U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/us-plastic-pollution

by DocFeind • 5 years ago

361 270 5 years ago

nationalgeographic.com

vipermark7• 5 years ago

When given an option between blaming the individual and blaming multinational corporations, I tend to blame the latter

zz865• 5 years ago

Yeah everyone does, which is why those big oil companies are causing global warming but not me.

TheSpiceIsLife2• 5 years ago

Well, you didn’t wage a massive climate change denial / disinformation campaign for decades, did you?

I don’t have any options with regard to how I get to and from work nor how I hear and cool my home.

Is that directly your fault, or am I right to place a fair chunk of the blame on the source of that denial?

arodyginc• 5 years ago

You can't cause any real harm to nature without help from corps. But they can, by just setting up an oil drill leaking into the ocean.

zapataband1• 5 years ago

I also love the 'But you can 'vote' with your dollar!' crowd

We have glass bottles, we have compostable plastic, a company is not incentivized to lose profit by switching to more expensive alternatives until it becomes illegal to not do so and they have more lobbying power than any of us.

sethammons2• 5 years ago

No single raindrop believes it is to be blamed for the flood

TheSpiceIsLife2• 5 years ago

This analogy highlights where the problem lies.

Floods are prevented, or mitigated, not by single raindrops, but by chaotic systems on a much larger scale, and / or infrastructure projects raindrops have little to no ability to action.

Humans need leaders to rally behind, and what we’ve had for too long, and likely will have for longer still, is wet dishcloths masquerading as leaders.

tmalsburg2• 5 years ago

You're not given the option, though.

TaylorAlexander2• 5 years ago

Idk, I don’t think it matters who we blame. The problem isn’t the multinational corporations that do this, it’s the system that lets them. We need a better system.

dfxm12• 5 years ago

Which is the system at fault here? Capitalism?

rsynnott3• 5 years ago

In this case, it’s the secret third option; the state. This problem can only be solved by regulation; no market force is going to make it go away.

gwbas1c• 5 years ago

Can I read this without entering my email address?

dqv• 5 years ago

No.*

* Some exceptions apply. See https://archive.is/zBbNG

temp0826• 5 years ago

Another gold! USA!

HPsquared• 5 years ago

Plastic waste should just be landfilled if it can't be safely recycled. Who cares if some additional feedstock is required to make fresh plastic?

cgb223• 5 years ago

Does anyone know what it would look like for the US to stop using single use plastics?

Always thought it would be a cool thing for us to try, but can’t quite figure out how practical that really is

stormbrew3• 5 years ago

In practice we don't really have replacements for a lot of things "single use plastic" is used for. Sterilized medical equipment, storage and distribution of prepared food products for people with disabilities, and probably a myriad of other minor uses that don't get a lot of attention just don't have practical alternatives without making life untenable for a lot of people.

So I don't think there's a world in which we just stop using them cold turkey. At least not a compassionate one. A lot of research and effort needs to go into finding alternatives for these things, but the structure of our society doesn't really incentivize that.

kozikow• 5 years ago

So just add a significant tax for plastic usage, reflecting an actual damage to environment? All use cases where it's still necessary will still be able to do so, while price-cutters will switch to alternatives.

Swizec4• 5 years ago

That argument feels a little disingenuous. Like when people drive a big truck every day because once per summer they haul a boat.

We can eliminate or at least improve a lot of single use plastics outside medicine and people with special needs.

At my local farmer’s market, for example, all prepared food from food trucks and stands comes in unlined cardboard containers. When you’re done, you throw it in compost because cardboard is compostable. Works great and disadvantages nobody.

You still get plastic cutlery but it says to be made of compostable plastic. I don’t know how well compostable plastic works but I sure hope it does.

titzer• 5 years ago

Sterilized medical equipment, storage and distribution of prepared food products for people with disabilities, and probably a myriad of other minor uses

You're right, there's not single-use material that compares. However, there are plenty of reusable sterilizable materials, like steel, aluminum, rubber, and glass.

