Has David Attenborough changed your attitude to plastic?

David Attenborough has got a lot of people considering the use of single-use plastics - e.g. Straws and bottles (to an extent). As someone else mentioned earlier in this thread, plastics still do have a lot of use in society today. The goal shouldn't be to eliminate plastic consumption completely, but rather to re-consider our recycling methods.

I do agree with this to an extent - we're in a society where everything is disposable. I think it comes down to overall sustainability in terms of material production and recycling methods. Having said that, we need to make sure products are accessible for everyone, and sometimes it's hard to achieve that without using plastic!

- Seren, University of Plymouth Student Rep

I can't really see the difficulty in properly recycling, to be frank. It's simply just a case of putting specific types of material into designated bins, and if we can't do that right, then I do worry for us as a race.
The council in my city has dispatched new bins to all houses, in which people can more effectively recycle things: household waste in the black bin, cardboard in the blue bin, and bottles and cans in the new brown bin... It's not really hard to get it right. In fact, it's pure laziness which prevents people from recycling properly.

In my opinion, putting prices on things doesn't do anything. Look at the sugar tax - I wonder how many people have been deterred from buying drinks containing sugar because they'll have to pay extra, even though this surcharge is pretty insignificant?
What about the plastic bag law? 5p on plastic bags is pretty pathetic in my opinion, because let's face it, 5p is nothing to most people.
Pricing items due to other people's problems is unfair as well. I drink sugary drinks in moderation, and I'm all for recycling properly. Yet again, I have to pay taxes on things because some people decide to kill themselves on Coke, and kill other animals with plastic bags.

In my opinion, disciplining people because of them littering is a lengthy topic to talk about.
I would personally give huge fines out to anyone who litters, but of course, a prerequisite of this is being able to catch every single offender which is obviously difficult to do.

Absolutely. Everyone loves David Attenborough and he is so respected. When he speaks, people listen and it's made a big impact. Especially around the awareness of the plastic problem.

There needs to be a huge cultural shift towards our lifestyles for people to change how they use plastic. Plastic isn't the demon, but we've made it that way by how we live and how we consume.

Absolutely! I agree in which accessibility shouldn’t be sacrificed in the pursuit of reducing plastic. However the drive to do so encourages innovation insofar that existing alternatives are on the trend with new products on the way. Metal straws for example are picking up hype, whilst biodegradable bottles are being prototypes.

Definitely. I really love the thought of biodegradable bottles as these would at least lessen the impact. Speaking of innovation, have you heard of EcoBricking? It's an amazing concept of basically packing all of your non-recyclable plastic into a two-litre bottle. It has to be a certain weight, but once it's packed full it can be sent across the world to build houses for under-developed communities. If you're worried about the CO2 footprint of a plane though, you can do it to work on your own projects - I've seen people make artwork and major furniture pieces!

- Seren, University of Plymouth Student Rep

The earlier poster has a name. Fight me you coward!

We don;t need fewer westerners. They is less of us anyway. Which is the problem with the population size argument. It ignores other, arguably more important factors. Like energy consumption. This is basically a class issue where the even the lower classes of the west enjoy enjoy the status of a "labour aristocracy" as lenin put it. The higher classes of earth are smaller in number but consume much much more of everything, often relying on the high in number labour of the global south. Just focusing on population size makes it look like the global poor are the problem and not the global rich. It is reactionary dangerouse garbage and totally fits into an analysis that demands Nazi like solutions.

It is always conveniant that those who must reduce thier population size are the blacks and not the whites with thier low low populations but masive energy and resource consumption.


The human population exploded a long long long time ago. Well before recorded history. We have been destroying biodiversity for eons. We are already to far gone and there is no going back to noble savage style of existance. And even then our noble savage ancestors wiped out all the megafauna they encounted. The only hope we have (that doesn't involve killing that makes the holocaust look like childs play) is to find ways of making our mega consumption of energy and resources and viable in the long term. We cannot go back to being even subsistance famers, never mind hunter gathers with the amound of poeple who exist now.

I'm not even convinced the eradication of life on earth is holey a bad thing to be honest. We may find biodiversity asthetically pleasing when we watch out natural blood sports on TV. Nothing more beutiful than watching an antelope get eaten alive by a pack of lions. Large scale biology is cruel. Which is the only place you can even begin to say that existance might be a good thing. Biodiversity and complex ecologies are so dependent on r-selection creatures. K-selection is much better for the individual animals, but it is much rarer. Once you get into that sphere of life it gets even worse. Don't even get me started on the lot of insects. Biodiversity? Good ridance I say.

Honestly if we killed most of none human wild-life on earth but found a way of still propogating our species. Eg we live on mars on green energy, grow our food in test tubes and labs. That would probably be morally preferable to be honest. Myabe we could take the oragutans and dolphins with us. Or we just go extinct like the vast majority of life that has ever existed on this planet.

We should absolutly go down fighting, but we may just have to accept that we are an extinction event.

It’s a lovely idea, it inspires a lot of creativity and helps underdeveloped communities too! Only trouble is the CO2 emissions produced in the transport of it - could be more harmful than beneficial for the environment albeit in a much different way. How would the bottle be used to build houses?