The countries which are the most preoccupied with recycling plastics, such as the US, are also the least likely to throw they trash into the ocean.
Plastic bags do no harm buried in the landfill, and we’re not running out of land.
Plastic bags do no harm buried in the landfill, and we’re not running out of land.
I bike along the roads in town, and I see plastic bags in the gutter. I look down the incline beside the road and there are plastic bags in the trees.
Is the USA as bad as Morocco? No. Is plastic waste a problem? Yes.
A plastic bag can be quite sturdy, it can be transparent so you can easily see what's inside, it's light, it folds well, is resistant to humidity, etc.
If you'd give a plastic bag to someone from the 18th century they'd cherish it.
We need to make it so the average person actually cares about buying a bag.
Something like €2 with a return value of €1. Or anything that makes you treat it like you'd treat, say, a good tennis ball. You wouldn't just throw those away willy-nilly.
And we need to ban the low grade ones completely.
Something very similar is happening in north korea.
http://koreabizwire.com/bottled-water-a-symbol-of-wealth-in-...
I would be more amenable to the idea if they made a bag that does not get torn (e.g. armor the paper with cotton or bamboo thread), and is leak-resistant (e.g. waxed), but that somehow takes the back seat.
You do know that we're creating country sized plastic patches in the middle of the Pacific, microplastics are everywhere and we're eating them, they're slowly changing us in ways we don't even understand, etc, etc?
[1] https://qz.com/1299485/antarcticas-waters-now-contain-plasti...
https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-...
People used to assume that dumping sewage in the streets was just fine, but it led to cholera outbreaks [1]. There was no push to change that until it became a major problem and something had to be done. Sure, we can assume burying plastic will be a solution forever. But is it not better to avoid risking the event where it suddenly is a problem, and try and mitigate it now?
(Personally, I think so, but it is one of things that will be forever debatable.)
[1] http://www.hubhistory.com/episodes/boston-in-the-time-of-cho...
Yes it is. Just because some decision made in the past is wrong doesn't mean a different decision made in the present is also wrong. There is no harm to landfill, and we know it quite well by now.
Dumping our trash in the ground is lazy and I just don't understand how anyone wants to defend it.
The options are to make a pile of it, bury a pile of it (ocean or land), burn a pile of it, or eject a pile of it into space, while recycling what we can to reduce load on the aforementioned options (often far, far less than people imagine, btw).
So it’s not an issue of people desiring to put their dirty diapers in the ground for its own sake, but it being the better of several shittier options.
Fundamentally we all make too much trash. Each of us. But while that problem is being worked we still need to put it somewhere where it minimizes sanitation and environmental risk.
Far from being lazy, modern landfills are pretty meticulously engineered for surface reclamation in the developed world. You are probably acting more responsible by putting developed-world trash in a developed-world landfill than by shipping it across the ocean in container barges to the developing world, where often as not it just ends up in an unmanaged, seeping pile (assuming it makes it to and stays on land).
There’s a lot of wishful thinking about what to do with garbage (if “we” only..., “people” just need to...), but the best thing any of us as individuals can do is obsessively reuse finished materials without becoming hoarders, donate, and consume less (opt out of gratuitous packaging, don’t buy tchotchkes for decorations or gifts, buy things that will last for decades or generations, not seasons or years).
How’s that?