The California Product Stewardship Council is a non-profit whose mission is to require producers to internalize the end-of-life costs of their products. This policy approach known worldwide as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), is widely used - except in the USA. Why are we allowing producers to externalize costs to the environment and pass them off to consumers via garbage rates? California and other states are considering EPR legislation for packaging in 2020 and the public needs to strongly advocate for these bills in order to overcome the massive corporate lobby. Learn more here: https://tinyurl.com/src9bal
41
Here's a ridiculous waste of paper, my time and the postman's:
Every day and especially once per week on "circular day", I move junk mail directly from my mailbox to the dumpster in my apartment complex. The management assured me that everything in the dumpster gets sorted by the carting company. Right..
33
We need to ban single use plastic.
43
It would have been great to actually read this.
73
I thought it was that Keyser Soze didn't exist. . .
1
Have you ever tried to find toys that were not plastic? HO HO HO.
13
Try compostable products. My new phone case comes from Pela: https://pelacase.com
Requires commercial composting, however. I won't put it into my backyard compost pile (into which all of our food waste goes, to create beautiful organic soil).
2
The offensive nonstop cutesiness of this video obscures the reality.
I think the point is: don't take recycling for granted. Okay. But how about where I live - Los Angeles? And what things are getting recycled and what not? Where's the database? Instead all we see are a bunch of city names floating momentarily on the screen. Screaming, in my mind, cherry picking. Or just laziness.
Send these people back to do a real story, for halfway intelligent people.
39
Another “reader” here. Not for convenience but because of hearing impairment. A transcript of podcasts and videos would be a way to reach more of us. I have sent this request to various NYT staff but have never received a reply.
74
Here's what Mr. Robinson whispers to Benjamin Braddock in a remake of "The Graduate": Glass.
9
There’s a reason our oceans are littered with plastics that China was supposed to “recycle.” There are simply too many sociopaths in charge where it matters in governments and business. Get the sociopaths and billionaires out of society!
20
Important subject, but couldn't this be a written article ?
This trend of explainer vids with cloying voice, music and sound effects needs to stop.
81
Ethanol, that was another big con.
20
Where is the rest of the article? Is it all here or did I miss something?
38
An extraordinarily serious and complex issue. And we get video drivel instead of informed writing and links for further reading. I understand that the NYT has to accommodate a wide audience, but at least include some informed analysis for those of us who still read.
94
Why doesn’t this video have closed captions?
21
Part of the problem is the lack of transparency on the part of cities and other local governments in publishing information about the waste stream. What really happens to your trash/recycling? Where does it go? Third World, landfill, incinerator? Who knows? In many places it is not easy to get detailed or even any information.
Many people conscientiously sort their trash, including rinsing food containers, which over a year may add up to a significant amount of hours . . and then it all goes to landfill anyway.
15
Make the companies who create packaging take it back and re-use it.
23
Sure ,must begin somewhere.most developed nations could clean up the massive trash Gyre which is the size of Texas,yet no country is interested.There's a small ship from Denmark now picking up a few tons.Beaches in Asia are covered in plastic and whales are gobbling the stuff by the hundreds of pounds at once,many found dead recently.I just noticed a giant snow crab for $49,000,maybe it's the last one. anyway ,as we know ,most of the billions of tons of plastic garbage from amazon and such reaches the ocean within a year whether electronic devices toys lawn chairs and/or packaging.The money and technology is there to stop this,it's that nobody really cares.
11
Get rid of water in plastic bottles, and learn to pack your food in metal containers, and make do with what you have instead of imitating every hot trend, particularly in the food and beverage industry, that ends up spiking plastic use.
20
I find that nobody in NYC knows how to recycle anyway; I regularly find plastic bags in the plastic bin—and in the paper bin, for that matter—and people generally think, "Someone will clean up my mess." I've found LP records in the recycling bin, just because people are confused—that's the kindest way I can say it.
I've actually had a guy say to me when he threw a bottle on the ground in a park and left it, "People are *paid* to clean up after me."
We're doomed.
28
I think deep down we knew it was a scam. We knew about the different types of plastic, how they were incompatible, how only some of them are recyclable, but we threw them in regardless into that beautiful blue bin that washed us clean of our complicity. We knew that we weren't seeing nearly enough recycled plastic products for purchase to compensate for all the junk we were submitting for recycling. And the garbage/recycling collection companies weren't even pretending, even as far back as 2000. I remember the huge bins we had, with no real rules except to place garbage in one bin, and recylabes, including paper(!) in the other. The truck would come by and pick up both bins and dump them, seemingly, in retrospect, definitely, into the same container. I remember thinking that they couldn't possibly be that brazen and cynical to mix garbage and recyclables together, and thinking (wishing?) that maybe there was a magical garbage/recyclables sorter INSIDE the garbage truck! Ah well, the truth is out. I look at the plastic I throw away and consider that when I am long gone, that yogourt container will live on in that landfill, a non-recyclable poke in my dead eye. The solution is to regulate, of course. You can't buy anything but that it is wrapped in plastic. Blame the lobbyists and corporations who have purchased the hearts of democracies, and sway them towards a common destruction.
24
I have stopped putting any plastic in the recycling bin. If I put it in the garbage at least I know it is going to the landfill. If I "recycle" it I don't know where it may end. 90% of the ocean's plastic waste comes from 8 rivers in Asia and a lot of that was shipped from the USA to be recycled.
11
Simple solution. Make all corporations responsible for taking back any and all products they produce, including packaging. Scale the program by size (local company can have you return it locally, world-wide companies need to have local (neighborhood) locations to collect their garbage. Yes, this will increase consumer costs, but it will not increase overall costs. How is that? Because now these costs are outsourced to other countries or the global environment with the profits staying with the garbage producing corporations.
12
Kind of ridiculous that an ad from chevron introduces the video. On the other hand, maybe the dissonance can remind us that we need major structural change.
11
This video made me think of the numerous dead whales which have washed up on beaches all over the world and have hundreds of pounds of plastic in their guts. Time to return to glass bottles and paper packaging.
10
News flash: the Earth is not recyclable. We are not in a position to choose between throwing it into the waste can or recycling it. Humanity is doing an excellent job of making our ridiculous selves, and the planet, extinct.
7
Regardless of the availability of alternative choice to plastic, shipping plastic and hazardous garbage to poor countries for decades is not just morally wrong. It is a crime. Our governments helped perpetuate corruption and pollution in those countries, while our media derided them for being third-world. Guess who are the real villains?
5
“...researchers [at Purdue University] were able to transform 91% of the plastic into oil. The oil, which is a mix of different hydrocarbon compounds, can be used to make buildings blocks for gasoline and other fuels and chemicals.
The team’s preliminary analysis shows the conversion process uses less energy and results in fewer emissions than incinerating polypropylene plastics or mechanically recycling them. Now, the team is working to optimize the conversion process to produce high-quality gasoline or diesel fuels...”
https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2019/02/new-technique-converts-plastic-waste-to-fuel/
Plastic can be reprocessed and converted into fuel. A friend of mine in Miami knows someone in Florida who has a start-up to do this very thing.
8
Reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order.
6
Plastics are a symptom. Worrying about recycling is admirable but myopic.
I grew up in NYC in the 1950s. I don't recall supermarkets. There was a shop for fruits and vegetables, a butcher with carcasses on hooks, and whole chickens, feet and all. Milk was in glass bottles, reused rather than recycled. When you (or rather, my mother) bought stuff, it was wrapped in paper.
Between 1951 and today world wide urban population went from 775,067,697 to 4,299,438,618 (UN Data). Huge food companies now move vast quantities of packaged food into a supply chain that ends in cities. A lot of this stuff is put into plastic before it gets to the shop.
The plastic disaster, like all the environmental disasters looming over us, seems to me to be traceable to population growth, which in turn seems to be related to how much richer the world has become in the aggregate.
There is no political path back. We will choke ourselves, destroy much of the planet, and if in the process we have not triggered a nuclear holocaust, our descendants will have to make the best of what's left.
I would love to be able to imagine a happier story - I have kids - but I cannot.
15
All true. Back in the late 70's and 80's in Northern California you had to pay a scavenger fee for trash pickup. No free pickup and you also received a reclining bin to reduce your scavenger fee. But most recycling cannot be recycled unless "perfect ". Meaning that most stuff throw in a reclining bin if one item does not meet the criteria is not recycled. It is treated as garbage.
1
I just checked out on Amazon about biodegradable kitchen garbage bags. I plan to buy some. Biodegradable Trash Bags 13 Gallon,0.98 Mil Thicken Tall Kitchen
In most shops around town I think they only carry regular plastic bags by GLAD, HEFTY etc. We need to get these biodegradable bags in to the common brick and mortar stores.
Then again, I hope these biodegradable bags really are biodegradable and do not have some other harmful ingredient!
2
I can remember when I was residing in Eastern PA in the early 1990’s that efforts were made locally for trash and recycling collection was introduced. But what was the use in separating your trash when you find out your garbage collector was taking the recyclables to the dump the same as the trash? Hopefully that has been rectified since.
I find the narrator's voice jejune and annoying. I'm sorry, but one minute in, I can't listen to any more. If you insist on exploring other media, you need to respect the production values of those media.
11
Thanks for finally saying what I've said for years - recycling is to a great extent a lie and a sham, promoted to relive our guilt when we buy consumer products destined for a quick end in a trash heap. All it ever got me to point that out were funny looks and possibly a reputation (behind my back of course) for being a weirdo. But the sorry statistics for how much of our trash production gets recycled and how much winds up in landfills and ocean dumping back me up. It doesn't take much to divert a truckload of recycling to a landfill - maybe food mixed in, or some plastic bags. And it's easy to find recyclables in trash vcans, even when they are parked right next to "mixed recycling" containers.
Recycling is the flawed, failed third component of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle", but because "Reduce" and "Reuse" both stand against unfettered consumer spending, what should have been Plan C has been pushed to the forefront in Plan A's place. Nobody wants to tell you to reduce consumption, or to reuse what you already have rather than buy more. Even though recycling won't save us from our massive trash production, "recycle" is the motto of the Consumerist Age.
Don't believe it - defy it and buy less, use less, and get more life out of things before you pitch them into the dump.
3
Gee whiz! How great for you! You might have been able to live guilt-free while you consumed, but many of us were quite aware of the horrors of the industrial-consumer complex and its mountains of waste.
3
Human beings are charting the way to their own demise. The sad part is that the rest of the globe -- mammals, birds, reptiles, plants -- will also be irrevocably harmed.
We DO have choices; they have none at all.
What a revolting species.
5
If we can't even figure out how to recycle, what hope do we have of stopping and eventually reversing global warming? Even when there are clearly marked recycling containers outdoors, in restaurants, and so forth, they get half filled with garbage by oblivious people. The only hope we have of coming up with a widely used recycling system is to develop technologies that can separate recyclable material from garbage. Relying on Americans to properly sort their refuse is just asking too much. After all these years, there are only a meager 10 states that even have bottle bills. Further, curbside recycling is available to only 30% of households, and an additional 21% have only drop-off recycling available (Pew). In other words, half of all US households have no recycling option at all. Pathetic.
1
Unlike Europe, the U.S. has not implemented Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to make manufacturers of packaging take it back and recycle it, which is why we have the mess we have. As long as we allow corporations to externalize the costs onto the environment and socialized through garbage rates, we will keep getting what we're getting. We encourage everyone to support the EPR legislation being introduced in 2020 by Senator Udall and Representative Lowenthal to finally internalize the costs so the companies will work to reduce those costs, which solves the problem as it has done in many countries in the world. NSAC is working with the bill authors as well Senator Allen and others on California's SB 54 to finally demand source reduction and recycling of packaging by manufacturers.
https://www.tomudall.senate.gov/news/press-releases/udall-lowenthal-seek-input-on-landmark-legislation-to-address-the-global-plastic-waste-crisis
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB54
5
It is extremely unsettling that the plastics industry over the past 75 years has not developed safe recycling technology. It is sickening to see vast numbers of deep see marine mammals and fish suffer and die from swallowing plastic. It is wrenching to watch cows in India suffering from stomach ulcers and dying from eating plastic wrapped vegetable garbage. The problem is so grave that microplastics are present in the air even in remote areas of the world.
Plastics are now the main cause of global pollution.
1
Any chance to throw it all down a volcano and have it work its way into contact with the boiling magma at the core of the earth?
3
Almost every item in CVS is in plastic.
2
Holier than aside.........we live, breathe and cosume easier, safer because of plastics. Not suggesting non recycling but being more realistic in the approaching "targets".
It's imperative to reduce and reuse first. Anyone thinking that buying coffee in individual little pods is "green" is gullible beyond belief
6
Even Trader Joe’s packages the produce in plastic. It’s shameful
4
While Americans recycle just 35% of their municipal waste, Germany, the most efficient country, recycles 68%.
The US produces far more garbage and recycles far less of it than other developed countries, according to a new analysis by the global risk consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft.
“The US is the only developed nation whose waste generation outstrips its ability to recycle, underscoring a shortage of political will and investment in infrastructure,” the firm said.
Will Nichols, the firm’s head of environment, said the US had better recycling abilities than much of the world, “but the sheer amount of waste that is being generated is not being dealt with as well”.
For 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported the country generated 262m tons of municipal waste, with more than half of it sent to a landfill.
The firm’s senior environmental analyst Niall Smith said: “There’s too much focus on recycling being the kind of silver bullet solution, which it is not.”
He added: “We have enough plastic in circulation to really cause disruption of marine food webs, which is already in process. I think what we need to be working towards is almost a zero-material-footprint kind of society.”
The US has been accused of blocking international efforts to limit plastic waste, including banning single-use water bottles and plastic bags.
The United States is a disgraceful 3rd-world-like backwater in recycling, healthcare, guns, income inequality and voting rights.
1064
@Socrates
And in residential, industrial and commercial building -massive issue heating/cooling these inefficient monstrosities. Not to mention the GI upset induced by looking at most of them.
33
@Socrates Germany counts incineration as recycling. They do a lot of it. They have so many waste incinerators they import waste from other countries just to burn it.
16
@Socrates So much for "american exceptionalism". Exceptionalism at what?! Slap on a 'recycling tax' with each item purchased, offer a 'reward' to Corporate america which will push to find solutions to the trash problems and hold them accountable.
53
There is only one way to reduce trash. Stop buying so much.
14
Thank you for such a refreshing account of the truth about recycling plastics, for explicitly naming what really happens. I think we knew this was going on. Keep up the excellent exposés. Yes, let's all buy as if nothing is recyclable.
4
'Waste Management' Companies have a long history of being run by organized crime. What could go wrong with that? Pretty much everything. We've been misled about recycling, and what actually happens to our trash. We have not regulated more biodegradable packaging materials in any meaningful amount. Trash is ending up in the oceans because unscrupulous people have been dumping it there for YEARS. But at least I have to pay a deposit on glass and aluminum AND pay extra for my local WM company to take it away, even if I don't use my WM company to take those things away. I can get my deposit back , but I still have to pay the fee to the WM company whether or not I use that part of their service.
2
When I was a kid, in the 1960s, there were virtually no plastics around me, but we were eating pretty much the same thing. The difference is we cooked by ourselves at that time. Now we don't and that's the main reason why we need plastics.
5
Its highly unlikely that business will proactively make any changes that will affect their bottom line. Most boards and c-level executives only think of short term profits and keeping Wall Street happy. Government is also highly ineffective given our broken legislative process. A new law of any substance will likely take 20 years to have any meaningful impact due to the business friendly waivers written into them to let producers slowly make changes over time. The last variable is the consumer. We are also pretty unmotivated given our love for cheap replaceable goods made overseas sold here year on year. I think its basically hopeless. Let's warm the planet, cut down the forests, and keep polluting the oceans. We're really good at kicking the planet/can down the road.
4
Plastic is a biohazard. Not just to us humans but all life on Earth. Certain plastics can be cancerous. Micro plastics are infiltrating all parts of the food web in nature and larger pieces are choking our oceans and waterways. Plastic production and recycling contributes to carbon emissions. The plastics industry needs to be much more tightly regulated and taxed. This will help reduce plastics production and increase reuse. My hope is that substitute packaging from pre-existing tech and packaging made from plant and fungal material can take the place of the majority of plastics. We need to shift faster before we lose the majority of life on Earth. It’s a death race to evolve and shift our culture and society to something better. We can do it!
13
There is a lot people can do. I think it's a bit like buying organic food used to be - unusual, and then not.
It's getting easier to find bar shampoos, deoderants and oher personal products and skip that plastic packaging.
Pretty easy to make bread and crackers, and if you're into it, nut milk.
Bulk stores and some supermarkets now have refill areas for cleaning products.
Talk to store managers and let them know you are looking for products without plastic packaging.
9
One reason why so little plastic is recycled is that here in NYC consumers are told to mix it all together. If we had the option to separate the various numbered types of plastic into separate bins, they'd be more profitable to recycle and perhaps more plastic would get recycled. As it stands, I have no idea how the types get separated, or if they do.
4
When I recently ordered Indian food for one via Seamless app I received:
A plastic container for the rice
Plastic lid for the rice
Plastic container for the tandoori chicken
Plastic lid for the tandoori chicken
Plastic containers for 3 sauces
Plastic lids for 3 sauces
Three Plastic utensils
A styrofoam-ish plate of some kind
Napkins
All of this in a paper bag
Which was inside a plastic bag
I try to imagine a few million other NYers ordering from Seamless every day, or even just getting take out. Multiplied by 365 days.
All going into the landfill. It was an eye opener.
Only thing that will change this kind of waste is legislation, which then triggers the usual suspects about the tyranny of the “nanny state”.
9
@MJH My solution is to cook at home. I have a chicken in the oven right now. It’s my Sunday, work wise. We eat it tonight, and I bone out what is left tomorrow night while watching the news. It becomes either chicken pilaf, stir fry, or chicken a la King. Or maybe stuffing. I haven’t decided. Since I boned the chicken, I made stock too. Those meals generate leftovers for lunches. Those are packed in microwaveable, washable canning jars. This is only hard until you learn how to do a few simple cooking techniques. Then it folds into life.
9
@MJH For a time, we ordered meal kits from Blue Apron but stopped because there was no good way to recycle the freezer gel and plastic associated with the packaging. Apparently, we are not the only ones stopping for this reason as others have cited it too.
In contrast, the dairy product delivery service I used back in Washington re-used glass containers and back in the 1980s, the catering group we ordered dinners from regularly used metal tiffins. They would pick up your specific tiffin when it was empty but clean and re-fill it with food. Then it was delivered to your home. (Looking back, they were way ahead of their time.)
3
@MJH Another thing that will change this kind of waste is to cook your food yourself, using reusable plates and utensils while you are waiting for the government to legislate.
There, problem solved.
1
My city, Minneapolis, mandates recycling. Great in practice, but with all the shipping boxes, foam shipping beads and plastic protective casings I now have three plastic bins (made of materials no one wants to recycle), one (now 1/2 full) whose content goes to the dump, and another one (overflowing) that goes to sorting, where the burnables get shipped, again, to the local "green" incinerator (where environmentalists just protested last week due to its toxic cloud) or else get baled, stored and shipped (again) to the secondary market (which has collapsed), and a 3rd that's to be used for food waste (of which there is none...it goes in the garden). In addition, now 3 garbage trucks go down my alley each monday, versus 1, and the street in front of my house is overrun daily with speeding, carbon spewing FedEx, UPS and other contract delivery vehicles, which are filled with packages flown in on carbon spewing jets that traveled, first, to a central collection point before being placed in another carbon spewing jet to be flown to my city. And, to add insult to injury, collection fees are rising to cover the revenue shortfall that now exist due to storage costs and lack of revenue...all for a service that was sold as lowering costs and cleaning g up the environment. Yep, thanks.
11
As a business student, it occurred to me that the only clear understanding a company has of the impact of its packaging choices is cost. If we made a law that every producer of goods had to accept its waste back from the customer, you can bet that there would very quickly be cheap and reusable packaging everywhere. Products like milk and batteries would be good places to start, but I’m also looking at you, Apple and Amazon...
21
When you shop...whether at grocery stores,clothing stores,malls.etc...and you note all the products which will eventually be sold and realize that these products and their packaging will wind up as waste..it's shocking. Reading the labels of packaging and reading the names of chemicals we can barely pronounce...and realizing these chemicals will enter our water systems is another shock. Recently I washed some clothing that was far from new and the colors were still bleeding and discoloring the water and going down the drain...The same with laundry and soap cleaners and shampoos,hair coloring etc. The wastewater treatment plants are not able to filter down to such small particles and much of it winds up back in our water systems. Who knows what we are drinking. We are literally killing ourselves with our consumerism...not to mention all our driving and polluting of the air and cutting down trees. Just a recipe for catastrophe. We are poisoning our planet and ourselves.
7
There are grocery stores in the United Kingdom that curate plastic free or significantly reduced plastic usage alternatives to regular grocery shelved items. They might be more expensive or might not come in the flavors you want or etc., etc., but the option is there. And it's refreshing to have the option right there next to the traditional (plastic strangled!) brands.
We need this.
Step it up grocers!
12
This is a very complex issue.
Wrapping food in plastic helps preserve it. This has many benefits: It keeps people from getting sick. It prevents the pollution caused by producing and shipping more food to consumers to replace the food that would have gone bad without plastic wrap.
There are alternatives to plastic. Here in Germany I can buy yogurt and pudding in reusable or single use glass containers. There is also yogurt and pudding for sale in single use glazed pottery (terracotta) containers. These are glazed only on the inside, and have an aluminum foil cover on top, just like plastic yogurt containers. I have no idea if these are more environmentally friendly than plastic. I buy the stuff in the pottery containers, because its better quality. No artificial flavors and colors, etc. It tastes better than the stuff in plastic containers. It's also more expensive, but not by all that much. Worth the higher price, for the better flavor - in my opinion. The containers have no recycling logo. Apparently they are meant to go straight to landfill.
3
@TD
Thanks. It's superior for aerobic
and aerotolerant lactobacillus cultures, as well. But our Dept. of Agriculture (and Health) are in deep with agribusiness (and the medical and legal establishments) - and they like hermetically sealed plasticware.
3
@TD Leaving the farm dirt on the food also preserves it. Also, a damp tea towel works better than a plastic bag for keeping lettuces and other O2 loving vegetables fresh. I find that plastic packaging tends to give consumers a false sense of security re: safety. Not a few folks I know don't bother to wash anything packaged in plastic. Best approach: wash thoroughly or cook well, and skip unnecessary packaging. Also, buy as local as you can, and cook according to the season. In winter, canned and frozen should be your go-to.
2
@TD when I was a kid, meat was wrapped in paper. Veggies came loose. Packaging was glass. And we washed stuff before we ate it. We were sold this idea that food was dangerous if it touched anything except packaging. I have never believed that. I just cut a raw chicken up on a wooden board. I know that’s supposed to kill me. But we do it all the time, just like Mom did. Then we use plenty of soap and hot water. I’m still alive at 56. I even have Mom’s old cutting board..
2
If your bathtub is overflowing, the first thing you’d do is turn off the spigot. You wouldn’t mop up the floor without turning off the spigot. We need to turn off the production of plastics before we start to clean them up.
14
How about a law that says 100% of packaging must be accepted back by the manufacturer and they must absorb the cost of disposal?
Also, how about a world-wide BAN on disposable plastic that isn't biodegradable?
There ARE bio-plastics made from vegetable matter but until the petroleum-based stuff is illegal people will continue to use it.
13
@Darin Case in point. I recently purchased an iPhone case made of compostable bioplastics. It was shipped in a simple cardboard mailer with no plastic lining and with no plastic bag or wrapper. In addition, the company donates to your choice of environmental causes. I learned about the option from, you guessed it, an article in the NYT.
Our local chain grocery store recently started carrying compostable party plates, cups, and utensils. As I was adding several of their items to my cart, I saw another shopper looking over traditional disposable plastics. I decided to bring the compostables to the attention of my shopping colleague: "well look at this, it's compostable." Sale made.
Compostable doesn't mean your backyard compost pile, however. It needs to be disposed of through commercial composting. Bottom line, we all need to become more educated--sophisticated--about recycling/ composting/environmental interventions. There's a lot of "window dressing" out there; do your research.
4
I would love to see more glass and aluminum packaging for liquids and more paper packaging for other items. We could even replacing plastic wrap with the old-school cellulose that was used in the 40's. But sadly, this is a non-starter. Consumers are not willing to fork out more for these forms of packaging, so plastic remains.
Our only hope is that consumers become more aware of the chemicals that leach into our food from plastic packaging. That, and only that, will motivate people to pay more for glass and aluminum. Some of these chemicals are xenoestrogenic, which gives me hope that the problem might even resonate with right-wingers.
But the environmental argument won't cut it.
4
One of the best 'green' things to do is to avoid buying processed food as much as possible. Especially if they're individually wrapped (i.e. protein bars, chocolate bars, chips, small flavored yogurts...)
Buying fruits, vegetable, nuts, coffee, etc. in bulks will be better for the planet (and your health)!
6
A lot if not most people I see in supermarkets take plastic bags. There are some that bring reusable bags, but it's not a large percentage. I've been trying to carry reuseable bags in the car. If I don't have them I always ask for paper bags, which are good for recycling paper and nonglass bottles and containers. Arlington, which somehow prides itself on being an environmental leader, stopped accepting glass containers at curbside, and has put bins in a few places like outside of community centers or libraries. Cleverly, they put them in isolated, grungy spots where a lot of people don't want to be. And a lot of restaurants get away with having receptacles where recycling materials go into the same garbage container as trash. But go ahead and tear down perfectly good housing and trees and bury greenspace for Amazon and the influx of employees.
4
The answer to the plastic grocery bag problem, and many similar issues, is legislation. California banned them, and getting used to bringing your own bags to the store really wasn’t that hard. I cringe now when I shop elsewhere and they try to stick one or two items in each of several plastic bags.
5
The CA legislation is imperfect, but we're gearing up for an initiative to fix that.
I'm old enough to remember life before plastic bags, plastic straws, plastic beverage bottles and plastic containers of most kinds. We did just fine. The answer to unrecyclable plastic is to stop making everything out of plastic. And that will require legislation. Municipal bans on plastic straws and bags are just nibbling around the edge of the problem. It has to be bigger. And I assure you, from personal experience, that we will all survive if we have to drink soda from glass bottles, or buy our laundry detergent in paper cartons. If you're under 40, just ask mom.
19
Everyone could buy less stuff. The recycling mess is the tip of the iceberg.
16
@mark lovejoy they'll just wait and whine while pointing and clicking on Amazon
1
Good God, why do we spend trillions of dollars on wars? Wouldn’t that be better spent on solving the recycling crisis? What will it take for us to grasp that this situation is, although difficult, worth spending money on?
It must begin with businesses. And the government. I firmly believe that most of us would welcome solutions which are achievable. With our wealth and technology expertise, we should be able to do this.
8
The best thing we could do would be to stop buying so much stuff. A next best option is to buy used. There are plenty of reusable bags at Goodwill, as well as glass containers. Buy in bulk and bring your own container. Take your own mug to the coffee shop. Yes, corporations need to do more and we should let them know we care and want less plastic packaging. But we all need to do more and we can't wait for corporations.
14
The use of plastic has increased for one reason only: the consumption of goods has increased, and continues to do so. Americans (I can't speak about other countries' populations) not only consume more and more with each passing day, but in addition now have the bulk of that unneeded merchandise shipped directly to their homes. I think it's time to face facts and to face the music. No one is really interested in doing anything about conservation if it means being inconvenienced in any way. It's sad, but it's also very true.
7
Other countries have passes minimal packaging laws.
Excess packaging designed to prevent shoplifting is used even when sales are made through the internet.
And along with all of the issues, don't forget all the emergency room visits caused by people trying to get into heat sealed plastic enclosures.
2
the thing that has me most alarmed is the number of foam core (plastic) political signs that will be erected from coast to coast next year. I assume that even the most "climate change is real" politician will be using thousands of them. i have some ideas on how to make them out of repurposed materials, i think a company that would make them out of ecological materials would make a big profit in 2020.
4
As tax payers we need to force our municipalities to do the recycling we've hired them to do. It's a crime they just decide not to do it just because they can't figure out a solution that suits them. I'm infuriated by every effort I make to separate recycling into these silly bins which I know are essentially all going to the same place.
Ultimately the added cost will need to be borne by the manufacturers and the consumers, requiring building the cradle to grave cost into products.
On the other end of it, if someone could figure out a way to mine the waste stream they'd make trillions.
2
I disagree with the conclusion that "the best thing we can do is to buy as if NOTHING is recyclable." In fact that's only the second best thing we can do. The BEST is to work for political change that will result in the meaningful regulation to which the authors allude in this wonderful piece.
