Nothing will happen. Microplastics that get into human comes mostly from tyres. Since 5 decades ago, we did nothing to solve those old tyres and now realizing the grinded down tyre powder is health hazard. Nothing to see.
I mean sure, we definitely need that material science research… but for a big part of the contamination we kind of already know what to do.
For textile related pollution, it’s using more organic fibres like cotton and wool for clothing where possible. And for tire wear it’s improving public transportation and pushing for greater use of rail on long distance transportation, particularly for cargo. Unfortunately clothing is not getting better as fast fast-fashion is not going to spend more for organic fibres… and in a lot of places people seem to be all but allergic to the very idea of public transport and in a lot of places around the world aren’t good at building train tracks and stations so that won’t really help in the short term.
> fast fast-fashion is not going to spend more for organic fibres
Agreed, but like the tire wear we will probably have to counter the underlying issue. To me, fast fast fashion feels like a symptom of a depressed attention economy. People feel the need to grab attention/feel like part of the in crowd and don’t have the funds. Maybe they are just practicing retail therapy. In any case these are symptoms of widespread disconnection and avoidance. I don’t think people truly want fast fast fashion or even fast fashion, and I don’t think anyone would argue for producing it (except for the cost).
There's never been any particular reason to worry about plastics recycling though, because at the end of the day plastic starts off as oil in the ground, and it's better if it ends up as oil in the ground (landfill).
What we don't want is for it to end up in the ocean or top-level biosphere: which is not a problem recycling addresses, since it's the wrong part of the lifecycle chain and in the wrong area of responsibility.
Recycling in general is oversold: it's a resource optimization strategy. It's most valuable for things with real limits on their production rate - i.e. plantation timber - or which are so expensive that recycling is just better (aluminum). But we have so much oil that...honestly who cares? The majority of the raw resources for plastics are burned rather then turned into useful products. If there's a good use of plastic waste, it's honestly burying it all in one easily reclaimable place so it could be thermally depolymerized as a useful input material later (i.e. when energy is cheap enough to make that viable).
The individual consumer cannot police the whole industry, but they can choose what part of the industry they support. If many care, they can make an impact.
And that's the crux. Many, or most people don't give a shit. Not about climate change, not about plastic in the ocean. Not about animals living in factories without seeing the sun ever. They care about their immediate surroundings, their taxes and the money in their pocket. They don't want further problems, someone else should take care of that (unless it increases taxes).
> but they can choose what part of the industry they support.
Sometimes they can, sometimes they can't, sometimes it's up to what they care and focus about.
> If many care, they can make an impact.
Sure, theoretically. Expecting any results seems like a fool's game though. Who would bother when the state is right there and perfectly capable of making rational decisions better than any individual consumer could?
> And that's the crux. Many, or most people don't give a shit. Not about climate change, not about plastic in the ocean. Not about animals living in factories without seeing the sun ever. They care about their immediate surroundings, their taxes and the money in their pocket. They don't want further problems, someone else should take care of that (unless it increases taxes).
Yea, it's almost like this is a "tragedy of the commons" issue known to be extremely difficult to impact by individual decision making. And who can blame the individual? Who could shoulder that responsibility and emerge sane? The only entity involved one might expect to make a difference is the state with their ability to override the inherent irrationality of the masses.
Christ, what are people being taught in school these days?
"Who could shoulder that responsibility and emerge sane? The only entity involved one might expect to make a difference is the state with their ability to override the inherent irrationality of the masses. Christ, what are people being taught in school these days?"
Don't worry, they still teach everyone, that states are the only solution. They don't really teach, how that works, though. If a state is composed of lots of small parts with "inherent irrationality of the masses". Yet somehow when it is a state, it is suddenly sane?
Very convincing. Except that most states are rather busy with war now. The main thing they do to combat climate change, is talking and making resolutions how the world should look like in 2050. And in the superpower number 1, people will soon have the sane decision to vote for one, or another old senile person to fix their problems. I am sorry, but the data does not seem to support your hypothesis.
My thesis rather is, that the way the states are teaching everyone in general is flawed in the first place. And this is why most people have no understanding about fundamental things. But now they have the excuse, oh, I cannot do anything, but the state can. Very comfortable.
> The individual consumer cannot police the whole industry, but they can choose what part of the industry they support
This is true. Because I know the lies about recycling plastic are just a myth, I personally always shop at the store that doesn’t use plastic, furthermore to spare the environment I don’t drive my car there, I ride my unicorn instead. /s
The myth that plastic can be recycled is harmful. The myth that personal responsibility has any impact on these issues is another harmful myth. Chosing paper over plastic at checkout doesn’t matter at all. Any change that could make any real impact has to be institutional or political. Those pushing us to ignore this are the ones who want to avoid such changes.
"I personally always shop at the store that doesn’t use plastic, furthermore to spare the environment I don’t drive my car there, I ride my unicorn instead"
Well, I do ride my bicycle to my local farmer store, where I can indeed buy things with very little or no plastic. I also drive my car to the bigger store to get everything else, but some years ago, I only had the big plastic store option. This local store did not came into existence, because it was mandated by politics. But because there was enough consumer demand for it.
And the oil and gas industry (especially later with fraccing, and the earthquakes that followed).
Our children will be caught up in the usual capitalism cycle that we are in, only occasionally stopping to realize how our collective choices have added more and more problems to our lives.
Plastic is simply the result of capitalizing on the waste of refining petro products. You have to do something with it so the thinking went, so might as well make plastic and make money off of it. You're also evenly distributing that waste all over, rather than at the refining site. Decades later we're realizing evenly distributing the waste all over may not have been such a good idea after all.
Anyways, if you want less plastic then you're going to need to pump less oil, and the way to pump less oil is to reduce the demand on refined oil products such as gasoline. It's pretty much as simple as that.
And unfortunately, there’s not a lot that can be done. Congress is not going to go against the plastic, packaging and bottling industry, or the petroleum industry. The best we could hope for is a tariff on plastic products, or large state taxes on plastic bottles, packaging, and fill material.
It has been common knowledge that 90% of the stuff is not recycled.
We need a huge material science effort to reduce the plastic usage.
All of the recent studies around micro plastic contamination is alarming.