I’m going to debunk these. I do use some of these methods, but they’re not going to work for everyone. Blithely pushing lists like this without noting those exceptions only promotes insults and guilt targeted at the people who can’t use all of these, and makes people less likely to use the ones they can.
Lists like this imply that environmentalism is entirely the responsibility of end users/individual consumers, and not the corporations that create the incredible amounts of waste and toxic refuse that are poisoning the planet.
Straws - metal/glass straws are not suitable for people with disabilities, especially those that involve hands shaking. They’re especially bad for immunocompromised people because they’re nearly impossible to get clean. The entire “get rid of straws” campaign was caused by a single photo of a turtle who’d been injured by one - which ignores the thousands of ocean creatures who are killed by abandoned fishing nets every year. (Most plastic ocean waste is fishing supplies.)
Cloth Produce Bags: Need to be cleaned between uses; may result in wet produce damaging other groceries that shouldn’t get wet; will require items that need to be weighed separately to be pulled out and placed directly on the scale at the cash register.
Re-Usable Grocery Bags: (OMG you’re suggesting $10/each for these? No! You can get the synthetic fiber ones for between $1 and $3 at most stores.) Actual cloth bags are only better if people re-use them, and most of the people who get the pretty fabric ones discard them when they start to be frayed or torn.
Reusable bags require more energy to produce than common plastic shopping bags. One reusable bag requires the same amount of energy as an estimated 28 traditional plastic shopping bags or eight paper bags. “If used once per week, four or five reusable bags will replace 520 plastic bags a year”, according to Nick Sterling, research director at Natural Capitalism Solutions. A study commissioned by the United Kingdom Environment Agency in 2005 found that the average cotton bag is used only 51 times before being thrown away. In some cases, reusable bags need to be used over 100 times before they are better for the environment than single-use plastic bags.
Reusable “Ziplock” Bags: These are one-shot use items. You can, technically, re-use them, but they’re a pain to clean, they stretch and tear easily, and it’s a real hassle to get soft foods into or out of them. And like many “environment saving” techniques, they don’t work for people with certain disabilities - if your hands shake constantly, a wobbly plastic bag won’t stay still long enough to fill up, and won’t stand flat to serve from.
Metal or Steel Water Bottles: Get hot. Get too hot to touch if left in the sun for a few minutes. Can’t see if it’s clean inside. Are heavier than plastic, and hurt like hell if you get bumped by one. Are usually smooth on the outside (because they are smooth on the inside because that’s easier to clean, and they’re usually made from one sheet of metal), which is harder to grip, especially for, again, people with disabilities. The mouth is bigger than plastic bottles; making it smaller would make them even harder to clean.
Buying Things In Bulk: Works great if you have (1) places to store stuff, (2) money to buy a lot at once, (3) a vehicle that will carry large amounts of items. If you have to shop by walking or on a bike, your ability to buy in bulk is limited. If you rent a single room in a large house and you have half a shelf in the kitchen for your food, you can’t buy a 20-lb sack of rice.
Bento Boxes/ Non-Plastic Lunch Box: …Is OP under the impression that bento boxes aren’t plastic? I mean, they don’t have to be, any more than US-standard lunchboxes are, but most bento boxes I’ve seen are plastic, not metal. Also: Plastic is microwavable; metal is not. The picture shown doesn’t indicate how the bento box is going to be packed and carried; non-bento plastic lunch containers generaly have lids.
Portable Silver Ware: Picture shows wooden flatware, which is (1) hard to find and (2) hard to clean. Why not just show metal flatware, the kind most of us have in our kitchens? And sure, you can bring a set of your own flatware to picnics and potlucks, but most people won’t, just like they won’t bring plates or cups. Providing non-disposable utensils means needing a place to collect the dirty ones, and a plan for what happens if you run out. (You can run out of plastic ones, but the general plan is “bring more than you need.” An extra 50 plastic forks is less than $5. An extra 50 metal ones is not.)
Encouraging people to bring their own means everyone has a baggie for them. It means the hassle of putting dirty ones back in the baggie, possibly before someone’s gotten their clean ones out. (If the kids eat first, or last, or whatever.) So you need two baggies: one for the clean ones, and one to collect the dirties, which will need to be washed before they can be reused.
And again, “carry non-disposable with you” can be problematic for immunocompromised people; it’s not like it’s safe to just keep them in a pocket. They need a safe and clean container, and if they put the dirty ones back in the container, they need to sterilize that container later, so if it’s a ziplock, they’re throwing it out.
NONE OF THESE are absolute problems. I use reusable shopping bags. I keep a set of flatware at work and use it instead of plastic forks/spoons when I get a meal from a cafe. I use ziplocks for leftovers and for packing my lunch. We buy rice in 20 to 50lb bags, and meats in bulk packs. But I don’t have a dishwasher, so I don’t use anything that can’t be cleaned by hand (metal straws, metal water bottles), and I have no idea why bento boxes would be better than the reusable ziplock boxes I normally use for my lunches.
When promoting “living green!!!” tips, keep the following in mind:
Is it safe for immunocompromised people?
Does it work for people with limited mobility, or whose hands shake, or who are not physically strong?
Can small children use this method, or does it increase the amount of management they’ll require?
Does it work on a sharply limited budget, or in a food desert, or without a car?
It’s okay to promote ideas where the answer is “no” to all of those! There are plenty of able-bodied, middle-class people with time and energy to spare! It’s just not reasonable to assume that everyone is going to approach “go green” from the same starting point.
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