509
Survey finds that 60 firms are responsible for half of world’s plastic pollution
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
509 points (98.5% liked)
World News
39127 readers
3990 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Regulation is fine, but people need to realize that there are always downstream effects that often result in a less efficient version of the same outcome.
For instance, say you just pass a blanket ban on plastic soda bottles and mandate glass. Production costs immediately go up (not to mention transportation and logistics), and those costs are naturally passed onto the consumer, so the prices of all sodas go up.
Has this really improved things? There are real questions about the environment impact of glass, since they're significantly heavier and thus require more carbon emissions to transport. Glass is better if it's reused, but there are situations where it's unlikely to be reused. Soda is now more expensive, just as it would have been under a plastic tax (and because lower income people tend to drink more soda, you've hit them extra hard relatively), but now you've also eliminated the ability for plastic bottles to be used in situations where they truly are called for; for instance, you probably don't want to be selling glass bottles at a music festival, so an organizer will need to instead purchase extra plastic cups instead, resulting in the consumption of extra glass and plastic.
I know people have this idea that the only factor that goes into a price is how greedy the CEO happens to feel that morning, but that's simply not the case. Prices are set by market circumstances, not greed. It's not like NYC landlords suddenly got less greedy in 2020; the market radically changed. They're already charging the most that the market will bear. In terms of regulation, it's almost always more effective to go after the market incentives - that is, price signals - instead of just taking a hammer to the thing you don't like and hoping it doesn't have any bad effects.
Ok, but i was taught as a child about the need to recycle. What percent of the population recycles? What percent even have access to recycle programs? What percent of recycle programs don’t just throw the bags into the normal trash dumps?
You say cost will go up if actual change is introduced and consumers will be upset. I agree, but the opinions and the cost are not being considered. Should they be? And if they make it untenable, what does that say about the product?
You frame this as a ‘there is no solution i can see that’s worth it so why bother’ and this tells me you are not interested in a solution. There are solutions out there right now we could be doing but don’t. And some progress is better then nothing. Not to mention drinking from plastic bottles has apparently been poisoning us.
As for housing, they are charging the most the market can bear…. After the land lords manipulated the housing market so that the market could be forced into bearing more than it could healthily. Again because they are not properly regulated.
That is the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that an externality tax to capture the actual cost of single-use plastics would do a lot to reduce their use without distorting markets and causing unintended side effects while likely being more effective than blanket bans.
That and an indulgence tax does not solve the problem. The intention is not to get more money from taxes, or to lower the pores access to normal goods, it’s decentivise its use. And by definition the amount you would have to tax to achieve this has to be so much that it destabilizes the market. Thats the point.
Okay, so imagine you just ban plastic soda bottles. Now plastic bottles cannot be used in any circumstances, no matter how genuinely warranted, even if a user is willing to pay all costs to ensure its environmental impacts are offset. Also, all soda is now significantly more expensive, so "the poors" still have less access to it.
Potentially, yes. The entire point is that these artificial low prices are only possible because the negative externalities are being inflicted on other people in the form of pollution. By actually factoring this impact into the cost of the good, its true cost emerges and the market will settle into whatever the equilibrium is. If the only thing enabling mass access to cheap soda is a ton of pollution, then you either accept mass pollution or you lose the mass access to cheap soda. There's not really any way around that fundamental trade-off.
Not potentially, the market MUST be disruputed. If the market is not disrupted, the same goods are being bought, if the same goods are being bought then the same trash is created. Upsetting the market is the whole point.
Putting an indulgence tax on plastic may help stop the poor from contributing to the pollution problem, but unless the cost is prohibitively expensive for the majority it’s not going to work. Also you are not factoring that the use of the plastic can be how it’s regulated. I do not envision it being outright banned from all applications. Just all the single use applications. And i would also posit that some single use applications could be changed to a reusable use without reforging the container. It is being done else where and soon we won’t have a choice but to comply anyway. We are just talking about how dystopian that time will be at this point.
So, you want to regulate the use of plastic via an indulgence tax. But instead of charging the corporation, you want to add an additional tax to every single individual transaction? Or do you want to tax the corporation once and have the cost of the product go up. The end result is the same, except one is more efficient.
The spot where you charge it really doesn't matter much except to the accountants; it'll always just be factored into the price of the product. There's no real difference between the company increasing the price by ten cents or a ten cent tax being levied at the register.
I really wouldn't call it an indulgence tax though. There are plenty of uses for single-use plastics that aren't sodas or indulgences.
That and an indulgence tax does not solve the problem. The intention is not to get more money from taxes, or to lower the pores access to normal goods, it’s decentivise its use. And by definition the amount you would have to tax to achieve this has to be so much that it destabilizes the market. Thats the point.