this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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We need more alternatives to plastic, not the same number or fewer. Why wouldn't we make sustainable materials from waste streams to replace the environmentally harmful ones that we banned ten years ago? Your preferences are one person's preferences. You're free to continue using apricot scrubs and baby oil, nobody's trying to take them away from you. However, I would really like to find an environmentally sound, no-fossil-source, physical exfoliant with greater uniformity than the ones you like. (As an aside, milled pits, seeds, and shells (like nut shells) aren't good exfoliants for human skin. They're effective scrubbers, but the milling process leaves a lot of points and jagged edges in the resulting product which causes small tears in the skin barrier, reducing its ability to keep your insides safe from the outside.)
It kind of sounds like you're neglecting the need for continuing innovation in materials science and engineering. We're not just talking about replacing the horrific plastic microbeads in cosmetics, we're talking about doing the work to develop entirely new materials that could potentially be used across a wide range of industries. Relying on pits and shells is definitely not the way forward here when we could be developing replacements for plastic wrap and styrofoam using stuff like food waste, fungi, and seaweeds.