241–250 of 324 posts
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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.
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> 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.
I don't know where you live and how garbage disposal works where you live, but in general I would urge people not to do this. Proper garbage can bags are important because they don't spill out easily. This makes the job of the garbage disposal people much easier. Imagine having someone overworked and underpaid, working on autopilot and at fast pace, and suddenly your trash spills out. You will ruin that person's day.
a dump truck with a giant mechanical arm grabs my trash can, picks up over the top of the truck, flipping it around in the process, and then shakes it violently.
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> 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…
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Also glass and steel. Rare earth materials like batteries are very productively recycled. Paper recycling isn't awful either, but more of a wash than a win. Really, it's thermoplastic disposables that are the real problem here. Those don't recycle (except some very specific items), and frankly never really did. The straw bans are just the tip of the iceberg here. We need to be talking about banning all plastic dispos…
What about biodegradable plastics?
Wait until plastic becomes the sole source of petrochemical demand. Big Oil is getting ready. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/climate/oil-kenya-africa-...
Honestly I look forward to that. It's a big improvement over using fossil fuels for energy — combine it with landfilling, and you're just re-burying oil after some transportation and manufacturing. And it gives a softer landing to the petroleum industry. Over time we can replace petro-plastics with more sustainable materials. Bioplastics? Incineration-recycling, where you capture the CO2 and turn it back into plastic…
I'm certain that the profits of the MNCs pushing this will not remain in Kenya. Yet the pollution and its consequent financial/non-financial costs most certainly will.
I can't remember where I read it but there was the view that recycling allows people to think they're environmentally responsible when they aren't. eg the typical family has multiple cars, lives in a big suburban house, has heating/ac buys loads of stuff but recycles their cardboard/glass so thinks their environmental impact is small.
In the end the typical western lifestyle has an enormous environmental impact you can't really compensate for, no matter how much you recycle or eat organic food. I think the only way to reduce our impact would be to have way less people world wide but there is no way to change culture that way.
On the other hand, other countries aspiring to the western lifestyle is a big issue.
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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 3,00…
> 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. In many places we knew oil was there because it was leaking out. Some of the deposits were exposed to the surface. We have ancient records of people making use of it to make adhesive or caulk boats. Those have just tended to have gotten used up by now.
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Exactly what I've been saying for years. Public perception of incinerators is pretty poor though.
They produce a lot of toxic gases as the plastics often contain a variety of elements which when burned formed nasty compounds
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>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.