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U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)
- vipermark7 5y agoWhen given an option between blaming the individual and blaming multinational corporations, I tend to blame the latter
- zz865 5y agoYeah everyone does, which is why those big oil companies are causing global warming but not me.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoWell, you didn’t wage a massive climate change denial / disinformation campaign for decades, did you? I don’t have any options with regard to how I get to and from work nor how I hear and cool my home. Is that directly your fault, or am I right to place a fair chunk of the blame on the source of that denial?
- arodyginc 5y agoYou can't cause any real harm to nature without help from corps. But they can, by just setting up an oil drill leaking into the ocean.
- pb7 5y agoThey would drill for oil nobody wants? I don’t buy that. It’s a two way transaction between supply and demand.
- gruez 5y agoBut they wouldn't be setting up oil drills if there wasn't consumer demand.
- toiletfuneral 5y agoConsumers don’t demand oil, they just need to get their kids to school. Capital has decided the most profitable way is with oil.
- nitwit005 5y agoYou're greatly underestimating what people can manage on their own. Even ancient peoples managed plenty of harm to nature. Deforested whole regions, wiped out species, damaged farmland with irrigation, etc. Now there are vastly more of us, and we have a lot better tools to do damage with.
- zapataband1 5y agoI also love the 'But you can 'vote' with your dollar!' crowd We have glass bottles, we have compostable plastic, a company is not incentivized to lose profit by switching to more expensive alternatives until it becomes illegal to not do so and they have more lobbying power than any of us.
- sethammons 5y agoNo single raindrop believes it is to be blamed for the flood
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoThis analogy highlights where the problem lies. Floods are prevented, or mitigated, not by single raindrops, but by chaotic systems on a much larger scale, and / or infrastructure projects raindrops have little to no ability to action. Humans need leaders to rally behind, and what we’ve had for too long, and likely will have for longer still, is wet dishcloths masquerading as leaders.
- tmalsburg2 5y agoYou're not given the option, though.
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoIdk, I don’t think it matters who we blame. The problem isn’t the multinational corporations that do this, it’s the system that lets them. We need a better system.
- dfxm12 5y agoWhich is the system at fault here? Capitalism?
- beprogrammed 5y ago"Economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit" no not capitalism, governance.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y agoNot sure that presenting a definition of capitalism gets it off the hook here. When you don't have a remote third party (the capitalist) involved in your transactions, things are simpler. You can just ask: is the person I'm doing business with creating more problems than they solve? And then not do business with them if the answer is yes. If you acknowledge property rights that justify the involvement of capitalists in your transaction, you now have to also ask the same question of them and weigh those answers against the first. It's much harder to figure out who's agenda you're furthering with your money--so most people just don't bother. Both parties blame this abstraction that hangs over their business and neither takes responsibility for its consequences. The invisible hand ends up being a scapegoat and nothing changes.
- wongarsu 5y agoCaptialism (as implemented in many Western countries) can deal with these things, it just doesn't by default. We successfully solved ozone depletion, we made significant progress with acid rain, we got rid of leaded gasoline, our rivers are reasonably clean, ... Reasonable legislation that sets the right incentives works. But it's difficult to get passed when entrenched interests are against it. The problem isn't capitalism, the problem is the industry influence on politics that prevents reasonable legislation.
- rsynnott 5y agoIn this case, it’s the secret third option; the state. This problem can only be solved by regulation; no market force is going to make it go away.
- gwbas1c 5y agoCan I read this without entering my email address?
- dqv 5y agoNo.* * Some exceptions apply. See https://archive.is/zBbNG https://archive.is/zBbNG
- temp0826 5y agoAnother gold! USA!
- HPsquared 5y agoPlastic waste should just be landfilled if it can't be safely recycled. Who cares if some additional feedstock is required to make fresh plastic?
- cgb223 5y agoDoes anyone know what it would look like for the US to stop using single use plastics? Always thought it would be a cool thing for us to try, but can’t quite figure out how practical that really is
- stormbrew 5y agoIn practice we don't really have replacements for a lot of things "single use plastic" is used for. Sterilized medical equipment, storage and distribution of prepared food products for people with disabilities, and probably a myriad of other minor uses that don't get a lot of attention just don't have practical alternatives without making life untenable for a lot of people. So I don't think there's a world in which we just stop using them cold turkey. At least not a compassionate one. A lot of research and effort needs to go into finding alternatives for these things, but the structure of our society doesn't really incentivize that.
