• starlinguk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    103·
    7 days ago

    They didn’t invent plastic recycling. They are, however, using it as an excuse to make more plastic. The EU had regulations against over packaging (like putting cucumbers in plastic) for a while until plastic recycling became a thing and they went ‘meh’.

  • William@mander.xyzEnglish
    77·
    7 days ago

    Same thing with “carbon footprint”, which was invented by B.P to shift the blame for climate change onto the consumer.

    I’m not saying don’t try to reduce your emissions by using electric vehicles, going plant based or at least reducing animal product intake, and limiting flying, just that it’s pretty meaningless in the whole scale of things, so instead of focusing on the individual, focus on organizing protests, disrupting, and other collective action.

    • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      10·
      6 days ago

      I’m not saying don’t try to reduce your emissions by…

      I’ll say it. Don’t do these things because you think they reduce your carbon emissions. Do it when it’s the most frugal option.

      Reduce and reuse are still something we should 100% being doing but trying to measure then inject carbon foot print is futile.

      Every dollar spend it a better measurement of your contribution to emissions. Trying to calculate it yourself with incomplete data is pointless.

      Don’t be fooled by some study you read that made you feel like a righteous person. No one knows. The methods we have for measuring and assessing our footprint are hilariously incompete.

      The truth is buried in endless noise. We don’t know what we need to know because it is in the best interests of others that we not know it. Blindspots.

      Buy less products because buy “better” is a personal fantasy. Where better is because some popsci idea made you feel guilty for not being better. What the fuck do these things know, they’re bullshitting. Yes people do that; not just on the internet but definitely there.

      • freebee@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        8·
        6 days ago

        There is “buy better”, it is not but a fantasy.

        Buy more local / regional produced food and products, less km travelled and support local people. Buy products made from longer lasting materials if there are different versions. Buy fairtrade when it’s available for coffee, cacao, bananas, pineapple, etc. Buy bio if available. None of it is perfect, but you are still voting with your wallet and not perfect is often still better than the cheapest there is.

        If you can afford it.

        Buying better definitely does exist and, for non-consumable goods, definitely can result in buying less. My washing machine is from the early nineties. I expect my steamdeck to last for 2 decades at least, because it seems repairable and software won’t ever be the bottleneck. I have sweaters I wear that are over 25 years old. Endless noise just makes it hard to identify which product is the better one, you’ll often only be sure long after the purchase… And the at first sight most frugal option will often not be the better buy.

    • BussyCat@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      6 days ago

      Individuals are essentially useless on a global scale but companies like BP aren’t drilling for oil to accomplish their sinister goal of warming the earth they are producing a product that all of us as individuals are purchasing.

      It’s like you are in a dog park that’s covered in dog shit, just because there’s shit everywhere doesn’t mean you shouldn’t clean up after your dog. Telling other people they don’t need to worry about cleaning up their shit because the guy with the dog training school doesn’t clean up any of the shit from the dogs still makes you bad.

      You cleaning up after your dog isn’t going to clean the whole park but doing nothing until a petition is done that enforces cleaning up your dog isn’t the way. I’m not asking you to spend all day trying to clean the park but you should at least do your best to not make it worse

      • bort@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        1·
        4 days ago

        I’m not asking you to spend all day trying to clean the park but you should at least do your best to not make it worse

        that is a useful mindset for those who fear a systemic solution.

        the people who would have to organise instead spend their effort on other things, like cleaning up dog shit; Or arguing how much shit you need to clean up, before you are morally allowed to advokate for a systemic solution.

        the more the anti-dogshitters are splintered, the easier it is for the pro-dogshitters to keep the status quo

  • TomMasz@piefed.socialEnglish
    52·
    7 days ago

    I’m old enough to have both lead and plastic in my brain, lungs, and testicles. I envy you youngins with only plastic in you.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.worldEnglish
    26·
    6 days ago

    I do wonder, maybe there is similar scheme when it comes to housing affordability. There is too much of a coincidence that much of the Western countries are having the same housing crisis. Most ordinary Westerners are perplexed to find out other countries also have the same issue, or are surprised they can’t find a place to live when they move abroad. There is a deliberate manipulation of the housing market and misinformation. Here in Ireland, after all, foreign vulture funds outbid locals and then either rent or sell properties at extortionate price. And yet, the wrong kind of foreigners are getting blamed.

    • BanMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
      25·
      6 days ago

      It’s because we allow property and the homes that sit on it to be a speculative market. We encourage it. The only way for property values to be high, well, it’s a supply and demand thing. If you glut the market with anything, you drive prices down. And people whose entire retirement is built on that won’t be having it, let alone the conglomerate owners…

      China is trying to steer into the opposite with laws against it. Not sure how well that’s working, but they can acknowledge the issue at least.

      • ray@lemmy.mlEnglish
        6·
        5 days ago

        In the US the whole idea of owning a house as your “nest egg” that keeps growing forever in a way that you can retire with is so toxic. And then there’s also the retirement funds demanding huge returns on real estate.

      • prototact@lemmy.zipEnglish
        6·
        5 days ago

        Yeah exactly, housing is used as a value storage for large players when they need to use a generic asset in between investments. It’s relatively safe but its value is passive, it is driven by the rest of the market. Plus it’s great for money laundering and bribing politicians or officials. So all this manipulation raises the prices for everyone, and most people don’t benefit from it. It’s just so greedy and abusive.

      • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        Furthermore, we then tie it all into the stock market and link our future pensions to that. So we can never really change the system otherwise everything will collapse.

        It’s like a house of cards.

  • F_State@midwest.socialEnglish
    36·
    6 days ago

    Important to note that recycling some things makes sense, like metal. And recycling glass makes sense but sanitizing and reusing bottles makes alot more sense. There’s also been a push to compost as much paper product as possible since that makes way more sense than recycling paper. Our green bins now take any brown cardboard with no tape and pizza boxes.

    • uniquethrowagay@feddit.orgEnglish
      18·
      6 days ago

      PET for example is also feasable to recycle. Problem with plastic recycling is mostly that plastic waste is not just one type of plastic.

    • blubfisch@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      How does composting paper make more sense than recycling? From what I can tell we have pretty well established paper recycling mechanisms, at least here in Germany.

      Edit: typo.

      • F_State@midwest.socialEnglish
        8·
        6 days ago

        In most countries, recycling paper only made financial sense if they shipped it to poor countries or used prison labor so it could be inexpensively sorted thru. Traditionally it was China, but they stopped accepting it. And letting microorganisms do what they do consumes less resources like electricity and less industrial chemicals.

        • causepix@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          5 days ago

          In Germany the recycling is sorted at the household level, rather than the mixed recycling that is practiced in other countries. The paper, plastic, glass, and compost all get their own bins and/or bag color.

          • F_State@midwest.socialEnglish
            1·
            5 days ago

            When recycling first started where I live, we had multiple bins. Paper, and i want to say metal/glass and plastic. Plus garbage and yard waste. But I’m refering to the fact that paper by itself faces additional sorting prior to recycling.

        • blubfisch@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          I am pretty sure recycling does not require more energy than using fresh trees. You can even use the waste pulp to produce biogas.

  • lectricleopard@lemmy.worldEnglish
    36·
    7 days ago

    I recycle when convenient. I have two cans the same company empties, one for trash one for recycling. I’ll fill the recycling, and overflow goes in the trash.

    My wife hates it, but the amount of plastic trash that factories produce just blows consumer household recycling out of the water. There are people whose jobs include fillling a whole dumpster each shift. No comparison. Im not bending over backward to be little Dutch boy with my finger in the dam while it’s got a backhoe digging out the foundation.

    • ikt@aussie.zoneEnglish
      9·
      7 days ago

      do companies/factories in your country not also recycle what they can? are they not paying money to garbage collectors who are incentivised by the state to sort their garbage?

      • lectricleopard@lemmy.worldEnglish
        18·
        7 days ago

        Ha! Hahaha haha!

        I have never once seen a garbage inspector at any of the places I’ve worked. I have been instructed by my employer to dump or otherwise dispose of things questionably, many, many times.

        • MoonMelon@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          6 days ago

          Boss once had me fill a dumpster with old halogen flourescent bulbs. Probably 90% of them shattered in the process. Then it turns out that was the wrong dumpster so we had to shovel all the broken bits into another. Didn’t learn they had mercury in them for a decade. I was 15. So that’s cool, wonder what that did.

