Reusable plastic bottles or metal are great, it’s the single use plastics that are really terrible.
The banning of plastic bag sees the rise of reusable bag…being taken as single use. Multiple times higher footprint, multiple times higher cost. People will do everything for their own convenient.
Except that a recent study shows that a plastic bag charge in the UK significantly changed behaviors:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00266/full
So the suggestion that people are unchangeable is plausible, but turns out to not be true.
Konvinient!
I think realizing that there is a problem is the first step to fixing it.
I remember seeing really old papers posted here where our current climate problems were being forecasted as early as 1920.
BP invented the carbon footprint term in an (successful) attempt to shift responsibility to the consumer in about 1990 I believe.
We’re way past realisation and spreading the word.
This is pure ignorance we’re fighting today.
The problem was realized decades ago, and yet we’ve accelerated our use. It’s very similar to emissions. If only we had left that thick sludge in the ground, neither of these would be an issue.
I don’t think it is as urgent as the media makes it seem. For the media it is all about sensational stories. Yes long term it is something to be concerned about but it isn’t something you should freak out over.
Also if it gets bad enough some company will profit from it. If there is money to be had with solutions suddenly you get the best minds working on it.
