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I remember a story on HN about how it was the plastic industry that promoted the narrative of recyclable plastic. Doesn’t make sense at first glance, perhaps;
by avgcorrection 5y ago
I remember a story on HN about how it was the plastic industry that promoted the narrative of recyclable plastic. Doesn’t make sense at first glance, perhaps; why not sell more plastic instead of telling people to recycle it? But they promoted that narrative because it is inefficient/hard to recycle plastics, and thus there is apparently no “sustainable” way to keep using plastics.
It was a useful tale to spin past a certain point of environmental consciousness.
So that narrative—engineered by the plastic industry itself—became just another part of RRR (reuse, repurpose, recycle).
Now think about all the billions of dollars that are in marketing. How much of the popular eco-agenda could be corporoate-sponsored?
(This is just to suggest that it is possible—there are always at least a dozen people in the comments who will demand direct proof in the form of leaked memos from at least three different giant corporations were they directly and explicitly (no innuendo) tell their subordinates to come up with such agendas, signed off by at least three executives. But it might be something to consider.
Or not.)
Now the Zeitgeist tells us that the world will be saved by middle class Joe making better consumer choices. I.e. rock the person, not the system.
The same thing goes for the economic system writ large.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago> So that narrative—engineered by the plastic industry itself—became just another part of RRR (reuse, repurpose, recycle). RRR is and was Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It should have been RR (or even just R), since reduce >>>>>>>>>>>>> reuse >> recycle (metals, paper, and glass) > garbage.
- irthomasthomas 5y agoThe current fashion is to recycle plastic into smoke and electricity by incineration. E.g. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2009/ee/b908135f https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2009/ee/b9081... It used to be that we would sell the plastic to energy producers in places like India, where environmental controls where less strict. But, more recently, we are burning the stuff domestically. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/co2-emissions-plastic-waste-england-b1882784.html https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/co2-emissi... One problem with this is that the incinerators are being placed close to the source, i.e. residential areas. So that toxic smoke is adding to urban air pollution.
- _3u10 5y agoLots of it is, in the 70s the coal industry paid Greenpeace to kill the nuclear industry. Now KSA pays the same people to shutdown the tar sands.
- lordnacho 5y agoBy chance I met with a guy who runs a startup in the plastics industry a few days ago. Sadly it would appear at that a lot of the recycling type initiatives are a sham. There's no effective control over the numbers, and a huge proportion of waste gets dumped overseas. Even his own business was struggling until recently, when it turned out that some large players are in need of something positive to say in marketing terms.
- incogitomode 5y agoPlanet Money did an episode on the recycling issue last year. Excellent reporting, and they do come up with memos: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/912150085/waste-land https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/912150085/waste-land One key point made is that the marketing approach was preferred because the costs were so low compared to solving the real problems. While I think redirecting those amounts to push people in a different direction would be great, it still seems minor compared to the challenges of plastic waste and broader environmental concerns.