>

Micro plastics now found in our seafood.  We are leaving behind quite a legacy for our children to clean up.
This title could also be “Disposable product use skyrocketed during pandemic”. >

Yeah I bet a large amount of it has to do with gloves, laboratory pipettes, the at-home test covid test kits, people doing more take home with plastic utensils vs eating in with metal utensils, etc.
Companies that can make use of paper packaging have been trying to shift away from plastic. >

All the PPE and all the takeout and delivery groceries would have been huge contributors. I’ve still got single use utensils and bags from 2020 and I imagine I’m not alone. >

Many food places in my State transitioned to plant based plastic type of containers during the transition away from styrofoam as actual biodegradable friendly alternatives were not widely available. I got a stack of containers surviving no problem in the dishwasher two years later. >

With the current inflation based shrinking of products this will only get worse. Food items are becoming a higher package to food ratio right before our eyes. >

Really wishing we could reverse this somehow, but that's the catch - how. :P >

Mandate a tax in ratio to the package size, shape, weight, and ease of being recyled.
Offer recycling cash back paid by the new tax.
You're welcome politicans, now just fucking do it. >

Discussions on banning single-use plastics are mostly a distraction to help corporate polluters. Most people are ignorant of the ratio on commercial pollution and consumer pollution. Just look at the mountains of car tires that get burned each year. That single tire weighs way more than all the plastic bags and straws you'll ever use in your life. >

What's the solution? No cars? >

What the fuck? No. Make companies pay more to dispose of trash. >

Burning does destroy all microplastics.
What do you propose that destroys microplastics? Is there even a way to do that that and capture the pollutants? >

Covid19 => much more food orders/deliveries to home => more plastic BS. >

don't forget all the single-use gloves in groceries. I used more plastic in 2020 than in my other 40 years. >

What I haven't seen for some reason is that, at least where I am, we had recently made the switch to reusable plastic grocery bags before covid. Then covid hit and grocery stores were not allowing the reuse of said bags. So we all were not only switching back to single use plastic bags for groceries, but those bags had much more plastic than the old single use plastic bags >

Hmmm, its like there is a huge pandemic or something >

Well we also went through a pandemic which required a lot of plastics to keep items and the public sanitary. I’m sure the numbers from 2021-2023 will be a better outlook, but still rising. >

Of course it did.  Business will do what works for their bottom line.  Unless a change has a force of law, it won't become universal. >

With production of plastic costing almost nothing; why would they change? >

My point exactly.  Self-interest always wins over public interest in business. >

Well, yea. Everyone was staying at home ordering fuck tons of take out during the pandemic. >

Not at all surprised. In my country we have banned single use plastic bags for shopping. Yet since that ban has gone into place there is now far more vegetables and fresh fruit that is wrapped in plastic. What gets me is the blame for plastic pollution is always placed squarely at the feet of consumers yet it is not the consumers wanting extra plastic to wrap around fresh corn on the cob still in the husk. >

I was watching MASH not too long ago and noticed there was virtually no plastic in any of the props. You see glass, aluminum, probably tin, canvas, wood, all kinds of other easily disposable items but almost no plastic. Keep in mind the show was cancelled in the 80’s but it’s amazing to me how much it’s changed in my lifetime. Surely there’s a way to incentivize a move away from single-use plastic. >

Ok so this is bad, and we’re all clearly galloping towards a cliff and destroying ourselves, but is it weird that this “2019-2021” increase, at least in the article, doesn’t mention COVID at all?  Like, I pledged to do a lot of stuff in 2018 that I sure didn’t do, and we all know the increase in demand for single use stuff when take away and online become our de facto way to consume.  It’s certainly worth saying, I just think it lacks some nuance. >

Pandemic, lockdown and delivery. 
Is that any surprise? >

Well ya, covid made everything single use. >

But.. but we stopped using plastic straws! Why?! >

Guess we can expect more plastic landfills forming for the next few years. >

Yes, it did.
It's almost like there was a world-wide event that happened that made it so that people were ordering stuff to be brought to their houses, instead of going out to get stuff.
Wonder what that worldwide event could have been?? 🤔🧐 >

On the other hand the uncomfortable fact is: barring coast to coast air mail, ordering to your house is usually more sustainable than going out for it, unless you live somewhere that you can get the items via walking/public transit (aka not most Americans. Even in cities large stores are often poorly located). The break even for a 5 mile round trip vs online ordering is somewhere around a dozen items.
We absolutely need to hold retailers accountable for greener shipping practices and recyclable packaging tho >


We absolutely need to hold retailers accountable for greener shipping practices and recyclable packaging tho

Oh absolutely, no argument there. >

Pandemic.
It will go back down now: >

“Around 137 million tonnes of single-use plastics were produced from fossil fuels in 2021, and it is expected to rise by another 17 million tonnes by 2027, the researchers said.”
No it’s continuing to increase >

Are people surprised? >

Dining in restaurants absolutely cratered in the specified timeframe. 
I don't mean to say that this isn't a problem, but I do think there is a reasonable explanation for it happening. 
I also think it needs to be repeated at every opportunity that recycling does not solve the problem of plastic usage. >

Covid kind of did that too.. all the take out , PPE >

The Washington state Bag ban that required anyone wanting bags to pay per bag and get a shitty paper bag worse than the ones from the 1990's, or a super thick plastic "multi use" bag just made us throw away MORE  plastic than if they hadn't put that shitty legislation in place. Especially doing so during a pandemic when Bring your own shopping bags were proven to harbor more bacteria and viruses on their handles. People just throw away and use the same amount of bags, only now the density increased 8 fold so the amount of plastic in the landfill increased appreciably. >


shitty paper bag worse than the ones from the 1990's

So now where I am in Canada they're phasing out the bags and some places like Safeway it's just paper bags. The problem is in the self checkout you can't use one of them without tripping the REMOVE UNEXPECTED ITEM FROM BAGGING AREA thing and so you're left pissed off waiting for a rep to reassure the computer that it's ok >

I don't know about others but the longer I live the more convinced I am that our civilization will simply destroy itself and it'll happen much sooner than people think.
We just won't even think about doing something until it will be far too late. How many decades have we known about all the climate issues and yet no-one is doing anything because comfort is more important than the world we live in. >

Not too surprising with how COVID changed the restaurant industry, a lot more take out/delivery orders still, some places here are still using single use for dine in because cost/staffing issues. >

And For some reason Wal-greens prescription bags used to be paper have recently changed to plastic, and they started giving out much larger plastic pill containers as well. >

I wonder if there was some sort of economic incentive that could be put in place if the pledges would be more likely to be honored…. >

2020 they started putting all the produce in clamshells. Heck ya use went up. >

it's weird but they dont look like clams at all >

There needs to be actual legislation for slack fill in products that is actually enforced.
Companies are getting egregious with using packaging to disguise the lower total weights of their products. >

Pledges come from the first world >

Not surprised. Been watching the trash pile up for 40 years folks and they've been talking about it all along.