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85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

worldwildlife.org

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Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#181

Post by wannacboatmovie »

worik wrote: post #119
wannacboatmovie wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's utterly ridiculous and highly inconvenient for nearly everyone that isn't proselytizing about reusable sacks or needs to purchase more than a few items. What works for dedicated urbanists doesn't fly for the other 85% of the population. Reusable bags are nearly universally unsanitary. People let their cats play in them, never wash them, then place them on the same conveyor belt where you put your vegetables.

> Because that's utterly ridiculous and highly inconvenient for nearly everyone that isn't proselytizing about reusable sacks No Here in Aotearoa they are completely normal > Reusable bags are nearly universally unsanitary...place them on the same conveyor belt where you put your vegetables. Golly. Given the habits of growers you really should wash your vegetables before you use them. Pesticides

Pesticides are water soluble. Cat feces is not.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#182

Post by throwup238 »

skrebbel wrote: post #82

Can anyone explain to me how this works in practice? Eg if i now buy meat or cheese or pre-cut vegetables or bread at the supermarket, it’s in plastic packaging. What do legislators propose we replace that by? I understand (and use) reusable shopping bags but keeping sliced ham fresh sounds less practical. For clarity, I’m not skeptical, I’m all for the strictest plastic ban that’s remotely practical. But I don’t get…

And garbage bags. How the hell are we going to handle garbage without plastic bags? Garbage caused a lot more pollution even in developed countries before everything could be neatly bagged up and buried in a landfill.

I don’t think proponents of the ban have really thought through the society-wide consequences of a single use plastic ban. I wish there were better alternatives but plastic is a bit of a miracle material and who’s to say we’re not going to face the same issue with any other polymer that we use to replace it.

That said, I don’t think we’ve ever properly priced in the externalities of all the garbage we create so maybe it’s time we had a major rethink of how we approach our refuse.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#183

Post by wannacboatmovie »

AlexandrB wrote: post #180
worik wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because that's utterly ridiculous and highly inconvenient for nearly everyone that isn't proselytizing about reusable sacks No Here in Aotearoa they are completely normal > Reusable bags are nearly universally unsanitary...place them on the same conveyor belt where you put your vegetables. Golly. Given the habits of growers you really should wash your vegetables before you use them. Pesticides

Not just growers, I don't think grocery store employees are washing their hands religiously when they're putting this stuff out.

These days I often see the grocers using gloves when stocking shelves.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#184

Post by dumbo-octopus »

orhmeh09 wrote: post #141
dumbo-octopus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The response rate is so low as to be entirely meaningless. If you're content with sampling only 0.000001% of the population, you can get any results you want by simply selecting for the people who care the most by taking a bunch of time to lecture the individual if they seem like they'd vote the other way (oh no, you have to leave? but we didn't even have time to submit your vote yet... :( ), and wording the question…

What do you think is a good sample size? How would you arrive at one?

If your question is asked entirely free of bias from a truly randomly selected population, you can use standard statistical methods to come up with a number based on your desired confidence interval. On the other hand, if you're an organization with your funding tied to the perception that people support your mission, and you're surveying whether people support your mission, I'm going to need damn near everyone in the population to respond to your survey before I'll buy it.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#185

Post by Ray20 »

lokar wrote: post #134
skrebbel wrote: post #82

Can anyone explain to me how this works in practice? Eg if i now buy meat or cheese or pre-cut vegetables or bread at the supermarket, it’s in plastic packaging. What do legislators propose we replace that by? I understand (and use) reusable shopping bags but keeping sliced ham fresh sounds less practical. For clarity, I’m not skeptical, I’m all for the strictest plastic ban that’s remotely practical. But I don’t get…

People bought all of these things before plastics. When I get meat it tends to come wrapped in (waxed?) paper.

>People bought all of these things before plastics.

Yes, and that was dangerous and inconvenient.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#186

Post by AlexandrB »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #150
AlexandrB wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many times have you used your last one? Every shopping trip for 4 years now. It tore, but my partner was able to patch it since it's made of pretty good quality fabric.

Have you smelled them? Do you wash them?

Yes and yes. It's fabric - you just stick it in the washing machine.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#187

Post by L-four »

AlexandrB wrote: post #147
L-four wrote: post #84

If we could get the total cost of product disposal built into the checkout price. I think single use plastics would solve it's self along with a litany of other garbage disposal problems.

While I agree in principle, I don't think this quite solves it. For example, disposable bags are extremely cheap to dispose of - they compress well and would take up minimal landfill space. The problem is how many of them "escape" between the initial purchase and getting to the landfill. How do you include that in the cost?

Ideally this would be factored in and included in the cost of disposable. E.G. the cost of employing litter collection and disposal. The cost needs to be placed on the producers so they have incentive to solve these problems. Many plastic containers and recycling processes could be standardized but currently there's no reason to do.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#188

Post by OJFord »

lxgr wrote: post #133
blackle wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree, however if you're the kind of person who orders groceries, then what ends up happening is that you start collecting reusable bags that you have no way of reusing. I hope that someone starts some kind of "reusable bag recycling" system so I can give the scores of bags I have to a good home

If the bags are actually reusable, it doesn't seem very hard to coordinate to have the delivery person pick up the last delivery's bags next time they're at your house. For home grocery delivery, I could imagine that using stackable or collapsible crates or similar containers might even make more sense, assuming the delivery is via car/truck. Why stick to a container optimized for walk-out customers at all?

Ocado does exactly that in the UK, refunds them too.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#189

Post by Gys »

Those people clearly vote differently, otherwise this (and other problems like this climate thing...) would have been solved a long time ago.

Maybe they forgot to also ask 'what if it will cost you some money in the process or diminish your convenience'.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#190

Post by ben_w »

londons_explore wrote: post #97
lowkey_ wrote: post #41

I was skeptical of whether it was representative of 85% of the global population, or just the first-world. I've often thought (and heard that) environmental concerns are secondary to economic, and that people in less prosperous countries don't care as much about environmental concerns as people in first-world countries who are secure in most areas of their lives. Surprisingly, this data says the opposite! Sample size…

Poorer parts of the world have (typically) much worse problems with litter. Poorer nations typically have no/few refuse collection services, and people often just pile up and burn their own refuse or dump it in rivers to take it away. That means poorer people see directly the litter rather than an 'out of sight, out of mind' approach.

Yeah, was going to say similar.

A decade ago I had the opportunity to visit Nairobi, thanks to my partner at the time.

The place is highly varied, the best looking like any western city, while the worst is basically people living on top of a not-yet-sealed landfill site:

https://www.google.com/maps/@-1.2785067,36.7500781,3a,71.6y,...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kibera_Nairobi_Kenya_slum...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MathareValleySlum.jpg

Her brother is involved with a startup whose mission is to help with this, might be interesting to some folks here: https://www.sargasso-reclamation.com

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