Recycling centers try and then often give up and just landfill plastic. And then you’re dealing with the extra transportation to have it make a stop at the recycling plant on the way to the landfill.
There is a lot of “shift the blame off corporations to the consumer and act like they can do something” happening when in reality the consumer can’t do much, and what we can do isnt 100% effective anyway.
On top of this if you use https://oceanhero.today/ for searching the money they make from ads goes towards paying people in poor countries to collect plastic
Australia wide we’re slowly phasing out single use plastics:
Bread tags? What do they do instead? The only choices Ive seen are a stupid plastic tile or a wire, and I can’t imagine single use wire is better than a stupid single use plastic tile
The new bread tags will launch on South Australian shelves first, removing 11 million plastic bread tags from South Australian waste streams by the end of 2021 and divert over 400 million plastic bread tags from landfill each year as they roll out nationally. By 2025, all Tip Top’s packaging will be 100 per cent recyclable, reusable or compostable to help close-the-loop
afaik they’re all cardboard now even other brands, I don’t think I’ve seen a plastic one in a while
Canada’s west coast is the same. Despite some reports implying the contrary, properly sorted flexible plastic waste does get diverted away from landfills and oceans and remade into product, in BC. And we also have bottle and can deposits, like most Canadian provinces (called consigne/consignment in Québec).
Apparently bottle deposits are only a thing in 10 of 50 US states.
It’s more than just plastic. In most places most things are not recycled. More accurate to say: in vanishingly few places is even a single kind of thing recycled. Then every scrap we save goes not to sustainability, but golf courses pleasure yachts and data centers to sloppify the world.
So saving is not conservation. You literally cannot make a positive impact environmentally unless you’re good at violence.
That’s needlessly pessimistic, but I’ll believe general consumer recycling programs are not very effective.
I know my composting program does something because I can give them food waste and get back compost
I know can recycling works because there is an entire industry supporting it, plus aluminum is energy intensive and I’ve repeatedly read it is the most recycled material
I know electronics recycling works because it’s expensive
I believe industrial recycling works because they have bulk quantities of pure material and there’s generally profit somewhere.
Most of all I believe my city’s consumer recycling is fairly effective because of the number of things they have specific steps/actions/destinations for. More importantly we don’t have a landfill and the one we use is very expensive, so there’s a profit motive for minimizing what we dispose of
why is your local council providing 2 bins but sending everything to the one place?
when you bought it up what did they say?
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-is-practically-impossible-and-the-problem-is-getting-worse
Recycling centers try and then often give up and just landfill plastic. And then you’re dealing with the extra transportation to have it make a stop at the recycling plant on the way to the landfill.
There is a lot of “shift the blame off corporations to the consumer and act like they can do something” happening when in reality the consumer can’t do much, and what we can do isnt 100% effective anyway.
That’s funny because over here in Australia it looks to be progressing well?
For us it’s a yellow bin for recycling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXSmINKUOxg
Most Australian states have a 10c refund when you return a can or bottle:
https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/circular-economy-waste-reduction/reduction/container-refund/container-refund-types
Do you have this?
You can even then directly donate it to a charity of your choice: https://www.containersforchange.com.au/qld/donate-your-refund
On top of this if you use https://oceanhero.today/ for searching the money they make from ads goes towards paying people in poor countries to collect plastic
Australia wide we’re slowly phasing out single use plastics:
https://www.marineconservation.org.au/which-australian-states-are-banning-single-use-plastics/
That’s already reducing the amount of plastic by millions of tons
There’s also smaller things like:
https://www.bankaust.com.au/card
Sounds like defeatist mentality to me, your councils/states should be doing better
Metal is way easier to recycle than plastic tbf
Bread tags? What do they do instead? The only choices Ive seen are a stupid plastic tile or a wire, and I can’t imagine single use wire is better than a stupid single use plastic tile
cardboard :D
https://playandgo.com.au/australias-first-100-recycled-recyclable-cardboard-bread-tags-tip-top/
afaik they’re all cardboard now even other brands, I don’t think I’ve seen a plastic one in a while
Neat. Do they work, or do they just bend the first time you recluse a bag?
ngl no idea, even with plastic ones i threw them out on first go and just fold the bag under the bread :|
Wait until they discover that some brands have both an outer bag and inner bag to stay fresh longer
Canada’s west coast is the same. Despite some reports implying the contrary, properly sorted flexible plastic waste does get diverted away from landfills and oceans and remade into product, in BC. And we also have bottle and can deposits, like most Canadian provinces (called consigne/consignment in Québec).
Apparently bottle deposits are only a thing in 10 of 50 US states.
It’s more than just plastic. In most places most things are not recycled. More accurate to say: in vanishingly few places is even a single kind of thing recycled. Then every scrap we save goes not to sustainability, but golf courses pleasure yachts and data centers to sloppify the world.
So saving is not conservation. You literally cannot make a positive impact environmentally unless you’re good at violence.
That’s needlessly pessimistic, but I’ll believe general consumer recycling programs are not very effective.
Most of all I believe my city’s consumer recycling is fairly effective because of the number of things they have specific steps/actions/destinations for. More importantly we don’t have a landfill and the one we use is very expensive, so there’s a profit motive for minimizing what we dispose of
I’m not saying it can’t work or we lack the technology.
I’m saying it doesnt because its cheaper to just toss it all in the dump.