4
Great story, thank you.
Some Canadian entrepreneurs have come up with a plastic they claim to be biodegradable. After this story, I'd need to have that proved.
3
Most loose produce doesn't need to be bagged for checkout. Meat can often be purchased from the butcher counter at the grocery store, not pre-packaged. I always ask them to use paper to wrap meat. We refuse to buy water in plastic bottles. We avoid items packaged in plastic as much as possible. We've skipped gifting the cheap plastic goody bag toys since preschool; those we get as prizes get recycled at Halloween, for kids who can't take candy (also good for those classroom stores). Mostly, buy less "stuff." We repair and replace as much as possible. The motor unit to my blender dates from 1952 (a hand me down). Food waste is also a huge contributor to greenhouse gas. We enjoy the creative challenge of trying to use as much leftover food as humanly possible (veggie gullets, pasta frittatas, etc.). Meat has become more accent than main course. Having said all this, I think direct advocacy to pressure corporations to change packaging practices will be necessary. That includes China, which is a major source of plastic coming into the US.
13
that paper your meat is wrapped in is likely plastic coated
@Dot's Mom Ooops, that's "repair and reuse," not "repair and replace." I guess that was obvious? Less obvious (thank you autocorrect) is " veggie galettes," instead of "gullets." Great chefs who grew up in post-war Europe are masters at using every bit of food in delicious ways.
I agree we don’t want to absolve the companies perpetuating overpackaging, but the last message in here is the best one: Buy less stuff, period.
21
Transcript available by starting video and clicking on lower right icon (after ad starts and clicking Skip Ad) This I found from top Readers Picks, in a few of the replies. Leaving this info here in All, where more readers might find. I am recyling that info.
6
We all need to be vigilant. It stinks for us on the individual level because it is often hard to find stuff NOT wrapped in plastic. I mean the insanity of putting lettuce in a hard plastic box. The ridiculous trend of wrapping produce in cling film. We really can wash our own vegetables, people! And why have gum companies begun to sell their product in little plastic bottles? Cardboard and tinfoil worked just fine. Just for example.
The demand for plastic was created by 'what's cheap and easy for me and to heck with environment' philosophy of a lot of business. Big business bullies our weak willed political 'leaders' who are happy to betray their responsibility in order to gain reelection or make a quick buck. So nothing gets done. And then this clown comes into office and rolls back as many EPA restrictions as he can, as fast as he can, and where are the Republicans? SILENT.
Our greed is a sickness.
20
A lot of unnecessary packaging is there for security, I think. Just look at the size and quantity of packaging for a thumb drive, for example. Ridiculous.
5
Nice presentation -- until the end. ("...shop like nothing gets recycled...") Yeah... try that. There was a time when milk was delivered in glass bottles; we put the empties on the doorstep and the milkman took them back to be cleaned and reused. No more. The kinds of plastic you're talking about (consumer goods packaging) are too convenient and too cheap. The only way to reduce waste is to change behavior and the best way to accomplish that is to price waste properly. When the cost reaches the tipping point, we'll find ways to reduce waste and/or really make recycling work.
11
Check out the blg *My Plastic Free Life". I've found plastic free, biodegradable & great laundry soap & dishwasher detergent (Dropps), dental floss (Dental Lace), & tips on how to keep produce fresh in the refrigerator without plastic (holy cow, my lettuce is still perfect at 2 weeks!! wrapped in a wet dishtowel). It's not so hard. My friends & I are sharing tips on Facebook, once we find good stuff. Trader Joe's has those felted wool balls you keep in the dryer instead of using dryer sheets- I've been using them for three weeks, they work (still gets the dog hair off my clothes & into the lint filter, & my towels are soft!). Try, people. Please.
11
Oh boy, you should definitely go on the recycle open house that nyc hosts. We actually sell a lot of plastic pellets for reuse. Not to mention the metal recycling and brown bin. If you are reading this in nyc and don’t use the brown bin, then why not? I went door to door in my neighborhood and was surprised at young people who could not be bothered to throw out unused food into their brown bin. Everyone who watches this should visit DSNY website. Just sayin’.
2
Surely you realize that larger buildings in NYC are not mandated to have brown bins. Composting is not citywide. I have to take my compost to the local greenmarket. I do, but it’s most certainly an extra step.
Many people in my building fail to recycle anything. I know because they also can’t be bothered to even put their white kitchen trash bags down the chute ... and you can see the bags are full of food, paper, plastic etc etc.
Most of the people here are younger. In fact...they are the worst offenders, and don’t get me started on the amount of amazon boxes they bring in.
1
I saw an interesting documentary on Netflix about the exponential growth of plastic (“Broken”). Until recently and for the past thirty years, China was buying a lot of the plastic waste worldwide. So there was no real incentive to develop true recycle and reuse solutions. Recycling meant sending it to China, not caring what they did with the waste collected. When China stopped buying we sent plastic to other countries whose populations, hurt by the pollution generated, put pressure of their governments to stop as well. Now we are stuck. Either we come up with recycling solutions, stop using so much plastic in the first place or we will suffer our own pollution. In the 1950s we had glass and metal and cardboard. Thinking of reverting to that won’t work at scale, now that we are 7.7 billion people instead of 2.5 and the consumerist lifestyle is all over the planet. The plastic industry has done wonders to hide the environmental cost of all their wonderful and so convenient products! Now, at last, we can’t say anymore that we didn’t know.
7
We need laws requiring companies to take back all the packaging, and the products when they reach the end of their life.
12
I have been asking this question for years! Why should we have to deal with the waste that all of these companies are profiting from? Let them pay to collect it !
I am old enough to remember when nearly everything was packaged in cardboard and paper, aluminum cans and glass bottles. All of these materials are recyclable including the soiled paper or cardboard as compostable material. We all survived quite well with that and today could easily recycle these materials because we have the infrastructure for it.
21
Keurig K-cup pod, one leftover sample from a demo I promoted for one of the coffee brands in a drug store. The recycling symbol is to the right o the Keurig name on the pod. I had a container of used pods and was planning to take them home after the assignment and dispose of the coffee grinds in the composting bin. I was unable to open them and could not understand how the contents were recyclable. One of the store staff said they have a Keurig recycle bin in the staff room and he took them. Do the used pods go back to Keurig? I would need a knife to open the foil lid and could not see how anyone would bother going to that amount of effort (except for myself). Is the plastic and aluminum lid supposed to be the compostable part? I use a ceramic pour-over with a paper coffee filter. I could never understand the need for a machine perform this task. Even the inventor of the Keurig said he never intended it for home use - it was meant for single serve coffee in an office environment where brewing a full pot would be wasteful. Even he does not own Keurig.
10
S Sm, people who use a Keurig at home (or in an office) can used an insert pod. Heavy duty plastic, yes, but it allows the user to fill with their own coffee. It’s safe for the dishwasher. I’ve used my pod every day for two years. No need for disposable pods. And my coffee is just-ground delicious.
1
Why are corporations allowed to produce packaging that can't actually be recycled?
Yes, it will cost more but we have to face the fact that our survival on this planet we have damaged will be very expensive. We don't have time left to take half-measures.
13
What I don't understand, aside from Russian, is why we don't even pluck the low-hanging fruit by banning plastic grocery bags everywhere. It's not like people are going to stop buying food. We are way past the time for doing such things.
20
"Lulled into a false sense of guilt free consumption?" Not hardly. The Texas sized plastic vortexes in our oceans are testimony to the failure of our recycling policies. Responsible, concerned citizens would only endorse such environment choking initiatives if no other options existed. Unfortunately, corporations "are" individuals according to citizens united albeit very irresponsible individuals with no social responsibility. If a corporation can save a buck at your expense, whether health or habitat, it is a no brainer that you will lose every time. And thanks to Mr. Trump who only wants to make this process even less regulated and more hazardous to our well beings that it already is.
8
Time for the companies who package everything in plastic to switch over to eco-friendly packaging. Time for some logical and coherent regulations from Washington. Yes, right, the very companies who lie and profit from their lies will change when they see the video and realize the mess they've made, And hey, the FTC in a Trump administration? They'll get it right. Far right. Or how about a Biden administration? Will he bring back the good old days? At least under Obama, we could fool ourselves into believing the myth.
4
@Mark Rabine Yep. Ain't gonna happen under Trump. Isn't he selling plastic straws to raise campaign funds? And then all the environmentalists will vote for a green party candidate, thus ensuring the death of the earth.
4
Break down the cardboard boxes. check. Rinse out glass. check. Place waxed containers in trash. check. All paper goes into recycle. check. envelopes with glassine windows into trash. check. bagged animal fat into trash. check. melted animal fat into can, let cool. not poured down the drain. check. gently used clothes, cleaned, to thrift shops. check. towels and linens to animal SPCAs. check. cat fecal matter into compostable bags. check. human trash soon to go into compostable bags. grocery produce into muslin bags. check. grocery items into canvas bags and bags from animal groups. check. compostable trash bag in car. check. glass containers for second meals and extra meal items. check. turn off lights in empty rooms, since the 70s gasoline crisis. check. transport used electrical items, batteries, to appropriate site. don't buy food items made with palm oil - habitat loss for animals.check. don't buy, adopt animals. (Yes. I know China said no more to our trash.) There is a whole industry that can be made from recycling - removing rare earth minerals from electronic gadgets as the Japanese do, making flip-flops from tires to be sold to other countries, and more. Jobs for people. It's not about suit & tie or a desk nameplate - it is about money to support a person or a family and a life.
6
What’s worse is that we all pay redemption fees on bottles and cans that were intended to be refunded when returned to retailers around the nation so that they could be returned to the original producer for recycling.
Try to get your recyclable bottles and cans redeemed at your local grocery or bottle shop. There are little to no redemption centers and we’ve now learned that few if any of these supposed recyclables can be in fact recycled.
I think we’ve been sold a bunch of garbage posing as recyclables.
9
Everyone must compost !
8
Do people really think when they buy something in plastic that its ok just because it can be recycled? I certainly don't think that. I think, I need to buy this thing in plastic, because that is how it is sold.
Secondly, the reason we chose to recycle over trashing things is because where I'm from at least recycling is paid for by the county and therefore you never see a bill wheareas trash you have to pay for. So there's an incentive to throw things in the blue bin...
5
Only NINE PERCENT of discarded anything gets recycled. Will our grandchildren survive to hate us for it?
8
If corporate America is at fault for pushing the mountains of non-recyclable plastics into our fragile eco-systems, American consumers are just as culpable for buying it all--then obliviously throwing it away in our brimming out-of-sight, out-of-mind landfills.
Just take one, tiny but telling example. Remember when you bought your coffee in (recyclable) tin cans that would last for weeks? Now go to the grocery store and the aisles are crammed with those horrible "K" cup individual servings that NO ONE can easily recycle even if they wanted to.
Multiple all that unnecessary trash times a million and you have an inkling of all the vile petrol-chemical garbage poisoning our world.
Most Americans are wasteful, over-consumptive sloths.
11
The three r’s are, in this order:
Reduce
Reuse
Recycle
Recycling only addresses the final phase.
Reducing packaging [cardboard and packing] would go a long way. There are subsidiary benefits – decreased use of natural resources to make and distribute the goods.
An example of reuse is a permanent shopping bag used for a long time. It better not be plastic. The oceans house islands of plastic.
Finally an example of recycling is discarding a cardboard box, which requires energy to transport, process etc.
For these three, we need to compute the total environmental footprint – manufacturing, transporting and, hopefully eventually, recycling.
5
PLASTIC PRODUCTION is the problem. We must introduce and vote for federal laws that force companies to develop new less harmful materials or to use only 100% guaranteed reusable recyclable and materials. Businesses need to be FORCED to come up with new packaging ideas. The only thing we consumers can do is stop buying stuff, but that might create other problems. In any case we will end up footing the bill, don’t we always?
7
Can somebody please report on how much resources are used to recycle in the first place. How much fuel to transport it from your curb to Chinese recycling facilities? Does a reusable canvas bag use more resources than a one time plastic bag? if I stop using paper towels and wash hand towels instead, do I use more energy and resources washing the reusable option?
We are sold all these "solutions," but common sense makes me doubt how useful they really are except for the people profiting off of the "solutions," but literally no one seems to have done the science or reporting on how much energy it takes to recycle and if it's really worth it.
8
Sorry, but this is a totally inadequate video apparently aimed at the really ill-informed, like the president and those he has charged with protecting our air and water, etc.
In the very early days of recycling, it was real and was working. Since 1970 or so, the world has been overrun with plastic everything, plus all the plastic films etc. used to line formerly recyclable containers from restaurants, etc. Many people have worked for decades trying to get corporations to reform their packaging and stop using the consumer as the reason they are so destructive to our environment. Why is it okay for Coca Cola, among others, to buy up and plunder our fresh water sources, add stuff to it and sell it back in millions of plastic bottles? ANd toys and all the imported junk that fills bins at checkout counters, etc. Keurig is but one obscene recent product that should never have been on the market.
We are so far along the road to environmental ruin that the problems are nearly unsolvable. Change has to start at the corporate source, demanded by the voters and the governments. Period. And the people of the world have to decide whether superficial and temporary convenience is more important than the survival of the planet. It's not just about sea level rise!
9
If I wanted to watch a video, I’d go to a video site.
11
We need more Greta Thunbergs.
Time to step up to the plate Gen X'rs and Mille's.
Run for office. Use those screens to create a better world, instead of hiding behind them.
It's your future!
12
Looking at the big picture, it seems that human beings were designed to eventually destroy themselves. We are just inventive enough to create our current disastrous situation - the destruction of our habitat, Earth - but not smart enough to figure out how to fix the mess we've made.
And to all the believers in a benevolent god who cares about each and every widdow biddy human life, there is no evidence that "God" will rescue us. Perhaps extinction is the Divine Plan.
5
Thank you for pursuing this.
We need to buy less stuff.
Reduce
Reuse
Recycle
in that order.
Waste and exploitation = ruination. We live on a finite planet. Waste is toxic, no matter how it ends up.
We need to stop being so passive and lazy, and do things for ourselves. Ditch the phone, take a walk, meet people's eyes.
Couple of resources. Each short video is well researched and informative
https://storyofstuff.org/movies/
The circular economy:
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/concept
Time for use to get wise. We can't give up, we're alive. Work together to solve problems, rather than seeking thrills and passive infotainment.
7
It would be helpful to know which types of plastics are actually recycled most frequently, and to restate what is really worth recycling, e.g. metals and paper (?). The piece makes it seem like recycling by the end user is barely worth bothering with.
3
The sheer impact of reading this article and at least a hundred comments has exhausted me as if I had run a marathon. Ignorance first. Then greed. Monstrous greed. I grew up in the mountains of Peru. I can picture, still wrapped in the nostalgic paper of the things one will never see again, three small green plastic bowls for soup my mother bought with much happiness. Three. “You can’t break these,” she happily announced. They were there for years. Half a century later, I try and can only recall a red plastic breadbasket that was there since I had memory. No other plastic thing. Enameled pots and pans. Peruvian ceramics. Wood. Stainless steel. Stick spoons. Cotton bags. Reed baskets. We also needed to collect water because for years our house did not have running water. That large ceramic vase, probably a hundred year old, exists. It evokes precious childhood memories. I wonder where did it go the flower pattern oilcloth tablecloth my mother used to fixed her gaze on. Children record family events that would eventually mean something, way into the future.
What we nowadays see is the tragic price of progress and development.
12
In many cases it is possible to replace plastic packaging with cartons (i.e., paper/wood pulp). That kind of waste can at least be burned much more easily and sometimes also recycled. Also aluminium soda cans and plastic drink bottles can be recycled almost 100%. This is already happening in Sweden, Finland and to some extent Germany. The secret is to charge money upfront that you then get back when you recycle it (about 10-20 cents per can/bottle). A lot of trash also gets burned in Sweden/Finland, often for heating. Finland is particularly good at generating heat+electricity at the same time (more efficient).
5
That's it? That's the whole article? If people want to be conscientious about the amount of waste they are attributing then they need to stop BUYING so much stuff and they need to embrace these words; REDUCE AND REUSE. They need to encourage companies to stop making things out of plastic. We need to reduce our use of plastic AND paper. Use reusable bags whether your city requires them or not. let your favorite companies know if you think they can redesign their packaging better. In my city we have recycling and composting, I have very little that goes out in my garbage but who knows what they do with the things that go into the recycling, especially since we virtually lost the plastic market in China? I think all people can do who care is buy less stuff, then make sure all the things you do have going out end up in the best possible place. I am kind of nutty about making sure that everything that goes out gets to its most "useful" place. We even have a charity vendor in my city that will take clothing and fabric too far gone to sell, they collect them for rags so I save them up until I get a bag full (so I don't have to ever put clothes in the garbage).
4
The CBC did a story on this a few months back and the data shows that despite high rates of recycling in Canada, the unsavory practices in the industry means very little recycled material makes it way into the manufacturing process for new items. It speaks to how poorly things are handled in Canada but I suspect the US isn't much different. Thought you might be interested. https://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episodes/2019-2020/tracking-your-trash-where-does-your-recycling-really-end-up
1
Check out the graphic on this page for how much plastic waste is generated per person in US and Asian countries that ends up in the ocean: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/24/627505327/meet-the-woman-who-put-plastic-waste-on-the-map
- the graphic called "Plastic waste from land to sea." You'll see that we produce more plastic waste but less of us ends up in the ocean than in Asian countries b/c we have better solid waste management infrastructure. What I'm not clear on from this is how much of that waste from Asian countries originated here. More of it is mismanaged across the Pacific than here. So we need to generated less and they have taken the step they need to take less of ours - and they must handle what they do have more effectively. And, generate less of their own as well.
Video op-ed, huh. I prefer the old-fashioned kind. Print.
6
In your video you claim that you can no longer recycle milk cartons and yogurt tubs in Portland. I contacted the City of Portland, here's their response. It would be helpful if you do your research before you publish information like this.
Thank you for contacting Waste Info.
Milk cartons and yogurt tubs can still be recycled in your curbside recycling cart in Portland. There are markets available to purchase these items in the Portland area which may not be true for other locations in Oregon. I know that Salem no longer accepts the milk cartons at this time but Portland has not removed anything from the list of acceptable recyclable items for curbside collection.
Regards,
City of Portland
Solid Waste and Recycling
www.portlandoregon.gov/bps
4
@Hikemama I think the video used that clip as an example but we don't get detail about that specific instance. Our family owns properties in different parts of the West Coast so I have observed that rules about recycling not only differ based on geography but on the TYPE of recycling account. Some areas will allow say plastic recycling if you live in a single family home but will not allow it for apartment buildings. The TIMING also matters: rules change all the time and it is not necessarily easy to keep up even with updates. What is recyclable today might not be so in the future and what is NOT recyclable today might be next year. WHERE is also an issue: things not recyclable curbside are sometimes recyclable at specific designated spots. On geography, in some areas, even within the same CITY have slightly different rules.
So don't conclude that what applies for your household applies to others. It's not as easy for some people vs. others.
2
My bad. You did say Eugene Oregon. Apologies! 😳
Well after reading this article and watching the excellent video I'm looking at my recycling bin as just another big garbage can. I'm assuming the green bins actually get recycled?
3
There are two main ways to address the recycling failure: 1) regulatory, 2) market-based. The regulatory approach has been a failure thus far because the regulators are sensitive to political pressure from manufacturers, unions, etc. whose ox would be gored by prohibiting nonrecyclable materials. The economic approach, e.g., a tax on nonrecylcable materials would theoretically be more efficient, but again, political forces oppose taxes as reducing the "efficiency" of the economy.
What it's really all about is the failure of political will. As with climate change, everyone wants to feel good, but nobody wants to accept the real cost - in terms of a reduced "standard of living" of truly doing what's necessary to address problems. Politicians (and the public) prefer "window dressing" solutions that let people feel like they're addressing the problem, but aren't really.
3
It is up to the Millennial's and Gen Zs to address globe's plastic problem. Boomers and Gen X clearly dropped the ball by promoting spin and being contented with 'aspirational' recycling.
Today I am seeing attitude changes of Gen Zs around me. While most in my millennial cohorts are in still in denial, the newest generations are disillusioned, skeptical, sarcastic and cynical about recycling. This is an important moment for them as they begin to formulate new ideas and change their behaviors.
3
@Alex The Millennials and Gen Z are going to look up from their video games long enough to address pressing issues? We’ll see.
8
This idea to bring one's own mug to the coffee house such as Blue Bottle's policy is a good one. The company out of Oakland, CA is on to something. I live across the bay from Oakland and have never been to their café. If I lived on the other side of the bay I would certainly bring my mug to Blue Bottle Coffee. Other cafés need to offer this policy to reduce waste.
2
There was a time when we would fix things. You could open up things and replace parts. Then somehow companies got us to throw away broken things and replace them with new stuff. Then they have gotten us to throw away and replace that work just fine .. Now we need to replace our cell phones every 2 years. My dad had a telephone that was tethered to the wall and lasted at least 20 years ( before being replaced by the phone company) So much for progress.
7
More infotainment? A transcript please.
Everyone wants "someone else" to take care of the problem. Biodegradables are nice, but how about not packing stuff in the first place. Packaging is a modern scourge.
We need to stop being wholly owned subsidiaries of marketing and advertising. Stop employing people to design ever more "protective" packaging while destroying our earth.
4
I was watching a movie from the 1950s. The meat at the grocery store was wrapped in paper. Can we stop using plastic and start using good old paper for many needs. And how about hemp as a source for paper...I read that there is an overproduction of hemp.
4
There was a point at which NYC suspended it recycling program citing costs. But due to the outraged public reaction, they brought it back and claim that they found a willing waste management company that takes the stuff for free, at no cost to the City. But who knows what the real story is. The City, btw, used to fine people they caught stealing curbside bundles of newspaper. But since the print media has gone almost entirely digital, no more bundles, Now there is Amazon, alas.
4
The big flaw in this report, I fear, is that people will come away with the impression that *all* recycling is a wasted effort. This and many other recent reports focus on plastics, which are undoubtedly a problem to recycle. But half of all municipal recyling (by weight) is paper; and another significant proportion is metal. The energy and material savings there from recycling are incontrovertible. Asking people to "buy as if nothing gets recycled," as the report concludes, is wrong and an example of the perfect getting in the way of the good.
1
Recycling is a waste of time, money and energy. Not worth it.
4
@No And many humans are a waste of time, money and energy.
6
A cousin of the Great Alternative Energy Con. From the producer of Michael Moore's new feature, Planet of the Humans:
"... not only are the solar panels and wind turbines not going to save us ... but (also) that there is this whole dark side of the corporate money ... these technologies were just another profit center."
https://apnews.com/933b49681b0d47d3a005d356f35251ab
1
Can we go back to metal cans and glass bottles please.
6
Can we create a giant garbage chute to hurl our garbage into space? It can run on solar power.
3
Transcripts are almost always "there" now, a new feature from the Times:
Click and copy the text just above the video, holding the click and including the text just below the video box, and the transcript will be copied to your clipboard (at least it always is, as of recent).
Well if you want to save paper, make the online info more available.
1
The same laziness that keeps Americans from recycling as they should is behind the unwillingness of the author to include an article specifying everythung in the video.
5
The petroleum industry would rather commit ecocide than risk losing any profit. The plastic problem was solved long ago with Hemp Plastic that is bio-degradable. https://hempplastic.com
1
Wow, I heard lots of "make us think..." and "trick us..."-kind of denial of responsibility in this. Here's an idea-- accept that you are the problem and consume less. Don't really like those ideas, do you?
5
Please don't migrate content to this inane platform of childish videos with goofy sound affects. The New York Times is better than this.
7
In my county recycling, which only 25% of people do, is carefully monitored and many new items have been added to the non-reclyclibles such as clamshell containers. I appreciate it. Often when I shop for produce, I just put whatever it is in the cart without a bag. I try to boycott items in containers that aren't recyclable. Still haven't figured out what to do with cat litter bags altho the litter itself is made of grain hulls. It's discouraging that even many end users just through everything in the trash. Geez, there oughta be a law.
1
Plastic is light weight and can either seal well onto a container or is rigid enough to prevent breakage or damage to what should be the more valuable, energy intense commodity. And you can make really long lasting clothing out of recycled bottles, ask someone in REI with a slightly worn looking jacket how old it is and it could be decades.
It's crazy overconsumption that is going to kill our planet, in the energy, pollution causing activities, and manufacturing process .. not necessarily you using a grocery bag to produce an apple flown in from New Zealand from getting dirty in the trunk of your car on your way from Trader Joes. Or just buy one of their attractive bags (just not too many, google forever bags in the UK to see how that went horribly wrong).
Water bottles are actually made from incredibly thin plastic, to the point where reusing one is almost impossible. It's shipping a low value and very dense substance like water around the globe that is an issue.
This article is another lightweight NYT article that could have been so much more. Why not highlight programs that work and do not work around the world. Germany, Seattle (we have industrial composting, for example), and some town that is dumping recycling in the dump (or more likely shipping it to a poorer state nearby). Why not interview some recycling scientists to get recommendations on what citizens can do personally and what they can ask their elected officials to do to help this out.
7
I bring bags to shop, etc. but it is almost impossible to avoid all plastics, cardboard, etc. So I put the items we are allowed to recycle in the bins (cleaning if needed). Walking around on recycling day, I see tons of bins filled with items that are definitely not allowed in my area, and items that are filthy. And I wonder if my neighbors who don't follow directions are contaminating all my carefully selected and cleaned items. Sigh.
Granted, the recycling symbol is sometimes insanely small or hard to find. Why??? But people, please familiarize yourselves with the rules, and then follow them!! Or, if you don't feel like doing that, don't put out any bins!!
I started a very successful Recycling effort at a major corporation in the 1990s. I led the American Plastics Council Durable Goods Committee, with representatives from all the plastic companies, Auto and Electronic makers. Durable goods achieve very high life cycle value by making components that save lives. That significantly reduce energy costs to operate, and sometimes are the only material to use in Medical Devices and other critical applications.
The following is true:
1. 99.999% of all Gold is recycled - because it retains value
2. 75% of aluminum, 30-40% of copper is recycled because of their residual value
3. 99.999% of Lead in the US is recycled due to strict regulation, and its ability to be recycled into its major use, car batteries.
4. The primary reason cars are recycled, while refrigerators, washing machines are not, is the Reverse-Distribution cost. The cost to MAKE things is completely independent of the cost to RECYCLE. The primary Recycle cost is the collection and moving of materials to a recycling facility. Cars get taken to the scrapyard and are recycled.
5. Bottle bills work because they place a temporary additional VALUE on the goods. A half cent bottle is not worth much to collect. Add 10cents and there are many collectors.
6. Recycling’s biggest environmental savings is back into virgin material, like steel, aluminum, copper, glass and lead, because they significantly lower the energy required to make new materials.
5
Sadly, recycling has become a guilt-free way of throwing everything in the trash. Only 9% of plastic is actually recycled. While we may feel absolved of our consumerism when wheeling that full recycling bin to the curb, chances are NOTHING in it will actually get reused.
As consumers, we could yield so much power over companies that produce the products we use each day. We could demand less packaging, better packaging, or no packaging at all. But we have to come down from our recycling high first.
1
Seems to me that if we ever do decide to finish up and complete fusion power, that power can effectively heat and thereby break down as much refuse as we can mine and retrieve back out of the environment, anything left being useful for future production. Anyone have a scientific reason that would not be possible?
1
This article, and especially its headline is misleading. Individuals are responsible for checking to see what their city or town accepts for recycling. No. 1 & No. 2 plastics are widely accepted and are recycled. I know this because that is my area of expertise and our community has won awards from the EPA (prior to the Trump adminsitration) for its recycling programs. Milk cartons and yogurt containers are also generally accepted & recycled. Additionally, aluminum cans, cardboard and newspaper are valuable recyclables. Recycling works. It is one of the easiest ways to help the environment. True, not everything can be recycled, that has always been the case.
2
Companies should be forced to recycle any product they produce at the end of its life. It should be recycled in plants in the USA. They can add that to the cost of the item or the company can eat the cost. Either way consumers can decide if the product it worth it when they see the real cost of it. In Japan television manufacturers are required to take back the TV at recycle it at the end of its life.
2
You missed an important personal responsibility component. The plastic (of the types than can actually be recycled) must be clean/free of food, and it must be dry.
Even if you personally only recycle clean and dry plastic that is actually recyclable, if that gets mixed up with other types of plastic and lots of food waste or other garbage, then when it comes time for a plastic recycler to buy in bulk, the recycler buyerwill reject the whole lot based on an impurity threshold.
