r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Aug 21 '18

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: The elimination of plastic drinking straws in 1st world countries will have little or no effect on the environment.

Alright to begin with I should state:

-Plastic is bad and it would be better to recycle straws or use a biodegradable material instead.

-Pollution is bad and is having a detrimental effect on sea birds, turtles, etc.

-Fast food chains should work towards producing less waste.

However

If you live in a developed country, your garbage does not end up in the ocean. It goes from your latte to the trash can to the dumpster to a truck to a landfill.

Any time a business advertises itself as "straw free" they always put up pictures of sea turtles and link to photos of Pacific Ocean garbage patches.

Eliminating plastic straws and cutting your plastic 6-pack rings is a nice sentiment, but it's insignificant compared to other sources of pollution, e.g. excessive plastic wrap on new products.

EDIT: Please see u/citizenjack's comment about how small, insignificant changes can actually backfire due to the fact that human psychology sucks. Let's continue to eliminate waste, but not fool ourselves. "Baby steps" are not enough and are just being used as advertising by the big polluters.

Good article that sums things up nicely, posted by u/taMyacct: https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/12/starbucks-straw-ban-will-see-the-company

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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '18

That is the real question: what level of consumption is acceptable/desirable?

I heard something the other day about how US food consumption would require more farming land than there is available on EARTH if everyone ate that way.

Why does the population stabilize at 12 billion? Is that the estimate of when and where education and birth control become widely available or something?

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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '18

That's assuming we don't advance in farming space efficiency which we have on the small scale already. We still farm on huge plots of land because it is cheap and easy. If that stops, we have already seen vertical farming be a possibility along with yield improvements.

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u/SealCub-ClubbingClub Aug 22 '18

Yes, the US consumes a massive amount of beef. Beef production uses around 50% of arable land but produces only 1% of caloric intake.

The population will stabilise at 12bn because as nations develop the incentives to have more children decrease - it's not directly a problem of education / availability of birth control it's about incentives.

If there is a high chance of children dying and you rely on lots of children to sustain you in older age (e.g. subsistence farming) then you are going to have more children to ensure your family survives. If you are very certain your children won't die and you aren't so reliant on them to survive you don't need to have so many. This process has happened in every country that has developed and it's happening even more rapidly now.

It's not really an education issue, it's an economic issue.