3 ms·
Yeah and 60 years ago we didn't have the robust food supply chain we have now. Plastic is a cheap way to package, transport, and store foods. Without it your op
by umvi 6y ago
Yeah and 60 years ago we didn't have the robust food supply chain we have now. Plastic is a cheap way to package, transport, and store foods. Without it your options are... glass, metal, wood, ceramic, etc. So "get rid of all plastic" means "jack up the price of all food". This would put us in another situation where the cure is worse than the ill. X people die every year due to microplastics, but abolishing all plastic will probably push hundreds of millions into poverty.
- titzer 6y agoBut mah dollarzes! > but abolishing all plastic will probably push hundreds of millions into poverty. Citation needed. The very poorest people on Earth living subsistence farming and getting all their food from local sources. Plastic packaging is a way of extending the life of food so that supply chains can be lengthened and food can be sourced farther away: read: nice tomatoes in winter. Long supply chains increase industrialization of farming, push the quality of food down, and profits up. Plastic packaging is a western luxury that allows us to live in a smorgasborg of food oversupply uninterrupted by season. While western societies' main health problems stem from obesity, you argue about food packaging, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of plastic waste in the ocean is from one-time use plastics for goodies like Coke bottles, chip bags, candy bar wrappers, straws, etc.