plastic is not our enemy, lazy humans are, amirite?

Doing something about plastic consumption is easier than changing the nature of humans

by Anonymous 2 years ago

User tag checks out.

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

Not to mention plastic can only be recycled a few times before it just breaks down

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

You talk about a 50% drop in human fertility like it's a bad thing...

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

Everything made out of plastic can BE made out of other material. It Will cost more though

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

It's caused by its mere usage and has nothing to do with disposal

by Anonymous 2 years ago

It's from the food packaging

by Anonymous 2 years ago

That's been known for a while now.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Yeah and?

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Marketing and lobbyists are the enemy

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Micro plastics are everywhere and would be no matter how they are disposed. Wrong > unpopular

by Anonymous 2 years ago

What does "Wrong is less than unpopular" mean

by Anonymous 2 years ago

That's what I'm trying to figure out...

by Anonymous 2 years ago

That's the "greater than" symbol. I think the idea was "this is more wrong than it is unpopular."

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Right, OP's opinion is less unpopular and more just grossly ignorant

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

I would say it's greedy humans (corporations) but ok.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Y'all just wanna blame everything on corporations. Do you not use plastic or something?

by Anonymous 2 years ago

?? Not sure if this is low effort bait, or if you lack critical reasoning Either way, not today bestie x

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

It's not people throwing it into the oceans. It's corporations

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

I still preffer steel, weight be damned

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I actually do agree with this tbf

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Unpopular opinion: burning plastic waste for energy is the best way to get rid of it.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

But wouldn't the fire then release tons of toxic chemicals in the air?

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

Are they in India and China? Also , source?

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

Jesus christ this opinion is not unpopular it literally is just generic and boring.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Lying scamming cheating corporations are the problem. You blaming the consumer is the exact propaganda they've been selling us for years.

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

Plastic is going to be green in about twenty years anyway.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

How?

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I've never in my life thrown plastic into an ocean.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

OMG you have to try it - SO worth whatever tiny downside there might be.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Same stupid argument.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Not the same thing. Not even close.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Most plastic doesn't end up getting recycled even if it's discarded in the proper bin.

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

This is objectively false

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

Okay, plastic industry social media outreach associate

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Plastic isn't even recycled anymore

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

Right now, its not certain if microplastic is dangerous. Sure, better to play save tho

by Anonymous 2 years 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 Anonymous 2 years ago

Well, humans aren't going to change so plastic is the enemy.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Just ban plastic..

by Anonymous 2 years ago

won't work

by Anonymous 2 years ago

ban humans.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

No thats what i am trying to say plastic has good atributs it is not per see a bad thing.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Yes, ban the bad thing, ban worked so good before, it will surely work now.

by Anonymous 2 years ago