A major reason why petrochemicals are such an economical solution in so many places in the supply chain is that petrol companies are drastically subsidized by governments. Merely ceasing those subsidies might go a long way to help

I agree with your sentiment, but I also feel like this is hyperbolic.

I spend a lot of time on trails and in parks in the US. Perhaps it is different elsewhere, but we typically do not see much trash in those areas, in most cases the trash we do see being a shopping bag or candy wrapper that has blown in from elsewhere or accidentally dropped. Yes, we see some intentional, careless stuff which is upsetting (and we clean it up if we can) but I will never act liike everyone is just throwing their trash wherever. Most people throw their trash away in appropriate spots, leaving a tiny percentage that is being malicious about it. I'd say that's pretty good.

One thing we do have a problem with is overflowing trash bins. This is two-fold. The bins in parks and trails do get changed on a regular schedule, but it seems that these days it is not often enough. The second problem is packaging. So many foods and products come in ridiculous amounts of packaging that the bins get full quickly because said packaging is bulky and difficult to break down.

For the most part, I think people here are doing a good job of trying to keep the trash where it belongs, giving what I consider a reasonable effort. But we're up against companies like the ones listed in the article and their practices that are producing tons of unnecessary plastics. Knowing that, I will never put the onus entirely on the consumer. Until these companies take some responsibility (and stop pushing the idea that this is somehow our fault) in an effective way, not just lip service and hand waving as they have done, the problem will continue regardless of how hard the consumer upholds their end of the bargain.

This isn't as big of an issue in developed countries, especially not if / when in addition to proper waste infrastructure there's people doing actual cleanup. There's systems to capture anything that does end up in the water stream anyway.

Most trash isn't "thrown" anywhere with a direct path to the ocean anyway.

It most certainly would not; what a ridiculous concept. Plastic that is "properly" disposed of ends up in landfills or incinerated, only a minority is recycled. And the vast majority of plastic that is "improperly" disposed of is done so by companies, not individual people with their rubbish.

Yes, but much of the ocean plastic is fishing nets and such.

All of that gets solved by adding a deposit fee to packaging, that you get back when you return the packaging. This works in Europe.

People who downvoted this should consider what happens in other countries. See eg:

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=41165fec71bc817d&sxsrf...

Using glass containers would get us 100% there regardless.

Part of the issue is that rubbish in our bin (in the West) sometime ends up shipped across the world, in theory for 'recycling', but instead ends up dumped in another river...

Of course sometime I see littering in streets and parks, sometime literal feet away from bins and yeah, that's infuriating.

I have met people who like to drink from glass, and people who buy things in plastic bottles because that’s literally the only option if you want to enjoy a drink or even just clean water. These are the two (non mutually exclusive) categories of people that I normally meet. Do you often meet people who specifically like plastic, as opposed to tolerating it?

Consumers like plastic because it is better than the alternatives.

They like it because it's cheap, both in manufacturing raw materials, production, and weight advantages in shipping.

Nonsense. There are no alternatives consumers can buy. Try it and you'll find it's virtually impossible. A globalized economy has effectively destroyed the idea of voting with your wallet to reduce waste and production of trash.

The consumerist part of society may not be capable of generating as massive of a backlash as you might think. The key is in the name. :)

People will do the next convenient thing, whatever it is. Re-use containers made of sustainable materials, not buy something on a whim that they do not need, pay more for plastic as an indulgence (obviously it should not be banned, just taxed), etc.

Also, not a psychologist, but I reckon if you dig into what drives people to exhibit consumerism I suspect you’d find things like 1) wealth/status signaling, 2) virtue signaling, 3) just socially having a good time out with friends (shopping is common), 4) stress relief. None of that would be substantially hindered even if disposable plastic is banned outright (which is perhaps a questionable strategy), it would just find other avenues for expression.

Cases where plastic does enable some things that are otherwise infeasible I believe are numerous, but drink containers is not one of them.

Back in the day, my father worked as a researcher for a large, old dairy company. He was tasked with finding out what was environmentally friendly for packaging milk; whether they should start offering milk in washable glass bottles instead of their current cartons, for environmental reasons.

He found that the environmental impact created by the washing of the glass bottles was worse than the impact of the entire production and disposal cycle for the cartons. If you added in the production of the glass, the recycling of glass when it broke, and the extra impact from transport (less space due to not being able to pack as well, heavier) there was no competition at all - glass was way, way worse.

Plastic was a bit better than glass, and carton was the best available option. So they stayed with carton.

This was ~30 years ago, mind, so the equation may have changed. But I still find it important to check before deciding "Let's go glass" is the right option.

I’ve seen varying (lack of certainty is a sign in itself) estimates for how many times it can be recycled, from up to 2–3 to up to 7 times, where plastic closer to the end of that is only viable for uses like car tires, and read that PET leeches more plastic into drinks after being recycled[0]. In my mind, it does not pass the “recycles well” threshold if you compare it to materials like glass.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942...

Why is glass too heavy? For decades, when average income was lower, it was the standard container in which soft drinks came in. Its just that plastic is cheaper, and replaced glass. But surely richer people can afford glass now.

Interestingly, both have different environmental externalities, and not sure how those have changed over the decades and will in the future.

Even Legos will not use recycled plastic, although maybe that is changing?

Lego drops plans to make bricks from recycled plastic bottles https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/25/business/lego-abandons-re...

Lego plans to make half the plastic in bricks from renewable materials by 2026 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/aug/28...

Collection rates in countries having an reverse-vending system is also high to very-high. 80-95% IIRC

> Reusable bottles is unlikely to be realistic.

It used to be the norm in the UK for milk.

I still like glass, I don't care if it costs more to ship. Given the choice of spaghetti sauce in glass, plastic or metal cans, what do you pick? It's got to be glass. Beer? Cans are okay but I greatly prefer glass. Olives, why are the ones in cans always terrible? I don't know why but the ones in glass jars are the obvious choice.

Aluminum is actually recycled, and should replace PET for all drinks packaging

To the best of my knowledge, no one has made a resealable aluminium can. Until that is solved aluminium is inferior to PET for many use cases. In fact this is the primary reason I hardly ever buy soda in cans.

I think “one time” is the key word here. Multiple use glass and metal containers were just fine before plastic; they can be the norm again.