The Jordan Harbinger Show - 890: Bioplastics | Skeptical Sunday

Episode Date: September 3, 2023

On this Skeptical Sunday, comedian Michael Regilio joins us to discuss the pros and cons of bioplastics and the importance of responsible plastic use. On This Week's Skeptical Sunday, We Discuss: Plastic pollution, especially single-use plastic, is a significant environmental issue, with 40 percent of all plastic produced being single-use plastic packaging. Bioplastics, made from renewable sources like plants and algae, are seen as a potential solution to the plastic problem, but come with their own challenges. Biodegradable and compostable plastics, often labeled as such, may not always live up to their claims and can end up in landfills, where they release harmful greenhouse gases. Harvesting algae from excessive algal waterways and using it to create biodegradable products, like flip-flops and packaging materials, is a promising and eco-friendly approach. To help address the plastic problem, individuals can reduce their single-use plastic consumption, properly recycle plastic materials, and support initiatives that promote sustainable alternatives like algae-based products and responsible waste disposal. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [e-mail] and let him know! Connect with Michael Regilio at his website, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, and make sure to check out the Michael Regilio Plagues Well With Others podcast here or wherever you enjoy listening to fine podcasts! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/890 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Have you ever had a moment where you think, man, someone should really do something about this? Then you realize, maybe that someone is you. Well, with the help of GoFundMe, you can change someone's life. You could start a GoFund me to help a friend pay for school, fund that new community space, or help a local kid finally get to that national competition. I've seen this myself. Last year, a friend of mine launched a GoFund me to help with medical bills after an unexpected surgery. It was incredible how fast the support rolled in.

People want to help. They just need a way to do it. And GoFundMe makes it easy. So do you have a dream, a person, or a cause in your life that could use some support? Don't wait for someone else to bring change. You can be the one who makes a difference. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com. That's gofundme.com. Gofundme.com. Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. And during the week, we have long-formed conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. On Sundays, though, we do Skeptical Sunday. We're a rotating guest. We're a rotating guest. co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about, and debunk common misconceptions on that topic.

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started. Today, plastics. They clog up our oceans and waterways. We've done a couple episodes on these. They pollute the air. They infect our bodies. They take hundreds of years to break down in some cases. To get rid of plastics, we've tried burying them, burning them, recycling them. But plastics remain a problem. One solution being developed is bioplastics, which are produced from plants rather than oil, but are bioplastics the answer to the plastic problem, or are they just a plant-based band-aid? Today, comedian Michael Rogilio joins me to break down some bioplastics. Hey, Jordan. I'm sure you remember the 1967 film, The Graduate? Somehow I knew you'd bring that up. Yes, of course, the film is known for two classic lines. Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me, and

plastics! Right. And the plastics line comes from when Dustin Hoffman's character is being offered career advice from one of his parents' friends. And as I was thinking about it, the friend was right. Anyone starting a career in plastics in 1967 would have made a killing. Plastics literally took over the world. Do me a favor. Take a quick look around your studio and tell me how much plastic you see. Other than this wooden desk, which was actually really hard to get made for me, there's not an area where I don't see plastic. Yeah, and that tracks. The world has produced over nine billion tons of plastic since the 1950s. We produced 242 million metric tons of it a year. 165 million tons of it have littered our oceans and almost 9 million new tons of plastic enter the oceans every year.

Gross. Shockingly, 40% of this plastic is single-use plastic packaging. People are hooked on plastic. Yeah, it's disgusting. Every time I order food, I'm always like, no, you tend to But it doesn't matter because then it comes in a plastic bag and then the food thing is in plastic. And then there's a little sauce thing and that's plastic. It's unavoidably disgusting. You basically have to pull food out of your garden to avoid plastic. Even then you're probably eating plastic that's in the air or in the dirt. I'm always also struck.

You ever watch Like Naked and Afraid? Love it. Of course you do. Yeah, they go to the most remote places on Earth. By the way, if you haven't seen that show, it's where they send somebody who's really arrogant about how much they know about survival, and they put them in a place where you absolutely have no chance of getting by unscathed. And they'll take the pastiest, tough talking white dude, and they'll put him in a place near the equator that has sunlight for 18 hours a day, then just blasts you with UV,

and they're like, all right, and oh, and they're naked. They're actually butt naked. And within six hours, the guy's got sunburned so bad, he can't move. My point is, I'm always struck when I watch these, right? Because they go to these really remote places in Ecuador, the jungle, or whatever, and there's still plastic crap lining the beach where no human other than this production crew and the location scout has been for 10 years. Plastic is literally freaking everywhere. Yeah. For a long time, we were told that of all the plastic produced, only 9% of it is recycled. Right, which is a depressingly small number. Well, if you think that's depressing, wait till you hear this. A report from the advocacy group beyond plastics found that the correct number

