- cross-posted to:
- usauthoritarianism@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- usauthoritarianism@lemmy.world
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One of the many other problems with recycling besides this tidbit, is the fact that most people don’t even follow the first two instructions before recycling. Nobody reuses anything and nobody has reduced their consumption.
There’s a bulk food store near me and it allows BYO containers (or you can use one of their compostable bags). It’s great! A little bit more work (you need to tare your/container write down the empty weight), but you get your goods in the container of your choice.
alright, ive been hearing about that. tell me something:
i grew up hearing the “save water!!11!!!” bullshit was, well… bullshit.
is the “recycle” thing also bullshit? how so?
“is the “recycle” thing also bullshit? how so?”
The only honest answer to this is “it’s complicated”. If I had to give an oversimplified binary answer, I’d say yes, it is a bit bullshit.
To attempt to summarise part of why:
- There are so many different kinds of plastics that actually making recycling supply chains work is difficult
- At the household waste processing level, I’ve seen a few investigations that show plastic that could be recycled being sent to landfill, or incineration. This is in part because of inconsistent practices by households sorting their trash, meaning the waste processing plant has to do a heckton of work to ensure that everything is indeed recyclable. This may vary depending on one’s local authority
- Plastic recycling is far more economical at the commercial/industrial level, especially because there’s less work/error in the processing side of it.
- I think it depends on the particular plastic, but I think that plastic can generally only be recycled once, and recycled plastic is often lower quality than “virgin” plastic. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t recycle plastic, but that we should be aware that it has its limits.
- Glass and aluminium have less of these issues than plastic, but it’s still more complex than most realise. Logistics of processing recycling is hard and often expensive.
Along those lines, I think the main point I want to highlight is that the phrase that was often pushed is “reduce, re-use, recycle”. I think that far too much emphasis has been put on recycling in recent years, especially given the complexities and caveats with recycling that I outlined above. “Reduce, re-use, recycle” is explicitly anti-consumerist, which is why I think the rhetoric has morphed to emphasise the recycling aspect, despite recycling ideally being the last item in that list. Reduce how much stuff you’re using by being mindful in your purchases, especially with plastics and the like; then consider how you could re-use stuff that you already have; only then should recycling be entering the picture.
My opinion is that changes like this are less about reducing the waste products, but more about how this kind of mindful anti-consumerism shapes us; modern society has made consumers of us all, and we desperately need to resist that as much as possible. It’s hard to do because corporations have become very skilled at co-opting eco-conscious rhetoric and “green-washing” consumerism: they placate us by advertising that the plastic products they’re selling us are made with 10% recycled plastic, as if that makes much difference to the fact the product will probably end up in landfill
People just like to look a things in a binary way and to look at excuses not do annoying things.
Só since recicling doesn’t 100% solve the plastic problem obviously we should stop even trying to do the thing.
And also throw in reduce and reuse in the bucket of things not to do because why try everything at all if we can just point a finger at someone and keep not doing anything besides complain.
Plastic can be recycled. Adding high quality synthetic oil into poor quality plastic can completely restore it’s potential for use. HOWEVER! The main and mind consuming problem with plastic: plants can’t grow in microplatics. Test it out, grind up plastic, put it in a bowl, and plant a seed in it, use growth hormones, use plant food, use whatever you like. The plant will sprout and die shortly after. It will never flower. Meaning once the Earths soil becomes statistically enough microplastic particles, crops won’t grow, any new plants in nature will never reach maturity. Complete decaying death of the natural world because a purified compound that is incompatible with life, has been ground up and spread all over the globe. That’s the fear of microplastics. That and the long term impact on people that get exposed to high enough concentrations that plants can’t grow… Likely dehydrate to death as the body won’t be able to absorb micro plastic laden water. You can also test that at home, but I do not recommend drinking micro plastic heavy water to see what it might be like for your grand kids.
Got a source for that?
Because you can grow plants just fine in hydroponics. Plastic trays. Plastic tubing. Nutrient mixture. Plastic everywhere.
I think plants would grow just fine in plastic given the correct nutrients.
Life, uh, finds a way.
But plants can grow in plastic containers in just water
I wonder if plants will evolve to deal with the increased microplastics or if there’d be a way to filter it out of soil. Life is always adapting. The most obvious solution is to quit manufacturing plastic but that’s looking increasingly unlikely.
Or we could just manufacture different plastics that degrade.
