Plastic pollution in the ocean is a problem, but it’s not the western countries causing it. There are 10 rivers that cause 90% of plastic pollution, and they are in Africa and Asia.
Plastic in a landfill harms nobody.
The worst part is that people somehow have this linked in thier mind with climate change, as in fixing plastic pollution is going to help with that.
Well if anything, it’s going to make it marginally worse because the replacements for single use plastics consume more energy.
Meanwhile this also has a pretty disproportionate amount of inconvenience for the public, continuing the “Environmental issues are about your personal sacrifice” message which is both unnessissary (companies can have a much Larger impact without you sacrificing anything) and counterproductive.
This is the politicians fallicy in action.
Except, that's not true. The study you're referring to found that those 10 rivers account for 90% of plastic waste going into the ocean from rivers, not all sources[1]. Rivers contribute only 10% or so of the plastic found in the ocean. So not nothing, but far from 90% of all plastic pollution.
Also, probably worth pointing out that quite a bit of that plastic probably originated in the west and was shipped to developing nations to be processed cheaply[2]. Often that amounts to little more than having it burned or dumped into those rivers mentioned.
I personally agree that plastic, when properly stored in a well managed landfill is harmless. But the fact is, that's not happening for far too much waste. Even waste that's used and properly disposed of in developed countries.
[1] https://factcheck.afp.com/widely-cited-study-did-not-show-95...
[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-plastic-polluti...
We cannot fix everything everywhere, but we can move the needle. Maybe a youth living near one of those 10 rivers, reading about Canada doing it, will become a member of parliament or a minister and will do something about it. Or not. Maybe here in Canada out of necessity we come up with smart solutions to replaces single use plastics that can be copied all over the world. Or not.
But what we can do, we shall, and as a Canadian, I am fully behind this decision.
This kind of attitude only makes sense if it doesn't cost anything. Doubling our CO2 usage (assuming we switched to paper bags)[1], just so we can virtue signal to kids in third world countries is asinine.
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
> Plastic in a landfill harms nobody.
This demonstrably false. Plastics in landfills can leach into groundwater, for one. Two, a huge proportion of the plastic we use and dispose in much of the west end up in Asian countries because we can't be bothered to make sure it's recycled. Three, micro- and nano-plastic pollution is nearly ubiquitous now: we breathe it in and ingest it daily, with almost no understanding of the effects. It is very literally everywhere, from ambient air to the seafloor.
Expecting large public or private institutions to make a meaningful difference without anybody sacrificing anything is exactly the mindset that got us where we are today. Institutions have independent incentive structures and must be forced to work in our interest, otherwise they will not.
1) Landfills leach toxic chemicals into the water table.
2) Landfills are on scarce land which will run out oneday, making waste disposal more expensive.
3) It can be inconvenient to build over a landfill because you might hit a bale of plastic when drilling holes for your piles.
4) Plastic bags can blow away from landfills and end up in the sea.
5) Landfills may eventually erode into the sea.
1) Isn't true of all plastics or all landfills but nobody wants to encourage the use of the harmless ones. 2) and 3) are such small problems, it doesn't make sense for the whole world to pay whatever it costs to slow them (not even stop them). We'll never run out of land, just prime land in existing cities which is already mostly "lost" to development anyway. 4) is easily solved or a non-problem and probably even worse for recycling. 5) is just a response to a recent news event.
Nobody wants to consider if recycling or banning products costs more than the purely financial future landfill cost problem. I've tried asking someone about the relative costs when they gave me reason 2) and they just responded by saying that their conscience feels better knowing they're doing what's right.
Some of their ideas to solve it cause increased greenhouse gas emissions, like you mentioned with the energy cost. Many people even want to burn it!
Case 2 is an interesting case, it's a startlingly widespread fear yet seems ridiculous when you think about it for more than a few seconds. Slate Star Codex concluded it's alarmism sparked in the 80s by the media's coverage of the Mobro 4000 trash barge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobro_4000
Point 5 ("5. More And More Trash Piling Up Until The Whole World Is Just A Giant Mountain Of Trash"): https://web.archive.org/web/20190102054648/https://slatestar...
Unless you're saying you want to economically cripple them so they stop being able to afford packaged food or just die out entirely?
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/03/great-pacifi...
But the market won't create that solution unless regulations create the problem to be solved: no more single-use non-biodegradable plastics.
