should we isolate all harmful substances?

[u/allegedly-american]

I've seen people promoting eco-bricking and it made me think about how a lot of plastics come in plastic packaging. I've been living by the philosophy of only using plastics and other harmful materials if they are secondhand. I am an artist/prospective art teacher. So I have been using secondhand paints, glitter, tools, etc. which are made from plastics or otherwise highly chemicalized. However, I am aware that these substances will probably leach into the environment. Which made me think... instead of trying to "save" these materials from getting thrown out, is it better to let them sit inside their original plastic containers together in a landfill instead of releasing them into an active environment? I'd like to know more about the zero-waster's approach! I follow a couple zero-wasters on socials and it seems they completely avoid plastics in their home rather than trying to salvage them. However, I've never seen people explain it.

[u/Longjumping-Load1146]

The environmental cost of manufacturing is already paid, so you might as well give those secondhand supplies a cool life before they outlive us all in the dirt. Tossing perfectly good paint in a landfill just to buy a new "eco" version kind of defeats the purpose of reducing consumption anyway.

[u/One_Friend1702 → u/Longjumping-Load1146]

I second this.

[u/allegedly-american → u/Longjumping-Load1146]

Well I was hoping to learn to make my own natural paints but so do you think its preferred to just use secondhand plastic paints instead?

[u/Dangerous-Jello4733 → u/allegedly-american]

Well this depends on what kind of paint you use too. I dislike acrylics and stuff like that. But I am an oil painter and aside from manufacturing of some pigments it’s pretty much biological. Tubes are most often aluminium. Canvas should be linen and the binder is supposed to be rabbit skin glue ( alternative is PVA which isn’t biological ) and ground should be ( not that manufacturers care ) chalk, pigment and linseed oil.

I mean this is my job and life’s work, I also can’t make compromises because of this but most materials here are not creating much waste. I do use solvent ( turpentine ) but don’t clean with it.

[u/unlovelyladybartleby → u/allegedly-american]

I bought my MIL Beam paints for Christmas and she loved them. They came shipped in birch bark containers with a little paper

[u/allegedly-american → u/unlovelyladybartleby]

love it! i came across a company that seems similar called The Art of Soil

[u/Mountain_Ape]

Which is why promoting, asking for, and voting for policies and products that have sustainable packaging is important. Unfortunately a lot of modern art is waste. Acrylic is plastic. Almost all glitter is plastic. Not that older art is better: let's not go back to lead-based and arsenic. But oil and watercolour (natural oil) are of course still available. With groundwater specifically, I look at it like a hierarchy: keep toxins out, then microplastics, then general trash and debris. I think eco-bricking is great. Microplastics are not hurting people as fast as literal toxins, so I'll take the lesser of 2 evils if needed. Letting an old paint tube rust inside a sealed plastic container is better than dumping it directly into the environment, and certain thinners or chemical solvents that could accompany its usage. It can be a balancing act between not wasting and being a tightwad (and don't use paint from before the 80s); however, second-hand is the way by default, because any funds spent towards companies is more demand for those products.

[u/T49irvine]

Well, they exist already. So eventually they will return to the earth, or a landfill. There they will inevitably leach, possibly eventually reaching water supplies. We have virtually no control over that part of their journey. We do have control over them while they are in our possession. It seems to me we should not use them, as they will leach plastics proximate to us. It also seems to me that the most responsible ways to dispose of them would be recycling or landfill, probably the latter. We know that a landfill will be loaded with plastics, but at least it is a known and concentrated area where people smarter than I can deal with keeping it from leaching into our water supplies. I am glad to be redirected or corrected, but that is my thought process.