Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
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Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
#2Single-use plastic waste is good. It sequesters carbon.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wait-plastic-can-...
Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
#3> until now the emphasis of efforts to curb plastic pollution has been on the individual choices that consumers can make. "But we need to go after the tap, to turn off the tap of fossil fuel plastics and we need to create plastics from recycled material."
It's hardly as if if single-use plastics is ExxonMobil's only source of income. I say it's high time that this firm starts paying for the externalities it has so readily ignored which the rest of the world is paying so dearly for.
Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
#4Single-use plastic waste is good. It sequesters carbon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wait-plastic-can-...
False dichotomy. No one is using less gas because we are using single-use plastics. It’s not like gasoline anywhere in the developed world is so expensive (taxes aside, as they are not a matter of supply-and-demand) that if there were less contention from single-use plastics it would be cheaper and people would be buying/burning more.
Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
#5That’s good news. At least the list is short and we can start form somewhere.
Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
#6Why is single-use plastic a bad thing? It always seemed to me that the disdain for it was more from an emotional thing than an actual harm caused by it, but admittedly I am mostly ignorant of the situation.
Like, that plastic garbage island in the Pacific: why is it bad?
The argument against microplastics seems pretty clear. Is there a corresponding one for bottles and such?
Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
#7Single-use plastic waste is good. It sequesters carbon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wait-plastic-can-...
We emit >40 Gigatons of CO2 per year. This article is talking about sequestering 10 Gigatons over 30 years inside non-biodegradable plastic waste.
That's like trying to plug a fist-sized leak with a toothpick.
It's not nothing, but it's not a good excuse to waste more single-use plastic (as you're implying here saying "Single-use plastic waste is 'good'")
Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
#8Single-use plastic waste is good. It sequesters carbon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wait-plastic-can-...
As the linked article admits, it only sequesters carbon if it is plant-based, although I would wager that the production of single use plant-based plastics still results in net positive carbon emissions. Nearly all plastic is not plant-based. Even then, plastic waste is not collected and stored in a responsible manner. It is dumped in whichever way is cheapest and easiest, usually finding its way into nature. The environmental impact of a thing is more than just its carbon footprint.
Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
#9Why is single-use plastic a bad thing? It always seemed to me that the disdain for it was more from an emotional thing than an actual harm caused by it, but admittedly I am mostly ignorant of the situation. Like, that plastic garbage island in the Pacific: why is it bad? The argument against microplastics seems pretty clear. Is there a corresponding one for bottles and such?
They break down into microplastics.
Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study
#10Why is single-use plastic a bad thing? It always seemed to me that the disdain for it was more from an emotional thing than an actual harm caused by it, but admittedly I am mostly ignorant of the situation. Like, that plastic garbage island in the Pacific: why is it bad? The argument against microplastics seems pretty clear. Is there a corresponding one for bottles and such?
Where do you think microplastics come from, exactly?