We just need to stop being so ready to throw things in the trash and actually think about the backend logistics of bringing containers back and reusing them.

This isn't a materials problem. It's a efficiency/cost problem.

Just look at the Pfand system for glass bottles in Germany. 2 basic beer bottles, different labels. Reused dozens of times. Deposit system.

handrous5• 5 years ago

Everything would get a little more expensive, basically. It's used because it saves money, same as everything else.

Similar to cheap but non-repairable or non-reusable stuff in general. How do we get rid of it? The answers amount to making stuff more expensive, or making labor cheaper, or some combination of the two.

238475235243• 5 years ago

Yes but we don't just throw it in a river like many asian countries.

sa1• 5 years ago

Just export it to an Asian country.

bpodgursky• 5 years ago

Right, but while raw generated plastic trash is meaningful on a long-term scale, what's far more relevant is how much is getting washed into the ocean or environment, and the US does not lead there by a long shot.

Plastic securely sequestered in a landfill isn't a medium-term concern and I'm optimistic that future recycling or sequestration technologies will help obviate that problem before it becomes acute.

INTPenis3• 5 years ago

I believe it.

But that doesn't mean we're innocent in the rest of the western world.

One really cool improvement here in Sweden recently, besides "banning" plastic bags at supermarkets, was one store called ICA started selling their burger pattys in cardboard packaging. So the only plastic is a top foil that you peel off to open the package, the rest is cardboard. Pretty cool! That's one area where we're all guilty, namely fresh meat and dairy packaging.

Speaking of dairy and meat I tend to buy from the butcher's section instead of the pre-packaged stuff, just because they wrap it in paper instead of plastic. It's the little things you can do.

And to store it in your fridge, don't wrap it in cellofane, use glass tubs with plastic lids instead. Yeah the lids are plastic but they're amazing at keeping stuff fresh and re-usable.

pomian• 5 years ago

Everything tastes better wrapped in paper, or real wax paper. Like at a butcher shop. The worst is the stiff plastic boxes used for pastries in a bakery. Visual, tactile, taste, aural, all is worse than a classical piece of paper or cardboard box. (Then there is the modern paper stations that a very thin veneer of plastic coating that is horrible too, but pretends to be good.)

the-dude• 5 years ago

Isn't the cardboard 'lined' ?

And how much does it actually differ, plastic vs cardboard?

For the cardboard, the basic ingredient also has to be harvested, or won another way. Then it needs to be transformed into cardboard.

grenoire• 5 years ago

Cardboard dissolves in nature, plastic doesn't. It disposes of itself, for the most part.

elric• 5 years ago

Not to rain on your parade, but all these "little things" add up to ... a little thing.

Cling film and aluminium foil are both incredibly useful at ridiculously tiny thickness/weight levels. One roll of 30m of either easily lasts a year or two in my kitchen. A glass tub probably has way more embodied energy, I'd need more of them, etc. The full life cycle analysis might not be as clear cut as we'd like.

Those "cardboard" foot containers are usually lined/sealed with stuff containing PFAS and goodness knows what else.

In days of yore, butchers (etc) would use wax paper for wrapping food. Which is ... paper ... and paraffin wax. A hydrocarbon usually derived from, you guessed it, petroleum.

This war on useful food packaging is silly and maybe even counter productive. A box of individually wrapped chocolates is pretty stupid. But a pallet full of those boxes is often wrapped with more plastic than all the other packaging combined, and then some!

pcdoodle• 5 years ago

That's a pretty good point. Pick your battles as they say.

IfOnlyYouKnew4• 5 years ago

Either the EU or just Germany just outlawed Styropors for food packaging. Granted, I had seen it rarely, and the larger chains like McDonald's had abolished it a decade+ ago. But on the occasions where I got stuff delivered with it, I felt kinda dirty.

