We Need To Stop Lying about Plastic -- To Ourselves
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มี.ค. 2024
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Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle. We’ve all seen this motto as the end-all-be-all solution to the plastic waste problem. But a recent report reveals that the fossil fuel industry has promoted the recycling myth for decades, despite knowing that it wouldn't work. Indeed, there's been little progress in dealing with the millions of tons of plastic waste created every year. Why isn’t more plastic recycled? What can we do to solve the plastic waste issue? Let’s have a look.
Report here: climateintegrity.org/uploads/...
Paper here: www.sciencedirect.com/science...
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We need to go back to glass bottles for drinks like we had 50 years ago, where you paid a deposit on the glass and then got it back when you returned them.
Come to Europe bro. We still have that.
No because broken glass is dangerous. Plastic bags degrade in 10 years, bottles in 450. That is not a long time in the grand scheme of things. Also you can burn the garbage for fuel, which we do already. Just use an air filter...
@R0YB0T the most dangerous plastics are not the ones that were buried or burned but the ones that aren't
As a kid in Queensland, I made a fortune on that! Riding round building sites collecting bottles, knocking on doors collecting them too! The 70s were awsome times to grow up😄
20 cents refund per large bottle I got, 40 cents to enter skating ring and everything else was cheap too!
@@iamthatiam363 Exactly, that's why you never saw bottles littering anywhere.
And then you realize some of the largest contributors to the problem don't care, never cared and never will care.
Some?
Not only that, they are mandated by law to make as much money as possible for share holders. Capitalism makes it illegal to care.
In a very real sense all that's happening is you take some substances from the environment, re-arrange them chemically, and then put them back into the environment.
How does that qualify as "pollution." It came from the environment, went right back into the environment.
The only difference is that as "plastic," the carbon is almost completely inert and essentially "sequesters" carbon molecules for centuries or millennia, depending on how deep it gets buried...
I made a comment about legally having to make stockholders maximum profit. And yt blocked it . Why?
@@Grunchy005 This is really beyond my ability to really buy, I mean I am having a hard to believing that you actually believe this. That there is no such thing as pollution because everything is made of molecules? I mean, there is misguided. There is misunderstanding. This is basically denial of reality level stuff. Acid occurs naturally, and exists in nature, so you should just drink it. I mean it must be harmless, it came from the environment.
Just a couple of decades ago we were happily living without using an unimaginable amount of single use packaging. We were drinking water from glass cups and water taps. Coca was is reusable glass bottles. Restaurants serving their food in normal tablewares. Same was for milk and diary products.
10,000 years from now, archeologists will call us 'The Plastic Layer'.
psure it'd decompose by then
'The plastic chicken layer'
1 M years from now, an advanced species can drill for oil from the plastics that don't have any fungi to break it down.
You know what coal is? It's primarily derived from dead plant material, right? Well, yes, but there's more to the story. Around 400 million years ago, plants began producing a complex organic polymer called lignin, found in the cell walls of many plants today, especially in wood and bark. It provides rigidity, strength, and resistance against decomposition by microorganisms, which is why lignin-rich parts of plants decompose at a much slower rate compared to other plant materials. It took approximately 100 million years before microorganisms evolved the capability to produce enzymes to effectively decompose it. The vast accumulations of undecomposed plant material rich in lignin are a major source of the world's coal deposits, which are finite due to their specific formation conditions over millions of years.
Meanwhile, Ideonella sakaiensis is a bacterium discovered in Japan that can break down PET (polyethylene terephthalate), a common type of plastic used in bottles and containers. Similarly, certain fungi have shown the ability to decompose plastics by breaking down the polymer chains. This opens up possibilities for biological approaches to mitigate plastic pollution, although it's also crucial to address the issue through reducing plastic use and improving waste management.
Most plastic will degrade way before 10000 years unless it's in a landfill. In a landfill nothing degrades because it's an anaerobic environment.
Big problem with "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is that the very first one, REDUCE, is not happening. if we doubled the use of plastics in the past 20 years that does not seem to me that "reduce" is being observed.
Agreed, I don’t know why some of the smallest items we buy like a small memory chip needs so much extra unnecessary plastic packaging just to be immediately discarded, it also takes a huge amount of extra resources to store, ship, transport, warehouse & retail such items that come in a package 100 times bigger than it needs to be for marketing purposes.
Because you cannot REDUCE on Capitalism, were your worth and living conditions are measured on how much you produce, how much you sell, Unless you are a modern leftist and are more preoccupied on your buttplugs or the race of your wife's boyfriend.
thats because gov and the companies dont supply a big bottle (with a measured amount dispenser cap - they bought and buried the patent) that has a yearly supply in for the stuff we use all the time.
Dont buy if you dont want! I like plastic, so I buy.
At least packing peanuts have been mostly replaced by recycled cardboard.
