That isn't the same issue as microbeads though, because those hit our tributary rivers and lakes where ecosystems are less resilient. But even if you are right (and I'm more than willing to change my mind here) it only speaks to my larger point: Let's focus on the real problems at their source instead of putsing around with micro feel-good-measures.
>Let's focus on the real problems at their source instead of putsing around with micro feel-good-measures.
On that, you and I are on 100% agreement! It is just that in my experience, the real problems are staggeringly prosaic, and thus hard to drum up real support for. Not many people (although I am willing to bet quite a few here on HN!) get excited about proper waste management/sanitation. But it is one of those comparatively cheap things that reaps vast societal and environmental benefit. And plastics provide a lot of benefits for very little cost- it's why they are used so heavily. Switching over to paper packaging would require vastly more energy and resource inputs, for example, and it is not immediately clear that this would, or would not, be a net benefit.
A truly biodegradable plastic that still had the required physical properties of what we currently use would be a big step forward, too.
As a slight aside, I am leery of banning as a first-choice tool for dealing with these kinds of problems. Look at what happened in California when anticoagulant rat and mouse poisons were banned from use. What was an excellent idea (reduce poison loads in the environment, stop additional kill of non-target wildlife) has instead become objectively worse, and the neurotoxin introduced as a replacement has no treatment, unlike the Vitamin K shots that could previously help stricken pets and animals, and is a far more agonizing way to die to boot.
