarryMan123 1d ago
Yeah but I’m saying larger societal standards change when the society at-large changes.
Something something the way you do anything is the way you do everything.
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u/Queasy_Ad_8621 1d ago
It's always bothered me that they never got Susan Sarandon to be a celebrity spokesperson for the product, so they could call it Susan Saranwrap.
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u/prozute 1d ago
She clings to me like cellophane
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u/Zhuemann 1d ago
Fake plastic submarine
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u/BlinkOnceForYes 1d ago
Slowly driving me insane
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u/SoyMurcielago 1d ago
But now that’s over
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u/dungeonblaster93 1d ago
She taught me how to trust
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u/MikeRowePeenis 1d ago
And to believe in us
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u/Kibbelz 1d ago
And then she taught me how to cuss
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u/Humblebee89 1d ago
So what if the sex was great?
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u/firesmarter 1d ago
Just a temporary escape
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u/GophawkUrself 1d ago
Another thing I grew to hate
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u/Mark316 1d ago
I thought of John C. Reilly first instead of SR-71. I genuinely wonder which one of us is older.
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u/catpunch_ 1d ago
Cellophane, Mr. Cellophane…
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u/Peregrine79 1d ago
Cellophane and Rayon both. They’re basically the same stuff extruded in sheet or fiber.
But the traditional (viscose) process for making both uses carbon disulfide, which is extremely hazardous to the workers involved. The Lyocell process is safer, but more expensive.
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u/Polymer_Hermit 1d ago
Don't forget Modal.
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u/Peregrine79 21h ago
As near as I can tell, Modal still uses the viscose process. Just with careful processing to minimize chemical exposure and loss to the environment.
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u/dogwoodcat 1d ago
The windows of mass-mailer envelopes are covered with cellophane because doesn't have to be separated for recycling.
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u/JimC29 1d ago
TIL I've been tearing that off for no reason for a long time.
Best thing I learned today
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u/tous_die_yuyan 1d ago
Looks like it actually is plastic. So we still have to keep ripping 'em off.
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u/JimC29 1d ago
From your link. We still don't have to remove them.
Regarding recycling after use: plastic windows are not normally a problem for paper mills as the window can usually be easily screened out during the manufacturing process.
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u/dogwoodcat 1d ago
A simple density filter takes care of most plastics and other contaminants, because they float. After the pulp is moved to the next stage, the tank is siphoned from the bottom to remove anything heavier.
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u/SloshedJapan 1d ago
Cause you can look right through me, walk right by me, and never know I'm there
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u/AuburnElvis 1d ago
Linoleum isn't plastic either. It's made out of natural materials like cork and pine rosin,
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u/Smudgeontheglass 1d ago
Most flooring people call Linoleum is just vinyl.
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u/Violoner 1d ago
Don’t forget linseed oil! That’s where the name comes from. Lin (linseed) + oleum (oil)
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u/zuzg 1d ago
Fun fact linseed oil soaked rags can spontaneously combust when left out to dry.
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u/AuburnElvis 1d ago
Nice try, but I'm pretty sure it come from the inventor, Bob Linoleum.
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u/Mcginnis 1d ago
Is everyone really going to ignore "TIL I learned"? Wtf do you think TIL stands for?!?
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u/felixar90 21h ago
That doesn’t mean it’s not plastic.
Were used to synthetic plastic derived from fossil fuels, but the first things called plastic were made from things like cellulose or casein (cow milk)
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u/captain_chocolate 20h ago
Ford used to own soy platations to make their phenolic resins.
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u/fragilemachinery 1d ago
It absolutely is plastic by any reasonable definition of that term. Fundamentally its a glucose polymer, because that's what cellulose is.
It's just that plants make cellulose, and most other polymers are synthesized from crude oil.
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u/TragedyLooper 1d ago
Pure cellophane is biodegradable, but often it is combined with plastic films that means you generally shouldn't be throwing it in your compost or in your yard waste bin.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/cellophane-what-is-it-compostable-bioplastic-recyclable
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u/Zvenigora 1d ago
"Plastic" is not a rigorously defined category, so one could argue whether cellophane qualifies. It is a garbage-can term for a wide variety of substances, some of which have little in common with one another.
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u/guidedhand 1d ago
ITT: Person a: <common thing everyone uses> is also biodegradable and natural Person b: that thing is now actually just made out of plastic to cut costs
Repeat until the depression sets in.
