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It's important to understand that the packaging industry, which we pay vast amounts of money to, floods the earth with never ending flow of single use plastic.

It's important to understand that the packaging industry, which we pay vast amounts of money to, floods the earth with never ending flow of single use plastic. That industry WANTS us to keep thinking about and talking about recycling. Don't be sucked in - recycling is the distraction that they want you to think about. Recycling is NOT the answer. The answer is to stop making the endless flow of single use plastic. If you want to fix this problem, start laying the blame at the feet of the "garbage brands" - the companies and brands that buy the single use plastic. We need to start with the big, obvious targets like Coca Cola, and we need to associate their precious logo and trademarked red swirl with ruined beaches and reefs and oceans. That's when change will happen - when those big brands come to be tightly associated with garbage.

newswriter99 8y ago
No you're right, we should go back to not having cheap, affordable packaging the world over. That way people in developed nations can go back to paying through the nose for shipping products, thus making products cost more, thus lowering the affordability of those products for the middle and working class. And as for the developing nations who have been increasing their middle class with affordable packaging and plastic products? Eh, screw 'em, right? /sarcasm I'm only using this to illustrate how you went right into the "industry bad, four legs good" mantra of the pro-green movement without regard to an alternative that would keep or raise the quality of living for people the world over. Fact of the matter is if it weren't for plastics, the everyday products that we all consume would either cost way more, or be so expensive that quite a few of us would never get to use them. Stew on that before you jump to "ban all plastics".
- andrewstuart 8y ago
  I didn't say "ban all plastics". And I simply don't believe that it's not possible to create a highly standardised, reusable washable container system. These sorts of objections are what the packaging industry will scream till it's lungs fall out because the packaging industries profits and maybe existence depends on spewing out infinite garbage. That industry needs to say things like "well you're hurting the third world if you stop us spewing infinite garbage". I don't believe it.
- nicoburns 8y ago
  > No you're right, we should go back to not having cheap, affordable packaging the world over We really should. Plastic packaging is only cheap because the environmental cost is externalised. And reused glass / cardboard is not even that much more expensive. Long-term to medium-term plastic packaging is going to be a lot more costly.
  - frankbreetz 8y ago
    I agree, how is it anti-capitalist to make things cost what they cost? The disposal of things should be built into the purchase price. Currently, the tax payers shoulder the majority of this burden
- allday 8y ago
  > Fact of the matter is if it weren't for plastics, the everyday products that we all consume would either cost way more, or be so expensive that quite a few of us would never get to use them. That's fine. When the choice is not having some luxury items vs total biosphere collapse, I'll side with the former. I guess you'd rather keep sipping your Diet Coke while the world burns.
  - beat 8y ago
    Food is not a luxury item.
    - bg4 8y ago
      Diet Coke isn't food.
    - pushpop 8y ago
      Food doesn’t always need to be wrapped in plastics. For example I’ve seen bananas wrapped in clear plastic bags. Why is that when bananas come with their own “wrappers”?
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      Some foods absolutely are. Foie gras, black truffles, Dom Perignon, endangered tiger meat, etc.
      - beat 8y ago
        That's missing the point. The point is that the introduction of plastic packaging has made food far safer and more accessible for billions of people.
    - croon 8y ago
      I've been drinking almost exclusively tap water the better part of my life. I suppose my luxury is drinkable tap water. So let's aim for that for everyone instead.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  Invent some better packaging, for goodness sake! Cardboard, paper, bamboo, corn starch... the list of sustainable, biodegradable materials goes on and on. It's only cheap laziness that makes you believe the choice is either we have single-use plastic for everything or we give up affordable products. People are working on this problem already, and you'd better believe a lot more would happen if government took appropriate steps to tax and/or ban rubbish plastics.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    Good choices for dry product, but a lot of plastic is used for food and drink. Luckily we do have options there. Aluminum.
