Hacker News Reader

Comment by vel0city | Hacker News Reader

> But the pollution problem from plastic bags is solved equally well if we bury them or recycle them

We can't even reliably trust people to put the plastic bags in a bin and have that bin be cleanly collected and yet you're expecting people to bury them??

No, the solution is to massively reduce how often we use single-use plastic bags. It seems like every time I buy anything from any store its just assumed I want it in a plastic bag. Getting a single bottled drink at a convenience store? The clerk gets a plastic bag ready. Its insane.

View on HN

>We can't even reliably trust people to put the plastic bags in a bin

We can, or more precisely it depends on culture norms. Places where littering is rare do exist.

It's the town or city that does the disposal whether that's burying, recycling, dumping at sea, or whatever. Again, this article isn't about whether we should produce plastic but how we should dispose of it once its collected.

That's only true if everyone in the area is good about throwing away their trash in proper receptacles. That's the alternative stream that's difficult to control directly because it's at the individual level instead of the municipality and some people and areas don't give a damn about littering so the problem of plastic bags can be more pronounced depending on local culture about the environment.

The bag doesn't magically get from the store to the waste stream it has to be properly disposed of by the customer to make it there.

> It's the town or city that does the disposal whether that's burying, recycling, dumping at sea, or whatever.

> once its collected

Its not the employees of the town or city ensuring that bag ever makes it to the employees of the town or city though, that's my point. Its the user of the plastic bag is where a lot of the breakdown in the chain happens. Its the fact you buy anything and the shop gives you a plastic bag to deal with. Which, a ton of people don't do a good job dealing with them! Similarly, they don't do a good job with drink containers and other packaging either.

Its not like its the city employees putting all the plastic bags in the creeks and the rivers and the fields and the woods. At least, not usually, and not normally in their course of duty.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com