Where do all the microplastics in bodies of water come from? It's not plastic waste in landfills, it's tires on the road, which wear down and wash into bodies of water. Every single time your drive.
Recently it was found that an essential chemical in tires for hardening them breaks down into neurotoxins that are killing massive amounts of salmon in the pacific northwest. Where is the public outcry? Nowhere!!
So that is what incredibly creepy: people pretend to care about the environment to the point they make massive judgements over plastic waste, but they refuse to even consider the amount of driving that's forced onto nearly every person in the US, and we don't even consider ways to reduce that environmental impact, or allow people to even choose to live with less impact. Instead we ban the types of city planning that would allow people to go about their daily lives without the climate destroying, COPD causing, microplastic creating form of travel: cars.
The way you argue is pointing out things that you do, and applying said behaviours to everyone else, or at least the the people on this site. Again, very frustrating.
I, for one, do not drive a car. Nor does my wife. We only use our tiny - by your US standards - every few months, and just for a few hundred kilometers. So yeah, you don't get to tell me how much I pollute or waste because you don't know me. I didn't say anything about cars until now but I hate almost everything them and especially the people who "can't imagine life without" them.
Your initial post was a really bad take. At least admit to that. My response was a shit one. See, if I can take some responsibility, so can you
I did not make the post you were responding to. So asking me to take responsibility, accusing me of being young and full of hormones, is yet more of a shit post in your part.
I tend to find that in my (many more than 20) years on this planet that when responding to someone, the utmost important thing to speak the truth, and secondly to respond in kind in order to be most likely to understood by the person you are talking to. So if you apologize for your post, I too apologize for responding in kind.
I do agree policy is the most important factor. But policy is not created in a complete vacuum. What the vast majority of people do and think is important. The outrageous amounts of perfectly good plastic that is thrown away is criminal. Just for food alone. Dear god.
Downplaying all this completely unnecessary waste because car fuel, tires and brakes pollute as well is odd. Especially given the fact that plastic waste is not just containers dumped in a landfill. Plastic bags are fucking disgusting and their remnants have be found virtually everywhere on the planet, including oceans, mountains, and jungles.
It’s not surprising or creepy that people focus on what they actually can control.
None of us realistically can change the fact that America is built around roads. Not everyone can work from home.
People drive not because they want to, but because they have to. Criticizing that is a highly privileged take.
Let's keep on using the "creepy" adjective here, because I think I applies especially to this comment, even more than the prior one.
Who sets the laws for how buildings are built and whether we have to drive or not? Local communities (at least in the US). So people can get involved, change what is legal and not legal to build, and advocate for it on the local level.
That's what I have been doing for the last five or so years. And what I find realt creepy about the experience is how people will go out of their way to criticize others for small, meaningless actions like reducing single waste plastic, but go ballistic at the idea that we should allow some people to live in a way that doesn't force them to drive every single day and for every trip out of the house.
> People drive not because they want to, but because they have to.
If that is the case, then why don't they make their voices heard? I certainly don't hear anybody voicing that when we do have a chance to allow communities to be built that don't force driving. Instead I head person after person after person demanding that housing and mixed use communities be banned.
At one of the meetings I was at, trying to advocate for a mixed use building, some commenter mentioned an aside of having all single use drinking containers have a tax. None, not a single one, of the board members expressed enthusiasm for this mixed use building that, as a single building, would have far bigger impact than banning all single use cups in the city. But boy did the board take up the idea of taxing single use containers, and not two years later we have a $0.25 charge when you get a to go cup at a coffee shop, but we still have a huuuuuuuuuge fight over every single bit of environment saving buildings.
> Criticizing that is a highly privileged take.
That's utter BS, and a commonly used dodge by people who don't want any change. Of course we can criticize a system, particularly as we change it. Saying that it's "privileged" to point out that people are forced to drive, which is what I said, is utter nonsense. And frankly, extremely creepy.
People are really creepy about cars. They will excuse them, apologize for them, ignore all the damage they do, and even criticize people that point out these massive flaws, before people will admit that maybe we should st least let some people live without them.
I -want- to reduce car usage, but I'm also realistic.
"If that is the case, then why don't they make their voices heard?"
Some people do. See strong towns for example. Yeah, there's also NIMBY-ism. Turns out people working minimum wage jobs (who have to commute because they can't afford to live downtown) don't have as much time or energy to participate in local politics as well-off folks. But let's keep on blaming people!!
Also, I'm not sure if you understand what creepy means. Even if your points may be correct, I'm disinclined to engage with someone who calls everyone who doesn't exactly agree with them "creepy".
Thank you for trying to make the world better.
I try to make the same case as you. I think people get off on the controlling part (banning plastic bags) and just use environmentalism as a cover.
- this person seriously believes the thing they said, which I find outrageous
- they lied which is just as bad
By all means, feel free celebrate your victory by throwing shit away and drive a 5 ton car. That will show people like me
Be sure to include stuff like heating and cooling, transport, clothing, and any other purchaes you make. (99% of the stuff we buy will eventually be garbage, after all.)
I don't think my situation is particularly unusual.
Also, you should figure in depreciation on things like the apartment itself, vehicles, and transportation of the stuff you buy.
100% renewable energy is great, if true where you are. Most places still use natural gas peaker plants, at least.
Consuming electricity during the day is cleaner than at peak, but even if you're producing your own energy (or your utility is 100% greenhouse free, regionally), the electricity you use could have displaced dirty production elsewhere on the grid. (Also, even solar and wind produce pollution -- they have embodied carbon and finite lifespans).
I'm not arguing against reducing household plastic waste, but the idea that you see most of the pollution that's created by stuff you consume is optimistic.
Anyway, according to the EPA, US municipal solid waste is 12.2% plastic (excluding construction waste, sewage sludge, etc). The US is likely higher than most places:
https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-...
Electricity is a big one, though. And water, too.
Landfills aren't an environmental problem. People have just been somehow conditioned to hate them for no particular reason.