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Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, it reveals a lot about people. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone complain about non-plastic straws...even my 83 year-old uncle who lived through WW2...can't stop moaning about the tiniest inconvenience in his life. Like, what did people drink out of in the 1950s? Meanwhile I've picked up hundreds, maybe thousands of the bastards off beaches the world over. I picked up more than one today down by the river.

Yeah, you're right. Straws aren't the main problem. Of the two bags of litter I picked up today, there were only one or two. You could ban everything but straws and there'd still be so much plastic in the ocean that if you were forced to look at it, you'd vomit.

You're right. We're not going to fix plastic ocean trash by banning straws. We're going to have to fix plastic ocean trash by banning all one-time use plastics. For a start. And then ban the rest. And I guarantee you you're going to hate that.

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Who is "we"?

If it doesn't include Philippines, China and India, it won't do much for fixing plastic ocean trash.

Also, we can obviously keep using one-time use plastics, as long as we don't dump it in the ocean, and still fix the plastic ocean trash problem.

No, I get it. Everyone needs to do their part. But western countries pioneered plastic waste, and they need to lead the way on solving the problem. It's the same conversation as CO2 pollution. Clean up at home first and then help others get started down a better path. Otherwise it's a Mexican standoff with finger-pointing.

Western countries didn't pioneer dumping plastic waste into the ocean. By the time plastics came about, western countries already had well established waste management that doesn't pollute the oceans.

Except that we did and still do. In the US, you can find plastic garbage in every waterway and along every highway, in large enough quantities that it's actually a real problem.

Rich countries pioneered dumping plastic onto developing countries. To then blame them for polluting.

The data suggests western countries _are_ leading the way on plastic waste disposal. It's high time we started helping others, don't you think?

Coca-cola produces over 100 billion plastic bottles per year. Multinational corporations seem happy to keep cranking out items they know damn well will end up in the ocean. Because money.

Maybe India should also stop accepting “recycling” waste from western countries. Then the west can lead the way even better.

They should just all be PLA straws. They biodegrade, though somewhat slowly unless carefully composted, but even in the environment they’re just polymerized lactic acid and familiar enough to biology to likely be much much less impactful. (and specifically not filled with compounds that emulate hormones)

It is clear that to fix ocean plastic we don’t need to ban plastics, we don’t need to do feel good campaigns about environmentalism in america… we need to promote public service announcements about littering in a few target countries and subsidize the creation of sanitation industries around the world.

Making americans bring their own bags and drink through terrible straws makes a certain kind of person feel good because it feels like they’re doing something, a feeling which is somehow enhanced by the thing being somewhat unpleasant and unpopular. Feeling like you’re doing something and actually accomplishing something are entirely different.

The reason straws are so annoying is because the replacemt really truly absolutely sucks. I’d rather have nothing than the paper straws that start composting before you’re halfway through your drink.

Starbucks solved it that way and it’s amazing. Their cold drinks now come with a lid that has a big hole you can drink out of like it’s a normal cup. No straws, no annoyance, everyone’s happy.

The problem are those stupid lids with a hole in the middle that make it literally impossible to drink without a straw. But the non-plastic straws aren’t up for the job.

So you’re stuck with a super annoying situation that just sucks.

> We're going to have to fix plastic ocean trash by banning all one-time use plastics. For a start. And then ban the rest.

That would be it's own economic and ecological disaster. How many trees are you going to cut down and how much ore will you mine to make this happen? And given the considerable weight savings plastics bring, how much fuel will we burn to transport our substantially heavier goods in the dystopia you envision?

Oh, we're in a dystopia already. Spend a day picking up garbage off a beach. I'll take the balsa wood to-go boxes or whatever you're dreaming up there. It's a paradise compared to the hundreds of bags of garbage I've picked up over the years and the heartbreak I feel knowing how enormous and completely fucking irreversible the damage we've already done in the last 40 years is.

Pardon my bluntness, but if we had a better habit of not eating so many to-go meals and sat down and ate off a reusable plate with reusable utensils like all of humanity had to just 100 years ago, single-use plastic would have almost no reason to exist.

> I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone complain about non-plastic straws...even my 83 year-old uncle who lived through WW2...can't stop moaning about the tiniest inconvenience in his life.

Because it is obviously theatre to anyone with an ounce of intelligence and integrity. Another chance for unworldly Westerners to signal their grace without making real, substantial change.

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