Pragmatic Environmentalist: Watching the Public Fall for Environmental "Feel Good" Scams and Spam
A couple of years ago I wrote this post. Everyone seems to be in a general state of denial about this problem with charging these vehicles in Poland. This is classic "green wash" (the superficial appearance of being environmentally- conscious). The latest green wash is plastic straw bans. Most all of the plastic in the ocean comes from emerging economies where there is often not even household waste service (everyone dumps everything). Plastic in the EU and US will end up in landfill, waste recovery plant or being recycled. Only a small fraction is capable of being recycled, which itself uses more energy than it saves. Plastic bans in the West will do nothing about plastics in the ocean except make people feel good about themselves, i.e. more virtue-signaling. Just like eliminating all US carbon emissions will only reduce temperature by 0.03 degrees under the UN IPCC's own model: a change that will be quickly swept away by events. The full achievement of the Par...