I’m old enough to remember when plastic bags became available in grocery stores. People didn’t trust them, so they had displays at the entrances showing the bags holding heavy things, like several two liter soda bottles. They pushed so hard for plastic, saying that it would save the environment, and now they’re pushing even harder saying it’ll destroy the environment.
They are better for the environment in some ways. They’re just worse in others and it’s plausible that wasn’t apparent until they got into the environment at scale
The day MLK was shot, he was in that city to help with a sanitation workers strike. The workers were asking for a couple of things including some way to wash up before leaving to go home. In those days people just threw mixed trash into metal cans unbagged, where the food waste would bleed out their juices and rot all week until garbage day. And those guys had to heave those cans up by hand to dump them out. AND they weren’t given so much as a sink to wash up in before their long bus ride home!
Learning about that made be appreciate the humble garbage bag a lot more.
But I have been using the biodegradable bags for both the trash and the compost for some years now. They are terrible bags and more expensive but it’s something I can deal with and it cuts down on plastic waste.
The real thing you’re going to have trouble with is food packaging. I hear you that people got along without plastics in the 1940s but I’d really like to hear a plan for how we’re going to deliver food to people in today’s world without all the plastics. I mean I really would like to hear that plan! I think it will be hard but we can certainly do a lot more.
It’s just a long way to “medical use only.” The amount of plastic used in Agriculture alone is one of the top sources of plastic in the US. It’s used in sheets to suppress weeds in crop fields, and it is arguably a better alternative than herbicides.
Very insightful discussion. I agree, it’s much easier said than done. I believe we can do better to reduce our use of plastic, but not all use cases will be so easily replaced.
How hard was that? People lived fine before plastic bags. I want to see the end of all single-use plastics outside of a medical setting.
I’m old enough to remember when plastic bags became available in grocery stores. People didn’t trust them, so they had displays at the entrances showing the bags holding heavy things, like several two liter soda bottles. They pushed so hard for plastic, saying that it would save the environment, and now they’re pushing even harder saying it’ll destroy the environment.
They are better for the environment in some ways. They’re just worse in others and it’s plausible that wasn’t apparent until they got into the environment at scale
Oh I’m not alleging a conspiracy. I doubt they knew about micro-plastics, or sea turtles thinking the bags are jellyfish.
The day MLK was shot, he was in that city to help with a sanitation workers strike. The workers were asking for a couple of things including some way to wash up before leaving to go home. In those days people just threw mixed trash into metal cans unbagged, where the food waste would bleed out their juices and rot all week until garbage day. And those guys had to heave those cans up by hand to dump them out. AND they weren’t given so much as a sink to wash up in before their long bus ride home!
Learning about that made be appreciate the humble garbage bag a lot more.
But I have been using the biodegradable bags for both the trash and the compost for some years now. They are terrible bags and more expensive but it’s something I can deal with and it cuts down on plastic waste.
The real thing you’re going to have trouble with is food packaging. I hear you that people got along without plastics in the 1940s but I’d really like to hear a plan for how we’re going to deliver food to people in today’s world without all the plastics. I mean I really would like to hear that plan! I think it will be hard but we can certainly do a lot more.
It’s just a long way to “medical use only.” The amount of plastic used in Agriculture alone is one of the top sources of plastic in the US. It’s used in sheets to suppress weeds in crop fields, and it is arguably a better alternative than herbicides.
Very insightful discussion. I agree, it’s much easier said than done. I believe we can do better to reduce our use of plastic, but not all use cases will be so easily replaced.