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People believed different things in the past because they had a different understanding of the world. Not sure why you would find that surprising or so contentious as to frame it as a purely radical action.
What are the main sources of microplastics? These are various surface coatings, plastic interior elements, clothing.
But what are the efforts to combat plastic concentrated on? On plastic bags and bottles, plastic straws and dental floss. Seriously? This is less than a percent of plastic use, and this is plastic with a short lifespan. Use and throw away. Near-zero impact on the amount of microplastics in the environment and the environment itself.
Unlike furniture coatings or clothing that are used for decades, regularly exposed to sunlight, which literally knocks microplastic particles off the surface. But instead of fighting plastic coatings, what do the same people who are pushing the fight against plastic bags and straws tell us?
They order us to cover our houses with PLASTIC insulation! LIVE IN MULTILAYER PLASTIC THAT HAS BEEN USED FOR DECADES. But with a plastic straw for drinks. What a crazy joke aimed at clinical idiots.
The fight against plastic in its modern form is a radical totalitarian, destructive cult.
> We saw the oceans become saturated with plastic waste and thought again?
And instead of the cheapest, easiest and most effective way to deal with plastic (just throw it in the garbage pile where it will lie until the end of time with zero impact on the environment and zero microplastic emissions) the cultists make us do what?
They spend a ton of our money on their cultish plastic transformation and what not rituals that ultimately don't work and result in all that plastic ending up in the ocean.
You've shifted the goalposts here. I was responding to the assertion "plastics were not a problem" and the implication that they still wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for "radical environmentalists."
You're agreeing with me that plastics are a problem but then creating a strawman in the idea that I believe current efforts to reduce plastic pollution are beyond criticism. I haven't taken this position.
The fact that my comment isn't just downvoted but flagged is also very telling.
We're talking about reducing plastic use, which is crazy high nowadays, not full scale elimination. I remember going to the store in the eighties and nineties and sure, there was plastic, but the packaging wasn't three layers of plastics just to get the thing out. Use less, recycle what you do use, prevent it from getting into the environment and crumbling into microplastic pollution. PET can be recycled once of twice, but the other stuff is hopeless. Most other materials are just more recyclable, that's just a fact. rubber, cork, ceramic, plaster, tin, aluminum, paper, cartboard, glass, wax, etc... there's plenty of viable industrial scale materials depending on the usecase.