plastic waste per capita: the US is at top(if we exclude small island nations)
plastic waste in absolute terms: the US is not far behind China, with India at a distant third place.

the reduction is plastic waste generation in China is far more than that of US^1^.

so, what I mean to say is that more people ≠ more pollution. but I do agree that the problem is to be tackled with active participation of the government, which won't be there because of muh economy.

[1]: By 2016, China's overall plastic waste production had fallen to 21.60 million tons, a reduction of nearly 28 million tons (for comparison, U.S. production fell less than 4 tons during the same time period). Moreover, despite being one of the largest overall producers of plastic waste, China's per capita production of plastic waste was one of the lowest in the world in 2016 at 15.6 kilograms a year per person.

Lots of places in the US won't recycle the supposedly "recyclable" plastics, it ends up in a landfill regardless of what you do. I remember all the educational initiatives about the importance of recycling when I was a kid. Turns out it was all just propaganda to make us feel responsible for problems caused by corporations.

Given that there are 1.3b people there

The majority of Chinese residents don't live in metro zones, work office jobs, and eat fast food, though.

Also, very common to find reusable metal straws (and cups and utensils) outside the US. Korea and Japan both overwhelmingly favor washable utensils, as do cities south of the US border (I stopped seeing disposables once I got outside Mexico City proper and I never saw them in Jamaica or Cozemel outside the airport/seaport). There are zero disposables in Havana. The very idea is alien to them.

Oh man that's a drop in the bucket compared to medical/industrial/commercial plastic waste lol.

I didn't make that meme myself but I debated changing it to something Taylor Swift related for a moment, but then I thought that horse was pretty much dead already so I just left it as it is. She's certainly not the only one doing this sort of stuff.

Implicitly includes Taylor though, she's not off the hook

Just all the others are also on the hook now

Taylor Swift going on a cruise?

Maybe beverages could be served in containers that don't require a straw. I wouldn't mind being served a can or a bottle instead a cardboard cup.

I was recently served a long macaroni as a straw in a restaurant. It was honestly amazing how well it worked! At no point it was mushy and there's nothing in it that I wouldn't eat with my pasta dish anyway.

Oil is processed into polymers and has plasticizers added to it to become a drinking straw, a process that emits mucho carbon.

Honestly, I'm just sick of picking it up on my local beach. That and plastic bags. I'm sick of picking up plastic bags.

Some materials have higher carbon emissions than others, in terms of refinement, processing, and transportation. The third point is location dependant, but creating and shaping different materials will have different contributions to global warming.

Edit: There are also concerns with the product's end of lifespan. How long it takes to biodegrades, how easily recyclable it is, and how much the available disposal methods will effect the environment. Plastic is not great on several of these accounts. Recycling plastic water bottles isn't very efficient either, compared to glass bottles for instance.

If your whole statement is we shouldn't try to solve global warming because some people are rich

I don't think that's what they're saying at all. Any solution to climate change is incomplete if it doesn't also address inequality and overconsumption