>

Was thinking the same why the fuck we use plastic when glass works so well but the thing is glass is heavy as fuck and you use up so much more fuel shipping glass bottles around that you are not doing the planet any service.
so begins the era of the double-use plastic cutlery and plates >

Double? Man, I snagged a plastic "single use" fork from the cafeteria at work to eat my lunch I bring from home. It's going 6 months strong. Just rinse it off everyday. >

uh look I know it's kind of a meme at this point but reusing single use plastics like that introduces even more microplastics into your body than we 'normally' get >

Is it really any different than using a new plastic utensil everyday? Seems like him reusing one is less harmful than the 100 he hasn't used and thrown out. >

The utensil gets washed and scratched, which loosens more pieces of plastic. >

But, again, how different is that from simply being used as a plastic product that goes into your mouth and is scraped with your teeth? >

The repetitive usage puts more strain on it over time, causing more degradation. It's not a linear progression, it gets worse the further along you go. >

I laughed a sad laugh when I bought a Wendy’s meal the other day. Full plastic cup with plastic lid a shitty paper straw >

Is this why every take out meal I get now is like a hard durable plastic? Supposed to be reused? What am I gonna do, take it back to them before I order my next meal? >

It's the dumbest and meanest form of greenwashing:

Use more plastic than before
Tell the customer not to throw the packaging away, but to re-use it
Leave the customer to blame themselves for the plastic waste when they can't find a use case >

Classic buck-passing, like the whole “recycling” scam. Most “recycled” plastics just get sent overseas to pile up in some other much poorer country. >

Or Nike sending you a plastic pouch of microplastics they saved from the planet...for you to dispose of... >

Wait, what? >

To my understanding, it's mean to be attached to a key chain or a bag. A reddit post has a picture. Link. >

But like... why? >

Nonperishable travel sized snacks >

Single-use plastics in any industry? Fair game
Plastic forks and plates? You're a bad citizen and deserve to feel bad for it >

Yeah it's a good start but as a chef I still use miles worth of cling film every year. If we're going to stop using single use plastics there needs to be funding put into more environmentally safe and cost effective alternatives.
People don't use them because they hate the environment, they use them because the alternatives are either too costly or non existent. >


the alternatives are either too costly

It's not so much that the alternatives are too costly but that they actually internalize their costs. As long as the cheap, disposable, harmful products are allowed to externalize the costs of the damage they cause, they will continue to free-ride. >

And not necessarily even exorbitantly expensive, just not as cheap as plastic. If plastic had never been an option, I'm sure we'd get by just fine using whatever alternatives there are, but we've set the expectation that anything we replace plastic with has to be as good or better in every way, including price. >

The worst is plastic drink bottles.  We already had glass and aluminum which aren't terribly expensive to use and easy to recycle.  Even for litter the alternatives are miles better. Glass bottles will just break down to smaller and smaller pieces of inert sillicates and aluminum while not great is still probably better than having micro-plastics everywhere. >

Yup. The trouble is that once people have had something that's a little cheaper or more convenient, nobody wants to go back even if the old ways of doing things were just fine. >

Companies didn’t switch because people found it more convenient. They switched because it was cheaper for them to ship. Plastic bottles, even when built to fill more liquid, are cheaper to ship than glass. >

Right, but if they shipped glass ones as well and charged more to cover the extra costs, people would still generally buy the plastic ones because consumers also prefer lower prices.