alt Hacker News==it's not most people's personal choices that determine if plastic ends up in the ocean- it's either incompetence or downright deliberately deceptive actions by someone else-==
It is your personal choice to consume goods packaged in plastic. If you, as a consumer, continue to eat pre-packaged peaches and apple slices rather than just eating apples and peaches, you are consciously adding to the known problem. Blaming "someone else" doesn't change the decision that you, as an autonomous individual, have made.
Your stance uses the same logic that people use to excuse their impact on climate change. People who are generating trash (specifically plastic trash) are at fault for worsening the problem of excessive plastic trash, full stop. The same way that burning coal worsens the climate problem. The justification that the problem is so big that individuals can't (or shouldn't) change their behaviors is a coping mechanism. It's borderline nihilistic.
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> you are consciously adding to the known problem. Blaming "someone else" doesn't change the decision
The "known problem" is plastic going to the landfill, which is barely a concern. awongh's original comment mentioned two plastic problems worthy of concern - microplastic and ocean plastic. Neither of that is related to disposable plastic going to the landfill.
> People who are generating trash (specifically plastic trash) are at fault for worsening the problem of excessive plastic trash, full stop.
You can be absolutist about personal moral choices, but writing this reply used precious resources that are destroying the planet, on a device that almost certainly also contributed to pollution and human misery.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't be informed and make moral and politically influenced decisions, just that the impact of those choices is probably overstated and people weaponize their choices against others for their own gain.
Everyone can individually decide what they can accept, but I don't like it when people say I should buy their thing made out of recycled plastic like it's better for the earth if I do. I don't think that equivalence is obvious if you look at the whole problem.