>I hate how much this is made into 'rich' versus 'poor' countries. It distracts from the main culprits: Coca-Cola, Nestle, Pepsico, Unilever, P&G, Mars, Kraft-Heinz ... etc
Let's not scapegoat a group that I'm a part of, and instead scapegoat a group I'm not a part of!
>Sadly straws and q-tips ban is the most embarassing display of a collective of weak governments in the hands of corporate lobbying.
"Lobbying" is a convenient bogeyman, but in this case, lobbyists are merely revealing the very real preference that Americans love using single use plastics. The internet thinks that lobbying is the corporations bribing politicians, but in reality, lobbying is corporations convincing politicians what is the best way to bribe their voters.
Ocean plastics from consumer goods is already a solved problem anyways. Developing countries need better trash infrastructure. Even, landfills and incinerators are better than dumping it in the ocean.
> lobbyists are merely revealing the very real preference that Americans love using single use plastics.
Citation needed?
So are you saying that it is the consumer that drives demand for single-use plastic? The massive cost reduction for the manufacturer has absolutely nothing to do with this push?
The narrative that 'people vote with their wallets' get pushed around a lot on this forum but I fear it is often disingenuous to the nuances of a given situation. I can't really cast meaningful votes with a lot of items because I'm still at the mercy of what is manufactured and readily available. Despite not wanting a touch screen and only a barebones car, nobody is going to make one. Thus I'm left with a few options I don't like, one of which I have to take.
To be clear I don't think the wallet-vote narrative is completely wrong-I just think consumers have less voting power than everyone thinks they do (in this narrative)
Tropicana, which was owned by Pepsi at the time, gained significant market share when they switched from paper cartons to plastic bottles. It was in the glossy annual report, but I can’t remember what year.
The real culprit for all the clear plastic was the anti-landfill environmental movement that deceived the public that plastic can be recycled in an environmentally beneficial way. I suspect this lie was backed by the manufacturers.
The other environmental scam brewing is how hard the oil and gas industry are secretly and falsely pushing hydrogen as a solution to carbon emissions. They are salivating at the idea of federally funded pipelines and know hydrogen from methane is going to be the cheapest source for decades.
The backup camera thing was regulation announced in 2002, with more than decade allowed to implement. The reason was because about 25 kids per year were being backed over and killed, often by their parents.
> Despite not wanting a touch screen and only a barebones car, nobody is going to make one.
This isn't a great example because the government mandates all cars have a back up camera, so given the real estate that takes in the center console, you might as well make it a touch screen and outsource some functionality to it. Mazda cars probably come closest to what you're looking for though.
> Despite not wanting a touch screen and only a barebones car, nobody is going to make one. Thus I'm left with a few options I don't like, one of which I have to take.
You’re not a victim. Don’t buy, or buy products you value second hand. I have a 2015 notebook that I can repair and still works great, an older car I can repair and works great, a 2009 professional camera that works great with lenses from 1970, etc.
Nobody "asked for" it. People are presented a cheap option and an expensive option, and without a strong reason to prefer the latter, choose the former.
Or people do actually prefer the slightly-more-expensive option, but it gets phased out and then there is only the cheap option and some artisanal bullshit version that costs 5x and much so only rich people buy it. Some combination of price discrimination via "quality bundling" and shrinkflation.
However I agree that the solution is to un-externalize these costs.
> Or people do actually prefer the slightly-more-expensive option, but it gets phased out and then there is only the cheap option and some artisanal bullshit version that costs 5x and much so only rich people buy it.
If the majority of people prefer plastic jugs of milk over reusable bottles of milk, then the milkman no longer benefits from economies of scale, so they have to increase prices. This causes more people to switch to plastic jugs of milk, so milkmen have even less economies of scale, etc. The only stable equilibrium is for the milkman to market his service as a luxury.
Plastic, at the time, was simply better. It is lighter, not brittle, and cheap to mass-produce. Shipping costs are greatly reduced.
Consumers benefit from cheaper pricing, companies get better margins, everyone wins.
Now we see the externalities, or are forced to accept them. But it's not just the consumer's fault. Lots of cheaper items went directly to profit and not to consumers.
I only interact with single use plastics directly as a Costco costumer, Amazon delivery recipient, and occasionally when I interact with some medical products like bandaids. Otherwise, here in San Francisco, in my day to day life, I do not interact with single use non-compostable plastics directly.
I don't feel like I'm missing much.
However I am intellectually honest, I know that the goods that are delivered to Whole Foods and Rainbow and whatever are packaged in single use plastics. I know the hospital throws away a lot of stuff, including metal instruments, let alone plastic ones.
In an industrial context, it is possible to legislate a reasonable reduction in single use plastics.
> Developing countries need better trash infrastructure. Even, landfills and incinerators are better than dumping it in the ocean.
> lobbyists are merely revealing the very real preference that Americans love using single use plastics.
This comment is incredibly out of touch with reality. It completely ignores the fact that the consumer was NEVER given a choice of eco-friendly packaging vs single use plastic.
In my experience single use plastics are generally much stronger and more reliable than paper. Look at paper straws for example: If you don't chug fast enough, the straw becomes mushy and dissolves into the drink.
Let's not scapegoat a group that I'm a part of, and instead scapegoat a group I'm not a part of!
>Sadly straws and q-tips ban is the most embarassing display of a collective of weak governments in the hands of corporate lobbying.
"Lobbying" is a convenient bogeyman, but in this case, lobbyists are merely revealing the very real preference that Americans love using single use plastics. The internet thinks that lobbying is the corporations bribing politicians, but in reality, lobbying is corporations convincing politicians what is the best way to bribe their voters.
Ocean plastics from consumer goods is already a solved problem anyways. Developing countries need better trash infrastructure. Even, landfills and incinerators are better than dumping it in the ocean.