Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Bumface
I think it was partially data driven. The data on how many of those "re-usable" bags ended up getting bought/thrown away/littered wasn't considered.
I'm basically a frigging hippie, but environmental policies that piss everyone off and don't actually meaningfully help the environment move the entire cause backwards, and it had pretty good momentum for about a decade.
The energy intensity of producing a plastic bag is tiny compared to the "reusable" bags. I personally believe CO2 emissions are a far more critical issue than landfill space. If we bury a bunch of #### to be figured out later is a lot easier to solve than pumping a bunch of stuff in the air to be figured out later.
Other municipalities have done things like solar incentives. Maybe forcing establishments to offer a discount for bringing your own bag/cup would have been a better angle. The carrot often plays better than the stick on this stuff.
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That's OK if it were the reality. I personally feel environmental pollutants are a bigger threat than climate change, but we can all have our hills. The problem is a lot of single use plastics end up as litter and eventually microplastics. Unfortunately reusable bags are typically just thicker plastics or woven polyester which is just as big a problem. Essentially we are all ####ed in many ways at this point, so trading one for the other is all we are achieving.