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Comment by spodek | Hacker News Reader

For those who care, please reduce your plastic use!

Please try to pollute less all around.

That does basically nothing. My plastic either goes in recycling or the trash. Even if it goes into the trash it will end up in a landfill, not the ocean. The same is true for most folks in the 1st world. The problem is mostly with the actions of people who do not read HN, countries that continue to have poor or non-existent sanitation. Countries that still dump trash in the ocean.

The obvious solution to this and other problems is to get these other people into the first world. Free immigration isn't just an ethical issue, it's also a practical solution to a lot of the problems that we as a society face.

Simplistic. There's not enough land/resources on the planet to sustain everyone living a first world lifestyle at our current rates of energy consumption and waste production.

Oh? Do you mind showing your work for that claim?

That's true, but you're ignoring the other environmental impacts your plastic use (and my plastic use) will have. Raw materials, expanding landfills, landfill leakage, leeched chemicals from plastic bottles/containers into our food/water, reduced bird populations from eating plastics, etc.

It would also be great if people would refuse to buy items with anti-consumer clamshell packaging. That stuff is a waste in addition to being a huge annoyance. Let's kill two birds with one stone!

But it is good at preventing theft. :(

That is the reason it is used.

It's good at preventing use as well. Because manufacturers and shop owners want you to buy it, but they could care less if you ever use it. Make the bastards come up with a better solution.

I'm pretty sure those who care are already doing this.

There could also be a group of people that just found out about this issue, just started caring and are wondering how they can start to help.

My response was in response to the direct parent, not the root parent.

My point is that most people that care about the environment already know the hazards of plastics, and are not the ones overusing plastics and polluting the planet with them.

In other words, the solution isn't to get those that care to stop polluting the planet. The solution (or one of the solutions) is to get more people to care.

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