The fact that my food comes in an endless stream of plastic instead of just waxed paper is not my choice. The companies that make these products should be held legally responsible. Non recyclable plastics should be illegal for disposable purposes, and the plastics should be taxed enough to run regional recycling centers - with it being illegal to NOT use a certain percentage of the plastics recovered from these centers.
this post was submitted on 18 May 2023
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This is a problem with a clear legal solution, and guilting consumers into feeling responsible is not effectively solving it and never will. Nor was it really designed to, it was just a scheme to divert responsibility.
@Urban_Hermit @green You're absolutely right.
There's an absolutely massive cross-subsidy for companies that manufacture and sell products.
They've almost never been financially responsible for the end-of-life costs of the products they make. Or, for that matter, the full social and environmental costs of their manufacture and use.
Virgin plastic is cheaper to manufacture than plastic that has been recovered and recycled. That recovery and recycling cost is generally not paid by the original manufacturer.
Instead, some of those costs are borne by taxpayers and municipal ratepayers. But most have been carried by developing countries, which have been paid to dispose of the waste out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
I strongly suspect that if the full costs of recovery and recycling were included in the upfront cost of plastic products, many would simply not be viable. Certainly not for disposable products or packaging.
Instead, we'd have less packaging, and more products would be either reusable or biodegradable.
@Urban_Hermit @ajsadauskas @green
Rather than calling it guilting, perhaps take it as good advice?
Often essentially all the focus is placed on the companies who produce the stuff, then we go and buy little plastic bottles of cola.
We don’t need to drink cola.
Clearly in that case, in buying the cola, we are putting brief pleasure and convenience over the environment. Maybe while telling ourselves we have a conscience and trying to place the responsibility solely with companies that exist because people buy the product.
@siobhansarelle @ajsadauskas @green
No, we are not.
The plastic bottles that we buy Coke in are fairly recyclable, and they can be used as high quality water bottles a hundred times before they are recycled. Most of the plastic waterproof containers, as well as glass jars, tin cans, aluminum cans, and paper cartons - all that is well recyclable.
But, all those bags that you have to rip open and the films that your food is wrapped in, that is not.
@Urban_Hermit @ajsadauskas @green
We have climate crisis.
We have people buying unnecessary stuff that unnecessarily uses up resources, energy, fossil fuels, and pollutes the environment.
Clearly largely we are putting pleasure and convenience over the environment and climate crisis.
I don't see how that could be denied.
@siobhansarelle @ajsadauskas @green
No one is denying it.
Do what you can, where you can.
Closing the loop and saying that disposable products that can not be recycled should not be produced is a good thing. Doing this good thing does not prohibit other good things from being done. In fact, it helps to confirm a precedent.
Consumers are not clamoring for unrecyclable trash. That is not where the demand is.
Don't conflate issues unnecessarily. Pls.
@siobhansarelle @ajsadauskas @green
Those flimsy, contaminated, torn, light weight films and plastic coated boxes are nearly unrecyclable and they are contaminating our environment. And I am telling you and everyone on Mastodon that wax paper is a simple, moisture proof solution. No one needs to feel guilty for eating the food they can afford, and for decisions they did not consent to.
This is easy, there is no reason to fight it.
@Urban_Hermit @siobhansarelle @ajsadauskas @green honestly, why drink Coke? It cleans coins FFS. There is an isle in the supermarket that only contains drinks like this in plastic bottles. Capitalism and no social conscience.
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I have a question for you. Do you mean "Recycling is a sham" or "*Plastic* Recycling is a sham?" I definitely agree with the latter but not the former. Paper and Alumin[i]um definitely get recycled. Plastic does not, though.
@IronCurtain @ajsadauskas @green
Depends on where you are and what plastics. Generally plastic film is not recycled.
Much of the problem is still due to people not realising what can or cannot be recycled, placing things that are too dirty into the recycling, and contaminating the entire recycling bin.
@green @IronCurtain @ajsadauskas neither is completely true nor completely false. And there’s a lot more to total impact than recycling.
