i really do not understand where this idea that plastic has something to do with the climate came from, how do people imagine that to work?
No, the point of not using plastic is to not have plastics blowing around on the street for 50 years before it’s degraded into microplastics that instead enter our bodies.
Some materials have higher carbon emissions than others, in terms of refinement, processing, and transportation. The third point is location dependant, but creating and shaping different materials will have different contributions to global warming.
Edit: There are also concerns with the product’s end of lifespan. How long it takes to biodegrades, how easily recyclable it is, and how much the available disposal methods will effect the environment. Plastic is not great on several of these accounts. Recycling plastic water bottles isn’t very efficient either, compared to glass bottles for instance.
I recently visited China, to meet my wife’s extended family.
Let me tell you, the sheer amount of single-use plastics that are consumed by any individual throughout a regular day in a metropolitan environment, is absolutely and mind-numbingly depressing.
Given that there are 1.3b people there, and that no matter how much we in the US/AU/EU reduce/reuse/recycle - we will never be able to truly offset that sheer amount of plastic pollution produced.
Now I’m not saying this to be a doomer, but more-so to say that individuals can’t enact sufficient change to save this planet, we need Government and corporate incentives to shift towards sustainable alternatives, and punitive policies to disincentivise plastic production globally.
the reduction is plastic waste generation in China is far more than that of US^1^.
so, what I mean to say is that more people ≠ more pollution. but I do agree that the problem is to be tackled with active participation of the government, which won’t be there because of muh economy.
[1]: By 2016, China’s overall plastic waste production had fallen to 21.60 million tons, a reduction of nearly 28 million tons (for comparison, U.S. production fell less than 4 tons during the same time period). Moreover, despite being one of the largest overall producers of plastic waste, China’s per capita production of plastic waste was one of the lowest in the world in 2016 at 15.6 kilograms a year per person.
I did the ambulance thing for a bit. CPR calls, the back of the ambulance, despite being covered in fluids, looked like a recycling center. And none of it gets recycled, obviously, all just gets red bagged or containered. Everything is individually wrapped, and for obvious reasons, but I’d have days where I could match my family’s plastic use for the week or more in 12 hours.
Though in that particular scenario, while it feels wasteful, for an average person is exceedingly rare. The only paramedic supply I’ve had used on me in my lifetime was when my car got rear ended badly and they gave me a blanket because I just conversationally mentioned it was kind of cold while they were checking in with me. Going for a dental cleaning or a physical there’ll be some single use plastics to be sure, but again, only like 3 times a year usually.
The majority of Chinese residents don’t live in metro zones, work office jobs, and eat fast food, though.
Also, very common to find reusable metal straws (and cups and utensils) outside the US. Korea and Japan both overwhelmingly favor washable utensils, as do cities south of the US border (I stopped seeing disposables once I got outside Mexico City proper and I never saw them in Jamaica or Cozemel outside the airport/seaport). There are zero disposables in Havana. The very idea is alien to them.
Lots of places in the US won’t recycle the supposedly “recyclable” plastics, it ends up in a landfill regardless of what you do. I remember all the educational initiatives about the importance of recycling when I was a kid. Turns out it was all just propaganda to make us feel responsible for problems caused by corporations.
I don’t know if all these recent jet memes are people just joking around or are you people actually convinced private jets are the problem?
Taylor swift, and every single billionaire alive could be flying 24/7/365 OR NOT and it would make absolutely no difference to fighting climate change.
The main polluters are industry and farming.
All this other shit around are just distractions keeping you from actually going after the people that are causing our crisis.
I don’t know if it’s astroturfing or what, but it seems like it’s deliberate manipulation to keep people inactive.
You memeing on Tylor or using wood straws, or recycling your soda can does fuck all. A single paper plant will dump out so much co2 and pollution that will negate the effort of millions.
Well, none of that matters anyways when China now emits almost twice as much CO2 as the US and is basically single-handedly not just absorbing all the rest of the world’s reduction efforts, but increasing the global output enormously.
While that’s efficient by comparison, the atmosphere doesn’t really give us a break for per-capita adjustments. Yes, the US is more irresponsible per capita and they need to fix that. However China gets more bang-for-the-buck in per-capita improvements when it comes to the actual environmental impact.
Depends on whether we are talking about where to optimize for best impact, or whether we are talking about fairness of blame.
the data you shared only shows half the picture. if you take into account cumulative emissions, the US isn’t doing any good. it’s responsible fit a quarter of emissions to date.
Past emissions are just assigning blame, future emissions are all that matters. USA emissions have peaked, China is growing exponentially. That’s a problem.
That’s cumulative as in “from the beginning of time” (as far as we have record allowing us to estimate). It merely proves that the US has had a head start in all this because they industrialized at a large scale far earlier than China. But as you can see, China’s curve is literally steeper than anyone else’s, having already almost caught up to the EU in a mere 50 years.