That rejected lot will end up in landfill, including your part even your part was clean and recyclable.
From what I understand, San Francisco solves this problem by using people and machine vision to sort the incoming garbage to remove unrecyclables. (They might also do cleaning, I can't find the reference now.) However, that is very expensive and most municipalities don't have the financial resources to do that.
In summary, as this video points out (long windedly): (1) we need simplified regulations and enforcement of correct plastic types, but we ALSO need (2) some system to prevent dirty and/or incorrect recyclables entering the system at personal household level, because that can and does result in ALL plastics being un-recycleable.
One more point: the aforementioned San Francdsisco clean and sorted plastic IS still being exported in bulk to China for recycling - although the dirty or otherwise rejected items are put in landfill here.
Thank you, NYT, for this very important article. Yes, totally true...one of the biggest cons ever perpetrated on the entire world.
This use of plastic has got to become the last choice instead of the first. I try to be conscious of how I use products that are plastic and avoid where possible.
For instance, when making sandwiches/wraps for later, I wrap each in wax paper and then stuff them in glass jars that previously contained sauerkraut. Stays fresh and no plastic baggie. Easy!
I also resist buying anything in hard plastic bottles. I buy o.j. in the frozen concentrate boxes that will decompose. Instead of buying little cakes and candies wrapped in plastic, I buy boxed mix to bake my own.
In addition, I select fast food places on the basis of the containers they use. When I let some of the restaurants know how I feel about packaging, I find that the employees are receptive and they often start telling about their own concerns.
So, there are all these little ways that we can make choices which might just boom back to the companies and force them to rethink their packaging models that have been sold to us as benign if we just do our part to recycle.
I will come back to this later when I can read the many interesting comments I can be sure to find.
3
Beware of the Plastics Industry Association. On a par with the NRA as a defender of profits over death. Your community wants to outlaw plastic bags, your community wants to place a tax on them, your community wants to outlaw other forms of plastics? This lobbying group will step up to give kickbacks to local politicians to vote against any and all measures that seek to restrict the use of plastics. Whether they have to buy off politicians at the local, state, or federal level, they're at the forefront at the destruction of the environment.
5
Anyone that watched Sunday Morning on CBS yesterday viewed a segment on 'dollar store' proliferation, even saturation across the US. These stores outnumber all Starbucks and McDonald's locations counted together!
The amounts of excess packaging and plastics in these locations clearly show America's ambition if not 'manifest destiny' to exceed China in sheer waste tonnage.
6
I would be OK with a reasonable amount of packaging if it were all (quickly, harmlessly) biodegradable or compostable. The environmental cost should be added to all packaging, and that cost should be displayed on the packaging. Consumers could then avoid high-environmental cost packaging and favor low environmental cost packaging. Revenues collected should be earmarked for community composting or recycling.
2
We really, really need to stop producing and consuming so much plastic. In addition to ruining planet earth, our addiction to plastic is wreaking havoc on our endocrine systems. Infertility, developmental issues, cancer...all because plastic is cheap and easy. Quite a price to pay.
3
“Recycling” should not be a magic word that washes away people’s guilt towards climate change, environmental burden, and consumerism. But it appears to be!
Folks who recycle diligently act as if they are living a carbon neutral life. They are not!
Nobody wants our trash anymore! Things are going to be a whole lot worse and the waste incinerators will offer rescue. They will convince the bureaucrats at local municipalities that they are helping with the 4th R; after Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle (3 Rs)...Recover (the energy and produce electricity!)
And people, once again will be brain-washed by the marketing gurus; of their guilt towards climate change, environmental burden, and consumerism.
I have thought of Keurig and the ill-named Green Mountain Coffee as the devil incarnate since the first moment I laid eyes on their convenient environmental disaster. I'm glad someone sued them.
7
Some American industries have been pretending about a lot of things for a while now. If a company can satisfy its customers perceived needs and desires by manufacturing and peddling perceptions back to customers, they can continue to sell their products with no substantive change. Oh, what a banana!
1
When I was a lad, milk was delivered in a glass bottle, which was picked up by the dairy, cleaned, and re-used. And milk was $.20/quart.
This is only one example. Where did we go wrong, and how can we go back?
5
None of these issues, not recycling, nor incumbent favoritism, no drug costs, no anything else will be settled by any department for any reason until the system of the lobby is radically revised so that money does not equal speech. There should be three fronts to the public war. Lobbying, climate and truth in advertising. Lobbying to eliminate the power of money in favor of science demonstrable benefit to the citizen. Climate to do the maximum fo prepare for what may well be the single greatest test of life itself. Finally truth in advertising. There should be consequences, real life serious consequences to knowingly making wholly and demonstrably false claims about everything from recyclability to interest charges to political falsehoods. Greed and the internet have combined to make every thing and everyone suspect no matter the knowable or measurable truths. We need a war on lobby not on each other.
2
Sorry, I couldn't get through the video. Those constant jump-cuts are unbearable. I suggest presenting your idea as a coherent, logical progression, respecting the viewer's thought process, instead of a bunch of people finishing each other's sentences, and the constant sensory overload of graphics zipping around and colliding with each other.
4
Our small town's recycling center now takes only cardboard and cans - no plastics, & no glass.
1
Disappointed that NYT would publish this under the guise of all recycling when it is obviously relating to the problem with plastics. No information is provided about how much of our Amazon cardboard boxes are successfully recycled or no mention of success of aluminum can recycling. Surely the story of those byproducts would show the public their effectiveness and combat the idea you seem to promulgate that most of our efforts are wasted.
Yes, we have problems with the recycling stream. How about a well researched article on why we have so many different types of plastics that make recycling them so much more difficult? Regulations that limit plastic use to those types that are more readily recyclable, such as done in Europe, would provide the public a more effective position to advocate.
5
I recall a clever formulation of reduce, reuse, recycle. We have forgotten the first two.
4
In The Graduate, plastics were the future. Now they—and other nondegradable waste—will be our demise.
Twelve years ago while visiting one of the most remote areas of the Grand Canyon (north rim), we spotted deflated helium balloons in the desert scrub in an otherwise pristine forever wild environment.
Our garbage is everywhere. Wildlife ends up ingesting or getting trapped in plastics etc. and perishing. I imagine no one would deliberately or accidentally feed domesticated pets like cats or dogs plastics. Why should Wildlife be any different?
I’m only one person who tries very hard to avoid buying or using plastic (I reuse containers, buy few ziploc bags and even reuse those, eg). But it’s almost impossible and stressful to think about. Plastics are everywhere and they are our nightmares coming true.
2
Well yeah, recycling is of marginal value, always has been.
But it has never occurred to me to blame nameless corporations for the myth that recycling is great for the environment.
To me it as always seemed like the nameless corporations have figured out that the nameless population has decided that recycling is good, back around the time of the Whole Earth Catalog. So they are more than happy to provide what their customers want.
Kinda like gluten-free sugar
5
My kids were singing Reduce, Reuse, Recycle in day care over 15 years ago, so there is nothing new to see here. So if you have been engaging in guilt-free consumption, well that means you are not really paying attention.
Buying less stuff and reusing what you have is much better for everyone and the planet than recycling.
If you are swimming in Amazon boxes, you are buying too much stuff. That stuff, much more than the packaging it comes in, is expensive in terms of raw materials and the processing required to make it. That thin film of plastic on your veggies or the dog food bag is much less of an environmental impact than wearing clothes (often made of plastics) only a few times, throwing away tons of food. Clothes if well made can last almost a decade with moderate wear, and if someone likes your post on Instagram, why not wear that outfit 20 or 30 times so you and they can enjoy it more. I'm also not sure if Amazon boxes are that much more waste than the shipping boxes that Walmart or your local grocery throw in those giant dumpsters, everything needs secure shipping boxes.
Seattle also has industrial composting AND many restaurants are using compostable plates, forks, etc so these do break down into soil along with retaining carbon that can be used as mulch and actually nurture plant life.
Starbucks is promising to switch to compostable cups (or is considering it, and if their local competitors do that, some of us may just drink something else).
6
I checked the statistics on our city’s recycling page (and we are allowed to recycle a ton of stuff, including plastics #1-6). Approximately 34% is recycled and the other 66% is landfilled. Their graph going back to 1989, however, shows that the total amount of household refuse has not changed much, if at all. So, in 1989, almost 100% of the waste was landfilled, now only 66% is landfilled. Yes, I am very disappointed that the % recycled is not higher. But the stats released also do not break down by items what goes to the landfill and what doesn’t. So is the problem plastics, or glass, or paper? Or is it batteries, or white goods (washing machines), or something else very difficult to dispose of? Don’t know. Since they still allow us to recycle milk cartons, takeout containers, butter tubs, and plastics up to #6, I assume they are finding a way to resource those items, otherwise we would be told not to put them in the bin. We have never been told to stop recycling anything on the original list. In fact, the list has expanded over time. I can’t imagine either the recycling contractor or the city would continue to do this if it wasn’t profitable. And reducing landfilling by 34% is not nothing.
As long as people buy snake oil, other people will sell it, whether it is made of chemicals or words.
The reality is that life is something of a Rorschach blot for most folks, as they see in everything what they either fear or wish were the case. That is why people grab on to bumpersticker "solutions" to complex issues, whether it is recycling or politics. The echo chamber effect of adhering to information sources that confirm what we already believe applies to recycling as well as politics in general.
4
@Steve Frankuchen
Is that snake oil gluten free?
3
@db2
Sorry, db2, but there's no free lunch. You'll have to pay for the gluten.
1
@db2
No, you have to pay for the gluten.
I live in Jersey City, NJ and we recently (within the last couple months) banned single-use plastic bags. I've been using reusable bags for years and was really encouraged by this change. For a couple weeks I saw more paper bags, which is still wasteful, but a lot better than plastic. But, as of late, local businesses have started using "reusable" plastic bags which are thicker, therefore using more plastic, than the single-use plastic bags. Why?! Where is the enforcement of the new policy? How do we convince/force people to stop? Are we unwilling to be inconvenienced in the slightest way to help protect and preserve the planet?It's becoming all too clear the answer in America is "yes."
3
Come on people, hemp for the future!
9
round and round we go... Pandora's box was opened decades ago and then the box was recycled to allow more nasty releases of mankind in the future... New factories are being built, as we whine: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/energy-environment/plastics-shell-pennsylvania-plant.html?searchResultPosition=3
No recycling in the Sate of Texas.. Everything goes into one big trash can. At least they are honest about it..
@Aaron There is no need to lie. There are other valid reasons for bashing Texas if that is your goal.
I own a plastic recycling business in the Houston area, and have been running it successfully for 18 years. There are also other companies in Texas that are recycling plastics, and still others that are collecting plastic waste for export to markets that are willing to take good quality plastic waste.
Yes, the recycling rate is not as high as one would like it to be, but a lot more needs to be implemented in order to improve the difficult business economics that recyclers face.
4
@Aaron
Or on the street. I lived for a year in Reno. No deposits. When we'd go towards California the roads in Nevada ( which had more than their usual share of trash along them) would magically become cleaner and all the bottles were gone. It was because cali had a deposit. You could still throw the bottle away, but you were tossing 5 cents away. If you still wanted to throw away money, you could, but someone else would pick it up and turn it in. No deposit = trashy roads.
@Harish Sangani
If we can give oil companies tax breaks and subsidies, maybe we should be doing it for people trying to improve things?
We all should try to consume less, especially of plastic. Don't buy plastic- bottled water or juice. Try to buy milk in glass or cartons. Avoid buying things online that are wrapped in wasteful packaging - write to the shipper and seller to say why you won't buy from them. Don't buy products in stores that have unnecessary packaging. Write to manufacturer to tell them why you aren't buying. Don't give to charities that send too much junk mail solicitation for donations along with gimmicks (cheap blankets, et al) to guilt you into giving. Write to them and say you won't give until they switch to electronic solicitation. It is especially ironic when environmental charities do it. It won't change the world, save the earth, or end capitalism, but it will be that much less waste in the environment if people start pressuring sellers, shippers, and at least trying to be environmentally conscious when shopping.
Consume as little as possible, and re-use/re-purpose whenever possible.
6
The only thing companies and most people understand and respond to are carrots and sticks. Want to fix plastics and the recycling mess? Make it expensive to throw things away and expensive and nearly impossible to not recycle them. Why do companies dump products off at a grocery store, for example, and the grocery store sells the stuff and then, magically, when all the waste is produced they are no where to be seen? If the grocery store was forced to take back all the waste packaging for example, and the companies that produce the packaging were forced to take it from them and recycle, reuse, reduce whatever the stuff, it would go a long ways towards fixing the issue. Especially if it was backed up by large fees and fines.
This involves the usual trade off however, for the consumer. Most/all of the cost of this will be passed on. As it is, we are all getting a pass on the true environmental costs of our lifestyle by throwing things over our shoulder and forgetting about them. This is also why nothing Gets done to fix something like recycling. Any politician who suggests we pay for the true costs of our way of life, won't last 5'. And they aren't going to get any guts until we force them.
1
@Al - I am reading through hundreds of Comments and am excited yours are getting to 2 essential points: "Make it expensive to throw things away" - yes! We need to charge garbage removal by the pound. "If the grocery store was forced to take back all the waste packaging..." - Home Depot and other stores are required to take back used CFL bulbs, some paint cans, and other items, just as some auto shops will recycle used motor oil. Incremental change will gain momentum.
One of my 2020 pet projects will be to become a nag.
I'm going to write to companies about their single use plastic products, urging them to go back to wax paper. I'm going to try to shame them with Google, LinkedIn and Yelp reviews. When I'm in a restaurant I'm going to ask the managers why they use condiment pillows, plastic straws and take out containers, and so on.
If enough of us make single use plastic an issue, the marketplace will respond.
2
@Ccrawford12
There is a sliver of hope. Example. Some companies are already doing the responsible thing and doing away with straws. The "market" has also responded by producing degradable straws, although it seems most of us could do without them altogether.
2
California passed a law that goes into effect January 1 allowing people to use their own reusable containers for take-out food and in place of 'doggie bags' when you go out to eat. We keep a kit in our trunk with tupperware, cutlery, cloth napkins, reusable cups for when we're eating out. Trader Joe's apparently is addressing their plastic waste because of a customer petition. We do have the power of our pocketbooks and we need to use that. Patronize 'refill' stores where you can refill items such as shampoo, lotion, etc. in containers you already have. But also, familiarize yourself with pending legislation and support those that would help reduce plastic waste - help counteract industry lobbying which is substantial. Follow the "Buyerarchy of Needs" put out by the Story of Stuff project: 1) use what you have 2) borrow 3) SWAP 4) thrift 5) buy.
4
It's been drilled into people that regulation is somehow detrimental, yet we as humans thrive only because the physiology of our bodies is highly regulated. Currently, the onus is on the individual to deal with complex and contradictory information about what is recyclable in any particular town. But why are manufacturers allowed to sell us this baffling variety of packages, and why are they not held accountable for dealing with the mess they create? The video makes a good point about deceptive advertising. It's a lack of well targeted regulation that has put us as individuals into such an untenable bind.
Similarly, each town seems to have to deal with this issue on its own. In Princeton, NJ, we're told that plastic bags are harmful to the separation machinery at the recycling plant. But in Cleveland Heights, recyclables HAVE to be put in plastic bags. What gives? I blog on sustainability issues, and have tried to dig behind the scenes to find out what's really going on. It's a mish-mash and a manufacturer free for all that leaves the individual feeling confused and helpless. Privatize the profit and socialize the pollution. There need to be standards set that put the onus and responsibility on manufacturers, and best practices developed that will simplify our task and lead to more uniformity.
1
THANKS FOR SPEAKING TO TRUTH. INTUITIVELY, I'VE ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD "RECYCLING" WAS A SCAM AND SIMPLY UNECONOMIC AND INEFFECTIVE IN A POPULATION OF 325,000,000 MASS CONSUMERS.
2
Perfect video! Finally recycling myth is exposed. I wish there were videos like this for every town, jurisdiction, city so we know exactly what to recycle and how. Until then, “purchase as if nothing gets recycled”.
1
How much more feel good Green Theater like recycling (which has been going on for decades and we're only now finding out how ineffective it is?) are we going to tolerate before people actually try to figure out real solutions?
I count lowering emissions to levels that might have helped had they happened 20 years ago part of Green Theater, by the way.
2
We were sold cheap products. We were told not to worry, these products would be recycled. Fine. I don't have the semi-religious rejection of "corporations" or first-world guilt about "consumption." So, fine; make stuff, recycle it, fine.
But no one in the US wanted to do the work (technological, infrastructural, etc.) of actually recycling. We probably don't have enough industry to use all the plastic we could recycle, nor paper (we might for the steel and aluminum.) So we ship it to China or some port on the west coast of Africa.
And then, "Oh, nos, the pollution, the waste, the labor conditions." Is the problem recycling? Is it consumption? Or is it that controlling neither the beginning nor the end of our products' life cycles ends up with... dun-da-dun! us controlling neither the beginning nor the end of our products' life cycles.
Single-use plastic isn't what you need for everything in your life. But plastic itself is a way more useful material for a whole range of things than either glass or metal, and people switched materials for a reason, not because they were idiots.
Part of this comes down to making better choices in the materials you buy, in legislating some of those choices. But a really big part comes down to building a recycling system that works rather than just putting things on a barge, washing our hands of it, and then acting shocked and rejecting "recycling" when we find out our didn't-really-seriously-even-kinda-try solution didn't work.
1
Buy as little single use stuff as possible and/or practical and yes certain corporations should be more responsible in the effort to enhance our choices but at the end of the day....dig a huge whole in the ground and bury it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-of-recycling.html
2
Our precious planet wants a reduction in humans.
11
Step one to solve the problem: Vote out the Republicans. Otherwise, any attempt to rein in the plastics industry will be met with stonewalling by the Repubs and with Mitch McConnell bleating that proposed regulations are "job killers." Vote out Republicans at every level. That's the key. Come to think of it, that is the solution to all of America's most pressing issues, unless you think, as do Republicans, that we need to revive Jim Crow America, push even more income to the 1 percenters, give Russia more influence in our elections, and, God help us, re-elect Donald Trump, and the next Donald Trump lookalike that will surely follow the #RealDonaldTrump.
2
@It's a Pity Jim Crow laws were produced by the DEMOCRATS! The KKK was the military arm of the Democrat party. The first Republican president was LINCOLN! The South, too lazy to pick their own cotton started the bloodiest war in American history because of the election of Lincoln.
2
Let's make the producers and the liars clean it up.
Most Americans don’t care enough about recycling to rinse a milk carton before recycling or to put a pizza box in the trash. Even the simplest guidelines are discarded. I stopped recycling last year; my focus is now on reducing all the waste I possibly can.
2
The slogan was,"reduce, reuse, recycle." Recycle was third because it was the last ditch option before, "dump." Everyone forgot to reduce and reuse because there was no money to be made in either or those scenarios. Washing and sorting trash, while feeling good about doing something for the environment with somehow therapeutic to many people. Bah humbug.
2
So what types of plastic are recycled? What should I be putting into that bag?
2
Plastics #1 and 2 are recyclable if clean. Cardboard and plain paper are recyclable if clean and not coated in waxy materials. Clean glass and aluminum are recyclable. Beyond that, it depends on where you are. Some retailers like Target will take back their own plastic bags and wrapping to recycle. But in general, plastic is harmful and should be avoided as much as possible. Even if recycled, plastic is still a petroleum product that harms the environment.
When I visited Zurich I was surprised at their solution: you can only legally throw away garbage inside of special bags, each one costs a few swiss franks. That puts the incentive on the users to reduce their waste instead of this inflated corporate self-promotion scheme.
You can find on youtube some amazing videos from the German recycling program also. They put some of their best people on recycling garbage. If North Korea had as much talent invested in its missile program, we would be in big trouble. They sort garbage using particle guns, detectors and computer vision, all connected to a pressurized air system for sorting the individual pieces of garbage into appropriate bins. It may seem silly, but it actually shaves a few percent off their materials costs when they reuse the things which still have some value. In 50 years they will be on a whole 'nother level.
2
Another sterling example of "Privatizing Profits while Socializing Losses" - sleazy Capitalism at its worst.
8
No one is willing to sacrifice the convenience of plastic for any container that is less durable or costs even a penny more. I myself quite recycling after a major medical event after assessing the time wasted identifying, sorting and carrying recyclables to the drop off area was not worth it anymore. I knew that recycling was a scam and that was occasionally confirmed whenever I read about the many towns that were caught throwing everything into the landfill or paying more to recycle than to put it in the landfill. Only a nut would do this or in the case of the government, spending other people’s money (taxes).
When glass recycling stopped in most jurisdictions I knew recycling was all but dead. Another great sham that hoodwinked all of us, at least for a while.
2
Recycle petrochemical industry lobbyists and the senators and representatives they bribe. Problem solved.
3
Honestly, this didn't tell me much and it didn't give me much in the way of options. What are the categories of paper and cardboard that don't get recycled? How about glass? This also doesn't address the question of why so much plastic is used by corporations and retailers for things like enclosing produce and dairy -- because it is cheaper to ship non-fragile containers. It's not really an option to buy yogurt in glass containers although you can make your own at home; milk in a glass container costs at least twice as much as in a plastic one, if not more.
1
Why do so many things have to be put in plastic in the first place?It isn't just plastic bottles. All manner of products come in hard plastic. One used to be able to buy cosmetics without a hard plastic display box. At least paper boxes and bags can be eventually broken down environmentally, burned or composted. I'm unclear what happens to glass containers and metal cans, although I do put them in the recycling bin. I want less plastic but how can that happen unless it is outlawed?
1
With this gop we don't have a hope in Hades of ever doing anything about recycling and rules to stop plastic pollution. Time for us to take our own containers to the store to have them filled from a bulk container. Vote green and blue. Get rid of the red.
4
A QUICK SURVEY - “Recommend” if you:
Had you coffee in a reusable mug today.
(There don’t you feel good! That wasn’t so hard was it?)
15
I am glad this video was done as I have tried to diligently recycle since I was a child growing up in Seattle, one of the first major cities to have a program. Even my elderly parents recycle.
However, I was starting to get annoyed at materials like plastic bags that cannot be recycled and at manufacturers who make no effort to reduce or use recyclable materials in their packaging.
One idea I had to do this was to wrote the companies I frequent the most on Earth Day and get a letter published in my local paper ( all politics are local).
Now I find the situation is even worse than I thought.
3
Lot of broad-brush generalizations in this video, especially anti-plastic type. Little discussion of the overall life-cycle cost of different materials, such as the environmental harm caused in order to produce a ton of steel, glass, paper, plastic, etc. If that were included, plastics would not be seen as totally evil, but the lesser of multiple evil choices in many cases.
And totally missing from the video is the reason why landfilling happens so often is that it is just too easy and inexpensive to landfill. Raise the tipping fees, and that will improve the economics of recycling so that more materials can be recycled.
Also, Americans are just to lazy to read instructions on how to prepare their trash properly for recycling. Our time is too precious to waste it on reducing waste. Much more important to spend it on Facebook or fast fashion or having the latest and greatest mobile phone. (/sarc)
Look up recycling rates in other parts of the world, such as Japan or Europe, where land is less available for landfilling, and you will find out that their recycling rates are much higher. They also have a population which is less "self" centered and more willing to think about doing the right thing.
4
With enough power anything is possible. Plasma torches reduce everything to atoms, and industrial-scale mass spectrometers can sort those atoms to recover the elements we want to keep. Then it's just a matter of chemical synthesis and metallurgy. Safe clean nuclear, Solar, and wind power would permit all of this, if we can just get past the hump of limited thinking and the illusion that fossil fuels are cheap.
3
Where I live and work, I continue putting things in recycling bins. I know there is a limit to what is recyclable, despite the many lables with triangles and a number on them. So, yes, I'm an "Aspirational" Recycler. I'm afraid I'm more aspirational than i know, since I doubt that *anything* is being recycled, anymore.
I would like to see recycling technology improve in kind and in quantity. Like the push for alternative energy in an earlier, halcyon, administration, we might get a push from the feds for recycling alternatives.
I do realize we need to reduce and reuse at the source as well as at the consumer level. But it used to seem that recycling was going to be both real and increasing.
3
The authors don;t seem to appreciate that there are two sides to recycling, and thatt the economics of putting recycled products to use drives the process, not recyclabillity.
The Chiinese have stopped accepting our recyclable waste.
So now wht do we do with it.
Making something recyclable doesn't guarantee that it will be recycled.
2
I agree. The word "Con" as in "swindle" gets people to view the video, but it is not entirely truthful. "Closing the Loop" costs money, and many Americans are not much interested; even the imperfect solution of burning the nation's garbage is often controversial. And furthermore, what can be said for our failure to address our environmental deficit can be said of our nation's ever increasing national debt as well. We'll just leave it for future generations to pay off.
Quite interesting that many comment focus on individual items or actions: we all seem to believe that our own individual calculus of personal responsibility is good, others are bad. Most individuals and most companies pick and choose, and to change the world, we would have to all do more, at once, and without the idea that personal choice is helping.
The transcript highlights the fluffiness of this piece. Huge disappointment. Glad I didn't waste time watching the video.
Great. We can't recycle. So what's the solution?
Unfortunately, we live in a throw away world, and until we as a culture start moving away from that mind-set, there is little hope for change.
4
Has anyone else noticed how smelly many plastic bags are? They reek of rancid oil, which is probably what they are made of, and they are in major grocery chains as well as "health food" stores.
1
Ancient person here. We used to get along fine with glass, cardboard, butcher paper, paper bags. We could do it again, but it would make for less convenient shopping and would require closer local sources and re-designed packaging and shipping for products that must come from far away.
I like having fresh fruit and veg in the winter, and while fruit is not so hard to solve with paper/cardboard packaging, frozen veggies in decomposable packaging is harder. Meat wrapped up ready to go is even a bigger problem, but someone could probably come up with a transparent wrap made from cornstarch or seaweed or something that would last long enough.
I believe we could do it if we had the determination to, which means not just technological solutions but a fundamental change in the role of corporations our lives, which requires a different politics.
I try to stay away from all unrecyclable packaging now, but it's just not possible -- the option is not there. And that's just groceries. What hospitals throw out daily of plastics that have one-time use is enormous. Our furnishings, our vinyl-edged windows, our flooring, our storage bins . . .
P.S. It's a good video but I'm not in middle school. I could have gotten all the info in a quick read that would take half the time. NYT, give us print along with video/audio .
11
@Subito
I get my meat from a meat counter that uses butcher's paper and oilcloth shopping bags. I avoid buying food that has travelled more than 200 miles to get to my store. Yes, that means I pay more but I am at least supporting my regional economy rather than one that doesn't trade all that much with mine. I also plastic containers for leftovers, flower pots, and inside composting bins.
We really can reduce what we use, repurpose, and support recycling research.
1
There is no con. No one has ever said if you recycle this it will cause no waste. Recycling is an attempt to do better and have less material end up in a landfill and to reduce negative impact on the environment.
Arguing that those advocating to recycle are attempting to 'con' the public is divisive, inaccurate and misleading.
While we can definitely do better, arguing that the public are dupes who are being cheated and lied to at all times is merely hyperbolic fear-mongering that promotes irrationality and hysteria.
6
If we buy as though nothing gets recycled, then people should definitely not be using Keurig machines. Seriously, how hard is it to boil water and use a real coffee pot. In the name of convenience, we are destroying this planet.
7
I am amazed at how right Paul Ehrlich was in 1968 when he published the Population Bomb. And how right Meadows et al were in 1972 when they wrote Limits to Growth.
These authors argued that continued population growth was unsustainable. Their argument was essentially mathematical, indeed based upon the mathematics of exponential growth.
What seems like a small rate of growth, say 2% per annum, fills up the world with people in a few hundred years. The mathematics is undeniable, and the consequences must ultimately be devastating.
The solution was simple. We had to change our morality. It was no longer acceptable for families to have more than two children, because that would bring us ever closer to the carrying capacity of the planet which would have to exact a terrible penalty in higher death rates to offset our unwillingness to use birth control.
But people didn't believe the argument. They called those making it crackpots and fools.
Instead we tried to "save the environment" by recycling and a host of other measures that required minor sacrifice, but allowed us to believe that large families were NOT a problem.
THIS VIDEO ILLUSTRATES HOW WRONG WE WERE.
We now recognize that global warming will actually LOWER the carrying capacity of earth. That is, either we learn to lower our population through birth control or the climate will lower it for us.
Yet the Green New Deal of Democrats doesn't emphasize the importance of controlling population growth.
9
@Blaise Descartes
We are on the downward slope of the population curve and we are not going to be able to reverse that unless we stop consuming resources for several decades.