is even lower. The true number is closer to five or six percent. Oh, man, that's hard to wrap my head around since recycling plants and these recycling programs. They seem so ubiquitous. And most people I know recycle. I can tell because I walked through my neighborhood and the bins are overflowing. Yeah, me too. But this is why this is hard to say. But we've been dup, man. The recycling movement is unfortunately, mostly bullshit. Going all the way back to the 70s, internal documents show that the plastic industry knew that recycling was not a viable solution to the plastic problem. In a nutshell, the only problem recycling has solved was the problem the plastic industry had of how do we get people to keep buying plastic? We did an episode on plastic. I think it was like

episode 650 or something like that. I got to look it up. But basically, recycling turned out to just be busy work assigned by the plastic industry. Yeah. It's like how the crying Indian and those famous environmental ads from the 70s was actually an Italian dude. Right. That's sad and hilarious. It's true. The actual organization behind the recycling ads for the 90s was the plastic industry itself. Companies like Exxon, Chevron, Dow and DuPont paid for those ads. Companies not exactly known for being stalwarts of the environmental movement. I'm sorry to say, but we've had the plastic wool pulled over our eyes. As a child of the 90s and 80s for that matter, I feel betrayed. Next, you're going to tell me the people on friends were not actually friends. No, Jordan, that was real. Rachel and Ross are happily married somewhere.

Thank God for that. It's funny that you should say that, because just like how a bad sitcom gets less funny each time you watch it, every time we recycle plastic, it also degrades. It can only be recycled once or twice. Even if we recycled 100% of all plastic, the absolute best we could do, would be to slow the plastication of the planet. I know we're not really talking about this, but I do have to say something about the sitcom thing. When you rewatch stuff like friends, you realize the acting is so terrible. Yeah. And those people made so much money doing that. And look, the show was

popular, but it's the writers should have made a bunch of money. I hope they did, but I don't think they made as much as the actors. The actors really did, I want to say less than half the work, because the writing is actually quite corny, but also really good. especially for the time, but the acting, it was bad then and it's much worse now, now that we're old enough to know what good acting looks like and not just care about the jokes. You need the lightning in the bottle, and as long as you mentioned sitcoms, I'll say that the original lightning in a bottle was Mary Tyler Moore Show. Perfect cast, perfect writing.

Anyone hasn't watched it? Highly recommend. I've only barely heard of that. You're like a 60-year-old woman trapped in the body of a 30-something-year-old man. I don't know. We don't have to go to. So, obviously, we need a better solution than recycling. And I do want to bring up a PSA here and mention that you can recycle single-use plastic bags

and other plastic wrapping at many stores. Most targets, grocery stores, they'll take the stuff. And it's used actually in manufacturing, more permanent things. I want to save roofing. There's something that they make that's used in building, I think. And we got a lot of feedback about this in our Skeptical Sunday episode on recycling, which, by the way, was episode 680. So don't toss out that single-use stuff.

Pack it in another bag, because you know you have a gazillion bags anyway. and bring it back because last time I said, oh, you can't recycle that stuff. You can't recycle it in the recycling bin, but it can be recycled by a company that then turns around and makes a profit off of it, which is actually a good thing because then it's not just like tax dollars recycling cardboard at a loss. It's something that is actually useful. I need to mention this more on this show. Yeah. Thank you for that. That is a good option. And another option that people are getting into right now you're seeing it everywhere is bioplastics and biodegradable plastics. It's weird because it sounds like the solution to plastic is more plastic, which checks out.

The fact of the matter is humans are into plastic. And by the way, plastic is into us. Literally, I gave across this while researching this episode. Each one of us consumes about five grams of microplastic a week. That is hard to believe because that's about a spoonful of plastic every week. That's still maybe better than the credit card of plastic that we're supposedly eating every day or whatever statistic. I've seen that in other places. That one's unbelievable, but it's still disgusting. Huh, I didn't come across that one, but this does remind me of that Mary Poppins song. A spoonful of plastic helps the medicine industry because we're all sick from plastic. I strangely remember that song differently, but again, you're the 60-year-old woman in a younger

man's body, so maybe you're on it. Yeah, you want some dated references. Here's one. According to the Saturday morning cartoons I watched as a kid, plastic man was supposed to be a superhero. But in reality, we're all plastic men and plastic women. And I got news for you, man. It ain't making a super. You don't ever disappoint with the dated references. I'll give you that. But now we're talking about bioplastic and biodegradable plastic. Are those different things? Short answer, yes. Alternative short answer. No. Okay. Confusing as usual. That's because it is confusing. Let's start by defining our terms. Bioplastic is called bioplastic because it's derived from plants like potatoes, cassava, and sugar cake instead of petroleum. Okay, right off the bat, that sounds like an improvement

because, I don't know, oil bad, plants good or something. Yeah, that is a good starting point. There are two main types of bioplastics. PLA or polylactic acid is made from the sugars in plants like the ones I just mentioned. and this is crazy. And because we make this kind of plastic from sugars, technically, it's edible. Apparently being inedible doesn't actually stop us from eating the other kind of plastic. So I shudder to think where this is going right now. I think it could be cool, man. I want to come over to my house for dinner.

