4 ms·

While consumer efforts are good, it's important to remember and focus on industrial waste, which is a far greater problem: https://stanfordmag.org/contents/indu

While consumer efforts are good, it's important to remember and focus on industrial waste, which is a far greater problem: https://stanfordmag.org/contents/industrial-versus-consumer-recycling https://stanfordmag.org/contents/industrial-versus-consumer-...

supazek 3y ago
Okay I’m focused on it
- staunton 3y ago
  ... and then do something about it
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - subroutine 3y ago
    like what? vote or something
themitigating 3y ago
Multiple things can be considered at once
- Y_Y 3y ago
  I respectfully disagree. Some days even a single thing is a challenge. Anyway, at the risk of rehashing a very old argument, OP presumably means that if you want to reduce the effects (landfill, increased consumption of plastics etc) then the best place to apply your effort is in industrial contexts. It's good to reduce any waste but it's rational to apply your finite efforts where they'll give the best return.
  - gcanyon 3y ago
    Yep, exactly this.
  - themitigating 3y ago
    * then the best place to apply your effort is in industrial contexts.* The vast majority of people don't have control over industrial waste. Of course I can vote for someone who says they will but that doesn't require focus only an action at most once a year. I believe the OP is using whataboutism to allow himself to be selfish. "Why recycle when celebrities fly on private jets" or to make it more obvious "Why should I be good if another person isn't"
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      Whataboutism is a bad term. I think of it as the socialist slaveowner problem: "You can't call me a bad socialist, I'll release my slaves when everybody releases their slaves. Compared to world slavery, I'm just a drop in the bucket (I own barely 5% of them.) Actually, your obsession with me instead of the real problem says a lot about you. So convenient for you to ignore the 95% and indulge your petty, childish bigotry against equestrians." There's no ethical consumption under capitalism!
parker_mountain 3y ago
Remembering and focusing intently. Why is nothing getting done about this?
billti 3y ago
Or even the different scales of your own waste. Whenever I'm worrying about which bin to put my coffee stirrer in, I sometimes think about the shear volume of landfill that got hauled from our house when we did a major renovation. I'm sure 10 lifetimes of coffee stirrers wouldn't come close. I think worrying about things like single-use shopping bags and compostable straws is great from a "keep pollution out of the environment" perspective, but I doubt they make a huge difference from a landfill usage perspective.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  America seems determined to do as little recycling as possible for weird culture war reasons, but even in the US construction rubble is fairly widely re-used and recycled: https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-and-demolition-materials https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-... > 600 million tons of C&D debris were generated in the United States in 2018, which is more than twice the amount of generated municipal solid waste. > Demolition represents more than 90 percent of total C&D debris generation, while construction represents less than 10 percent. > Just over 455 million tons of C&D debris were directed to next use and just under 145 million tons were sent to landfills.
pjc50 3y ago
My personal bugbear, and that of quite a few people in the Firth of Forth, is the Mossmorran Flare: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt At one point I estimated that's about a hundred plastic straws worth of ethylene per second. There's not a lot of individual recycling that can be done about that.

supazek 3y ago

Okay I’m focused on it

staunton 3y ago
... and then do something about it
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- subroutine 3y ago
  like what? vote or something

themitigating 3y ago

Multiple things can be considered at once

Y_Y 3y ago
I respectfully disagree. Some days even a single thing is a challenge. Anyway, at the risk of rehashing a very old argument, OP presumably means that if you want to reduce the effects (landfill, increased consumption of plastics etc) then the best place to apply your effort is in industrial contexts. It's good to reduce any waste but it's rational to apply your finite efforts where they'll give the best return.
- gcanyon 3y ago
  Yep, exactly this.
- themitigating 3y ago
  * then the best place to apply your effort is in industrial contexts.* The vast majority of people don't have control over industrial waste. Of course I can vote for someone who says they will but that doesn't require focus only an action at most once a year. I believe the OP is using whataboutism to allow himself to be selfish. "Why recycle when celebrities fly on private jets" or to make it more obvious "Why should I be good if another person isn't"
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    Whataboutism is a bad term. I think of it as the socialist slaveowner problem: "You can't call me a bad socialist, I'll release my slaves when everybody releases their slaves. Compared to world slavery, I'm just a drop in the bucket (I own barely 5% of them.) Actually, your obsession with me instead of the real problem says a lot about you. So convenient for you to ignore the 95% and indulge your petty, childish bigotry against equestrians." There's no ethical consumption under capitalism!

parker_mountain 3y ago

Remembering and focusing intently. Why is nothing getting done about this?

billti 3y ago

Or even the different scales of your own waste. Whenever I'm worrying about which bin to put my coffee stirrer in, I sometimes think about the shear volume of landfill that got hauled from our house when we did a major renovation. I'm sure 10 lifetimes of coffee stirrers wouldn't come close. I think worrying about things like single-use shopping bags and compostable straws is great from a "keep pollution out of the environment" perspective, but I doubt they make a huge difference from a landfill usage perspective.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
America seems determined to do as little recycling as possible for weird culture war reasons, but even in the US construction rubble is fairly widely re-used and recycled: https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-and-demolition-materials https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-... > 600 million tons of C&D debris were generated in the United States in 2018, which is more than twice the amount of generated municipal solid waste. > Demolition represents more than 90 percent of total C&D debris generation, while construction represents less than 10 percent. > Just over 455 million tons of C&D debris were directed to next use and just under 145 million tons were sent to landfills.

pjc50 3y ago

My personal bugbear, and that of quite a few people in the Firth of Forth, is the Mossmorran Flare: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt At one point I estimated that's about a hundred plastic straws worth of ethylene per second. There's not a lot of individual recycling that can be done about that.