As for global climate change, well that is all due to people ripping up historical land cover for cities, entertainment, and unsustainable farming practices such as almond groves and water intensive crops in historically arid land. California is one of the worst climate/environment destroying places in the US and towards the top in the world. Yet they see nothing wrong with it. More people, must have population growth to see economic growth is what they believe in.
2
Why does this only focus on plastic recyclables under a title suggesting that all recycling is a con? I for one would like to know whether recycling of other products like paper, glass and metal is also a con. I agree that the recycling campaign shifted responsibility for packaging waste from corporations to consumers, but what about all the other waste we think we are getting away with by just putting it in a different bin?
2
You have to remember that the full mantra is "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". That order isn't random. If you try just a little, many items can be reused. If you used half of your items twice you achieve a 25% reduction in your waste stream. We are fortunate where we live in that there is a shipping company that takes our corrugated boxes, packing materials, and shipping envelopes for re-use, and a community Facebook page that allows you to give away items that you no longer need but still have some life left in them. Recycling should be the second-to-last resort, just ahead of the landfill/incinerator.
6
Interestingly, my elderly immigrant parents found recycling to be a cinch because they had been penny-pinching for decades (buy only what you need) and were used to making do (a yogurt cup can hold pencils). The last step just meant putting items in the right containers.
1
The conclusion of this video should have been that we need to stop plastic at the source. We need strict regulation about manufacture and sale of plastic. Instead, we have the opposite: new ethane cracker plants are in development and oil/gas continue to ramp up plastic production. Consumer choice won’t fix this any better yhan recycling does.
3
We’ve been lied to and mislead by manufacturers for many decades about most plastics. But the regulations were written by them as well.
When we’re told that migration of toxic chemicals from plastics is below safe regulatory levels, that in itself is an oxymoron. When we are exposed to extremely low levels of these, they have more effect on our hormones and endocrine system, causing permanent changes in development, intelligence, sex, and much more.
3
So is it a fair assessment that because of the current administrations trade war with China, they no longer accept our 'recyclables' which is where containers designated 3-6 were previously going? Of course, no one knew their fate once they left our shores.
1
@maryann, the Chinese were using our recycleable waste as raw materials to make tons of “cheap” items that were then shipped back to the US for sale in places like Walmart, etc. Up until recently, most of the stuff you buy that says made in china was made from US recycleable waste. There was an article a while back about a rich female Chinese packaging industry tycoon who maximized the use of her cargo ships by using them to bring purchased recycleable cardboard from the US to China, then the same ships carried new cardboard boxes back to the US for sale here as packaging supplies. The female executive had reasoned that having her ships be full on each end of the voyage was more profitable than getting the raw material in China and just using the cargo ships to carry the finished products to the US and return empty.
The reason a lot of this activity has stopped is a combination of Trump’s trade war and the glut of recycleables being produced in the US. Reduced trade activity has resulted in reduced need for the raw materials, which are now piling up (literally) in China and other asian countries.
1
@Ann in the future, they will be called, "executives."
-signed, A Male Commentator
Congratulations. You've made it sound as though glass, cardboard, paper and metal won't be recycled. The truth about plastic recycling is important to get out but if, based on this video, people stop putting actually recyclable items in their recycling bins this is not a job well-done.
5
The plastic manufacturers are not really the source of the problem. They are responding to demand from industry demanding a cheap, versatile, just-good-enough solution.
Ire should be directed towards the Coca-Colas' of the world, the users, not the makers of the problem.
Coke's response: we are responding to consumer demand.
Again the problem is with ourselves as last users.
Put a deposit on every item.
2
My rural area used to recycle plastics 1 through 5 until about 1 year ago. Now I can’t recycle the flimsy plastics, like air-filled plastic packaging, frozen food bags, plastic shopping bags, etc.
At the same time, glass was eliminated from our allowable recycle materials. Used to be that any glass was recyclable; then it went to only clear glass (no brown, green, etc.); and now it’s no glass of any kind.
Currently, my area only recycles paper and cardboard products (as long as they’re not waxed or otherwise coated) and metal cans (for example: tin, aluminum). It’s not too confusing, but it’s downright depressing because plastics and glass are ubiquitous.
I agree with other comments that corporations need to address their use of packaging materials, instead of externalizing the burden of responsibility onto consumers. Consumers’ responsibilities pale in comparison to corporations that manufacture these polluting products.
4
We’ve long known that recycling isn’t working. The burden of packaging should have been shifted to manufactures long ago. They should legally be required to shift to packaging that has a net zero impact on the environment, or that at least has a reasonable expectation of its use being circular. That products produced are made of recycled or reused materials and not virgin materials. To the extent that is practical municipalities should not all the sale and distribution of products that are in sustainable packaging. And I mean really sustainable and not in packaging that claims to be green but require special hoops to recycle, compost, or otherwise manage.
That is among the reasons why communities such as mine are banning single use plastic bags, single-use polystyrene, and plastic beverage bottles. And considering what to do next.
We need to change the paradigm: Refuse to accept products that are packaged in non-sustainable materials; reduce your use of packaging and single-use items at home; repurpose and reuse what you can, and if all else fails recycle.
3
A company/retailer sold a product that purports to be recyclable but it is not. Sounds like action against that company is the right step. Many companies seeing the legal landscape will make changes before being sued. They may simply take the recycling symbol off but now they’re no longer aligned with consumer demands. Let the market push companies to come up with better solutions not based on false statements.
Spring 2019: my town sent out a magnet we can put on our refrigerators indicating what to recycle - so much plastic now goes into the trash instead of the recycle bin. We received the magnet but no explanation as to why certain things are not recyclable anymore.
So I try to comply, even if I have to use a magnifying glass to see what the number is inside the little recycle symbol.
And to buy as little plastic as possible.
And to donate to environmental organizations who advocate for better policies around recycling.
3
A government build series of recycling plants ...
Would do a LOT more than most ideas ...
Compel manufacturers that use plastic to use containers with number 1 or 2 recycling designation.
Most towns have abandoned taking (as the video pointed out) 3-6.
I’m disappointed many of my containers of takeout food have a five or six recycling designation.
These just go in the garbage along with glass which is no longer commercially viable.
2
You are so right.
I live in a small town and take my trash and recycling to the town dump.
The town's recycling depends on the market. If they don't have a buyer for certain recycables, those items are not recycled.
Paper & cardboard. They pretty much take all paper, but recently stopped taking coated cardboard - basically, no more cereal boxes or milk cartons. Just uncoated corrugated cardboard. So there's a portion of my recycling that now goes into the landfill.
Glass & cans. No changes there. I can still recycle those and still hope that my doing my bit for the environment helps.
Plastic. They stopped taking 3-7, just 1 and 2. No caps, and please remember to take the labels off the containers.
I believe that our electronics are sold to electronics recyclers. Can I be sure? Not really.
Our local food co-op has arrangements with some of their suppliers to recycle all plastics, 1-7. That said, I can only hope that it is recycled once it leaves the co-op.
I generally have only one bag of garbage per week for two people. I buy bulk where I can and use my own containers or choose paper over plastic for these. And I do try to use my own bags for shopping.
Am I making a dent? In my own way, I'd like to think so. But am I really? Probably not.
In short, the profits are privatized and the impact is socialized. It has always been thus. Anyone shocked?
2
As a member of Provincetown's Recycling and Renewable Energy committee, THANK YOU. I am constantly telling people that that age old phrase, "reduce, reuse, recycle" was written in that order for a very good reason. First, reduce your use. Second, reuse as much as possible until its unusable. ONLY after that, should you attempt to recycle it.
2
Here in Florida, every time we get a storm warning, the grocery stores sell out of flats of little plastic bottles of water, wrapped in plastic. Turns out, those bottles are one of the easier-to-recycle plastics; however, it remains the height of absurdity that people spend big bucks to have their tap water packaged. So discouraging--I think the only answer is to include the true cost of packaged water in the price.
4
@Tim B Or, why not try this novel concept, have government be transparent in their taxation on what it truly costs to remove waste. Government has been so obsessed with not taxing the poor and middle class that people don’t understand the costs of running government services nor are they impacted by those costs.
2
Are there any organizations that I can tap into that sends complaints and emails to corporations who continue to use plastic for everything?
3
It's almost impossible to buy even non-plastic items without plastic packaging. However, consumers are also at fault for not having common sense and believing marketing ploys.
Here's an example that doesn't even rely on the promise (or premise) of recycling. Remember a few years ago when Ziploc started marketing sturdy plastic storage containers and lids as "disposable" right on the packaging??? People at work would throw them right in the trash after eating their lunches. The gall of the marketers and the gullibility of the consumer. Unbelievable.
For those of you that have old recycled plastic totes that are now unusable because they are worn, I just discovered that Chico Bag accepts old totes for re-use. Not entirely sure what happens to them, technically speaking, but it's gotta be better than the garbage. I'll take a chance on that.
https://www.chicobag.com/pages/zero-waste
1
We need someone to do for Recycling what Greta Thunberg is doing for the climate.
4
Concerning solutions to our economic system's environmental footprint, I think we should protect our markets (similar to Europe) and incentivise small-scale production, commerce and government (rather than large-scale activities, e.g. corporate and federal). This could go a long way toward helping both the environment and most of our people, imo.
Resourcefulness, conservation and long-term sustainability are characteristics of small, human social organizations. When things get scaled up is when we get into problems. Yet, we continue to incentivise large-scale activity in many ways. We don't have to be a smaller country to operate at a smaller scale. Our technology-driven, homegenized corporate culture is very efficient in the short run. But it's highly inefficient over the long run and clearly not sustainable. If we can stop competing with other nations and amongst ourselves based only on immediate returns, our society will move away from opportunistic "colonialism" and toward long-term, stable strategies that rely on cooperation, in addition to competition.
3
Nowhere in the video is the opportunity cost of plastics explained. While plastics are part of Big Petroleum, they are so much lighter and easier to manufacture--at large scale--than any reasonable substitute that they dramatically reduce our carbon footprints.
Really, we are stuck between plastic pollution and carbon pollution if we cannot substantially decrease what we produce and consume.
4
What I truly want to know is when will we reach the point of no return on righteous indignation? We are getting to the point where people are just going to say what they already feel. Who cares what others think about me?
1
British study done last year- cited in this paper. If you use cloth bags you have to use them at least 131 times and paper bags at least 2 times for it to be worth it. Meaning, that your energy usage and carbon footprint is reduced. If not, you are better off using plastic. Please don't shoot the messenger.
4
Interesting. Perhaps reuse of the same plastic bags, especially if they are the same grocery store, combined with all those cloth bags at work benefits fairs could be a start. It would be like deposit bottles.
1
How did they quantify the damage to wildlife? Hard to put a price tag on entire species.
Your explanation about "the recycling symbol" is incorrect. You talked about the mobius loop and didn't mention resin indicator codes. This is a huge oversight as many people don't know the difference. I think you should do a followup about the difference.
1
A story from CA that we should all take to heart.
"The biggest recycling store chain in California just closed its doors. Here’s why.”
https://amp.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article233551982.html
It shouldn’t be necessary for us, as individuals, to figure out what should be put into our recycling bins versus what should be tossed in with our garbage and, yes, head for the landfill.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/17/recycling-plastic-wrong-guide
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/27/how-to-shrink-plastic-footprint-recycling
There aren’t enough practical news articles addressing the need to be realistic about what is recyclable.
Blaming companies is fine, but we consumers need to be educated.
Too many of us think if we drop our paper in the paper recycling bin, our can in the aluminum recycling bin, and our glass in our glass recycling bin we’ve done enough.
Recycling of even properly labelled items is more complicated than we assume.
Let’s be smart about this, but first we need the facts to make informed decisions.
3
What we need is a global ban on ALL plastic for single use or limited use products. It should all be made from edible plastic-like substances that 23 yo Lucy Hughes invented, or the edible plates made from wheat bran that Jerzy Wysocki invented or cutlery made from potato starch (invented by the chemistry department of the Gdansk University of Technology), etc. Surprisingly there are a lot of problems with compostable replacements for plastic...so why go there? We can solve this problem! Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan saved the planet (ok put your eyeballs back in your head) by banning CFC's to where the ozone layer is almost back to normal. If you don't believe me watch the PBS doc The Ozone Hole: How We Saved the Planet.
5
I avoid fast food (half its weight is single use plastic), fast fashion (acrylic and polyester are plastics), and bring my own bags.
Nonetheless, a new ethane-to-plastic factory has just opened with Presidential fanfare in Pennsylvania, anticipated to produce hundreds of millions of tons of plastic yearly, and whales wash ashore dead from hundreds of pounds of plastics in their guts.
My use of bar soap and shampoo seems as insignificant to human destruction of the entire living world as my vote does in a corrupt election. Still, I’ll continue.
5
The season of waste is upon us. Today I need to go to a store and buy stuff to give as gifts to people who already have more than they need. I'm expected to wrap it up in single-use, throw-away materials, and ship it by air across the country, where a fleet of vans awaits to burn fuel delivering the unneeded items.
In return, I'll receive a similar trove of stuff I don't want. I will have to throw away perfectly good stuff I already had to make room for the new.
Am I the only one who wants to scale back this orgy of consumerism that has become the focus of a religious holiday? I'm disgusted that "Black Friday" now pops up automatically on my calendar as if it were a real holiday. Let's start a conversation with family and friends about rethinking the custom of holiday gift-giving, for the earth, and for ourselves.
21
The only legit place for plastic is in medical supplies and most of that is unnecessary if people were more careful and conscientious.
2
I would love a follow-up on how to shop in a way that reduces plastic and other waste.
9
Here in Cleveland, we watched as a local news channel followed the garbage trucks to the transfer station. They simply dumped the recyclables into the regular trash for shipment to the land fill.
All the while, the city fines people $100 for commingling a used pizza box with recyclables and putting it in the wrong bin.
The market for recycling has vanished. But the cash grab by the city and the trash haulers who profit from this grift, continues.
7
Small percentage of me is shocked. The rest is not. And let's talk about how if someone walks by in the middle of the night and puts a plastic bottle in the trash bag in front of your house and the 'trash police' find it, you get a ticket for it.
It's all a flawed system. From A to Z and all those points in between.
4
I love how at Whole Foods they have you separate the trash into recyclable, compost, and landfill...so that you feel guilty for throwing a package into the landfill THAT THEY SOLD YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE. The responsibility should be first and foremost on the manufacturers and retailers. And as consumers we can apply pressure by purchasing products without plastic packaging, bringing bags to the grocer, and by not buying things online, like from Amazon prime—items that double or triple the packaging with bubble wrap, an extra plastic bag, and a shipping box covered in plastic tape.
5
It is impractical to expect all but the most privileged and educated (not to mention disciplined) to buy as if nothing is recycled. Supply indeed generates demand. I see this first hand when I see my parents buy those multipacks of bottled water despite their awareness of the plastic problem or when I, occasionally and not without guilt, buy plastic bottles myself, or resignedly toss those unmarked plastic clamshells in the trash every time I buy the batteries, hardware products, etc., etc., which come sandwiched within.
What needs to happen first is for corporate money to be removed from campaign financing and lobbying so that legislation can finally be directed toward the public good rather than corporate interest.
5
Batteries and medications are toxic waste and do NOT go in trash but in a special hazardous waste disposal. Hard to find but save up until you do, please.
Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The fact is, an individual consumer has no say in what containers Pepsi or PG or Clorox or SC Johnson sell their products in. As individuals, we have no control over what our municipalities do with the items in our little blue bins.
Is it too much of a leap to see that we need (gasp!) restrictions on plastic container manufacturing? Particularly single use ones? I've never understood why I can buy water in refillable bottles at the store but not laundry detergent or shampoo, or dish soap. There should be incentives for companies who sell products this way.
We also need limits on how much plastic a municipality can dispose in landfills without paying a steep penalty. Yes I know they'll pass it on to the taxpayers, who will demand better performance at the ballot box that might lead to REAL solutions.
My question to the authors: why SHOULD we recycle when it ends up the same place as our trash? Making us feel better about our plastic addiction is part of the problem.
6
Mom’s Organic encourages customers to bring in their own containers to refill dish soap, hand soap, and has big buckets of various nuts, grains etc. All of the bags they offer for wet vegetables are biodegradable.
3
@Deborah While I respect and admire the fact that tiny niche stores offer such options, I'm speaking of large scale practice. Until you go to a Meijers, or Costco, or Wallmart or even Whole Paycheck and that's how it's done... it's deck chairs on the Titanic. I say this as someone who stores food in mason jars and cringes when I buy a single use bottle of water after the security check point in the airport. Too many airports don't have water fountains.
3
Metropolitan Market in Seattle recently took a brilliant step toward sustainability by eliminating those rolls of clear plastic bags in the produce aisles and switching to 100% green compostable bags. I have found that the compostable bags are sturdy and are perfect for storing vegetables and fruits in the refrigerator. When they wear out, I use them to line my countertop compost container. There is no reason why every grocery store in America cannot switch overnight to compostable bags in the produce aisle. The extra cost involved is an obstacle that can be overcome.
14
@RES
Except a lot of supposedly compostable bags only degrade under very specific conditions. Its a bait and switch designed to make us feel better. Beware of marketing. Bring your own cloth or mesh bags for produce and above all, advocate for systemic solutions.
1
@Marta No bait and switch. The bags are one of the compostable brands approved by Seattle's local government for use in food and yard waste bins.
1
One place reusable bags have not made an appearance is home improvement stores or clothing stores. This needs to change.
4
We consumers absolutely DO have a role to play, as well as corporations. We stopped buying items packaged in single-user plastic years ago and honestly it often makes shopping disappointing but if we stop buying this garbage - literally we are buying garbage - bottom lines will tank and things will change. Please participate.
4
@Hmm Actually, bottom lines won’t tank. Companies will sell what people want to buy. If the majority wanted environmentally friendly products and packaging then companies would sell and profit from it.
4
Highly doubtful the majority don't want it; problem is not everyone has the same access to existent alternatives, but don't forget that consumers aren't just individuals, they're also wholesalers, distributors and retailers. In good conscience I as one person can't buy this stuff and while corporations need to be forced to change manufacturing processes among other things, we as consumers also have to stop buying and support those companies that operate sustainably.
1
We need more compostable products and should be looking at hemp, which is quick to grow and can be used in clothing, concrete, compostable materials and even food.
3
I have been waiting for this piece of journalism for a long time. Thank you, NY Times. To me, our consumption of plastics is up there with climate change as an issue we desperately need to deal with. As much as we want to feel good about our throwaway lifestyle, what are we doing to our planet?
Dennis
9
Do you ever stop to think about what our trash and recycling would be like if we had it piled around us like the heaps of shells and broken crockery the native Americans left behind? In a couple of years the average household would be half-buried in stuff.
5
Reduce. Reuse. Do those first.
9
How about a real article on this important subject? The spunky video that accompanies this corporate ad isn't sufficient. We're allowed, even encouraged, to be seething with antipathy toward Trump in these forums. But if we start in on corporate America or its defenders - that's it, comment's in the trash.
The more pressing issue, imo, is not how to recycle our stuff better, but how to reuse it or how to avoid stuff altogether that we don't need or that doesn't truly improve the quality of our lives.
Our profound environmental problems demand major economic changes or even a new economic system; one that does not depend on exploiting natural and human resources and maximizing consumer activity and commerce. This is where we really need creative input. New technology is not always the answer (and can even be part of the part of the problem).
4
Two things to do if you care about the planet and the rest of the animals that live here with us - stop having children and buy as little as possible.
6
If trying to prolong life has no profound meaning a la withdrawing from the Paris accord, then be sure to vote for the inane POTUS’ re-election.
1
The charge for plastic grocery bags is a farce. The thought was, people would bring reusable bags and we'd reduce or eliminate the "free" bags at the counter. Problem is: when I got the free bag for my groceries, I later used that bag for my trash....two uses. Now, I bring a reusable bag and BUY plastic trash bags that are heavier and thicker that I use Once. Same number of bags going into the waste stream.
10
@RonRich
So stop buying the plastic bags.
1
@RonRich How about switching to compostable small kitchen trash bags? By using reusable bags at the grocery store and compostables for trash at home, you would keep lots of plastic out of the waste stream.
1
@RonRich
Marta/RES
My point is that while I and others might search for and find compostable trash bags to replace the bags given out at the store, Chicago is a city of almost 3 million people, most of whom now buy the typical trash bags which are plastic....solving nothing. The overwhelming preponderance bag choices available are plastic. If Chicago and other cities were serious about the problem, they would have prepared better solutions. They have not.
2
The op-ed got it right at the end -- personal responsibility. If you don't want the plastic you use to end up in a landfill then you should use less plastic.
2
What would you expect from a bunch of used-car salespeople...
just package stuff in aluminum!
one can of water please.
Why can't this information be mailed and broadcasted to every household in America! America needs to know!
1
@Frances America does know, but doesn’t care.
3
"Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming"
by Naomi Oreskes
Describes the textbook recipes for the corporations described by Schlossberg and Raza.
2
Recently, I took a group of middle school students to visit a major (and for reasons that will become clear, unnamed) recycling center in the northwest. The manager giving us the tour echoed many of the facts and statistics presented in this op-ed.
He added one further bit of advice to my students.
"Don't quote me on this, but unless it has the number 1 in the middle of the recycling symbol, put it directly in the garbage." Indeed, he indicated that much of the work at his plant, post-China, involved separating out unrecyclable from recyclable plastic - forwarding most of it to landfills.
He spoke candidly so as not to run afoul of city and county politics which, he suggested, prefer to present a rosier portrait of recycling success.
My students, needless to say, were unnerved and depressed.
"What can we do then?" asked one.
The manager shrugged. "Use less plastic."
6
I thought that I would mention the "Blue Jeans go Green" initiative which collects used jeans and turns them into house insulation for non-profit housing projects in the United States. R-values are comparable to 'Fiberglass Pink'. The Jeans are collected by various retail outlets in the US or can be mailed postage paid by "Zappos for Good" (postage-paid labels only good in the continental US).
https://bluejeansgogreen.org/
5
This piece says that much that goes into blue bins is not actually recycled. Okay, but the statistic of only 8.4% recycled was for all plastics. So putting stuff in the blue bins may be partially fraudulent, but we have no idea how much. What gives, NYT?
1
The fake recycling paradigm won’t change until we can focus on business practices that externalize costs. Too much of our economy is dedicated to creating profitability by making someone downstream pay the tab for what should be a business expense.
4
@MValentine I am confused as to why a consumer’s trash is a business expense. The only ones seeking to externalize costs are those who want businesses to pay for it.
1
While I appreciate the effort to shed light on the challenges facing recycling, the advice to buy things as if nothing will get recycled is oversimplifying the US' system.
First - recycling systems are hyper local because it depends on the technology at the local recycling facility to process the material and the existence of local buyers for that newly recycled raw material. So although one town might not be able to recycle yogurt cups, another town will.
Second - the one bright spot for recycling in the US (and world) right now are bottle bills and Extended Producer Responsibility programs that mandate companies to figure out how to raise the recycling rates of their packaging and products. For example, Michigan's bottle bill enables the state to collect for recycling 89% of it's beverages that carry a deposit. If Coke, Pepsi and the rest of the beverage industry would stop lobbying against bottle bills and EPR we would be watching a very different video in a few years time. http://www.bottlebill.org/index.php/current-and-proposed-laws/usa/michigan
2
There is a simple solution. Require retailers to take back all of their packaging, every bit, no exceptions.
Only they have the power to force manufacturers to reduce their packaging and find ways to reuse or recycle the rest.
15
This is *exactly* what they do in Germany. The reduction in useless packaging was very dramatic, almost overnight.
To call the failures of large-scale recycling a "con" I think is a bit misleading. Manufactures whose products are in whole or in part disposable (which is probably somewhere near of 100% everything manufactured in the world) are not exclusively in charge of how disposable elements are disposed of. Industry is highly regulated worldwide, and governments have taken it upon themselves to write the laws regarding waste disposal.
Governments, at least, democratic governments, are, in theory, responsive to citizens. Most people would *like* everything they use to be disposed of in an environmentally conscious way. But governments, including democratic ones, are constrained by certain realities such as technological limitations on waste disposal as well as the fact that citizens have other priorities, including economic prosperity which relies on the large-scale production of manufactured goods, many of which are not easily disposed of.
All of this is a round-about way of saying that human existence itself involves the production of waste. We can engineer better ways to dispose of waste, but unless and until humans agree to do with less, there is no getting around the physics of homo faber, man the maker.
5
Glass, aluminum, and steel are all much more recyclable than plastic, yet fewer and fewer products are packaged that way.
I have heard from various sources that because plastic is so much lighter than those other things, the amount of fuel used to ship them to and from places makes it more environmentally friendly, but is that true or just more of the plastic industry con?
@melaseic fuel costs money. Companies try to save money, so they ship lighter products to save fuel costs, which also saves fuel. So yes, plastic reduces fuel use on the front end. It can also be formed at the factory so dense sligs can be shipped inbound instead of pre made whole containers which results in shipping air.
The city where I live, Pompano Beach, Florida, recently tried to explain to us why recycling isn’t working and provide new guidelines. Now we’re told that we shouldn’t bother to recycle glass(!) because their plant can’t handle it cost-effectively. Plastics should be free of food residue. Confusion reigns.
2
I own a Waste Mgt company and was going to post it on our FB page until she got to her real agenda - more regulations
1
So you think this is a problem but don’t want any actual solution?
1
I grew up in an era when bread came in waxed paper with glued paper ends. People had bread boxes in which to store bread after opened. Many folks still had their Victory gardens but used paper sacks to gather vegetables at the store. Fruits and vegetables at the store were limited to those in season. We were limited to frozen fruits in the winter. Vegetables and fruits that could survive for a period were stored in the cold cellar in the basement. Milk arrived from the dairy in glass bottles with pasteboard caps and the old bottles were picked up at the same time. The generation raised on these parameters will lie long than yours. Hmmmm.
4
It makes me almost physically ill, to think of all the waste we create, and which ends up in landfills.
If nations, states/provinces, cities and towns truly cared about the environment, they'd all be arranging field trips for citizens to visit their local garbage dumps. It is far too easy for us to just 'put garbage out on the curbside', and then not give it another thought. Folks think their garbage will just magically 'evaporate'. But if we were to visit our local landfills, and recognize one of our own discarded items inside one of those massive heaps...maybe, just maybe, we'd understand a bit better...the impact that every one of our discarded items has on the planet.
Why aren't more municipalities offering the pickup of organic waste (discarded produce, eggshells, coffee grounds, etc.) to be made into compost?? Why is it so difficult for us to dropoff hazardous waste items, electronics, etc? (In NYC, dropoff locations are few and far between - often not accessible by public transit - and/or there is just 1-2 days in the entire year, when special dropoff is allowed.
The key, of course, is to use/buy less to begin with. More people should be buying clothes at second-hand shops. Such clothing is typically of better quality (especially if vintage) and ensures no one else will have your same outfit. (Funny that some think it 'gross' to wear used clothing - which obviously can be cleaned/washed - but think nothing of sleeping in a hotel bed..)
Buy less. Upcycle.
5
Charity begins at home, neither the government nor the corporations will solve this problem. And it costs time and money, it’s not free.
1. I have spent over $1000 buying Waste Boxes from Terracycle to separate my plastic packaging, bottle caps, kitchen waste, candy and snack wrappers etc.
2. I switched to a milk home delivery service – in glass bottles (more expensive)
3. Started using grocery bags made of old curtains and sofa covers
4. Bring my own cup for coffee and containers for takeout to the stores
5. Switched to groceries and shampoo shipped in reusable containers (loopstore.com) (again, more expensive)
6. Buy lentils and grains loose from dispensers in grocery stores
7. Buy produce from farm market to avoid plastic packaging
8. Prefer to buy items from brick and mortar when possible, to avoid plastic packaging used during shipping
9. Use glass pasta / pickle bottles to store groceries / snacks etc. instead of buying plastic containers;
10. Do research on what is the best way to recycle a given item (don’t quite trust the gov. recycling)
The list can be longer, but the point is – I don’t blame anyone but myself. The day I can get my habits under control, I will start pointing fingers at the Government or the companies. Until then, it’s back to changing my own lifestyle.
8
@Anon
A lot of good ideas, but really, we cannot wait until each person is perfect to seek changes in manufacturing, packaging and the like, which require the support of government and cooperation of the corporate world to be effective.
Q w/r/t #1 what does the extreme separation do? I can see kitchen waste, bottles & cans, and paper/cardboard separation, but where does anything else go? ( and the kitchen waste is a huge issue).
Providing our own containers for as many uses as possible would be a big step towards lessening waste. It would take a massive campaign and lost of us little nudgers to institute that change in habits.