Germany "solved" the recycling problem by exporting trash to other countries
So true! But isn´t that where free markets (capitalism?) take us, if we don´t control them on a global level?
Not only Germany.
Just send it to Poland and they'll put it on a big pile.
"exporting" is a bit of a euphemism, don't you think? they load up the trucks, which then leave via open borders and often time dump the trash at "companies" that are not authorized to collect or re-use garbage
I mean that is a actually an regulation issue in a fully free market it would get burned.@@Thomas-gk42
I have been explaining this to my students for 25 years. It’s been a scam from day 1
Based , red pilled teacher, keep it up!
*I've worked in recycling and refuse for over a decade. Most "recyclables" are not recycled. Most of it is packed into a sea container and sent to a third-world Asian country.*
*The stuff that IS recycled is as such: glass. When 7up started using green glass, it wasn't just for marketing. There was a LOT of green glass being recycled. Second is paper. When paper is recycled, it doesn't turn back into perfect sheets of Hilroy paper. It turns into mulch. Paper mache. This is used in product packaging (lumpy, brown paper forms that keep the product from wobbling around in boxes as well as drink trays for fast food restaurants. And lastly, plastic doesn't actually get recycled. It gets put RIGHT back into the landfill.*
7-Up always used green glass, even back when it was actually 7 oz. in return for deposit bottles.
Thanks for speaking truth! I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Landfills full of “recyclables” lol
I always wondered who sorts through our recycling bags! I had a suspicion it was either buried or shipped off to other countries. Sweden just burns all their plastic, that's a good idea.
Therefore, after we(Malaysia) banned plastic waste import, the Europe Embassador came to promote "recycling technology" investment, guess what he is up to.
@@damianjones6546I wonder if burning plastic release volatile flammable gases than can be collected for fuel, like when making charcoal
In the meantime, we now have 3 different trucks and 3 different contractors, driving around with our various stages of separated trash, only to be dumped in the same landfill.
Where I live, the green bin absolutely goes to a giant composting site. You need better local gov.
@@NauerBauer What about Plastic, the actual topic of this video. What about glass and mixed containers? Does composting make you feel good so that you can ignore the other, more harmful waste?
@@TerryLawrence001glass and aluminum gets recycled the most/best. Plastic is a huge problem. Even if it's slightly stained or dirty, it gets rejected. I don't know what the solution is.
@@NauerBauerThe answer is simple, hydrothermal reduction which turns it back into crude oil. It only requires heat pressure and a small amount of acid.
Most cities I know of in Canada and the US just recycle aluminum and steel cans, PET, and paper. The remainder goes to landfill.
hold on, its VERY IMPORTANT to note that the vast majority of microplastics don't come from single use plastics, but from tires, syntethic fibers, and city dust. those are things that will never be recycled and mostly can't be burned.
Of course you can burn a city! Remember Dresden?
@@stg213 So it goes...
> mostly can't be burned
not with that attitude
As a power station engineer friend of mine loves to say, "Anything can be burned"
Car tires are recycled to make re-treaded tires, roads, walk ways and playground surfaces. The next time you walk on non-concrete, look to see if it is rubber.
I live in the UK and I work as a beach cleaner. It's the most simple and basic function as an operation, 1 individual with a bag and a stick covering a designated area daily, funded by the public.
I have found over the years that persistent litter picking on beaches actually reduces waste, including plastic, very significantly and it seems that most, not all, waste on beaches 8s local to that specific area. On year 1 I removed huge amounts. Year two, a little less, year 3 less again, and so on... After approximately 4 to 5 years I have remained on top of the litter and it actually doesn't get anywhere near the state which it used to be before my intervention.
My point. My employment has been extremely constructive and effective for 15 years and proves that 1 individual in a designated area makes a significant positive difference.
Given that there are approximately 8 of us in our county, the positive impact on waste reduction is huge.
The problem.... hardly any other counties employ the same tactics. But if they did, our coastline would benefit hugely from it and of course the impact is wider than just the immediate areas serviced because the litter, largely plastic, comes from who knows where in the world, not just local waste.
If more countries did the same, plastic waste would be significantly reduced. And this, just from the shoreline !
1 person, bag, stick, designated area, daily.
Now....what to do with it all now it's been collected ?
Thank you for sharing your experience. That was very inspiring and helpful.
While certainly useful and probably necessary, your job does not reduce waste at all. It just moves it from an inconvenient place to a slightly more convenient one. As you say yourself, what to do with it now?
@@TypdersichderTypnenn better to just leave it all then.
@@railinly610 Not at all! Like a doctor needs to treat symptoms, we need to handle the effects. But if we want to truly solve the problem, we need to tackle the cause. As I said, your work is useful and necessary. It's the best we can do short of actually solving the problem (which requires truly gargantuan political change).
@@TypdersichderTypnenn I'll level with you. I can't see a solution to the problem of material waste generated by humans. No political party will make any difference unless they are prepared to forego money in favour of environment.
