How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by carstenhag » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

11235813213455 wrote: post #172

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…

I think the actions should go on both producers and consumers. Taxes, and also mentality changes, in my case, I produce almost no garbage, because I eat fruit foraged outside, and other local organic food. My only garbage in a year is: 10 rice plastic bag (5kg bags), a toothpaste tube and a toothbrush, a few soap bars plastic wrappings. That's all. That yearly volume you see, that's what most people produce in one da…

It's maybe doable, but just about every fresh food/ingredient ist wrapped in plastic.

I can get lentils, rice, bread, maybe milk etc without packaging (Unverpackt-Läden in Germany) but not butter, eggs, cheese, spices and so on.

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

#212

Post by WealthVsSurvive » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #63

barrkel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moral self-licensing. I think a lot of the Green movement has the trappings of a religion, with shame and guilt used as motivators, and expensive rituals like trash sorting used to evidence your membership of the group. I want to pay someone else to sort my trash. In fact, I want the cost of sorting my trash embedded in the costs of the goods I buy, so I - and in particular, my neighbours - have no motivation to burn…

>Moral self-licensing. I think a lot of the Green movement has the trappings of a religion, with shame and guilt used as motivators, and expensive rituals like trash sorting used to evidence your membership of the group. Guilting individuals for not recycling was a corporate PR response to getting heat for the byproducts of their businesses littering the streets. This started back when plastic packaging was first int…

Thank you for stating what should be obvious: most of the psuedo-green beliefs are the result of direct misinformation from the producers of human-harming pollution. It should make people more rabid to tear them apart, not less.

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

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Post by 52-6F-62 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

rvense wrote: post #159

gedy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was in my circles, I remember some passionate eco types arguing I should use plastic bags because they were recyclable, and paper bags "killed trees".

I know paper right now doesn't have a great environmental footprint, but paper does seem like a pretty good way to trick capitalism into planting lots of trees.

That’s actively happening!

An ex-coworker of mine has been working with a team on a drone tree-planting startup that is bidding to take on government and heavy industry contracts.

IIRC there are several companies working in that space and surprisingly not more.

Though I suppose that social guilt and pressure is still required to get those heavy industrial corps to want to wear a big green badge boating about all the trees they’ve planted.

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

#214

Post by thinkcontext » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #51

fmajid wrote: post #7

Yes, it’s a scam. Only aluminum actually gets recycled. It’s time to tax plastic so companies start using paper products (even if they go to landfill, they will at least sequester carbon there) or aluminum.

Putting plastic toys and bottles into landfill also sequesters carbon, more effectively than putting paper in the landfill. (Only trivially more effectively in practice as paper in an anaerobic environment won’tbreak down to any material degree)

Producing plastic generates 5x the co2 contained in it.

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

#215

Post by snarfy » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #170

aimor wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I remember as well. I remember my mother using her own rope net grocery bags as an alternative to the paper ones. I remember in school we switched from single-portion paper milk cartons to square bags of milk that you punctured with a plastic straw. This was sold to us along with a muppet skit explaining how to use the milk bags (the muppets rated it "one thumb up and one thumb down, to cover the straw h…

> what happens to the 40 odd plastic bags I've accumulated? We always used them as garbage can liners. Now that stores no longer have plastic bags we have to buy plastic bags. So instead of reusing the plastic bags we brought our groceries home in, we are buying brand new plastic bags instead. The same number of plastic bags are entering the landfill. The only difference is that now we have to pay for them.

My wife has been hoarding them for the last 10 years. I agree with reuse, but at the rate we use them vs the rate we consume them we have enough for the next 200 years.

I think it's more efficient all around to pay for them.

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

#216

Post by sumedh » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:34 PM UTC

jokethrowaway wrote: post #202

MattGaiser wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. They are paying for the material as well as the shipping costs of the material. China is a major source of ocean plastic, but I doubt it is because of widespread dumping of imported plastic into the ocean.

Estimates varies between 2/3 and 90% of all plastic dumping in the Ocean coming from Asian countries. We really don't have much hope in regulating that.

> We really don't have much hope in regulating that.

Western countries can stop sending plastic waste to Asian countries, that would be a start.

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

#217

Post by sumedh » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

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…

> as a consumer it is up to you to make the choice not to buy

> Unfortunately there are SO many products that you can't get without plastic.

Which is precisely why you cannot say consumers have a choice not to buy.

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

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Post by 52-6F-62 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #119

germinalphrase wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you able to purchase, for instance, liquid dairy products without packaging? Have you had to cut out whole categories of food?

Regarding beverages, things changed a lot when I learned that for most of human existence, after weaning, our ancestors drank only water. I've come to see how I used to look at other beverages as entitled, the result of marketing. I drink some other beverages, but mostly water, and I've found my total joy from drinking higher . Sort of like how in college I drank a lot of beer. Now I sip whiskey sometimes -- less alc…

> buy what's in season at the farmers market, what the CSA delivers, and from the bulk section. I buy from the same farmers so we've become friendly and they give me a lot of free vegetables -- the ugly ones they take back to compost or the greens others decline when they buy beets or radishes and don't know they're edible.

This is tangential but brings me to something I find hilarious.

Farmers here don’t tend to give those vegetables away to anyone. They repackage them and bring them to the farmers markets in the city and market the hell out of the whole “farm to table/rustic” thing.

I’m from the townships a lot of the stalls I see here (Toronto) come from.

My partner fell for it once and I rudely laughed at her (I’ve apologized!). She went out to one of the local markets and picked up what was a ...rustic... looking and misshapen long bell pepper. Taking one look at the thin-walled, Unripe green/ruddy thing I just sort of blurted. I explained to her why they’d bring that stuff up to the city on their weekend stall day along with their other goods.

We cut it up and tried it. It was horrible. It was bitter and somehow hard even though the fruit was only about 3mm thick.

And I still find it funny because I know those families and their produce is amazing. We go to one of their shops whenever I visit my family and load up.

Waste not want not, eh?

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

#219

Post by realityking » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #204

pfdietz wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In New York, plastic grocery bags have been outlawed. You can get paper bags, but the stores charge 5 cents per. Reusable bags are now the standard, but that requires some longer term use to pay off.

Where I live they are mainly banned as well and if you don’t bring your own bags then you have to pay a small tax for paper bags. I’m mainly ok with this since we drive to the store and can plan ahead. It’s a bit annoying when you go somewhere on the way home though and don’t have them with you. If the money was being used to actually fund proper recycling I wouldn’t care but it’s probably being used to pay off inter…

This is an argument that comes up often, e.g. gas tax should be used for roads.

The misconception is that it sees taxes only as a means of generating revenue to offset the cost or externalities of what’s being taxed.

But taxes are also important in steering behavior. In this case by forcing bags to To be non-free (and not allowing stores to compete by advertising free bags) it incentivizes folks to start bringing their own bag. The revenue is inconsequential.

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

#220

Post by jjt-yn_t » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

A nice article, but without having the time to read thru this thread, this headline demeans some in the oil and plastic industries who had good faith intentions, and there might be a better description than 'misled into...' which is more akin to one person or group singularly practicing a deception.