Why care about single use coffee cups? They begin their life as oil in the ground and end their life as plastic in the ground (in landfill).

I've grown rather weary of performative complaining about trash which has a waste lifecycle which ends at "stabilized landfill".

Because that's one of our best waste lifecycle processes: what's a disaster is greenhouse gas emissions, it waste which is reliably ending up in the oceans and doesn't biodegrade.

> Pointing out that such costs have been externalised for decades should be the starting point to internalise them.

I absolutely agree. 100%. The issue is single companies can't do that. They will not be competitive against companies that aren't doing it. You need an even playing field for this to work, i.e. you need legislation and uniform environmental standards across all states, whatever those standards may be. Probably even need similar pacts across countries, within reason.

Right now, the US is moving in the opposite direction to this statement.