First GET RID of Plastic Bags! Force people to being their own reusable bags to the stores. The Kroger where I shop in Cincinnati doesn't keep any re-usable bags for sale at its counters -- and not even PAPER bags for those who would take them instead of plastic. I've seen people rolling out their carts to their cars with 15-20 plastic bags, often doubled for heavier goods -- or just doubled period!
3
Lying has become mainstream in America, from our president on down.
2
Kathleen needs to stop using Keurig, period.
2
Liberal elitist feel-good multi-gallon recycle bin full of multi-substance sort outs.
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
1
Well done! I recently wrote to Costco about this issue, they sell WAY too much stupid plastic packaging. Our style of capitalism has encouraged corporations to max profits and pass costs to everybody else.
3
" Pope Francis on Sunday urged people to resist the excesses of consumerism in the period leading up to Christmas, calling it a virus that attacks faith and offends the needy.
“When you live for things, things are never enough, greed grows, other people become obstacles in a race... consumerism reigns supreme.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-holidayshopping-pope/between-black-friday-and-cyber-monday
The essence of Buddhism from 2500+ years ago. Add wars into the mix, and we have uncontroverted proof of the priorities of the world today.
How each of us behaves and VOTES is the only way we can right this ship!
3
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
This is a hierarchy.
Good to recycle plastics.
Better to reuse plastics.
Best to reduce the use of plastics.
Recycling is mostly a feel good, guilt alleviating, activity for the consumer. Industrial recycling, where a huge enterprise recycles a large, uniform, "high quality" waste stream is more effective. Do people remember to thoroughly wash plastic containers? Do they remember to pull the entire paper label off the plastic Amazon mailing envelope before recycling? Sometimes.
4
Meanwhile Billionaires sit in their giant mansions watching the little people scurrying around in their electric cars, moving into tiny houses, worrying about paper vs. plastic, preaching their anti-consumption testimonies - And they laugh and laugh.
5
Other countries have come up with solutions to recycling plastic but they don't have the money to scale it up.
Please watch this video of an Indian entrepreneur and his plastic recycling machine.
https://www.ted.com/talks/mani_vajipey_how_india_s_local_recyclers_could_solve_plastic_pollution
Meanwhile (to quote Colbert)... behind the obfuscation and outright lying, giant corporations press on with great speed - and huge money - to produce ever more plastic. Find one politician who speaks against this slo-mo rape of the environment, and you will find a politician who's money sources are drying up.
http://seniorjunior.blogspot.com/2019/03/one-of-biggies-ambivalence.html
3
Check out your nearest refill shop. Bring empty shampoo, conditioner, lotion etc bottle and refill it. Saves buying more plastic containers.
https://www.litterless.com/wheretoshop?fbclid=IwAR1yPIrI2ggS1s0EklTgh4ILHwXj_lTeoBdV0nTuTV2kcMAj7ZF90BrW3c4
Coca Cola knows how many bottles they distribute. The beer companies are aware of the amount of cans and bottles that they make. Pepsi knows how many plastic containers of potatoes chips they sell. Companies are responsible for plastic pollution that is everywhere. It is time that companies responsible for the scourge of plastic pollution on a planetary scale be held accountable.
5
The premise of this report is not news to me. Twenty five years ago I was friends with an executive at Waste Management, the trash collection company. He shared back then that the recycling trucks lumbering down our streets were a fraud: that most of the collected items could not be recycled, and that nearly all of the "recyclables" were sent to the landfill. An entire industry was set up simply to make us feel virtuous about our consumption.
5
Put a dump in every neighborhood. Watch what happens!
5
How will I pick up my dog's poop without single-use plastic bags? Riddle me that.
5
I use newspaper and plastic bread bags to pick up my dogs waste. The newspaper works fine.
1
Tetrapacks are the epitome of this sham.
They are 100% not recyclable, save maybe the screw on cap, but somehow people, lots of people, assume that the carton is somehow efficient, eco friendly, recyclable (hey, it's from Europe!)
They are a viciously un-recyclable amalgamation of disparate materials, destined to stick around landfills for generations.
And they clutter the legit recycling materials stream because our perpetually ill informed public tosses them in recycle bins too.
6
It is absolutely shameful that non-plastic-package alternatives to many products simply do not exist. Whatever happened to yogurt sold in wax-paper cups?
Attention soy milk producers: I would really like to switch from cow's milk to soy milk, but I will *never* do it until you stop ruining perfectly good milk cartons by adding those ridiculous little plastic spouts! I always tear the spout off the carton and throw it into the recycling bin. But who knows if it even gets recycled? I always make sure to screw the cap back onto its receiving ring before disposing of it, so at least it's prevented from becoming a small-animal strangulation trap, but that is small comfort given the enormity of our plastic problem.
2
@Frank F
You should know that wax-paper is not recyclable. The coating cannot be separated from the paper. Generally anything made from more than one material cannot be recycled.
This is a perfect example of how recycling, or the illusion of recycling, is primarily a feel-good activity for the consumer.
"Though it is biodegradable in its unaltered form, oft-applied additives such as petroleum rid it of that quality. Wax paper also cannot be recycled."
Wax paper - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki › Wax_paper
2
Although educating the public about the ramifications of their consumption is admirable and necessary, real change is going to have to be made at the source of production if you want to effect change on a mass scale.
The public can be effective in demanding that producers change their behavior, but people will not change their behavior unless there are convenient, cost-effective alternatives. It is unrealistic to expect that the overwhelming majority of individual consumers will choose the more expensive, small batch alternative to the major brands they can find in Walmart or their supermarket without a financial incentive to do so.
The government will have to intervene to stop the use of so much plastic in packaging, to make it prohibitively expensive to use single-use plastic bags and water bottles if you want to ensure change is made to consumer behavior on the necessary scale. That means a number one priority of voting out all climate change deniers next year.
6
Although educating the public about the ramifications of their consumption is admirable and necessary, real change is going to have to be made at the source of production if you want to effect change on a mass scale.
The public can be effective in demanding that producers change their behavior, but people will not change their behavior unless there are convenient, cost-effective alternatives. It is unrealistic to expect that the overwhelming majority of individual consumers will choose the more expensive, small batch alternative to the major brands they can find in Walmart or their supermarket without a financial incentive to do so.
The government will have to intervene to stop the use of so much plastic in packaging, to make it prohibitively expensive to use single-use plastic bags and water bottles if you want to ensure change is made to consumer behavior on the necessary scale. That means a number one priority of voting out all climate change deniers next year.
No one who thought for more than a second ever bought into recycling as anything more than a bandaid. The motto is actually 'reduce, reuse, recycle' but capitalism and the 'public servants' who work for the handouts and revolving door can only make money from the last one.
No one believed in recycling. No one. Ever.
3
It seems to me that estimates of the recycling rate of plastic bottles in the province of Ontario, Canada seem to vary; but a bottled water company called "Ice River Springs" claims that it reprocesses an astonishing 80-85% of PET collected in Blue Box programs across the province. It claims that it is able to do this in part because its bottles are tinted green, while larger producers such as Coca-Cola and Nestle insist on selling their products in clear plastic bottles.
Our municipality grinds glass containers collected in our blue box program to use as roadfill, which may not sound green, but complements the aggregate sourced from local quarries.
4
Compared to the USA a significant amount is recycled in Germany from paper, glass (3 colors) and packaging (plastics) which is mostly used to create energy. The public buy-in is definitely here as is the infrastructure. Much less waste makes it to the landfill. I have lived for many years in both countries, including 4 states in the US over 20 years. In the US it's just all too hard. Despite the corporate blather as this piece correctly identifies, and because most people don't care, recycling remains tough sledding.
3
Misdirection at its best.
1
My friends think that I am bringing the four horses of environmental doom because I only recycle glass. Oy vey!
1
The solution demands no new tech or products, only a commitment to living sustainably on the planet. A National Waste Stream Management Act will be a good starting point. The Federal gov. should fund 6 recycling centers adjacent to metropolitan areas to process the waste and TAX the corporations to pay for it . There is NO place to throw our garbage to.
2
Aluminum cans are almost 100% recyclable. Please always recycle those!
3
Here!Here!...Still I wonder why they insist on lining their cans with plastic on the inside.
1
As long as people buy snake oil, other people will sell it, whether it is made of chemicals or words.
3
It is hard to decide what disgusts me more: the medical industry, government corruption, Big Pharma, or lies about recycling. But all of them make me glad I did not have children who will inherit this entire mess.
3
The whole religion of recycling is a demonstration that the environmental left can be almost as pig-headed and closed-minded as the religious right.
Municipal curbside recycling programs are extremely expensive; recycling trucks generate enormous quantities of carbon emissions, and for what? Recyclables mostly don't even get recycled, they get shipped to China to be dumped or burned in much less environmentally regulated circumstances.
Even if recycling did actually result in recycling, the money we spend on recycling would be better spent on environmental initiatives like replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs or switching out old refrigerators and toilets. How many New Yorkers spend hours meticulously washing and sorting their trash but won't replace their 40-year-old toilet that consumes 10 gallons of water per flush?
Recyling is just a grotesque absurdity. But try to raise these questions and you'll get frozen stares every time. Recycling may be terrible policy but for a lot of people, unfortunately, it's religion.
Nobody loves landfills, but really they should be way, way down on the list of environmental worries. Landfill consume, relatively speaking, a tiny amount of space. If you're worried about disappearing open space, worry about shopping centers and parking lots and suburban McMansion developments.
3
Corporations Lied and then they got their non profits to lie for them doubling their money and the impact by making it look like a push by public good minded individuals. Everyone has truly lost their moorings.
1
I live in a county in SW Washington state that stopped taking ANY plastics for recycling. Yet the county just to our south still takes #1 and #2's.
I get the economics. There has to be a market. How about this:
Take the plastics, bale them up, and bury them for future use. Near a landfill seems efficient.
It would be like money in the bank and more sane than producing virgin material.
1
Perfect Scam - Make it the responsibility of the end users - who have absolutely NO SAY in the packaging and how much to foist on each consumer with each delivered item. They should have worked out a systme before unleasing this conumdrum on the Public!
12
@Penny The end users buy the product. Companies don’t sell products that people won’t buy. When products don’t sell, they disappear from the market. The reality is that there are many reasons that consumers prefer the products that they buy. Whether it be convenience or something else.
3
Nonsense. Literally everything is packaged in plastic. You make it sound as if there are all kinds of choices and options. There is literally no practical way of avoiding it entirely, no matter how conscientious a person may be. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’m so sick of all the responsibility being placed on consumers when it’s these unethical corporations creating endless garbage. Our elected officials are failing the public by not enacting policies and regulations that reflect the will of the people. Most people want to do the right thing, but they aren’t even given a fighting chance because the whole system is rigged for failure. The problem will continue to grow exponentially worse unless it’s dealt with from the top down. Why even give greedy corporations or befuddled consumers the option of being irresponsible? Because of course that’s going to happen and that’s what laws and regulations are for. It’s always more efficient to deal with a problem at it’s source, before it’s even become a problem.
853
@Terry Fan It’s all packaged in plastic because consumers have demanded that. No one wants their stuff to arrive broken or damaged.
2
I wonder how many environmentalists, who would prefer that fossil fuels never be dug up or removed from the ground, realize the irony that when you put a plastic bag, straw, cup, diaper in a land fill you have sequestered it forever---just like never dug it up in the first place (but you got one good use first). So we should celebrate land filling plastics---they will never be used again!
1
Cigarette filters are 98% plastic and smokers throw those all over the place, in addition to the plastic wrapping now put on cigarette boxes.
These all get washed right into the sea. 5 trillion a year. Chocking birds and marine life.
This horrific addiction is a real sickness for all of us.
5
No we're going to pretend the recycling push came from corporations, not environmentalists?
Bury trash to bury carbon.
1
Corporations are not people.
Money is not speech.
But the Founding Fathers were white European Judeo-Christian capitalists whose property included their enslaved black Africans along with the lands and natural resources stolen from brown aboriginal indigenous human pioneers in the 'New World.'
It is written that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven. See Matthew 19: 24; 25: 31-46.
2
@Blackmamba Did the founding fathers have a plastic problem? I am thinking that was a little after their time. I am also pretty sure that the nation’s founding fathers aren’t the source of all of our current problems, only the ones they caused.
1
one word. consumption. I don't really care about your political leanings. I see our citizens everyday sporting the latest hot fashion brands, tech marvels, etc. Until people don't identify their personal character with Hunter boots, Hershel back packs, latest iPhone. Why spend your money on frivolous merchandise that is made by almost slave labor. I'll never understand.
4
Trash has been a problem from the beginning of time. The Ancients built right on top of their trash.
The challenge for modern society is how to dispose of harmful trash. I can promise you this. It’s never going to happen all on its own. That’s why God created Laws!
When I was growing up in the early 40’s, we burned our trash in our back yards. Try that today and you get fined or go to jail.
Plastic is a killer, but until we can come up with an alternative, people, good people, will continue to use it. Outlawing plastic straws would be a great start, but getting rid of plastic bottles is going to be much more difficult.
I have great faith in humankind to find a solution, but until then, it’s up to each one of us to do what we can to make this a safer planet. Do you know what’s worse than even plastic? Climate Change!!!
2
Consume less. Start there.
2
Good information, Keep it coming!
1
It's cheaper to make new plastic than it is to recycle plastic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/energy-environment/plastics-shell-pennsylvania-plant.html
Do you know what the most effective mechanism is to stop the degradation of our environment? The government. Only the government can provide incentives to industry to recycle plastic instead of making new plastic.
I can bring my own glass containers to restaurants and not use plastic straws and make my own coffee instead of using Keurig pods and take washable canvas bags to the supermarket and just stop buying stuff in general because it usually comes in giant hard plastic casings a normal person can't even open--but so what? Do you know how much plastic there is in cars? Building materials, carpets, textiles? Basically everything?
The best thing we can all do is not vote for Republicans. They've made it clear that they just don't care. If a business can save a penny making plastic from frack gas, that's okay by Republicans.
Regarding the video, anyone who has been awake for the last ten years already knows this. It became crystal clear when Asians started turning our recycling away. The obvious question was, well, what are we going to do with it? The answer was--we're going to dump it in landfills.
We have the recycling program; we just don't have the actual recycling. The government needs to provide incentives to business and industry to find solutions.
Vote for Democrats.
3
The recycling myth was debunked 23 years ago in a NYTimes article entitled, "Recycling is Garbage."
Why did it take so long for this myth to be debunked in the mainstream media?
Were consumers who recycled the VICTIMS of corporate propaganda?
Or, were they victims of their own willful suspension of skepticism??... because they wanted to feel good about themselves.
Obviously, I believe it's the latter.
1
@Freddy Of course. We are living in a world filled with people who prefer to feel morally superior. Live your truth is one of the greatest lies of this age. People only put forth the identity that they believe society will accept and society ostracized those that don’t go along with this program. How many here are going to write comments in defense of consumerism when so many live that life and prefer to do so? All we do is shift what’s acceptable from time to time while also choosing a new boogeyman from time to time. Nothing truly changes.
If an entity dumped a load of garbage on one's front lawn, I think most would want that entity to be responsible for cleaning up its mess.
In the nutty system we have now, companies get us to buy their mess and get us to pay for clearing it up.
Does this make any sense?
@PR wiley Companies aren’t the ones making the mess. Consumers are. This is more like you dumping your trash in your own front yard and expecting someone else to clean it up.
1
Looked what happened when states took action against plastic straws? Trump started selling plastic straws on his campaign website. (Trump Straws - Pack of 10 $15.00)
How do we even begin to fix this problem when the White House sees every environmental issue as an opportunity to troll democrats?
3
@K.Kong simply put there is no problem to solve. My Colorado straw is not going to find its way into a turtle's nose in any ocean, and neither are the straws from all the rest of the interior of the US. I use a straw because I don't like spilling an icy drink down the front of my shirt, and I have a beard. I have no objection to using straws made of biodegradable plastic, but paper straws just fall apart. This is just another manufactured "crisis" by those who want to tell us how to live.
The entire idea if "disposable" items is a sham. Add the recyclable farce and it's just catastrophic but a huge profits for the industry.
The recipe is the same in many commercial ventures that leave the environment a mess or worse, the cost of clean up & the health hazards & a big profit for a few. I wouldn't call these people & industries climate deniers, simply liars & thieves.
In our community school children take a field trip to the dump to see what happens to their trash. That provides a valuable connection to the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality we have in America. We consume way too much stuff and need to reduce, reuse, and recycle and actually have a recycling system that is appropriate to the community.
1
Bravo! This should be front line news once a week.
1
"The greatest trick companies ever played was making us think we could recycle their products."
Really?
Or are Americans just lazy?
Most plastics, for example, can be easily recycled. It just takes a tiny bit of effort:
"Enter your zip/postal code below to find retail stores, municipal recycling centers and private recyclers in the United States that accept plastic bags and film packaging."
https://www.plasticfilmrecycling.org/recycling-bags-and-wraps/find-drop-off-location/
https://twitter.com/WRAPrecycling/status/1178741521048375298
An israeli company is working on a way to recycle all household waste so that it is kept out of landfills. The problem is that the product created by this mishmash will be used to make more plastics. I suppose that's o.k. if their plastics are also recyclable by the same method. (The following wapo story is not a video.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/climate-solutions/israeli-startup-ubq-turning-trash-into-plastic-products/
@Carol
It's called Plasma Arc Recycling. Read this:
https://www.explainthatstuff.com/plasma-arc-recycling.html
I wish we would invest in this tech and get the problems worked out.
How about making the 1-7 symbols big enough to actually read?
The following article suggests a solution,but it may require more local, state, and federal regulation to carrot-and-stick industries to use this solution: https://www.packagingdigest.com/sustainable-packaging/how-sustainable-are-biodegradable-and-plant-based-plastics-2017-05-30
1
Look up "Penn and Teller Recycling" for a more in depth expose on the recycling scam.
1
If it would bring real change in plastics use and sustainability I would vote for Elisabeth Warren.
1
Did you know that out of ALL the plastic milk jugs we place in bins to be recycled are never, ever recycled back into new milk jugs?
Gee, why not?
Because they are contaminated.
Then you say, OMG.... CONTAMINATED?
Yes, contaminated with the mil they held. Whatever plastic holds gets contaminated to some degree by whatever is stored in it. But then... the stuff stored in it is contaminated by the plastic as well. It's called migration. The toxic chemicals that make up plastics migrate into whatever it touches.... water, air, food, you.
Stay tuned for more happy news the plastics industry does not want you to know.... The regulators don't want you thinking about this very much either.
1
@De Sordures
I don't care if they use them to make new milk jugs, I just want them to use the plastic for something.
Actually, I'd be happier having the milkman deliver glass bottles to my door. Remember that?
1
America otherwise known as Feel Good, Inc. Predatory corporations masquerading as “caring people” and other con artists will always thrive here because there’s a sucker born every day in this “manifest destiny” nation. And don’t forget, our president is the greatest confidence man on the planet (which is rapidly dying).
2
Great reporting on the latest scam of U.S. corporations.
Here’s further information of their blatant disregard for consumers:
Per Teamsters.org., July 2019:
“Republic Services/Allied Waste is America’s second largest trash and landfill corporation. Republic’s largest shareholder is Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates, who owns nearly 30 percent of the company’s shares through Cascade Investment, LLC.“
From Stlmag.com September 7, 2018:
“Just Moms STL,” is an HBO documentary that highlights the fight against the Republic West Lake Landfill to clean up it’s nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project.
Approximately 47,000 tons of Uranium, thorium and radium had been dumped by the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works and others.
1
Plastic is the opiate of the people.
2
SCOTUS says corporations are people.
People lie.
1
Duh!
Accept the fact we consumers need to deal with our junk products and packaging in our own town
China got smart and stopped taking it
Local to me is a huge cardboard recycler all in leaky warehouse soaking wet!
I don’t know the solution
Nobody does
I pity out great grandchildren
1
Ummmmmm... Con??? Hardly. If someone simply accepts what they see in ads, they’re not being conned. They’re being incredibly naive.
Doesn't this make Jeff Bezos, Mr. Amazon, the greatest polluter the planet has ever known?
4
Stop buying plastic--or at least reduce. One cupcake in a plastic holder is ridiculous waste. Just think of the whale that might eat your plastic everytime you buy it.....
Here we go again.
-Some of my plastic containers at home are over 10 years old! Plastic is not all bad.
-I see some delivery companies like UPS driving electric delivery trucks more and more.
-Carbon dioxide is at a sweet spot right now with roughly 415ppm average; at 150ppm plants die so stop complaining! One thing we could do is slap a surcharge on cardboard paid by the retailer (etailer) because they get away with low shipping costs which they push onto the homeowner.
We need regulations that prohibit the manufacture of plastic for any use. We need regulations that prohibit the use of fossil fuels for any use .Then the spirit of capitalist innovation
will develop and produce environmentally safe substitutes.
@will nelson No, we wll just freeze in the dark, hungry and cold with no jobs and no future. that's where mankind was when fossil fuels were discovered. At the time, man was quickly using up all the trees; vast forests were denuded. Fossil fuels provided the basis for today's prosperity. We still cannot build, transport, and install solar panels or wind farms without fossil fuels. So let's make them illegal? I'd say you must be smoking some funny weed, but you can't even grow that without fossil fuels.
This is truly shameful, and I admit I use single use water bottles. The quality of tap water where I live is bad. On the other hand, when I lioved and worked in New York City, I drank straight out of the tap. I did this atmy office as well, even though we had a wtaer5 gallon bottles delivered bottled water delivered and used in our cooler/heater dispensor. Granted, the quality of tap water there in the 1980's and 1990's was among the highest in the world (and still is very good). The "Triangle" symbolizing recylable materials only made people "feel better" about what they bought and/or used. Again, I include myself. One of the worst things (which could easily be changed) are plastic bags that Walmart uses ubiquitously. I do use cloth shopping bags. Especially after seeing a show on the "Natinal Geographic" TV channel. It showed birds (typically dead albatrosses) which had necropsies which clearly showed tiny bits of hard plastic in their intestines and stomachs. Also, the show had film of the huge plastic "islands" which are floating in the Pacific Ocean. They are made up of all kinds of things plastic. One of the favorite meals many sea birds (albatross, pelicans, etc.) and fish like to eat are squid. The grey Walmart plastic bags floating ocean and undersea currents look remarkably like squid; especially when moving in the currents.
The best thing for recycling would be sizable carbon tax -- then used plastics would be valuable. Now natural gas is so cheap that no one can afford to recycle.
When oil was $100/barrel we did have a domestic recycling industry.
Two nit-picks:
The Crying Indian commercial was about telling people to put stuff in the trash, and not throwing it on the ground. NOT at all related to recycling. (It is a great image; I can understand why you want to "recycle" for this video, but not historically accurate.)
Corporations made packages recyclable in response to environmental activists. It is not their fault there is no domestic recycling industry. Is it better to make packages non-recyclable?
1
Dont blame this totally on the "corporations". The scam was wholly aided by all the quasi-environmentalists who claimed that the recycling "System" was actually a fully functioning, real thing. That there were real industries out there just waiting for the end products of the recycling to turn into "important stuff".
That the nation would be populated by park, subway, bus stop benches made from recycled plastics. That roads and sidewalks, and even new building components would be made with predominately recycled resources. There would miles and miles of school hallways and office buildings carpeted, tiled and walled with recycled products.
Yet there truly were no efforts made, or even the requisite industries to produce these items.
Then along came the "reduce your carbon-footprint" crowd and their memes...and the curtain got pulled tighter around the lack of there being anything behind it. Never mind that the means to reduce any footprint were wholly lacking.
What was really behind all the curtains, was that the US was exporting its waste to China, etc. Only some of which was being recycled. While the larger impact was polluting their landscapes, and poisoning the desperate people pulling the things apart. All without protective gear, or toxin containment processes in place.
Meanwhile; US consumer products use of plastics,etc, all increased by such numbers that reducing ones footprint has become impossible. But the battle cry can still be heard.
Long way to go.
3
I helped write NYC's recycling law in 1988, so this 2019 story about "the great recycling con" stings. Might have stung even more if facts were public about the actual amounts of the metal, glass + paper put out in good recycling faith get turned into new products. I can't find any NYC reporting about what ultimately happens to all that stuff.
Even worse was the NYT story about the toxic price of what passes for the recycling of our discarded electronics https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/08/world/asia/e-waste-thailand-southeast-asia.html
157
The 1988 recycling law seemed to be the best thing that happened to me. When we lived on the Upper West Side we used to take our cans, bottles, and newspapers to St John the Divine for recycling. But when we moved to the Upper East Side in October 1988 just before curbside recycling, we had to lug our recyclables across town for a while. Miraculously when my son was born in November we were able to put out our recycling. What a relief not to have to take a cab back to the other side of town. Thank you
14
@The Sallan Foundation so why didn't you work on reduce and reuse? The Sallan Foundation has its heart in the right place. Could you put your wallet there also?
6
@The Sallan Foundation
Hind sight is fine. It's impossible to anticipate all of the outcomes and inaction in the face of uncertainty isn't a useful option either since manufacturers make no such hesitation.
The lesson here, I think, is to adapt to what we know now.
9
I used to use 4 plastic bags a day but now I only use three plastic bags a day. That is only 1095 bags a year instead of 1460 bags a year. I hope to decrease my plastic bag use to under 1000 bags year by the year 2024. It is a struggle but we all must sacrifice if we want to save the turtles and the rest of the world's creatures.
I’m so sick of plastic yet I look for alternatives and there are so few.
532
@Richard Agreed. In many cases, plastic is the only option. In some cases, there are glass and metal alternatives, but this can be prohibitively expensive. (Has anyone ever purchased yogurt in glass containers? Yikes.)
15
@Laura -- "Prohibitively expensive"? Maybe not if we fully priced into these products, by taxes or otherwise, their cost to the environment when not recycled.
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@Laura I have bought yogurt in returnable (with deposit) glass containers in Europe. It can be done.
21
Recycling only makes sense economically in bulk. 20 years ago bulk newspaper recycling made recycling easy. But with the death of newspaper most US end point recycling infrastructure got shut down as waste companies liked using other peoples money (China) to build the infrastructure they needed. It's coming back online domestically but the end users are slow playing it because they like cheap feedstock caused by oversupply.
The big problem with plastics is the lack of standardization makes it hard to do anything in sufficient bulk to make it economical. Not just from chemical additivies and manufacturing process changing the melt point, but mainly from packaging design.
Packaging = marketing. The marketing guys take over in our economy. This leads to incredible heterogenaity in plastic packaging, making recycling impossible. High quantity, consistent items, like milk jugs, are still recycled fairly easily.
1
We may one day feel this way about Tesla and many other products touted as "green". It is easy to sell something as environmentally-friendly because it makes people feel good as long as they do not scrutinize the details. This has been exploited in many areas of both the private sector and public policy and we all suffer when such fantasies persist.
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@Alan
you mean the toxic to produce batteries
I'm an evangelical recycler, but the entire system is appallingly wasteful. All of those huge trucks going to every address in a city, burning huge amounts of fossil fuels, to take the products to huge-footprint plants where only a tiny percentage of it will be recycled (at what fossil-fuel/chemical/pollution cost??), while most of it will eventually be trucked to landfills.
What makes me feel slightly ill is to think of all of those PERFECTLY GOOD products that are destroyed only to be remade into the identical product. Think of a wine bottle: Why does that need to be picked up in a truck, transported to a recycling facility, crushed, and recycled in order to be made into another identical wine bottle? It's insane. Yes, it would require infrastructure, but why can't wine bottles be returned to the winery to be sterilized and reused? Start looking at all of the perfectly good items that could be reused, and it's hard to bear.
My very tiny contribution is to never recycle a cardboard box: Any box that arrives in good condition (about 99% of them) is broken down and stacked in a corner of my garage. When it's grown into a pile, I post an ad for free boxes and packaging materials. They're usually taken by the end of the day. All of those perfectly good boxes would have gone through the entire recycling process just to be made into more cardboard boxes.
Just look at the contents of your recycling bin and consider how many of the items in it could be reused instead of recycled.
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@AlwaysAsk those trucks would be driving there to pick up trash anyway. Route optimization software means a two bin system (black/grey for trash and blue for recycle) is essentially free for 75% of the US population in terms of carbon usage.
Most glass breaks during collection. Unless you're going to hand deliver your glass to a drop off place, in which case think of all the carbon emissions from those thousands and thousands of cars making trips for a couple flass bottles.
