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"We" didn't stop, it was cheaper for Coca-Cola to use plastic. Coca-Cola did it. Stop blaming consumers for corporate choices to slightly increase profits. Li

"We" didn't stop, it was cheaper for Coca-Cola to use plastic. Coca-Cola did it. Stop blaming consumers for corporate choices to slightly increase profits. Like in the UK, Tesco have just inexplicably switched from using cardboard egg containers to plastic ones. Is that my fault?

gambiting 6y ago
The corporations only make those choices because they are allowed to(or rather, because they are not forced by the regulations to actually pay for the environmental cost of what they make). Yes, I recently noticed that with Tesco eggs, I have complained to them about it. And it's not our fault but we can definitely try to avoid these products as consumers. Telling companies why you avoid them is also a good thing to do.
- Ntrails 6y ago
  We are responsible for our parliamentary representatives, and thereby our laws. It is absolutely our fault, as a society, as consumers.
  - res0nat0r 6y ago
    Good doc here on how the plastic industry pushed for "recycling" laws so they could look like the good guys, but much of the stuff you see the recycling logo on can't in fact be recycled. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plastic-wars/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plastic-wars/
- munificent 6y ago
  I hate this attitude that treats corporations as having zero responsibility beyond what they are legally mandated to do. Yes, it is an observable fact that corporatism and market economics incentivize corporations to behave that way. But it is an unjustified leap to turn that into a moral claim that it is ethically acceptable for that to be true. People are incentivized to commit package theft in the US today. The odds of being caught and prosecuted are very slim, and the upside is you get free stuff. As an economic action, it is very market efficient: low barrier of entry, large number of "sellers", few cabals or controls over prices. There definitely isn't perfect information on products, but given that the cost is near-zero, that doesn't matter much. As a business, "package theft" is a great one to get into, and the market highly rewards you for doing so. However, we correctly consider people who do so as despicable shitwads who rightfully earn our scorn and condemnation. We publicly shame them, and certainly don't want to hang out with them and count them as friends. We should do the same with businesses that do morally harmful acts, regardless of whether the act is technically illegal or incentivized by market forces. It is certainly the business's fault when they do a shitty thing. They have fully agency in the choice of whether or not do so.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Corporations aren't natural persons and have no ethics. They are abstract creations of law and the only legitimate expectations of corporations as corporations are their responses to structural incentives including enforced legal obligations. We can talk about the ethics of the actions of corporate decision-makers, but only while keeping in mind that structural incentives mean that decision-makers who sacrifice the narrow interests of corporate investors for ethical reasons beyond the constraints forcibly externally imposed on corporations are likely to, over time, be replaced by those who do not. If you want corporations to act consistently with some view of ethics, you aren't going to do it sustainably by moral persuasion directed at decision-makers, but only by shifting the structural incentives.
    - mattmanser 6y ago
