Comment on Shh
brianary@lemmy.zip 3 days agoAnecdotes aren’t a great way to measure this. Observations like this are variable by location, and ignores the much larger mass in landfills or unrecycled stockpiles.
Comment on Shh
brianary@lemmy.zip 3 days agoAnecdotes aren’t a great way to measure this. Observations like this are variable by location, and ignores the much larger mass in landfills or unrecycled stockpiles.
Atomic@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
And observations of landfills or unrecycled stockpiles doesn’t vary by location?
The idea was to try and remove plastic waste that people tend to just throw away without thinking much of it. Lab students don’t exactly take pipets with them and throw away in a ditch. But unfortunately, way too many people just throw away single use plastics like straws, cutlery, cups, “paper plates”, etc.
brianary@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
I didn’t make any such “observations”, or even claim that it doesn’t vary by location. I’m just pointing out that your approach ignores a lot of much larger plastic masses. It’s ok for identifying some obvious opportunities, but I’d hesitate to call it definitive for the purposes of establishing the most impactful strategy.
I’m not sure if people’s unmindfulness is responsible for a larger share of waste than indifference, but maybe?
Atomic@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
I’m not ignoring anything. But if you want me to cover every single issue and aspect of various types of trash management, it’s gonna be a god damn university essay, I don’t even think lemmy would allow so many characters in a comment.
Peoples “unmindfulness” is responsible for every single piece of garbage you see around you. When I walk down the road and see a bag of crisps laying around. That’s because a person just tossed it. And no. I’m not ignoring corporate waste or pollution, criminal or otherwise. But that isn’t the topic right now.
This specific post was making fun of the straw bans vs other single use plastics that are seemingly fine. straws vs pipets used in labs. And what I said was that pipets are not being littered around every corner of the globe. But straws are. That’s why movements to ban such implements are ongoing. That’s why we have movements to ban single use plastics like straws and cutlery, while a plastic shampoo bottle is still “fair game” since they’re not typically just tossed in nature.
That doesn’t mean I’m just ignoring everything else. We also didn’t talk about how armed robberies are bad. But I can assure you, I’m not ignoring them, they’re just not the topic at hand.
brianary@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Look, all I’m saying is that straws probably aren’t the #1 source of discarded plastic, and it seems like focusing on one thing like that results in more performative than substantive change.