Clown world
Discussion
At least plastic packaging serves a purpose, it’s not ideal and we need to create better packaging or even go back to using glass jars etc.
Single use plastic carrier bags serve no purpose other than placating our laziness.
Once you’re in the habit of having a few reusable shopping bags in your car or even a small one in your pocket you don’t even remember using store plastic bags. Or you can usually take a cardboard box from the store to carry stuff in if you’re really stuck.
Capitalist consumerism incentivises laziness in the name of convenience and our environment and health pay the cost. Plastic === cancer
Plastic bags are useful for lots of things. They can be trash bags for small bathroom trashcans. They are great for keeping the smell down in larger tash bags by individually tying off smellier stuff. They make great dirty clothes bags when on a trip. And they are great for managing trash in the car when going somewhere.
Yes we use them for all those things, in fact we use the wrapping that comes with online orders for our food bin.
Ask someone from a place that has no plastic how valuable plastic is. Be careful what you wish for.
Does such a place exist?
Yes, people fleeing North Korea have to be told to leave the plastic trash in the river as they cross into China. Many would otherwise risk being shot to collect it. When things are scarce & valuable, & they all come in heavy & breakable glass containers, plastic becomes an extremely valuable commodity.
The Soviet bloc also didn't really have plastic until the 90s. I'm sure there are still others, & there are people in the US today seriously advocating policies that would take us there.
You’re missing the fact that we have the technology and thanks to these laws, the incentives to develop viable and better alternatives.
To leap from plastic bans to communism is an an-cap paranoid fever dream.
"Viable and better alternatives" doesn't come from market interference. You must work for a government institution to believe this fairy tale.
So the fairy tale has since become a reality. And there are billions fewer plastic bags flying around the place.
There is no appreciable change in the amount of litter anywhere that I have seen. And there are fucking masks everywhere thanks to govt intervention.
Did I say government intervention is always good?
The problem is that all govt interventions have unseen & unexpected costs, they are usually based on hidden agendas, & the overwhelming majority have massively net negative outcomes.
If the power to control people's lives exists then it will be abused. Even if you like one particular outcome, what gives you the right to remove options from other people? I've never littered, why should I be punished?
Maybe you should start picking up trash & get a group of people to help you do sonething productive rather than support the destruction of useful things.
The reality is that everything would be better if political power was destroyed entirely, so supporting power when it serves you at the expense of others is no better than anyone else using it to serve themselves in a way that harms you instead.
The “reality” you describe is an unknowable fantasy. What examples of this reality can you point to from history?. I’m sure we agree on a lot of things but being that this “reality” is impossible and never going to happen, so why be so anchored to ideological purism?
The reason I entered this discussion is because you picked a very bad example for your “clown world” meme.
In the UK the plastic bag issue is probably the only thing positive that has happened in 15 years. There are a thousand examples of things that could support your narrative, you just picked one of the very few things that doesn’t.
The most prosperous places in the world have been those that are most politically restrained & economically free. When political power grows it necessarily destroys economic freedom & as a result whatever prosperity there may have been begins to crumble. Countries that have built up lots of economic capital can drag on feeding political parasites for decades, but eventually the parasites think they can get away with anything, & then everything collapses.
Western countires are approaching that final stage now. The record of history is crystal clear on this issue. The govt is the only entity left in places like Cuba & Venezuela & so many others because power hungry politicians sought to "fix" every problem via theft & force & coercion. And people like you go along with it because you don't want to have to do anything yourself, you want to vote problems away at the expense of everyone else. It's a deep cultural problem that grows from the top down & bottom up at the same time.
This covers the issue pretty well
Politicians love to claim victories for things that cannot be measured. In the EU what actually happened was that only bags with handles were regulated so naturally for small stuff shops procured bags with no handles, literally negating whatever rosy dreams socialists had of creating a "greener" world by using natural bags (made of trees) instead of what the market had found worked best.
Wanting people's options reduced by force makes you the bad guy. People using plastic bags aren't harming you. You were always free to carry groceries however you wanted.
Plastic bag pollution harms all of us.
In my country the gov added a tax to plastic bags 10 years ago, it has reduced their numbers by billions.
The outcome is objectively better and widely supported. It’s one of the only positive things the government has done.
I’m sorry that it doesn’t fit nicely into your ideology, but thankfully rational pragmatism triumphed.
What I’ve seen is “single use” plastic shopping bags commonly get reused, especially as small trash bags and pet waste bags. Many grocery stores have also started to accept them back for recycling.
Capitalism consistently incentivizes people to innovate ways to use and profit from waste products, not “laziness.”
Don’t forget all the plastic used in medicine from implants and hospital supplies to the little plastic pill containers
Hey, this plastic is not that plastic they say.
plastic is worse for your personal health than the health of the environment lmao
Some kinds are definitely a problem.
They also don’t want you to use petroleum-based fuel sources 🤷♂️
Fucking Wegmans drove the other stores close to me away. Then switched to shit paper bags with no handles and they charge you for them + the self checkout makes it super easy to accidentally buy four bags.
Mother Fuckers. It's a huge con job.
Don’t forget all the tags and signage and equipment used in the grocery store as well as all the deli supplies it goes on and on
Omg this is true 😅🥵