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How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

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Re: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

#121

Post by temikus »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #114
Aunche wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shells and coral also don't decompose and turn into limestone after enough time. Plastic is more toxic, but I can't imagine it being much worse than oil shale when it's compressed. Maybe humanity's legacy in a million years will be a bunch of plastic rocks.

Maybe a future race will dig it up to make their water bottles from. In all seriousness landfills get a really bad reputation but aren’t the worst thing in the world.

Former environmental engineer here. Landfills are not that bad indeed but only if they’re properly constructed - i.e. concrete bed poured, geological survey done beforehand and the seepage of stuff into the ground and settling is continuously monitored. The problem is that constructing _proper_ landfills is hideously expensive so regulations are skirted all over the world. Then you have problem of the stuff decomposing and seeping into groundwater, etc. It’s not all milk jugs and bottles. It’s paint, batteries, motor oil, old non-RoHs electronics that seep mercury and lead everywhere, etc. That’s the main problem with landfills.

Re: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

#122

Post by kbutler »

mason55 wrote: post #76
KeepFlying wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may have been the intent, but that wasn't the result. Even though recycling is supposed to be the last resort, it was treated as an effective solution on its own instead. Less attention was paid to "reduce" and "reuse" and most of the attention was focused on "recycle"

Because “recycling” is easy if you just ship it to China and then they dump it in the ocean. Reducing and reusing take real effort and change in behavior. If people had to recycle for real it would be more challenging and then reduce and reuse would be considered more often.

Post-consumer recycling also takes real effort, most of it from individuals. It just turns out to be largely wasted effort.

Re: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

#123

Post by pedalpete »

stickfigure wrote: post #79
cwbrandsma wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paper isn’t bad because it breaks down quickly. Plastic has this bad habit of sticking around for 10,000 years (and longer).

Is that so bad? I mean, it was oil in the ground and now it is plastic in the ground. It seems like a kind of carbon sequestration, where 10,000 years is a feature, no? Honestly curious.

As oil it was trapped under shale or in sands where it had no effect on the water table and didn't get into the water or food supply.

As plastics it is "broken down" into microplastics, and gets into things and areas it was never intended to be. It is then consumed and builds up in the systems of animals, and even eventually by us.

Even your local landfill, is part of a management system, but will it really last 3,000 years?

We can't just keep adding and adding to it, we can't cover the planet in landfills of plastic, we aren't putting the "oils" back to where they came from.

In Canada, I remember being taught "give a hoot, don't pollute", and to us, as kids, that meant "don't create trash" as much as "clean up your trash".

Re: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

#124

Post by bobthepanda »

yborg wrote: post #70
jessaustin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, "wondering" about this is willful ignorance. Municipal recycling programs in USA don't recycle much of anything. Valuable materials such as some metals don't make it into the blue bins; those are sold at actual recycling depots. Whatever is in the blue bins, is not recyclable in current economic conditions.

This isn't actually all that new, 25 years ago when I worked at a large Motorola facility, I was always amused when I worked late, which was often, of having the janitorial staff empty my wastebasket into the large bin they pushed around, and then dump the contents of the paper recycling basket into the same bin. It hasn't been economical to recycle paper waste streams in the US maybe ever.

When the whole Chinese banning recycling imports thing started, one of the few municipal recycling systems not affected was New York City, because they had taken the time to set up a full local supply chain for the recycling. About half of NYC's recycled paper gets turned into pizza boxes. https://citylimits.org/2019/09/17/other-cities-face-trash-cr...

Re: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

#125

Post by pedalpete »

I feel like this is scapegoating "Big Oil" a bit. They made a product, we know it's bad for the environment, as a consumer it is up to you to make the choice not to buy/use it, or limit your use. We've known that recycling was a bad/underutilized solution for a lone time.

When I'm buying most products, I'll look for (and often pay a dollar or so more) for glass with metal lid. Unfortunately there are SO many products that you can't get without plastic. It is everywhere.

But we need to get the message out that step 1 is to not use plastic, which I think was missed in most education. Also note, I believe most of the education came from governments trying to reduce landfill, not from "Big Oil" themselves.

Re: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

#126

Post by newen »

pedalpete wrote: post #125

I feel like this is scapegoating "Big Oil" a bit. They made a product, we know it's bad for the environment, as a consumer it is up to you to make the choice not to buy/use it, or limit your use. We've known that recycling was a bad/underutilized solution for a lone time. When I'm buying most products, I'll look for (and often pay a dollar or so more) for glass with metal lid. Unfortunately there are SO many products…

If everything was left up to consumer choice, we’d be driving gas guzzlers and the ozone layer would be already gone.

Re: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

#127

Post by labster »

cameldrv wrote: post #34
yodsanklai wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was amazing what a cultural force this habit seems to have for many Germans. I'm not asking maliciously, but I wonder how Germans reconcile their seemingly environmental awareness with their high CO2 emissions and big cars culture.

Speaking as someone who cares about the environment, I think that environmentalism in Germany has parallels to religious practice. I don't think that it's a coincidence that Germany is extremely areligious, and that sorting trash is taken to such an extreme. Sorting trash is a ritual, it is slightly sacrificial in time (especially returning bottles to the store), and it can be seen as a penance for the sin of purchas…

I suppose the truly religious environmentalists can buy indulgences in the form of carbon credits. Airlines offer them so the people guilty about travel can pay the owner of a forest to do nothing. Not perfect because you still make carbon, but at least you don’t have to pilgrimage in a sailboat like Greta Thunberg.

Re: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

#128

Post by Baeocystin »

bit_logic wrote: post #62
bit_logic wrote: post #44

The whole recycling scam makes me upset. For decades the message was to recycle for the environment. But it was all just shipped to China and then dumped into the oceans. It actually would've been better if it went to landfills, at least then it's safely contained. Another lie was that we're running out of landfill space, there's so much land out there. Like most environmental issues, the focus should've been on prod…

Thinking about this more, wasn't there a time, maybe late 90s early 2000s when the message was that plastic is more environmental than paper? Something like at the supermarket checkout you should pick plastic over paper bags to save rain forest trees? Is my memory wrong or was this a widespread message at the time?

Plastic does have a (significantly) lower carbon footprint per bag than paper to produce. This doesn't factor in disposability, of course, but that's probably where that message originated from.

Re: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

#129

Post by TJSomething »

bit_logic wrote: post #62
bit_logic wrote: post #44

The whole recycling scam makes me upset. For decades the message was to recycle for the environment. But it was all just shipped to China and then dumped into the oceans. It actually would've been better if it went to landfills, at least then it's safely contained. Another lie was that we're running out of landfill space, there's so much land out there. Like most environmental issues, the focus should've been on prod…

Thinking about this more, wasn't there a time, maybe late 90s early 2000s when the message was that plastic is more environmental than paper? Something like at the supermarket checkout you should pick plastic over paper bags to save rain forest trees? Is my memory wrong or was this a widespread message at the time?

From a global warming perspective, plastic bags are generally better for the environment because they are extremely light, therefore use less gas to ship. However, plastic bags often end up in nature, where plastic particles end up in animals and plants.
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