Plastic bags aren't banned here so you're fine.

Nor am I advocating a complete ban on all plastics.

Nor is this a choice between you surviving financially and the world using less plastic.

Honestly, that's a whole other discussion on its own, from the fact that pollution is becoming an increasing cost to society through climate change, illnesses and whatnot, and addressing all that costs money, not addressing it even more. To how to make that transition affordable for everyone, if we even can etc... and that's a discussion I just don't fancy delving into atm.

When buying a roll of plastic bags breaks your bank there's another issue at play, and that too needs addressing. And we can do multiple things at the same time, but it too often gets bogged down by populist nonsense.

My main point is that we only get to live for a brief while and enjoy this planet, why make it shorter by polluting? And can we at least not leave the place behind cleanly? So the next poor sod that comes along at least has fresh air to breathe and some birds and trees to look at?

>That's my entire point. We don't.

Yes, we do.

knock yourself out I'd say, plenty of research on this subject.

I'll provide you with a single excerpt, again you're free to dive deeper into this.

>Plastic contains chemical additives, most of which remain unknown or understudied. Meanwhile, many of the chemicals additives for which scientific information is available are known to be toxic. A growing body of evidence points to the health risks posed by plastic additives. These include endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which are linked to infertility, obesity, diabetes, prostate or breast cancer, among others. Other health conditions linked to additives include reproductive, growth, and cognitive impairment and neurodevelopment disorders.

there's plenty of research that needs to be done still in this field if we want an accurate picture, but what we know already is pretty damning.

And that is only the health aspect of it. Like I said in my previous comment, most plastics aren't recyclable, so that's 50 kilo per person per year that gets tossed somewhere, anywhere, you're free to do the math on how much avoidable waste that is globally.

On that note, show me a fish, and I'll show you plastic.

Some googling gives me data from 2019 at around ~50kg per person per year for countries like the USA (53kg), Australia (59kg), UK (44kg). From here.

That's estimated single use plastics, not other trash.

Keeping in mind that the majority of plastics aren't recyclable and a lot of them don't even get to the garbage dumps.

And besides the rather small portion of people that actually need things like straws for medical reasons for which there are always exceptions provided, who exactly will get inconvenienced?

Edit; To add to this, we know reducing plastic use is good, any reduction is good, gotta start somewhere.

And plastic is everywhere, majority of those aren't recyclable so that just gets tossed on ever-growing garbage dumps, if it even gets there, a lot just ends up drifting on the wind or floating in the ocean. And we barely even scratched the surface of the potential health and environmental consequences of our plastic use (such as the rather strong links between plastics and loss of fertility).

But hey, a slight wood taste definitely seems like the bigger issue here, understandable.

And no, banning single use plastics isn't the solution to end all plastic problems.