>What do we do about all this?
There is no solution other than reducing consumption. Which can most easily be accomplished by increasing taxes on the consumption you want reduced.
There is no solution other than reducing consumption. Which can most easily be accomplished by increasing taxes on the consumption you want reduced.
What does this mean? The environment is damaged because so much plastic is consumed. It then follows that to reduce damage to the environment, less plastic must be consumed.
So we have come to the conclusion that we need less plastic to be consumed, the question is how. Obviously no one wants to consume plastic, since plastic is nice and convenient and most importantly, cheap.
Therefore, if you make plastic more expensive, people will consume less of it (since they have limited amounts of money). Also known as a tax.
Keep increasing the tax until the alternative becomes a more affordable option.
Probably 95% of what I have at home (plastics, electronics, furniture's paint and glue, chunks of relatively special metal like aluminium, chemicals used to clean anything, etc...) would harm the environment if I would just dump it anywhere without control => if you would want to hold companies acountable for all that stuff then we would be back to the stone age => in my opinion a combined organized disposal by endusers + more taxes on products which are "difficult" to dispose of (difficult to implement? most taxes target "consumption" and not "production") + a general "push" (by media & social) to be aware of problems related to such products are the only option.
Why not? We lived quite happily with a fraction of the plastic usage 60 years ago. It's possible to continue using plastic for critical use-cases like medicine, or engineering uses like aircraft or automobiles where there are no good substitutes, while phasing out consumer usage.
I'd happily take my refillable shampoo bottle, soy sauce bottle, and milk bottle to be filled at the store.
It's ridiculous how many things are thought of as "disposable" today.
For instance, any hand wash comes with a pretty good and durable dispenser. But rarely do I see refills being sold, except when you specifically search for it online.
And pens, especially ball pens. The outfit is perfectly reusable, while rarely do I see the refill being sold. Instead, it's just 20 ball pens sold in a giant bundle. It's like they want to encourage you to throw away everything.
That's ignoring things as basic as: if I need a plastic shampoo bottle... let me refill it? Why am I throwing that away after one use? For that matter why is it plastic instead of stainless steel?
On an individual level, one can reduce their plastic consumption by using things that are not packaged in plastic (eg. powdered laundry detergent, bar soap, powdered shampoo, and so on). It's a bit trickier for many perishable foods in the US (eg. milk, yogurt, frozen foods), since many things are not available in non-plastic containers, but this could be solved by regulation.
We need to use recyclable and biodegradable materials or at a minimum, just biodegradable materials (Or relatively bio harmless materials like glass). Even in the best cases, some percentage of material won't get recycled. In many cases, plastic should be replaced by something other than more plastic.
> There is no solution other than reducing consumption. Which can most easily be accomplished by increasing taxes on the consumption you want reduced.
The ocean pollution in the article is due to shipping plastic waste to other countries, who subsequently let it shed into the ocean.
Couldn't this problem be eliminated in a near instant by disallowing export of that low value plastic waste, and landfilling it in the US? It doesn't solve the oil / carbon problem, but neither does exporting it. It does solve the ocean pollution aspect pretty completely though.
I'm not saying it's the best solution, but it does seem like a stepping stone.
Or you could make monetary changes to prevent constant inflation. Hyper-consumerist culture with cheap disposable plastic garbage is largely caused by constant inflationary monetary pressure.