It sometimes feels as though climate change has sucked all the air out of other aspects of environmentalism. If you want to get people to pay attention to something, you first reframe it in terms of climate change. Want to protest the deforestation of the Amazon? Don't bother mentioning habitat loss and extinctions, people no longer care about that; focus on how it will impact CO2 levels. If the matter cannot rationally be framed in that way, do it anyway. Littering causes climate change because if we admit it probably doesn't, people won't care about it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190102054648/https://slatestar...
Plus, these plastics still take a lot of energy to produce.
I definitely think that multi-use plastics make the most sense, if we can build the supply chain to get there. Sort of like how old glass milk bottles worked: You left them out and they were collected by the milk man.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic#Home_com...
I think the problem is ultimately the "disposable attitude" of most people, which drove the manufacturers to make them thinner and weaker until they're barely enough for a single use (and also for more profit, of course.) I see biodegradable in the same way as planned obolescence --- the manufacturers can both guarantee that people will keep consuming, while also exclaiming how environmentally friendly they are.
Perhaps most people just don't like reusing things?
So if I can sell you a product in a multi-use container, pass the cost to you, and you decide to throw it away after a single use, that's what's going to happen.
If instead it's more affordable to use compostable plastics or non-plastics (e.g. aluminum), then that's what will be done.
My hunch is with low oil prices and the high cost to manufacture biodegradable plastics, the first path may unfortunately become popular (biodegradable plastics runs for roughly 10x standard plastic.)
This is a hard problem. A ban will not fix it and may have perverse effects like increasing usage and pollution.
What is so damn bad about paper? Paper is mostly renewable (or can be) and is very biodegradable. Why not just make better paper bags
I can understand the reversal of charging for shopping bags to encourage bringing reusable bags: reusable bags are potentially a disease vector.
But what's with the reintroduction of plastic straws over paper, and the reintroduction of styrofoam over paper boxes? A temporary cost-reduction measure, allowing the using-up of old stock these businesses had laying around?
I don't understand the rationale of not letting me bag my own groceries in my own bag. I'm not asking them to touch it, anymore than I ask them to touch my fabric jacket. Nor am I aware of any evidence of covid transmission through proximity to textile bags. The ban seems utterly senseless. I bought my bag years ago at Trader Joes but they no longer let me use it, so I no longer shop at Trader Joes. There are other grocery stores nearby that are being less unreasonable.
Also note how the vast majority of reusable bags get transported: We compress them down with our hands and stuff them somewhere. Your hands have been all over the bags (unlike most parts of your jacket).
Maybe researchers will determine that it isn't a risky practice after all, but given that we don't know yet it seems like a perfectly reasonable precaution.
Not everyone is out to get you. The ban is not senseless, and the stores implementing it are not being unreasonable. Have you considered the possibility that maybe you're the one being unreasonable?
I think it is easy to underestimate how optimized production and distribution are.
It wastes space for them, adds costs, and so on but the reduction in thefts are so big that it's worth it.
Those who have ordered something fragile and received it broken because it was underpackaged so much as to be nearly naked will know what I mean.
I've always wondered why some products are only available in glass jars, like jam. While some things used to be only in glass jars, but is now commonly plastic bottles (apple sauce, tomato sauce).
Interestingly, in the past couple of years, plastic peanut butter jars seem to have switched to opaque brown plastic, when they used to be clear. Is that because it's difficult to make clear products from recycled plastic?
Edit: this isn’t rhetoric, but a legitimate inquiry.
This isn't a formal declaration of rule making, or legislation, simply a declaration of intent from the Prime Minister. There's no formal weight behind this (except probably to start getting internal government bodies working on policy).
There's lot of time and room for sane (or dumb) rules to come out of this.
Medical (and similar) use exceptions are common. For example RoHS initially had a medical device exemption (and still has an implantable device exemption).
I don't think legitimate medical uses of single use plastics are at risk here, as long as no reasonable alternative exists.
speaking of, what is the scientific evidence like for banning single use plastics? eg. the uk and denmark government found that single use plastic bags aren't worse for the environment than paper bags.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
It seems like in practice this will basically amount to a ban on plastic straws and grocery bags.
So, yeah, I’m confident medical stuff will be on the exception list. At the same time, I know of folks that need continuing supplies for their care, such as wound care, but know none personally. Even my thing eventually ended.
Makes me wonder what'll happen when the pandemic situation finally winds down.
https://hempplastic.com/products/
I've held hemp plastic packaging in my hands in Denver, it works well. If we'd start ramping up the industrial hemp production it is also one of the best things for the entire planet for carbon neutral and even net negative in the long term. Cannabis is the highest consuming agricultural crop of CO2 on the planet. It grows at such an accelerated rate highly balances photosynthesis and quickly grows; eating CO2 like monsters. Turn the flower into cannabinoid extracts and foods, seed into food products, and all hemp stalk and pithe is then turned into bioplastics and hempcrete and various other wood products, like paper.