There are quite a few schemes for reusable packaging for food delivery currently getting started. It's a concept that needs a certain amount of market penetration and concentration to work, but has the potential to make a significant contribution for private sector/household trash and energy use.

dmm• 5 years ago

ICA started selling their burger pattys in cardboard packaging.

Fast food paper/cardboard packaging has a layer of PFAS containing compounds to make them grease-proof. And consumption of fast food is correlated with PFAS blood concentrations so it probably contaminates the food. Hopefully the packaging you're describing isn't, but...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/health/toxic-food-wrappers-pf...

kortilla9• 5 years ago

they wrap it in paper instead of plastic. It's the little things you can do.

Yet you still eat meat. It’s fucking appalling how easy it is to placate ourselves by rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

alkonaut4• 5 years ago

I think for plastic it's important to note what the usage is. A plastic straw is much more likely than a meat package to end up in the wrong place. Because a meat pack is unpacked in a kitchen so probably 99.99% will end up in a garbage can. If just 1 straw of 100 ends up in a river that's much worse.

(This is assuming the problem with plastic is direct pollution and not CO2)

nostromo2• 5 years ago

A lot of cardboard packaging incorporates plastic layers in them -- something people seem not to know.

For example, your Starbucks cup is covered in plastic film and is generally not recyclable. It actually contains more plastic than straws do, which are now being banned in many cities. The same is true for things like milk cartons or juice boxes.

Even your aluminum soda can has plastic in it.

dehrmann• 5 years ago

As long as we can keep plastic waste out of the environment, does it really matter?

8note• 5 years ago

Is that a sensible phrase? The environment is everywhere.

CheezeIt4• 5 years ago

Landfills aren’t everywhere.

jonas21• 5 years ago

Yes, as long as the plastic ends up in a proper landfill, it won't cause harm to the environment. In places with good waste management practices, like the U.S., nearly all plastic trash ends up in a landfill. As a result, the U.S. is responsible for only ~0.25% of plastic in the ocean [1].

To put this in perspective, if you got the Philippines to reduce the amount of plastic it sends to the ocean by just 1%, it would have a larger impact on ocean plastic than completely eliminating plastic in the U.S.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics

INTPenis3• 5 years ago

But the giant pacific garbage patch, and any island beach not maintained regularly will clearly tell you plastics end up in the ocean regardless.

I think the only solution is global legislation forcing consumers and businesses to use alternatives.

logifail• 5 years ago

the giant pacific garbage patch

Q: Do we know where the plastics in the pacific garbage patch actually come from?

sethammons2• 5 years ago

My wife and I were just talking about this this morning. There is just so much "disposable" plastic. I'm willing to pay more for non-disposable containers, but a great many people prefer the lower point of sale price, and so market forces move towards "cheaper" plastics. Education coupled with legislation is the only way that I can imagine this getting any better

ardit33• 5 years ago

Pre pandemic, I'd go often to trader joe, and they would give samples. It was maybe a small bite of a food (ice cream, salat, or whatever else), and use a plastic fork for it.

Just one bite, and you had to throw it out. It was more plastic than food. Whole Foods was the same. I think it is a crime against environment and I started feeling bad about it, and stopped taking samples when there were plastic utensils.

It think behaviour like this should be legislated out. For something like a sample, just a small wooden spoon, or anything else renewable, should be enough.

The externalities of that plastic, is something that neither Trader Joe or Whole Foods pays, but we all do in some way.

lostcolony• 5 years ago

Yeah; back in the day it used to be wooden toothpicks to spear stuff, and small wooden spoons for things that couldn't be speared. I can only assume things moved to plastic because of cost, which is nauseating.

cpuguy83• 5 years ago

Never mind how everything in Trader Joe's is packaged in plastic.

edoceo6• 5 years ago

Plastic wrapped fruit. I can't believe it. Fruit comes with its own already biodegradable container!

F Trader Joe's fruit and veg.

andrewmcwatters3• 5 years ago

Just have the sample. Your refusal to not consume it isn't going to change them buying the plastic, because given the choice, people aren't going to stop sampling in the aggregate. And at that point you're just signaling to other people in a really silly way.

