No they wouldn’t. Banning straws is politically expedient, not effective policy. Straws are a tiny drop in the bucket of plastic waste. But they’re visible, largely optional, and have alternatives. It’s easy to make them look bad so a politician can look big by banning them. Your average person can feel like they’re making a difference by buying a reusable straw. The industrial scale plastic waste that happens out of sight is allowed to continue because nobody cares about actually doing anything. Everyone wants to feel like they’re doing something.
Comment on Shh
Godort@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
Its a matter of scale. If labs went through pipette tips the same way that fast food joints went through plastic straws, they’d be banned too.
JillyB@beehaw.org 5 days ago
Mavytan@feddit.nl 3 days ago
Some estimates claim that (life) science produces about 2% of worldwide plastic waste even though only 0.1% of the population works in this industry. I’m not sure how accurate these estimates are, but I find them believable considering how much waste I see every day in labs. On the upside, this waste usually stays in contained systems and doesn’t end up in the ocean.
Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world 5 days ago
And we don’t throw pipette tips in the ocean, we throw them in the biohazard box. While not better for the environment, at least we don’t choke baby turtles.
FireRetardant@lemmy.world 5 days ago
The lab is a much more controlled environment. I trust a lab tech to dispose of the tips as per protocol, which could reduce the number of tips that end up as litter.