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posted by martyb on Wednesday August 07 2019, @01:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the unintended-consequences dept.

https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/bans-on-plastic-bags-can-backfire

Governments are increasingly banning the use of plastic products, such as carryout bags, straws, utensils, and microbeads. The goal is to reduce the amount of plastic going into landfills and waterways. And the logic is that banning something should make it less abundant.

However, this logic falls short if people actually reuse those items instead of buying new ones. For example, so-called “single-use” plastic carryout bags can have a multitude of unseen second lives—as trash-bin liners, dog poop bags, and storage receptacles.

A U.K. government study calculated that a shopper would need to reuse a cotton carryout bag 131 times to reduce its global warming potential—its expected total contribution to climate change—below that of plastic carryout bags used once to carry newly purchased goods. To have less impact on the climate than plastic carryout bags also reused as trash bags, consumers would need to use the cotton bag 327 times.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 07 2019, @12:26PM (5 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday August 07 2019, @12:26PM (#877028) Journal

    Plastic makes such excellent, durable, and light packaging. If we replace it with paper, food gets spoiled before it's eaten and you assholes go back to clearcutting the forests in my beloved West. Result: climate change from deforestation. If we replace it with metal we mine more which means environmental degradation and deforestation. Result: water and air pollution and climate change. If we replace it with glass, everything weighs so much more and we have to burn so much more fossil fuels to move it around. Result: climate change.

    Maybe we should stop buying so much shit, repair what we have, grow some of what we consume ourselves, and possibly, maybe, accept the fact that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 08 2019, @12:06AM (4 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 08 2019, @12:06AM (#877266) Journal

    I have this terrible habit of remembering stories, but not the title or the author. Sci-fi story, published many years ago, of two cultures side-by-side in the same solar system. One culture, like us in the western world, is obsessed with packaging everything, to keep stuff clean, pure, blah blah blah. The other culture just throws stuff off the store shelves into one big bag. They don't have time or resources to waste on packaging. Minimal packaging on everything, and none of it plastic, all of it mulchable. I mean, who really cares if your lettuce touches the tomatoes on the way home? They're all going to touch in your stomach!

    In the story, at least, the society without the packaging fetish triumphed over the fetishists.

    Spoilage? I don't think that's as much as factor as we are led to believe. I can buy mushrooms without packaging, and they seem to last as long as mushrooms in shrink-wrap packaging. I really believe that most packaging is wasteful. At home, reusable containers are the way to go. Put your cooked food into covered bowls, and refrigerate right alongside your unpackaged raw foods.

    • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday August 08 2019, @12:33AM

      by krishnoid (1156) on Thursday August 08 2019, @12:33AM (#877277)

      Put it on scifi.stackexchange [stackexchange.com] and let us know the title. Although, they don't have to be in the same solar system to pit the societies against each other -- how they operate right here on Earth should be a good comparison. I suspect presence of a cold chain [wikipedia.org] or general ambient temperature plays a significant part in how long food can be kept usable, though.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 09 2019, @01:03AM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 09 2019, @01:03AM (#877705) Journal

      In the story, at least, the society without the packaging fetish triumphed over the fetishists.

      But who has the fetish the worst? My take is people who are willing to regulate our lives to take away packaging options (and related disposable paraphernalia like drinking straws and bags) are far more fetishists than the people who buy stuff based on the packaging.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 09 2019, @03:10PM (1 child)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 09 2019, @03:10PM (#877926) Journal

        Ahhhh, but - the story was on different worlds than we live in.

        IMO, we crossed a crazy line with blister packs. FFS, I want a doo-diddy, and it's packaged in a blister pack. I try to finesse the thing out, then I try some strength, then I reach for my handy massacre-ready machete, and sometimes have to resort to dynamite. And, it isn't just my doo-diddy. Granddaughter gets a doll for Christmas, or birthday. "Pa-Paw, can you open my doll?" This is where men have shined, for decades, at least. The man of the house can always open a jar, a can, a milk can, whatever. Those blister packs? FEK!! "Pa-Paw's sorry he cut the head and legs off your dolly, really truly sorry. Maybe you'd like to keep Pa-Paw's machete, to make up for the doll?"

        • (Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Friday August 09 2019, @09:53PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 09 2019, @09:53PM (#878030) Journal
          Well, Grandpaw, I admit that the blisterpack is a serious safety hazard, but it's not that hard to open aside from that. In addition to your tools above, there are scissors which also work wonderfully on the zip ties, tape, elastic bands, and other accoutrements that accompany toy dolls these days.

          And no way I'd give a grandkid a machete after I just mutilated their birthday doll. They just might decide to see if my heads and legs would work as replacements!