+125
plastic is not our enemy, lazy humans are, amirite?
by Anonymous1 year ago
Doing something about plastic consumption is easier than changing the nature of humans
by Anonymous1 year ago
User tag checks out.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Recycling was made up by the plastic companies to shift the blame off of them and onto the consumer. Single use plastics are not sustainable.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Even beyond that, a significant portion of plastic ends up in the ocean because of lying politicians. Locally a mandatory blue bin recycling program was introduced (about) a decade ago. A large recycling sorting facility was produced, our taxes went up to cover the increased costs, but many claimed that it was worthwhile because it meant plastics were kept out of the landfill. It turned out the largest cost was paying a company in the Philippines to take these plastics and that company threw the plastic into the ocean.
The politician who created this "brilliant" program was re-elected several times, and a large portion of his supporters were environmentalists who loved him based on his intentions and ignored the result of his policies.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Unfortunately, most people don't do any digging on their chosen politician. The first thing I do with any candidate is look for dirt on them.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Not to mention plastic can only be recycled a few times before it just breaks down
by Anonymous1 year ago
While OP has a point about lazy humans. A lot of plastic contains chemicals that leech out into our food and eco system. These ‘plasticisers' are a big contributing factor into the fifty per cent drop in male fertility in the last forty years.
by Anonymous1 year ago
You talk about a 50% drop in human fertility like it's a bad thing...
by Anonymous1 year ago
I have no loyalty to plastic. Give me a good alternative and I'll use it.
Otherwise, my thinking is that no matter how hard I try, a company can undo in a single day (less) what I have done in an entire lifetime, so I'm not going to try too hard. When they started talking about banning plastic straws I went and bought some, and now I have plastic straws for the rest of my life. Two boxes. My local Wal Marts night shift has created more trash in the last thirty minutes.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Everything made out of plastic can BE made out of other material. It Will cost more though
by Anonymous1 year ago
My mom just read a study about how humans currently have plastic in our blood because there's particles in the food we consume and the air we breathe. Barbie was right all along, life is plastic.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Yeah this is a problem i agree but this was caused by us not properly disposing our garbage. If we would not basically feed our fish/water supplies with plastic this would have not happen(so drastically)
by Anonymous1 year ago
It's caused by its mere usage and has nothing to do with disposal
by Anonymous1 year ago
It's from the food packaging
by Anonymous1 year ago
That's been known for a while now.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Yeah and?
by Anonymous1 year ago
Marketing and lobbyists are the enemy
by Anonymous1 year ago
Micro plastics are everywhere and would be no matter how they are disposed. Wrong > unpopular
by Anonymous1 year ago
What does "Wrong is less than unpopular" mean
by Anonymous1 year ago
That's what I'm trying to figure out...
by Anonymous1 year ago
That's the "greater than" symbol. I think the idea was "this is more wrong than it is unpopular."
by Anonymous1 year ago
Right, OP's opinion is less unpopular and more just grossly ignorant
by Anonymous1 year ago
Its kinda like the "guns dont kill people, people do". We know it needs an asshole human to make it bad, but its hard to get rid of the human error
by Anonymous1 year ago
I would say it's greedy humans (corporations) but ok.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Y'all just wanna blame everything on corporations. Do you not use plastic or something?
by Anonymous1 year ago
?? Not sure if this is low effort bait, or if you lack critical reasoning
Either way, not today bestie x
by Anonymous1 year ago
Plastic being so common is the issue. It's hard to get a cashier to not give you a bag. Everything comes in plastic that is worthless and fills the landfill because it's not worth recycling. 5% of plastic put in recycling bins was recycled last year. Something that last lifetimes and we only use once is idiotic
by Anonymous1 year ago
I dont personally throw any trash in the ocean. Or anywhere except a trashcan. Sadly, when it gets picked up from my house I dont control where it goes from there.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Single use plastics and most plastics I imagine have a net negative effect over the entire course of their existence. They may provide some benefit in the immediate/short term (using them and recycling them). But the overall impact to our environment over the long period it takes to degrade likely negates any previous benefits. Convenience and our society's current reliance on them inflate their value while ignoring their externalities.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Not to take away from the many things that would not be currently possible without plastics, but a long lasting society cannot survive with our current culture of dependence on plastics
by Anonymous1 year ago
It's not people throwing it into the oceans. It's corporations
by Anonymous1 year ago
Micro plastics, in everything, disposal doesn't matter, ot comes off of your clothes, the ramifications of this are still being discovered. Plastic is the problem too.
by Anonymous1 year ago
I hate this opinion. Things should be designed with human foibles in mind. You don't exclusively tell everyone to not touch the power lines, you bury them or put them up high first.
by Anonymous1 year ago
It's actually mainly a handful of countries that are responsible for all that pollution in the Pacific. And it ain't America, even back when we had plastic straws.
by Anonymous1 year ago
I still preffer steel, weight be damned
by Anonymous1 year ago
I actually do agree with this tbf
by Anonymous1 year ago
Unpopular opinion: burning plastic waste for energy is the best way to get rid of it.
by Anonymous1 year ago
But wouldn't the fire then release tons of toxic chemicals in the air?
by Anonymous1 year ago
High-temperature incineration: picture a very tall rocket stove.