- perfunctory 8y ago
  If you associate Coca Cola consumption with the raised quality of living, then I don't know what to say.
smackay 8y ago
Anecdata: I rarely counter Coca Cola bottles on the few times during August when I clean a small section of beach here in Portugal. What does occur in large quantities are the plastic stems of cotton buds (which I think are banned in the USA) and liquid yogurt bottles. So Nestlé would be a better target - at least in Europe. Also eat less fish - the seas will be healthier and there will be a lot fewer nets, ropes, hooks and floats washing up and fewer birds tangled up in them too.
- goda90 8y ago
  I think most cotton buds(which we call cotton swabs) in the US use rolled paper for the stem, but I'm not aware of any ban on plastic ones.
  - OrgNet 8y ago
    I just looked at two brands that i have around and one has paper stems (Equate) while the other uses plastic tubing (Assured).
- Thlom 8y ago
  There’s huge “ghost nets” lost from fishing vessels floating around the worlds ocean and constantly catching fish.
- telesilla 8y ago
  I've spent time beach cleaning in the Mediterranean and fishing nets are absolutely the worst. Those blue thing plastic threads that disintegrate and get everywhere: the beaches are bleached with it. I'm not one for sharing Facebook videos but if you want to see impact: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1727552737379394 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1727552737379394
FerretFred 8y ago
"Recycling is NOT the answer. The answer is to stop making the endless flow of single use plastic." And the manufacturers/retailers need to stop claiming that they are only responding to "market demand" - in numerous decades of buying stuff, no-one has ever asked me what my packaging preferences are. There'll come a time when we can't recycle our way out of our own mess - what will be Big Pollutions smug solution be then?
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  Well, the market demand is driven more by what sells than by what people say if you ask them. And there's a reason for that: When you ask people how they'll behave, they'll give you an answer that reflects their aspirations as much as it does their actual behavior. Possible scenario: People will tell you they prefer low-waste packaging when you ask them in a survey. But when they're at a store trying to pick out an item, they still end up perceiving the item in the small paper box as being lower quality than the one in the giant clear plastic clamshell whose contents are clearly visible. So, regardless of what they said they prefer, in reality they might still tend to go for the high-waste packaging.
  - frankbreetz 8y ago
    This is true, this is why the government must be the answer here. They can tax things to help with the cost of properly disposing of single-use plastic or they can outright ban them. This would make the market more realistic because the cost would include disposal of the items. People, in general, are bad at long term thinking, and they aren't going to pour hours of research into what type of packaging they are going to use. People also think that their singular actions are not going to have that much effect on the bigger picture. While this may be true, everyone cannot think this way.
    - jdietrich 8y ago
      >They can tax things to help with the cost of properly disposing of single-use plastic or they can outright ban them. This would make the market more realistic because the cost would include disposal of the items. That cost is, depending on the market, about $80/tonne. Pricing in the cost of disposal would add about 0.04 cents to the cost of a plastic bag and 0.24 cents to the price of a large bottle of soda. Plastic is not a problem. It has never been a problem and it never will be a problem. Eliminating plastic packaging is at best a complete waste of time and at worst totally counter-productive. Climate change is a catastrophe; we have already passed the point of no return, and can now only choose how severe that catastrophe will be. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/studies/pdf/eucostwaste.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/studies/pdf/eucostwast... https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/2e935b70-a32c-48ca-a0ee-2aa1a19286f5/files/landfill-cost.pdf https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/2e935b...