- kozikow 5y agoSo just add a significant tax for plastic usage, reflecting an actual damage to environment? All use cases where it's still necessary will still be able to do so, while price-cutters will switch to alternatives.
- Swizec 5y agoThat argument feels a little disingenuous. Like when people drive a big truck every day because once per summer they haul a boat. We can eliminate or at least improve a lot of single use plastics outside medicine and people with special needs. At my local farmer’s market, for example, all prepared food from food trucks and stands comes in unlined cardboard containers. When you’re done, you throw it in compost because cardboard is compostable. Works great and disadvantages nobody. You still get plastic cutlery but it says to be made of compostable plastic. I don’t know how well compostable plastic works but I sure hope it does.
- handrous 5y ago> That argument feels a little disingenuous. Like when people drive a big truck every day because once per summer they haul a boat. Eh, they also choose big trucks so they'll win in a crash. Remember, safety ratings/requirements for cars are based on collisions with similar cars. If you're in a Fit or Golf or Mini and the other guy's in an F-150 or Tahoe, you're in big trouble. The solution's probably some form of graduated weight-based tax. Makes sense both on a safety-externalities basis and on a damage-to-the-road basis (which doesn't scale linearly with weight, so the first ton is way less damaging than the second ton, and so on).
- 238475235243 5y agoYes but we don't just throw it in a river like many asian countries.
- sa1 5y agoJust export it to an Asian country.
- bpodgursky 5y agoRight, but while raw generated plastic trash is meaningful on a long-term scale, what's far more relevant is how much is getting washed into the ocean or environment, and the US does not lead there by a long shot. Plastic securely sequestered in a landfill isn't a medium-term concern and I'm optimistic that future recycling or sequestration technologies will help obviate that problem before it becomes acute.
- INTPenis 5y agoI believe it. But that doesn't mean we're innocent in the rest of the western world. One really cool improvement here in Sweden recently, besides "banning" plastic bags at supermarkets, was one store called ICA started selling their burger pattys in cardboard packaging. So the only plastic is a top foil that you peel off to open the package, the rest is cardboard. Pretty cool! That's one area where we're all guilty, namely fresh meat and dairy packaging. Speaking of dairy and meat I tend to buy from the butcher's section instead of the pre-packaged stuff, just because they wrap it in paper instead of plastic. It's the little things you can do. And to store it in your fridge, don't wrap it in cellofane, use glass tubs with plastic lids instead. Yeah the lids are plastic but they're amazing at keeping stuff fresh and re-usable.
- pomian 5y agoEverything tastes better wrapped in paper, or real wax paper. Like at a butcher shop. The worst is the stiff plastic boxes used for pastries in a bakery. Visual, tactile, taste, aural, all is worse than a classical piece of paper or cardboard box. (Then there is the modern paper stations that a very thin veneer of plastic coating that is horrible too, but pretends to be good.)
- the-dude 5y agoIsn't the cardboard 'lined' ? And how much does it actually differ, plastic vs cardboard? For the cardboard, the basic ingredient also has to be harvested, or won another way. Then it needs to be transformed into cardboard.
- grenoire 5y agoCardboard dissolves in nature, plastic doesn't. It disposes of itself, for the most part.
- nikisweeting 5y agoNot most of the fluorinated cardboard used for food packaging. It takes a really long time to break down and releases a bunch of nasty stuff in the process. https://thecounter.org/pfas-forever-chemicals-sweetgreen-chipotle-compostable-biodegradable-bowls/ https://thecounter.org/pfas-forever-chemicals-sweetgreen-chi...
- dehrmann 5y agoAs long as we can keep plastic waste out of the environment, does it really matter?
- 8note 5y agoIs that a sensible phrase? The environment is everywhere.
- CheezeIt 5y agoLandfills aren’t everywhere.
