Single use plastics are a tiny fraction of our carbon footprint. They are also very convenient and make users’ lives better. It would be a strange place to start with severe regulation.
> Single use plastics are a tiny fraction of our carbon footprint
... And a Lion's share of the microplastic calamity contaminating our oceans, our ground water and our food supply.
Not everything is about CO2 emissions. With a single business decision, Humans have managed to contaminate the whole water cycle with micro-plastics all the way up to alpine glaciers. [0]
Single-use plastic is outstandingly great for seller's short-term direct costs, bad for almost everything else.
How much of the microplastic contamination is from consumer goods packaging from western countries? The vast majority is from fishing nets and illegal dumping of household trash by developing countries.
We can never pressure other countries to do it unless we do it first.
In addition, regulating plastic means that for multi-national corporations the path of least resistance is to operate under the most restrictive standard instead of maintaining multiple packaging solutions.
You have no idea how consumer packaged goods supply chains work. And Chinese, Indian, and Nigerian policy makers are not going to care at all if we ban plastic soda bottles. And how high would this be on our list diplomatic priorities. Think about this for 4 seconds.
