I always find the plastic straw thing being lumped in with climate change to be really annoying. Banning plastic straws isn't about climate change, it's about litter and waste. The problem with them is that they were getting all over the place and fucking with ecosystems. Fighting climate change is part of environmentalism, that doesn't mean all environmentalism goes towards fighting climate change.
The memes of the climate
The climate of the memes of the climate!
Planet is on fire!
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Reminds me of the plastic soda rings that ended up destroying enormous amounts of sea life just by getting trapped around animals' necks and torsos.
Now we just use cardboard to hold beers, its functionally the same price, and the only thing filling up the oceans are the aluminum cans and the paper waste.
At least aluminum degrades better than plastics, is easier recyclable, and is worth much more (all incentives to recycle). We should add 50cts. on each alu can which is returned when you return the can. Watch how fast this issue resolves itself, then.
Paper is also at least very recyclable to the point that making paper out of paper is less Energy intensive than paper from wood. Only issue is bleaching, I guess?
Banning plastic straws isn’t about climate change, it’s about litter and waste.
Climate change is also a consequence of our productivism and "waste", by burning fossile fuels. We create too much stuff, we consume too fast that Earth can't restore itself fast enough.
Banning plastic straws was common sense, but it's not enough.
Also, at least in the EU, the laws have not just banned public straws but also a bunch of other single-use, non-degradable items. Plastic cutlery, qtips, and takeout food containers were banned too or severely limited. And there've been a lot of improvements that incentivise reusable containers over throwaway ones too.
In other news, emissions from private jets still represent barely anything compared to emissions from freight transport of crap people want delivered at their door tomorrow.
Drop in a bucket maybe but it's for like 0.001% of the population. Which is an insane number per capita at this scale. Magnitudes is one of the biggest things people miss when talking about emissions, one single billionaire pollutes more every single day than thousands average people.
Every single one of us has to make efforts to combat climate change but some a lot more than others.
Comparing fright and person transport seams a bittle apple to oranges.
Emission per passenger-kilometer is the only sane way to compare person transport.
Fright should probably be separated into essenstials and luxury, but we all have our yearly footprint.
I thought we ended up learning that giant trucks delivering items door to door was actually greener than store chains since it stops millions of people driving around idling at stop lights constantly vs one truck delivering a shit ton of items.
I feel like in the current climate of attitudes towards the super wealthy, they're taking steps to insulate themselves from "the commoners" like us.
Yes I know it's been that way forever; gated communities, etc... heck, even castles if you go back far enough.
But this new private jet thing seems like now even moderately wealthy people, those who would have likely in the past just flown first class, are trying to insulate themselves from a growing mob.
not their brightest idea, do they really think they will live forever in their bunker?
Not when people start publishing the locations of their bunkers for us 99%ers.
i vaguely remember plastic straws were for another reason. was it microplastics?
Yes, well microplastics, but primarily because straws are relatively small and often ended up in nature, causing direct damage to animals both on land and in water.
Single use plastics and ocean garbage patch
I work with bicycles all day, and the warehouse I currently work in (it changes periodically) is honestly the biggest waster of plastic I've ever seen. Bigger waste than individually wrapped plastic straws.
When pallets come in, they are wrapped in plastic shrink wrap to keep them from shifting.
Then they're processed on one side to be stored in the shelves, cutting the plastic off.
When they get picked, they're wrapped in plastic as the pallet gets taller, which just gets cut off before being sorted for their destinations.
And once again, they get wrapped in plastic.
So about 5lbs or more of plastic wrap per pallet, 4 or more times.
And if they get stored for more than a few minutes anywhere without handling they have to be wrapped again.
Thousands of pallets go through this one warehouse daily. They have a compactor going 24/7 to manage all the plastic waste separate from their cardboard box crusher.
I used to feel bad about tiny pieces of plastic on items I get. Not so much anymore.
Actually most of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch come from fishing and and fish farming/aqua-culture.
Yes, however the question was what prompted the move to paper straws.
Yes, it's not about climate change and it really annoys me when people lump them together without remotely using their brains. Not all environmentalism is about fighting climate change. The rationale behind banning plastic straws is the same for banning plastic bags and those plastic 6 pack holders. They get all over the place, are hard to contain in landfills, kill wildlife, spread microplastics, don't decompose, etc, etc. It's not about emissions, which I'm sure it helps with too, but is nowhere near the primary reason to ban them. Saying it doesn't fight climate change is the dumbest argument because nobody was using that as a reason in the first place.
Started with litter. Same with plastic bags. The first countries that banned plastic bags were developing nations that didn't have strong... um. "litter awareness". Cultures that previous either used reusable natural fiber bags or something that biodegraded. The influx of plastic bags in those communities lead to tree branches being filled with plastic waste.
could be yes, I mean plastic is bad, but it's not enough compared to what's happening.
The big one is just that it fucking sucks to see plastic all over the ground, it utterly baffles me that people can oppose getting rid of trash in the streets!
80% of all microplastic are from tires
At least plastic straws are banned.
Editor's Note: Plastic Straws are not actually banned.
EU is one really big economy who has banned plastic straws among other things so people have heard about their ban probably.
In other news, Silicone Valley Billionaires are building a quaint village in the desert - and look - a dome!
this just means there are more people who can fly their private jets to the next COP meeting
win-win !
It's the overpopulation of poor people obviously
time for a lil' war then...
We've always been at class war
Many of those flights have been made by politicians attenting climate meetings
Well at least they're doing something about the problem
I'd prefer they make it better instead of worse, but hey, you get what you get.
On their way to climate change conference...