Here's your chance not just to be the mayor, but the original city planner as well! Imagine a medium sized city that would be developed with modern, low carbon transportation in mind, and other strategies to reduce the average citizens' carbon footprints.
What would that city look like? Would that make you more likely to want to live there?
Sustainable City >
How can companies actually work to significantly reduce plastic.
In today's world, we use a lot of plastic. Plastic has become a staple of today's economy, even though it's incredibly harmful to the environment. It is usually hard or impossible to recycle, and it fills the ocean and landfills. People are trying to cut down on plastic, as are companies, but they aren't doing it correctly. If I go to any local restaurant, I may see paper straws, and if I go to the grocery store I may see brown paper bags instead of plastic ones. This looks like a lot of progress on the surface, but there are so many other steps that need to be taken. The straws are hardly a problem in a restaurant when compared to the plastic drink containers, to-go boxes, and other frequently used plastic items. In grocery stores people want to focus on the bags at checkout, rather than the plastic packaging on every single item, without fail. Our millions of packages are shipped with plastic Styrofoam packing peanuts, and drinks are bought in small plastic bottles. Companies need to use less plastic whenever possible, and we as consumers need to try buying from more sustainable sources. If companies have profit to gain from becoming more green, they will. We need to do our part, so that those with no regard for the environment will be forced to change.
I 100% agree with you the world is cutting down plastic but, not cutting down some large consumers. Such as, take out boxes, packing peanuts, and, small plastic bottles. I can attest to seeing paper straws and paper bags in restaurants and grocery stores however, it's not as much to the point where we don't have to talk or worry about it. Majority of grocery stores are still using plastic bags (especially local ones), the bigger chains are starting to reduce the amount of them by advertising cloth bags. Big fast food chains are still using plastic straws as well, some include Starbucks. These two are the most well known and have alternatives. The other ones you mentioned also have possible alternatives. For example using hard plastic containers instead of Styrofoam containers for takeout and using recycled paper instead of packing peanuts. An alternative for plastic water bottle could be just getting people to buy a reusable water bottle and have water fill up stations around the city. We can do our part to save the world!