4 ms·

"Back in the day" this wasn't even a consideration. It's only been very very recently that people have started thinking about plastics breaking down and going i

• kick 7y ago
  That's simply not true. It's been a concern for decades.
  • irrational 7y ago
    Obviously it was a concern since the very first plastic item was manufactured. But who was aware this was a concern? It's only been in the last 5 years or so that I can recall hearing anything about it. And only in the last 2 years or so has it really risen to the level of concern for me. Maybe we are reading totally different sources that it has been on your radar for decades.
    • tjohns 7y ago
      As a datapoint... Back in elementary school 25 years ago, they most certainly were teaching my class that plastic doesn’t decompose and how important it was to reduce waste.
      • boatswain 7y ago
        And people who were CEOs 25 years ago were in school 25 years before that.
• yesbabyyes 7y ago
  As one anecdata point, I was born in 1978 and I can't remember ever not having this concern. Not sure what you mean by very recently, though--one could say plastic was even invented very recently. My parents grew up in an environment (semi-rural) where/when it seems to have been normal to leave trash around, though. This was in the 50s. I guess they saw the issues and raised my siblings and me differently. It makes me happy that more people are thinking about not trashing their environment!