this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
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[–] [email protected] 170 points 1 month ago (25 children)

Just FYI:

Single-use plastic products are used once, or for a short period of time, before being thrown away. Under the EU’s rules on single-use plastics, the EU is tackling the 10 single-use plastic items most commonly found on Europe’s beaches and is promoting sustainable alternatives. The 10 items are

Cotton bud sticks 
Cutlery, plates, straws and stirrers 
Balloons and sticks for balloons 
Food containers 
Cups for beverages 
Beverage containers 
Cigarette butts 
Plastic bags 
Packets and wrappers 
Wet wipes and sanitary items 

https://commission.europa.eu/news/less-plastic-waste-means-cleaner-beaches-2024-08-14_en

So yeah, nets are bad, but straws, plastic bags, cigarettes and packages are also a problem.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 month ago (1 children)

People want to pretend just the things that are convenient to them are an issue. They say government and companies need to take action, then complain about actions taken. It's really wild to see.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Not throwing my garbage in the wild makes me have no idea how often straws end up in the ocean, so it seemed like a wild thing to go after.

Any idea if it's people dumping all this stuff in the wild or if it's because we throw it out in our bins that it somehow gets to the ocean?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

a lot of single-use items come from fast food places, which people will eat in their cars and then just throw out the window as they drive along.

it's a fucking sad practice but it's really hard to get people to stop doing it, so the next best option is just to make sure as much as possible of the things you get from fast food joints will dissolve in a rain shower.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

Stuff falls out of garbage trucks, trash cans get tipped over, stuff gets blown out of the bed of a dumptruck at the landfill, landfills erode and take trash with them. Trashcans aren't just magic portals that take trash into the nightosphere

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's called environmental dumping. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_dumping

First world countries ship waste to third world countries where dumping is not illegal (or at least not enforced).

You get stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVnMBGXVVUI

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (4 children)

This is a list of end-consumer items put together by a government body beholden to fishing and other industries. And it’s not even about pollution levels, it’s specifically about beach pollution. Plastic lids on cartons of heavy cream are “also a problem” if we focus only on reducing plastic waste in the kitchen, but implying it’s even relevant compared to industrial plastic waste is disingenuous

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[–] [email protected] 142 points 1 month ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 month ago

No, someone else is doing something worse than me so I'm absolved. I can do what I want.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, I simultaneously want to comment that the left panels are a wild fantasy, as I've never seen an actual human say that we should focus on plastic straws. As far as I can tell, that's propaganda put into the world by companies trying to discredit genuine efforts.

But at the same time, it's not even like you have to focus on straws. You can simply not use them, because it is just a stupid concept to produce something that's immediately trash, and then also go and do other things in life. Believe it or not, most activities in life don't involve straws.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Straws become the focus because people like them and find them useful and make them a part of their culture and then proposed bans threaten to take them away. People do focus on them, I've seen plenty of online arguments about straw bans and the ethics of straws, which happens because they are a part of the lives of the people arguing about them, unlike fishing nets which they never use or see.

There is a side of environmentalism that comes off as being smugly superior about your lifestyle and disparaging and seeking to shame and control in small ways (usually poorer) people who don't live that way, with the pretext that it's about saving the planet. To me that sort of thing seems like it's mainly just a dumpster fire of political capital, purely counterproductive.

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (14 children)

Plastic Recycling is Largely A Myth.

The world produces an average of 430 million metric tons of plastic each year. The United States alone produces tens of millions of tons of plastic waste annually. Yet on average, only about 5 to 6 percent of plastic in the U.S. is recycled.

Basically, the vast majority of plastic either literally cannot be recycled, at all, or would be astoundingly expensive to properly seperate according to it's different types and run through the recycling process.

... So, in most cases, it isn't, and just ends up in a landfill or being directly dumped into nature.

Oil companies have known this for decades, and, as with other issues surrounding pollution ... they've promoted anything that makes an individual feel guilty when they know that even if all individuals followed the suggested course of action, it would have a negligible impact.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

Oil companies have known this for decades,

fun fact: BP created the carbon footprint to turn the guilt onto the end consumers, and away from them.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 month ago (4 children)

But aside from donating to NGOs dedicated to cleaning up ocean litter, the average person has very little way to reduce the number of plastic nets in the water. It requires lifting fishermen out of poverty, teaching them more sustainable fishing practices, and cracking down on littering, all things that require international cooperation.

