For people who don’t know, you just buy certificates and your company is clean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_certificate
“Other people don’t so why should I.”
This meme is terrible.
Recycling is just shipping it to Asia and they just lump ship it so even if you separate it doesn’t matter.
A lot of non-recyclable plastics get lumped in and it’s more of a landfill than recycling.
Not to say we shouldn’t recycle but that we shouldn’t use plastics.
You’re missing the point. Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Google aren’t people. They’re criminal corporations given free reign to poison the rest of us.
I’m not arguing that you shouldn’t try sustainability. I was brought up with the mindset. We sort our garbage, I mend and reuse as much as I can. It’s good not just for the environment and your wallet, but it’s also a protest against the consumerism pushed onto society.
That doesn’t mean that we should focus only on individual action (or inaction) and turning away from the actions of these massive corporations particularly not when they’re blatantly flaunting them right in front of us. What point is there in me criticising you for taking an aeroplane to visit your family once or twice a year when you have Donald, Musk, and Taylor Swift riding private jets on a weekly basis? Like it doesn’t even compare.
The Toxic Lie of American Recycling: How Plastic Shipments Are Destroying Asia
For decades, the U.S., along with other countries, have been sending much of its plastic “recycling” to Asian countries to process, as running a well-functioning recycling program is more labor intensive and expensive than Americans would care to operate.[1] This relationship began as a way for Asian countries to turn a profit by importing the U.S.’ recycling to manufacture into new plastics.[2] But when the imports became excessive as Americans used more and more plastic, some countries chose to ban them, leaving an even heavier burden on places still accepting the imports.[3] Malaysia is one such country feeling this strain.[4]
In 2018, China, Asia’s largest recycling importer at the time, ceased 99% of its plastic imports.[5] Malaysia learned just how much recycling China had been taking when it much of it began showing up at their ports.[6] While from a legal standpoint, Malaysia still has a say in how much recycling they accept, there is a strong network of illegal imports that fly under the radar and pollute Malaysia’s air, water, and soil.[7] Unlicensed operations in Malaysia import recycling, hire cheap labor, establish factories, and process the plastic in dangerous and toxic ways without adherence to environmental regulations.[8] Not everything that is illegally imported is turned over for manufacturing, leaving a good part of the plastic to rot or burn in illegal landfills, causing plumes of toxic smoke and contaminated groundwater linked to widespread illness.[9] The Malaysian government says enforcement attempts to stop illegal operations has been feeble.[10]
STOP CONSUMING SINGLE USE PLASTICS YOU ASSHOLES.
That goes 1000x for multinationals. But anyone bitching about recycling is either ignorant on this point or outright maliciously perpetrating the problem.
I don’t for the most part, I’m not sure why my response would make you think I do.
But yes, I agree with your point. Maybe this comment was meant for the main post?
The point is to speak up and demand change. The disposition of blame (or the disproportionate onus of responsibility) should frustrate everyone.
Just don’t use products made by these corporations. It’s your choice. Stop pretending it is not.
Edit: WELLL, maybe except Google or Apple, since it is forced on society to use smartphones, which sucks, but that’s where some government regulation could help.
Yea, gonna stop using things and live naked in the wilderness.
Post video!
Wait…
Just as I said, maybe except Android or Apple smartphones, neither of these tech companies create products which are required for a living. And there are usually some more eco-friendly alternatives in another industries as well, even if more expensive ones.
Google controls all smartphones, Amazon controls most products that I can’t find locally, Microsoft controls all computers, even if I don’t use windows generally I still have to pay the Microsoft tax.
Every other product I can buy like pants also come from companies that pollute, usually in China.
The problem isn’t exclusively those companies in the pic, it’s every single one of them, those are just bigger.
The problem is fundamentally capitalism and changing from a buying from one big company to a small one only makes so the small company now has funds to pollute more instead.
The Internet runs on AWS.
Far more effective to boycott those companies instead. I stopped buying BP products because of how terrible they are.