We're going to be having a brazed shopping bag and a couple of water bottles over rice. Hard pass, but I don't really have a choice, right? Because we're eating it whether we know we're eating it or not. To make this kind of plastic, PLA, I almost said we, but I'm not a scientist and I will never be a scientist. They immerse corn kernels in sulfur dioxide and hot water, which breaks it down into protein and starch. Okay, sounds edible so far. Yeah. And then the next step is some citric acid is then mixed in or I guess...

It's actually, this all sounds fully edible. Keep going. Maybe instead of mixed in, it's drizzled in. And soon enough, you've got a bioplastic. Yeah. The other kind is PHA or polyhydroxyalkanote. This is made by microorganisms, which are sometimes genetically engineered. And as near as I can tell, PHA is not edible, or at least it didn't really taste like it to me.

That is a tongue twister, polyhydroxy alkanowate, maybe. I don't know, I'm looking at the word right now. Not easy, not easy. I don't know. If it's not edible, is it possible you were just preparing it wrong? Try the suvied method first, get it really tender. Sounds good, man. Look, the fact of the matter is,

bioplastics are big business. It's projected that the global bioplastic market will grow to almost 44 billion. And bioplastics are used in packaging, straws, bags, bottles, harpet, plastic piping, phone casings, 3D printing, car insulation, and medical implants.

I'm actually surprised more things are not made from these newfangled bioplastics then? One thing holding it back is cost. Bioplastics are expensive. Okay. They can be 20 to 50% more costly than petroleum-based plastics. And for the record,

bioplastics are not new. One of the earliest man-made bioplastics is celluloid, and it was developed in the 1860s. 1860s? So we're talking Civil War, Abraham Lincoln presidency, bioplastics way back then?

Yeah, man-made bioplastics. bioplastics date back to the 1860s. Nature made bioplastics way earlier than that. The word plastic, technically, just comes from the Greek and it means moldable. In a sense, there have always been plastic materials in nature like amber and rubber. But the first man-made bioplastic was celluloid, and it launched the modern age of man-made plastics. There was a time when women wore celluloid jewelry and had celluloid hair combs, cellular toilet sets. Celluloid toilet sets. were once all the rage. And there was a time when you were a real somebody if you had a bunch of plastic crap. I mean, it's the same today, except the plastic crap is on your face and implanted into

various parts of your body. That's true, man. And it wasn't just the 1860s, by the way, that people were working with bioplastics. Believe it or not, Ford once made a car made from bioplastic derived from soybeans. Wow. Sounds like a vegan car. Ford, if you're listening, you might want to bring that one back. I know for a fact that some of my friends would shell out. big bucks for that. I think producer Gabriel Mizrahi would love himself a biodegradable car. Yeah. Oh, actually, that's not necessarily true. This also shocked me to learn. Many bioplastics that, although made from plants, are not biodegradable. From a chemical bond perspective, some bioplastics are identical to the plastics made from oil. That's surprising. So oil bad,

plant also bad too, then, from what it sounds like. Okay, to quote, run DMC, It's tricky. Man, you love a good dated reference. Wow. Okay, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit here that I actually thought that one was going to be kind of hip. No, that was not hip. No, I'm going to keep swinging for a hip reference. Look, take ethylene, which is dry from oil. It's turned into a long chain of carbon to become polyethylene or PE.

Now take a bio-based plastic like one made from ethanol. You can make the exact same long carbon chain out of it. The chemical bond is exactly the same. About 45% of bioplastics produced today are not biodegradable. So not biodegradable seems to defeat the purpose of bioplastic, or am I missing something? No, in my opinion, definitely. This is actually equally crazy. Some plastics made from oil are biodegradable. So this is really confusing. So it depends on what they're made out of, but what they're made out of then does not necessarily dictate if they biodegrade or not. Look, this is just me, but I believe that just like recycling, this is meant to be confusing. The term biodegradable basically means nothing. Technically, all plastic is biodegradable.

