this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
500 points (100.0% liked)
zerowaste
72 readers
1 users here now
Discussing ways to reduce waste and build community!
Celebrate thrift as a virtue, talk about creative ways to make do, or show off how you reused something!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
what's the fix?
For the harm that's already been done? Time.
For the future? Regulation.
that's extremely vague, what does the regulation do? Does it limit types of plastic? Uses of plastic? Production quantities? Waste allocations?
I'm not a plastic or environmental specialist, so I can't say. Surely you don't expect me to know all the answers, do you? Come on, now.
I'd think regulation would encompass all the things you mentioned, possibly more like subsidizing the use of non-plastics in industrial applications, for example.
My point is that regulations are likely insufficient.
What we really need is a reduction in consumption. We need to stop living life as "dedicated waste manufacturers".
Here's a useful article to help get over the limits of regulations: https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
Did you link the wrong thing?
Obviously, individuals also matter. Vote with your wallet, always.
However, pointing the finger at consumers seems fruitless? People will do the most convenient thing, not the best thing. As such, I'd suspect it best to make the most convenient thing equal the best thing.
I'm not trying to say that pushing for anti-consumerism and sustainable consumption is wrong---as a matter of fact, I think that's great and it's something I do, personally---but I do think that, at the end of the day, if disposable plastic bags are handed out, people will use them; if fruits are wrapped in plastic, people will use it; if plastic straws come with drinks, people will use them; if disposable cutlery is for sale, people will buy it. The solution is, therefore, to regulate this stuff. Maybe ban it, even.
I linked to the right thing, a great introduction to understanding how to change systems:
PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM
(in increasing order of effectiveness)
12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).
11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.
10. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).
9. The lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change.
8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against.
7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops.
6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to information).
5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints).
4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure.
3. The goals of the system.
2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises.
1. The power to transcend paradigms.
Regulations are important, but low(er) impact.
Get rid of them. I was very young but existed in the 70's and the grocery store did not have all the plastics and there was plenty of convenience in foods. Its amazing what glass, paper, and aluminum can do. Glass was not even recycled usually. Had a deposit added to the cost and got it back when you returned it to the store where the person supplying the item took them back and they were washed and reused. It was why bottle caps were so prevalent.
Yeah, we would reuse it (as the order implies in reduce, reuse, recycle). Recycling glass takes wayyyyyyy more energy than cleaning it. But the glass makers benefit more from access to cheap broken glass, so we get them lobbying so that glass recycling drop-off/containers almost force you to shatter every bottle you put into them...
Damn, talk about broken window economics
Significant reduction in single use plastics, banning plastic use in certain products (even non-single-use), and a drastic increase in accountability for producers and consumers.
You don't need to ban plastics, you just regulate the people making things to have to ethically dispose of the waste generated by their products. They will pretty rapidly switch to something they can actually dispose of. The manufacturer needs to be responsible for the full life cycle of their products.
They don't actually have alternatives in the single-use realm. The result must be an end to it, bankruptcy from their perspective.
If we replace plastic containers with containers that are paper covered in PFAS and similar substances, we're not solving the problems.
I mean if they have to dispose of it properly then they are either going to try it on with PFAS coated paper and realise there's no way to get rid of it or they are going to find better alternatives. It hinges on real penalties, fines for companies, fines and jail time for CEO and wider C-suite for breaches.
If we know that there are basically no alternatives, then we don't have to waste time and misery chasing after each CEO and corporation in detail.
I disagree that full responsibility needs to go on the manufacturer. An undeniable issue with our current system is that consumers expect to throw all plastic in one bin that isn't the garbage and be done with it. There are lots of different ways to set up responsibility, but on top of production changes plastic "recycling" will need to change significantly from the user perspective. Things like stronger deposit programs would be a bare minimum to start addressing the consumer side (in tandem with measures addressing production of course)
Arguably the manufacturers should be responsible for paying to collect the waste generated by their products and that in itself should be regulated to ensure they don't take the piss. Industry has proven time and time again that they can't be trusted with self regulation and will always choose the maximal short term profit path.
For capitalism: horizontal organizing
For plastic waste: plastic-eating fungi
I prefer
It's going to be fun when I have to spray my computer devices with fungicides.
Better government
Cultural problems require cultural solutions.