Though not sure what would be the process to get this thru in United States?
If you collected each you might have a penny a piece if you could recycle into something people want like homemade face masks.
Edit:
It seems pretty useless as they essentially have no function (edit: to health), since the near-universal adoption of filters on cigarettes has not reduced harms to smokers and lung cancer rates have not declined [4]. And the color change is something that was added to make the filter to appear to be effective [5]:
> The tobacco industry determined that the illusion of filtration was more important than filtration itself. It added chemicals in the filter so that its colour becomes darker when exposed to smoke (it was invented in 1953 by Claude Teague working for R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company). The industry wanted filters to be seen as effective, for marketing reasons, despite not making cigarettes any less unhealthy.
So trying to be rational here, they don't have any health benefits and are responsible for a large share of the microplastics in our ocean.
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.de/international/new-study-shows...
[2]: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/cigar...
[3]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/plastic-straw-ban-cigar...
[4]: https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/20/Suppl_1/i10
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_filter#Colour_change
I remember flying Lufthansa, where the crew asked us to reuse plastic cups for water in the name of being eco-friendly.
The hilarious thing was that we were onboard a giant 747-8, that was 70% empty.
Obviously it's not an either/or situation, but that banning single-use plastics is anywhere near even the top 10 things that we could be doing is laughable. I doubt it would even make the top 100.
Admittedly as a layperson I am guilty of wondering whether it is just one of those crazy ideas the marijuana enthusiasts are pushing, or whether it has any legitimate potential.
Has this material been given any serious consideration?
There's active development and use of biomanufacturing of common chemicals because it has the potential to be much cheaper and less complicated than existing processes.
For example, fermenting sugar directly into ethylene at room temperature/atmospheric pressure using engineered yeast is simpler and safer than converting ethanol into ethylene in a multi step process involving high temperature and pressure, hydrogen feedstock, platinum catalyst, etc. Assuming you actually have bugs that can do the one step conversion.
But if this ethylene is polymerized into polyethylene and made into 6-pack rings, those are going to kick around for a thousand years in the ocean shedding microplastics and choking birds regardless of whether they were manufactured in a biological or "traditional" process.
Likewise, if the input to a biomanufacturing process is roundup-ready soy ("worst of the best"), that could be worse for the environment than a "traditional" catalytic cracking process fed by recycled plastic ("best of the worst")
First it was pain. But it took only few months to adapt and now everyone are bringing bags to the store with then.
Fruit and veggie sections have paper bags, but also those sections offer canvas bags for the eco aware.
There's some more recent info in this article from January 30: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-canada-report-p...
What we need is a structured approach, that analyses all of the kinds of use, how realistically dependant we are on all of them, probably some strategic alignment from gov. and a phased approach with more time.
Canadian ministers of industry are rife with any number of 'PowerPoint Programs' for this or that, that are again in the category of 'business sentiment' and often completely miss the mark.
I would really love to see the Minsters, or at very least the heads of their Bureaucracy - actually have an operational business background. We've established that our Ministers of Finance have to have 'credentials' - why on Earth we don't demand the same from our business related ministers is astonishing.
They could be identifying most of the use, talking a lot with the entities most affected, researching alternatives, lining up suppliers, poking in maybe in highly-specific areas, possibly with some truly progressive alternatives with intelligently focused investment, and at least proving some kind of 'phased transition framework'.
Much like when Sweden went from 'Left Lane' to 'Right Lane' driving, there needs to be plan.
A lot of business right now are facing truly existential calamity, to have a politician pull this out and say 'you have 6 months to change' is just not good.
I also feel that 'any rule can be hacked' and we're going to see all sorts of externalities from this, specifically glass.
Plastic is a really useful material, and that we don't want it in the Ocean's means we have to change, but not necessarily along he lines he's taking - in fact - the edict, were it followed to the tee, might not change many things other than in the minds of voters.
I would love to see a comprehensive plan for how we can tackled plastic waste, it will not come from the PM's office.
Which brings me to my main point. The “paper straws” movement isn’t actually anti-climate-change or pro-ecology, but just virtue signalling. If it was real, they wouldn’t be advocating paper straws, they’d be advocating no straws at all! Hint: you don’t need a straw (the vast majority of people anyways).
If water came in 1l bottles instead of 20oz bottles people may not just forget about them after a sip. Plus, the volume add uses less plastic than the structural elements of 2 bottles.