this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
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Dunno how we're supposed to get by without plastic. Basic things like water bottles, any cups or utensils you might give a baby or young child. Plastic has been a really important technological advancement. We can't exactly start giving kids glass bottles. Metal and wood are also not great replacements. Microplastics and plastic poisoning are definitely convos we need to have but the solution is not as simple as "stop using plastic".
what's wrong with glass, metal, and wood? the way i see it, the only reason we changed to plastic is because as long as we have oil wars, the cost for plastic will be lower. go, capitalism. and all that.
Wider use of plastic pre-dates "wars for oil" and metal and timber are commodities that imperialists want to control just as much. They just have better control over those than they do oil right now.
Capitalism results in just as much human misery with regards wood, metal and glass production as it does plastic. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism because there's no ethical production under capitalism.