      You're confusing their LEGAL status with their MORAL obligations. Just because there's an easy way for a collective of people to absolve their moral responsibilities by getting a little certificate that says "We're a corporation" doesn't make it right. It's just a legal accident, a mummers farce, and you defending it is morally reprehensible too. Worse still, it didn't used to be this way till some prat of an economist (probably American) starting saying so, and a bunch of people smelling easy money piled on. Companies used to care about their image, now their "care" about their shareholders (but actually their contractual bonuses and severance packages).
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > You're confusing their LEGAL status with their MORAL obligations. No, I'm saying that considering corporations to be subjects of morality at all is pointless, and that one ought to consider what they want corporations to do to acheive moral ends, and then work to establish structures to at least incentivize that, if not actually constrain them to it. > Just because there's an easy way for a collective of people to absolve their moral responsibilities by getting a little certificate that says "We're a corporation" doesn't make it right. I think you start from a false premise here; that it is of no value to analyze corporations as if they were moral actors does not in any way absolve any natural persons for the immorality of any actions they undertake in or around a corporate structure. It just removes the ability to pass blame for immorality off on to an abstraction, and focuses it on the people responsible for the abstraction (which, for creatures of law, in addition to any others includes those responsible for the law, either as lawmakers or as electors thereof.)
matthewheath 6y ago
> Tesco have just inexplicably switched from using cardboard egg containers to plastic ones. They've only switched because they've run out of the pulp used to make the cardboard egg containers. It's a temporary switch, although not ideal.
- makomk 6y ago
  I'm sure the disruption to UK recycling collections due to Covid can't have helped much with that.
bostik 6y ago
> Like in the UK, Tesco have just inexplicably switched from using cardboard egg containers to plastic ones. Is that my fault? If you keep buying them, yes. Tesco's beancounters (who are legion) are certainly going to keep track of the overall cost and revenue structure. Assuming the plastic containers cost less and are sold in equal amounts, they will push forward to roll out plastic over cardboard where they can. If they want price signals, give them price signals. Vote with your wallet. We buy our eggs from a nearby farm. Tray of 30 is good for a week, and sometimes two. Better quality than what Tesco or Sainsbury's offers, too. EDIT: we also return our cardboard trays to the farm shop when we buy a new batch. Reuse >> recycle.
- mattmanser 6y ago
  Slightly OT: I may be a bit unfair picking on Tesco as it turns out the pulp used to make egg cartons has run out because of the demand for eggs from the covid home-baking upswing, they do plan to switch back. But only because the last time they pulled this stunt back in 2011 or so claiming it was eco-friendly to use "recyclable" plastic it blew up in their face (most of which isn't recycled) .
  - bostik 6y ago
    Fair enough. Now that you mention it, I remember how during the height of the lockdown cardboard pretty much ran out. People bought more stuff online (lots of cardboard in packaging), while there was no waste paper collection to fill the demand from the supply side. There still isn't enough waste paper collection happening, really. The communal large containers are emptied at most once a week - and they have capacity for less than two days. People have a lot more cardboard packaging to get rid of, but with collection points hitting their capacity in 1/3 of the pre-covid time, there's a constant backlog to get through. > last time they pulled this stunt back in 2011 or so Wasn't aware of this historical detail. Thanks.
petre 6y ago
A plastic tax would solve this. Make plastic containers at least as expensive as cardboard or aluminium cans through added taxes.