Also, chimney filters to absorb any remaining chemicals before they make it into the atmosphere.
Plastics are basically fossil fuels waiting to be used.
Even if there are still small amounts of chemicals that make it into the air, it's probably fewer chemicals than are currently seeping into all our water, every living creature, and literally soaking into you from the millions of microplastics you have in your body at any moment.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Something like 80% of plastic ocean trash comes from mostly 2 rivers in Asia.
The US contributes just 0.2% of the plastic trash in the oceans.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Are they in India and China? Also , source?
by Anonymous1 year ago
I saw video of a river in Haiti just spewing plastic and other trash into the ocean like it was no big deal.
by Anonymous1 year ago
I don't know where you got the BS about 3d printing body parts, but it is the biggest lie not uttered by Donald Trump I have heard in a long time.
by Anonymous1 year ago
You're right i had a poor choice of words i did not mean literally i am sorry. I corrected myself. They got inspired from plastic 3D Printers and now print small pieces but not with actual plastic.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Hard disagree. Plastic has uses in specific contexts but at the moment plastic is near-ubiquitous and often used because it's *cheap*, not because it's the best material for the job. Plastic waste would be negligible if we recognised its drawbacks as a material and consumed and wasted less and used more sustainable, long-life materials.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Most plastic isn't necessary and shouldn't be used. Back in the day food was wrapped in wax paper and we all survived.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Jesus christ this opinion is not unpopular it literally is just generic and boring.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Lying scamming cheating corporations are the problem. You blaming the consumer is the exact propaganda they've been selling us for years.
by Anonymous1 year ago
I mean yeah. But same goes for guns, bombs, etc. Just by themself, there's really not that big of a problem (just assuming the bomb doesn't just go off by itself). It's most of the times humans that make things a problem. But since we can't change 8 billion people, we have to limit access to the stuff that people just aren't able to handle properly
by Anonymous1 year ago
Or we just change the entire way we dispose stuff which we would also benefit from in other ways/materials but yeah i get your point.
by Anonymous1 year ago
I'm 100% on your side. It would be great if we somehow are able to achieve that. It's just sad you will always have those few percent of people who don't give a damn and ignore even the best dispose system and still throw their trash wherever they want. You had to get money for collected plastic which at least would cause some people to collect others trash for some bucks, idk
by Anonymous1 year ago
Plastic is going to be green in about twenty years anyway.
by Anonymous1 year ago
How?
by Anonymous1 year ago
I've never in my life thrown plastic into an ocean.
by Anonymous1 year ago
OMG you have to try it - SO worth whatever tiny downside there might be.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Same stupid argument.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Not the same thing. Not even close.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Most plastic doesn't end up getting recycled even if it's discarded in the proper bin.
by Anonymous1 year ago
That argument is illogical because the same argument could be applied to guns. Guns aren't the problem, it's the way that people use their guns that's the problem. Or fast food, fast food's not the problem it's people that eat the fast food that's the problem and so on and so.forth.
by Anonymous1 year ago
This is objectively false
by Anonymous1 year ago
It's so sad to see people fall for the "pollution is the fault of the individual" propaganda pushed by corporations that do the pollution in the first place to shift the blame.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Okay, plastic industry social media outreach associate
by Anonymous1 year ago
Plastic isn't even recycled anymore
by Anonymous1 year ago
I never liked the term "enemy" for things that are not sentient. It implies a certain amount of intentional maliciousness and that it's wronged you on purpose somehow.
It should all be recognized as an environmental hazard and we should definitely dispose of waste better. But "enemy" is a misnomer.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Corporations and the plastic industry have been lying to the public since they launched. But sure, it's not plastic's fault… it's our fault for inventing it and it's our fault for continuing to use it now that we know the truth.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Right now, its not certain if microplastic is dangerous. Sure, better to play save tho
by Anonymous1 year ago
I'd like to challenge that. While lazy people cause more plastic pollution, everyone unavoidably contributes to plastic pollution. Any plastic object experiences wear and tear, releasing microplastics to the environment.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Well, humans aren't going to change so plastic is the enemy.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Just ban plastic..
by Anonymous1 year ago
won't work
by Anonymous1 year ago
ban humans.
by Anonymous1 year ago
No thats what i am trying to say plastic has good atributs it is not per see a bad thing.
by Anonymous1 year ago
Yes, ban the bad thing, ban worked so good before, it will surely work now.
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