Companies will keep selling single use plastic and nothing else if possible. Customers will keep buying it if it’s convenient or cheaper. So government has to play the villain and force companies to do what they do best: innovate and find a solution.
People aren’t going to say the bad option when asked. How many of that 85% actively avoid them?
That’s a classic strategy from how to lie with statistics, when conducting observational polling -
if you phrase the question of would you like an externality to be applied to other people do you support this thing? You get a lot more yeses
If you phrase the question about what would you give up for this external benefit ? You get a lot more noes
Thank-you for the details
The magic about collective action is that the everyday-normal-coorperation of humans comes up with solutions for everyone. The pointer to individual decision-making in lack of collective action thus doesn’t work as a measure of how serious people are.
Also seen in episodes like
“Oh, you are wearing shoes made under unfair conditions?!”
And
“Oh there is fossil fuel in your energy consumption?”
Or
“Oh if you like democracy so much, why do you exist in a not-so-democratic-country?”
That’s very much a “you criticize a system yet you live in it” kind of argument. It’s pretty much impossible to avoid single use plastic even if you try really hard. You can reduce their usage but it’s up to manufacturers to step up (or be forced by law) and find alternatives.
Sorry, I really don’t have time to till the soil and make my own clothing.
That’s what it comes down to. And we can only choose the best of whatever options were given by the specialists providing them (ie food distributors and shippers).
If we could, we’d try and influence shippers so they use greener options, but most of those decisions aren’t exposed for us to tune. It’s very much a “thing comes out of slot in black box” kind of setup with no input at any point in the supply chain and we’re left feeling guilty for choosing to buy food.
- Clearly biased
- Not news (Article is 2 months old)
I’m not a fan of selling meats and certain perishable dairy products without plastic. I know the vegans have an easy response to this, but let me beg the question on that.
Glass is a great option for many things, but it would significantly raise the prices of certain foods like premade stock which are currently shipped in something like a tetrapak cardboard/plastic hybrid due to weight.
You could likely use a resin to replace the plastic in that sort of packaging, like they use resins instead of plastic for can liners, but I don’t know if epoxy is really an improvement from either a biological (your body sure won’t break it down and better than plastic) or ecological standpoint.
Meat was sold in wax paper (butcher paper) for years before switching to plastic. Yes, plastic is superior in pretty much every non-environmental aspect, but waxed paper is hardly an impossible leap. Many smaller shops still use it today.
Beer is sold in both cans and glass bottles, while still remaining cheaper than water in many places. How is beer able to remain cheap in a glass bottle but premade soup stock would not? Yes, glass bottle would increase shipping costs due to volume/weight/breakage, but I think the significance of this is greatly overstated.
If beer can stay out of a plastic bottle while remaining cheap the other liquids can as well.
The epoxy used in cans (and inside paper containers) may not be any better for you but it would be a enormous decrease in quantity of plastic compared to pure plastic containers.
Humorously, waxed paper is generally a modified parrafin, a petroleum product that often contains some plastic to change how it polymerizes. Overall not much better than the tetrapaks.
You could use a plant based wax though.
On the subject of packaging costs: I wouldn’t use can prices to compare the cost of something like a tetrapak. That’s an extremely cheap option that doesn’t have anything to compare it to really. If there wasn’t a pressure issue I’m sure they’d sell beer and soda in cardboard plastic hybrids too in order to reduce cost.
Before paraffin, what did they use?
Beeswax. Very expensive. Plant based isn’t that expensive.
let me beg the question on that.
Beggaring the question doesn’t work like that.
Fun fact, soda cans made of aluminum actually have a plastic lining!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1pB6O6AYMU
In some parts of the world, they sell soda in glass bottles - great right? But when you buy a soda from a vendor, they empty the glass bottle into a plastic bag - with ice of course -, put the straw into the bag, and keep the glass bottle for the recycling deposit… So the best of intentions get short circuited by people responding to incentives
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=X1pB6O6AYMU
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
we probably need to transition to bringing our own reusable packaging/bottling for that stuff.
At least be intentional about it. I buy personal care products and sometimes whole bottles are shrink-wrapped, WTF? Others just have a better design so they can be shipped safely. Some vitamins/medicines have the caps with plastic wrap to show they haven’t been opened but also the plastic and foil inside. Why can’t I bring back my medicine bottle and have them use the same one, or just give me the medicine in a paper envelope and I can fill the bottle, I don’t NEED another bottle!
I don’t know about ALL but there are a lot that could be eliminated without any impact on anyone except maybe the people who make the plastic.
Yet they’re going out and buying liquid laundry detergent, tide pods, dishwasher pods all in single use plastics when they have a powder/cardboard option. We need better laws.
