Landfill waste doesn’t generally end up in the oceans. Landfills aren’t the problem, it’s the bad management of waste, typically by countries that care more abo

Landfill waste doesn’t generally end up in the oceans. Landfills aren’t the problem, it’s the bad management of waste, typically by countries that care more about basic survival than the effect of their trash on a whale. A villager in rural China doesn’t typically have the luxury of caring as much as some Instagraming Brooklynite. Creating better processes around waste management is going to have a much larger and predicatable effect than outright bans — which can have unintended consequences that the “smart people” fail to predict. Blanket bans on DDT are a good example, sounded good, until millions more people died of malaria. (I am not suggesting we continue or end the DDT ban, it’s just an example of the effect of a policy that was driven by emotion rather than a rigorous scientific process.) It’s possible that banning plastic could have unforeseen consequences that haven’t been considered by the simpletons that typically are charged with making government policy.