Comment on ‘Net zero hero’ myth unfairly shifts burden of solving climate crisis on to individuals, study finds
kitnaht@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’ve been yelling this at the top of my lungs forever. No amount of cardboard straws are going to stop corporations from polluting the fuck out of things.
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
Yeah, I absolutely agree with this sentiment. The whole plastic mess really grinds my gears.
The straw thing is classic “industry reference group consultation” stuff. Regulators asked the companies that manufacture stuff wrapped in plastic what they should do, and they said “no more shopping bags!” and “cardboard straws!”, and now consumers feel like they’ve endured some hardship and solved the plastic problem. Meanwhile the assholes can keep selling everything wrapped in plastic because that’s the cheapest way to sell it.
About a year ago I noticed plastic products at the shop like wraps and bin bags with “50% ocean plastic” or some such. They define ocean plastic as plastic collected from communities within 100km of the ocean which have no other plastic reclamation facilities. In Australia 99.99% of the population lives within 100km of the ocean. City Councils pay companies to process waste. If you take the plastic from those companies then it meets their shitty definition of “ocean plastic”. So in summary, they’re not saving any dolphins, but using the plight of the dolphins to sell more plastic. Assholes.
Regulators need to regulate these cunts. Add a levy to any product that includes plastic. Start at 1% and increase by 1% each year forever. I have absolutely no doubt that within just a few years your local supermarket will be awash with products enclosed in amazing polymers comprised of frog spit and corn starch that were invented 80 years ago.
houseofleft@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Agree a gazzillion percent!! On the plastic front, there’s some progress being made towards a UN plastics treaty which would legally bind countries to legal targets for plastic reduction. It’s not perfect at all, and it’s likely the US under Trump will ignore it, but would be a big win for plastic regulation (Green Peace and a bunch of other groups are campaining for its support- worth searching for local petitions if you’re interested)