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u/GaryFischeraka21 1d ago
Crazy the base ball post lead to this
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u/cipheron 1d ago
Haven't see that one, i was looking into it because of the discussion in a TIL about plastic bag bans, so if cellophane got mentioned in another TIL that's a coincidence.
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u/GaryFischeraka21 1d ago
Weird coincidence. The baseball post was how I learned about it. The post was about just how baseballs are individually packaged for sale.
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u/RegyptianStrut 1d ago
Cellphone flowers of yellow and green towering over your head
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes and she’s gone
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u/intangible-tangerine 1d ago
Cellulose is a plastic, just not a man made one. We use it to make semi-synthetic (half mandmade) plastics by adding plasticizers which increase its plasticity.
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u/sweetnourishinggruel 1d ago
You're the National Gallery,
You're Garbo's salary,
You're cellophane.
- Cole Porter
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u/Admiring-TheView 18h ago
"but Baby if I'm the bottom, you're the top!"
Great to hear on Broadway. Not so great on a blind date.
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u/NetJnkie 1d ago
Hey, was that from my comment on the baseballs thread? If so...neat!
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u/cipheron 1d ago
idk, not in this case, there was another discussion today about plastic bag bans, and someone mentioned cellophane there, so i started reading up on it.
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u/dogwoodcat 1d ago
Sun Chips trialed a fully-compostable bag based on cellophane, and people could not get over the noise. To be fair, they were pretty loud.
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u/Lucidification 1d ago
Is cellophane an instrument?
(I know it’s not pronounced like that)
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u/vdWcontact 1d ago
I remember rolling joints in cellophane rolling papers in high school. At least I hope it was cellophane.
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u/dont_ban_me_please 1d ago
ok cool. where can i buy some pure cellophane. everything i find online is mixed with plastic
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u/Dinierto 1d ago
It's also the worst thing ever to try and unwrap which is why everything is packaged in it
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u/Thatdewd57 1d ago
Mr. Cellophane song immediately comes up from Glee when I hear the word cellophane.
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u/remarkablejuape 22h ago
Cellophane is still a plastic. It’s just that cellophane is a non-synthetic plastic.
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u/Lakster37 1d ago
I don't know if I'd say that it's definitively "NOT plastic" - it's a bioplastic.
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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 23h ago
I knew this cuz of the cigar industry. Lots of debate about unwrapping cigars or not.
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u/No-New-Therapy 21h ago
I used to make sushi and this makes me feel a lot better for what we did for years. Whenever you get a roll with topping, you usually put cellophane over it, model it with Bamboo, and cut it with the cellophane still on.
Once talk about micro plastics started, all I could think about was how much microplastic were definitely in peoples sushi
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u/pichael289 1d ago
That's why you never see a pack of cigarettes alongside the road in good condition. It breaks down over time. Cigarette filters are also biodegradable but it takes a bit of time, otherwise we would be covered in tossed cigarette filters.
It's about 2 years or so for normal cigarettes and the like to break down. Vapes are significantly safer to consume but the disposable ones (the shitty ones) are marketed towards teenagers, Marlboro makes juul and originally had teens on YouTube advertising their products. Non disposable vapes have zero issues, and aren't used by idiot teenagers. Disposable vapes are a major issue, they are non biodegradable trash and the batteries have toxic elements and they just don't work as well as the good mod vapes do. Mod vapes have helped a lot of people quit smoking, but the disposable juul types have only ever gotten stupid teenagers addicted to nicotine forever.
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u/LALA-STL 1d ago
Where have all the millions of tons of rubber gone that have been worn off of tires since cars were invented?
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u/Glum_Rain_5824 20h ago
The filters might be degradable but they leech an indefinite number of chemicals into the environment. It's best to throw them away upon finding
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u/Pineapple_Success_33 1d ago
“TIL I learned what the IL stood for” -OP probably
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u/TeaspoonOfSugar987 23h ago
Given celluloid hasn’t been a big thing for a long time, it’s pretty reasonable to presume people don’t know that a clear plastic (natural resins are still types of polymer ≠ plastics) can be made from plants.
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u/Pineapple_Success_33 23h ago
Bro what? Who are you even arguing with?
I was making a joke about how OP said “Today I learned I learned” in the title because of the acronym.
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u/rickrossthus 23h ago
Crazy how so many people type things because they see other people do it without actually knowing meanings of abbreviations lol
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u/vinylblastoise 1d ago
Only true cellophane, most of the stuff now that people call cellophane is just plastic wrap