sailfast 8y ago
Counterargument: Aluminum is crazy recyclable. I don't see people talking about single use aluminum (maybe I'm just not in those conversations). Plastic is great for a whole bunch of applications, and making it easily recyclable / recoverable seems like a big win. How would you prefer Coca Cola get their product to you? I suppose don't drink Coke or anything else you need to ship in a bottle at volume to prevent pollution when people throw things in the ocean. In general, I think we will find more success in pragmatic alternatives that make sense in the market (which could obviously include applying the cost of externalities like pollution on companies that use single-use plastics) so a recycling option that allows for more efficient re-use to reduce the overall volume created seems like it would only help the cause?
- pitaj 8y ago
  Aluminum makes sense to recycle for many reasons: - Extracting aluminum from ore is very expensive - That makes recycled aluminum cheaper than fresh aluminum - Aluminum is a metal, you can melt it down to burn off or separate any impurities None is those is true of plastic.
  - rpedela 8y ago
    The article said that this new research makes plastic recycling like aluminum recycling in that it can separate impurities. I don't see any reason why recycled plastic wouldn't be at least price competitive with virgin plastic if this technology works at scale.
- jak92 8y ago
  Aluminum cans are typically BPA lined, FYI.
  - sailfast 8y ago
    Yeah - not a perfect solution by any means, but better than the whole container I guess?
andrewstuart 8y ago
Here's an example tweet associating the Coca Cola trademarked red swirl with single use plastic and ruined beaches: https://twitter.com/bootrino/status/1120700701246545920 https://twitter.com/bootrino/status/1120700701246545920
ksec 8y ago
>Recycling is NOT the answer. The answer is to stop making the endless flow of single use plastic. Yes. And I have a silly question to ask. For plastic bags, why cant we make them only last one year and it will start to decompose itself. Making it an issue for Supply Chain management rather than recycling. I specifically use bags here because I am not too sure if the same could be possible for plastic bottles, you don't want your bottles to have 1% chance of self decompose before you drink it. The problem is, people are lazy, we want convenience. That is why sometimes I still use plastic bags.
- andrewstuart 8y ago
  I really wish people would stop coming up with ideas on how to throw things into the environment and "make it good". Reuse, not decompose, because it's still shit you're dumping into the environment. Do you really want unlimited paper bags in the ocean, dissolved so they are not visible and therefore not creating outrage but still fucking the environment?
  - luigibosco 8y ago
    Totally Agree, it's a pretty sad state when we're looking for magic tech solutions that can be heavily mitigated by simple behavior changes like bringing water, bringing bags and coffee mugs. When i visited Germany you bought a bag if you didn't have one and it seemed everyone had them. In the US grocery chains knock a nickel off your total for all the bags you don't use. I don't think saving 20-40 cents is a huge motivator for people. If all grocery chains charged $1 per bag used, behavior may change. Ideally we should try to motivate people into proper behavior and make it part of the cultural expectation. It's important to remember the order of operations are listed in order of importance. 1. Reduce 2. Reuse 3. Recycle Sometimes i forget mine too, we're human but i reuse those when i can and stick them in my car, backpack etc.
    - jdietrich 8y ago
      >When i visited Germany you bought a bag if you didn't have one and it seemed everyone had them. Re-usable carrier bags are worse for the environment under any realistic scenario. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
newswriter99 8y ago
"The answer is to stop making the endless flow of single use plastic" What's the question? Because I can tell you right now that plunging us back into a world of expensive commodities won't be accepted by most consumers. Not in the developed world, and not in developing nations.
- dec0dedab0de 8y ago
  There are many things that could easily switch to being packaged in paper/cardboard, and reusable glass containers with a deposit fee for quite a few others.
- nicpottier 8y ago
