It should be obvious that you can’t just stop using plastic straws and pat yourself on the back for saving the earth. The much bigger problem is packaging, and this article in Scientific American has some ideas for how it could be tackled, and how it has been in a few countries not called the United States.

Legislators could make laws that incentivize and facilitate recycling, like the national bottle deposit and bag tax bills that were proposed in 2009. These bills would have created a nationwide five-cent deposit on plastic bottles and other containers, and a nonrefundable five-cent charge on plastic bags at checkout. The U.K. launched a similar charge on all single-use grocery bags in 2015 and announced a nationwide bottle deposit requirement in March of this year. Within six months of the plastic bag charge being in place, usage dropped over 80 percent. Similarly, in Germany, where a nationwide bottle bill was put in place in 2003, recycling rates have exceeded 98 percent. In the U.S. these actions would go a long way toward recovering the estimated $8 billion yearly economic opportunity cost of plastic waste.

Other actions could include a ban or “opt-in” policy on single-use items like plastic straws. That is, single-use plastic items would not be available or only upon request. A small tweak like this can lead to huge changes in consumer behavior, by making wastefulness an active choice rather than the status quo. Such measures were recently adopted by several U.S. cities, and are under consideration in California and the U.K.

Another, somewhat obvious, idea would be to tax packaging. This would raise some revenue while also nudging companies toward solutions that reduce, reuse, or recycle the packaging to avoid the tax. Some other tax could be reduced to offset this new one, if that seems critically important.

NYC is banning styrofoam as of January 1, 2019.

The ban now means that food service establishments, stores, and manufacturers may not possess, sell, or offer for use single service Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam food service articles or loose fill packaging, such as “packing peanuts” in New York City beginning in 2019…

Manufacturers and stores will not be able to sell or offer single-use foam items such as cups, plates, trays, or clamshell containers in the city.

The bond rating agencies might go after companies that produce plastic packaging next. After taxing pollution like carbon emissions and other air and water pollutants, taxing waste products could make sense. These materials could be designed for easier recycling and reuse, and they are not because neither the manufacturer nor the retailer of the product inside them has to pay the cost. Homeowners, business owners, and municipalies pay the costs of waste collection and disposal, and natural ecosystems pay the price for plastic waste that is not being disposed of responsibly. Shifting these costs onto the manufacturers and/or retailers could raise funds to help deal with the problem while providing an incentive to innovate and produce better packaging and close the loop on materials.

Plastic packaging makers may be less credit-worthy in the future as governments try to curb marine litter, Moody’s Corp. said in a report…

Packaging consumes about 40 percent of plastics worldwide and accounts for about 60 percent of the material that ends up as waste. Governments worldwide are concerned that plastics take decades or even centuries to degrade and that they’ve been working their way into the food chain as they seep into rivers and oceans. By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation…

The issue has garnered attention from one of the world’s biggest oil companies. Earlier this year, BP Plc cut its forecast for oil demand from petrochemicals by 2 million barrels a day, citing the risk that regulations tighten on plastic products and shopping bags. Packaging makes up about 3 percent of global oil use, according to the company’s chief economist, Spencer Dale.

Closing the loop might start to seem less crazy. My Amazon Fresh delivery person will pick up my used cooler – why not take back the plastic packaging for recycling, or develop other types of reusable containers? As more of this gets automated, hopefully the “ick” factor will be reduced.

I wish people would stop hating on plastic straws though. They are so tiny, and so useful to help children drink without spilling things. And have you ever tried to wash a “reusable” straw? Busy working people trying to raise the aforementioned children do not have time for that. So I say either invent a straw washing machine or give these tiny pieces of useful plastic a pass and focus on the mountains of plastic wrap and food containers that are actually filling our garbage cans, trucks and landfills.