OK, get ready for this book....
First whatever CA does should be ignored. Nothing going on there is based on science or even reality regarding this. Total joke, pretend they don't exist in this conversation.
Likewise, anything coming out of an actor's mouth is pure agenda driven BS. Sorry, the bartender from Cheers is not an expert on this. Surprise surprise.
That said....
The study showing how many plastic straws are used in a day is based on a middle school students school paper. Not kidding. Legislation has been passed in Europe based on that middle school kids telephone interview with a sales guy.
This is one example of how this topic has morphed into the realm of pure propaganda vs. reality. So as we look at this topic, people need to think about this for themselves and understand that there is no such thing as stewardship of the land that happens for free. We either pay in money, convenience, or time.
First: bio plastics. Sorry, this is not an immediate answer to all our problems. They are difficult to make, costly to make, and very difficult to process into products. They also thus far have limited viable uses when it comes to type of products. This is an area that should continue to grow like any materials science(metal, plastic, etc) but this is not an answer we can use for a long time yet. If you ever see a "biodegradable plastic" many times it is simply a regular plastic with an agent added to it to facilitate break down. This is a newer science and frankly the impacts of the agents used are unknown, long term. Again, more research needed.
Recycleing:
Could work. Difficult. No standards apply for the items that could be recycled into new resin. Not when it comes to blended materials for one package, not for a type of package(like all laundry soap bottles must be made from *** material) not for labels on the package. Adding standards will make products cost more. Period. No magic wand here.
"Just sort it". That's the whole point. You can't, not effectively. And one "wrong" bottle in a batch ruins the batch. Plastics are not all compatible. Some are. Not all of them. Two factors: actual chemistry, and melting point. For instance, nylon and polypropylene could be mixed together(not ideal) but one melts at 380 degrees and the other at 480 degrees. This would make the resin extremely difficult to process into a new product. A little bit of poly mixed in with nylon might not be so bad, but the other way around is a full stop.
Design: The industry itself is made out to be the boogy man. The industry simply manufactures the designs the customer wants. If the people that own Tide laundry decide to make the bottle out of one type, the cap out of another, and(the worst) the label from a third type, the industry will make those items for them. The issue of compatible materials design needs to come from the retailer of a product. So the owners of "Tide" need to design their package to be able to recycle. Passing the buck to the actual molders would mean the molders have to police designs for everyone. Nonsense. If you want a container to be recyclable, that container needs to be designed to be able to do it. The people that want the container need to be on the hook to make it so. A short example: who should be responsible for how well an empty bottle of cocacola recycles? Cocacola? or the plastics factory that molded the bottles?
In other words, pertaining to this forum: imagine a plastics molder denying manufacture of a new Dodge radio button on a car because of design of the button? No, Dodge needs to make sure the vehicle is designed properly. The component manufacturer is not designing the car. You simply could not expect hundreds of component manufacturers to collaborate to "approve" Dodge's design of an entire vehicle. Manufacturing does not function that way in any industry.
Taxes on virgin resin: Disastrous idea. Not all virgin resin goes to single use products, and all this would do is get passed onto the consumer. Tide bottle costs 5 cents more to produce? Guess who pays the 5 cents? Taxes are NEVER the answer to this situation. Look at all the "green" initiatives! "I need to pay more taxes to stop global warning!" said no one, ever.
Bans on plastic bags or other: this has been done. Data has now proven that the effects have been worse then the plastic bags were. People do not reuse the "reusable" bags. They buy one, fill it with stuff, take it home, and after they accumulate like 10 they throw them out. The bags take much more material and energy to produce, and all that has happened is people spend more on them because they forgot, or can't be bothered to bring the bag back. As such, the net result is more energy consumption and more waste. People can argue economics of this but that is the net result. In other words: no one was stopping anyone from using reusable bags before, and "forcing" people to use them did not change this behavior, or make a significant impact on the amount of people actually reusing the bags.
Going back to plastic straws: OH! Paper straws! They will break down in the landfill! Brilliant. Except they package them in a plastic sleeve to prevent humidity in the air from ruining them before use and to keep them sanitary. (EPIC FACE PALM) Once again, a ban on something did not alter behavior and failed to get the desired result.
So we have established taxing things is nonsense and useless, and banning things is generally nonsense and useless. So what is one to do?
Chemical recycling. What is this? I will tell you. You take whatever plastic you want, run it through this process and it breaks it all down into it's chemical components. Those components are then usable to make new resin. And this isn't iffy, mixed grades, multi-colored maybe-it's-ok resin, it is actually NEW resin.
These plants get built, because they are both an actual good answer to the situation and are actually financially profitable.
So, of course, they are fought against tooth and nail by the "green" organizations that simply want an outright ban on every plastic in existence. Whenever one is proposed, it is lawfair'd into stalemate and many times successfully blocked altogether. Especially in countries best equipped to regulate the handling of both the pre and post products, like the USA.
The biggest issue with plastics right now, is the side trying to shine light on the issue also is after a totalitarian end result of 100% bans on all plastics. Even this could be potentially possible, but these bans and the "outrage" are being proposed before there is any viable replacement for society. If you look at things in your life outside of milk jugs and water bottles, you are going to find plastic in everything. Your clothes, your car, your home, your work, my keyboard I use to type this.... You simply can't remove plastic from the equation until an alternative is possible.
So like a lot of things "normal discourse" on this topic has become almost impossible at higher levels. One side is bringing in actors and picket signs to create big money driven propaganda, one side is automatically put on the extreme defensive then, and logical plans and steps to improve this situation end up taking forever and a day to materialize.
Sorry this is long, but this topic is one of the most skewed by propaganda in the modern day and takes a lot of digging and logic to unpackage.
