For me the problem is the prevalence of one time use cups, plates and so on, it may be almost ok if you want something to go (but should be incentivized to use a reusable cup), but to have it when you are eating at a restaurant is like an ode to our idioticy
That's not actually a problem statement though right? That's just things that might be contributing to a problem. We have to first settle on what the problem is before we can start focusing on what the contribution is. I could be wrong but what I've heard communicated as the three main problems with plastics are greenhouse gas emissions in their construction, Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and PFAS.
Do straws or one time use cups/plates etc contribute to global greenhouse emissions? Seems doubtful as transportation and agriculture seems like the largest contributors and straws/plates/cups etc are a tiny fraction of the contribution for plastics themselves.
Do they contribute to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? IIRC that's the motivating scenario for the plastic straw ban and yet. And yet [1].
> the patch is mostly abandoned fishing gear
That's for the larger items. The majority of the plastics themselves is microscopic. And no, AFAIK it's not from land plastics that are leeching into the ocean & certainly not straws AFAIK.
Do they contribute to PFAS? Maybe but given the prevalence of PFAS everywhere I'm going to guess that it's in the noise compared to other sources (& as I've learned in this thread, getting rid of plastic straws has converted inert ones into PFAS emitters).
