by CarrieVS » Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:59 pm
We - as a society - don't have a plastic problem.
We have a waste problem. Plastic is a miraculous material with a huge amount of benefits and advantages over alternatives. If it's used appropriately and dealt with appropriately, that can be environmental benefits too.
The problem is things that are designed to be used once and thrown away. The problem is things that are designed to be replaced instead of repaired. The problem is replacing things when they're not new any more, instead of when they're not working any more. The problem is needing whatever we want, as much as we want. as soon as we want.
And I'm not claiming to be innocent. I do small things, and I waste less than I did a while ago, but I need to start doing a lot more. I need to start avoiding waste when it's possible instead of when it's convenient.
Plastic does have a particular set of problems and I'm not for a moment suggesting we should just use it wherever possible. But the very thing that makes plastic waste so problematic - the lack of degradability - makes it great for reducing waste if you use it in the right way, and dispose of it in the right way. Almost all metal corrodes, plant-and animal-based materials break down sooner or later, even glass is normally easier to break than plastic.
I stopped wrapping my daily marmite roll which i have in my packed lunch for work in cling-film, some time ago. Instead of switching to foil or paper, though, I bought a sturdy tupperware pot of the right size. There's a lot more plastic in it than a few inches of cling-film, but I've had it a couple of years now and it's as good as new - my parents still have tupperware that wasn't new when I was a toddler, still perfectly sound.
Many plastic products can last an incredible amount of time. Many plastics can be recycled more or less indefinitely. Plastic products often take less energy to produce than alternatives. They often weigh a lot less too, and take less energy to transport. Plastic containers are pretty good at protecting their contents and reducing waste. A lot of biodegradable alternatives to plastic require a lot of land to grow, and the large-scale intensive production that tends to result from being the new must-have thing for our consumer culture often leads to large-scale habitat destruction to find space to grow it all.
If you switch from plastic to other materials and continue to use it just as wastefully, you might end up with a slightly different set of environmental detriments but you won't fix the world.
Palm oil is another thing that's vilified these days, because palm oil plantations are destroying the rainforest and killing the orangutans. But that's not a problem with palm oil: it's a problem with massive demand for cheap vegetable oil. Other oils would be as bad or worse if grown on the same scale, and the only solution is to use less.
A little while ago the Post Office was forced to put out a plea to the public to stop posting crisp packets without envelopes. Apparently, there's been a huge backlash against a leading crisp manufacturer because their packets are neither recyclable nor biodegradable, and protests in the form of thousands of people mailing all their empty packets to the company headquarters. It was on the news.
They interviewed a chap who was outraged about the amount of metallised plastic film in the multipack of crisps he'd bought and consumed. He had it all addressed and ready to post. "Six packets - and the outside wrapper!" Don't buy so many then. No-one needs crisps - indeed you're better off without them. You bought six packets of crisps solely because they're enjoyable to eat. You bought a multipack just because you wanted it as cheap as possible, instead of six individual packets, and as convenient as possible, instead of a sharing bag that you could dole out six portions from. But you're not the one creating the problem. No, you have the right to unlimited amounts of anything you want and you demand that someone else take away all the consequences.
A Combustible Lemon wrote:Death is an archaic concept for simpleminded commonfolk, not Victorian scientist whales.