• huey_m@reddthat.com
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    20 hours ago

    There needs to just be a blanket, punitive, 100+% tax on any and all single use plastics that are not medical devices. Obviously there’s lots of other bigger environmental issues that need to be tackled but this really seems like a pretty obvious one imo.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      14 hours ago

      They’ll just pass all the additional costs (plus a little extra profit because why not) onto the consumer

      • pingveno@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        If so, then okay. The idea is that single use plastic is used because plastic is so damn cheap. From what I understand, the precursor is basically a waste product from oil extraction. But add a small tax and it breaks the model.

        A single cheap fork is less than US$0.01 on a commercial restaurant website. For many restaurants, that is easier to deal with than washing dishes. But let’s tack on a $0.05 tax per single use item or $0.50 single use tax. Pass it directly on to the customer on the check.

        That puts single use more on an equal footing with restaurants that are reusing dishes. Single use plastic doesn’t have its true cost built in. A tax can do that in a transparent way.

      • huey_m@reddthat.com
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        6 hours ago

        The point is to increase the cost of the plastics to the point that alternatives start to actually be competitive. And really, we’re just making them actually pay for some of the externalities they’re getting a free ride on.

        If you use government to increase the cost of a thing to the point alternatives become cheaper, most businesses are going to switch. They aren’t sticking with plastics out of ideology or anything… it’s just cheap. And it shouldn’t be.