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Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#51

Post by layla5alive »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #27
layla5alive wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'")

>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'") Suppose I get upset about all the fossil fuel which is being burned and decide to do something about it. I buy up fossil fuel and instead of burning it, I sequester it underground in such a way that it can't be used by drilling companies. This seems clearly good for the…

It costs CO2 to manufacture and transport that plastic. Did you not pay attention to the numbers I quoted for why this isn't a "solution?"

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#52

Post by layla5alive »

sampo wrote: post #36
layla5alive wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you think microplastics come from, exactly?

Clothes, car tyres, cosmetics, fishing nets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics#Sources

The other 20-40% come from plastic bottles and other plastic trash which gets broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. Whale consumes plastic bottle... eventually that bottle is no longer a bottle anymore...

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#53

Post by 01100011 »

asutekku wrote: post #44
01100011 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why is that bad if it is responsibly disposed of? Sure, some landfills can leak, but that's a design flaw of landfills. Is it bad to responsibly dispose of single use plastic in a landfill where it may be reclaimed by future technology?

What percentage of single use plastics is responsibly disposed of? That's the question and answer to your question.

In the Bay Area, I'm going to guess something like 99% or higher. If it was even a single percent, our streets would be wall to wall garbage.

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#54

Post by marak830 »

_pdp_ wrote: post #5

That’s good news. At least the list is short and we can start form somewhere.

Unless us, as countries, start forcing those recycling costs(actually costs, not sell to a foreign country to burn or dump), then we arnt really starting.

Those costs needs to be baked into the purchase price, or nothing will change

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#55

Post by diplodocusaur »

danhak wrote: post #20

I remember growing up in the 90's and happily learning in school and on TV that it was my civic duty to recycle. One of the biggest catastrophes of environmental policy was to shift the burden of plastic waste away from corporations and onto the consumer. Corporations can pump out as much single-use trash as they wish, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the result not of their practices but of individuals' inevit…

> It should have been

it still should be

Re: Just 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste – study

#56

Post by mariusor »

lacker wrote: post #32

I found this recent article from Our World In Data much more informative about plastic waste: https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics There's a huge difference between "plastic waste in a landfill" and "plastic waste in the ocean." It's not like landfills just leak some % into the ocean every year. Some countries just throw far, far more of their plastic waste into the ocean. More specifically here's a chart on whe…

One has to wonder, where those countries get all that trash from. Would it perhaps be from first world countries like the US that don't deal with theirs responsibly and just export it there? Why yes, yes it would[1].

[1] https://boingboing.net/2021/05/18/the-us-exports-its-plastic...

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