@ajsadauskas @green this article is from 2019 and chinas decision to stop purchasing other countries waste is on a global scale. They did not just stop buying from the USA. The solution needs to be to stop producing plastic.
@ajsadauskas @green @kpmitton it was started by petroleum companies iirc, it’s been a great way to get people to yell at each other rather than focus on companies making billions who could be regulated & taxed into improving society
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@ajsadauskas @green so much of it is being illegally imported and dumped in India. People think it's being recycled, but it's actually being burnt in some desperately poor area where people cannot protest.
@Jon6705 @ajsadauskas @green Google "illegal plastic imports to India" and you'll get dozens of incidents reported.
@Theorem_Poem @ajsadauskas @green
😢
Every country needs to be as self-sufficient as possible.
If a country can't handle the #Waste / #Rubbish / #Trash / #Litter it produces, in-house, then it's time to cut down on the waste produced, not dump it off on another country, be it India, China, or wherever.
We need to work towards the #CircularEcomony if we are to survive.
@ajsadauskas @green most of the recycling ends up in landfill anyway, people are duped in to thinking it gets recycled, specially where I am, after the recycling plant caught fire and hasn't been replaced!
@skyfire101 @green And there's been people like Liz Kasell from RedCycle who have claimed soft plastics were being recycled, when really they were being stockpiled in warehouses.
Here's what Liz was claiming in editorials to environmental publications: https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/the-future-of-soft-plastics-recycling-is-here/
And here's what was actually happening: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-09/epa-victoria-soft-plastics-melbourne-redcycle-recycling/101754460
#recycling #CircularEconomy #sustainability #plastic #AusPol #waste #plastics #recycle #environment
@ajsadauskas @skyfire101 @green just going to put it out there, I expect jail time for all those involved in this mass fraud and deception. That’s including Coles and Woolworths who I assume vetted their partners business practices.
@cooopsspace @ajsadauskas @skyfire101 @green
In EU it is about a third that is recycled, and still way too little.
With increased online shopping we get much more packaging material.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20181212STO21610/plastic-waste-and-recycling-in-the-eu-facts-and-figures
@energisch_ @ajsadauskas @skyfire101 @green Australia we just had a bunch of mass fraud occur where supermarkets could greenwash their way out of reducing plastic by calling soft plastics recyclable. And when the scheme from a third party company failed and it was found that there were numerous warehouses of store material the supermarkets said “oh well, we will take over the company to make sure it’s recycled” and then got an exemption to dump it all.
@cooopsspace Trash is big business, especially when you can cheat. There is a lot of criminal things going on: legalized crimes. For example, EU allowed electronic trash to be delivered as "used goods" to African nations where (with the help of one or more corruptable politicians) these "used goods" end up in soil & water poisoning trash heaps in poverty stricken regions. som@ajsadauskas@aus.social @skyfire101 @green
@energisch_ @skyfire101 @green environmental crime should be amongst the highest punishment of all crime, environmental crime is a giant “fuck you” to all 7 billion of us and should involve jail time.
@energisch_ @cooopsspace @ajsadauskas @skyfire101 @green
I go to the shop for groceries, I put the products in a reusable bag.
I have my groceries delivered, I put the products in a resizable bag at the door.
I buy cosmetics from a shop. I put them in a reusable bag.
I have cosmetics delivered, they come in a small cardboard box.
Generally speaking, apart from stuff from eBay where the seller appears to have used a whole roll of plastic tape, maybe some often biodegradable packing material, there is little difference in use of plastic packaging.
The issue appears to be more with how the products themselves are packaged, and the lack of reusable containers.
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@ajsadauskas @green Why can't we just ditch plastic for glass and aluminum? We've been expert at recycling those for ages
Can't see plastic ever not doing irreparable damage and hope we or evolution deploys a bacteria that eats it all
@fixatedpersonsunit @ajsadauskas @green I have thought the same things. There used to be a great recycling industry recycling bottles and cans. They even paid you for them.
@ajsadauskas @green I'm a Desert Storm vet and I saw people being murdered for CRUD oil. After DS the amount of throwing away of plastic and the like is just sickening 😡
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