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by mountain_peak 2 days ago
Maybe this is just a fantasy, but drink producers were previously responsible for their "waste". Bottlers would pick-up and recycle glass bottles, but the onus shifted completely to the consumer - first with a glass bottle deposit, then with the advent of disposable plastic containers. Glass bottles largely didn't require a straw, unlike the latest frappuccino, which generally comes with a plastic container, lid, and soggy paper straw.

Instead of banning plastic bottles or unrecyclable plastic-lined paper cups (or, as you mention, apple blister packs...what?) where the vast majority of plastic resides, we now have paper straws to deride. Each time you peel your lips off a dry paper tube, you're reminded of your personal culpability in the global waste shell game.

The only viable solution seems to be to stop consuming (see 'fantasy' in the opening line). I'm guilty as charged, BTW, but will politely decline paper straws (I have my own stash of plastic straw contraband).

2 comments

I don't even know whom they try to fool (apparently, they are succeeding in many ways...), but as you mention.. they (the politicians and institutions) complain about nanoplastics, and at the same time moves towards a plastic world. It is hypocrisy of many degrees. Milk containers used to be only paper, but now they are both paper and plastic for some reason. It's hard to find drinking bottles that are glass as they most turned plastic (I do, however, choose metal before plastic due to taste). Drinking straws.. in the super market it's now possible to buy "reusable" (Made in P.R.C) drinking straws for a really cheap price (that they are in practise, one time straws)..
the idea was to have less of those things people buy and consum on the way and throw them away and the wind puts them put of the trash and now shitload of plastic everywhere .... i switch between clean beaches in europe to cigarrete and plastic straw infested ones on other parts of the world. As a european i like thos clean beaches etc
The only solution? Not "carry a metal reusable straw around with you"?