- nikisweeting 5y agoWhy not not focus on building more and better landfills then? Seems like a better solution that shipping trash long distances to other countries only to have it end up in the ocean.
- CheezeIt 5y agoWe don’t ship our “trash”, distinguished from our recycling, to other countries.
- nikisweeting 5y agoNah, the vast majority is trash to begin with or ends up as trash. Only a fraction ends up recycled.
- CheezeIt 5y agoPlastic bags don’t go in the recycling, they go in the trash bin.
- nikisweeting 5y ago
- sethammons 5y agoMy wife and I were just talking about this this morning. There is just so much "disposable" plastic. I'm willing to pay more for non-disposable containers, but a great many people prefer the lower point of sale price, and so market forces move towards "cheaper" plastics. Education coupled with legislation is the only way that I can imagine this getting any better
- ardit33 5y agoPre pandemic, I'd go often to trader joe, and they would give samples. It was maybe a small bite of a food (ice cream, salat, or whatever else), and use a plastic fork for it. Just one bite, and you had to throw it out. It was more plastic than food. Whole Foods was the same. I think it is a crime against environment and I started feeling bad about it, and stopped taking samples when there were plastic utensils. It think behaviour like this should be legislated out. For something like a sample, just a small wooden spoon, or anything else renewable, should be enough. The externalities of that plastic, is something that neither Trader Joe or Whole Foods pays, but we all do in some way.
- lostcolony 5y agoYeah; back in the day it used to be wooden toothpicks to spear stuff, and small wooden spoons for things that couldn't be speared. I can only assume things moved to plastic because of cost, which is nauseating.
- cpuguy83 5y agoNever mind how everything in Trader Joe's is packaged in plastic.
- edoceo 5y agoPlastic wrapped fruit. I can't believe it. Fruit comes with its own already biodegradable container! F Trader Joe's fruit and veg.
- vinay427 5y agoWhile it's more excessive in the US, or at least Trader Joe's in my experience, various fruits and vegetables are regularly found in plastic in the European country I live in and others I've visited. Grapes, packs of apples or peaches, various peppers, etc. I find it unnecessary in some of these cases as well, unfortunately. It seemed better in local stalls that are especially plentiful in certain larger cities.
- kibwen 5y ago
- dynm 5y ago> The U.S. also ranks as high as third among coastal nations for contributing litter, illegally dumped trash and other mismanaged waste to its shorelines. I can't access the paper, but can anyone verify: Do I understand correctly that this means the US might be as high as third in terms of contributing trash that ends up on the US's coastline?
- sschueller 5y agoI see this as a bigger issue than the use of plastic as a whole. If you properly dispose of it (modern trash burning facility and recycling) , it wouldn't be such a huge environmental issue. Open landfills are a disaster. The government should focus on proper disposal laws. Banning plastic bags at the grocery store is a bandaid on a blood gushing wound.
- ojnabieoot 5y agoI think you misread it. I believe they mean that among the coastal nations, the US ranks 3rd in terms of polluting its own coastline. I also don’t have access to the paper, but the number 2 coastal nation then pollutes its own coastline worse than the US.
- jedberg 5y agoThis problem won't get fixed without legislation. Single use plastic is cheaper, so of course companies will use that if they can. Most people don't have the income to support "voting with their wallet", and even those who do don't always have the option. IF the best solution out there happens to use single use plastic, you're not going to opt for a worse solution just because it doesn't. And even if one company cares enough to do something, they will change their tune when they have to start charing more. The only way this will get better is if the external costs of single use plastic are borne by the companies that make them and consumers are subsidized to absorb the extra cost.
- Causality1 5y agoYou also have to think in terms of actual harm. Considering the US has an absurd amount of junk land it can use for landfills, a single use plastic object that has 1/1000 the carbon emissions of the reusable alternative may be the best environmental choice.
- edoceo 5y agoWhere is the "junk land"? Almost everywhere has animals that likely don't enjoy plastic.
- l33t2328 5y agoHow important are those animals?
- smarx007 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem
- tehlike 5y agoLandfill? Somewhere buried?