            • MoonMelon@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              6 days ago

              Sorry I meant “flourescent” apparently. It was this kind. My uncle’s business was moving into an office that was some 1970s government office and somehow I got roped into the re-fit.

      • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        4·
        7 days ago

        One small semi-relevant data point (not commercial though):

        In San Jose, California (1hr south of San Francisco), they might occasionally audit residential recycling containers to make sure folks aren’t dumping trash. Drive around early before pickup.

    • Tabula_stercore@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      7 days ago

      Typical dutch… Why even try to better the world? Why would I try to better myself if others dont? As long as my garden is green the world can burn

    • pika@lemmy.todayEnglish
      14·
      6 days ago

      Just don’t eat them!

      …and don’t think about how many tons the Lego company produces in a year unless you want to cry.

    • Zink@programming.devEnglish
      8·
      6 days ago

      A lot of right-wing people use … as an excuse to not care about … at all…

      I thought your comment would be one of those rare instances where you can make a sentence more accurate by generalizing it.

      They REALLY like doing it with people, and ruining the environment and/or climate is just shitting on other people (especially the poor ones) with an added level of abstraction.

  • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
    11·
    6 days ago

    Manufacturers have no responsibility or regulation in packaging. Buy some items made of metal, and you still generate immediate plastic packaging waste. Some of that plastic has recycling symbols on them, but they can be fake, and again, no regulation.

    So all we really recycle is clear PETG. 90% of recycling plastics are landfill. We put stuff in blue bins to remove consumer guilt.

        • BussyCat@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          6 days ago

          Filters and stripping columns. It’s not that hard to do and if you have a clean source of plastics (not mixed with garbage) then it’s basically all just hydrocarbons with a little bit of nitrogen. Carbon + oxygen + hydrogen = CO2 and H2O which while we don’t need more CO2 it’s significantly better then generating that same energy from oil as it is cleaning up our waste vs extracting more from the ground.

          Its a lot harder when you do trash incineration as that has a lot more nasty stuff in it but plastics are easy

  • Schlemmy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    4 days ago

    We have these groups of volunteers gathering trash along the roadside. The more they collect the more they can earn for their good cause or their organisation.

    They’re being cheap cleanup for the companies that sell trash and by collecting trash they keep the stats down.

  • potoooooooo ☑️@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    7 days ago

    If you’d recycled more, there wouldn’t have been any plastic to end up in your blood, organs, etc… Who’s really the one shirking responsibility?

    • ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zipEnglish
      28·
      7 days ago

      Plastic recycling is one of the primary sources of microplastics. They use jets of air to remove labels, which creates an enormous cloud of microplastic. People who live near plastic “recycling” plants have more plastic in their bodies than people who don’t.

      There are articles about this out there.

        • ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2·
          7 days ago

          Yes, based on what I’ve read. Less than 5% of the plastic that consumers place in recycling bins actually gets recycled. The rest is shipped to other countries, who then dump it in the ocean. When you throw plastic in the garbage it ends up in a domestic landfill. Landfills certainly aren’t ideal, but at least we know where it is, and it’s better than the ocean.

            • ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zipEnglish
              2·
              6 days ago

              I’m seeing a lot of articles putting the rate at 5%. Google is just so much worse than it used to be…

              That 5% figure is 3 years old, and one report from 2018 had the figure at 8.7% so it appears to be dropping. Based on the political climate in the US that number is unlikely to my rise anytime soon.

              That 5% figure comes from The Guardian, a British newspaper, which I would actually trust more than a domestic source at this point. Based on what I’ve read about what the Trump administration has done to the EPA, I would imagine any new pollution reports won’t be a possibility for a while.

        • FosterMolasses@leminal.spaceEnglish
          8·
          7 days ago

          It’s more like “Let’s stop using plastic instead of patting ourselves on the back with a bandaid solution.” I know this can be hard for people who equate their environmental consumer habits with = “I’m a good person” and in turn make it out to be a personal attack, even though it isn’t.

          Consider investing in a personality outside of environmental moral superiority and the switch to cardboard will be easy for you, barely an inconvenience.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      7 days ago

      This would almost make sense if there weren’t thousands of corporations, and 8 billion other humans, doing whatever the fuck they want…