Also show me a place where plastic recycling rates are over 10%
Use less or go for (less poisonous!) alternatives to plastic.
Every time I hear someone complain about a single tiny piece of plastic on the ground or someone uses slightly more than needed cling wrap, all I can think of is the couple of warehouses I used to work in a couple jobs ago.
Everything comes on pallets wrapped in about a dozen layers of cling wrap. 8-10ft tall pallets.
Every box gets opened, the items pulled out of a large plastic bag, each item wrapped in its own plastic bag.
Those items get put in other boxes, stacked on a different pallet, and wrapped in another dozen layers of plastic wrap.
The pallets get moved to a temporary spot for a few hours, then someone comes up and curs all the wrap off. Moves the boxes onto 4 other pallets, and each of those goes to a separate forklift driver who puts them on shelves.
When the item leaves, it’s placed in plastic bags, then a box, then goes on a pallet that gers wrapped in a dozen layers of plastic wrap. Onto the truck for shipping elsewhere.
They have a truck that comes twice a day to replace a shipping container filled with plastic.
So much plastic, every day, all day, they only close for Christmas and 4th of July.
Am I still going to use anything but plastic wherever possible? Sure. Am I still going to pick up that piece of plastic and put it in the recycling bin? Absolutely.
Companies suck and will blame you for their shitty treatment just like every abuser does.
You’re exactly correct. I used to work in a manufacturing environment, and the amount of single-use plastic our production team used on a daily basis was staggering. I would estimate that company created as much plastic waste in one day as my household did in three months.
Consumer recycling or boycotts is only a drop in the bucket. Industry will have to shift away from single-use plastic if we’re going to have any chance of saving ourselves from a future filled with generations worth of garbage.
I don’t think plastic waste is specific to capitalism.
No, but the ultra wealthy having the wealthy necessary to bribe politicians, buy all our media, and push endless disinformation with zero accountability are all a direct result of capitalism.
Publically owner companies, like the USPS, are extremely transparent with how they spend money and they are held to far higher ethical standards than private companies are.
Yeah social democracy is good but it doesn’t make plastic waste disappear, neither would fascism, it’s nonsequitur.
Plastic is cheap. It would be as cheap for a communism as it is a capitalism.
Indeed, the 1st and 3rd worst offenders for plastic per capita are administrative regions of China (Macau and Hong Kong) https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/plastic-pollution-by-country
They’re also a capitalism, though, so yeah.
Me rinsing the yogurt container before putting it in the recycling bin vs reading that a Belgian airline had 3000 empty flights just to keep airport slots
Recycling is chemically possible at very high temperatures and pressures; it’s just energy intensive and wasn’t financially feasible until just about now, when solar energy can offer cheap energy.
We’ll see how this will develop in the future. For the point of oil consumption (and therefore CO2 emission), plastics is only like 3% of oil consumption anyways (other 97% is fuel for vehicles). For the point of pollution, you don’t need recycling, just collecting and combusting at high temperatures (to fully oxydize it and not leave any toxic fumes.
We recently built a plastic recycling facility here in sweden which recycles… 12 types of plastic i think? several of which were basically not possible before.
so yeah it’s definitely possible to recycle plastics, countries have just been refusing to actually take measures to make it happen.
just collecting and combusting at high temperatures
You mean GHG pollution.
This is why I need to remember the based takes I had when I was young.
I always thought it was silly that we were told to recycle because, who could do anything with an old half-melted plastic bottle of coke? But I assumed the people who owned the companies knew something I didn’t.
I still recycle because it’s just the right thing to do, but… I wonder what other lies I accidentally called.
I’m sure you called many…
what’s the fix?
For the harm that’s already been done? Time.
For the future? Regulation.
Regulation
that’s extremely vague, what does the regulation do? Does it limit types of plastic? Uses of plastic? Production quantities? Waste allocations?
I’m not a plastic or environmental specialist, so I can’t say. Surely you don’t expect me to know all the answers, do you? Come on, now.
I’d think regulation would encompass all the things you mentioned, possibly more like subsidizing the use of non-plastics in industrial applications, for example.
My point is that regulations are likely insufficient.
What we really need is a reduction in consumption. We need to stop living life as “dedicated waste manufacturers”.
Here’s a useful article to help get over the limits of regulations: https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
Did you link the wrong thing?
Obviously, individuals also matter. Vote with your wallet, always.
However, pointing the finger at consumers seems fruitless? People will do the most convenient thing, not the best thing. As such, I’d suspect it best to make the most convenient thing equal the best thing.
