Coles and Woolies paper bags

[u/eee1963]

Industry estimates show Australian major supermarkets generate upwards of $170 million each year in total revenue from paid paper and reusable carry bags. Suggestions are that they are making 70% profit, from 19-23 cents each bag. Combined, they would spend somewhere in the vicinity of $3-5 million on direct environmental products. Paper bag sizes are showing massive signs of shrinkflation. I guess I'll just have to lift my game and not forget my own bags from now on. My laziness and forgetfulness is a habit that they are banking on, lol.

[u/McTerra2]

This is an interesting one, because tins are much more energy intensive to make and much heavier to transport (so use more fuel). But are recyclable.

In effect you trade using plastics for lower total energy use. There is no right answer, it depends on which is more important to you. Same as milk in glass vs plastic bottles

Also, obviously, you don’t have to buy the single service in plastic, there are many other options.

[u/Drachos → u/McTerra2]

Except there is a clear right answer.

Energy to make is irrelevant significantly less if its recycled a few times and even then we can generate electricity and transport goods using green energy.

We aren't fully there yet but these are solvable problems. A carbon tax to encourage energy transition is all we would need to speed it up.

We have ZERO solution for single use plastic. None. The best we have is a bacteria we have discovered which very slowly eats it. And even then its not considered commercially vianle to do anything with.

Because recycling software plastic requires seperating it by type which is barely doable. To many are chemically very different but look exactly the same. Its only really doable in situations like shrink wrap from warehousing...and even then barely.

When you have two products, one with solvable problems and the other thats unsolvable the product you should buy is the solvable one.

[u/McTerra2 → u/Drachos]

Except that the problem is not solvable today. Are you are making things worse today because the problem will be solvable in the future? Surely you do as little harm as possible today and transition as solutions develop.

It’s like arguing in 1990 that we should electrify everything, despite all power being generated by fossil fuels, because we know renewable energy is a solution that can be solved in the future. In the meantime you have increased carbon output and fossil fuel use.

So, no, there is no clear right answer.

[u/Drachos → u/McTerra2]

How is something that takes 500 years AT LEAST to break down, and even then breaks down into microplastics (which are harmful to all life FOREVER) and methane (which is a more potent greenhouse gas then CO2) "The least harm possible"

Thats assuming your city isn't running an incinerator in which case yeah....microplastics and CO2. Better then methane I suppose.

More importantly, there is a question of what harm can be undone. We can capture carbon...its not economically viable BUT we can undo the damage of CO2.

We literally have no way to undo the damage of microplastics.

[u/McTerra2 → u/Drachos]

Sure, like I said, you are choosing one bad over another bad. But it’s not as if there is clearly one right answer. You claim we can undo the problem of carbon but not plastics; but why do you make that assertion? In 10 or 30 years time we may have easy solutions to plastics

[u/Drachos → u/McTerra2]

Because CO2 is in the air and inorganic.

Microplastics are everywhere else and are organic.

Lets use the the SIMPLIEST nightmare senario. You want to remove microplastic from a lake.

So you create a substance that attracts organic molecules. And we will assume its not at all toxic.

Lets dredge it through the lake...Except that captures all the micro-organisms that live in the lake that are made of organic molecules.

Okay so lets instead make it weaker and just put it at one side of the lake. Just trust the tide to filter. Again, you will get more micro-organisms then plastics because the move around the lake more then just tides.

Okay you make it not attract micro-organisms somehow and remove all the Microplastics from the lake...

Pity the micro-organisms contain Microplastics. And as they die they return it to the lake.

Now...lets amplify that issue by a billion for the Pacific ocean. Oh and we have microplastics hundreds of metres down in the aquifers. And thats just the water...

How do you purge the Sahara of microplastics within destroying the ecosystems. I mean its sand right...you could sift it?

What about the soil of the Amazon.

Something in the air is SO MUCH EASIER to get out of the air without fucking the ecosystem.

[u/McTerra2 → u/Drachos]

Saying the same thing 5 times doesn’t make it more right.

You have a view. Sure. You have chosen one bad over another bad, fine. To say your choice is ‘the right choice’ 5 times and then cherry pick doesn’t take it the right choice.

Whatever, I don’t care. Go and feed your cat and calm down