Metal and paper recycling is super useful.

But yes, plastic recycling is a massive lie that probably does quite a bit more harm/waste than it would be just to throw it in the landfill

This is wrong, please stop spreading this misinformation.

It probably differs from country to country, but in Germany, for example, between 38-48% of plastic is recycled (source). Sure, that‘s far from all of it, but still far, far better than nothing. Falsely claiming that recycling is mostly a scam and, by that, implying that it doesn‘t make sense to try to recycle you trash, is a horrible idea and only makes the situation worse.

Are you sure that’s still the case? I know china stopped accepting it ages ago - that’s why most recycling just goes to domestic landfill now.

My area has recycling presort. So we have two bins that get picked up by the trucks. One garbage, one recycling. They dump them into the same hole on the truck. They drive the truck into the same building. The only thing the comes out of the building are loaded train cars. They all look the same. So all the neighbors presort their trash. And the trash company mixes them back together. Thanks trash company!

Basic economics dictates that recycling plastic isn’t profitable otherwise industry would be doing it, itself. –That doesn’t make it a scam. It’s more like bad marketing.

Some of it will be truly recycled like with hdpe. Some will be used more conscientiously by being sent for plasma gasification. Lots of it will still get sent to the landfill, but that’s better then sending all of it. Something rarely mentioned is that most plastics become less stable each time they’re melted down, making them increasingly difficult to recycle.

It’s believed that ~75% of all Aluminium that has ever been produced is still in use because it’s economically more viable to recycle old aluminum than refine new. Alumium refinement is a highly energy intensive process.

Single stream recycling is a scam. Multi stream is much better. I recycle my paper and metals separately from glass and plastics for this reason. Wish there was an easy way to recycle glass too, but the collection networks aren’t as widespread as the other two.

IIRC, that’s actually how it was set up to begin with, way back when we used glass bottles for Coke. Big companies manipulated us consumers into thinking we were being lazy for not taking care of recycling ourselves and that’s how we got to this mess today.

People are like “but the plastic bottle is free and easy”, and I’m like that’s because all those costs are paid for later, by everyone. It’s really frustrating but common short sightedness.

No one should be allowed to product something without a plan for disposing of it safely and without environmental cost. I’m willing to suffer the inconvenience of carrying a reusable bag if it means less environmental destruction.

If the companies try and make the consumer eat the cost, then the companies who sell their products in cardboard packaging instead of plastic will be able to sell it for cheaper and potentially steal business from the others. There are plenty of products sold in plastic which do not need to be.

You can literally just put a tax on new plastic bottles vs recycled plastic bottles and the issue solves itself, the issue with recycling is that it’s not economically viable.

Customers will indeed eat the cost. The idea is that a competitor uses something else and makes a cheaper product. Unfortunately the taxes are never really enough, so you just end up with the same plastic use and a token amount going to a third world farmer to scatter some tree seeds in a field.

If a product cost more, you won’t buy as much or waste as much or you will end up using something cheaper.

If the rule is that using plastic is now higher cost, we will start looking for cheaper alternatives. That’s how it will work. So yes, for a while, consumer goods will cost more.

Razor sharp post.

The iSheep are down voting you. 😆

Too in love with their gadgets to take a joke.

I’m actually not too sure about that. I am currently using an older iPhone (and I really dislike Apple, it’s just that the stupid device just does not stop working) and from an environmental perspective, throwing that away would surely be worse than continuing to use it, right?

I fully accept that what might be environmentally good today is not wholly obtainable. This things like this are what I must do as a part of the society that doesn’t have better means for whatever reason.

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This is the answer. The best way to deal with the plastic problem is to stop producing it. The three R’s are in the order they are for a reason. Recycling is the last thing to try.

One of the big issues with recycling plastics is that plastic has a very specific chemical makeup that gives it the properties it requires, and one major way to mess up that composition is heat. So, even if you can perfectly sort plastics into their respective types, simply heating them up to re-cast into pellets or something else can affect their properties to a state that they’re not usable anymore. Add on top the fact that you will not be able to perfectly sort plastics by composition so you will always end up with a significant amount of impurity makes recycling very difficult.

Almost NO plastics are recyclable. That little recycling icon means absolutely nothing. Plastic producing companies should be paying to clean this planet up for their catastrophic deception.

Yeah, usually these companies just end up storing it all in a warehouse or a field until they go bankrupt, then the people behind that company start another company doing the same. And yeah, they promise they’re working on technology to do the actual future recycling, but it never pans out.

I don’t see any of those things reducing microplastics in the environment nor plastic being dumped in the rivers and ocean. The motivation behind recycling has very little to do with climate change.

Could just stop running one cruise ship for like 15 minutes.

Am I wrong I thinking that the CO2 emission from plastics is missing the point a bit. The issue in my mind is that the plastics remain in nature for a very long time with unknown health risks to us and the ecosystem.

When comparing a plastic bag vs a paper bag for shopping I hear the argument that making the paper bag has a lot more co2 emissions tied to it. But if I throw it in the bin it will be mulch before the end of the month.

None of these are practical choices for an average anyone because the vast majority of the product of our labor is stolen from us. Yet, we’re asked to sacrifice to preserve those corporate profits.

No. It’d be insane to make sacrifices for the benefit of my oppressor. Instead, I’ll make larger sacrifices for revolution and my neighbors.

I mean, it’s an interesting point but do keep in mind how much lower effort light bulbs are compared to a plant based diet. If you compare eating 1/8 less meat (like meatless Mondays) that’s still probably harder than swapping to less shitty light bulbs.

Messaging should include both, although I’m with you that the focus is disproportionately on less efficient methods (especially plastic recycling, which is mostly a way to pass blame to consumers).

Since I’m not planning on having any children, I can eat 7 times as much meat as I do now and still net a reduction in CO2! And I don’t like flying, so that brings me up to almost 10x as much meat in my diet!

I’m having trouble opening the link but found it again.

Here in case anyone else also had trouble.

This one is for Americans who use cars as shoes, umbrellas and shopping bags. Normally, the need to switch to a plant-based would be higher.

The recycle bin? You mean the other landfill bin, right?

This is a great video, love this one, thanks for sharing!

If everyone has another 20 minutes, John Oliver delves into the topic some more.

We should still try to recycle as member of our community (and the world populace) but it’s the corporations that need to be held accountable and forced to take action. Because as it stands now they are lobbying hard to shift the blame to consumers and make it difficult to ban single use products, while also avoiding packaging innovations and laws that promote such change - 'cause, you know…profits.

Yo a climate town share! Awesome!

Vulture Capital*

That’s a lot of Funko Pops. /s

Wake me up when the supernova starts.