If you really care, talk to your local representatives or write to Trader Joes and Whole Foods. Anything else is posturing. Not taking a sample which costs them a few cents on the dollar is not taking action.

I'm not going to stop, personally. They can give it to me in paper wrapping instead if they want to make a difference, and in fact, with their cups, they already do. Let someone invest in paper sampling spoons.

pessimizer2• 5 years ago

There's no ethical consumption under capitalism, which is why I'm going to keep my slaves but vote really hard against slavery.

yaitsyaboi• 5 years ago

Even setting aside the importance of principles, every spoon OP doesn't use is a spoon that doesn't end up in a landfill.

mahogany• 5 years ago

If you really care, talk to your local representatives or write to Trader Joes and Whole Foods. Anything else is posturing.

Or you can do both.

Your refusal to not consume it isn't going to change them buying the plastic, because given the choice, people aren't going to stop sampling in the aggregate. And at that point you're just signaling to other people in a really silly way.

This is a strange viewpoint to me. Acting based on your principles in your day-to-day life isn't just about signaling to others. It's about how you live your life, and acting "in tune" with your beliefs can lead you to profound happiness. If you decide that single-use plastics are bad for the environment, and you like the environment, then you try to avoid them. It's pretty simple.

But I don't even think that signaling is silly. Some people are convinced more by actions than words. I've reduced the amount of waste I produce by bringing containers to get stuff from bulk foods sections, literally because I saw someone doing it and realized it was possible. Before that, I would've thought "oh man it sucks that you have to get granola in single-use plastic, but oh well, that's life." As strange as it sounds, I had never even considered bulk food sections, even though I know the mantra "plastic bad".

If you extend your arguments, they imply that acting based on your principles in day-to-day life is pointless (or merely "posturing") because we are all small and insignificant, and the only thing that matters is trying to change laws. But I think you have it partially backward. People acting on their strong beliefs and spreading those ideas to others is what eventually invigorates political changes in the first place.

jeffbee2• 5 years ago

Most American consumers who find themselves at the local TJs or Whole Foods should probably feel way, way worse about driving to the store than about little plastic spoons.

TedDoesntTalk9• 5 years ago

I’m not bicycling in 20 degrees Fahrenheit to shop for a family of 4, bags strapped to a bike. And there’s no public transportation. I think I’ma pretty regular American consumer. So I should feel guilty about this according to you?

alkonaut4• 5 years ago

You mean even in 2018-2019 they hadn't switched plastic forks/spoons for wood? Come on

nostromo2• 5 years ago

Are you sure they're not biodegradable "plastic" forks?

That's what my Trader Joe's uses. I believe they're made out of cornstarch.

InvertedRhodium• 5 years ago

biodegradable plastic

This is a distinction without a difference - all forks are biodegradable, the question is over what time-frame.

MichaelApproved• 5 years ago

biodegradable plastics are deceiving because the landfill they go into must be specifically tailored to biodegrade the plastics. Otherwise they stay there forever, just like regular plastic.

dynm• 5 years ago

The U.S. also ranks as high as third among coastal nations for contributing litter, illegally dumped trash and other mismanaged waste to its shorelines.

I can't access the paper, but can anyone verify: Do I understand correctly that this means the US might be as high as third in terms of contributing trash that ends up on the US's coastline?

sschueller• 5 years ago

I see this as a bigger issue than the use of plastic as a whole. If you properly dispose of it (modern trash burning facility and recycling) , it wouldn't be such a huge environmental issue. Open landfills are a disaster.

The government should focus on proper disposal laws. Banning plastic bags at the grocery store is a bandaid on a blood gushing wound.

ojnabieoot• 5 years ago

I think you misread it. I believe they mean that among the coastal nations, the US ranks 3rd in terms of polluting its own coastline. I also don’t have access to the paper, but the number 2 coastal nation then pollutes its own coastline worse than the US.

jedberg2• 5 years ago

This problem won't get fixed without legislation. Single use plastic is cheaper, so of course companies will use that if they can. Most people don't have the income to support "voting with their wallet", and even those who do don't always have the option. IF the best solution out there happens to use single use plastic, you're not going to opt for a worse solution just because it doesn't.