Why doesn't the government stop the production of plastics? I am 70 years old and grew u in the 1950's with virtually no plastics. Everything from mayonnaise to salad dressing came in glass bottles, which could be recycled and our milk bottles and soft drink bottles were returned to the store for deposit. I, like many people, have watched in horror for the past 50 years as nearly all glass containers disappeared from the shelves and was replaced by plastic. If plastic is the problem, quit making it - we got along fine without it. Glass is a healthier alternative since it can be re-used, sterilized, and does not have the nooks and crannies for bacteria to get lodged in that is present in plastic (I am a microbiologist.) The problem has been created by the companies that manufacture this product and should be cleaned up by them and our government should be at the forefront of clean-up action through regulations and penalties.
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Again its US that counts. We voted Trump and his group in, we accept oligarchy as our government, we consume any and all things presented to us, we use packaging, extra energy etc. and are glad for any rationale.
It is up to us to change things, it is our responsibility . It means electing people we want not the special interests, changing our habits, becoming aware. WE are the answer not businesses.
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I am a customer of Waste Management. They have an excellent recycling pickup program here, but they are woefully confusing about what, exactly, can be recycled. Sometimes their web site says lots of things, like milk cartons, can be recycled. Sometimes they say these things cannot be recycled. Over the years I have thought I had it right, only to find out that I had it wrong. I'm really trying to do it right. Please, WM, help me out here. I realize every market might be different. That's no excuse. Give us market-by-market instructions.
3
I'm 30, and I anticipate being primarily a one-issue voter for the rest of my life: clean up the planet and reverse the pollution of the last 100 years.
Not only do we need to make ourselves material-neutral, creating no products that can't be safely reabsorbed into the environment or broken back down through recycling, but we ALSO need to use our intellgience to develop some "cleaning robots" to help us remove plastics from the earth and water supplies.
1
I would love it if even one of these alarming articles was followed by a clear list of things that we as individuals and families could do to make a difference. It honestly feels like these articles run into my house, scream, "You're doing everything wrong and everything you believe about being environmentally friendly is wrong! Bye!"
The end of the video says something like, "Don't throw up your hands. Buy things you can actually recycle." Forgive me if I'm more confused than ever about what those things are since the video makers didn't really address that hugely important point. Even the comments are littered with back and forth--for example, is using tote bags bad because you have to wash them? Doe the making of glass waste too much energy?
While I admire what the NYT and other media outlets are doing to raise awareness, I welcome the day when the listing of possible solutions is as long as the listing of problems and finger-pointing in these articles. Otherwise, I have absolutely no idea what to do to help solve environmental problems since everything I try to do on a consumer level gets debunked by articles like these seemingly every other week.
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@etc in order for something to be recycled there needs to be a lot of and it needs to be consistent. Metal packages are consistent and so they are recyclable. Plastics should be recyclable if you can look around a grocer and see thousands of other packages just like it. Boxes are recyclable if theu dont have grease stains, like pizza boxes (not recyclable). Paper that is only paper, not compound with other materials (plastic windows, metal spirals, shiny wax coating) is recyclable. Tissue paper and shredded paper is not recyclable at curbside. These are general rules instead of trying to cover every possible combo of things.
I buy bamboo toothbrushes, powdered toothpaste in a glass container, cosmetics in paper & metal containers. I use solid bars of shampoo, conditioner and deodorant from Lush and I refill my washing up liquid at Mom’s Organic. My pharmacy was shocked when I brought in a used pill container for my refill. I buy a lot of clothes 2nd hand and I pick up my dog’s waste with newspaper. I try to do my bit, but it’s a battle. Even soap nowadays is sold in plastic containers-via shower gel. It’s so depressing yet meanwhile Shell is building a massive cracker plant to produce even more plastic!!!
6
As a devoted composter, almost as bad for me is the great con of "compostable plastic". It makes people feel better about their consumption habits but the truth is that very few composting plants are able to process such materials. You might as well throw your utensils in the landfill bin when you eat at such places as Sweetgreen, Whole Foods etc. But that's late capitalism for all of us: let the companies that want to sell us their products reassure us that we're doing nothing wrong when buying said products...
May I also mention that, at least in New York City, cardboard and paper are put out for recycling IN PLASTIC BAGS? I recommend a visit to Midtown on collection days. It's a depressing scenery, both the mountains of garbage in front of the high rises and the fact that there is this added, completely unnecessary plastic waste. When I lived in Germany, there were large recycling containers in each building that were put out for collection. Not sure why that's not mandated around here, it could really have an impact on the city's footprint.
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@Saribel NYC streets arent built for modern garbage trucks. If you want to get rid of the piles of bags you'll have to tear down most of the city.
@Saribel NYC streets arent built for modern garbage trucks. If you want to get rid of the piles of bags you'll have to tear down most of the city.
I know that people will say it's impossible, but the only way to deal with plastic, particularly as consumables, is a ban. We can't continue to go on "acting locally" while practicing this recycling ruse and really believe we're saving the oceans and the planet. Eventually it's going to have to come to a ban.
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Excellent report on this super major issue. Thanks!
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individual actions are important. but everyone has been lying about the result of individual actions. people in cities may not understand this because they don't pay specific trash collection bills. same as not paying individual water bills allows city dwellers to waste a lot of water. in the suburbs we PAY for trash collection. we are supposed to recycle and receive notices about how our failure to recycle properly (by not cleaning oil off a pizza box or cutting labels off containers) contaminates a load and causes 80% of trash to go to landfill. the real questions should be: why shouldn't industry produce recyclable packaging (get rid of sleeve labels for example). and why shouldn't trash facilities be forced to upgrade to better sorting and processing. we pay them. they blame us. the garbage goes unrecycled.
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The rise of single-use water bottles has been devastating to the environment. Period.
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The "Blue Bin" mentality is part of the problem, "recycling" involves providing clean industrial feedstock at some point.
Approximately 20% of the items placed in the recycling bins are trash that cannot be recycled. Consumers should do the first sort, including by plastic type.
Until places like Walmart actually guarantee a market for products made from recycled plastic bags, nothing will happen.
2
And let us not forget that the US has still not put in the effort to solve the problem of nuclear waste disposal from power generation along the failure to have facilities to recycle more than a small fraction of the waste poured into the environment from retail business.
Perhaps another interesting fact is that soda is the single largest product category sold by supermarkets in the US. That alone should be enough to make us ponder our self destructive urges on many levels.
2
Those of you who live in NYC, familiarize yourself with local best practices. For residential recycling, all rigid plastic is accepted and will be sorted and recycled REGARDLESS of the number on the product. Not rigid (like a bag, or food wrap) not recyclable but plastic bags can be dropped off at certain retailers. The Sims MRF in Sunset Park Brooklyn has a great tour if you want to learn more.
1
I’d love to see Amazon work harder to use it’s potentially huge influence to reduce non-recyclable waste
- pressure vendors of items it sells to reduce their use of hard and soft plastic packaging
- set the standard with their own product development
- continue to improve their own shipping products (the store recycle only envelopes are pretty much a joke, they show up in recycle bins all over my neighborhood
4
Why is it that no one blames the government in this grand lie? Since the government manages waste and recycling, the percentage of waste recycled should be public record. Could it be that municipalities are failing to recycle everything they could or that their constituents aren’t willing to foot the bill for doing so?
3
An easy way America could eliminate large quantities of plastic would be to make as much packaging as possible out of biodegradable waist. Renewable raw materials like starch (e.g. corn, potato, tapioca etc), cellulose, soy protein, lactic acid etc., not hazardous in production and decompose back into carbon dioxide, water, biomass etc. when discarded properly.
There are two entities that are resisting this movement away from plastic: First, the GOP believes that science like mathematics is part of the liberal conspiracy. Second, the petrochemical industry which likes its profit and is just fine with the world becoming its sewer.
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We need to include the cost of disposal in the cost of what we buy, including the cost of packaging. Corporations will scream this is a tax, but we are currently paying a disposal tax through our local budgets. If the cost of items goes up, demand will drop and producers will find ways to sell with less packaging. It's time to reduce cost-shifting to the commons.
2
Disposable, "recyclable" electronics are particularly heinous. As an example it used to be that a television had a rather long lifespan, now it seems that manufacturers have convinced people that they need to "upgrade" to the latest and greatest model every couple of years, those older (but completely functional) TVs are "recycled". Then there is the waste stream generated buy the packaging of the new item.
My 10 year old 50" flat screen TV is fine. Fifteen years ago I had a VCR repaired (the tech practically laughed at me, even then) and just used it to watch old movies with the family, my 45 year old stereo speakers have been repaired a couple of times and are arguably better sounding than many modern versions, I recently gifted a refurbished 28 year old turntable to my daughter and she was happy to get it, I'm typing this on a 7 year old laptop.
There is a better way than buying new electronics just because advertisements suggest that you can't live without the newest and flashiest things. You can.
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Although the article was informative, it provided no direction on solutions. It seems to me that part of any solution should be to actually process our waste materials and create something usable. I see product in the stores that is labeled that it is made from recycled material. I take Styrofoam to the company that actually reprocesses it. Reporting along these lines is needed.
At the end of the day it is up to the consumers/voters to demand that our suppliers (businesses) and our government do a better job at protecting our long term interests.
1
Our use of products that are difficult to dispose of in an environmentally friendly manner poses an interesting question. Are we willing to give up those products? Are we willing to give up our TV’s, computers, smartphones, automobiles, air-conditioners and so on? This is a problem that is easy to complain about but will be difficult to solve.
1
Keep in mind that planting a billion trees is the new con now that the always obvious truth about recycling has been accepted as the con that gave us a free pass to claim we cared. Now we are being fed a load that planting a billion trees will let us carry on as we always have. No. Trees take a long time to grow, at least the ones that don't die soon after planting. And new studies indicate we have maybe 20 years now. Monoculture plantations of non-native trees will never become old-growth forests. But wood is a sustainable resource when grown in plantations and well managed for harvesting. Save the trees we have, and protect the lawns and gardens and meadows and grasslands that also are carbon sinks.
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Another thing we can do is buy items that were made from recycled plastic, increasing the demand for recycled plastic. This article omits one of the gravest injustices. Much of the plastic that was sent to China to be recycled wasn't recycled either. It was sorted into huge piles and the unneeded piles were often bulldozed into rivers, where they eventually contributed to the huge plastic island in the middle of the Pacific. Plastic is horrible, and what we need is research on how we can demand less packaging and more wood, glass or other eco-friendly packaging.
5
I've been worrying about this for some time. What will happen to all of those brand new Amazon shipping boxes sent out every day? Will they all be recycled, and how much effort and money will that take? We go through water bottles daily and people think that as long as they recycle them, they're doing their part.
What are we going to do now that other countries have stopped taking our trash? We need biodegradable and reusable solutions now.
@geo8
Corrugated cardboard is one of the most easily recycled products there is. You do recycle the cartons you receive - don't you?
2
I have given up all hope that humanity is able to fix its biggest problems. Humans became smart enough to start the industrial revolution but are not smart enough to stop it. It doesn't matter who the leaders are, the runaway train of a deteriorating environment is unstoppable.
6
The other sad truth is that we COULD create a new economy (a new Industrial Revolution) using the Cradle to Cradle model. All products need to be redesigned with their post-use status planned in advance.
This would create jobs for everyone (from designers to manufacturers, etc) and stop the mess we are making.
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@4whirledpeas There is not nearly enough desire to create such an economy. People would have to participate at higher rates, work harder, and pay more. What is the likelihood of that?
@John - There is a HUGE desire to create such an economy - as evidenced by most comments here. We need to SOLVE this problem, not gloss over it.
Cradle to Cradle technology (including biomimicry, etc) and circular economies are answers that are long overdue.
Isn't fair to place the responsibility for the plastic dilema entirely at the feet of consumers when they are not making the decisions that force it into the product chain. But there are plenty of habits that can be changed to easily half the amount of plastic being thrown out.
Takeout food seems to be the worst of it. Paper was always a better alternative and it is incomprehensible that it isn't already the norm again, really just a matter of education and vocal support from our leadership. Who remembers the tragedy of carrying out the garbage in a wet paper bag, or food wrapped in was paper?
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And for those who do try to follow the recyling rules, the rules keep changing. It's an incoherent mess. Can't recycle black #1 plastic because...why? Because it can only be used to make more black plastic. (Finding the "why" was like pulling teeth.)
That's where government falls flat - not because of a lack of funding to get the message out, but because of a lack of basic communications competence.
My local municipality did something that may sound familiar to you - they provided a "recycling guide" that looks like a fifth-generation photocopy of a ditto from the 70's. For the most part, it's unreadable. They had the budget to print and publicize something that could have been useful. This wasn't it.
But even that attempt is more than the scant-at-best information provided by many local governments.
To communicate intelligently, a government doesn't require complicated hearings or expensive consultants. You have phones. You have email. You have social media. In small towns there's word-of-mouth even. Use them.
1
Thanks for the great article. I would love to see a follow up on exactly what we can do to lessen our waste. How do we avoid purchasing plastic in the first place?
The trickery involved in this corporate ruse is breathtaking. Honestly, how are we supposed to believe a thing anyone tells us any longer?
If recycling is mostly a con, we're back to the 50's and using brown paper bags and little or no take out.
But, hey, there's always Chinese food on Christmas day.
@Pamela L. Takeout food is a but offender for sure. But all of it should be paper, the paper clamshells are just as good, and who needs that stupid plastic fork anyway?
2
One of the goals that my children and I decided for the upcoming year is to reduce our plastic footprint. The amount of plastic in a modern household is astounding. We're definitely late to this decision, but if we keep reducing yearly, ultimately we may be able to reach a plastic-free house.
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@Umar I am doing that too. By far the worst is the packaging . I have received a glass cutter no bigger 1.5 by 6 inches in box 18x24 inches. A simple envelop would have adequate for a to tough little tool. Amazon is becoming the worst nightmare for the planet. I refuse to shop on line because of the eccessive packaging.
1
I hope that my diligence in setting aside plastic, glass, cardboard gets recycled - somehow. I also heard that milk containers & multi-layered materials used in drink boxes are not recyclable (false info given to the public). Some really smart person needs to come up with a way to truly breakdown plastic to be disposed responsibly.
When I was a youngster the grocery stores used brown paper bags. I believe these were "eco-friendly" because the paper would eventually breakdown; now we have plastic bags.
I only know I will continue to do my "bit" and sort the trash. I get a righteous feeling when I do. I washed out my yogurt cup this morning for my recycling bag.
1
our school recently got rid of all plastics. they now sell aluminum cans and bottles along with glass and cardboard products. plastics are killing our planet and luckily our environmental group at our school was able to make a change. you can too. though corporations are to blame we have to power to boycott and make changes in our local communities. consumers have more power than they think.
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@highschool burnout Consumers have all of the power. Corporations don’t produce or sell products that people are unwilling to buy. Products have developed as they have because of consumers and their buying habits.
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@highschool burnout Where are all those aluminum cans and bottles made? Are they made in China and shipped across the world burning fossil fuels (in addition to allowing China to contribute to the environmental crises)?
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LIfestyle changes on a personal level are the only way to reduce garbage production. For all the schemes and programs out there, the basic rule is - IF YOU DON'T NEED IT, DON'T BUY OR USE IT. And the corollary - to ask yourself if and how much you really need it.
Many times a day I refrain from consuming something - anything - because, while it might be nice, my life will remain worth living without it. And I don't have to go out and earn money to buy whatever it is, so I have some quiet time as well.
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Because I know there are no markets for recyclable materials any longer I have stopped recycling completely everything goes in the black bin to go to the landfill now. My reasoning is simple, I put plastic in the recycling bin it ends up in the ocean I don't want that I'd rather it go into the landfill and they can deal with a leachate and the methane. If there should ever be a marketplace for recyclable materials, and I am still alive, I'll begin recycling again I've been doing it since the 70s for some materials.
1
Packaging is a huge part of the problem. I just came back from Morocco where very little has packaging - oranges and bananas are sold from a rolling cart - you just fill up your bag. Even soup, sold in the market (souk) in Fes had a line of people with their own china bowls brought from home. I saw ZERO paper coffee cups with their throwaway plastic lids. After 4 days of living in an airbnb house - I had less than 1/2 of a bag of trash - much of it organic waste. Back in NYC I am generating a full bag of trash and recycling EVERY SINGLE DAY. Why do bananas come wrapped in plastic? They have their own biodegradable packaging. This is one small expample. I think we must demand LESS PACKAGING from our manufacturers - this is a trend in Europe already. We have bags to hold our bags of packaged stuff. It's insane - only serves to help the manufacturer's bottom line - the packaging is a more efficient way for them to sell us our foods. I bring an empty mug around with me and or a refillable bottle and a cloth napkin and find myself refusing the single-use options on offer all day long. These single-use items are great for occassional convenience - but should not be part of our everyday lives. We must demand change while taking personal responsibility.
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@Steven Also - if you like shopping online - you can reduce packaging waste by at least half if you order online and pick up in-store. It's fast and efficient in most cases and you don't get any extra packaging with the deal.
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The importance of Recycling is MINUTE compared to the importance of Reusing, which is MINUTE compared to the importance of Reducing. The push to recycle over reusing and, especially, over reducing are even greater "con jobs" of corporate America and its defenders (remaining unnamed in order to get posted).
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I have worked tirelessly to not buy things made of plastic or encased in plastic for years, and recycle every single plastic thing I do buy. The problem is: almost EVERYTHING is made of or contains plastic. It feels there is no way to actually do the right thing here, particularly if less than 10% of plastic is truly repurposed.
2
The story's conclusion, to "start buying as if nothing gets recycled.." is on target...like buying used, sharing/renting, or making your own iced tea instead of buying it in glass jars. Many could take a cloth shopping bag to the local farm instead of buying ten plastic bags of frozen veggies.
Until we cut down on gaps in recycling and eliminate as many single use containers as possible, cities or regions could start their own programs. A councilor in our regional government has suggested building our own recycling plant, which could remake plastic into useful items (for the garden, maybe). Portland still trucks its garbage more than 100 miles away and sends its compost out of town too--after turning down a garbage incineration plant (that would have captured emissions and used them to generate power).
Endlessly upgrading electronics, replacing barely worn synthetic clothes, flying everywhere, driving three blocks to the store, buying food in throwaway containers--it all adds up. If we change, we might veer away from our consumer culture, which drives 70% of the economy. It's sobering how interlinked we are (and our jobs are) with this cycle of waste! Changing even a few habits, x even half the nation's citizens, could help us toward a new direction.
2
I just replaced my Trex (plastic lumber) deck after 20 years with Azek's Timber Tech (also plastic lumber). The material is stronger than wood but handles like wood so that you can use tools in your garage...electric saw and drill, etc. At $2.29 per linear foot the material came to $2600 for my 16' X 20' deck from Meek's Lumber. Using Concealock fasteners, I installed the deck myself. Beautiful use of recycled plastic.
My son-in-law in New Jersey also installed a plastic lumber deck. Check it out. It's better than engineered wood products or cement.
2
Here's a fantasy: If we elected a government that actually served its people and cared about future generations (and the planet), we'd see our government not only banning single use plastics and requiring product containers be biodegradable, but also requiring manufacturers to recycle their own products when consumers are ready to dispose of them- including old automobiles, appliances, furniture and electronics like computers and even the smartphone in your hand. You know, all the stuff seen dumped on the side of the road in rural areas by people without the means to pay landfill disposal fees. And the product recycling plants corporations would create to comply with the recycling requirements would provide new sources of employment reducing the number of those of limited means in our communities. Sounds like a win-win to me. And corporations bear the responsibility for their decisions, not the consumers or the environment.
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@CEC Corporate decisions are driven by consumer demand. People demand to purchase bottles of water but don’t want to pay the cost of recycling in their purchase. You forget that voters are also consumers. The government does serve the people, but you mistakenly believe that the people want more environmentally friendly options if they cost more or are less convenient.
1
@John Not sure you understood the point of my comment which is that the costs associated with healthy communities and a healthy environment should not be borne solely by consumers, nor should the health of community and environment depend solely on consumers changing their behavior. Corporations should bear a much bigger responsibility for doing the right thing, and right now, they way corporations essentially own government, they bear almost no responsibility for anything and worry only about corporate profits and stock value. And I'm not talking about turning this country into a socialist paradise. I'm talking about re-establishing the pre-Reagan balance we once had between the public and private sector during a time when we enjoyed what's called a mixed economy. It worked then in the US and it works in plenty of other countries today. We don't need to demonize corporations the way the far leftists do or demonize government the way practically every Republican does. We've demonstrated that the two can work together if we can just cut through the ideological layers that get in the way (easier said than done of course).
How hard is it, really, to acquire half a dozen plastic or fabric bags that you take to the (grocery, hardware, etc.) store and use to take your goods home in?
Just one person bringing their own bags will not use hundreds of plastic bags a year, maybe thousands. You just have to throw the reusable bags in with your other wash to keep them clean and remember to put them back in your vehicle for your next shopping trip.
Theoretically, we shouldn't have to have the "stick" of a plastic bag tax to get us to do this. It is really not that hard to do and it makes a big difference if millions of people do it.
1
That’s just the beginning.
Why don't we build the recycling plants that China had?
Wouldn't it be fair to tax the corporations for plastic packaging? Laws could limit the costs from being passed to consumers, That seems fair because taxpayers paid to ship their packaging and bags to China for decades. We need to make it unprofitable to package stuff in plastic. Who has looked into this?
4
@Laura Dely We did. Then local governments got bids from multiple firms to process their single stream recycling. The tax payers always want government to accept the lowest bids. The lowest bids were from firms that shipped the recycling to China for processing. Local recycling businesses then closed.
1
During WWII, a similar con involving scrap drives and rationing was extremely effective as a means of keeping an isolationist, hardly engaged public focused on the war, and actually may have served a few of the advertised purposes. Was collection of pan drippings really helping make more explosives?
Similarly, recycling today, especially having us separate categories that then go directly into single-stream facilities, or telling us that non-biodegradable plastics going to landfill isn’t really carbon sequestration, that’s all sort of ok propaganda, but clearly not working well in this country.
Science, it’s obvious, isn’t, and never has been, as compelling as myth.
1
Actually, the great con is the belief that consumers actually care. No one wants to admit the reality that corporations are driven by consumer demand to create the products and packaging that they do. Consumer behavior drives corporate decisions not the other way around.
2
This is a sophomoric video that tries to dress up our collective habits of excess consumption and waste as something that bad companies are "doing" to us. Does anyone who has ever purchased a plastic bottle of water to drink really think that they are an innocent? The limits of recycling are hardly news. No one needs water or soda sold in plastic bottles, no one needs single-use plastic bags and frankly no one needs plastic lids on lukewarm beverages sold at places like Starbucks. So refuse them.
7
@Consumer, Heal Thyself I get your point, but try buying cheese without plastic. Or meat, or milk. Cartons are no longer waxed, they’re coated with plastic. Cans have always been lined with plastic—they won’t react with the contents that way. Carrying bags and cups and packing lunches is a start, but there’s no way to get out of this mess as individuals.
5
Try buying a bag of dog food that’s not in a plastic bag. Even the bags that look as if they’re paper are lined with plastic. Hospitals produce mountains of plastic waste every day. Metal instruments that were once sterilized are now made out of single use plastic.
@Consumer, Heal Thyself
Right on.
You know, I do a lot of what is considered the “right” thing. I buy in bulk, my reusable shopping bags live in my backpack. We gave up soda long ago for iced teas made in jars in the fridge. We shop for clothes at the thrift store first. We compost with worms, and in the city bins. We’ve gotten down to only needing trash and recycling pickup every couple of weeks—but it is impossible to eat without buying a certain proportion of food wrapped in plastic.
The real mess started in the 1980s, when PET plastic came in. Once you could package carbonated liquids in plastic, glass largely disappeared. That, and the introduction of the plastic shopping bag, “to save trees” created the mess we have now.
Now we all have plastic in our bloodstreams. It’s in the water, the soil, and the food web. Recycling has always been a lie, and we need to demand cradle to cradle responsibility from corporations for their packaging. By all means, buy as little packaged stuff as possible, but as long as plastic remains the cheapest way to package anything, and as long as we equate safety with pristine, pretty product, this is what will be available.
10
'Cardboard' milk cartons have never been recyclable. They are paper infused with plastic which cannot be separated.
2
@Mahkno -- Here in Missouri, cardboard milk cartons are quite recyclable.
2
@Mahkno
Then why does my town specifically list them as items that should be placed in the recycling container?
Not that I'm saying they actually end up being recycled, I'm not sure where they take that stuff, and I'm sure that what happens to it changes over time, but they are on the list.
1
@Ken Of course, you can take them to the recycler. But what do they do with them?
These materials are theoretically recyclable, but the cost is too high to do it. Codes 1 & 2 recycleabilty depends on market conditions. This is what happens when oil is cheap and ubiquitous. It is a matter of cost. It is too inexpensive to form new after sorting, shredding and re-melting. Glass is recyclable, if it is soda glass, the low melt glass used in jars and bottles.
The solution, for the time being, is to use materials in durable products that can be reused, avoid one time use plastics, buy and recycle temporary containers made of glass and aluminum. If plastic, then make sure the code is 1 or 2. Since milk is often a locally produced item, buy milk in washable glass bottles.
Plastic can be a useful, light weight material for certain products, but is clear we need to stop using plastic packaging.
The video was a good education tool but don't forget to emphasize the materials that are recyclable, and to suggest we re-evaluate and change the way we eat. Patronize restaurants that don't use disposables. Eat at home. Pack a lunch. For Eden's sake, learn how to make coffee without using plastic.
2
@Sarah McIntee You’re right. But we need to redefine “cost.” And all costs to the biosphere must be included in the calculation. Milk in glass bottles is far cheaper than the cost of landfilling or recycling unusable packaging.
1
It seems like there are several possible solutions to packaging waste and lack of recyclibility.
One would be to use more aluminum containers and have a deposit so they are recycled. Aluminum can be reused many, many times and we have the systems in place to collect and reuse it. Recently Ball Corp introduced an event aluminum cup that seems like a great way to address waste at large events like football games, etc.
The second thing we could do is choose a few types of plastic that can be recycled and limit containers to those materials. These might not be the absolute cheapest containers, but the price differential would probably only be a penny or two per container, which consumers should be able to absorb. Again, a deposit would create an incentive to return/recycle these containers.
For fruits and vegetables we have reusable mesh bags that can be washed, so use them instead of the thin film plastic bags the grocery store offers. They work well but sometimes the checkout clerk cannot get the UPC label to scan through the mesh, which irks them a tiny bit.
As several people have mentioned, it will take some changes in behavior to begin to address this issue. I am struggling with getting reducing meat consumption, so recognize how difficult behavioral change can be.
1
Great video, thank you for the information.
I will continue to recycle yogurt containers, plastic bottles, aluminum cans and paper.
Also, as a consumer, I have the control over what I buy.
1
While people surely need to re-consider what purchases are valid in a world where we are laying down a "geological" layer of plastic that will last at least a thousand years, corporations also need to be held accountable for products & packaging that go to the landfill. Amazon -- Jeff Bezos -- needs to be accountable for all the padded envelopes and styrofoam which are recyclable absolutely nowhere.
6
Plastic recycling is above my pay grade. My limited understanding is that plastic is made from chemicals, which come from oil. Why then, is it not possible to dissolve the plastic back into a liquid form, then run it through a refinery, and then back into chemicals to make plastic? It seems to me there is a lot of money to be made if someone can figure out how to recycle plastic.
3
@independent
The problem mainly comes down to economics. It costs more to gather, separate, clean, and process used plastic than it does to make new plastic from petroleum.
Good news! When the environment collapses under the combined burdens of global warming, pollution and overconsumption the price of oil may rise sufficiently to make recycled plastic economically competitive.
For a depressing overview see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_recycling (there is so little interest in the subject that parts of the article are more than a decade out of date)
Bundled in with the deceptive recycling message here is a more general problem with Trust Marks, like the Green Triangle here. There are multiple Trust Marks dealing with organic, forest products, coffee production, and areas of corporate responsibility where the corporate groups set their own standards. We need to get to a point where the consumers, and producers, are more discerning when it come to the meaning and levels of trust and integrity in Trust Marks, or we will become skeptical, and Trust Marks will become useless, and be treated as just another form of false advertising.
3
A great deal of the planet's environmental problems could be solved by creating a circular economy for waste. There has to be the technology to turn this plastic waste into something useful, it is a matter of will. If corporations were made to be responsible for the products that produce this waste I am sure it would be recycled. This should include cigarette butts.
4
Very nice. I see this issue from a slightly different POV. I presently live in Ulster County where plastic bags are banned, and yet the local merchandisers have devised a neat trick to make 5 cents per paper shopping bag sold at the check-out. Smart move corporate retailer friends, smart move. Cha-ching, cha-ching. Money always seems to make the world go round, even the new eco-conscious world I proudly inhabit.