  It may surprise you that reusable glass bottles are the norm rather than the exception in some developing countries. I lived in Rwanda for a while and every soda and beer bottle is reused glass. (and it is indeed great and no burden at all) This seemed the norm in East African in general.
cbhl 8y ago
Coca Cola and Pepsi don't strike me as obvious targets -- most folks can switch to buying aluminum cans (or, in some markets, glass bottles) that contain literally the same drink and definitely are a net profit to recycle. In my opinion, the place where we need to lay blame for single-use plastic are people who eat take-out food, and people who go to a restaurant and ask for a take-home box to avoid wasting food. Wasted food that goes to compost or landfill is benign. But go to any small or medium sized business that serves food, and you will see stacks and stacks of single use plastic containers. Go to stores that market to small business owners (Costco, Smart & Final) and you'll see dozens of pallets of single-use plastic trays, plates, cups, all for the buying. The sheer scale of single-use food packaging is mind-boggling. The movement against plastic straws at fast-casual and upscale restaurants is fine, but those restaurants usually have reusable glass or metal cups, and we need a real solution for restaurants that serve "regular people".
- pricecomstock 8y ago
  The actual, physical food waste may be more benign than plastic, but the supply chain that produced it in the first place is not. All the cattle feed and greenhouse gases required to deliver a burger to someone's plate are a problem, but I would argue that it's a bigger problem to use all those same resources to deliver that burger to a landfill. Food taken home as leftovers can easily take the place of another resource-demanding meal. You aren't wrong about all the waste produced by that process, but I think the better answer is to make portions smaller, not to throw away food as if food waste isn't also a huge problem.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  >Wasted food that goes to compost or landfill is benign. No, no, a thousand times no. Farming is massively carbon-intensive. That handful of leftovers might have resulted in hundreds of grams of CO2 emissions during its production, processing and distribution. Plastic just sits there in landfill, or maybe chokes a sea turtle if someone tosses it in a watercourse. Atmospheric CO2 is causing the greatest crisis in the history of humanity; ocean acidification will likely make the sea turtle extinct within a century. Using a few grams of plastic to avoid hundreds of grams of CO2 is a huge win.
xorcist 8y ago
There are no factual points that can be countered here, but it needs to be pointed out that recycling is very much a big part of "the answer". This is very much an area of research and there are lots of data to support this. While we certainly should try to minimize unnecessary packaging, whatever we use should absolutely be recycled as raw material whenever possible. Recycling plastics is difficult because it is such a wide term, but if comparable countries recycle five times as much then surely improvement is possible. Hate on plastic bottles all you want but when 90% is recycled, at comparably low cost, it's not clear what the alternatives are. The obvious alternative to single use (recyclable) packaging is re-filling containers. That's what everyone did half a century ago. But the food supply chain is rather wasteful as it is and sealed packaging was revolution when it came. Producing food for humans has huge energy costs by the use of fertilizers and diesel. It might seem counter intuitive but burning plastic containers is always better than burning wasted food.
ataturk 8y ago
I am sick from looking at what my family tosses out each week--plastic packaging on top of plastic packaging. It's crazy how nasty packaging is in the US. Worse, producers have been putting less and less actual product in the package which just make more trash in the end. It's just cheap and lazy and we shouldn't allow them to get away with it.
Joakal 8y ago
Simple solution: make producers take back the waste as a condition for selling. External cost now internalised. In fact, new companies that are environmentally friendly (refills, product last years, etc) would be on a competitive level with former extremely cheap single use disposable companies. Downside? Increased consumer costs and decreased shareholder value. Once a government adopts this or plans to adopt this, expect to see massive and intense lobbying by packaging/consumable industry. In Australia, Coca Cola spent a lot to fight container deposit schemes which I think is a bandaid solution. The above solution could work with anything, not just plastics.

