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Yup and these 60 companies are using their insane profits to lobby the government to ensure nothing ever changes.
Yay capitalism.
Lobby? They basically own government. I don’t think people realize how big business’s only fight is amongst other big business. They don’t fight with law makers, they make them.
Yes. Lobby. That is HOW corporations own the government.
They pay people off. They even plant them. Either way they are using their huge sack of cash to manipulate the world around them to their benefit.
Don’t worry about these big guys. The straws are gonna save the planet.
Said no one ever.
People so mad about straws act like you cannot possibly work against a problem in more than a single way.
The problem is we are not trying multiple ways. We only try the ineffective ones to avoid trying the effective ones.
And by "we" you mean actually "corporations"? Of course they aren't willing to blame and fine themselves for saving money.
By "we" I mean the governments we elect.
Which are basically controlled by the corporations. My point is that there are many people who want to do more and several groups trying to make it happen. They aren't up against an easy fight. So when a small win happens like plastic straw bans, maybe we can want more without dismissing it as bullshit.
Banning straws (generally, single-use plastics) as well as non-attached bottlecaps is the most effective way to keep EU beaches clean. They had a look at what's out there and those were the big offenders that could be addressed so they're doing it.
...also the only bad thing about those silicone straws I bought is that they're too short for bottles. It really is the ideal material for the application.
Yeah, the beach nearest to me just had a coal power plant reactivated last year. Nothing we can do about that though.
I'm sure that something could be done, but it surely isn't going to help with beach littering. Even if some coal ends up on the beach that's really not an issue.
You could always not buy their completely non essential products, but suggesting that rarely gets a good reception from the "obsessively whining about straws" crows.
Oh yay, blame the consumers not the ones making the trash, worked so well the past 50 years
You could always not buy their completely non essential products
I've been trying this for decades, but it hasn't put a dent in the global growth of waste.
Yeah you pretty much need to end Citizens United and ban corporate lobbying to even start talking about regulating correctly.
That's what's always a bit maddening about these conversations. It's not like companies are just shredding plastic into the atmosphere because they're cartoon villains who love evil.
They're making cheap plastic shit because we love cheap plastic shit. They're making this stuff in response to explicit consumer prioritization of low costs above all other factors. If consumers broadly demanded soda in glass bottles and expressed a willingness to pay the extra cost that this entails, every soda company would use glass.
I'm not saying that you individually should be blamed for all environmental pollution, but we have to realize that companies are responding to the exact same incentives that we do. They're obviously operating at a much larger scale, but they use cheap plastic shit for the exact same reason we do. If you're looking for policy solutions, a great option would be to introduce an externality tax on plastic so that this environmental cost is actually factored into the production and end price and can fund remediate the damage, similar to carbon taxes. Of course though, the moment you say the word 'tax' people's brains completely shut off, so this is probably a non-starter.
I don’t think consumers in general have a direct say in the matter though, regardless of their impact. Blaming every individual for it is inefficient, and ultimately is only useful for deferring blame when you don’t want to solve the actual problem.
If you are interested in an actual solution you go to the source, and regulate the corporations.
They're making cheap plastic shit because we love cheap plastic shit
No. They're making cheap plastic shit because their constant lobbying against common sense regulation and a living wage means that the cheap plastic shit is all most of us can afford.
explicit consumer prioritization of low costs above all other factors
Also known as a consumer prioritization of being able to survive without being TOO crushed by debt. You're really slathering the victim blaming on thick.
If consumers broadly demanded soda in glass bottles and expressed a willingness to pay the extra cost that this entails, every soda company would use glass
Bullshit. You have the power relationship backwards. The vast majority of humanity can't afford high quality sustainable packaging because the premium companies demand for it is ridiculous. Because they know they can as long as useful fools blame the consumers.
I'm not saying that you individually should be blamed for all environmental pollution
Sounds awfully close to just that, though.
we have to realize that companies are responding to the exact same incentives that we do.
They absolutely are not. A company has the option to make the packaging better at the same price in exchange for a couple cents less profit per bottle. A customer, who already doesn't have the vast resources with which to choose that a company has, would have to pay several times that, often several dollars, extra to get the "premium" glass bottle.
They're obviously operating at a much larger scale
That's like saying that the Sultan of Brunei's palace is obviously much larger than my apartment: while technically true, the difference of scale is so vast that any direct comparison is effectively meaningless.
they use cheap plastic shit for the exact same reason we do.
Nope. They produce cheap plastic shit to maximize profits because they're allowed to. We buy cheap plastic shit to minimize costs because we have to. Those are not the same reason.
If you're looking for policy solutions
Yes! This better be good..
a great option would be to introduce an externality tax on plastic so that this environmental cost is actually factored into the production and end price
Companies would just pass the cost on to consumers as always. If you do that AND price control, then we have something!
similar to carbon taxes
Another example of something that's a great idea in theory but end up not working as intended because it's too easy for big companies to avoid the intended consequences. Carbon taxes with no transferrable carbon credits and the aforementioned price control could work, though.
the moment you say the word 'tax' people's brains completely shut off,
Taxes work. You just need additional mechanisms too, to prevent the kind of fuckery companies get up to.
Yay, all the ones to their eyeballs in regulatory capture.
Again? Guyyyyyys 🙄