@Carl D.Birman
Where I live, we get 5 cents for every bag we bring with us, and that includes paper bags. So, we get your money back just by using it over again one time. Is that not the case in Ulster County?
1
@Carl D.Birman
Unfortunately, it is greed,pure and simple.
1
I am reminded of the movie DOA, in which the protagonist, fed a slow-acting poison, spends the rest of the picture searching for his murderer. In our case, it is us. We had a choice fifty yrs. ago between saving ourselves or indulging our pleasures. We did the natural thing.
2
The petrochemical companies are entirely to blame for the plastic waste destroying our oceans and waterways. They make billions in profits off the manufacture of single-use plastics and regard the waste as someone else’s problem. Shifting the burden onto consumers by suggesting that we should make better choices at the store and “shop like nothing gets recycled” is ridiculous. It solves nothing.
The problem is only solvable by addressing it at the source. Sadly, we do not have a political system capable of holding industry accountable. Our government has been bought and paid for by corporations like Exxon, BP, Shell, and others.
1215
@JDH why should corporations be held accountable for consumer demand? A very small percentage of the American population has to buy bottled water for instance. If most people wanted more environmentally responsible products then that’s what we would get. The reality is that few actually care enough to change their buying habits.
54
@Dolphin
So fix the supply issue. Isn't tax cuts for the rich sold as a supply solution. Sometimes supply forces the demand. Change the supply and the demand will change.
28
@JDH No, its the consumer. There is a simple rule if you don't want all the packaging waste, don't buy the product and sent a letter to the company that made it. If we don't refuse to buy over-packaged items then the companies won't over-package them.
15
The video ends with the "sage advice: "Please keep recycling stuff that's recyclable."
BUT THE POINT OF THE VIDEO IS THAT WE DON'T KNOW AND WE CAN'T KNOW!!!
Bottom line in my life: recycle aluminum cans.
I'm unsure about everything else and it probably depends on where you live.
1
@Rich that's not how the video ends.
it ends with: buy only things assuming that nothing is recyclable.
Meaning: vote with your wallet. Don't buy salad if it's in plastic, don't buy yoghurt if it's in plastic, etcetera. Buy only what's available not in plastic and put it in your shopping bag that you brought to the store.
yes?
3
Great point, Rich. At the beginning of the video they said recycling was easy, which I hope was intended as sarcasm. It is not easy. And it’s not easy to try to communicate what is and what is not for many reasons.
To add to your list of things that are definitely always recycled:
Cardboard
Clear plastic bottles
Detergent bottles
Steel cans
1
@Waneta Trabert
**Clean** cardboard
Detergent and Clear plastic bottles **with no labels, lids, or any of those plastic rings around the top.
** Clean and label free** Steel cans
Blame the producers? Really? We consumers are the only ones who can fix this by drastically changing our behaviour and by electing people who can push through effective legislation. Why are we so ineffective? Blame the parents!
Parents have babies the world doesn't need. Parents mindlessly purchase wasteful overpackaged products the kids scream for. Parents enroll kids in sports programs that require carting them over vast distances in gas guzzling SUV's. Parents, even the woke ones, are blind to the reality of their own overconsumption so they either avoid discussing it or pass along pleasant-sounding fairy tales to the kids.
How do I know that all parents are complicit in the destruction of the planet? Because they have children - the ultimate selfish act.
5
@Joe Legris
So true. The only thing we make is more consumers.
I have a “Modest Proposal” to solve the problem of children, which makes them eminently recyclable, but I’m afraid of Swiftly being accused of plagiarism.
1
@Larry D.
HAHA! Great.
Recycling in the US could be doubled, by simply following European practices. The Germans recycle twice as much
Recycling Rates
United States: 35.2 % [ Data from 1]
EU [ Data from 2]
Germany: 66.1 percent
Austria: 56 percent
Slovenia: 54.1 percent
Belgium: 53.4 percent
Switzerland: 52.7 percent
Netherlands: 51.7 percent
Luxembourg: 48 percent
Sweden: 48 percent
Denmark: 46.3 percent
Italy: 43.5 percent
United Kingdom: 43.5 percent
Norway: 42.8 percent
Poland: 42.5 percent
Finland: 40.6 percent
France: 39.5 percent
Spain: 33.3 percent
Data
[1] EPA reports slight increase in US recycling rate
Posted on November 20, 2019
by Jared Paben
https://resource-recycling.com/recycling/2019/11/20/epa-reports-slight-increase-in-us-recycling-rate/
[2] Germany’s recycling rate continues to lead Europe
Posted on February 7, 2017
by Jared Paben
https://resource-recycling.com/recycling/2017/02/07/germanys-recycling-rate-continues-lead-europe/
6
Practice the first 2 R’s: Reduce and Reuse, then you don’t need so much of the 3rd.
7
@Maxy Green
Absolutely. The 3 Rs should be ranked by importance. The importance of recycling is minute compared to reusing, which is minute compared to reducing. But this is heresy in our exploitation-dependent consumer society. It's heresy to corporate America and its defenders, like NYT.
1
One thing the video missed: it takes 30 gallons of water to recycle one plastic bottle. We need better packaging solutions and better recycling solutions.
12
For decades I have carefully recycled everything they would take at curbside, saving the rest for monthly trips to the local recycler. (Interestingly, more types of plastics may be put in the curbside bin in Sarasota FL than in Portland OR - go figure...) Now, I put film in the trash with the force of a few expletives. It's a pathetic failure of our country, our leaders, our elected officials, of us. The authors are right, buy as though none of it will be recycled. But give it 30 years, there won't be oil from which to make plastics.
Those big bad corporations are to blame. Again. And again.
3
Societal hypocrisy and huge propaganda schemes by corp and govt have gone on for decades. Who Stole The American Dream - Henrick Smith outlines the strong-arm tactics of corp and govt entities.
Just look at the societal hypocrisy and huge propaganda schemes used by the various religions - "go forth and multiply" often translates to greed and serious cultural conflicts.
As Bob Dylan lyrically stated: Life is but a joke ( ref. All Along The Watchtower ).
Or as one of those “various religions” stated, predating even Bob Dylan (gasp): “Vanity, Vanity, all is Vanity”.
Thank you for this informative video. I live in Portland Oregon. I was surprised to hear that we can no longer recycle milk cartons and yogurt tubs. I checked the City of Portland website https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/index.cfm?&a=402954 and according to them you can still recycle these items. Where did you get your information?
1
Eugene not Portland.
This is probably a stupid question, and more related to our general current mode of thinking than to this article specifically, but why should the brunt of the responsibility be on the individual?
It is far, far easier and more effective (if far, far less profitable) for corporations to change their practices on the whole than for individuals to curtail their lives...and it will for sure only be some individuals, while everyone else lives as they always did. It takes resources and time not everyone has. It takes education not everyone has.
I’m not saying we don’t need to change. We do. Desperately. The planet is in an existential crisis. However, I find it disingenuous to minimize the role that corporations and governments play in all this— especially as this role is often larger than that of the individual.
6
Reusable bags pollute more.
paper bags are more energy intensive then plastics.
recycling is BAD when you consider washing and separating and delivering recycables to 'facilities' that throw them away anyhow.
trash should go in landfills no shortage of land there! Only NIMBY. This recycling industry and mantra are little more then a religiion for a misguided non scientific approach to consummerism.
Best way do deal with trash? Bury it, it's free and uses no extra rinsing and sorting energy and costs.
Wanta help the planet? drive and fly less, turn down your heat.
1
I have been trying to get rid of my blue bin for years, but they won't take it away.
1
I am a professional in the recycling industry. I agree with the overall premise of this piece. The manufacturers of all the plastic packaging (and metal, glass, and paperboard/cardboard) generate the material and have sold we the consumers on the feel-good messaging of recycling. But no, not everything is recyclable.
This piece got so much wrong, however. Most notably, what a missed opportunity to pitch extended producer responsibility as a policy solution! This is a policy model used in much of Europe, much of Canada, Japan, Australia, Israel, Brazil and a growing number of other countries, to legally hold packaging manufacturers fiscally responsible for the collection and processing of the packaging they produce. Why should we the consumers pay for the shaky recycling system through taxes while the manufacturers profit?
Other errors were stated on the overall financial model of the recycling system, about which there is a lot of confusion from reading a handful of comments. Recycling is a busines. It only works if the recycled material has someone to buy it. We (and the rest of the world with recycling infrastructure) did not pay China to take our recycling. Chinese companies paid for the recyclable material. They paid the most of anyone in the world for the last 15 years.
And, oh my, that infuriating recycling symbol. Yes, FTC, fix those regs! It damages consumers and the entire system. Sweeping federal laws on waste are needed. The EU is 15 years ahead of us.
14
@Waneta Trabert Then you know what is and is not being recycled constantly changes. Some of these plastics were recycled years ago. Some could be sold in China. I'm so old, I remember when newspapers could be sold for recycling. Corrugated cardboard is currently recycled although nobody pays for it anymore because there is so much of it. The right paper mill will be happy to take it from you.
Great video (thanks), we were aware of this issue and are trying to go reusable whenever possible. Reusable shopping bags, refill olive oil and vinegar bottles, etc. "Reusable" should be the new mantra, not "recyclable" which may be hurting more than helping.
2
Earlier this year, the Times ran an article about how recycling was not really all it is cracked up to be. The sad fact is that we console ourselves thinking we are doing something good for the planet by recycling, but in truth, it takes a lot more than that to move the needle toward rectifying global climate change and practicing good stewardship. By pushing back and asking for more sustainable practices by corporations, restaurants, and other businesses is a start. Amazon is one of the worst perpetrators, and has the capacity to help change the narrative and set an example, but I doubt it will.
4
Trees. I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.......
I plant trees. The most renewable and beautiful growth on this planet. We do not need plastic. The problem is living in a throw away society so many accept as prosperity. When I see plastic egg cartons (organic eggs), from companies that profess organic is best, really confuses me.
Recycle clothes, linens, dishes, and more than donating to thrift shops, shop there. Start a compost in your neighborhood, make dirt. If you blame corporations you will be waiting for corporations to do something. They will not. They are busy taking over the world.
Plant a tree, give a tree, love a tree.
4
As cover ups go the fact that recyclables aren't that recyclable is pretty thin. I have never seen anything substantive that would achieve the level of recycling that we need. Having lived several places since the whole recycling thing started, I always felt that it was a half-hearted ineffective effort. The unfortunate fact is the meaningful recycling that is more than a mere gesture will be expensive. It will require major changes to the way that products are delivered.
That said, the cost of recycling will be less than simply throwing our trash on the global midden pile. Collecting the massive spill of trash from the environment will cost far more. It's a matter of pay now or pay ten times later.
2
We need to start holding the CEOs of corporations personally responsible for the harm they do. If you really deserve 50 million a year because you are superman, then you should be answerable for your actions.
2
I am soon to be 68. I grew up on the coast of California in beautiful Laguna Beach. I remember when the beach sands were pure and pristine people used to drink their sodas from glass bottles and as kids we would badger the tourists for the empties to turn them in hoard our pennies and rent beach rafts.
Now each time I go to the beach I pick up a bag of trash. After the storms the tiny bits of styrofoam are everywhere, defying my will to pick them up and put them in the landfill where they don't belong either.
How many centuries did the native people live on these shores without so defiling them? And yet in my lifetime I've seen paradise paved over and covered in filth.
9
Anybody wanna talk about The Great Electric Vehicle Con? Listen up... just because you don’t see smoke coming out of your tail pipe doesn’t mean it’s ‘good for the planet’ to drive a huge $75,000 to $100,000 electric SUV to pick up a quart of milk at the grocery store, or to drive hundreds of miles a week to work and shop. That ‘green machine’ requires tons of energy to manufacture; and tons of metal (including the rare earth metals in the enormous battery) glass, rubber and plastics go into the machine.
And that electricity, where does that come from? You think sunflowers photosynthesize the stuff? Try lots of ‘beautiful clean coal’ for starters; and if it’s hydroelectric power, you’re still messing with the planet (and fish) big time to get the juice to run your ‘green machine.’ But basically, you’ve just moved the emissions from your own tailpipe to a stack somewhere far away, where some folks less fortunate than you have bits of that ‘beautiful clean coal’ raining down on their heads, polluting their drinking water, darkening their lungs.
Moral of story here is changing lifestyles is going to be required. Live and work so you can drive a lot less, if at all. Consume less packaged ‘stuff.’ Turn down the thermostat in winter and turn it up (or off) in summer. Use efficient LED lighting. All of that’s just for starters.
Oh, and stop flushing 10 or 15 times, OK?
3
The only way to deal with this waste crisis is to not produce all this junk in the first place. Even if it gets recycled ( IF!) you can't recover all the materials, energy and emissions that went into producing the original item,
The disposable coffee cup is perhaps the greatest symbol of mindless consumption in our society. Use once then toss in the trash. If there was ever an item that shouldn't exist this is it. Yet what do we see all the coffee shops and big chains (Starbucks, McDonalds etc) promoting in their adverts. Disposable coffee cups of course. Yet these same companies will bang on about their commitment to 'sustainability' while blaming the customer for littering.
Utter nonsense.
2
Don't put it in a video, put it in a written story. My gosh. Are videos the only way to get through to busy millenials? Yes, it's been written, but if millenials can't be bothered to read, the future ain't bright.
What I'd like to see are stories--and videos if need be--about landfills. Go look at the EPA Superfund list. All this stuff we've been fed about landfills being ticking time bombs is silly, if the EPA is to be believed. Very few landfills are on the list--dumps from way back that were ill-designed and accepted most anything without question from way back aren't environmental catastrophes, according to the EPA. The harsh truth is, landfills, properly designed and in arid climates, aren't dangerous to anyone. We should be long-hauling our waste to such facilities, with correspondingly high garbage rates to encourage less consumption and incentives that make folks in such areas welcome dumps because the money they receive will make for better schools and lower taxes.
7
Unfortunately, this spells the last nail in the coffin of this planet's health. It was hard enough to get people to recycle. This was one arena where it was essential that the compact between consumer and recycling plants and companies be sacrosanct. I said to my husband years ago, if anyone ever uncovers a scam whereby the efforts to recycle are proven useless, it's game over. Despite the anemic coda at the end of this piece, I think a huge number of consumers are going to walk away in disgust and say it isn't worth it if only 8% gets recycled.
Oddly, I've been calling our environmental catastrophe the Keurig Conundrum ever since that company launched, so I'm glad to hear this company called out. Really? In the very moment we awaken to how catastrophic the coming storm will be a company that launches is one that will put 700 million plastic containers into the environment a day? Really?!! And many of the people working for reform won't hesitate to use them.
The very first time I saw that machine I shook my head in disbelief. That and the craze for bottled water (another utter boondoggle) signaled that we had become a species that not only couldn't take the long view, we couldn't pause in the instant to consider our immediate impact on the world.
There will be stories today that get way more attention, but in terms of the damage this news will inflict on our planet it's hard to think of a more consequential revelation than the news that our efforts have been futile.
4
This is more of a problem of the public being manipulated for some corporation's bottom line. From the demonization of people of color to the lies of tobacco or oil. If we don't question authority, we can only blame ourselves.
Ever morning we should see pictures of how sea life is being killed because of plastics. We should have town hall meeting s and find out ways to directly address this monster. We should hold corporations and our politicians responsible for not getting the right answers. Cruise boats dump waste into the oceans, and our sea life is being every day.
We need to force our politicians to think and lead. We want to save this planet and we have to eliminate one lie at a time to get to the truth. Maybe if we see pictures everyday, we will think about our actions everyday and realize that doing nothing is not an option.
1
An informative, yet too cutesy, video. Would have been better if it included names of organizations pushing for change.
Lately, everywhere I go I see compostable plates, cups, flatware, etc., and no compost receptacles. It almost always goes to the incinerator. If only we had some organizations pushing for change. But the cutesy video doesn't tell us where those organizations might be...
"It's ridiculous that we had to pull this out of a trash can."
Such indignation. It seems, only vegans can outdo the environmentally deranged for indignation. Indignation is not constructive.
2
Then there are those horrendous TV commercials by the big oil companies that falsely show them making bio-fuel from algae and developing other forms of green energy.
2
@Celeste They can make biofuel from algae. They just have difficulty selling it at a price that is greater than their cost for making it.
Yes, consume less.
Yes, waste to energy projects supported by local, state and federal gov'ts.
Yes, tax all plastics and other materials at the manufacturing and consumer source.
Yes to putting federal science R&D money to inventing our way out of this problem to the extent possible.
Yes to raising tax-deductible 'charity' money - and a billionaire/corporate tax to solve this social/economic problem.
But it has to come down to this: recognizing the MORAL, ecological, social, societal, health issue involved.
Practical, pragmatic, scientific solution must be sought and found - like this matters!
We live in a 'Profits before People and Planet Nation' especially here in the USA (especially under the GOP/Trumpian newly corrupted, fact & science free, massively denying policies and the corporatist, GOP-supported SCOTUS.
Either young people and those with some intelligence and moral conscience wake up and take back power to make sane changes, in fundamental ways, for how we life and who calls the shots, and what to develop and research, or this is one more indicator that the human species is going to die off in the billions and take many other species with it, perhaps making Earth uninhabitable for all.
Get practical. Invest in R&D. Consume less. Make everything pass (or get taxes on) a sustainability test. Turn and use all the rest into energy. Use sustainable energy to do it.
Recognize We, The People, must organize and change now - if we are to survive! Truly!
I could get the message in 30 seconds in print, so won't watch an over 5 minute video. Time is another non-recyclable!
8
So much plastic waste in my life despite my best efforts at keeping it out! The ultimate solution will be to close all landfills, dumps and recycling centers and make us deal with our waste ourselves.
1
The NYT published a far more detailed and realistic article on recycling several years ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-of-recycling.html
For most products, recycling makes neither economic nor environmental sense.
Recycling is mostly a low-effort way to assuage guilt and signal virtue.
2
Demand water in aluminum cans at your grocer, bars, art venues. It is sickening to see those giant pallets of water in plastic bottles at Costco. Ban it or tax it out of existence.
2
@mike drink water from a cup or a water fountain
I have long suspected this. The thought that you can pile your dirty food containers and boxes and paper into the blue bin and put it on the curb and someone sorts it, cleans it, and subjects it to a process where it is melted down and then used in another manufacturing process has always seemed very unlikely to me. The bottom line is human beings need to start making less trash. It's just not in line with how we consume, though, where everything is bought in a single use plastic container. Where are we going to be in 100 years? At what point does the environmental destruction cause us to be willing to change our ways?
So-called environmentalists bear even greater blame for shilling for the recycling scam. All businesses are expected to lie for profits and should be mistrusted accordingly. It is those claiming to represent "the environment" that have peddled the lie that the products are recycled that have roped the public into the scam. Over and over again it has been demonstrated that the allegedly recycled toxic wastes have been simply dumped in Africa, Asia and Latin America, or the domestic backyard. My own petty and useless protest is to refuse to recycle. Where to dump my batteries? Third World or Napa compost? I'll pick Napa. At least the main perpetrators get their own poison.
I have been trying to recycle for nearly 40 years, and I can tell you that, for the most part, these "recycling" programs are a joke. The states usually do a very poor job of collecting it and then finding a market for it. I believe that when they run out of storage space, they haul it out beyond the 12 mile limit and dump it in the ocean. Only 25% of us gives a hoot about recycling. The rest just don't think about it at all. Until the consequences appear on their very own front step, they will continue to look the other way, while letting government and corporations get away with literal murder, of our planet. The best thing you can do is petition companies to do better, not buy extreme non-recyclable packaging, and reuse as much as you can. Until the powers that be start caring about it, nothing will happen, and we will drown in our own waste, while killing all other living beings, by polluting their habitats.
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This might be a silly question but why can't the other types of plastic be recycled? expense?
1
@Johnson yes
1
Talk to an environmentalist and you’ll discover this: there’s only one issue worth worrying about. Climate change.
Devote smarts, your ink and your energy to battling it. Everything else is a distraction.
When states started outlawing styrofoam, substitutes were found. When aerosols and freon were proved to be dangerous, substitutes were found. Single use pods for coffee and cleaning products need to be outlawed or taxed. A substitute will be found. Then, a systematic review of other one use items and PACKAGING can lead to elimination and substitution.
Micro plastic is showing up in animals and will soon be a health hazard to humans. How dumb are we?
2
When and if we ever do start making containers out of something that can be recycled, the manufacturers will need to add a color-coded mark to represent which bin the items should go into.
Meanwhile, I'd starve if I tried to live without buying items in the store wrapped in plastic. Trader Joe's is the worst: you can't even bring in your own bags for produce: it's all shrink wrapped.
Twenty-three years ago, the New York Times Magzine published a lengthy article by John Tierney entitled "Recycling is Garbage."
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-garbage.html?searchResultPosition=1
The general theme was we were not running out of landfill space in the US and that the cost of recycling could best be spent on other things. It makes for interesting reading after all these years.
4
American capitalism has turned into one giant scam.
Perhaps it always has been this way, but now the stakes are dizzying.
Medical bill scams, as discussed in this newspaper yesterday, can bankrupt people.
Identity theft, facilitated by credit rating companies, can destroy lives... but no worries, the same companies will sell you credit monitoring protection! Hooray.
And then the environment. Don’t worry, leaded gas is fine. Cigarettes are healthy! Global warming? A lie, perpetuated by China and lying academics, getting fat and rich off the largess of Big Bicycle.
So, the companies that say we can recycle their products are actually lying?
Really? What’s new? And it’s only our survival as a species that is at stake.
The solution?
Don’t believe anything good about a company. Presume they are lying. Buy glass and metal, not plastic. Buy less. Buy a lot less.
And jail. Companies that lie about this stuff need to have their senior executives go to jail. If we can jail someone for smoking a joint, we can jail someone for contributing to the destruction of our planet in order to get rich.
I am 84 years old, and presently I will haul my bag of cans and plastic bottles to my car, drive to the nearest recycle area, and pull the bag to the box where I dump them, in the hope that I am helping my world to be a better place. Am I wasting my energy? What else can I do but hope that this is a positive step that I can make?
Yes you are wasting your energy. You going through all of that makes no difference whatsoever. The entire world would have to do that and the recyclables would actually have to be recycled.
ive been having this argument with friends and family for decades. recycling is a scam. use less stuff
Yeah, let's blame it on the big bad corporations.
Here's another theory; it's all virtue signalling. Of course conservatives don't care about environmental issues, but at least they're not hypocrites. Liberals pretend to care then they stick ecology stickers on their Toyota Sequoias and get 2-3 packages from Amazon per day. They have their heads in the sand, on purpose. Because who wants to admit that he's part of the problem?
1
My employer currently has a large box by the Keurig coffee machine from"Terracycle". At a cost of $80.00 for a postage paid 10"x10"x18" box, they pledge to recycle all the used coffee pods contained within.
https://www.coffeeforless.com/blogs/coffee-for-less-blog/how-to-recycle-k-cups/
If anybody has comments regarding the validity of this enterprise, (other than the price), I would look forward to reading them.
2
Recycling is a scam. I discovered this while researching options for our consortium's building - one of the greenest on Earth: LEED Platinum and Energy Positive (i.e. feeds into the grid). Video here: http://bit.ly/Riverarch & interview coming out in The Broadsheet this week.
Instead we need Plasma Gasification of nearly ALL waste, which will reduce all our garbage to energy, which can run the plant itself and maybe more, and a small amount of slag, which can be broken down in other ways. The sticking point is the dioxins, which need to be captured and rendered harmless somehow.
This is where tax dollars - especially from plastic polluters - should go, not into the Recycling Scam that industry favors.
2
I was surprised to find out that the Dixie "paper" plates & cups I was buying to use and microwave food in were secretly 20% plastic. Dixie calls it a "proprietary" "Soak Proof Shield™" without disclosing it's poly-prop plastic. Someone should class action them for misleading the public about the plastic in their products.
The sad reality though is that government and democracy has been completely lost to dark financial interests. The only way we can fix this and our other civilization ending issues is to limit the influence of money in politics. The psychopathic corporations and their 1% owners in the US are just as clueless of their impending destruction from fowling all our nests as the 1% of Rome, France & Easter Island were. Ecosystem collapse & extinction are not reversible, and will extinct most of civilization. This is a natural cycle ironically.
1
Why is the FTC on charge of setting guidelines for recycling? Forgive my cynicism, but this commission does have the word "TRADE" in its name; we all know they are pro business.Yes, I bought into their propaganda too,milk cartons to pizza boxes(no longer accepted),to even those little tags on clothing. To paraphrase George Carlin, "we are fracked".
Don't buy stuff if you can help it, and look for used items if you really need something. Seriously, for example: want to get your kid a toy? Forget that plastic doll, give them a wooden stick and an empty cardboard box, and show them how to make a drum.
@Kim Sorry I can't provide link, but I found a toy company that made all toys out of recycled plastic and reduced packaging significantly. Sure, the toys didn't have the logo of the 'most wanted toy of the year', but were good sturdy trucks and playthings and rivaled toys on displays in stores.
That's where it really has to start. At the cradle. Learning at a young age that the 'latest' logo is not necessary to have a fulfilled life. The propaganda of these companies to make you believe that you simply can't live without it.
This article also mentions the feed in to this 'must have' of consumerism. The seasonal one day holiday in December. I worked in this industry and it is truly obscene the amount of stuff being shipped here and there. For a one day holiday.
Much of it simply not wanted but accepted because it is expected to treat this holiday around consumerism. So, many buy into it.
When I click on a headline and an ad starts to run, I’m outta there. I pay for my subscription and don’t want to be forced to sit through a noisy ad in order to access the news. I don’t mind banner ads because I can skip over them if I choose. As it is, I will never benefit from the content of this story.
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Share this video with everyone you know.
Put it on Facebook.
Knowledge is power to change. Awareness is essential.
1
Such a discouraging article. No, let me rephrase that... what an excellent article about a very discouraging example of corporate dishonesty.
But, one thing about the article is that it focuses on the standard process of separating recyclables into their own stream of processing. At least in my home town, we're now doing single-stream recycling, where you put all your recyclables into a single can and let the companies who end up with that mix sort them into separate streams to handle whatever the process is to recycle them individually.
Does that really work? Or is it just a recognition that, what the heck, no one is recycling any more, and we can't figure our how to recycles all this garbage anyway, so let's just mix it all together and bury it someplace, out of sight and out of mind? It it just another corporate con, meant to placate the responsibility-minded recyclers among us so we'd stay quiet and keep on buying their products?
1
This subject is worth much more investigation and exposure -- almost everyone (myself included) is confused and now suspicious about what's going on with recycling. I suspect millions if not billions of dollars are at stake, and I'd like a lot more information on what goes on locally and globally. I'd love to see Amazon and other companies forced to act by bad press and resulting protests.
In the meantime, my older kids are getting all sorts of permanent bags and covers in their stockings! Ho ho ho!
Every plastic thing I don't buy sticks it to some corporation or other which has been lying to me and polluting my world for decades. Take that:
Coca-Cola
PepsiCo
Nestlé
Danone
Mondelez International
Procter & Gamble
Unilever
Perfetti van Melle
Mars Incorporated
Colgate-Palmolive
Phillip Morris International and, last but not least on this list of shame: Starbucks
How dare you destroy our world?
1
Judging by comments, most readers seem to be more interested in finding a villain to blame (corporations) than adjusting their own mindset to the inconvenient truth that recycling in and of itself is essentially a placebo that satisfies us emotionally but doesn't address the underlying issue.
Baltimore's new garbage burning program is an interesting case. It might sound environmentally horrifying to incinerate trash instead of recycling it, but at least burning produces energy. Their old program found the cheapest way to recycle involved shipping regular bargeloads of plastic from Maryland to China. As this video shows, that solution is disappearing.
Since plastic and barge fuel are both made of oil, comparing the environmental impact of burning them should logically just be a math equation. In reality, replacing a program bearing the holy name Recycling with one called a Trash Incinerator FELT bad for the environment, and so sparked protests.
The problem is, who's the good guy here? I doubt anyone on any side of the issue in Baltimore had any idea how China was "recycling" their plastic; maybe they were burning it too. And I certainly wouldn't want a Trash Incinerator in my backyard. Evidence is mounting that Recycling is a poor solution for our trash problem, but where's the better one? There's a real opportunity here for whoever can figure that out.
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@Craig Russell, companies need to be forced to pay for the plastics they wrap all their products in. Period. The need to pay in advance of the cost of producing the product so that the cost of packaging is not passed on to you or me.
