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Much of the 80's recycling movement was funded as greenwashing by the plastics industry. The lie was that plastic was a "closed cycle" and "infinitely reusable.
by sacnoradhq 3y ago
Much of the 80's recycling movement was funded as greenwashing by the plastics industry. The lie was that plastic was a "closed cycle" and "infinitely reusable." In the late 90's/early 00's, "biodegradable plastic" was another lie.
We need to ban all materials that persist with poisonous degradation products. Most bottles should then transition back to glass or to enamel-lined (not BPA) cans. Glass persists for thousands of years but isn't much different from rock. There's no need to worry about glass pollution because fragments quickly weather.
- abwizz 3y agoi like to walk barefeet, so i worry about glass pollution all the time
- Brotkrumen 3y ago"we can't require eco-friendly alternatives to plastics because people litter" was not on my bingo sheet for today...
- abwizz 3y agothoughts and prayers for your bingo, but i consider myself part of the environment and thus object to suffering from more externalities of a technology that i consider partyly inferior (glass bottles are a lot heavier). the argument that glass is better in terms of decomposition when littered stands, but does not tell the whole story. (not unlike guns are good for self defense but the externalities paint a totally different picture)
- permo-w 3y agowhen you choose to deliberately expose yourself to vulnerability and walk barefoot, you take that responsibility onto yourself and can't blame others for what you stand on. the same would be true in nature
- elric 3y agoPresumably, you have eyes, and can easily avoid glass pollution. That's what I do when I go around barefoot. I've stepped in/on all kinds of nasty shit, but never on anything sharp. If you don't have functioning eyes, I apologize, and imagine being blind and barefoot is a tricky combination.
- hombre_fatal 3y agoMan, we’ve got to chill with the condescension on here (often guilty of it myself because I too am a stinker). Every time I’ve stepped on glass, it was a tiny sliver I couldn’t see which is why I stepped on it.
- abwizz 3y agothanks for beeing the voice of reason. all i wanted to say is that glass bottles are no silver bullet because they also have negative consequences.
- yowzadave 3y agoWhat about sharp rocks? We need to send somebody around with a file to sand off the pointy edges
- hinkley 3y agoA battalion of sidewalk sweepers. With organic fiber brooms, of course.
- IIsi50MHz 3y agoThey tend to neither cut me nor embed themselves in me. Glass "conspires" to remain hidden in or on substances until the damage has been done. Stainless steel containers are less likely to produce this scenario when dropped. (-: Although…they may need some MagicEraser equivalent or a suitable soak to remove latent flavours and odors. /-:
- friend_and_foe 3y agoIts all still greenwashing. "You can save the world without even getting up from your chouch!" is the sales pitch of the day. I'm far from what you'd consider an environmentalist in the sense of the current vernacular and I have a ridiculously low carbon footprint (my electric bill 9 months out of the year is $2 a month to give you an idea) and very low rate of disposal of plastics. All it takes is a handful of lifestyle changes. It's not even hard.
- mangodrunk 3y ago> All it takes is a handful of lifestyle changes. Please share these handful of lifestyle changes.
- friend_and_foe 3y agoDon't buy bottled water, don't use disposable grocery bags, buy things in glass over plastic containers, and cook your own food. Those small changes alone will reduce your plastic disposal by like 90%.
- okeuro49 3y ago> All it takes is a handful of lifestyle changes I don't think this for a second. I think the only way it will stop if equivalent biodegradable materials can be made to replace single use plastic.
- simiones 3y agoOne important note here is that one of the reasons we use plastic so much is because it is not biodegradable. Any material that would replace plastic packaging, for example, has to at least be less biodegradable than the contents itself. For food that's probably relatively easy, but less so for many other items.
- friend_and_foe 3y agoThis is an apathetic mindset and is part of the problem. "I can't do anything! The whole world has to change or it can't be done!" It's not healthy to disempower yourself with respect to your own life. I do it, so it can be done. Everyone will be different everyone has tolerances, but it can be done. People make the problem larger than life so that they have am excuse not to do anything. The only thing you can change is your own behavior.
- bitwize 3y agoAnything that doesn't involve massive reduction of the human population and a reversion to preindustrial lifestyles is greenwashing.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoWith the technology we have, I would have to agree with this statement.