Plastic has made poor peoples lives better. It has given them access to containers for liquid that they previously couldn’t afford. Let’s use buckets as an example.Before there were plastic buckets there were galvanized iron buckets. They were more expensive than plastic and much less durable. Nowadays when you see photos of poor ladies in the developing world going for water at the town well they are all carrying plastic buckets. There is a reason for this: plastic is cheaper and lighter than metal or wood.
Plastic pipe is cheaper than copper pipe and it is easier to install.
Plastic bags are cheaper than paper or cloth bags by a wide margin.
Plastic toys are affordable, wooden toys are not.
Plastic trash bags with draw string are so useful they were nominated for a Hobel Prize a few years ago.
The list of benefits goes on. But what about the pollution from discarded plastic that gets into the rivers and oceans?
This image shows plastic that has washed down the LA River, mostly from the homeless encampments upstream, after a flood. There is no simple solution. Ending the use of plastic would be an inconvenience and a cost increase for the prosperous but it would be at a huge cost to the poor who depend on cheap plastic for many of the necessities in their lives. I’ve made this argument before.
Poor people need plastic especially in the developing world. We shouldn’t make them worse off today to help improve the environment tomorrow. We can keep exploring recycling, deposits and incentives to get the cleaner oceans that we want but banning plastics hurts the poorest people in society and should be avoided.
What has this got to do with straws? My solution to the real problem caused by straws and other plastics polluting the environment is to give everyone the resources to live like me. I can choose to use straws or not. If I do use one I can be pretty sure that when I discard it, it will end up in a landfill and not down the throat of a baby turtle. This will take time. Building Liberal Democratic Capitalist Societies (What Jonah Goldburg calls the Miracle) takes time but it is happening and it really is the only way to a cleaner more sustainable world. In the meantime we need to “DO SOMETHING.” Which will be the subject of my Next post about straws