It just takes a really long time to biodegrade. Some plastics have been treated to biodegrade faster than others, but a styrofoam cup biodegrades, it just takes 500 years or so. But technically, styrofoam is biodegradable. So then everything at that level that is biodegradable, over a long enough period of time. But that's not what we're talking about, right? We're talking about the plastic products you find in stores labeled biodegradable. That has to mean something, right? Look, the label biodegradable is different, but in my opinion, it is equally confusing.

So I looked it up. Here's what the EPA says about it on their website. Quote, the term biodegradable when used for marketing purposes, includes a time component regarding the length of time it takes for the plastic to fully degrade. You know what else will never break down? Your love for the fine products and services that support this show. This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation?

Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy mad yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies. An interesting episode to checkout is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening.

It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiruality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics. Find Conspiruality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our sponsors keeps us going. All deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at Jordan Harbinger.com

slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the AI chatbot on the website as well. please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. Okay, so far so good, right? The label biodegradable is in reference to how long it takes to biodegrade. Okay, I get that. That's what everybody expects it to freaking mean.

This is where it gets confusing. The EPA continues, quote, according to the Federal Trade Commission's Green Guides, it is deceptive to make an unqualified degradable claim for items entering the solid waste stream if the items do not completely decompose within one year after customary disposal. Now, this is where it gets confusing. Let me ask you, what do you think they mean by customary disposal?

I mean, that's what you do with garbage, right? You throw it in the trash can or the recycling bin. That's customary disposal. That's exactly what I would have thought. But let's keep reading from the EPA's website. Quote, unqualified gradable claims for items that are customarily disposed in landfills, i.e. the trash, incinerators, the trash, and recycling facilities, the recycling bin, are deceptive because

these locations do not present conditions in which complete decomposition will occur within one year. Wait, what? So they're like, oh, yeah, if you throw it away, it'll bio-degrade within one year. Oh, yeah, but not if you throw it to the garbage of the recycling bin. What am I supposed to to do, dig a hole in my backyard? I don't understand. Yeah, yeah, it's super confusing. And here's where we get into the difference between compostable and biodegradable. Ah, okay. Let's just keep reading from the EPA, because this is really interesting. Okay, the EPA's website goes on and it says, quote, plastic that is compostable is biodegradable, but not every plastic that is biodegradable is compostable. Okay, so we're still talking about what to do

with the plastic bottles we get at the store, right, essentially? Yeah, I suppose so, but it's getting very confusing. The EPA goes on. Let's keep reading. Quote, whereas biodegradable plastic may be engineered to biodegrade in soil or water, compostable plastic refers to biodegradation into soil conditioning material, i.e. compost under a certain set of conditions. If I'm translating that bowl of word soup correctly, biodegradable plastic must be disposed of in soil.

or water, but it cannot go to a landfill and it cannot go to a recycling plant. That's what Uncle Sam says. Which is ridiculous because who the hell is going to be like, oh, these have the little symbol on the back. I'm going to put it in my plastic landfill that I have in my backyard. That just makes absolutely no sense. So the problem with plastic is plastic. So who the hell disposes of plastic in soil or water?

I am not, there's nobody on earth that I know of that has. has a proper way to dispose of these biodegradable plastics. And I just assumed that if I have it and I throw it away, it biodegrades in a landfill. I feel like that's what they want you to think. Like, oh, it's this bioplastic. I'm just going to chuck this out and it's going to be fine. Yeah. The fact of the matter is the water one makes a little bit of sense because a whole bunch of plastic does end up in the oceans. Forget it. No, you're right. Problem with plastic is plastic. So then what about compostable plastic? That stuff is now everywhere, especially here in California. I really thought, oh, you can just throw this anywhere and it's fine.

Many eco-conscious restaurants are using it for their takeout food now. Let's say you get a big meal delivered to your home, and after a delicious meal, you're left with a bunch of compostable plastic. What do you do? Something tells me I'm going to be wrong here, but whatever. Okay, I throw it in the composter, which I never do, by the way. You would, of course, be wrong. So don't throw compostable plastic into the compost.

What the hell? These terms biodegradable and compostable are theoretical terms. They only apply under very specific conditions. And when it comes to compostable plastic, the term only applies when it is composted in an industrial composting facility. Industrial composting facilities use microorganisms, heat, and humidity to break down stuff and turn it into compost. Okay, so it has to go to an industrial composting facility. I'm not really sure where one is. I remember back in Michigan, when I cut the grass and dumped it into cans before we had mulching mowers, he had to put these big stickers that would say composted, and a different

truck would come by and get all the grass clippings. I assume they took it to one of these places, but I guess I didn't really know that those separate facilities existed until 10 seconds ago. Yeah, and that's because there are just around 185 full-scale composting sites in the U.S. that can process compostable plastic. For comparison, there's around 3,000 dumps. It's a huge country, and that's not a lot of facilities. That's what, like three per state, give or take? The odds of one being near you are not good. Well, let me throw this at you. And of those 185 composting sites that technically can compost bioplastics, only around 50% of them accept compostable plastics. That doesn't even make sense. Isn't that the whole point of the

facility to accept compostable stuff? Yes. But the problem is compostable plastic looks just like regular plastic and most facilities just don't want to deal with the headache of trying to figure out what's what. As a result, most compostable plastic doesn't end up being composted. That's so annoying. You'd think they would just all throw it in the dissolving thing and the stuff that's left over is the real plastic and the liquid is the compostable stuff.

