I have nothing against American convenience stores, aside from the fact that the food often seems stale and riddled with E. coli. However, within the last few years, I’ve learned about Korean Convenience stores, and now my life seems empty without them.

In the past few weeks, I’ve watched hundreds of videos of people going to these convenience stores and treating themselves to cheap, hearty meals that make me want to sob with jealousy.

The convenience store experience seems to go something like this:

1. Pick up an empty drink cup with fancy ice.
2. Select a bagged drink from the rows of bagged beverages (or two!).
3. Select your main course, usually in the form of instant noodles.
4. Pick a side, any side! Soft-boiled eggs, cookies, meat on a stick, you decide!
5. Spend less than $5 for everything (and less than $10 if it’s a real feast).
6. Find a seat and prepare your food for consumption.
7. Open a ton of products safely nestled within single-use plastics.
8. Eat everything.
9. Be happy.

Korean convenience stores are packed with so many incredible snack varieties. Ramen, sausages, boiled eggs, chips, kimbap, cookies, fluffy pastries – each shop presents smorgasbord of delights that could occupy any reasonable person for hours. Do I want to eat a giant sausage wrapped in single-use plastic? Hell no, but I want to have the option to do it.

Plus, the ability to just walk in at any time of day and have a warm meal within minutes for just a few dollars seems like a utopian ideal I’m unwilling to live without.

There are some minor problems that get in the way of my utopian fantasy. For one, I don’t live in Seoul, and the next flight is about $2,000 and will get me there in two days. Not ideal, since the whole appeal of these stores is the “convenience” element.

Second, single-use plastics feature heavily in these products, and I don’t know if you’ve heard, but single-use plastics are are what the environment would call a “cowabummer.” They have a habit of ending up in places like our oceans (and basically anywhere else humans have ever traveled to) where they take a very long time to decompose. These plastics also make their way into local food chains, and eventually into humans as well, which is also a “cowabummer.”

I’m not a huge fan of eating plastic, and yet, according to one source, I’m eating about a credit-cards-worth every week. It may seem like the immediate solution would be to ban all single-use plastics, except that would heavily impact a significant portion of the population: people with disabilities.

People with disabilities are not only regularly othered and excluded from societies, but often these bans directly impact their quality of life. There’s a reason the phrase “eco-ableism” is popping up more and more frequently. For example, banning plastic straws for some people is simply a matter of convenience, but for other people, plastic straws are a necessary tool to prevent asphyxiation. You know what sucks more than your paper straw getting soggy? Choking.

I do not mean to imply that single-use plastics are always okay and that the redundant plastic film on a cup of ice is the same thing as the plastic sheath housing disposable lancets. There is obviously a difference, and I am very much in favor of reducing plastic waste so much as it doesn’t alienate and vilify a portion of the population.

What I am saying is that I think humanity should continue to strive for an environmentally-friendly option that satisfies all our needs. I spent about two seconds looking up useful alternatives for single-use plastics, and aside from the usual “just replace everything with bamboo approach,” this article about starch-based bioblends seems promising.

Long story short, as a species we should invest in more research to create single-use plastic alternatives. Humanity is smart enough to solve this problem. So that, one day, we can all stumble hungover into a convenience store, spend $5, and joyously shove ramen and sweetened fruit teas into our gaping maws.