Disposable plastics under open sun -> Microplastics -> Unknown damage to the whole foodchain -> Possibly (we don't have good data to work off), widescale ecosystem collapse, people dying.
These two issues are frequently conflated together, to the detriment of the overall discussion. But it is true that they both ultimately are results of the same failures of market-based economy. If you do root cause analysis on both, you'll end up in the same place. But since it's (AFAIU) unpractical to address the root cause directly, we need to consider which of the two problems to focus on; I'd argue we should focus on the emissions first.
Burning fossil fuels -> CO₂ emissions -> Climate change -> Widescale ecosystem collapse, people dying.
Disposable plastics under open sun -> Microplastics -> Unknown damage to the whole foodchain -> Possibly (we don't have good data to work off), widescale ecosystem collapse, people dying.
These two issues are frequently conflated together, to the detriment of the overall discussion. But it is true that they both ultimately are results of the same failures of market-based economy. If you do root cause analysis on both, you'll end up in the same place. But since it's (AFAIU) unpractical to address the root cause directly, we need to consider which of the two problems to focus on; I'd argue we should focus on the emissions first.