Two years later, in 1973, the US Congress discussed the possibility of introducing a ban on all non-reusable containers. The battle against plastic had begun and at that moment it seemed like it could be won.
But that didn't happen.

Although it was invented just over a century ago, today it is impossible to imagine a world without plastic. It is everywhere: from the cars we drive to the clothes we wear, in all kinds of packaging, even in the air we breathe, in the form of microplastics that pollute the seas and end up in the food and water we drink.
In this century we have produced more than 10 billion tons of it, so much that we could pack and box the entire surface of the earth. But the exponential increase is recent, so much so that More than half of all plastic in the world has been produced in the last twenty years alone.
In the face of these data, it is even more impressive to read – as a research published in Science Advance a few years ago points out – that Of all the plastic produced in the world, we were only able to recycle 9%. The remaining 12% was incinerated, often releasing toxic gases. And the remaining 80% ended up in landfills of all kinds or was directly dispersed into the environment..
To visualize these data, one need only think of the streets of a large city: Of the ten trash cans full of plastic, only the one in the first one will actually be reused. But why then have we been convinced for so long that plastic is recyclable and that throwing trash into the right bin is enough to solve the problem? And that the fault lies in the uncivilized behavior of citizens?

It is an interesting story and Stephen Buranyi told it on Guardian.

Although the crusade against plastic is quite recent (and it should be said that it is achieving excellent results thanks to a convergence never seen before between politics, scientists and consumers), concerns about the accumulation of plastic waste have been present for at least fifty years.

In 1971, for example, the city of New York introduced a tax on plastic bottles, and in 1973 Congress discussed the possibility of introducing a ban on all non-reusable containers. “The battle against plastic had begun”, “And at that moment, it seemed like it could be won,” writes Buranyi.

But that didn’t happen. From the very beginning, in fact, the oil companies and the plastic industry-linked lobbies put pressure, first against the Supreme Court, obtaining the annulment of the tax, and then against Congress, arguing that a similar solution would have harmed thousands of jobs. The next strategy was to form an alliance with the beverage and packaging companies to shift the responsibility for waste from producers to consumers, thus defusing the anti-plastic sentiment that was developing.

By resorting to the same logical fallacy used by the arms lobbies, according to which “Guns don’t kill people, people do”, they managed to persuade consumers that the real problem was not the companies that made millions by producing disposable packaging, but the irresponsible individuals. On that basis, in those years there were hundreds of advertisements launched by non-profit groups funded by giants such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, Dow Chemichal, such as the 1971 World Earth Day campaign, which stated: “People start the pollution; people can stop it.”.

It was enough to cause the same wind to start blowing in Europe as well. In 1988, for example, Margaret Thatcher, collecting rubbish in St. James Park, told journalists, “It’s not the government’s fault, it’s the fault of the people who knowingly and recklessly throw them on the ground.”.

Today, with the amount of data available, fortunately it is no longer possible to deceive consumers. But above all, it is necessary to understand that, in order to stay in the market, eco-sustainability is now an essential prerequisite.

After decades in which responsibility was placed on the choices of individual consumers, we now know that companies (and politics, of course) must lead the change towards a more responsible use of plastic materials.

It was precisely in this direction that we looked when we participated in the Granarolo project to convert the classic Yomo plastic jar into a fully recyclable paper version that preserves the product's quality and naturalness to the fullest extent.

Unless it is strictly necessary for your business, plastic must be replaced. A study conducted by the United Nations Environment Programme revealed that well over 90% of consumers declare that they are concerned about the problems associated with plastic waste (but less than half are willing to change their habits).

Let’s all be guided by this fact, and think about the attraction that the “plastic-free” label can provide for your businesses..