71–80 of 148 posts
Reducing sugar consumption has long term health benefit, reduce medical cost, and might reduce consumption of plastic bottle. Anyone explored regulating/taxing sugar before?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I try to get stuff in glass/aluminium bottles that I clean and reuse myself. It's not easy. Supermarkets is an immediate no-go (when I was young, our village supermarket sold Coke and Milk and other stuff from taps , so you just brought your own); now it's something impossible. But for local farmers, local springs etc it works well. Same for veg, fruit, meat, eggs etc; no plastic needed. Allows us to throw almost all…
Back in the day, my father worked as a researcher for a large, old dairy company. He was tasked with finding out what was environmentally friendly for packaging milk; whether they should start offering milk in washable glass bottles instead of their current cartons, for environmental reasons. He found that the environmental impact created by the washing of the glass bottles was worse than the impact of the entire pro…
Burn it and the problem ia solved, at the end of the day it's still oil.
Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.
Not wishful thinking, a deliberate greenwashing scam. Aluminum is actually recycled, and should replace PET for all drinks packaging.
Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.
> Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking People putting their rubbish in the bin rather than throwing it in the nearest gutter / river / garden would get us 90% of the way there.
Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.
I read numbers from Norway where it says that 1/3 of the plastic that is processed is recycled.
There are also incentives from the government that helps. They add a deposit to every soda bottle sold, that is given back immediately when the bottle is returned for recycling. This incentivises many to return it, because they would otherwise basically throw money in the trash. 92% of all bottles are returned for recycling. Everyone brings their empty bottles and cans to a grocery store, and use the money as partial payment for groceries or participate in a lottery where the profit is given to charity. All stores that sell soda products are required to also process the return, so they are using reverse vending machines to handle this automatically to save time (since the 70s)
Maybe some of the plastic will not be recycled but it will at least be destroyed and not just thrown in the ocean
Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without plastic modern consumerist society as we now experience it wouldn't be possible, as such, that party-goer from the movie The Graduate was very correct in the assumptions he made towards the end of the 1960s. Which is to say, are you sure that the current powers that be are ready to withstand the backlash of their political constituencies once that consumerist policy is actively reversed?
The consumerist part of society may not be capable of generating as massive of a backlash as you might think. The key is in the name. :) People will do the next convenient thing, whatever it is. Re-use containers made of sustainable materials, not buy something on a whim that they do not need, pay more for plastic as an indulgence (obviously it should not be banned, just taxed), etc. Also, not a psychologist, but I r…
Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.
> Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking People putting their rubbish in the bin rather than throwing it in the nearest gutter / river / garden would get us 90% of the way there.
I spend a lot of time on trails and in parks in the US. Perhaps it is different elsewhere, but we typically do not see much trash in those areas, in most cases the trash we do see being a shopping bag or candy wrapper that has blown in from elsewhere or accidentally dropped. Yes, we see some intentional, careless stuff which is upsetting (and we clean it up if we can) but I will never act liike everyone is just throwing their trash wherever. Most people throw their trash away in appropriate spots, leaving a tiny percentage that is being malicious about it. I'd say that's pretty good.
One thing we do have a problem with is overflowing trash bins. This is two-fold. The bins in parks and trails do get changed on a regular schedule, but it seems that these days it is not often enough. The second problem is packaging. So many foods and products come in ridiculous amounts of packaging that the bins get full quickly because said packaging is bulky and difficult to break down.
For the most part, I think people here are doing a good job of trying to keep the trash where it belongs, giving what I consider a reasonable effort. But we're up against companies like the ones listed in the article and their practices that are producing tons of unnecessary plastics. Knowing that, I will never put the onus entirely on the consumer. Until these companies take some responsibility (and stop pushing the idea that this is somehow our fault) in an effective way, not just lip service and hand waving as they have done, the problem will continue regardless of how hard the consumer upholds their end of the bargain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Collection rates in countries having an reverse-vending system is also high to very-high. 80-95% IIRC
Inconvenience is also very high, compared to "throw it in a recycling bin".
Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.
Not wishful thinking, a deliberate greenwashing scam. Aluminum is actually recycled, and should replace PET for all drinks packaging.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has made a resealable aluminium can. Until that is solved aluminium is inferior to PET for many use cases. In fact this is the primary reason I hardly ever buy soda in cans.