Comment by methodical | Hacker News Reader

Comment by methodical | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I concur.

Ironically enough it seems every time we find a new approach to minimizing pollution it usually comes in the form of inconveniencing ourselves, despite the fact that individual pollution is relatively minuscule as compared to the pollution committed by global industry. The paper bag to plastic bag conversion has just ended up creating a separate issue, and this same trade off seems to exist across the board. I guess there really isn't a way to have our cake and eat it too. The real solution is stricter environmental laws regarding industry, who have profiteered off of a total disregard for the environment for decades, not making everybody drink through shitty (and likely poisonous) paper.

It truly is crazy how most of us have been gaslit into thinking that global pollution is largely a result of our own individual actions, and not the action of mega-corporations who operate independently of any concern for the environment. Sorry, I'm going to have to opt out of all of the idiotic soapboxing about how I'm the issue because I don't drive a hybrid while BP/Exxon/Oil Corp #53 plunder the Earth and produce magnitudes more pollution in a day than I could hope to make in 100 lifetimes. /rant

> The paper bag to plastic bag conversion has just ended up creating a separate issue

Are there places banning paper bags and requiring plastic bags? Every place I’m aware of eliminated single use plastic bags and makes you pay for paper.

I fully agree that industry is the primary culprit in our environmental problems but that absolve the rest of us from at least trying to do better.

I suspect it's just an issue of phrasing.

Plastic bags were adopted in favor of paper largely because of cost, but companies also asserted moral superiority because they truly do use fewer resources, vastly less landfill. Especially when they are reused as bin liners or to pick up waste, plastic bags are vastly more environmentally friendly than any option.

To match one-time use plastic bags:

- polypropylene bags (most of the green reusable bags found at supermarkets) should be used 37 times

- paper bags should be used 43 times

- cotton bags should be used 7,100 times

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-reuse-bags.html

Not to negate the information in the provided article (as I certainly don't know enough of the specifics to debate, so feel free to correct me here), but I'm unable to ascertain whether all potential environmental impacts were factored into those numbers. I would think on aspects such as biodegradability, plastic bags would be essentially one of the worse options available when compared to counterparts such as paper and cotton which seem to have a much more straightforward decomposition? At a surface level, the provided article seemed to be comparing environmental impacts from production and recycling alone instead of also accounting for the impact of the large amount of plastic bags that end up as litter.

It certainly doesn't absolve us- we should try to do good when possible. Should you recycle that aluminum can? Yes. Should you not throw trash out your car's window? Also yes. I was just trying to point out that the more extreme people among the movement to minimize carbon footprint are missing the bigger picture, and us as individuals are not going to be able to move the needle in a significant way, even with mass action and inconveniences.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com