I stopped buying BP products because of how terrible they are.
What was the effectiveness of this? Was it “far more” than, say, regulation by a government?
I just want to be clear that not buying things isn’t a boycott.
There’s a great video on this topic.
Where I live, they don’t pick up green waste. You have to take all of that to the dump and pay a good amount of money to throw your green waste in with the trash.
It’s absolutely bullshit.
start composting, and turn that green waste into green money (or food)
start composting
In my non-existent backyard?
Can’t you just put your green waste in the trash?
Yeah, I tried that. They refused to pick up the trash that week and they gave me a nasty little letter.
Sounds like a them problem. Sandwich it between all your trash.
I’d just get a sort of grinder and grind it all into a paste. Sort through it bitches.
Wtf are they gonna do? Take me to the trash court?
And if they do, I’ll dry the paste into solid chunks and throw it specificaly at their mamas
Blacklist your property. My downstairs neighbors ruined it for a three apartment building once. Had to have the city intervene, and they kept sneaking trash into our bins until I put a game camera up
Blacklist your property.
Lol best way for me to dump my trash in front of their office building every week, then into the forest when they put cameras up.
As long as I pay for my damn trash to be taken away, they will take it no matter what trash I throw out. And they better thank me for separating my shit and not throwing electronics in the trash.
Yes, but the main issue is how mixed the materials are in our consumables. Mixed recycling is basically bullshit. We should have more standardized packaging and more categories of separation strictly enforced. Japan does this pretty well.
You could opt in to pay extra for sorting if you can afford it sure.
And emissions need to be better taxed, and illegal dumping and discharge into rivers and such a jailable crime with big fines for businesses with accountability going right up the chain to investors.
Japan’s ultra-organized and visible garbage separation is mostly for show and establishing “social harmony.” 80% of their municipal waste is thrown into incinerators- the highest of all countries in the OECD.
That’s a result of Tokyo and the other biggest cities only separating into recyclable bottles, non-recyclable or non-burnable material (i.e. inorganics) and all the rest which is as you say incinerated.
They also have some, if not the most clean burning incenerators in the world, and they use the waste material for construction and land reclamation.
Burning plastics at very high temperatures is far more environmentally friendly than sending them to landfills or attempting to recycle them.
Nevertheless they are known for excess packaging and obviously my arguments about standardization still apply to Japan as much as anyone else.
Japan is also very short on space which i think is a major factor in why they use incinerators more than traditional landfills.
The UK Government are taking steps to address this, whilst also charging the companies for the material they use as well as charging extra if it’s a mix. The situation is currently a mess with the rules being different only a mile down the road, so even just to have some standardisation is appreciated.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/simpler-recycling-household-recycling-in-england
This is nice to see. I wish they’d actually do something about our water companies too.
Washington State does this well too. Almost every bin you see, from downtown Seattle to upstate near Victoria to Mount Rainier, everything is separated by trash, metal, and paper
Edit: or something similar. Haven’t been up to Washington in a bit
liberal climate action in a nutshell
it’s hard when no true left party can get any attention and fucking centrists are all that’s left
Doesn’t help with the centrists either claim they’re the left or think doing anything is too far left 😭
Hopefully AOC will out shumer (sic) and we can make a start at it
How about we start shipping recyclables back to the company that made them to recycle them?
you know those little dots on the bottom of glass bottles? they shave one off every time it’s recycled. whether it goes back to the original manufacturer or not, idk. but you can occasionally get recycled bottles with your drink.
they shave one off every time it’s recycled
I suppose in this case, you would call it “reused”?
They are probably cleaned with boiling water and some chemicals before being refilled.By “recycling”, I would normally think of melting and reforming.
i mean if we’re splitting hairs, yeah. here reuse is typically talked about as the individual reusing, recycling as industry reusing/processing.
Yeah, that’s another way it makes sense.
No way either word is going to match this case with both definitions.
Sorting your trash is the human equivalent of planting a tree, and it’s especially valuable if you have/teach children. It’s a small activity that helps to build better habits and mindsets.
