In practice we don't really have replacements for a lot of things "single use plastic" is used for. Sterilized medical equipment, storage and distribution of prepared food products for people with disabilities, and probably a myriad of other minor uses that don't get a lot of attention just don't have practical alternatives without making life untenable for a lot of people.

So I don't think there's a world in which we just stop using them cold turkey. At least not a compassionate one. A lot of research and effort needs to go into finding alternatives for these things, but the structure of our society doesn't really incentivize that.

> Sterilized medical equipment, storage and distribution of prepared food products for people with disabilities, and probably a myriad of other minor uses

You're right, there's not single-use material that compares. However, there are plenty of reusable sterilizable materials, like steel, aluminum, rubber, and glass.

We just need to stop being so ready to throw things in the trash and actually think about the backend logistics of bringing containers back and reusing them.

This isn't a materials problem. It's a efficiency/cost problem.

Just look at the Pfand system for glass bottles in Germany. 2 basic beer bottles, different labels. Reused dozens of times. Deposit system.

I think this makes some sense for food storage at least, esp. wrt aluminum and glass (though it creates a burden on people who often can't physically afford it). It gets a lot harder for medical stuff where individual things need to be in sterile packaging until point of use. We're not gonna be individually packaging needles in glass for diabetics to use, for eg. The logistics of that are staggering, and the cost would be very high, yet the economies of scale are not there for it.

That argument feels a little disingenuous. Like when people drive a big truck every day because once per summer they haul a boat.

We can eliminate or at least improve a lot of single use plastics outside medicine and people with special needs.

At my local farmer’s market, for example, all prepared food from food trucks and stands comes in unlined cardboard containers. When you’re done, you throw it in compost because cardboard is compostable. Works great and disadvantages nobody.

You still get plastic cutlery but it says to be made of compostable plastic. I don’t know how well compostable plastic works but I sure hope it does.

My understanding is that most things marketed as "compostable plastic" are only really compostable under extremely specific circumstances and that it's mostly a marketing stunt. And that can be done at the farmer's market because things don't need to be in those containers for very long. Scaling isn't just a thing for computers, it's also a thing for distribution chains.

Anyways the difference between these two arguments is that people use these things to increase the odds of their survival. No one (approximately) hauls a boat for their survival.

And the really sad frustrating truth is that literally the only way to make a lot of these things that do genuinely help people survive economically worthwhile is to make them useful to everyone else too. That's why, as an oft-cited example, pre-cut veggies at your grocery store are simultaneously essential for some people and incredibly wasteful for others.

This is the faustian bargain capitalism forces us to make.

> That argument feels a little disingenuous. Like when people drive a big truck every day because once per summer they haul a boat.

Eh, they also choose big trucks so they'll win in a crash. Remember, safety ratings/requirements for cars are based on collisions with similar cars. If you're in a Fit or Golf or Mini and the other guy's in an F-150 or Tahoe, you're in big trouble.

The solution's probably some form of graduated weight-based tax. Makes sense both on a safety-externalities basis and on a damage-to-the-road basis (which doesn't scale linearly with weight, so the first ton is way less damaging than the second ton, and so on).

> Eh, they also choose big trucks so they'll win in a crash

Eh this is where it gets really complicated. I used to be a car crash enthusiast as a kid (crash science, not crashing myself). The main thing I learned is that big cars are ridiculously unsafe. Especially american big cars.

Long stopping distance, lots of inertia, bad on the moose test, ridiculous amounts of energy to dissipate/absorb in a crash. Terrible.

Give me a Fiat 500 any day.

Anyway, the best thing you can do for crash survivability is to ensure you’re never driving a car that’s more than 5 years old. The engineering advances fast and a modern small car colliding with a 10 year old big car will absolutely destroy the big car. Use it as a crumple zone.

Oh, agreed on small cars being much more nimble and so maybe more safe in practice. I am 100% sure that a lot of SUV and truck buyers are doing so because they perceive them as "winners" in crashes, though. Some also, and relatedly, like the better visibility (but what's that doing to everyone else's visibility? Oh well, who cares).

Source: they'll just tell you, it's not a secret.

(yes, of course, some people actually use trucks enough for real truck-things that it makes some sense for them to own one, I'm not denying that such folks exist, and there are even quite a few of them—there are also plenty of Suburban Commandos, though, and lots of them are women who, again, will tell you that one reason they want a giant car is for perceived safety, so not just your usual "compensating for something" sorts)

Ah if your argument was about what they say not what’s real, then yes I agree. My girlfriend says the same thing and refuses to believe me when I present engineering evidence.

Luckily we don’t need a car so it’s merely a theoretical debate.

Yeah, "will 'win' if a crash occurs" is very different from "likelihood of death or serious injury while driving this vehicle", though the former is (AFAIK) a lot easier to get stats on. I definitely feel safer, as in less likely to get into a wreck, in a smaller, more nimble car, personally.

Desire to be the crusher rather than the crushee is definitely a reason I've been repeatedly given by people—men and women alike—for why they prefer huge vehicles, though. Enough times that I'd stand by that being a significant motivation for people actually buying them, as far as (partially, but significantly) explaining the level of huge-vehicle sales, whether or not it's rational (I really don't know for sure).

This is known as active and passive safety in car engineering.

Active safety talks about how (un)likely the car is to get into a crash. Visibility, brakes, grip, driver assists play a major role.

Passive safety talks about thr survivability of a crash once it happens. Passenger cell, crumple zones, seat belts, airbags, etc.

Most crashes (iirc) are single-vehicle incidents. Amount of energy involved is the biggest factor here.

You’re more likely to survive crashing a small car into a tree than a big car … with some fudginess around a bigger car having more ability to absorb the energy. I think it usually about cancels out.

Most deadly crashes between cars are t-bones in an intersection because of people chasing yellow lights. You are more likely to die in a big car because of rollovers.

Sideways crumple zones are very small in all car sizes.

I haven’t kept up with the science the past 10 to 15 years but this stuff was a big interest of mine for about a decade. Can nerd out for days :)

tldr: please don’t chase yellow lights. It’s among the deadliest common behaviors.

Bonus funfact: Large vehicles are safer for pedestrians because they spread the load across more of the human body when you hit them. That’s why all modern cars have tall flat noses.

So just add a significant tax for plastic usage, reflecting an actual damage to environment? All use cases where it's still necessary will still be able to do so, while price-cutters will switch to alternatives.

Everything would get a little more expensive, basically. It's used because it saves money, same as everything else.

Similar to cheap but non-repairable or non-reusable stuff in general. How do we get rid of it? The answers amount to making stuff more expensive, or making labor cheaper, or some combination of the two.