Why not both?
Science Memes
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
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Miscellaneous
Getting rid of plastic straws, but not cups and lids was such a stupid thing. There are substitutes for cups, but they cost more, so they weren't a good option for greenwashing.
If you're already minimizing seafood intake because of the lead content, you're already minimizing your personal impact of fishing net use. What we need to do is legislate the use of hemp nets. Hemp was the primary net maternal before the oil industry put their weight behind making hemp illegal under the guise of "The War On Drugs!" and made plastic/nylon nets the default.
Yeah, one can just "drink like a real adult", like the ones said to me that now want the plastic straws back...
That would be ideal, but each person has limited time and attention. Advocate for both, but put your efforts into figuring out how to change the thing with the larger impact.
I am all for minimizing/eliminating single use plastics. But when i get served a milkshake in a plastic mug, with a plastic lid, and a plastic spoon, but a paper straw because of "save the sea"...
i just wish we used our brains more.
What if dispenser machines had a pay by volume model? You bring your own thing, they fill it, and charge you by how much you use. Would probably need something added to measure flow and set prices, but it's not like a McDonalds built in the 70s is still using exactly the same machines they were back then.
Could just do it by weight. Put vessel under nozzle. Zero scale, and hold till weight determined for sale, hand to customer. Could likely even have software do it.
Gas pump style soda fountains would be absolutely hilarious. Truly the peak of american culture.
If you saw how much plastic is used to get that paper straw to you (logistics) you would just drink from the cup
Also paper cups are lined with plastic to stop the drink from running through it, metal cans are lined with plastic to prevent a metallic taste
to be fair that was a regulator decision. they seem to have went for the low hanging fruit of something relatively easy to replace without impacting the bottom line.
not gonna save the world by a long shot, but its a better than nothing sort of deal im surprised they even bothered with in the first place.
My conspiracy theory is it was chosen to deliberately harm the optics of environmentalists. Something with minimal useful impact and maximum inconvenience would turn people against the whole idea of environmentally friendly alternatives.
I see a lot of people who share your opinion. I used to work rehabbing sea turtles and EVERY turtle we received alive or dead had straws/bags in their gut. It might not seem super important but those products look more like jellyfish and turtles have poor eyesight.
The nets commercial fishing boats make the most plastic waste by a lot but declining a plastic straw and bringing your own bag to shop WILL save a life.
thats not something i do not shy away from. those fucks are that manipulative.
I think it's also a product of the guy on the left likely has never used and will never use a fishing net. It's kind of like the tarrifs on Canada. America wasn't ever complaining that drugs were being trafficked over the the Canadian border but that is the reason they are giving for the tarrifs. The truth I see is one of the highest imports from Canada to the U.S. is Aluminum. Coke already stated if Aluminum costs go up, they will simply make more of their products in plastic bottles instead to keep their costs down. Those plastic bottles are made from petroleum which funds much of the GOP's campaigns. He is simply paying back oil executives by ensuring aluminum prices rise. Cokes profits stay the same, Oil companies profits go up. Where does the money come from? Working class Americans
Just stop eating fish.
No need for nets.
No, that would inconvenience me. I would prefer to virtue signal. /s
The worst thing about paper straws is seeing it poked through a plastic lid.
Noticed the same thing, how can one be concerned about the plastic straws but not the cups? I almost thought that was the joke.
Cool thing is that here in Copenhagen a lot of privately owned places now also use cardboard lids. As someone who delivers food for a living, I'm also happy about the change because cardboard lids have far more fiction and don't pop off as easily when transporting.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-16529-0
It's more like at the first place, with 26% of the mass. Majority doesn't mean "half of".
Nevertheless, even if the fishing industry produced no plastic pollution, it would still destroy the ecosystems directly and indirectly (breaking the food chains by fishing tons of krill and small fish to feed the farms)
Majority literally means the subset making up more than half of the set.
Yeah, "plurality" is the generic word for a leading sum, "majority" absolutely does mean >50%.
Plastic Recycling is Largely A Myth.
The world produces an average of 430 million metric tons of plastic each year. The United States alone produces tens of millions of tons of plastic waste annually. Yet on average, only about 5 to 6 percent of plastic in the U.S. is recycled.
Basically, the vast majority of plastic either literally cannot be recycled, at all, or would be astoundingly expensive to properly seperate according to it's different types and run through the recycling process.
... So, in most cases, it isn't, and just ends up in a landfill or being directly dumped into nature.
Oil companies have known this for decades, and, as with other issues surrounding pollution ... they've promoted anything that makes an individual feel guilty when they know that even if all individuals followed the suggested course of action, it would have a negligible impact.
Oil companies have known this for decades,
fun fact: BP created the carbon footprint to turn the guilt onto the end consumers, and away from them.
Just FYI:
Single-use plastic products are used once, or for a short period of time, before being thrown away. Under the EU’s rules on single-use plastics, the EU is tackling the 10 single-use plastic items most commonly found on Europe’s beaches and is promoting sustainable alternatives. The 10 items are
Cotton bud sticks
Cutlery, plates, straws and stirrers
Balloons and sticks for balloons
Food containers
Cups for beverages
Beverage containers
Cigarette butts
Plastic bags
Packets and wrappers
Wet wipes and sanitary items
https://commission.europa.eu/news/less-plastic-waste-means-cleaner-beaches-2024-08-14_en
So yeah, nets are bad, but straws, plastic bags, cigarettes and packages are also a problem.
This is a list of end-consumer items put together by a government body beholden to fishing and other industries. And it’s not even about pollution levels, it’s specifically about beach pollution. Plastic lids on cartons of heavy cream are “also a problem” if we focus only on reducing plastic waste in the kitchen, but implying it’s even relevant compared to industrial plastic waste is disingenuous