I don’t know … I like my surgical equipment to stay sterilized before surgery.
Also I enjoy condoms, mre linings, gloves
- Tiniest fraction of single use plastic
- Could be recycled or reused/resterilized
- What flavour of skepticism are you trying to perform rn?
I’m responding to the global ban aspect of the headline.
Global banning laws can have exceptions carved out of them and usually do. There’s a global ban on whaling- Iceland excepted.
Comically, the whaling fleet docs next to where the whale watching boats launch.
Your average Lemmy user doesn’t have that level of awareness. It’s all spent on looking for opportunities to feel superior. Sorry it had to happen this way, but now you’re a pro-plastic capitalist out to fuck the environment for personal short-term gain and convenience or something… Because that’s apparently more obvious somehow.
Regarding how rushed international policy-making for the environment and against profitability is not at all a problem has never been and won’t be anytime soone, that “scepticism” seems to be the product of “looking for superiority” here, imho
I want people and policy makes to be clear about what they mean, intentions, and language.
I understand and totally support that in general. I’m gonna try to explain my point of view.
In this case we don’t exactly look at policy-making. Between stating that a majority supports governmental action to ban one use plastics and actual policy is a process.
This process will “forge” the outcome. In it, several conflicting interests will meet/clash and according to the power relations between them, they will be able to enforce their respective will.
Since the power relations are, let’s say, fucked up, we are constantly seeing how profit of few overrule need of many and overall rational solutions.
Thats why the criterion “clearness” seems out of place for me at this point. Certanly, before it comes to the actual policy-making, things like the washabillity of surgical equipment will be processed. You will certanly not end up with a dirty scalpel in your body.
That’s why the scepticism of your initial comment seemed odd to me.
Don’t know if this should be seen as a given standard, or if we (“average lemmy users”) should disclaim it more often, but I don’t mean to be offensive (even though this format of short message discourse provoces a certain sass). I mean to have meaningful conversation about each others POV’s. That’s somewhat the point of lemmy, imo.
My lived experience, is that shorthand phrases tend to Trump reality when it comes to implementation, and setting policy. Especially in bureaucratic structures.
Because of my experience, I’m always going to rally against statements that are factually incorrect, there is a place in society for single-use plastics. There is a place in an ecologically minded, and green society, for a single-use plastics.
The fact that this phrase, came from a poll, means there’s an agenda at play. Fair enough, but the people with the agenda should do some work to come up with more accurate freezing. Zero plastic waste, and needless plastic, etc.
I have the same criticism for the " fuck cars" community. I have the same criticism for the chemical-free labeling.
Its nice to learn something new about myself every day! Neat.
it’s all burned for sanitary reasons
If you remove 99% of single use plastic, you can still have your single use surgical and medical plastic. It’s a matter of using them where they are actually needed instead of using them because it’s cheaper to throw shit away.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough.
Oh man! Healthcare (esp. hospitals) makes so much trash!!!
Let’s push for surgical equipment to be made more environmentally friendly, rather than dismiss a global iniative to reduce plastics
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068768/
Also, sterilisation isn’t dependent on the equipment being made of plastics
https://www.cdc.gov/infection-control/hcp/disinfection-sterilization/sterilizing-practices.html
Condoms are rubber and I’m not sure how you don’t know that. Besides, I don’t know that anyone wouldn’t want some number of exemptions to exist.
Fair enough. Polyurethane condoms do exist, especially for people of latex allergies, in fact they’re more popular in the premium priced condoms, because they’re thinner
My concern with language, is using broadly simplistic language that is very evocative, necessitating exceptions and carve outs, either diminishes the message itself, or the carve outs undermine the objective.
For example, the people who say “death to America” but then when you push them on it say oh but I don’t mean the people of the country, I just mean the foreign policy etc the message is very evocative, and I think it’s counterproductive.
I think it would be easier to ignore calls like “let’s ban all bannable single use plastics”, because what would that mean? But yeah I hear you. I always thought “Zero Waste” was a stupid moniker because it’s literally impossible to have no waste. But it probably does succeed in getting people to talk/think about the issue.
I actually like zero waste. Because waste is a relative term you can apply to situations, is this necessary etc… I think it’s a good banner kind of like reduce reuse recycle.
Reduce is the first element, because it’s the most important… Zero waste is an extension of that, and reduce single use plastics when able is an extension of that.
I think a survey would be more interesting if it asked people how many of them are using reusable bags for every single shopping trip, do you keep reusable bags in your car, if you forget a reusable bag do you purchase another one? Things that demonstrate actual human behavior