It won’t change the world today, but it will build a foundation for changing the world tomorrow.
This reminds me of something I was commenting about yesterday.
Focus on your immediate environment first, and make your little corner of the world better before you worry about saving the universe.
And like you said, it is a habit and mindset thing. If you plant a tree in your yard or in your community, no it will not save the rain forest, but your mental health and physical health and living conditions will all be slightly better off than they were before it.
If you start intentionally working in these positive actions that provide tiny incremental improvements, before you know it you may be feeling more than incrementally better.
If you start intentionally working in these positive actions that provide tiny incremental improvements, before you know it you may be feeling more than incrementally better.
some of those positive actions and changes can be really fun, too. sometimes it’s hard to tell whether you’re going to enjoy something before you dive into it, especially when the brain is in misery mode.
YES!
It is not always easy to judge how much an activity will benefit you going by how much you want to do it beforehand. It is not always as simple as exercising and eating your vegetables either. Shit’s complex.
I describe it like each of our brains has a long, detailed, and customized user manual – but we don’t get a copy. We can choose to attempt to reverse engineer that manual if we have the right motivation.
the example i am currently working on is my e-trike. i bought it simply thinking i would finally be able to get around town without relying on people for rides, and the change in my overall health and general outlook has been dramatic (well, dramatic for me. i’m a drama queen).
It’s a small change that everyone can make for themselves, and for their piece of mind. This shouldn’t feel like a chore - and even more so a particular blame we take on from the big corpos.
Doing what’s technically right is what will change the world - even if our enemy is a corpo cartel.
If what is right is butchering the capitalist class¹. Yes.
¹pretty sure that’s a big part of it.
Every tree you plant will be torn out.
Right so we should just never plant trees and never even try to give back to the planet that provides everything we need to live because one day that tree might be ripped out or cut down, or die naturally.
Until you kill the fuckers tearing them out, you’re just lying, making yourself comfortable with doing nothing.
We absolutely need to be planting and nourishing those trees.
And they must, unfortunately, be watered with blood.
the corpses of the bourgeoisie would make excellent fertilizer
I’ve planted several trees in my life and none of them have been torn out. A few have burned in a forest fire, though.
Dont forget about paper straws!!!
I know this isn’t the point, but I do like to carry a set of portable cutlery around and often use it eating out. It’s usually a smallish case with metal straw(s), chopsticks, a knife, spoon, fork. Which one time lead to me forgetting my metal straw at the restaurant of course…
I’ve got a similar set.
Fun fact; you can get a set of like 12 metal straws pretty cheap, and at least the set I got came with silicone mouthpieces, so if you forget one somewhere you can just throw a new one in!
Do you just carry the dirty utensils with you after eating, aren’t there biodegradable single use utensils out there, why not use that instead
You wipe em, and make sure to wash em later. Biodegradable single use will still be more wasteful and probably cost more.
I have a fork that has lived in my work van for over 3 years. A little bit of spit and napkin and its ready to go, maybe some hand sanitizer if I’m feeling fancy.
I just do it to help the people that makes a buck recollecting re-usable garbage like plastic bottles and plastic stuff in general
It’s not bad to do. We probably even need to be doing it.
It’s just like putting a band-aid on a papercut while the three inch radius hole in your chest sprays blood
Yes it’s true, but to me it’s not mind, time or physically consuming to throw on the right bin
Yeah if it’s exactly zero effort it’s fine, but asking others or shaming them for not is counterproductive.
Unless you think you can somehow reason with billionaires¹ there us precisely one way out and we need to stop pretending anything else will help until that is done.
If you are not a killer, you are not helping the climate.
¹you can’t. People have tried and it did not go well. That’s why we have such a bunker boom!)
Regular recycling isn’t even an option where I live. You can literally only get a regular trash container. Sticks/leaves etc they’ll take if you bring it to a center but there’s no collection for that either.
Also pick up that can
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