OTTAWA - The federal government is suspending the planned export ban on single-use plastics due to tariffs and supply chain issues “creating significant pressure on the domestic economy.”
The government launched a 70-day consultation about not moving forward with the single-use plastic export ban on Saturday through the Canada Gazette.
Meanwhile Wendy’s decided they aren’t even gonna give you a paper one. Enjoy your leaky sippy cup bitch!
So somebody in the government definitely has some plastic straw shares they aren’t willing to part with… Smh guys it’s fucking straws. Maybe show a shred of awareness for the future. What happens when the planets absolutely fucked from climate change?? We better hope a meteor takes us out first bois
If we’re coming at this from a perspective of fighting climate change, I don’t think plastic straws are really the hill to die on.
The reality of any political battle is that you always have to ask “What is the thing that will create the most net impact?” But net impact includes “Not making my cause toxic to the average person.”
The public, in general, are very amenable to changes like getting rid of disposable plastic bags and plastic packaging, and those can have as much impact or more than getting rid of plastic straws. Those are also changes that don’t create significant negative impacts for people with disabilities.
And that’s before you even get to the industrial scale changes that would have far more impact. If you look at, say, plastic waste in the ocean, about half of it is fishing nets. Changing fishing industry practices would be a lot more of an impactful approach.
Banning plastic straws is like putting out the grease fire on the stove while the whole house is burning down around you. Yes, technically it’s a thing we should do, but it is not even remotely the first thing we should do. And the people advocating for it are often doing so as a way of pretending to do something meaningful while ignoring the far bigger industry level changes we could be making that would have a far bigger impact.
As a political issue, plastic straws have become entirely toxic, and given how small a piece of the puzzle they are, there really is no benefit to dying on this largely worthless hill when our efforts could be better spent elsewhere.
Furthermore, we’re talking about exports. Does anyone really believe that other countries that haven’t banned plastic straws won’t just source them elsewhere instead? China’s usually willing to manufacture any random plastic object someone is willing to pay for. If plastic straws really are the hill someone wants to die on, environmental activism in the countries that still allow them seems like it would be more effective than an export ban here.
I mean on one hand every bit counts, and it’s about the movement towards actions, and building upon that, rather than just miraculously expecting sudden and wholesale change of behaviors from the most stubborn species this planet has ever saw.
But yeah, I mean macro scale we still have so much, where plastic straws and plastic bag bans just become comical when you think about the effect, grand scheme.
I dunno, I wasn’t against it. Sure as shit hate paper straws though, that much I will admit right out the gates. But there was some progress and product development on that issue too. It’s a toughie, I hate going backwards, but we almost have an immediate existence issue on our hands, let alone a future one.
So somebody in the government definitely has some plastic straw shares they aren’t willing to part with
“Over 99% of plastic is made from chemicals sourced from fossil fuels, and the fossil fuel and plastic industries are deeply connected” (source).
Ho! Cool! Let’s use the most dirty petrol to make the most useless and dirty plastic products. Let’s call us ecologists after that
