... Uhmm... No. You're not really that stupid, right Amurika?

[wolven7]

I didn't want to believe it. I honestly didn't want to believe that MOST people were THIS out of touch, were THIS Blindly Ignorant... I wanted to believe that it was just a wide dispersal pattern of a few really loud idiots... But no.

From Jeffrey Rowland: 'National Survey Reveals More than 70% of Americans Don't Know Plastic is Made from Oil-- 40% believe plastic will biodegrade at some point'

Uhm... BWUH?!

Comments

Number 1, not so bad. Two, that's no good.

[karishi.livejournal.com]

It makes sense that most people don't know what it's made of, and I don't see ignorance on that score being particularly harmful. But people have been making an active effort to explain the whole "It won't break down, that's why we need to recycle" thing to people, so that's kind of sad.

Re: Number 1, not so bad. Two, that's no good.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Plastic consumption can be said to be made to rise, due to people believing that it will never run pout, that it's some magical perfect thing. oil consumption increases, or remains steady, causing futher etc.

And 2) Exactly. Stop Not Recycling. Make something magical that biodegrades. Damn it.

[nausved.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe someday bacteria will evolve to break down different types of plastics. There's already one strain that's breaking down nylon byproducts, which have only existed since the 1930s.

However, that's a hell of a lot of plastic and hell of a lot of evolution. I wouldn't exactly rest my hopes on it.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I think that we should engineer it. Make it commercially available, and have nanotech break down plastics into soil. That would be wonderful.

But is highly unlikely, at this stage.

[elioraceit.livejournal.com]

but plastic makes it possible!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wolven.livejournal.com]

If by "it" you mean the slow suffocation of all life on the planet, then yes. They do make it possible.

[renatus.livejournal.com]

Hm... keep in mind that that's 70% of the Americans that they surveyed. It's of note how and where the participants were selected. They say they have a patented sampling method, buuuut if they handpicked the populations they were going to sample from in the first place, they could skew the results the way they wanted.

Also, 501 people to represent over 300 million people makes me raise my eyebrows, especially when the findings from this relatively tiny group are then plastered across the entire population.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. Sampling bias is Rampant, here, but even at that rate, that's too many people who don't know basic science.