And even if one company cares enough to do something, they will change their tune when they have to start charing more.

The only way this will get better is if the external costs of single use plastic are borne by the companies that make them and consumers are subsidized to absorb the extra cost.

Causality14• 5 years ago

You also have to think in terms of actual harm. Considering the US has an absurd amount of junk land it can use for landfills, a single use plastic object that has 1/1000 the carbon emissions of the reusable alternative may be the best environmental choice.

edoceo6• 5 years ago

Where is the "junk land"? Almost everywhere has animals that likely don't enjoy plastic.

IfOnlyYouKnew4• 5 years ago

Does the US still operate landfills? Some or all EU countries have completely abandoned the practice. So that's just not a harm that matters, unlike some other ones.

In any case, it'd be compounding the problem here, and rather bad economics at the same time. Plastics aren't that hard to collect/separate, especially if it's ok to be mixed with paper. They burn readily and, given high temperatures, cleanly, allowing the recuperation of a significant fraction of its energy content.

Then, there's recycling, of course. Not always possible, but not entirely impossible, either.

CameronNemo• 5 years ago

The only sustainable way to dispose of plastic is incineration.

Otherwise you poison the land and water that flows through the land.

eastendguy• 5 years ago

a single use plastic object that has 1/1000 the carbon emissions of the reusable alternative may be the best environmental choice.

Is there any data that single use stuff (of any kind) creates less carbon emissions? I would expect it to be the other way around, except for some edge cases.

dclowd9901• 5 years ago

Sorry, but given the “half life” of a single use plastic item with respect to its usability, isn’t it’s environment cost essentially infinite?

alkonaut4• 5 years ago

I'm surprised every time I hear the concept of "land fill" in conjunction with trash. As if the natural thing to do with waste is... put it in a hole in the ground? It feels like some 50's conception of environment policy to me. Shouldn't things be either recycled as much as possible, and the rest incinerated for energy?

im_down_w_otp2• 5 years ago

Single use stuff seems easy enough to fix. What seems less obvious to me is what I experienced when shopping for a potty chair for our youngest there were dozens of options at just a single store for a big hunk of plastic that's only useful for a period of months. We ended up not buying one at all.

I had a similar experience the last time I was at CES and was deep into the "South Hall" where there's kiosk after display booth after kiosk of just completely pointless crap of every shape and size. Thousands of practically identical cheap cell phone cases. Thousands of cheap bags and backpacks adorned with battery packs and/or Bluetooth speakers. Each and every booth staffed with multiple people who have to stand there and try to convince you that their big mountain of garbage is somehow special. At the same time as it's astonishingly wasteful and kind of insane when you think about it, it's also completely existentially debasing to the people involved.

If we have a global addiction to anything that seems like it needs fixing, it seems like we're addicted to producing stuff we don't need for problems we don't have just for the sake of doing something.

carstenhag• 5 years ago

The way most people in Germany would solve this (we need a potty for some months) is buying it 2nd/3rd/4th hand. Is that not common where you live (I guess USA)?

kortilla9• 5 years ago

it's also completely existentially debasing to the people involved.

Wow, the privilege wrapped up in that statement. Do you think it’s existentially fulfilling to clean public toilets? To drive a bus? To bottle alcohol?

neutronicus• 5 years ago

We've gotten a lot of stuff like this free through Facebook groups

Everybody's got aged-out baby crap taking up space in their house, if you can get them before they get off their ass to throw it out they're usually overjoyed for it to disappear

microsimulacro• 5 years ago

It’s not just for the sake of doing something, it’s to have profits growing constantly and wages been paid.

brandmeyer• 5 years ago

A handful of items are difficult to get second-hand commercially for either safety or hygiene reasons. But we both bought and sold tons of stuff through local consignment stores.

