The Climate and the Straw

摘要

IN A FRACTURED AMERICA, here's one thing most of us can agree on: Disposable plastic sucks. Eight in 10 voters support policies to reduce single-use plastics, and two-thirds of US residents say they'd pay more for everyday materials that don't contain plastic. Picking up plastic litter remains the go-to Earth Day activity, and "Is This Recyclable?" might as well be the latest environmentalist parlor game. The concerns about plastic make perfect sense. While carbon dioxide and methane are invisible-and extinction is an actual disappearing act-plastic is all too tangible. The cookie packages and water bottles, single-use baggies and flimsy cheese wrappers are inescapable. They are the emblem of wanton waste, the signature of a throwaway society.