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If we all are against usage of plastic, what stops us from eliminating it completely around us.

• Sebb767 4y ago
  Probably most people don't have a strong opinion on eliminating plastic and even in that subgroup, few would be willing to pay the price (both in utility and literal price) to avoid plastic. In fact, if you're willing to go to a shop offering unpackaged goods, you can already eliminate a lot of plastic in your life.
• karaterobot 4y ago
  We aren't. We're against some of the predicted negative consequences of plastic waste, but we like plastic. It's cheap, and incredibly useful. Plastic goods enable the world we live in. For example, it would be interesting to see a mouse, and keyboard, and monitor housing made out of bronze, or wood, or cast iron, but I bet they would be worse in pretty much every other way — heavier, harder to shape, and very expensive not only because of the cost of materials, but because they'd take so much more work to make. When I look around at all the plastic stuff around me, I think that some of it is unnecessary, but much of it isn't. Some of the necessary stuff could be made out of other materials, but much of it couldn't. At least not very well, and not at a price many people could afford. Better for us if we can figure out a way to effectively recycle plastic, and capture microplastic in the wild.
  • TheRealNGenius 4y ago
    I just want to clarify that the "we" in parent post does not include me personally, and I was not consulted on this matter prior by parent commenter. Thank you all for coming to my ted talk.
• pixl97 4y ago
  #1 on the list would be the coca cola corporation. They fight anything that would reduce plastic waste viciously. #2 on the list is everybody else. Once you start looking at what is made out of plastics you'll realise the modern world is completely dependant on it. The use of plastics on food and medical devices dramatically reduces bacterial contaminantes saving millions of people a year from sickness. It's used on structural components of all kinds of device to reduce weight, thereby decreasing energy usage. It is a very difficult problem to solve.
• mdavis6890 4y ago
  Nothing really, except our preferences. We could ban all plastics tomorrow in the US, if we wanted to. But I don’t think we’d be happy with the quality of life trade-offs.
• ehnto 4y ago
  As someone else said, we aren't. I am, but "we" aren't. But I'm also complacent as many if not most people are, even though I think I "do my part", I don't really do much. I can see probably a hundred bits of plastic in this very study room.
• JohnWhigham 4y ago
  I'm not against all usages of it. I think where one needs a supremely robust material (like in the military) it's very useful. However I think it should be banned from any and all contact with foodstuffs.
• PKop 4y ago
  Modern economy depends on it. Too much economic pressure pushing against removing it.