newswriter99 8y ago

No you're right, we should go back to not having cheap, affordable packaging the world over. That way people in developed nations can go back to paying through the nose for shipping products, thus making products cost more, thus lowering the affordability of those products for the middle and working class. And as for the developing nations who have been increasing their middle class with affordable packaging and plastic products? Eh, screw 'em, right? /sarcasm I'm only using this to illustrate how you went right into the "industry bad, four legs good" mantra of the pro-green movement without regard to an alternative that would keep or raise the quality of living for people the world over. Fact of the matter is if it weren't for plastics, the everyday products that we all consume would either cost way more, or be so expensive that quite a few of us would never get to use them. Stew on that before you jump to "ban all plastics".

andrewstuart 8y ago
I didn't say "ban all plastics". And I simply don't believe that it's not possible to create a highly standardised, reusable washable container system. These sorts of objections are what the packaging industry will scream till it's lungs fall out because the packaging industries profits and maybe existence depends on spewing out infinite garbage. That industry needs to say things like "well you're hurting the third world if you stop us spewing infinite garbage". I don't believe it.
nicoburns 8y ago
> No you're right, we should go back to not having cheap, affordable packaging the world over We really should. Plastic packaging is only cheap because the environmental cost is externalised. And reused glass / cardboard is not even that much more expensive. Long-term to medium-term plastic packaging is going to be a lot more costly.
- frankbreetz 8y ago
  I agree, how is it anti-capitalist to make things cost what they cost? The disposal of things should be built into the purchase price. Currently, the tax payers shoulder the majority of this burden
allday 8y ago
> Fact of the matter is if it weren't for plastics, the everyday products that we all consume would either cost way more, or be so expensive that quite a few of us would never get to use them. That's fine. When the choice is not having some luxury items vs total biosphere collapse, I'll side with the former. I guess you'd rather keep sipping your Diet Coke while the world burns.
- beat 8y ago
  Food is not a luxury item.
  - bg4 8y ago
    Diet Coke isn't food.
  - pushpop 8y ago
    Food doesn’t always need to be wrapped in plastics. For example I’ve seen bananas wrapped in clear plastic bags. Why is that when bananas come with their own “wrappers”?
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    Some foods absolutely are. Foie gras, black truffles, Dom Perignon, endangered tiger meat, etc.
    - beat 8y ago
      That's missing the point. The point is that the introduction of plastic packaging has made food far safer and more accessible for billions of people.
  - croon 8y ago
    I've been drinking almost exclusively tap water the better part of my life. I suppose my luxury is drinkable tap water. So let's aim for that for everyone instead.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
ForHackernews 8y ago
Invent some better packaging, for goodness sake! Cardboard, paper, bamboo, corn starch... the list of sustainable, biodegradable materials goes on and on. It's only cheap laziness that makes you believe the choice is either we have single-use plastic for everything or we give up affordable products. People are working on this problem already, and you'd better believe a lot more would happen if government took appropriate steps to tax and/or ban rubbish plastics.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  Good choices for dry product, but a lot of plastic is used for food and drink. Luckily we do have options there. Aluminum.
perfunctory 8y ago
If you associate Coca Cola consumption with the raised quality of living, then I don't know what to say.

smackay 8y ago

Anecdata: I rarely counter Coca Cola bottles on the few times during August when I clean a small section of beach here in Portugal. What does occur in large quantities are the plastic stems of cotton buds (which I think are banned in the USA) and liquid yogurt bottles. So Nestlé would be a better target - at least in Europe. Also eat less fish - the seas will be healthier and there will be a lot fewer nets, ropes, hooks and floats washing up and fewer birds tangled up in them too.

goda90 8y ago
I think most cotton buds(which we call cotton swabs) in the US use rolled paper for the stem, but I'm not aware of any ban on plastic ones.
- OrgNet 8y ago
  I just looked at two brands that i have around and one has paper stems (Equate) while the other uses plastic tubing (Assured).
Thlom 8y ago
There’s huge “ghost nets” lost from fishing vessels floating around the worlds ocean and constantly catching fish.
telesilla 8y ago
I've spent time beach cleaning in the Mediterranean and fishing nets are absolutely the worst. Those blue thing plastic threads that disintegrate and get everywhere: the beaches are bleached with it. I'm not one for sharing Facebook videos but if you want to see impact: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1727552737379394 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1727552737379394

FerretFred 8y ago

"Recycling is NOT the answer. The answer is to stop making the endless flow of single use plastic." And the manufacturers/retailers need to stop claiming that they are only responding to "market demand" - in numerous decades of buying stuff, no-one has ever asked me what my packaging preferences are. There'll come a time when we can't recycle our way out of our own mess - what will be Big Pollutions smug solution be then?

bunderbunder 8y ago
Well, the market demand is driven more by what sells than by what people say if you ask them. And there's a reason for that: When you ask people how they'll behave, they'll give you an answer that reflects their aspirations as much as it does their actual behavior. Possible scenario: People will tell you they prefer low-waste packaging when you ask them in a survey. But when they're at a store trying to pick out an item, they still end up perceiving the item in the small paper box as being lower quality than the one in the giant clear plastic clamshell whose contents are clearly visible. So, regardless of what they said they prefer, in reality they might still tend to go for the high-waste packaging.
- frankbreetz 8y ago
  This is true, this is why the government must be the answer here. They can tax things to help with the cost of properly disposing of single-use plastic or they can outright ban them. This would make the market more realistic because the cost would include disposal of the items. People, in general, are bad at long term thinking, and they aren't going to pour hours of research into what type of packaging they are going to use. People also think that their singular actions are not going to have that much effect on the bigger picture. While this may be true, everyone cannot think this way.
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    >They can tax things to help with the cost of properly disposing of single-use plastic or they can outright ban them. This would make the market more realistic because the cost would include disposal of the items. That cost is, depending on the market, about $80/tonne. Pricing in the cost of disposal would add about 0.04 cents to the cost of a plastic bag and 0.24 cents to the price of a large bottle of soda. Plastic is not a problem. It has never been a problem and it never will be a problem. Eliminating plastic packaging is at best a complete waste of time and at worst totally counter-productive. Climate change is a catastrophe; we have already passed the point of no return, and can now only choose how severe that catastrophe will be. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/studies/pdf/eucostwaste.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/studies/pdf/eucostwast... https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/2e935b70-a32c-48ca-a0ee-2aa1a19286f5/files/landfill-cost.pdf https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/2e935b...

