Amen!
"If they really wanted to DO something, bring back deposit bottles that can be returned."
This is something I feel very strongly about - single-use plastics and other wasteful packaging have become very firmly entrenched in our society, to the point that no one any longer even stops to consider that there used to be another way.
I grew up in a world of biodegradable cardboard boxes, reusable glass bottles, rustable "tin" cans, waxed paper milk cartons, and many other things many people today have never even seen. It came down to far more - and far better - use of renewable resources than is the case today, where Corporate America appears to be hell-bent on using as much non-renewable petroleum as possible for the greatest number of non-essential uses conceivable.
I personally would like to see a return to some of the old ways; no one died of hog cholera back in the day from drinking a Coke from a sterilised, re-used deposit bottle instead of a plastic bottle or aluminium can. The milk in waxed paper cartons didn't spoil any faster. The canned goods tasted no worse and lasted just as long on the shelf. Powdered detergent in cardboard boxes got clothes clean. There is no reason for today's overuse of plastic except fashion.
As it is, all I can do is govern my own purchasing choices to include as much packaging that meets my personal standards for biodegradability and use of renewable resources as possible. I buy Oxydol because it's a powder in a cardboard box, and it performs like gangbusters. I buy Chase & Sanborn coffee in a tin can (when I can find it; thank God I recently discovered that Menard's carries it) instead of Folger's or Maxwell House in a plastic canister. I keep pop purchases down to a minimum, and when I buy it, I get 2-litre bottles instead of individual servings, so that I can at least minimise the amount of plastic involved (I'd buy glass-bottled pop if the price wasn't so outrageous, and if sugar-free choices were more readily available). Stuff like that. (I also don't buy anything new if it's available used in reasonable shape, but that's a whole 'nother topic.)
I wish this country had a packaging czar or office as part of its Federal gummint, tasked with permitting - or not permitting - packaging types according to their use, sustainability and necessity. We are going to have to get serious about this kind of waste, very soon, and the expense of recycling (some localities have stopped recycling efforts during the recession, because they can't afford it) has shown that it's not the total answer. I would also like to see a return to common sense among consumers - one example is bottled water, which many people are drinking because of concerns with their drinking water supply. It seems to me that the solution to bad drinking water (in most cases) is ousting one's city management and replacing them with competent people, not creating a gazillion plastic bottles, filling them with water, and trucking them all over hell's half acre.
We used to have a pretty good little planet here. I'd like to get it back.