gambiting 6y ago

The corporations only make those choices because they are allowed to(or rather, because they are not forced by the regulations to actually pay for the environmental cost of what they make). Yes, I recently noticed that with Tesco eggs, I have complained to them about it. And it's not our fault but we can definitely try to avoid these products as consumers. Telling companies why you avoid them is also a good thing to do.

Ntrails 6y ago
We are responsible for our parliamentary representatives, and thereby our laws. It is absolutely our fault, as a society, as consumers.
- res0nat0r 6y ago
  Good doc here on how the plastic industry pushed for "recycling" laws so they could look like the good guys, but much of the stuff you see the recycling logo on can't in fact be recycled. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plastic-wars/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plastic-wars/
munificent 6y ago
I hate this attitude that treats corporations as having zero responsibility beyond what they are legally mandated to do. Yes, it is an observable fact that corporatism and market economics incentivize corporations to behave that way. But it is an unjustified leap to turn that into a moral claim that it is ethically acceptable for that to be true. People are incentivized to commit package theft in the US today. The odds of being caught and prosecuted are very slim, and the upside is you get free stuff. As an economic action, it is very market efficient: low barrier of entry, large number of "sellers", few cabals or controls over prices. There definitely isn't perfect information on products, but given that the cost is near-zero, that doesn't matter much. As a business, "package theft" is a great one to get into, and the market highly rewards you for doing so. However, we correctly consider people who do so as despicable shitwads who rightfully earn our scorn and condemnation. We publicly shame them, and certainly don't want to hang out with them and count them as friends. We should do the same with businesses that do morally harmful acts, regardless of whether the act is technically illegal or incentivized by market forces. It is certainly the business's fault when they do a shitty thing. They have fully agency in the choice of whether or not do so.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Corporations aren't natural persons and have no ethics. They are abstract creations of law and the only legitimate expectations of corporations as corporations are their responses to structural incentives including enforced legal obligations. We can talk about the ethics of the actions of corporate decision-makers, but only while keeping in mind that structural incentives mean that decision-makers who sacrifice the narrow interests of corporate investors for ethical reasons beyond the constraints forcibly externally imposed on corporations are likely to, over time, be replaced by those who do not. If you want corporations to act consistently with some view of ethics, you aren't going to do it sustainably by moral persuasion directed at decision-makers, but only by shifting the structural incentives.
  - mattmanser 6y ago
    You're confusing their LEGAL status with their MORAL obligations. Just because there's an easy way for a collective of people to absolve their moral responsibilities by getting a little certificate that says "We're a corporation" doesn't make it right. It's just a legal accident, a mummers farce, and you defending it is morally reprehensible too. Worse still, it didn't used to be this way till some prat of an economist (probably American) starting saying so, and a bunch of people smelling easy money piled on. Companies used to care about their image, now their "care" about their shareholders (but actually their contractual bonuses and severance packages).
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > You're confusing their LEGAL status with their MORAL obligations. No, I'm saying that considering corporations to be subjects of morality at all is pointless, and that one ought to consider what they want corporations to do to acheive moral ends, and then work to establish structures to at least incentivize that, if not actually constrain them to it. > Just because there's an easy way for a collective of people to absolve their moral responsibilities by getting a little certificate that says "We're a corporation" doesn't make it right. I think you start from a false premise here; that it is of no value to analyze corporations as if they were moral actors does not in any way absolve any natural persons for the immorality of any actions they undertake in or around a corporate structure. It just removes the ability to pass blame for immorality off on to an abstraction, and focuses it on the people responsible for the abstraction (which, for creatures of law, in addition to any others includes those responsible for the law, either as lawmakers or as electors thereof.)

matthewheath 6y ago

> Tesco have just inexplicably switched from using cardboard egg containers to plastic ones. They've only switched because they've run out of the pulp used to make the cardboard egg containers. It's a temporary switch, although not ideal.

makomk 6y ago
I'm sure the disruption to UK recycling collections due to Covid can't have helped much with that.

bostik 6y ago

> Like in the UK, Tesco have just inexplicably switched from using cardboard egg containers to plastic ones. Is that my fault? If you keep buying them, yes. Tesco's beancounters (who are legion) are certainly going to keep track of the overall cost and revenue structure. Assuming the plastic containers cost less and are sold in equal amounts, they will push forward to roll out plastic over cardboard where they can. If they want price signals, give them price signals. Vote with your wallet. We buy our eggs from a nearby farm. Tray of 30 is good for a week, and sometimes two. Better quality than what Tesco or Sainsbury's offers, too. EDIT: we also return our cardboard trays to the farm shop when we buy a new batch. Reuse >> recycle.

mattmanser 6y ago
Slightly OT: I may be a bit unfair picking on Tesco as it turns out the pulp used to make egg cartons has run out because of the demand for eggs from the covid home-baking upswing, they do plan to switch back. But only because the last time they pulled this stunt back in 2011 or so claiming it was eco-friendly to use "recyclable" plastic it blew up in their face (most of which isn't recycled) .
- bostik 6y ago
  Fair enough. Now that you mention it, I remember how during the height of the lockdown cardboard pretty much ran out. People bought more stuff online (lots of cardboard in packaging), while there was no waste paper collection to fill the demand from the supply side. There still isn't enough waste paper collection happening, really. The communal large containers are emptied at most once a week - and they have capacity for less than two days. People have a lot more cardboard packaging to get rid of, but with collection points hitting their capacity in 1/3 of the pre-covid time, there's a constant backlog to get through. > last time they pulled this stunt back in 2011 or so Wasn't aware of this historical detail. Thanks.

petre 6y ago

A plastic tax would solve this. Make plastic containers at least as expensive as cardboard or aluminium cans through added taxes.