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I agree with the message, but some states, the type that ban plastic straws, have made recycling a requirement. A message not touched on is reducing the amount

I agree with the message, but some states, the type that ban plastic straws, have made recycling a requirement. A message not touched on is reducing the amount of plastic that we produce and consume should be a goal, but with attention paid to the secondary effects. For example, if you don’t wrap those peppers in plastic they’ll spoil and that may be worse for the planet than shrink wrap. But what if you cover them in edible wax instead? Whats the footprint of each decision? Sometimes plastic will win out and other times we are being wasteful. In SE Asia, when you buy a single drink from the convenience store, it comes within a plastic bag, and you always get a straw. A plastic bag and plastic straw for a drink in a plastic bottle.

cogman10 5y ago
> But what if you cover them in edible wax instead? Whats the footprint of each decision? "states that ban plastic straws" generally use something biodegradable instead. The policy, IMO, is pretty simple to figure out. The reason plastic is used everywhere is because plastic is uber cheap. Those peppers are wrapped in plastic because it adds less than a penny per unit and gives them a much better shelf life. So, the simple solution isn't an outright ban of plastics, but rather a plastic tax. And what's the easiest way to impose that? Via a fossil fuel oil tax. This would allow companies producing these products to evaluate their individual cost benefits of wrapping everything in plastic. The rub is, this would have to be a global tax. Otherwise, we'll just be outsourcing our pollution problems. You'd also have to increase shipping taxes to a point where local manufacturing is the better financial option so bad actor companies don't simply manufacture in a nation with no oil tax. Unfortunately, I think anything else is just posturing that will fall short. If businesses don't feel a squeeze, they won't change behavior. And the only squeeze they feel is financial.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  > Unfortunately, I think anything else is just posturing that will fall short. No, please don't go that fundamentalist route. The "all or nothing" approach won't lead us anywhere. Steady meaningful steps is the key. Build awareness, tackle one problem at a time, improve one aspect at a time, and you'll be able to bring people with you, allow them to adjust, business to be created, etc. You can't be perfect over night. If you try, it won't happen, not today, not tomorrow, and not 10 or 30 years from now. If you do it steadily step-by-step, you'll at least have a chance.
  - cogman10 5y ago
    It's not an all or nothing thing. But rather a "meaningful vs unmeaningful" sort of thing. The smallest meaningful thing we could do to impact waste production is a tax in one city or nation. Meaningless things are things like banning plastic straws, awareness things, or even to a large extent funding day long excursions to the beach to pick up trash. Those are things more similar to urinating into a hurricane. It's not a fundamentalist thing. Rather, it's an Amdahl's law thing. The politically and socially popular actions have almost no real effect on climate change or waste production. The problem is we are mad at the wrong people. We blame individuals for waste when the amount of waste an individual produces is a TINY fraction of the waste generated by corporations. Further, a lot of that waste for a citizen is unavoidable. I can't help the fact that every item of food I eat has been wrapped in plastic, bundled in plastic, and then is shipped from halfway across the global only for the grocery store or restaurant to unceremoniously throw away that plastic garbage. Frankly, we won't reduce our climate impact through good feeling programs and broken corporate promises. We NEED laws that impose monetary losses on businesses for waste production to change anything.

cogman10 5y ago

> But what if you cover them in edible wax instead? Whats the footprint of each decision? "states that ban plastic straws" generally use something biodegradable instead. The policy, IMO, is pretty simple to figure out. The reason plastic is used everywhere is because plastic is uber cheap. Those peppers are wrapped in plastic because it adds less than a penny per unit and gives them a much better shelf life. So, the simple solution isn't an outright ban of plastics, but rather a plastic tax. And what's the easiest way to impose that? Via a fossil fuel oil tax. This would allow companies producing these products to evaluate their individual cost benefits of wrapping everything in plastic. The rub is, this would have to be a global tax. Otherwise, we'll just be outsourcing our pollution problems. You'd also have to increase shipping taxes to a point where local manufacturing is the better financial option so bad actor companies don't simply manufacture in a nation with no oil tax. Unfortunately, I think anything else is just posturing that will fall short. If businesses don't feel a squeeze, they won't change behavior. And the only squeeze they feel is financial.

wildmanx 5y ago
> Unfortunately, I think anything else is just posturing that will fall short. No, please don't go that fundamentalist route. The "all or nothing" approach won't lead us anywhere. Steady meaningful steps is the key. Build awareness, tackle one problem at a time, improve one aspect at a time, and you'll be able to bring people with you, allow them to adjust, business to be created, etc. You can't be perfect over night. If you try, it won't happen, not today, not tomorrow, and not 10 or 30 years from now. If you do it steadily step-by-step, you'll at least have a chance.
- cogman10 5y ago
  It's not an all or nothing thing. But rather a "meaningful vs unmeaningful" sort of thing. The smallest meaningful thing we could do to impact waste production is a tax in one city or nation. Meaningless things are things like banning plastic straws, awareness things, or even to a large extent funding day long excursions to the beach to pick up trash. Those are things more similar to urinating into a hurricane. It's not a fundamentalist thing. Rather, it's an Amdahl's law thing. The politically and socially popular actions have almost no real effect on climate change or waste production. The problem is we are mad at the wrong people. We blame individuals for waste when the amount of waste an individual produces is a TINY fraction of the waste generated by corporations. Further, a lot of that waste for a citizen is unavoidable. I can't help the fact that every item of food I eat has been wrapped in plastic, bundled in plastic, and then is shipped from halfway across the global only for the grocery store or restaurant to unceremoniously throw away that plastic garbage. Frankly, we won't reduce our climate impact through good feeling programs and broken corporate promises. We NEED laws that impose monetary losses on businesses for waste production to change anything.