You're welcome. All right. So what happens to it? They just freaking chuck it out, don't they? It ends up in the trash and the recycling bin. So you mean the places the EPA says that you're not supposed to put it in the first place? Yes. Plus, compostable plastic that ends up at the recycling plant

can contaminate entire batches of plastic because compostable plastic can't be recycled and the entire batch ends up in a landfill. This is actually infuriating. So the whole point of recycling and composting is to keep plastic out of the landfill and that's just not happening at all. And plus, since we're only recycling,

would you say 6% of plastic to begin with, we really can't afford to be tossing out entire batches of plastic that's meant to be recycled in the first place. God, this is so depressing, man. And there's one more thing. There always is. In a landfill, compostable plastic, unlike regular plastic, releases methane, which is a greenhouse gas,

23 times more potent than carbon dioxide. So if you're not meticulous in your disposal of the bioplastic you bought, and I don't even know how you would do this, what are you going to do, like save every bioplastic compostable thing and put it in a box and then every three months drive to this facility that might not even be there and be like, hey, do you take this? And when they say, no, you turn around and go home with it? I mean, so stupid. So this stuff that you bought, to try to dispose of properly, you're essentially just adding to the climate change problem no matter what. It seems so complicated that you shouldn't even try to recycle these. You should just stick with regular freaking plastic that can be recycled instead of going the bio route.

I can't say for sure. I went to a bunch of TikTok videos of environmentally conscious TikTokers, and they're pretty much all over it. When I say over it, they're overcompostable plastic. They're like, I'm not doing it. I'm not buying this stuff anymore. I don't know what the exact science behind this was, but this one TikToker took Composable Plastic, and I don't know how she got it out of an industrial compostable facility, but she was able to get some out six months later, and it wasn't really that broken down. It's so confusing. And now we know that if it ends up in a landfill, it releases the greenhouse gases. Worse for the environment than actual plastic, regular as oil-based plastic. I don't want to say that, but it's still really problematic.

Plus, researchers at the University of Plymouth in the UK put biodegradable plastic and compostable plastic to the test and found that they didn't really meet their claims. A biodegradable plastic bag that was buried in soil for three years could still hold a load of groceries. Oh, man. So biodegradable my ass, basically, is what it sounds like. Yeah. The compostable bag fared better, though. It completely disappeared after only three months. Score one, at least for compostable bag.

Three months of being submerged in seawater, that is. The compostable bag that was buried in soil was still present after three years, but could no longer hold a bunch of groceries. So if you can't get to one of the very few industrial composting sites that actually take compostable plastic, you just throw it in the freaking ocean. I hate this idea. I hate it. Look, don't throw anything in the ocean.

I say if you think these new developments in plastic have solved our plastic problem, throw out that notion. Okay, clever. And it rhymed. That was relatively impressive. Thank you. And by the way, this is really important research when you account for the fact that five trillion plastic bags are produced each year. Oh my God, I had no idea it was that many. If you laid out one year's worth of plastic bags, they'd encircle the earth seven times. And that's just one year. So it's really important to know that bioplastics are not all they're cracked up to be. But bioplastic must be better in some ways because it's plant-based, or I feel like I'm just missing the point on this?

I mean, if you take the whole fossil fuel element out of the production of plastic, is that somewhere along the supply chain better for the planet at all? I hate to be an old man, but cue the run DMC again because it's tricky. Okay. Bioplastic production produces more pollutants than plastics made from fossil fuels because of both the fertilizers and pesticides used in raising the crops and the chemicals used to turn organic material into plastic. Bioplastic production also leads to more ozone depletion

than petroleum-based plastics and bioplastic production uses valuable farmland that we could be using to grow, you know, food. All right, I agree with this one. Q that run DMC. You are not wrong. That is tricky. It's hard to wrap your mind around this. We're really trying to end run the use of fossil fields.

and you just end up doing way more harm than good. And I'm also like, we need to find alternative energy, but it sounds like this is one of those things where the current method we have is maybe the best one, even though it's still gross. You're kind of right, but my takeaway is that it's just more complex than any black and white framing.

