>

They got rid of single use grocery bags and replaced them with bags that take 100x longer to degrade.
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. >

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. >

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. >

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 >

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

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. >

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. >

Are people surprised? >

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


China has driven rapid growth in global plastic demand over the past 15 years. Despite high-profile bans on some single-use products starting in 2019, it also accounted for half of the 15 million tonnes of new capacity that came online over 2019-2021.

When a huge chunk of the world is still developing, we need to accept that steps the developed world takes can only do so much. >

All those masks. >

And that’s why I have no faith that the human race will turn this around. >

Considering I have to buy a reusable bag every time I go to a store and then I throw out that your reusable bag because I have 45 unrecyclable reusable bags >

obviously everyone forget there was a pandemic??? all those useless disposable masks making some good turtle food now >

Yeah I mean I worked with sick patients at the hospital most days during the pandemic and have never caught COVID. But like you said the masks are really useless!
Actually I bet 95% of the masks in the ocean are from the crybabies that throw them on the ground when they leave a hospital or shopping mall or whatever. >

No, masks work, but the disposable ones weren't really that great. they didn't form enough of a seal over the mouth or nose. to be fair probably silly to say they did nothing, but everytime I wore one instead of an n95 i felt like my mouth was naked >

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 >

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. >

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. >

Who do you think makes money on plastic