Taylor Swift is looking to be a supporter of the Democratic Party in US, so the Republicans are running targeted attacks on her to reduce credibility as the election is coming up.
It’s nothing new but just be aware that people posting these memes may just be bots/paid marketers essentially.
image description: a luxurious inside view of a private jet, in which another jet is flying inside.
the text above it reads, “Taylor swift yendo al baño de su jet.”
lit: Taylor swift going to her jet’s bathroom.
I mean, let’s be honest, that’s how the system works. Apart from essential goods, most demand is entirely artificial and generated either by advertising (luxury goods), or, in this case, more covertly by manipulating the public opinion and, if necessary, bribing a few public officials to pass a law that makes your product mandatory.
Pasta straws seem like the obvious solution, it takes at least 5 minutes to soften in BOILING water, it’s gonna last at least that long in a chilled beverage, and then if you throw it in the forest that’s literally just food
The thing is billionaires will always use more resources than you. They will have more stuff. It’ll have more houses. They will have boats, private planes, huge mansions, and more money than they know what to do with. They will always use more resources than you. If your whole statement is we shouldn’t try to solve global warming because some people are rich, and we’re doomed to all die. And by the way, The billionaires will have a nice air-conditioned bunker while the rest of us die.
I’m all for trying to solve wealth inequality, but it shouldn’t get in the way of solving a major environmental disaster.
Well, I can’t help but notice it’s mostly those billionaires and the people who work for them who are telling us there’s a climate issue and WE need to solve it while they continue to fly everywhere on their private jets and buy more waterfront mansions they tell us will be underwater in 10 years.
So IDK man… I’m certainly not a climate scientist but something doesn’t add up here.
More people than billionaires are telling you there’s a climate issue. Scientists are, normal people are, etc. It’s the biggest environmental issue of our lifetimes. And there are some celebrities that are also trying to use their popularity to promote the message to get the government to create a set of rules that will actually impact out much CO2 we’re putting into our atmosphere. The right-wing talking heads have found that it’s really effective to point at them and say “LOOK! They have big houses! They fly around in private jets! They use more resources that 100 of you normal folks, therefore we shouldn’t do anything.”
The reality is that they’re using more resources than 100 of us normal folks, but there are 100k of us normal folks to each of them so we make a much more significant impact on the climate than they do. And yes, lets make the laws affect them also. But the “they’re flying around in jets” talking point is lame. They’re going to be flying around in jets no matter what. They’re going to have big houses no matter what. So lets make them have lots of solar panels on their big houses or make flying around in private jets more expensive. That’s just a reason to make the laws affect them also, it’s NOT a reason to do nothing and let the world burn.
Sorry, but you’re putting the cart before the horse there. More people than billionaires are telling us there’s a climate issue BECAUSE celebrities are using their clout to promote this issue. And most of these people, including the celebrities, aren’t climate scientists either, they just parrot stuff they’ve heard from people they trust.
So you only heard about climate change when celebs like Taylor Swift started promoting it? The writing has been on the wall for decades (from scientists) and we’ve been hearing about it for that amount of time. If you think that the only reason you know about it is from celebs then apparently they were needed in order to reach you.
If your whole statement is we shouldn’t try to solve global warming because some people are rich
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying at all. Any solution to climate change is incomplete if it doesn’t also address inequality and overconsumption
Well, one version of ‘solving inequality’ would be making sure the other 99% create as much emissions as that 1%, which taking your statistics at face value would be a massive bump in emissions.
Yep. I’m all for limiting waste, but we never should’ve gotten rid of plastic straws. Paper straws DO NOT WORK. It’s as simple as that.
I’ve resorted to carrying my own straws these days, just so I don’t have to use soggy paper.
And frankly, I doubt getting rid of plastic straws had any effect anyway. They claimed here it was to protect sea turtles. I live four hours from the ocean. Unless a sea turtle knows how to use public transport, they’re not likely to get near my straw. Especially since I actually put it in the recycling bin anyway.
Instead of paper we should have gone stainless steel. Safe, strong, reusable, fully recyclable. Ive got a few and i love em personally but i get why people don’t go outta their way to have some
As for safe, wellllll… there’s some debate on it. People have been impaled when they tripped and fell while drinking from them. They’re also a bit more difficult to clean, since you just toss a plastic straw.
This seems to be opposing objectives for a straw. If it’s strong, then it can puncture/lacerate if someone falls while carrying a drink. This has been an issue, and it has killed at least one person. I don’t want my drinking straw to be that strong. Frankly I’ll just skip the straw for the most part.
Well, all I can reasonably do is put it in the correct bin for proper recycling, as they tell you to do. I would never litter; it’s antisocial as fuck.