sailfast 8y ago

Counterargument: Aluminum is crazy recyclable. I don't see people talking about single use aluminum (maybe I'm just not in those conversations). Plastic is great for a whole bunch of applications, and making it easily recyclable / recoverable seems like a big win. How would you prefer Coca Cola get their product to you? I suppose don't drink Coke or anything else you need to ship in a bottle at volume to prevent pollution when people throw things in the ocean. In general, I think we will find more success in pragmatic alternatives that make sense in the market (which could obviously include applying the cost of externalities like pollution on companies that use single-use plastics) so a recycling option that allows for more efficient re-use to reduce the overall volume created seems like it would only help the cause?

pitaj 8y ago
Aluminum makes sense to recycle for many reasons: - Extracting aluminum from ore is very expensive - That makes recycled aluminum cheaper than fresh aluminum - Aluminum is a metal, you can melt it down to burn off or separate any impurities None is those is true of plastic.
- rpedela 8y ago
  The article said that this new research makes plastic recycling like aluminum recycling in that it can separate impurities. I don't see any reason why recycled plastic wouldn't be at least price competitive with virgin plastic if this technology works at scale.
jak92 8y ago
Aluminum cans are typically BPA lined, FYI.
- sailfast 8y ago
  Yeah - not a perfect solution by any means, but better than the whole container I guess?

andrewstuart 8y ago

Here's an example tweet associating the Coca Cola trademarked red swirl with single use plastic and ruined beaches: https://twitter.com/bootrino/status/1120700701246545920 https://twitter.com/bootrino/status/1120700701246545920

ksec 8y ago

>Recycling is NOT the answer. The answer is to stop making the endless flow of single use plastic. Yes. And I have a silly question to ask. For plastic bags, why cant we make them only last one year and it will start to decompose itself. Making it an issue for Supply Chain management rather than recycling. I specifically use bags here because I am not too sure if the same could be possible for plastic bottles, you don't want your bottles to have 1% chance of self decompose before you drink it. The problem is, people are lazy, we want convenience. That is why sometimes I still use plastic bags.

andrewstuart 8y ago
I really wish people would stop coming up with ideas on how to throw things into the environment and "make it good". Reuse, not decompose, because it's still shit you're dumping into the environment. Do you really want unlimited paper bags in the ocean, dissolved so they are not visible and therefore not creating outrage but still fucking the environment?
- luigibosco 8y ago
  Totally Agree, it's a pretty sad state when we're looking for magic tech solutions that can be heavily mitigated by simple behavior changes like bringing water, bringing bags and coffee mugs. When i visited Germany you bought a bag if you didn't have one and it seemed everyone had them. In the US grocery chains knock a nickel off your total for all the bags you don't use. I don't think saving 20-40 cents is a huge motivator for people. If all grocery chains charged $1 per bag used, behavior may change. Ideally we should try to motivate people into proper behavior and make it part of the cultural expectation. It's important to remember the order of operations are listed in order of importance. 1. Reduce 2. Reuse 3. Recycle Sometimes i forget mine too, we're human but i reuse those when i can and stick them in my car, backpack etc.
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    >When i visited Germany you bought a bag if you didn't have one and it seemed everyone had them. Re-usable carrier bags are worse for the environment under any realistic scenario. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

newswriter99 8y ago

"The answer is to stop making the endless flow of single use plastic" What's the question? Because I can tell you right now that plunging us back into a world of expensive commodities won't be accepted by most consumers. Not in the developed world, and not in developing nations.