Companies have always socialized their costs when allowed to do so. Think of all the air, land and water pollution companies have created over the years. They only do the right thing when forced to. Plastics are literally choking many environments today. The solution is enforcing the right incentives upon these "people." If they have to pay to push plastics on everyone, perhaps they will innovate or become more creative when it comes to packaging products.
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@Dolphin - Great stats! Whats the per capita plastic consumption numbers? We'll wait and listen.
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@Craig Russell: It is so true! IT is the consumers who buy cases and cases of plastic bottles of water instead of buying a permanent water bottle that they refill. But no, they think that American tap water is hazardous even though most bottled water comes from municipal water sources.
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Nepalese Sherpas are Buddhists and don't kill animals, but they like to eat meat. Traveling Tibetan butchers do the butchering. The Sherpas despise the butchers, because they kill, but they eat the meat. We Americans like neatly packaged products that arrive on our doorsteps in one piece, but many people condemn the corporations that wrap and ship them. Perhaps we can find a way to reduce our plastic consumption without looking for a scapegoat to blame.
1
"Please keep recycling what is recyclable" - The video just spend most of its running time explaining that we have no real idea what is recyclable. And worse, what was unsaid is that recycling contamination is real - a small amount of non recyclables can ruin an entire batch of recyclable material.
I have simply switched to throwing out all plastic now. I only recycle simple brown cardboard, glass and metal.
1
A friend and I have a contest. Who can keep a plastic bag useful the longest.
We are neck and neck at seven years.
The secret? Wash and hang dry. I haven’t bought plastic bags in a very long time. I do the same with grocery store bags and put them in my cloth bag for reuse.
Takes a few extra minutes but the outcome lasts years.
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@RLG what a fantastic competition! I'd love to adapt it into a project/experiment for my high school students.
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@RLG
I have done the same for years. It means there are always bags drying around, which isn't lovely, and they have to be turned inside-out for final drying, but it makes me feel better. I take my own bags into every store, including the "single-use plastic" type, most of which can be used for a very long time.
I now feel a little shock-hit of censure (silent) when I see people taking new plastic bags at a store--as I did myself for a long time.
I realize that with this effort I am merely self-medicating.
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@RLG I have what I fee is a better solution. I bought a set of net produce bags and collect fabric stowage bags. All my produce goes into the net bags. The net bags are synthetic but after 10 years I haven't had to replace any of them.
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The first Earth Day will be 50 yrs ago next April, and what have we learned? While air pollution is lower, plastics use has skyrocketed, as has chemical pollution of groundwater, depletion of the ozone, and carbon emissions overall. We used to have metal garbage cans, washed out every week. No plastic garbage bags, not even in the kitchen. Shopping bags were all paper. Nobody drank water from plastic bottles. Guess who makes huge profits from plastics? Oil companies. We have exported our plastic tech to the world, and Asia is making and packaging in plastic, used by billions across the globe. It is America's Pandora's Box, with no end in sight.
1
@Jorge
What memories. I was a sophomore in college for the first earth day. We were introduced to the warnings of people like Rachel Carson and Jacques Cousteau while being introduced to the folly of concepts like; "the solution to pollution is dilution". I agree, air pollution, in this country at least, has been a success (few seem to remember LA in the sixties and seventies, or recall that brakes on vehicles once used asbestos) but virtually all the other problems of pollution and waste management (and new ones as well), as predicted, have reared their ugly heads. And so, here we are.
This is neither new, nor news. Very similar to James Hansen's dire warning to Congress in 1988 regarding CO2. We chose to ignore the warnings and obvious signs in the physical environment and went about our business. There is nothing we can do to stop this train. I suggest acceptance and planning for what comes next. The capitalist system will fail in the next 10-50 years, but not without further degradation of the environment. Then what, that is the question you should be asking, rather then whether or not you should use cloth bags for your store bought vegetables.
I suggest Jeremy Lent's The Patterning Instinct to get your thinking started.
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Great piece. One more example of corporations externalizing their costs onto us consumers. And to do so while cloaking themselves in a green patina is yet another example of corporate America's lack of ethics. Vote Democratic in 2020 and clean house.
2
I would also say save a jar and make your own salsa. It doesn't take much to throw tomatoes, onions, peppers and cilantro in a blender. One problem is the solutions are often made to be more involved and complicated than are.
1
Problem is, in my supermarket, the yoghurt, basil, grape tomatoes, butternut lettuce, among hundreds of other produce are all packaged in plastic. I basically stopped buying all of that - what happens when I want to make something from the above ingredients?
1
it's pretty disappointing that the most necessary action, the FTC actually doing its job and regulating industry, is less likely than companies just suddenly deciding to care about the destruction they cause.
1
I have what some might consider an odd and/or fatalistic attitude regarding the survival of humans, and even the planet. As I see it, we are not the center of the universe, nor a species that is some kind of crowning achievement in its history. We are, like everything else, a flash in the pan (not that there are not wonderful and beautiful things that some humans have done and created), and not as important as we think. We are expendable as anything else, and we will eventually pass away and perhaps be replaced by something different, or nothing at all. And that's okay--it's the natural way of everything.
That said, I do not wish to contribute to the suffering of humans and other creatures on our planet now and for the generations that will come. My eyes were opened about twenty years ago when we stopped into a little roadside "museum" in the FL Keys and saw the contents of a sea turtle's stomach. The thought of innocent creatures gagging on our garbage, and of the beauty of the natural world being tarnished by our carelessness, sickens me.
But this is also an eye-opening video, and makes me feel a bit helpless. I do my best to recycle, and my town (Hoboken) seems committed to being "green." I recently signed up with a composting program here.
I would like to hear more from others here about how, exactly, to "buy as if NOTHING is recyclable." That's a serious question, and I would appreciate more suggestions.
4
I’m still trying to figure it out. I’ve been composting for years, but when I take a look at my bathroom (by far the room with the biggest plastic footprint in your house), I don’t know how to decrease the plastic consumption. I already use soap bars, and try not to wear my contacts so often (the contact solution is in a plastic bottle) - heck, when I don’t shower daily, I think of it as saving shampoo and conditioner to reduce the number of plastic bottles I use per year. But it’s really hard. There aren’t many companies that make products in non plastic (and it’s quite unrealistic anyway) - not sure what the solution is.
2
@Cheryl and yet, the bar soap thing never occurred to me, so thank you for a place to start (or continue starting? :) )!
It occurs to me that looking back at how people managed (probably perfectly well!) to live before plastic, etc.--not to mention laptops and iPhones!--might be useful. Obviously some of it would not be practical, especially for city-dwellers, but perhaps some of it could be made to apply. I'll have to give that some thought...
Another point that was missed in the video was the intentionally tiny, unreadable recycle sign on the plastic bottles. No matter how hard I try to see what kind of plastic it is, I am unable to see the number in the middle of that triangle. I am not optimistic about reducing use of plastic, especially in the age of Amazon where convenience trumps all things and pre-made foods are so abundant. Even if some recycle items correctly, others contaminate the entire bin by throwing regular trash. I see that way too often. Changing human behavior will take too long, if ever. We have to come up with degradable plastic or ban unnecessary plastic wrapping for certain items.
3
I was recycling manager for our township for7 years. It was amazing what people brought to our center and the condition items were in. We did cans, plastic, newspapers, catalogs and magazines,paperboard, and yes, cardboard, tons of cardboard. People tried bringing many other items including at one point, a truckload of vinyl siding. I got calls every week about electronic equipment which we did not take.
It is my firm belief that garbage/trash haulers should be required to pick up everything people put out. They are in the disposal business and should be the experts in this area. Recycling/disposal should be their job, not consumers and volunteer local recycling workers.
2
My neighbor put a cross-country ski in his bin thinking it would be recycled. The problem goes well beyond corporate tricks.
2
Manufacturers should be legally and financially responsible for the future lives of what they sell you. They could then figure out better ways to design it to facilitate re-use, recycling, composting. There’s no reason it should be anyone else’s responsibility unless they want to give you an incentive to participate in the solution.
4
If the fees we pay to dispose of all this plastic were proportionate to the real cost of their use then consuming people would act by buying more wisely and demanding less expensive packaging. Many responsible people and companies are not waiting for those fees to increase before acting. But most of us are going to require a kick in the pants.
3
People have no idea why they want what they want. Advertising creates desire. Desire creates corporate profit. That much of what we desire, and its packaging, is destined for the landfill carries low-to-no consideration. Recycling makes us feel better about our excesses and the waste we are creating - all to the corporate good. Landfills are loaded with pretty packaging. It sells.
3
I've been thinking about packaging for the past few years, as
its clear that on line shopping has taken off.
Sigh. If you’re going to take the time to tell me something like “only two of these seven types of plastic can realistically be recycled” then please, please, PLEASE tell me which two! Then I can make better choices.
Statistics may sound impressive, but actionable facts are a better way to communicate and motivate.
13
@John Nay
Yes. When or, if, one can read the number, our town only accepts #1 and #2 plastics for recycling. The remaining plastics I see in the regular trash when I go to the transfer station is unbelievable (e.g. containers for most dairy and deli items, toys, etc.). There are vineyards in the area and I see dump truck loads of netting not recycled as well. Since all plastic bags in our county cost 5 cents now, most people use reusable ones (or none at all) at all retail stores which has been a plus.
We could stop buying stuff we don't need.
That's about 90% of what we buy.
Oh, then the economy collapses.
The whole system has to change.
5
Minimalism—as a lifestyle—should receive more consideration than ever before. We need less stuff.
Also, current recycling practices are often frustrated, or rendered impossible, by thoughtless packaging: hard plastic melded with soft film, impossible-to-remove paper stickers that leave a gummy residue, wax-covered card- or paper-board that cannot be separated. We need global, uniform packaging standards that make it easy to separate materials and ensure their proper breakdown and reuse.
Finally, California charges around $5 as a waste “disposal” fee for all electronics with a screen larger than 10”. I would love to see a similar practice instituted with other large or complex products, such as washers and lawnmowers.
6
I disagree.
The greatest trick corporations ever played was having workers believe their value and place in society is tied to their work.
6
In theory, many plastics are "recyclable", but in practice, recycling facilities are not willing to recycle them because there is no market for the product.
Is there another word that captures a plastic that will indeed get recycled?
If not, can anyone come up with a catchy word that describes a "true recyclable" plastic?
If we change the terminology, we can be more honest about what is truly happening.
2
This piece made me wonder: What if Americans recaptured the time and trouble currently spent on fake recycling, and invested this time in taking actions to drastically reduce carbon and methane emissions instead. Could we still save our planet?
3
This summer, I tried to go one week without using or purchasing anything covering or relating to plastics in any form. It was virtually impossible. The experiment opened my eyes to the explosion of these materials we, as consumers, have created.
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To all the young 12 year olds - “Hey sorry about that, but it is up to you and your generation to sort out the mess we’ve left for you. But hey, do you remember all those fancy and fun travel adventures we took when you were younger?”
Very few people in the western world truly care about climate change. It’s all just hypocritical noise. Reality is all about short-term gain. satisfaction and of course money. Personal “look at me” overrules care for future generations’ survival.
The mantra should be “Buy Local, Live Local and Stay Local”. Until people stop racing to the airport in their gas-gussler vehicles, in order to jump onto huge jetliners to go stomp around at one’s favorite foreign warm locale or to catch that relaxing monster cruise ship, nothing will change. Just imagine how much waste and pollution just one cruise ship produces, just to have yet another personal “travel adventure” and a few pool-side photos. Large stadium events - are they really necessary or just another one of life’s well-marketed but unnecessary wasteful distractions to the zombie society.
Buy Local, Live Local, and Stay Local.
7
While it's great to call attention to the recycling myth - which is not news by the way - we need to completely, totally and in all ways move on from recycling. It's not going to save the world and never was.
It's REDUCE, REUSE, then recycle.
Step one, Reduce:
Stop buying disposable stuff and you don't have to worry if it will be recycled or not. Ask yourself: "is there is a more durable product I could purchase (even if it costs a bit more)?" or better yet: " do I really need the item?".
Do something about crime and maybe manufacturers will stop plastic wrapping everything to keep it from getting shoplifted. Reducing blister packaging could make a big dent.
Step two, Reuse:
Change health codes. If we could still use refillable containers to purchase bulk products (like in the old health food store days) we could participate more fully in the Reuse part. Unfortunately many health codes forbid refilling containers over concerns with disease transmission. Why can't we refill laundry detergent, shampoo, maple syrup, hand lotion?
A few years ago, a Starbucks on the PA Turnpike filled a disposable coffee cup and then transferred the coffee to my stainless steel mug. When I pointed out that negated my use of a reusable mug, I was told it was illegal to fill my mug directly because of the chance of it touching the spigot and transferring germs. This is nonsense since the mug's rim is completely covered by a lid which the only thing my lips touch.
3
@B Dawson
I think you are making a perfect-enemy-of-good error.
For example, I buy cleaning products in gallon containers and refill the (very good, long-lasting) spray bottles that I bought once. The gallon bottles are still waste, but it is much less waste than buying the smaller spray bottles every time. And some products may be available in 2 gallon sizes, or concentrated so you can dilute them, and so on.
Some grocery stores sell some dry items like nuts or beans dispensed from bins; you fill up a small paper bag.
But something like maple syrup? Or laundry soap? Way too much of a mess to clean up all the time. So you have to find a balance.
I absolutely agree about blister packs; I use tools and hardware and aside from the waste they drive me crazy trying to open. But, in many cases, some kind of packaging is necessary to protect the product, and allow self-service. Again, it's about balance.
About the coffee thing... you would have to have a dispenser that measures the quantity to do what you ask. Certainly possible, but not that simple if you think it through.
Much of recycling has been a lie from the beginning.
I stopped a Waste Management truck driver in Tucson a few years ago. He said he picked up 4 tons of glass per day.
At the time glass cullet was valued at $45/ton.
His wages were $200 per day, driving a $150,000 truck using about $100 worth of fuel per shift. The glass went to a multi-million dollar recycling plant, and much of it went to a landfill from there. All of this for $180 worth of glass bottles.
I called WM of Tucson, the rep there said 89% of glass went to the landfill.
What a smoke screen, but everyone felt they were doing their part without ever considering: How does a product meant to be thrown away suddenly have this value attached to it for a completely baseless reason? In no way is any of this sustainable.
10
The video, and its analysis, would be greatly improved if it provided a proper assessment of the role of government in recycling. One strength of the video is that it didn’t use the go-to argument of climate change to strongly support one remedy or another.
If you want to live in a modern society, you will need to use a lot of plastic. If you want to recycle plastic, you will need either (1) technology to recycle efficiently, or (2) a lot more money to recycle plastic inefficiently.
The same type of trade offs hold for electricity, oil (transportation), pesticides, etc.
There is no easy answer that avoids the trade offs between the technical capabilities that exists, the costs, and the impact to modern society. And, all need to be considered while being realistic.
3
Lots of great comments here. I'm not smart or educated enough to do much beyond recommend and respond, but suggest anyone interested in the problem of how to make real changes despite the practical and political realities that have led us to this point read Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics.
4
Dr. Beth DeSombre discusses the impact of personal environmental decisions vs. restructuring regulations so that the best choice for the environment is the easy one, and so that the cost of the environmental impact is part of the manufacture and sale of products, in her book "Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things." It's not that people are terrible at recycling, but as this article suggests, the problem of what to do with the single-use plastics shouldn't be just up to the consumer.
4
In addition, modern landfill construction means refuse will simply sit in a compacted state. The contents are too tightly packed for anything to degrade. This means that even organic material clogs landfills.
1
Its Reduce, Reuse, Recycle IN THAT ORDER for a reason! I've started making efforts to go as zero waste as possible. I'm trying to get others to do the same. And there are some BRILLIANT zero waste books and sites and groups out there. Get involved. Turn it into a game.
4
There has been no effort to educate the public -- because this would "disrupt" markets. It is time for major awareness campaigns. We need peer pressure along with new rules.
A disincentive to overconsumption of stuff that is NOT reusable: add UPFRONT fees to handle the costs of recovery, handling ,and in some cases disposal of what is utterly useless waste. Getting taxpayers to pay up at the end of it's life? This leads to people tossing stuff anywhere and everywhere.
Insisting that the real costs be confronted upfront would mean a lot more thinking about waste generation in the first place
NOTHING should be sold without a plan for the handling of the products' components AND the packaging.
Politicians like to ignore the costs --but smaller municipalities have to negotiate waste hauling costs to sites generally owned by larger entities. Or out of state. Somewhere where residents don't have the financial and political power to reject the detritus of others.
Food packaging is one of the most useless and reprehensible wastes. Styrofoam under yams?
In the 80's we bought soda and beer in glass bottles which could actually be REUSED. Unknown if anyone does that anymore. It cost more to ship that way ( weight).
Is China (or the Philippines or some other state) is still accepting the waste products of the US? That was our stopgap plan: out of sight, out of mind. Until it comes drifting back... in oceans and air pollution . . .
6
We should be investing massively in biotech solutions to waste transformation. The rest is hand-wringing and virtue-signaling.
6
Check out Germany. They have a closed loop system. Only a few plastic types used by manufacturers, all recycled, infrastructure to reuse those plastics, buy in from population and manufacturers. Europe is smarter about a lot of things. Unfortunately we as Americans seem to think we’re too smart and don’t need to learn anything new or novel.
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Just one of the many "myths" we live by so we can keep on keeping on.
Chalk this one up along side "ethical investing" and electric cars. Whether it is paving over the earth and undermining public transport systems, dumping tons of junk into landfills and oceans or taking wealth and benefits from workers to pay non-workers, we find creative ways to simultaneously destroy ourselves and pat ourselves on the back.
3
The guideline for recycling is, and has been for many, many years: "Reduce, reuse and recycle."
Pieces like this ignore the environmentalist's first two points. Recycling is supposed to be the last, least preferred option!
6
The fact that I use more resources and carbon footprints to recycle this stuff is appalling. Washing your recyclables uses water and the power used to deliver it via whatever vehicle your water is delivered to your sink. Seems like it costs more to recycle this stuff... Trying to replace all our plastics with glass and metal...
3
The only way recycling plastics works is if it's against the law to make any plastic that isn't biodegradable AND make it illegal to use plastic for single purpose use. We need plastic for durable medical equipment and there are wonderful uses for plastic that last and make sense. Single use plastic is selfish.
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Nothing is going to change until we as individuals make lifestyle changes. Use re-useable canvas bags when shopping--don't rationalize that you can recycle the plastic bags. Store your food in re-usable glass containers, stop buying plastic wrap. There are now reusable cloth bags available for produce when grocery shopping, use these instead of the flimsy plastic bags offered in the stores. Use bar soap instead of bottled hand soap in your bathroom. There are multiple ways individuals can make a difference. Don't kid yourself into thinking that corporations and the government are going to help.
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@Jacqueline Gauvin
Perhaps, but make sure you complete full-cycle evaluations. Re-usable canvas bags require more materials and energy to produce, and energy and water to wash. You do occasionally wash them, right? Glass containers, including reusable retail bottles, also cost more, are heavier (more energy), and also need washing.
Many of these options might make sense, but make sure to consider the pluses and minuses on both sides.
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@Bob Krantz
A canvas or cotton bag can be added to an existing load of laundry; most people do not have enough cotton bags to warrant a whole separate load of laundry. So they are probably neutral in terms of water use. Of course, growing cotton uses a lot of water. The best bags can be made from existing discarded items, such as old jeans or shirts. This is quite feasible, and if you can't or don't want to do it yourself, you can probably find similar items on Etsy or other online sites that sell handmade goods. Everything we have and use requires energy and resources. It would be better if consumers had more complete information about all the trade-offs.
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@Jacqueline Gauvin
I think you've got it backwards. I agree big corporations aren't going to do the right thing, but trusting people to make these decisions multiple times a day, in the context of our stress-filled, increasingly precarious lives, is a recipe for failure. The only way we can stop the bleeding is to make companies behave, expect citizens to do their part, and penalize both when they fail to do so. We all created this problem together, and it's only gotten as bad as it's gotten because we've been trained to think of one another as consumers rather than citizens, of corporations as capable of having "values," and of markets as being capable of addressing societal problems.
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We are drowning in plastic. What we're doing is clearly not sustainable -- we must start thinking circular. New materials innovation is desperately needed -- particularly bioplastics that can be safely returned to the earth in municipal composting sites. Of course this would require cooperation between corporations and government, and a shift in priorities towards the common good. Jeff Bezos thinks the best way to spend his 'Amazon winnings' is by investing in space travel. Space travel! Perhaps he's planning to leave once earth becomes uninhabitable.
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I think we do have go to space just because we're human.We have to explore. We have to see what's outside our cave. But, Mr. Bezos and other bazillionares have more than enough money to do both.
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@nicki
" Space travel! Perhaps he's planning to leave once earth becomes uninhabitable."
That's exactly what he's thinking. He probably believes the hype about colonizing Mars. Fat chance!
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@nicki Bezos can leave us all behind on a dying planet. He knows this. He can't acknowledge it because then he would need to change his company and that would entail a loss of profits. Profit before planet - motto of late stage capitalism.
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This is a huge issue because several generations of Americans have been fooled into thinking that "recycling" is something that helps fight "climate change." In was never a true statement. In fact, many leaders of the environmental movement keep talking about "recycling" as though it is real and fights our climate crisis. In the meantime, real measures to fight planetary warming are being ignored.
Here in Montana, plastic particulates are being measured in our pristene river waters. (Plastic clothing has finally won the war against clean water.) This nightmare will only be stopped through federal laws and enforcement by a real Environmental Protection Agency, not the fake corrupt thing run by the Trump Machine.
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@Barbara I agree that only federal regulations will ultimately force corporations to find workable substitutes for plastic. It will take a braver government than we've had for a long time, but voters can elect that government if they are motivated.
That's where recycling has been valuable. It has caused generations to be invested in the issues of waste and planetary destruction, and their resulting self-image as environmentally committed can carry over at crunch time--e.g., the ballot box and consequent regulations that might cost money or limit convenience.
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Actually most people do not know the first 2 parts of the mantra "Reduce, Re-use, Recycle." Recycling is the last part. One should start buying less first, then re-use what you have (or buy 2nd hand, borrow, etc) and THEN recycle.
17
This piece seems to be conflating two issues. First, whether producers are stamping the recycling symbol on products that aren't likely to be recycled, either because many recycling programs don't accept them or because consumers choose to throw them in the trash. Second, whether products are not actually getting recycled even though consumers follow their local rules correctly. If I want to know whether my waste is getting recycled when I follow my local rules correctly, then I need information that disentangles these two issues.
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The symbols on plastic packaging are not recycling codes. They are “resin identification codes”, managed by ASTM. The chasing arrows logo was changed to a solid triangle. The fact that some producers still use the wrong symbol causes confusion for consumers.
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The recycling myth is part of an uber-mythology that tells us we can live luxurious lives without destroying the biosphere.
Other myths include sustainability, resiliency, and "technology will fix things, don't worry."
We built our entire civilization and cultures on plundering the biosphere, generating pollution, more humans, and enslaving and killing hundreds of billions of animals.
It's time to challenge all the mythologies that enable our addiction to what's causing anthropogenic mass extinction.
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@Steve Davies : This article is challenging that myth, although not saying it quite like you did.
We need a low-impact, decent quality lifestyle, but to develop it we will have to knock some wealthy people off their high horses. That's fine with me, but I suspect that they will fight tooth and nail for the right to stay rich by giving us no reasonable alternative.
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@Steve Davies
There are greater forces at work here than the enabling of mass extinction by specious human mythologies. As if humans are the source of everything. Malthus had it right. The "anthropogenic mass extinction" is the end result of a species eating there way through an environment. There will be an eventual mass die off of any over-extended population in a finite habitat. It has happened again and again on Earth, even on a planetary scale. Before there was an oxygen rich atmosphere anaerobic creatures flourished and "ruled" the world. Unfortunately for them their waste products included vast amounts of oxygen that changed the atmosphere so much it killed most them off, enabling the earth to be eventually hospitable to humans. Perhaps, the inexplicable drop in human fertility rates of "advanced" economies is signaling the natural environmental response to species overpopulation. What people argue over and mythologize now will probably be laughed over later by the few humans left around to laugh about it. The fact is humanity is just along for the ride and will mostly (and horribly) affect the Earth and its other inhabitants for a short time, geologically and biologically speaking.
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@Gowan McAvity: There's still a slim hope. We can become conscious as a species in the same way we can be come conscious as individuals. We are showing signs of it happening as we speak, as evidenced by discussions such as this.
A conscious species would mitigate its numbers and lifestyle, just as some individuals are doing now. It would control its leadership and the billionaires who make their billions by ignoring or exacerbating the current problems. It would replace them with leaders who acknowledge the problems and work with everyone else to fix them.
We aren't there yet, by a long shot, but we're talking about it. That's how it starts. We'd better hurry though; the point of no return is close, if not here already.
22
Missed a great opportunity to encourage consumers to think about the packaging their purchase is in - soda tastes the same from an aluminum can as it does from a plastic bottle, and aluminum is far more recyclable.
7
@Mike Unger really, there's no reason beverages should be available in plastic containers. either aluminum cans, paper cartons, or glass bottles would suffice for any beverage i can think of. when i was very young soda came in 12oz cans or 16oz glass bottles and there is no reason we should not at least go back to that.
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Our area will no longer pick up glass. They said it breaks too often in mixed recycling. Well, I’m willing to go back to separating the recyclables!
3
Corporations exist for one reason - to make money by any means possible. We are the lemmings who have become addicted to convenience and waste. And handily enough - we've also bought into the carefully crafted narrative that activism is bad. It's time to take an active role in our future.
28
The misinformation and the disinformation that the plastics industry will engage in in their pursuit of profit$ knows no limits.
I live in a major metropolitan area with a long neglected river. It used to flood in centuries past, causing widespread loss of life and property damage, so eventually the Army Corp of Engineers cemented much of it.
There's a local non-profit that has taken the lead in promoting the restoration of the river and in protecting it legally.
2 or 3 times a year they organize river cleanups and I go faithfully to spend the morning pulling plastic out of the river.
Plastic buried in the silt,
plastic wrapped around the trees and plants,
plastic floating on the water.
Basically, plastic everywhere.
So, this NGO, gives out t-shirts every year with a cool graphic on the front celebrating another yearly clean-up. On the back they list their sponsors. Guess who sponsors the events to pull all that plastic out of the river?
That's right, the very same companies that made all that discarded plastic and sold it with abandon in the first place. Coca Cola, Dart Containers, American Chemistry Council.
The NGO says that doing good things with bad money is OK. I say that these companies are trying to wash their hands with blood money.
The great deception goes on....
13
@Balogún This wasn't part of your point but I had to laugh ruefully at your line about the T-shirts. Between myself and my grade-schooler, we have accumulated dozens upon dozens of T-shirts from community events/groups. I don't need or want them, but they're shoved in our hands anyway. And how many resources go into making a shirt that will be worn for a few hours and then stuffed in the back of a drawer (or worse, thrown right in the trash)? But they're considered important, for "branding." If you don't have a garish, poorly fitting T-shirt, did you even go to the river clean-up?
1
@Jenny I love this comment! My shirt drawer and my kids' drawers are filled with the same t-shirts. I wear the ones that don't have the names of bad actors on them to support the NGOs/causes I care about and to raise awareness. Still, to your point, what minuscule percentage of those shirts ever get worn? It's just more needless stuff. Endless production and endless consumption. Where will it ever end?! :(
I'd like to see the world's billionaires get busy cleaning plastic out of the oceans, especially. That would be a worthwhile use of their money, more so than running for office or going into space.
And a lot of them couldn't have made their billions without plastic, either because their product is made from it or encased in it.
Maybe we need a plastic tax along with a carbon tax.
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@Citizen-of-the-World
A lot of them wouldn't have billions if lazy consumers would engage their brains and stop buying all the products produced by these corporations, most of which is associated with unhealthy food and conspicuous consumption.
4
Unfortunately this affects more than just those “lazy consumers.” It affects sea- and land- dwelling life (including humans) which played no part in those consumer decisions. Taxes are one approach to reducing these contaminants, helping fund cleanup efforts while encouraging use of less problematic packaging materials.
1
I have read numerous articles about other countries utilizing waste plastic for paving roads. After all, plastic is oil based, just like asphalt. The roads are said to hold up better than traditional asphalt roads, but do require an additive to make them less slick when wet. They hold up better because they rebound from heavy vehicles where traditional roads just sink in. Also, potholes can be repaired any time of the year by adding plastic based paving materials. Traditional roads must be repaired in warmer weather and require the pothole be enlarged down to the road foundation. I contacted my state representative to see if my state DOT was aware of this. He claimed that his office would inquire and I never heard another word.
7