The plastic industry knowingly pushed recycling myth for decades [video]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-plastic-industry-knowingly-pushed-recycling-myth-for-decades-new-report-finds

by peutetre • 2 years ago

81 20 2 years ago

pbs.org

timetraveller26• 2 years ago

The sugar industry did something similar, how many hazards are we ignoring today that our children will hate us for?

michaelteter• 2 years ago

And the tobacco industry.

And the oil and gas industry (especially later with fraccing, and the earthquakes that followed).

Our children will be caught up in the usual capitalism cycle that we are in, only occasionally stopping to realize how our collective choices have added more and more problems to our lives.

DinaCoder983• 2 years ago

The idea the individual consumer is responsible for policing industry is farcical on the face of it.

lukan3• 2 years ago

The individual consumer cannot police the whole industry, but they can choose what part of the industry they support. If many care, they can make an impact.

And that's the crux. Many, or most people don't give a shit. Not about climate change, not about plastic in the ocean. Not about animals living in factories without seeing the sun ever. They care about their immediate surroundings, their taxes and the money in their pocket. They don't want further problems, someone else should take care of that (unless it increases taxes).

andrewstuart• 2 years ago

I think the vast majority of people still believe it.

Overtonwindow• 2 years ago

And unfortunately, there’s not a lot that can be done. Congress is not going to go against the plastic, packaging and bottling industry, or the petroleum industry. The best we could hope for is a tariff on plastic products, or large state taxes on plastic bottles, packaging, and fill material.

llm_trw• 2 years ago

So work on local locals first.

You don't need the federal government to solve this problem for you.

Everyone from your city to your state can be pressured to add to the cost of plastic.

XorNot• 2 years ago

There's never been any particular reason to worry about plastics recycling though, because at the end of the day plastic starts off as oil in the ground, and it's better if it ends up as oil in the ground (landfill).

What we don't want is for it to end up in the ocean or top-level biosphere: which is not a problem recycling addresses, since it's the wrong part of the lifecycle chain and in the wrong area of responsibility.

Recycling in general is oversold: it's a resource optimization strategy. It's most valuable for things with real limits on their production rate - i.e. plantation timber - or which are so expensive that recycling is just better (aluminum). But we have so much oil that...honestly who cares? The majority of the raw resources for plastics are burned rather then turned into useful products. If there's a good use of plastic waste, it's honestly burying it all in one easily reclaimable place so it could be thermally depolymerized as a useful input material later (i.e. when energy is cheap enough to make that viable).

tmaly• 2 years ago

I really can't believe it took this long for the mainstream to notice this.

It has been common knowledge that 90% of the stuff is not recycled.

We need a huge material science effort to reduce the plastic usage.

All of the recent studies around micro plastic contamination is alarming.

techdragon• 2 years ago

I mean sure, we definitely need that material science research… but for a big part of the contamination we kind of already know what to do.

For textile related pollution, it’s using more organic fibres like cotton and wool for clothing where possible. And for tire wear it’s improving public transportation and pushing for greater use of rail on long distance transportation, particularly for cargo. Unfortunately clothing is not getting better as fast fast-fashion is not going to spend more for organic fibres… and in a lot of places people seem to be all but allergic to the very idea of public transport and in a lot of places around the world aren’t good at building train tracks and stations so that won’t really help in the short term.

joshspankit• 2 years ago

fast fast-fashion is not going to spend more for organic fibres

Agreed, but like the tire wear we will probably have to counter the underlying issue. To me, fast fast fashion feels like a symptom of a depressed attention economy. People feel the need to grab attention/feel like part of the in crowd and don’t have the funds. Maybe they are just practicing retail therapy. In any case these are symptoms of widespread disconnection and avoidance. I don’t think people truly want fast fast fashion or even fast fashion, and I don’t think anyone would argue for producing it (except for the cost).

takerjop• 2 years ago

Nothing will happen. Microplastics that get into human comes mostly from tyres. Since 5 decades ago, we did nothing to solve those old tyres and now realizing the grinded down tyre powder is health hazard. Nothing to see.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Related from a month ago:

Plastics producers deceived public about recycling, report reveals

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39387387

taylodl• 2 years ago

Plastic is simply the result of capitalizing on the waste of refining petro products. You have to do something with it so the thinking went, so might as well make plastic and make money off of it. You're also evenly distributing that waste all over, rather than at the refining site. Decades later we're realizing evenly distributing the waste all over may not have been such a good idea after all.

Anyways, if you want less plastic then you're going to need to pump less oil, and the way to pump less oil is to reduce the demand on refined oil products such as gasoline. It's pretty much as simple as that.

The plastic industry knowingly pushed recycling myth for decades [video]

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