- Causality1 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hereforphone 5y agoThis might be the case, I don't necessarily dispute it. But with this sort of thing always keep in mind that the US (and other Western countries) tend to be more compliant with reporting actual facts than say.... China (who somehow is ranked 107 in the world for covid-19 cases, despite their huge population).
- gogopuppygogo 5y agoThrough democide Communism has killed more people than any other event/war/form of government in human history. They have murdered tens of millions through starvation. Why is it surprising that they would lie about Covid deaths?
- hereforphone 5y agoNot arguing your point but I think a fair amount of that likely inaccuracy comes from lack of infrastructure / a large amount of rural communities. I'd guess there's some intention there (for misreporting) but I doubt that's the entirety of the issue
- beervirus 5y agoChina gets zero benefit of any doubt.
- rcstank 5y agoWhy is the truth being downvoted?
- __MatrixMan__ 5y agoCommunist leaders starve millions of their own people, and capitalist leaders starve millions of people in countries that they exploit, but I don't think that the overall death count is especially off balance. For instance: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/4/1/churchills-policies-to-blame-for-1943-bengal-famine-study https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/4/1/churchills-policies-...
- Leary 5y ago
- olivermarks 5y agoA lot of plastic packaging waste on US products originates in China where the products are manufactured (display bubble packs etc). Import legislation would help a lot to reduce this
- ALittleLight 5y ago"The pioneering 2015 study of marine plastic didn’t include illegal dumping and export of plastic waste. In the new analysis, the team considered those actions, but only for the U.S. They say data for other nations were inconsistent or didn’t exist." Doesn't this seem like it's saying illegal + legal plastic waste in the US is greater than legal plastic waste in other countries? That seems like a much different claim to me.
- runj__ 5y agoIn other news: water still wet! P = NP still unresolved!
- wcerfgba 5y agoThe original article, not linked from NG, appears to be "The United States’ contribution of plastic waste to land and ocean", available at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/44/eabd0288 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/44/eabd0288
- ransom1538 5y agoI am also interested in which country pours most plastic trash into the ocean. I am sure no one is working on this.
- andrewmcwatters 5y agoI think we'll have to give up particular niceties about how we package things in the western world if we're to generate less trash, but it would come at the cost of removing illusions from the way we market products. Have you been to less developed countries? They just simply do not package some products. It removes a lot of the allure of buying particular things, but also generates less trash. Here's a simple example: utensils. In some countries, you just buy the utensil. In America, you buy a box with utensils in them, sometimes with a plastic shell, sometimes with paper wrapping inside of the box. But without the box, it feels like you're buying them from the dollar store no matter how nice the actual spoons and knives are, which commands less of a price mark up.
- immortaljoe 5y agoTotally agree, i moved from a developing country (India) to a developed country (Germany) and the amount of waste me and my partner generate in the latter is around 10x. In India, we would buy produce without any packaging, you would pay by weight. Whereas in Germany, fruits, vegetables and even fresh leaves come pre packed in plastic. I know Germany has better recycling but the amount of plastic is crazy. Quite the shock for us.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- season2episode3 5y agoCounterpoint: in Thailand, I was surprised to see the sheer amount of single use plastic. Tiny plastic bags put inside larger plastic bags. Individually wrapped candies put inside larger bags. And of course the usual plastic sleeves around all utensils.
- felixfbecker 5y agoI’m sorry but which German grocery store (I’m already assuming it’s not the farmer’s market) do you go to that has vegetables wrapped in plastics?
- f1refly 5y ago
- lmilcin 5y agoThe biggest issue for me is I can't really buy anything without buying a ton of plastic with it. Want to buy anything on the Internet? It is most likely going to be wrapped in a ton of foil, bubble wrap and that additional to its own packaging.
- philwelch 5y agoThe US also has a higher GDP than any other nation. I don't think this is a coincidence.
- fidesomnes 5y agoI would support a progressive tax on single use items that are not biodegradable that simply becomes unaffordable to plastic within a few years.
- 3gg 5y agoI imagine this has gotten worse with covid, people ordering food for take-away or shopping online. For what it's worth, I tried the idea of ordering from the restaurant online but then bringing my own (re-usable, washable) tupperware to pick up the food, and it certainly worked out. If you ask, you often get what you want. If the place is not willing to help you reduce your plastic footprint, then maybe it's one place to skip.