Once it’s collected, I have zero control over it. I assume Dutch garbage companies don’t dump my trash in the ocean, but I honestly haven’t bothered to check if they export it to somewhere else or anything like that.
Well, all I can reasonably do is put it in the correct bin for proper recycling, as they tell you to do. I would never litter; it’s antisocial as fuck.
Once it’s collected, I have zero control over it. I assume Dutch garbage companies don’t dump my trash in the ocean, but I honestly haven’t bothered to check if they export it to somewhere else or anything like that.
You know you could just learn to drink like grown ups so you don’t need to carry around special implements? My babies could pretty much drink straight from a cup or a glass before they had turned two, you can do it too
And that’s perfectly fine to do with a soda, sure. But with a milkshake? Or a very cold slushie? You can’t really drink those like a soda. Not unless you let them melt completely, which rather defeats the purpose…
All the other pre-teens out there are protesting that we only have one planet and all you have to complain about is that you have to carry disposable straws for your milkshake or your very cold slushie, or you won’t be able to enjoy them? Those are going to hurt your teeth and your tum-tum anyway, you should probably stop
Not to be the "well akshually" guy, but I personally find that while paper straws are fine for most drinks, when it comes to thicker ones they really suck (no pun intended). Like, using a paper straw with a slurpee or milkshake is a nightmare.
I'm team paper straws, but surely there's a better solution for drinks like those.
First of all, you’d be surprised, and second of all, while most people DO have silverware at more, they probably don’t have metal straws, and they’d also be easier to steal because they’re thinner than a fork or a knife and thus easier to conceal.
My teeth make pretty good retainers. It seems like a weird nostalgia thing. There must be far more pop consumed in a bottle than in a fast food cup, and I’ve never seen anyone put a straw in a bottle (except on tv).
In some countries canned drinks are known to be unsanitary. Rodents would pee on cans and someone would rinse/wash the top (hopefully). You’d buy a can and get a straw because they don’t scrub the little notch. You’d see yellow.
Or you know, food grade stainless steel straws. No bad chemicals, doesn’t turn to mush (unless exposed to temperatures of 1,400 to 1,530 °C) and fully recyclable. Some people say they are hard to wash but ive never had a problem i just stick em vertical into the silverware holder of my dishwasher and it’s always gotten all the way through the straw clean.
They are cheap to produce as well. Not plastic cheap maybe but businesses could easily replace plastic straws with them without going bankrupt or anything. Easy model is just have em as an optional extra so once people already have 8 they can just use their own lol
I usually just keep them in the center console of my car the ones I bought came with a little nice bamboo bag thing to keep them in. So I only keep them in my pocket when I know I’m going to use them and I haven’t found them to be particularly annoying in the pocket personally could always just hang the bag off a belt loop if it really bothered me though
Yeah, silicone is in a weird spot where it’s kinda a plastic and kinda rubber.
But that’s less important because they aren’t single use. You’re going to use them time and again.
Same reason I never felt bad about buying the “single use” plastic grocery bags from Aldi that they’ve discontinued - I still have ones from my first visit to an Aldi that I continue to reuse.
Despite very limited usage, metal straws have caused major injuries including fatalities. Turns out having a metal stick pointed at all sorts of sensitive soft tissue is a risk.
Meanwhile, if using your own straw with a restaurants disposable cup, hardly helps since the cup is still being waste. If using it with reusable cups, it won’t save you from any sanitation issues, since the drink is right in contact with the container. It may be useful for sanitation reasons with a can, but again, the can is disposable. Even if you recycle it, the coating on the inside and the paint on the outside probably are about as much as the plastic straw you spared.
Well, no, just I’m personally apprehensive. I can’t find a story about someone getting killed while using a fork, I can find that about metal straws. I’d personally favor just drinking straight from a cup with my mouth, or a reusable flexible straw if the beverage were something like a milkshake.
Don’t forget about reporting bias. You’re more likely to find stories about Metal straw deaths because metal straws are not common. So when it does happen it’s considered news, just like how you’re going to see reports about almost every single EV fire and yet hundreds of cars Catch Fire every day and you almost never hear about that. Hell you’ve probably driven by a standard gasoline engine fire more than once in your life and thought very little of it
I was recently served a long macaroni as a straw in a restaurant. It was honestly amazing how well it worked! At no point it was mushy and there’s nothing in it that I wouldn’t eat with my pasta dish anyway.
They are good for some drinks but not great for others in my experience. They do get soggy after a few hours and start to dissolve a bit into the drink so if you use them at home and refill a few times over an evening they aren’t great. They also react with some fizzy drinks and cause them to bubble over.
I think once you unlocked all the luxuries that the world has to offer, the temptation gets the better of you eventually. I don’t condone it, but I also can’t say I wouldn’t live a bit more wasteful if I had all the money in the world
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