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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

#281

Post by cameldrv »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #243
cameldrv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At least returning bottles to the store actually works...

For glass bottles, yes. That's been done for a long time, and they're 8 cents a bottle. What's perhaps poorly remembered is that when plastic started to come into use in the 90s, the government decided that reusable plastic bottles should have a pfand of 15 cents, and single use plastic bottles should have a pfand of 25 cents.

This means that bottles that specifically cannot be reused must be held onto and carried back to the store, so that they can be crushed and recycled. The machine you must feed your bottles into to get your 25 cents back crushes them itself. Someone who tosses those bottles into the recycling bin has done nothing better for the environment than someone who returns them to the store.

This seems absurd, but it's the whole point of the 25 cent pfand for single use bottles. People who buy those are supposed to pay the penance of taking them to the store and getting their money back for the sin of buying non reusable bottles.

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

#282

Post by BlueTemplar »

cameldrv wrote: post #281
BlueTemplar wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least returning bottles to the store actually works...

For glass bottles, yes. That's been done for a long time, and they're 8 cents a bottle. What's perhaps poorly remembered is that when plastic started to come into use in the 90s, the government decided that reusable plastic bottles should have a pfand of 15 cents, and single use plastic bottles should have a pfand of 25 cents. This means that bottles that specifically cannot be reused must be held onto and carried ba…

Ah, I had no idea that this was also done for plastic bottles...

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

#283

Post by irrational »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #276
irrational wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> The only difference is that now we have to pay for them. Nitpick: you always had to pay for them, the cost was built in to the purchase price.

So, now that they no longer provide bags, but prices have not gone down at all, the grocery stores are suddenly seeing their profits increase?

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

#284

Post by irrational »

sigstoat wrote: post #242
4ad wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I don't know where you live and how garbage disposal works where you live 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.

Same here. I’m very surprised to learn that these aren’t universal.

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

#285

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

WealthVsSurvive wrote: post #212
pydry wrote: post #63

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. 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.

Now you are just dissing the worlds public relations departments. Think of the jobs destroyed!

...so sad!

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

#286

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

liability wrote: post #97
pydry wrote: post #63

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. 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…

At least shaming people for littering mostly worked. Maybe it was misdirected due to corporate interests, but there is definitely a lot less trash on the ground now...

Depends on where you are. I sometimes wish for more draconion enforcement, like in Singapore for instance. Or something more funny, squads of litter spotters, following the litterers back home, kicking down the door, and dumping the litter there.

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

#287

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

jjeaff wrote: post #263
joe_the_user wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"what do you do for the environment?" This is a big part of the appeal and the problem. Recycling promised individual solutions to what is a collective problem: the misuse of resources.

The question should be, "how are you contributing to the destruction of the environment?" Because it doesn't really matter how much trash you sort if you are flying around in a private jet and your house has the carbon footprint of a small village.

Hey, not that many people are flying private, and housing tends to be as environmentally neutral as possible here. If not inititially, then by retrofitting, with subsidies.

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

#288

Post by MiroF »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #286
liability wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least shaming people for littering mostly worked. Maybe it was misdirected due to corporate interests, but there is definitely a lot less trash on the ground now...

Depends on where you are. I sometimes wish for more draconion enforcement, like in Singapore for instance. Or something more funny, squads of litter spotters, following the litterers back home, kicking down the door, and dumping the litter there.

Where are you claiming has more littering than beforehand?

or is this is just yet another HN complaint about the sidewalks of SF....

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

#289

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

yodsanklai wrote: post #13
schoen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I took a German course, my textbook had a section something like "was machen Sie für die Umwelt?" ('what do you do for the environment?'), and the first example answer in dialogues was always "Müll trennen" (sorting kinds of trash for recycling). It was amazing what a cultural force this habit seems to have for many Germans. I still remember that one of the textbooks even started an answer with "natürlich…

> 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.

Hm. Speaking as a German, which never had a drivers license, does everything by bicycle or on food as possible, I think "Die Freude am Fahrvergnügen" is indoctrination by decades long advertisment on all channels. We could have built the so called 3-litre-car(100km per 3 liters of gas) since the 80ies. But almost nobody wants to buy that. Apart from that, looking at real traffic, you see lots of compact and economical cars too.

For some the car is the holy cow, and it is heresy to speak against it. For some others they are the plague.

It depends, k?

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

#290

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

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…

The word you are looking for is Ersatzreligion.
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