This Is Stupid Beyond Belief

Not every environmentalist is stupid, and many are trying to accomplish desirable goals. 

They aren’t the ones you hear about, and with good reason. Pursuing a reasonable policy rationally and persuasively isn’t particularly newsworthy. My father, for instance, has been deeply involved in efforts to find common ground between ranchers in the West and preservationists trying to protect every square inch of land and keep it pristine–an obviously dumb idea. 

It is a fool’s errand because almost all environmental activists are insane, but I admire his persistence. And, as he pointed out, there have been a few successful compromises over the years. And it warms my heart to see him get frustrated with the radical Leftists who are utterly unconcerned with the practicality or justice of their goals. 

For every sane environmentalist, there are a thousand insane ones. 

Climate Death cult to diabetics: Drop Deadhttps://t.co/X8G9EmbowY

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) February 26, 2024

If you have ever used an injectible medical device, you are familiar with how these disposables work. People with diabetes use disposable insulin injectors, for instance, and I have an EpiPen around because I am allergic to bees. I also use a bimonthly injectable drug to control my cholesterol. I just take it out of the fridge, let it warm to room temperature, and press the pen to my leg or stomach. 

Easy peasy. 

Environmentalists don’t like that. Because plastic. 

Single-use insulin pens changed Brian Brandell’s life.

Growing up with Type 1 diabetes in the 1970s, he had to carry glass syringes and vials of insulin wherever he went. So in 1985, when Novo Nordisk debuted a disposable prefilled pen that combined several doses of medication with a syringe, Dr. Brandell readily adopted the new device.

“They were a godsend,” he recalled.

But more recently, he began weighing the effects of all the plastic in the pens he had thrown away over the years, and the potential harm to people and his surroundings.

“I’m using this lifesaving product,” he said with frustration, “but in order for me to use it, I’ve got to be willing to damage the environment.”

If you want to freak people out about the vast amounts of plastic used in these products, you can easily do so. Anything manufactured in quantity can be described in tons, and tons of plastic are used in making these injection pens. But if you look at the issue in terms of how much plastic is used in these wonderful products compared to the world’s use of plastic in every product, they don’t even register as a rounding error. 

And insulin injectors aren’t showing up in turtles’ noses. 

Still, there are people obsessed enough with this non-issue that the New York Times did a long feature on their efforts to recycle this medical waste, and pharmaceutical companies are bowing to their demands. 

This is insane. Stupid beyond belief. 

Global biomedical giants are facing increasing public pressure to change the life cycle of their products. Novo Nordisk has said that it planned to redesign its products to meet a goal of net zero emissions by 2045.

That’s a shift from the company’s history, when disposability was a desirable convenience. “Nobody thought about designing it for circularity, or thinking about the material that we should use, or limiting the thickness of the plastic,” said Katrine DiBona, a company vice president.

When I got my first bee sting kit it included a vial of epinephrine and a glass vial, along with a needle. It was the most ridiculous thing in the world to me, although having it beat dying from anaphylaxis. Now, I have an EpiPen, which I throw in my pocket when I go hiking. If I ever need it I just pull a plug out, put it to my leg, and push a button. 

Life saved. I’ve only had to do it once, I think, but it took me more time to get it out of my pocket than to inject myself. I can’t imagine what a Godsend a disposable pen is for diabetics. 

To what lengths are people going to recycle medical waste? 

…the U.S. waste management company Triumvirate Environmental is seeking commercial applications for repurposed medical waste.

In 2014, the company purchased machinery from a plastic lumber business and grafted it onto the back of a medical waste plant in Jeannette, Pa., with the idea of converting some refuse into useful products.

John McQuillan, the company’s chief executive, said that the plant, after $70 million in investment, was receiving waste from hospitals and pharmaceutical companies — “some of the most disgusting stuff on the face of the planet” — and processing it through a complex set of machines.

Much of the waste is still incinerated, but items composed of useful plastics, including containers stuffed with syringes and surgical tools wrapped in packaging, are identified, shredded and converted into building materials.

“It’s like a smelly Willy Wonka,” he said.

The process is six to eight times costlier than bulldozing the waste into a hole in the ground, Mr. McQuillan estimated, although Triumvirate recoups some costs from the sale of the final products.

As I said, it’s stupid beyond belief. And consumers are totally uninterested in participating in these projects for obvious reasons. Novo Nordisk tried a recycling program for one of its products and consumers ignored it, because it is stupid and inconvenient. 

And it doesn’t work. The only way to reduce the “carbon footprint” of these products is to go back to reusable products, which suck eggs. 

Like most recycling, the process is energy intensive. The plant mainly receives plastic waste from customers in the northeastern United States, because the materials tend to be loosely packed, so they are expensive to transport long distances.

Scientists point out that this expenditure of energy nearly eliminates the environmental benefits. Recycling a product typically recovers less than 10 percent of its carbon footprint, according to Dr. Andrea MacNeill, founder of the Planetary Healthcare Lab at the University of British Columbia, because most of a product’s environmental impact occurs during its manufacture. “We’re never going to recycle our way to a healthy planet,” she said.

It was far more important that manufacturers design products capable of years of reuse, she said, adding that this would require transforming their business models, too. “Right now, their profit margin depends on high-volume consumption.”

You can bet that is the real point of this exercise–to reverse progress and make life more inconvenient. 

Which is sort of the job description of an environmentalist, isn’t it?