Look, on the plus side for bioplastics, a 2017 study stated that by a switching from oil-based plastics to corn-based plastics would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 25%. But is that assuming they don't end up in a landfill? Yeah. And plus there's other issues at play. I'm going to botch this name, but a scientist named Klaus Hubach. Check, I think, probably. Hubachek. He co-authored a study that looked at the land water and carbon footprint of bioplastics and found that to replace just the plastic packaging the world uses with bioplastics would require more than half the world's corn production. And that's probably not going to happen. I'm not convinced bioplastics are the silver bullets. Some people had hoped they would.

be some people like me right before recording this podcast. I was really hoping that this was going to be one of those like, these are great and they do so much. But the problem is they're more expensive and we need to adopt these, but this is not the direction this conversation took at all. But the fact of the matter is, in my opinion, just like with renewable energies, these are steps in the right direction. We have to get off of the fossil fuel for everything with the planet. Getting off petroleum-based plastics is important. And the notion of making sense, stuff out of plant-based products is a good one. In fact, I discovered some really cool stuff when I was researching this episode. There's real strides being made in solving the problems of flip-flops.

Problems with flip-flops, like the shoes? You mean the problem other than making it so you can't go to the freaking store without seeing people's mangled, ugly-ass feet everywhere? Yeah. There are people on airplanes who wear flip-flops and you can smell their feet and you're on like a four-hour flight. That's the problem with flip-flops. That's crazy. I've not come across that. You need to fly united, my man. I guess so. Yeah. The fact that it's a pressurized cabin that you could smell anything in there. I mean, that air is just being recycled so constantly. That's a good point. That makes it extra gross. Yeah, those are some smelly ass feet. Look, I hear you. And more to the point, I see your point. Flipflops are

everywhere. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that flipflops are the most popular footwear in the world. And clearly not because they make your feet look good. So it's because they're so damn cheap, right. Bingo, yes. Well, that's all of it. Cheap to say the very least. On average, there are about three bucks for the cheap-o flip-flops. Anything else that cheap, people feel free to discard them all the time and everywhere. Yeah, I've definitely seen a lot of flip-flops on the beach. And the more sort of east or more island-y you get, the more flip-flops there seem to be on any given beach that you can tell have been there for months or possibly years. Yeah. In fact, flip-flops are the most common pieces of marine debris found on beaches. And the numbers

are actually staggering. Some estimates state that over 200 million flip-flops are discarded globally each year. The nonprofit environmental group Oceans, Seoul, estimates that 90 tons of flip-flops are discarded on the beaches of East Africa each year alone, just East Africa. You know, it's better than algae.

According to Michael Rogelio, absolutely nothing. But a close second is the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Once again, thank you for listening to and supporting the show, all the deals are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. And if you need a promo code, look it up on the deals page or even email me if you're lazy.

I'll look it up for you. And I'll send it right over. It's that important for you to use those codes. It really is. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. Are people just going to the beach taking their flip-flops off and being like, screw it, I'm staying barefoot and I'm leaving these here? I guess I'm confused at how they all end up at the beach.

Is it they get dumped into the ocean because they're trash? and they float and it's other garbage sinks or whatever and then they float to the beach. I'm so confused about this. Anyway, I see the problem, but I'm just not sure what this has to do with bioplastics. Flip-flops are so cheap because they're typically made from ethylene vinyl acetate. That is to say, old-school, low-grade, crappy fossil fuel-derived bad for the environment stuff. That sounds like a very technical term to explain it. Yeah, I know what you're talking about, though.

Those are the kind of things you see when you have like a pair of disposable shower shoes that you're supposed to wear. just a few times because you're at the YMCA or something. And the third time you wear them, the toe thing pops off and they're not usable anymore. Yeah, exactly. But in developing countries, this is for a lot of people the best shoes they can afford. So that's why they're the most popular shoes in the world. I'm guessing. And it's just a reality. And that's why it's actually really exciting that researchers are working on biodegradable flip-flop foam made from algae. And I've got news for you, Jordan. Algae? It's very exciting. Okay. That's not a sentiment. I'm heard before, but I do like saying flip-flap foam. All right, fill me in. What is so exciting about

algae because it doesn't really make my top 10 list of exciting things. I hope there's a new scientific development here. It's about to make your top 10 list. Look, algae grows 10 times faster than terrestrial plants. So cultivation is super fast. Algae cultivation uses less than 10% of the land of terrestrial plants. So it grows in the water. So I don't know if that's fair, but fine. Kiss those land use issues by. Algae doesn't use pesticides. So that other issue with bioplastics is gone. And here's the crazy part.