dec0dedab0de 8y ago
There are many things that could easily switch to being packaged in paper/cardboard, and reusable glass containers with a deposit fee for quite a few others.
nicpottier 8y ago
It may surprise you that reusable glass bottles are the norm rather than the exception in some developing countries. I lived in Rwanda for a while and every soda and beer bottle is reused glass. (and it is indeed great and no burden at all) This seemed the norm in East African in general.

cbhl 8y ago

Coca Cola and Pepsi don't strike me as obvious targets -- most folks can switch to buying aluminum cans (or, in some markets, glass bottles) that contain literally the same drink and definitely are a net profit to recycle. In my opinion, the place where we need to lay blame for single-use plastic are people who eat take-out food, and people who go to a restaurant and ask for a take-home box to avoid wasting food. Wasted food that goes to compost or landfill is benign. But go to any small or medium sized business that serves food, and you will see stacks and stacks of single use plastic containers. Go to stores that market to small business owners (Costco, Smart & Final) and you'll see dozens of pallets of single-use plastic trays, plates, cups, all for the buying. The sheer scale of single-use food packaging is mind-boggling. The movement against plastic straws at fast-casual and upscale restaurants is fine, but those restaurants usually have reusable glass or metal cups, and we need a real solution for restaurants that serve "regular people".

pricecomstock 8y ago
The actual, physical food waste may be more benign than plastic, but the supply chain that produced it in the first place is not. All the cattle feed and greenhouse gases required to deliver a burger to someone's plate are a problem, but I would argue that it's a bigger problem to use all those same resources to deliver that burger to a landfill. Food taken home as leftovers can easily take the place of another resource-demanding meal. You aren't wrong about all the waste produced by that process, but I think the better answer is to make portions smaller, not to throw away food as if food waste isn't also a huge problem.
jdietrich 8y ago
>Wasted food that goes to compost or landfill is benign. No, no, a thousand times no. Farming is massively carbon-intensive. That handful of leftovers might have resulted in hundreds of grams of CO2 emissions during its production, processing and distribution. Plastic just sits there in landfill, or maybe chokes a sea turtle if someone tosses it in a watercourse. Atmospheric CO2 is causing the greatest crisis in the history of humanity; ocean acidification will likely make the sea turtle extinct within a century. Using a few grams of plastic to avoid hundreds of grams of CO2 is a huge win.

xorcist 8y ago

There are no factual points that can be countered here, but it needs to be pointed out that recycling is very much a big part of "the answer". This is very much an area of research and there are lots of data to support this. While we certainly should try to minimize unnecessary packaging, whatever we use should absolutely be recycled as raw material whenever possible. Recycling plastics is difficult because it is such a wide term, but if comparable countries recycle five times as much then surely improvement is possible. Hate on plastic bottles all you want but when 90% is recycled, at comparably low cost, it's not clear what the alternatives are. The obvious alternative to single use (recyclable) packaging is re-filling containers. That's what everyone did half a century ago. But the food supply chain is rather wasteful as it is and sealed packaging was revolution when it came. Producing food for humans has huge energy costs by the use of fertilizers and diesel. It might seem counter intuitive but burning plastic containers is always better than burning wasted food.

ataturk 8y ago

I am sick from looking at what my family tosses out each week--plastic packaging on top of plastic packaging. It's crazy how nasty packaging is in the US. Worse, producers have been putting less and less actual product in the package which just make more trash in the end. It's just cheap and lazy and we shouldn't allow them to get away with it.

Joakal 8y ago

Simple solution: make producers take back the waste as a condition for selling. External cost now internalised. In fact, new companies that are environmentally friendly (refills, product last years, etc) would be on a competitive level with former extremely cheap single use disposable companies. Downside? Increased consumer costs and decreased shareholder value. Once a government adopts this or plans to adopt this, expect to see massive and intense lobbying by packaging/consumable industry. In Australia, Coca Cola spent a lot to fight container deposit schemes which I think is a bandaid solution. The above solution could work with anything, not just plastics.