Western society may be a large consumer, but you are educating the wrong crowd if you want to make a difference. Higher income countries tend to do a much better job of recycling. This illustrates the problem:
Two thoughts. The GP was talking about reducing not only because it’s better for the environment but because it’ll make you better off. Recycling was downplayed in the comment.
The comment was not addressed to westerners specifically. I’d be willing to bet a lot of the travel that is increasingly occurring is happening in the developing world as people leave their communities to find work.
I'm responding to a post, not choosing a crowd to educate, but in any case, your link in your post below shows that per capita the US and UK (probably most HN readers) rank high. Quoting your source,
> plastic waste generation tends to increase as we get richer. Per capita plastic waste at low incomes tends to be notably smaller.
The comment was not addressed to westerners specifically. I’d be willing to bet a lot of the travel that is increasingly occurring is happening in the developing world as people leave their communities to find work.