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1. Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@octodon.social)'s status on Monday, 30-Sep-2019 16:38:50 UTC Christine Lemmer-Webber

   • Kimberly A. Riley

   @KARiley40 Not mutually exclusive? I suspect more disposable straws are present these days than disposable balloons (certainly more plastic I have consumed comes from the former than the latter). At any rate, a better goal to state than banning plastic straws is "mostly eliminating them" (leaving accessibility cases intact)

   • Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@octodon.social)'s status on Monday, 30-Sep-2019 16:39:20 UTC Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     • Kimberly A. Riley

     @KARiley40 but the helium case is indeed a serious concern

   • Kimberly A. Riley (kariley40@octodon.social)'s status on Monday, 30-Sep-2019 17:09:17 UTC Kimberly A. Riley

     in reply to

     @cwebber But yeah, omg, the plastic wrap drives me bananas. Like no, I do not need a tiny plastic window in my otherwise paper bag so I can see the loaf of bread I know I just stuck in the bag. And little things like that.

     I know there is big stuff out there, fishing nets come to mind, but I also know, we've got a lot of work to do, including the small things.

     Christine Lemmer-Webber repeated this.
   • Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@octodon.social)'s status on Monday, 30-Sep-2019 17:11:12 UTC Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     • Kimberly A. Riley

     @KARiley40 sounds like we agree :)

     I am trying to figure out how to change my purchase habits to reduce the amount of disposable plastic I use. I have considered doing a "month of almost no disposable plastic" but society has constructed itself in such a way that it feels like it would take an enormous amount of energy. That seems like a huge warning sign (and reason to do it).

   • Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@octodon.social)'s status on Monday, 30-Sep-2019 17:13:51 UTC Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     • Kimberly A. Riley

     @KARiley40 We need larger regulatory changes which target industrial production, "consumer" changes aren't enough.

     But they are a starting place. Just look at how *easy* it is to be a vegetarian today compared to say, the 1970s when Peter Singer and co started arguing for it... Animal Liberation included some recipes mainly because most Americans couldn't fathom what a vegetarian diet would even *look* like. Consumer demand *did* drive a change there.

   • Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@octodon.social)'s status on Monday, 30-Sep-2019 17:16:09 UTC Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     • Kimberly A. Riley

     @KARiley40 These days I can eat at nearly any town in rural america as a vegetarian. My life would have been much harder if I started in the 1970s as opposed to the mid-2000s.

     Imagine if the same could be the case for people refusing to make use of disposable plastics! Whereas today, as an American, making such changes seems almost infathomable.

   • Mark Shane Hayden (msh@coales.co)'s status on Monday, 30-Sep-2019 17:33:54 UTC Mark Shane Hayden

     in reply to

     • Kimberly A. Riley

     @cwebber @KARiley40 disposable packaging has been leveraged by producers to externalise their costs. They don't pay to maintain landfills so it just becomes "someone else's problem". If one form of disposable packaging is banned they will just switch to different disposable packaging.

     Perhaps if the producers of such waste were made responsible for the actual disposal costs they would be more motivated to actually reduce wasteful packaging.

     Christine Lemmer-Webber repeated this.
   • Kimberly A. Riley (kariley40@octodon.social)'s status on Monday, 30-Sep-2019 17:38:15 UTC Kimberly A. Riley

     in reply to

     • Mark Shane Hayden

     @msh @cwebber I agree and it used to be that way. Soda bottling companies used to be responsible for the bottles. They would offer you a discount on your next purchase if you returned the bottle to the vendor.

     Annndddd then that commercial about littering and the crying native american came along... and we shifted the blame to consumers.

     I think we should go back to companies shouldering the blame.

     Christine Lemmer-Webber repeated this.