Abimelex• 5 years ago

When we are talking about plastic ending up in the oceans we also must not forget about fishing gear and everything related. This is making almost 50% of all plastic in the ocean.

dheera• 5 years ago

Also, we really, really need legislation to stop the ridiculousness of over-packaging. The other day I bought some case screws for my PC and they came in a goddamn "nice" foam-padded plastic case. That plastic case was then inside plastic wrap, then some plastic bubble wrap, and then a plastic Amazon mailer. That was completely unnecessary. The screws could have been in a recycled paper packet and thrown into a simple tiny cardboard box and it would have been fine.

https://i.imgur.com/WQYtcsF.jpg

TedDoesntTalk9• 5 years ago

This is a thing that only legislation can change.

29athrowaway• 5 years ago

What is needed is single use items, not necessarily made out of plastic.

api• 5 years ago

What if single use uses less energy in many cases? Washing uses a lot of power and glass is heavy, using more fuel in transit. Paper is renewable and can often replace plastic, but not always.

JKCalhoun3• 5 years ago

Most people don't have the income to support "voting with their wallet", and even those who do don't always have the option.

I am old enough to remember when there was practically no plastic in food packaging. Twinkies and its ilk were more or less the exception (and fine examples they were of that exception!).

No doubt many remember glass ketchup bottles, glass mustard jars, glass peanut butter jars, glass mayonnaise jars... I swore to continue to buy only glass condiment jars but they no longer exist. I think the exception now is jams and jellies still come in glass jars. Honey too if you look for it.

Cereal? No plastic bag liner, it was wax paper or that weird paper foil stuff that Super Sugar Crisp came in.

I'd love to go back to glass, wax paper, but there just isn't any options any longer.

scrollaway2• 5 years ago

Is it more ecological to use glass instead of plastic?

With plastic there is trash to deal with, but glass is heavier thus will take more energy to deal with logistically. Recycling is not energy free either, and there is plenty of loss to deal with there. Plastic is very cheap to manufacture partly because its manufacture is so easy.

And right now it seems like energy consumption is a far larger worry than trash at the ecological level.

raxxorrax2• 5 years ago

If plastics is recycled, it would have a better ecologic balance. Exchanging it with paper will also damage the environment further. It is only better if the plastic remains in the environment.

The problem is food packaging. Even if you use paper here, it often is coated with plastic anyway, any diary product for example.

hereforphone3• 5 years ago

This might be the case, I don't necessarily dispute it. But with this sort of thing always keep in mind that the US (and other Western countries) tend to be more compliant with reporting actual facts than say.... China (who somehow is ranked 107 in the world for covid-19 cases, despite their huge population).

Leary• 5 years ago

Nice copium. Who should I trust, my family and friends in China who never heard of anyone getting COVID? or the western press who can't cope with their own failure?

hereforphone3• 5 years ago

Or the Chinese press who never reports anyone getting covid

kortilla9• 5 years ago

Why would you hear of people getting covid if the government is suppressing it? They would have just heard of people getting the flu or having allergies.

rsynnott3• 5 years ago

China (who somehow is ranked 107 in the world for covid-19 cases, despite their huge population).

I’m always a little surprised that people are so quick to jump to conspiracy here. China is an authoritarian country with recent prior experience of dealing with epidemics, which took extremely aggressive measures against covid, some of which would not fly in a democratic country. You’d _expect_ it to have a low rate.

Would you also assume Australia’s lying about this? Up until a month ago it followed a pretty similar pattern to China, based on somewhat less aggressive tactics.

hereforphone3• 5 years ago

You might be right, I don't argue against your theory. Do you believe China is motivated to accurately keep and report numbers on cases and deaths?

olivermarks• 5 years ago

A lot of plastic packaging waste on US products originates in China where the products are manufactured (display bubble packs etc). Import legislation would help a lot to reduce this

ALittleLight• 5 years ago

"The pioneering 2015 study of marine plastic didn’t include illegal dumping and export of plastic waste. In the new analysis, the team considered those actions, but only for the U.S. They say data for other nations were inconsistent or didn’t exist."

