We’ve been facing the problem of plastic usage wrong. Plastics cannot be recycled [1] and when they can be recycled it is not an easy straight forward process. Yet, everyone is using them out of convenience. They are cheap and nobody cares about the environment when it comes into conflict with their pocket. The solution? Studies should be found to find if plastics are nocive to human health. If people worry that they or their kids will get cancer, they may rethink the usage of this material. If something shortens your life expectancy and provides you with a long and awful death people may reconsider buying products that are wrapped with multiple plastic layers. There is probably going to be part of the population that won’t mind and will immolate themselves. But if consumers have the perception that all that plastic wrapping around food is bad for them it may change more things than telling them to try to reduce plastic consumption.

[1] Hopewell, J., Dvorak, R., & Kosior, E. (2009). Plastics recycling: challenges and opportunities. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1526), 2115-2126.