Disabled rights groups speak out against straw ban

[Somepotato]

Until any attempt is made to deal with companies lobbying to keep mass pollution legal, then this will just feel like a feelgood measure to me. I'm all for making strides to making the planet cleaner, but this was nothing more than a PR move without effort placed into dealing with the downsides.

[Laughing Stock]

While it seems like a misdirected gesture of good will, it's important that people are becoming aware of how their lifestyle and their choices contribute to the problem. If anything it's brought more attention to the actual problem and hopefully it breaks people out of the cycle of consuming things they don't need and becoming aware the roles of their purchasing habits .

[arlygoodbrownie]

If every individual lived as "green" as they could, I'm pretty sure the effect would just be slowing down a bit how much the ecosystem is getting fucked. It'd still get fucked at a fast enough pace. People saying "but it's something!!" aren't realizing that the benefit of the straws to people who need them greatly outweighs that "something."

"Just bring their own!" seems to be such an inconvenience to how much banning straws would save.

[Laughing Stock]

it's not even straws, if people started realizing they didn't need to be snatching up new TVs every black friday and new phones every two years we'd be closer to addressing the emissions from the freight ships which go unregulated or the factories which continue to fuck up the environment and so on and so forth. The straw debacle has finally put the problem within everyone's scope and put greater pressure on everyone to hold companies accountable.

[arlygoodbrownie]

Except the people who decide whether to buy a new phone every two year and the people who have an inkling of power over those freight ships are so far apart, it's not even funny.

[Laughing Stock]

my point is they exist because of our practices to consume globally when a lot of it can be done locally and we value cheap goods over the environment. these problems are largely ignored because it's been an inconvenient truth and people haven't felt the pressure to promote change.

[Download]

Global consumption means greater efficiencies and reduced consumption. If we only consumed locally we'd be bulldozing every forests on the planet to feed ourselves because we no longer ahve access to things that improve crop yields. And that's just the tip of the iceburg.

[Laughing Stock]

that's completely fair, i admit i'm completely wrong in that regard. i'm trying to say that there's been good coming out of this beyond just the reduction in straws, if it means people are more aware of the problems surrounding them and where they fall. there's been greater awareness of the extent of the damage being done and people are starting to exercise pressure on the companies responsible. the straws themselves don't really do much.

[AxeI]

How is it an inconvenience? How hard is it to keep a tiny object with you in your pocket or wallet?
I'm gonna need a source on that. That doesn't address the point of obsolescence and consumerism behind the driving force behind the majority of our environmental problems.

[arlygoodbrownie]

***to how much banning straws would save

My point was that the benefit seems to minuscule, that yes, it's literally not worth it. It's easier for companies to make us fight over straws than to make any real progress.

[AxeI]

But it's literally 0 effort on the part of the consumers? And plastic straws make up a sizeable portion of all plastic trash, which is in large part a result of our use of disposable plastics?

To say it's not worth it is delusional, unless you happen to be so damn lazy that taking a 1$ metal straw with you is a considerable effort.

Restaurants could also not give straws by default and only give reusable ones when asked. Or would that be too much effort for you, too?

[Freezorg]

The tap water at my house has a weird aftertaste so no thanks

We just buy those big 6 liter ones though, not packs of bottles

[AxeI]

I think most of the environmental cost of bottled water comes from the fact it's transported via truck rather than plumbing, I'm not sure if packaging makes that much of a difference.