Even though algae does grow in the water, like you just said, algae cultivation requires less water than land crops. I'm telling you, man, I'm becoming a real algae head here. That is not surprising that you're becoming an algae head, but it is surprising that it requires less water because it literally grows on and in the water. You'd think it would take a ton of water. That part I don't understand.

Yeah. These are the statistics. that I came across, and I'm not done yet. The algae-based flip-flops that are being developed fully decompose. That's pretty good. These are actual biodegradable, compostable. In development. Okay. Oh, got it. Okay. Wait, there's more. And one doesn't have to farm algae at all. Some companies are harvesting algae from algal excessive waterways like the Mississippi River. You just wanted to say algal excessive waterways. Hey, if you're going to be an algae head, you got to know the lingo, man. Here's the super-quoise.

Cool part, deforestation, intensive agriculture, and wastewater treatment are feeding our waterways with a nutrient feast perfect for algae to flourish and bloom. I'm guessing as an algae head, you think that's a good thing? No, of course not. Excessive algae has harmful side effects like oxygen depletion of water and blocking sunlight from other organisms. This causes the death of wildlife as well as it pollutes drinking water. That's a problem.

But here's the thing. You don't need to cultivate algae at all. Companies are now turning this problem into a solution by harvesting the algae from these waterways that already have way too much algae. So that is pretty cool. And I suppose that makes sense. This is kind of weird, but I used to play with algae as a kid up at our cottage and pull tons of it out of the water. And sometimes I would wring it out and dry it.

And it's very fibrous and hard once it's dry. And we would light it on fire or something like that, of course. And I can see this making sense, honestly, because if you dry this stuff out or not completely dry it out, it is tough as nails. You can't just grab a handful of it and pull it apart. It's really like trying to rip some very size. solid, if not a little bit gross and slimy fabric. Welcome to the club, man.

Sounds like you're an algae head yourself. Sounds like I just missed it, yeah. In addition, it's actually the naturally occurring oils that they can use in the same way that they're using the oils from petroleum and from corn. Oh, I see. Yeah, and there's this company Bloom. They have a machine that sucks water out of waterways with a filter that keeps fish and wildlife out. The machine filters 175 gallons of water per minute and harvest 300 pounds of algae a day.

and that's just one machine. Imagine what an entire fleet of these machines could do. We could build an entire algae world, Jordan. Well, you are all in with algae. What was that you said earlier? Oil, bad, plants good. Algae is a very good plant. It's funny because I remember how much of a thing algae was.

Like, oh, there's algae blooms, and the fertilizer is running off and creating these algae blooms and it's killing all the wildlife and there's nothing we can do about it. And now it's like, actually, we can make shoes and plastic. Now they're going to be pumping fertilizer into random bodies of water so that they can harvest more algae. Please no, don't do that.

Don't give anybody any ideas. We probably shouldn't do that, yeah. Green slime to the rescue. I guess Nickelodeon was on to something. Look, this is all new technology. It needs to be scaled, like, way, way up. But it is exciting. Is there any other promising stuff?

Because we've done a pretty good job of being super freaking depressing on this episode. Okay, yeah. Group from Columbia University is developing a way to produce biodegradable plastic from wastewater and solid waste. Oh, solid waste. It sounds like you mean, yeah. Jordan, I mean poop. Okay. The group is working on making plastic from our poop. It's the ultimate recycle. We buy food wrapped in plastic, eat the food, then turn it into plastic to wrap our future food. I don't like that at all. But something tells you they're going to have a marketing problem with that kind of plastic. Yeah.

Okay, so there's also a company in California, full cycle bioplastics, which is producing bioplastics from food waste, crop residue like stocks and an edible leaves, and unrecycled paper and cardboard. Their bioplastic is not only biodegradable, but if it ends up in the ocean, it's edible and the fish can eat it.

Since we know that fish are already eating the plastic in the ocean anyway, it is more accurate to say that the fish are eating it and then not dying as a result. True. Yeah. And there's also a Pennsylvania-based company called Ren Matrix that is using woody biomass, energy grasses, and crop residues at Stanford University. Researchers are transforming methane gas from wastewater treatment plants and landfills into bioplastic. Don't ask me about that wastewater treatment plants. I think it might be more poop.

