I don’t understand how there can be any strict libertarians left in the world. Just in the last year or so, we’ve seen that coal mining companies will fight tooth and nail to avoid complying with safety regulations while their miners die horribly, that nuclear reactor emergency plans don’t take into account that earthquakes and tsunamis do, you know, damage to power lines and water supplies, and that oil companies have no clue how to stop deep sea oil spills, although their plan for the Gulf did have a clause to protect polar bears. And yet, you still want to trust the free market or whatever to ensure that corporations do the right thing.
I think it would make a great “Twilight Zone” episode for some of you rugged individualists to wake up in a world with no government regulation, and see how long you survive.
Just so you know, the “recycling” of paper products is waaaay different than you think. They don’t take landfill-bound paper. Like…a poop covered piece of cardboard just isn’t gonna make the cut. If it’s not a certain grade, and a certain color, and a certain this and that, then it’s just trash. And it doesn’t matter what the paper looks like before hand, it gets nasty enough during the process.
You’d be surprised; dirty paper is not very desirable because it requires way too much processing. But the process itself…smells so bad and has the appearance of such nasty stank that it’s a wonder they care at all what gets thrown in the pulping pot!
So don’t let the “recycled” idea fool your perception of “cleanliness” with regards to paper products. It’s not pre-used toilet paper in your “made from recycled materials” roll of charmin, it’s just really old office paper that never sold and sat in a warehouse.
So what do they do with the paper that is put in recycle bins? Even in my very small town, the garbage companies send two different trucks around, one for garbage and one for recycled paper and plastic. Is the paper used to make plywood or something?
I don’t have access to the journal, but there was a study in the 1980s showing a high number of Staph. aureus plus another bacterial species which I can’t recall, on soda can lids. Usually I wash off the mouth area, and if it comes out of a machine, I’m even more careful.
Think of what happens if a soda can leaks in the machine: bacterial paradise with all the sugar. And cans aren’t loaded in with any sanitary care.
The recycling process always moves paper “down” the “ladder”, if that makes sense. Toilet paper requires the highest grade of materials, and so it can’t have very much recycled material in it. Same goes for tissues.
The paper in your township bin, if it is commingled, goes to a sorting plant where it is baled up and shipped (usually to china) to a plant that makes the low grade stuff - posterboard or low grade packaging.
Office paper can be bumped down to newspaper. Newspaper can’t be bumped down to much. It becomes filler for various industries (think grass seed). Magazines are useless. Too much glossy coating.
Sometimes the community gathered stuff is carefully sorted, so it may go elsewhere, but the principal holds - paper recycles down in grade, and toilet paper is at the top. So no worries about your butt getting second hand poopy paper.
Not disagreeing really, and I know nothing about pulp and paper, but for other food and drug products having the manufacturer of the product do the safety testing (and absorb that cost) is exactly what happens. The government agencies audit the companies and demand documentation/proof of adherence to the laws, but they do not do the testing themselves (except in rare cases, following up a major recall or something). In the end, it is the consumer who pays either way, in higher product prices.
No. It is very unlikely that your toilet paper is made from anything recycled. It’s possible that it couldbe made from recycled toilet paper that never left the factory and was reused therein, but like I said…they need really high grade stuff to make quality buttwipes. It is possible that some of it is post-production waste, but definitely not post-consumer waste.
Usually it needs to be virgin wood pulp. I worked in the recycling industry for a while and my job took me behind the curtains at a lot of places. One of them was called “cascade tissue” in the Pennsylvania pocono region. They make paper towels and toilet paper. Really neat process! Also in Philadelphia there is the Kimberly Clarke plant, they make lots of towel-type products. They also mentioned how the stuff that they get rid of can’t be used for their in-house products, it’s gotta get shipped off to another plant which makes cheaper paper towels than whatever they were making there at the time.
It has something to do with the way the fibers break down during the process of making the product. Once you make the paper, then re-pulp the paper, the fibers get shorter, or rougher, or weaker; basically meaning that they can’t be used for toilet paper because in order to get that soft plushy feeling the fibers need to be really long and strong and untainted by chemicals or dyes. You will never be wiping your butt with old cereal boxes.
ETA: On quick re-read of my post…I suppose you may wipe your butt with old cereal boxes. Stranger things have happened in this world. But it will not likely be without your knowledge.
So you’re saying that the label indicating 80% post-consumer waste is lying?
ETA: Based on your comment about it not happening without my knowledge, I wonder if you misunderstood my previous post. It wouldn’t be hard to do; it wasn’t a marvel of clarity. I buy toilet paper with a label that indicates that is 100% recycled and made from 80% post-consumer waste. It’s not Charmin, but it’s plenty soft for me. Of course, I used Scott for years.
This reminds me that a few years ago Interpol was on the trail of a bizarre master criminal who was connected to dozens of crimes in Europe by forensic evidence collected at the crime scenes. Murders, muggings, thefts, crimes of all types that seemed to have no pattern, yet the DNA of the perpetrator was found in every case.
It turned out that CSI investigators in several countries were using non-sterile swabs made at the same factory for their sample collection, and the “master criminal” turned out to be someone on the production line. Here is the Wiki page about it.
How this might relate to human health, I’m not sure. I don’t think DNA contamination necessarily means that some form of dangerous pathogens might be transferred, but it’s suggestive that it is a possibility – some viral DNA or spores that could be dormant until introduced into a wound. I don’t particularly like the idea of rubbing someone else’s DNA into my weeping open sores.
We’re arguing two different positions. I may have been reading too much into TheBori’s post.
What mnemosyne posts - have government set standards and enforce. Audit periodically. Testing can be done by a private lab, as long as it meets all standards and audits. This I’m OK with, as long as the government is vigilant and neutral.
What I interpreted TheBori’s post as - any government regulation is bad.
So if I misinterpreted you, TheBori, I apologize. And mnemosyne - yeah, that system could work, IMO.
But my point still stands - It is asinine to expect corporations to police themselves. They exist to make money. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just is. But that central aim means they will almost never make unbiased decisions on consumer safety, environmental sustainability and overall societal good. They’re in this game to make money.
That’s one reason why government, as popular as it is to hate, needs to exist. And it’s good that it exists.
We are exposed to the same level of contamination every day, when we shake hands, turn door knobs, or use new clothing or linens without washing them first.
I am, however, appalled that the investigators would use non-sterile swabs. What bean-counting nit-wit made that call?
I see that the swabs were purported to be sterile. My error