Doesn't this seem like it's saying illegal + legal plastic waste in the US is greater than legal plastic waste in other countries? That seems like a much different claim to me.

wcerfgba• 5 years ago

The original article, not linked from NG, appears to be "The United States’ contribution of plastic waste to land and ocean", available at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/44/eabd0288

ransom1538• 5 years ago

I am also interested in which country pours most plastic trash into the ocean. I am sure no one is working on this.

andrewmcwatters3• 5 years ago

I think we'll have to give up particular niceties about how we package things in the western world if we're to generate less trash, but it would come at the cost of removing illusions from the way we market products.

Have you been to less developed countries? They just simply do not package some products. It removes a lot of the allure of buying particular things, but also generates less trash.

Here's a simple example: utensils. In some countries, you just buy the utensil. In America, you buy a box with utensils in them, sometimes with a plastic shell, sometimes with paper wrapping inside of the box. But without the box, it feels like you're buying them from the dollar store no matter how nice the actual spoons and knives are, which commands less of a price mark up.

immortaljoe• 5 years ago

Totally agree, i moved from a developing country (India) to a developed country (Germany) and the amount of waste me and my partner generate in the latter is around 10x.

In India, we would buy produce without any packaging, you would pay by weight. Whereas in Germany, fruits, vegetables and even fresh leaves come pre packed in plastic. I know Germany has better recycling but the amount of plastic is crazy. Quite the shock for us.

season2episode3• 5 years ago

Counterpoint: in Thailand, I was surprised to see the sheer amount of single use plastic. Tiny plastic bags put inside larger plastic bags. Individually wrapped candies put inside larger bags. And of course the usual plastic sleeves around all utensils.

felixfbecker• 5 years ago

I’m sorry but which German grocery store (I’m already assuming it’s not the farmer’s market) do you go to that has vegetables wrapped in plastics?

f1refly• 5 years ago

Except it doesnt? Neary all stores in the country (Edeka group + Aldi Nord and Süd) have the option to just grab fresh produce from some kind of box, weight it and pay for the specific amount at checkout. If you're only buying packaged stuff thats because you find it more convenient, not because unpackaged isnt availabe.

NonContro• 5 years ago

The developing world has cheap communal kitchens, and so cooking at home is optional.

In my country (Ukraine) its cheaper to go to a restaurant for 'business lunch' which is soup, potatoes+vegetables+meat, and juice, for $3.35.

As a single guy I can't cook that cheaply at home, which is not surprising when I am buying small portions with a huge amount of packaging around them.

Its really a shame that this concept is not more broadly applied in the West, and that restaurant food has sales tax attached to it whilst grocery food usually doesn't. We could reduce food and packaging waste if we taxed communal kitchens at 0% and shifted more people to eating inside them.

bbarn• 5 years ago

Moved from the US to Iceland. I thought plastic waste was bad before I got here, until I went to the meat and produce sections of the grocery store here.

lmilcin• 5 years ago

The biggest issue for me is I can't really buy anything without buying a ton of plastic with it. Want to buy anything on the Internet? It is most likely going to be wrapped in a ton of foil, bubble wrap and that additional to its own packaging.

philwelch• 5 years ago

The US also has a higher GDP than any other nation. I don't think this is a coincidence.

3gg• 5 years ago

I imagine this has gotten worse with covid, people ordering food for take-away or shopping online. For what it's worth, I tried the idea of ordering from the restaurant online but then bringing my own (re-usable, washable) tupperware to pick up the food, and it certainly worked out. If you ask, you often get what you want. If the place is not willing to help you reduce your plastic footprint, then maybe it's one place to skip.

tremoloqui• 5 years ago

How about re-framing the problem?