- tremoloqui 5y agoHow about re-framing the problem? Considering: Reclamation and recycling technology will improve over time. Similarly the economics of processing recycled material are likely to make it more valuable. and: Supposing we can protect the surroundings, water table etc. further: Supposing, as other comments have pointed out, the availability of land is not really an issue. Then: Is it crazy to think that there is value to be found in safely storing this material until it is more feasible / valuable to process? At least it seems like a better plan than incinerating it.
- youeseh 5y agoFrom a consumer's point of view, what choice do we have? All it takes is a trip to Costco. Everything is wrapped in plastic. Yet, they have the cheapest prices.
- Kharvok 5y agoThe U.S problems with single use plastics aren't on the consumer. The river systems in Asia responsible for the vast majority of marine trash more so are.
- chaostheory 5y agoPlastic is probably also the reason for our decline in birthrates. Before you say societal changes are responsible for it; we’ve accounted for it and even without those changes, we’d still have birthdate declines.
- KETpXDDzR 5y agoThere's some research on low testosterone caused by plastic materials. I heard of doctors being able to detect plastic in a baby's blood stream. I think the reason this is not as public as it should be, is that males are sensitive when it comes to the "mannliness hormone", Testosterone. Thus, there's probably a high number of unreported cases. Some symptoms are lower sex drive and libido.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoDidn't I just read a top comment on HN yesterday that China and India did more than us?
- fctorial 5y agoChina and India house 50% of world population
- f0xytr0xy 5y agoWe’re #1! We’re #1!
- unnouinceput 5y agoYou mean the no. 1 economy of the world generates the most plastic? <insert Picard surprise face meme here> What's next breaking news? That China, the 2nd economy of the world, is 2nd place in plastic generating as well? Color me shocked. /s
- morpheos137 5y agoDespite the hysteria most commonly used plastics are harmless. The only things I can think of that may be harmful in some plastics are harmful on their own, for example lead which can be used as a plasticiser to soften PVC. Lead is toxic whether or not it is in plastic. Fortunately your PET soda bottle or PE grocciery bag does not contain lead for obvious reasons. Some other compounds like phthlates may have negative endocrine effects but I believe this is far from resolved. "Microplastics" to the extent they exist in meaningful concentrations are not anything like asbestos fibers (this is known) which cause mechanical damage to cell structures by their needle like shapes. Rather microplastics are akin to small sand particles. Inert dust. The very reason that plastics do not decompose makes most of them safe to life unless absurdly high concentrations of very small particles are present in which case sand or silt dust would be comparable. The mass hysteria about "plastics" in just shows how easily human emotions can be manipulated. Sure, plastic bags floating in the ocean may look like jelly fish sea turtles. This is why we shouldn't throw plastic bags in the ocean. Maybe bags should be made more dense than sea water so if they do end up in the ocean they sink. Otherwise the solution to the plastics "problem" is really simple: burn it, recycle it or bury it in the ground. The last option has the added benefit of potentially serving as a long term carbon sink. I could envision a world where solar power or bioengineered plants perhaps are used to pull CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it up in something useful and stable like polyethylene, which could be used or just burried in shallow pits removing CO2 from circulation for centuries or thousands of years.
- beervirus 5y agoWhat’s the problem? Throwing plastic away = carbon sequestration! /s
- cwkoss 5y agoAre all plastics equal harm? I wonder if we just legislated taxes on plastics that local recycling centers can't utilize, if we could get the majority of the benefit of banning plastics with few of the downsides? To what extent would greater standardization of plastics mitigate this issue (and make recycling more profitable)?
- kspacewalk2 5y agoEven plastic the ends up in a properly built American landfill is certainly much less harmful than plastic dumped into the river in a third world country. To the point where the comparison itself becomes a little bit ludicrous. Considering it takes so much less fossil fuels to make plastic containers than to many alternatives, shouldn't we focus on proper disposal in poor countries and otherwise move on to much more pressing environmental concerns, like I don't know, climate change?
- ryanqian 5y agonot suprise.