Yeah. Well, luckily, there's never going to be a poop shortage. These do seem to be pretty good solutions. I just can't help but think that since you've said that 40% of all plastic produced is singly use plastic packaging. Isn't one solution to just stop wrapping every gosh darn thing in plastic, biodegradable, or not? Yes. And there's some exciting research going on there as well. How could it be more exciting than algae, but Giulio? You never forget your first love, Jordan, but surprise, a Japanese company is making non-plastic packaging material made from that greatest of all plants, algae, in this case, red algae. And I don't mean communist algae. Yeah, literally no one thought that you meant communist algae. Another positive development is the U.S. Department of Agriculture

is developing a biodegradable and edible film from the milk protein kazine to wrap food in. This new film is 500 times better at keeping food fresh than plastic wrap. So that all sounds pretty good. Actually, it sounds really good because if it's just a milk protein and it's even better at keeping food fresh than plastic wrap, that's actually really amazing, 500 times better. Because I look at plastic and I think nothing can get through this. It's plastic. And if something is 500 times better than that, I can't really wrap my head around that. But that all sounds really good. I can't help but think that part of the really big problem here, it's not the plastic, it's us, right? Everything's wrapped in plastic. When faced with the problem of plastic, it sounds like we're just

racing to find something else to wrap everything in and use once and then throw away. And I'm sure the people who first developed petroleum-based plastic, they weren't thinking about the plastic world they'd create. They were thinking of industrial uses. Since it's not metal, it's not going to rust. And since it's not wood, it's not going to rot. They weren't thinking like, oh, yeah, they're going to look at this. It's going to be handed from one person to another person who's going to immediately take the plastic off of it and throw it away three minutes later. Yeah. The whole idea of how we use plastics is wrong. Why do we need to take a chance for some unforeseen problem with products made from freaking algae? Hey, hey, watch it. Look, I know you're in algae file.

or whatever. But I'm just saying rather than find something new, it seems like we really need to make a hard right turn and find a new way to do things with keeping things fresh and whatnot. Yeah, that's a really solid point. In fact, I was thinking about what you said about people going to the most remote places on Earth and there's still plastic crap on the beaches. I'm a little crazy, but I was imagining aliens visiting the long dead Earth sometime in the future, looking around and just like in the graduate uttering a single word to sum it all up, plastics. Yeah, I sure hope we never get to that, but you're right. It's like cockroaches in the nuclear holocaust. There's going to be cockroaches, plastic, and the ruins of skyscrapers and

giant bridges. That's all that's going to be left. Yeah, and it might be too late to leave the next generation the Earth better than we found it, but the least we can do is clean up some of the mess we left. Well said, I can at least plastic wrap my head around that. And once again, a reminder here, not all is lost. You can recycle plastic bags and other plastic wrapping, single-use plastic, et cetera, at many stores. Most target stores, a lot of grocery stores. They'll take that stuff. And it's used in manufacturing something more permanent, so don't toss out that stuff just because it doesn't go in the recycling bin. Bring it back. It does not solve our plastics problem, but it's one less bunch of plastic in a landfill. And God knows we have

a ton of that. Every week, I've got a whole bag full of that stuff, and I bet everybody else does too. always positive that we can reuse that stuff again. Thank you, Michael Regulio. Thank you for having me. And thank you for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes and skeptical Sunday to me at Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. Show notes on the website at Jordan Harbinger.com transcripts in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram or connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Michael Regulio at Michael Regelio on Instagram. Michael Regeliocomedyocomedy.com, and on our show notes, we'll link to it because nobody can spell

Regulio. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. You know, I could always just spell your name, but I'm never going to do that now. I'm never going to actually just spell it on there. My team is Jed Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others, Share the show with those you love, and if you found the episode useful, please do share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn,

and we'll see you next time. And don't forget to bring back your plastics. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show about how hormonal birth control can affect a woman's personality and even influence who they pick as a partner. They found that women who are on the birth control pill, rather than experiencing a big surge in the stress hormone cortisol in response to stressful things, they don't have any increase in cortisol at all.

It seems like something in the birth control pill is actually causing women's stress response to go into overdrive. And in fact, this sort of a pattern is something that we usually only see in the context of chronic stress. Right, so people who have, for example, PTSD, or people who, you know, grew up, in the context of trauma, this isn't normal. This isn't something that we see in otherwise healthy, high-functioning people.

Sex hormones have their fingers in so many pots in the body that they're going to be influencing our brain because there's probably no place in the body that has more receptors for sex hormones than the brain. Our sex hormones are part of what gives us, you know, our sort of joie de vivre. It's like part of what makes sense. life exciting and it turns the volume up and makes our whites whiter and our brights brighter in terms of our sort of experience of the world. We've been really, really cavalier about this

idea that we should change a person's personality and who they are and their experiences in the world so that way they don't have menstrual cramps. We don't yet know whether or not the birth control pill is influencing the way that women's brains are being organized and there's almost no research on this. It's like nobody's really stopped to ask the questions. To hear more from Dr. Sarah Hill about the problems with taking birth control, check out episode 280 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike

Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to

understand how people in the world really work itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.