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Blaine is a pain and that is the truth.

I mean yes, but it's not like they use an extra drop for every drop conserved, it's still okay to not be wasteful.

Companies 3 years ago: helping the environment is part of our core values

The same companies one day later: start to heavily use and train AI

They tricked us into taking all the blame for climate change

They tricked us into believing metric fucktons of single use plastics would keep us safe and healthy.

But we never had any direct control over climate policy, because we never had any direct control over the capital itself.

All we could do was blame ourselves.

Just don't trip

The best I've found is sugarcane straws. They cost 15cad for a 100 pack compared to 10dollars for 100 plastic straws, which is small enough to not matter to me.

I know for a fact they dissolve as I throw them into my own compost, and also they dissolve to nothing if added to hot water (side note, you should never drink hot drinks out of straws).

In the last week I had the opportunity to use metal straws and bamboo straws. Much better than paper straws.

It's replacing real action in place of a good feeling. It's THE plan to not do anything effective.

The normalization of needless single use products, like straws, by making them non plastic DOES make things worse. It delays real action, like removing straws altogether.

It’s greenwashing inherently unsustainable practices, just like introducing carbon capture technology on oil rigs or hyping electric cars as a way to keep the auto industry going (while suppressing more efficient means of transportation).

If we’re not going to fix shit, then why the fuck bother with mushy straws.

Sorry, but I am confiscating your moral license if the straw you use is justification.

The straw you use does nothing but make you feel better, which I would argue is harmful. You shouldn't feel better for doing nothing when such large problems exist.

Your use of the right straw is akin to you killing a single invasive ant in a rain forest, and saying you did your part to remove the invasive colony. You then spend every opportunity talking about how you killed that single ant, all while the ants have already multiplied and utterly nullified your non-effort contribution.

Shipping barges, data centers, meat production, gas and coal burning are all many orders of magnitudes greater problems than what straw you use. Gas, coal, and fossil fuel use is over 70% of all emissions, so that should be the primary conversation. In addition, these are all growing in use. Talk about that. Put your attention and action towards that.

It’s not like ”they” held a meeting to decide they were going to get everything for themselves. Rather they’re embracing this inevitable ”feature” of the ongoing collapse of market economics.

Increasing the concentration of financial capital in the hands of a few people changes the value of that capital. For normal people, the dollar value is measured in the cost of food and living space. Billionaires, who despite evidence to the contrary, are human beings, don’t need or demand more of those real resources – say potatoes or tenancy in small rental apartments – than anyone else. In fact, they can in many cases make do with less! They prefer to subside on lobster, filet mignon or whatever fad diet their longevity coach prescribes, and live in lavish palaces and/or bunkers.

Billionaires, and even down to the measly top 10 percent of earners, are the ultimate hedge when things go sideways in the real economy. They allow governments to keep printing money by diverting a tidy sum of it from potatoes and apartment leases to the lobster, filet mignon, yacht and private jet economy – and more importantly, their investment portfolios.

My point being, that malevolence isn’t the main driver here, but a widespread failure of people to acknowledge that the fantasy of limitless growth inevitably must be realized within the confines of the fantasy world of the financial economy by insulating it from the real economy. Because in the latter we eventually have to accept that we have reached the highest amount of potatoes and apartments possible. This failure is on everyone, not just billionaires.

At this point, though, I guess ”they” (Peter Thiel et al) have pretty much decided to help this collapse along with the help of every major government. So I guess you’re right.

I despise how sprite changed to clear bottles claiming environmental reasons, when that reason was that they wanted to be less indentifiable in trash heaps and microplastic samples.

They're not doing it out of spite, most plastics can't be recycled, not the way aluminum can (ha).

Do they not elsewhere? Is it just Australia?

We want our packaging to have more than one life. In Australia, all our bottles and cans can be recycled and all our soft drink and water bottles under 1L are made from 100% recycled plastic*.

*Excl. cap and label

https://www.coca-cola.com/au/en/offerings/thank-you-for-recycling