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this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
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Yeah. The whole shit-show is depressing really.
Firstly, you're entirely correct - it's a tiny part of the problem.
Secondly, it shifts the "blame" for plastic on to consumers. "Oh we've been so bad all this time using plastic shopping bags".
Thirdly, it provides a feeling of resolution. "I'm so happy now we've done the hard work to buy these $0.10 reusable shopping bags and solved the plastic problem".
Fourthly, you have to wonder how many plastic shopping bags were actually single use. For example, a lot of them were made from recycled plastic, and a lot of them were re-used as garbage bags, which are now purchased anyway.
On balance, I think it's within the realm of possibility that these laws do more harm than good. Honestly, just tax plastic producers and see how quickly producers using plastic to package their products magically fine innovative new alternatives.
This literal exact sentence tells me you didn't read past the headline; those shitty $0.10, thicker "reusable" plastic bags are exactly the loophope in the 2014 ban that this 2024 law is designed to close. The thing you're accusing this law of allowing people to do is the one thing it expressly outlaws. Media literacy is dead.
Seriously. The way to solve this is to simply put a tax on all plastic packaging. Use those funds to subsidize plastic recycling. Set the tax at whatever level is necessary to make recycling viable. And if the most viable 'recycling' method is to just burn the plastic in an incinerator, so be it. Yeah, it's expensive to build an industrial incinerator that can properly scrub and filter out all the nasty fumes plastic gives off when it's burned. But it can be done. It's more expensive than just stuffing the plastic in a landfill, but by burning it, we solve our plastic problem in the here and now, rather than letting it slowly leach out into the environment for future generations to deal with.
Recycling plastic will always be difficult, and it may never be practical for some cases. But all plastics burn. And if you have the right incinerator, they can be burned without releasing toxic fumes into the air. Tax plastic packaging, all of it. Tax it, and use the funds to subsidize plastic waste incineration. Plastic is made from oil, and it still can be used as a fuel. Burn it and be done with it.
I wouldn't limit it to plastic packaging. Micro-plastics come from all plastic.