[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It requires lifting fishermen out of poverty

Bruh. These aren't 1 dude in a boat with a long line. These are billion dollar corporations running fleets. And yes, we need international cooperation to bring them to heel. Like with farmers, however, make no mistake that the people doing this kind of pollution are at all ignorant or unaware of what they are doing.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

Even the adrenaline junkies on Deadliest Catch are running multiple million dollar businesses

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 month ago (18 children)

the average person has very little way to reduce the number of plastic nets in the water

Besides the obvious and 100% viable option of just not eating fish.

[–] starman2112 12 points 1 month ago

The average person cannot make the connection between the food they eat and the animal it was. People act so appalled by the torturous conditions in animal farms, and then stop at McDonald's on their lunch break to pick up some chicken nuggets, totally unaware of the irony

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Now I feel better about my weird dietary preferences.

I'm doing my part!

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

Or organise a boycott on eating fish.

[–] ayyy 10 points 1 month ago

You could go the rest of your life without eating another fish and you would be fine.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 month ago (4 children)

On an unrelated notes, a huge fraction of oceanic microplastics is from car tyres. Driving is a number one source of oceanic microplastic.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Car tyres are also significant contributors to terrestial microplastics and particulate matter!

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I am all for minimizing/eliminating single use plastics. But when i get served a milkshake in a plastic mug, with a plastic lid, and a plastic spoon, but a paper straw because of "save the sea"...

i just wish we used our brains more.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What if dispenser machines had a pay by volume model? You bring your own thing, they fill it, and charge you by how much you use. Would probably need something added to measure flow and set prices, but it's not like a McDonalds built in the 70s is still using exactly the same machines they were back then.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Could just do it by weight. Put vessel under nozzle. Zero scale, and hold till weight determined for sale, hand to customer. Could likely even have software do it.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Gas pump style soda fountains would be absolutely hilarious. Truly the peak of american culture.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago (36 children)

Just stop eating fish.

No need for nets.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (9 children)

stop eating all animals tbh.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

No, that would inconvenience me. I would prefer to virtue signal. /s

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The worst thing about paper straws is seeing it poked through a plastic lid.

[–] someacnt 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Noticed the same thing, how can one be concerned about the plastic straws but not the cups? I almost thought that was the joke.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (2 children)

But what if we pass the responsibility down to the consumer instead of dealing with industrial waste that's often more of a matter of cost than practicality?

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

to be fair that was a regulator decision. they seem to have went for the low hanging fruit of something relatively easy to replace without impacting the bottom line.

not gonna save the world by a long shot, but its a better than nothing sort of deal im surprised they even bothered with in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (2 children)

My conspiracy theory is it was chosen to deliberately harm the optics of environmentalists. Something with minimal useful impact and maximum inconvenience would turn people against the whole idea of environmentally friendly alternatives.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

I see a lot of people who share your opinion. I used to work rehabbing sea turtles and EVERY turtle we received alive or dead had straws/bags in their gut. It might not seem super important but those products look more like jellyfish and turtles have poor eyesight.

The nets commercial fishing boats make the most plastic waste by a lot but declining a plastic straw and bringing your own bag to shop WILL save a life.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I think it's also a product of the guy on the left likely has never used and will never use a fishing net. It's kind of like the tarrifs on Canada. America wasn't ever complaining that drugs were being trafficked over the the Canadian border but that is the reason they are giving for the tarrifs. The truth I see is one of the highest imports from Canada to the U.S. is Aluminum. Coke already stated if Aluminum costs go up, they will simply make more of their products in plastic bottles instead to keep their costs down. Those plastic bottles are made from petroleum which funds much of the GOP's campaigns. He is simply paying back oil executives by ensuring aluminum prices rise. Cokes profits stay the same, Oil companies profits go up. Where does the money come from? Working class Americans

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago

Getting rid of plastic straws, but not cups and lids was such a stupid thing. There are substitutes for cups, but they cost more, so they weren't a good option for greenwashing.

If you're already minimizing seafood intake because of the lead content, you're already minimizing your personal impact of fishing net use. What we need to do is legislate the use of hemp nets. Hemp was the primary net maternal before the oil industry put their weight behind making hemp illegal under the guise of "The War On Drugs!" and made plastic/nylon nets the default.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

That would be ideal, but each person has limited time and attention. Advocate for both, but put your efforts into figuring out how to change the thing with the larger impact.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-16529-0

It's more like at the first place, with 26% of the mass. Majority doesn't mean "half of".

Nevertheless, even if the fishing industry produced no plastic pollution, it would still destroy the ecosystems directly and indirectly (breaking the food chains by fishing tons of krill and small fish to feed the farms)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Majority literally means the subset making up more than half of the set.

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