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No time soon... Plastics are mostly a by product of petroleum refining so it's hard to beat the economic factors. And the manufacturing machines have been in us
by WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
No time soon...
Plastics are mostly a by product of petroleum refining so it's hard to beat the economic factors. And the manufacturing machines have been in use for so long that they are completely paid for so adding one more plastic whatever is relatively cheap compared to any new gizmo.
At this point the only way to stop plastic products is to subsidize a replacement to the point of making it cheaper than plastic or to make it illegal. Both of which are unlikely to happen now.
When looking at plastic replacements, we need to look at the economics as well as the replacement.
- seer 4y agoWell yeah they are “cheap” to produce but expensive to clean up and dispose of. As long as governments “subsidize” plastics by cleaning after them themselves rather than forcing manufacturers to pay for it, you will have straws and plastic trash on the streets/parks/rivers/oceans. The funny thing is that we are _already_ paying for it with all the trash handling infrastructure - mostly government payed and supported by taxes around the world. The money is there - imagine paying less for trash, but a bit more for the product - still the same amount of money spent. But now the manufacturer has the incentive to use those new films and _not_ pay for its disposal. As economies of scale kick in, we can have clean environment and pay less for it all (less trash infra). I just hope people (governments) realize this in my lifetime…
- lazide 4y agoPlastic is not expensive to clean up and dispose of at all. It’s perfectly fine to literally bury alongside everything else.