I’m not trying to say that pushing for anti-consumerism and sustainable consumption is wrong—as a matter of fact, I think that’s great and it’s something I do, personally—but I do think that, at the end of the day, if disposable plastic bags are handed out, people will use them; if fruits are wrapped in plastic, people will use it; if plastic straws come with drinks, people will use them; if disposable cutlery is for sale, people will buy it. The solution is, therefore, to regulate this stuff. Maybe ban it, even.
Get rid of them. I was very young but existed in the 70’s and the grocery store did not have all the plastics and there was plenty of convenience in foods. Its amazing what glass, paper, and aluminum can do. Glass was not even recycled usually. Had a deposit added to the cost and got it back when you returned it to the store where the person supplying the item took them back and they were washed and reused. It was why bottle caps were so prevalent.
glass was not even recycled usually
Yeah, we would reuse it (as the order implies in reduce, reuse, recycle). Recycling glass takes wayyyyyyy more energy than cleaning it. But the glass makers benefit more from access to cheap broken glass, so we get them lobbying so that glass recycling drop-off/containers almost force you to shatter every bottle you put into them…
Damn, talk about broken window economics
Dropping at the grocery store bottle return and you can hear the glasses being shattered shortly after scanning.
Yeah put think about all the rain forest you saved by using plastic bags!
I know you’re joking, but as far as aluminum is concerned, this is true. Which is why paper and glass are crucial.
I think this is sarcastic but just in case. Given how much paper we used before and that this is something that works great with recycled paper and that we can make paper from grasses like bamboo now, I don’t see the need for rainforest cutting to do it.
Yes it was sarcastic. Plastic bags were pushed to “save the rain forest”. But we never had the problem to begin with. We have since switched to mostly tree plantations for are wood/paper production.
Everything is a compromise. We could bring back paper in a larger scale, but then more land would have to be dedicated to working forests which are sustainable but aren’t ecologically friendly. We could bring back glass in a larger scale, but that would make shipments much heavier thus increasing the emissions required to ship it.
We handled the paper needed for all the paperwork that has gone away and we did not even use non tree alternatives at that time. Plus the grocery usages work well with recycled paper. Most of what glass is used for is filled locally. You don’t ship cans of pop or beer from china. Since most glass was liquids the container is not a majority of the weight.
Just an FYI, shipping means “the process of transporting packages and mail from one location to another” not literally transporting goods internationally on a ship.
Yeah I was pointing out just the minimal effect. Shipping locally has the capability of being able to be done with clean energy and then there is the whole most of the weight is from the liquid thing. Not implying international shipping is the only prospect but more how its not really tradeoffs as all the tradeoffs are better options.
Significant reduction in single use plastics, banning plastic use in certain products (even non-single-use), and a drastic increase in accountability for producers and consumers.
You don’t need to ban plastics, you just regulate the people making things to have to ethically dispose of the waste generated by their products. They will pretty rapidly switch to something they can actually dispose of. The manufacturer needs to be responsible for the full life cycle of their products.
They don’t actually have alternatives in the single-use realm. The result must be an end to it, bankruptcy from their perspective.
If we replace plastic containers with containers that are paper covered in PFAS and similar substances, we’re not solving the problems.
I mean if they have to dispose of it properly then they are either going to try it on with PFAS coated paper and realise there’s no way to get rid of it or they are going to find better alternatives. It hinges on real penalties, fines for companies, fines and jail time for CEO and wider C-suite for breaches.
I disagree that full responsibility needs to go on the manufacturer. An undeniable issue with our current system is that consumers expect to throw all plastic in one bin that isn’t the garbage and be done with it. There are lots of different ways to set up responsibility, but on top of production changes plastic “recycling” will need to change significantly from the user perspective. Things like stronger deposit programs would be a bare minimum to start addressing the consumer side (in tandem with measures addressing production of course)
Arguably the manufacturers should be responsible for paying to collect the waste generated by their products and that in itself should be regulated to ensure they don’t take the piss. Industry has proven time and time again that they can’t be trusted with self regulation and will always choose the maximal short term profit path.
Better government
For capitalism: horizontal organizing
For plastic waste: plastic-eating fungi
For plastic waste: plastic-eating fungi
It’s going to be fun when I have to spray my computer devices with fungicides.
You’re expected to keep your computer dry enough to not have this problem in general.
Compared to every computer lasting forever, this sounds worth it.
