I think this focus on plastics is actually harmful to the environment. The crucial issue of our time is climate change. Unless we can get climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, trying to reduce plastic is sweeping the deck of the Titanic.
The biggest barrier to climate change is convincing people to act. All this talk about plastic just consumes bandwidth.
In addition, this reinforces the the worse fears about environmentalists.
1. Many times the effects of plastic pollution in the ocean are exaggerated. There is not a huge island made of plastic floating in the ocean.
2. The amount of plastic that a western first world country contributes through plastic straws is basically a rounding error.
3. Plastic straw bans inconvenience the average person while not being a very efficacious way to reduce overall global plastic consumption.
Many people fear that if they give governments the mandate to regulate carbon, the government will pass a bunch of regulations that will just inconvenience them but not actually help with climate change in any meaningful way.
I think you are not paying enough attention to the fact that we simply don't really know the consequences of plastic in our environment.
We don't know if longer consumption of microplastic has serious health threats, we don't even know the deep sea so we do also not know how plastic affects it.
But what we do currently already know about the effect of plastic in our environment is already shocking enough and with such an ongoing development of plastic we are gonna have more plastic than fish in our sea by the year of 2050:
3. Is not having a straw really the struggle people make it out to be? A simple change in harmful habit multiplied by billions of straws adds up quickly.
> Is not having a straw really the struggle people make it out to be?
Counterpoint: are straws really the problem? Last I checked they were a fraction of a percent of total plastic, whereas things like fishing nets made up slightly under 50% of total plastic. Haven't seen anyone forego seafood or demand seafood caught without the use of plastics though.
True and not true. By itself, reducing straw use has negligible effects. It's whether it would lead to a change in behaviour (better management of use of plastic) that's key, I think.
It's covered as one of the FAQ questions [1]
[A]re straws a big deal? Not really. It's estimated that if all straws around the world's coastlines were lost to the ocean, this would account for approximately 0.03 percent of ocean plastics. A global ban on their use could therefore achieve a maximum of a 0.03 percent reduction. Why have straws in particular received so much attention? Probably because: (a) for most people (not all — some people struggle to drink without one), straws are unnecessary; and (b) it's a quick and low-risk step for businesses to be seen to be taking active steps in addressing this issue.
Reducing plastic straw use is — for the most part — not a bad thing to do. It can reduce plastic use a little. If this is a first step towards large-scale commitments to tackling plastic consumption, then it's a useful contribution. But as the late David MacKay noted: “If we all do a little, we’ll only achieve a little”. We must do a lot; we must tackle the high-impact options that will make a difference at the global level.
So basically, the straw ban is not really doing anything else to help with plastics in the ocean. In return, it has turned into a meme among some political groups how the environmentalists are trying to micromanage our behavior.
The biggest barrier to climate change is convincing people to act. All this talk about plastic just consumes bandwidth.
In addition, this reinforces the the worse fears about environmentalists.
1. Many times the effects of plastic pollution in the ocean are exaggerated. There is not a huge island made of plastic floating in the ocean.
2. The amount of plastic that a western first world country contributes through plastic straws is basically a rounding error.
3. Plastic straw bans inconvenience the average person while not being a very efficacious way to reduce overall global plastic consumption.
Many people fear that if they give governments the mandate to regulate carbon, the government will pass a bunch of regulations that will just inconvenience them but not actually help with climate change in any meaningful way.