Considering:

Reclamation and recycling technology will improve over time. Similarly the economics of processing recycled material are likely to make it more valuable.

and:

Supposing we can protect the surroundings, water table etc.

further:

Supposing, as other comments have pointed out, the availability of land is not really an issue.

Then:

Is it crazy to think that there is value to be found in safely storing this material until it is more feasible / valuable to process?

At least it seems like a better plan than incinerating it.

youeseh• 5 years ago

From a consumer's point of view, what choice do we have? All it takes is a trip to Costco. Everything is wrapped in plastic. Yet, they have the cheapest prices.

Kharvok• 5 years ago

The U.S problems with single use plastics aren't on the consumer.

The river systems in Asia responsible for the vast majority of marine trash more so are.

chaostheory• 5 years ago

Plastic is probably also the reason for our decline in birthrates. Before you say societal changes are responsible for it; we’ve accounted for it and even without those changes, we’d still have birthdate declines.

KETpXDDzR• 5 years ago

There's some research on low testosterone caused by plastic materials. I heard of doctors being able to detect plastic in a baby's blood stream.

I think the reason this is not as public as it should be, is that males are sensitive when it comes to the "mannliness hormone", Testosterone. Thus, there's probably a high number of unreported cases.

Some symptoms are lower sex drive and libido.

MeinBlutIstBlau• 5 years ago

Didn't I just read a top comment on HN yesterday that China and India did more than us?

fctorial• 5 years ago

China and India house 50% of world population

unnouinceput• 5 years ago

You mean the no. 1 economy of the world generates the most plastic? <insert Picard surprise face meme here>

What's next breaking news? That China, the 2nd economy of the world, is 2nd place in plastic generating as well? Color me shocked. /s

morpheos137• 5 years ago

Despite the hysteria most commonly used plastics are harmless. The only things I can think of that may be harmful in some plastics are harmful on their own, for example lead which can be used as a plasticiser to soften PVC. Lead is toxic whether or not it is in plastic. Fortunately your PET soda bottle or PE grocciery bag does not contain lead for obvious reasons.

Some other compounds like phthlates may have negative endocrine effects but I believe this is far from resolved.

"Microplastics" to the extent they exist in meaningful concentrations are not anything like asbestos fibers (this is known) which cause mechanical damage to cell structures by their needle like shapes. Rather microplastics are akin to small sand particles. Inert dust. The very reason that plastics do not decompose makes most of them safe to life unless absurdly high concentrations of very small particles are present in which case sand or silt dust would be comparable.

The mass hysteria about "plastics" in just shows how easily human emotions can be manipulated.

Sure, plastic bags floating in the ocean may look like jelly fish sea turtles. This is why we shouldn't throw plastic bags in the ocean. Maybe bags should be made more dense than sea water so if they do end up in the ocean they sink.

Otherwise the solution to the plastics "problem" is really simple: burn it, recycle it or bury it in the ground.

The last option has the added benefit of potentially serving as a long term carbon sink.

I could envision a world where solar power or bioengineered plants perhaps are used to pull CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it up in something useful and stable like polyethylene, which could be used or just burried in shallow pits removing CO2 from circulation for centuries or thousands of years.

beervirus• 5 years ago

What’s the problem? Throwing plastic away = carbon sequestration!

cwkoss• 5 years ago

Are all plastics equal harm?

I wonder if we just legislated taxes on plastics that local recycling centers can't utilize, if we could get the majority of the benefit of banning plastics with few of the downsides?

To what extent would greater standardization of plastics mitigate this issue (and make recycling more profitable)?

kspacewalk2• 5 years ago

Even plastic the ends up in a properly built American landfill is certainly much less harmful than plastic dumped into the river in a third world country. To the point where the comparison itself becomes a little bit ludicrous.

Considering it takes so much less fossil fuels to make plastic containers than to many alternatives, shouldn't we focus on proper disposal in poor countries and otherwise move on to much more pressing environmental concerns, like I don't know, climate change?

ryanqian• 5 years ago

not suprise.

U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

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