• Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    They’re making cheap plastic shit because we love cheap plastic shit

    No. They’re making cheap plastic shit because their constant lobbying against common sense regulation and a living wage means that the cheap plastic shit is all most of us can afford.

    explicit consumer prioritization of low costs above all other factors

    Also known as a consumer prioritization of being able to survive without being TOO crushed by debt. You’re really slathering the victim blaming on thick.

    If consumers broadly demanded soda in glass bottles and expressed a willingness to pay the extra cost that this entails, every soda company would use glass

    Bullshit. You have the power relationship backwards. The vast majority of humanity can’t afford high quality sustainable packaging because the premium companies demand for it is ridiculous. Because they know they can as long as useful fools blame the consumers.

    I’m not saying that you individually should be blamed for all environmental pollution

    Sounds awfully close to just that, though.

    we have to realize that companies are responding to the exact same incentives that we do.

    They absolutely are not. A company has the option to make the packaging better at the same price in exchange for a couple cents less profit per bottle. A customer, who already doesn’t have the vast resources with which to choose that a company has, would have to pay several times that, often several dollars, extra to get the “premium” glass bottle.

    They’re obviously operating at a much larger scale

    That’s like saying that the Sultan of Brunei’s palace is obviously much larger than my apartment: while technically true, the difference of scale is so vast that any direct comparison is effectively meaningless.

    they use cheap plastic shit for the exact same reason we do.

    Nope. They produce cheap plastic shit to maximize profits because they’re allowed to. We buy cheap plastic shit to minimize costs because we have to. Those are not the same reason.

    If you’re looking for policy solutions

    Yes! This better be good…

    a great option would be to introduce an externality tax on plastic so that this environmental cost is actually factored into the production and end price

    Companies would just pass the cost on to consumers as always. If you do that AND price control, then we have something!

    similar to carbon taxes

    Another example of something that’s a great idea in theory but end up not working as intended because it’s too easy for big companies to avoid the intended consequences. Carbon taxes with no transferrable carbon credits and the aforementioned price control could work, though.

    the moment you say the word ‘tax’ people’s brains completely shut off,

    Taxes work. You just need additional mechanisms too, to prevent the kind of fuckery companies get up to.

    • JamesStallion@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      In no universe is coca cola “all you can afford”. You could replace it with tap water and be better off in every way.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah because there’s nothing physically, mentally and even socially addictive about the number one brand in the world, packed with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and/or questionable sweeteners 🙄

        Next you’re gonna share the brilliant insight that it’s cheaper to not smoke tobacco…

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            No, I’m saying that it’s not that simple to just forgo something addictive.

            I’m an ex smoker (and ex drinker) myself, so while I would never recommend smoking (or drinking to excess), I have very little patience for people assuming or implying that addictions are easily kicked.

            That shit can control significant parts of your whole life, sometimes in subtle ways you weren’t even aware of.

            • JamesStallion@sh.itjust.works
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              6 months ago

              So, you agree people should not start drinking Coca Cola, and for their own health and finances they should make every effort to stop drinking Coca Cola.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Yeah, but it isn’t that simple, is what I’m saying.

                You’re pretending that it’s a completely unencumbered choice. That there’s no social and societal pressures making lifelong coca cola abstinence viewed as evidence of being in a cult or mentally unwell.

                Likewise, addictions fight you hard when you try to get rid of them, much harder than anyone who’s never been addicted can even imagine.

                Fact is that it’s NOT an unencumbered choice at all, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.