There are already alternatives to some plastic products but they are not invested in because it means starting a whole new infrastructure for production and the raw materials are not guaranteed.
I sometimes think that what humans are doing is correct, meant to be, and we have evolved on a self destructive trajectory which is ultimately unavoidable. The planet wouod continue on quite happily without our existence which perfectly demonstrates that we need it to survive, but it does not need us.
Many consumers are completely uneducated about plastic. They just buy and chuck it away. They don't watch environmental videos or even the news, they watch Big Brother. To blame the consumer is absurd. The producers are to blame and governments are to blame for failing to properly regulate producers.
Red...you are correct...so all lobbyists need to be removed from the halls of Congress. All of them are
engaged in criminal behavior with no accountability.
So if the consumers are empty-headed egotists they are not to be blamed then?
@@Putukusi The producers have spent billions to mislead consumers and to limit alternative choices. There are huge parallels between the oil industry and tobacco industry. Many of the same people worked for both. Listen to Drilled by Amy Westervelt.
@@PutukusiIt's near impossible to shop without buying some products covered in plastic. This is like asking why don't people just stop using cars in America, it's built around them and using any other method of transportation makes your life miserable. While in other countries there are more options
Because plastic containers make the product cheaper overall and people love cheap.
I worked at a plastics plant for far too long. They were only able to use around 10% recycled material without degrading the structure and properties of the material. This was a plant that made the plastic that is used by other places to turn into finished goods.
The question I always have though, is how do they recycle the recycled plastic. Because if they can again only managed 10%, then eventually it all ends up back in landfill/burnt anyway. When people buy something recycled, they think they're helping, but forget about it when they come to throw that away as well.
Plastics are mostly petrochemicals. The best thing to do is use petroleum to produce plastic parts, then burn them as fuel at the end of their life. Don't use petroleum to fuel vehicles.
It gets melted down and mixed in with virgin material, but any defects like dirt or water in the recycled material will then spread into the rest of the good material which causes even more waste to be produced
I've worked in a plastic products factory for 10 years. Whatever can't be reused is recycled. Some materials are burnt for energy while others are reused by another company to produce recycled granules for production that doesn't require virgin material. Nobody goes and throws them in the ocean the way people say. There might be bad apples all over the world among producers but in developed countries there's no such thing as plastic just ending up in the ocean "because it does".
It baffles me the amount of carelessness we're capable of. How can we not care about our waste? It's OUR responsibility. The World is full of adult children who want things to magically sort themselves out.
It's because most people live in cities where everything "magically" happens behind the scenes and you never see where anything is produced or goes to.
the children will keep making a mess on the house till the walls fall down and nature takes it's course
It's dishonest to say people just don't care. If all the products in glass containers cost 25% more and you're already living paycheck to paycheck, then how are you gonna blame people for picking the cheapest option
It's because waste management is not profitable.
@@sorryforlatmig7962 moren living is the prblem we should go back to old days haha we won't have a choince nature will take it's course, people will keep struggling
I bring my own bags to the supermarket all the time. Sometimes the baggers get very confused. They put a bag of potatoes in a disposable plastic bag and I have to tell them “ It’s already in a bag “
Should be how its done
They get trained and are supposed to follow thier training. Thier trained everything goes in a bag unless the customer says otherwise. I just say "no thank you" as there is no point in telling them how to do their job.
Would you like a bag to hold your bags
either way your potatoes are also in a big already. and probably the crate at some point was wrapped in plastic on a pallet. and and and plastic plastic plastic.
S'much damn plastic, damn, plastic
Plastic is absolutely amazing… But I think we do overrely on it, especially for packaging. I really appreciate it simple, brown, cardboard box for packaging. I do not understand why some people like fancy packaging, I just want whatever it is I bought to arrive in my hands without excessive wear on it.
there was a TV series in the US in the early 2000's called "Penn & Teller's: Bull****" and their episode on recycling plastic shocked a lot of people. People were shocked to find out that a lot of plastic isn't recycled at all. And that putting all your plastic types into the same bin is rarely sorted further. Preventing consumer plastic waste from being processed further. With the exception of bottle return (typically PET), and industrial waste where the plastic can have waste streams segregated. Waste-to-Energy plants have their use though. In places like Hawaii it not only provides power, it is the better option for dealing with landfill capacity. As shipping waste off the islands tends to result in even more plastic being spilled into the ocean. (perhaps a flaw in the design of ocean worthy barges)
penn and teller aired one episode where they spread climate change disinfo and denialism though......which is quite a big failure for a show who's sole purpose is to dispel bs.
Totally agree with some other comments here: we need to get away from single use plastics and back to using recyclabe materials like glass, metal and paper. In addition, we could (re)introduce deposit systems where we bring food containers back to supermarkets, pop them into a machine, get the deposit back and they get sent back to the factories, sterilized and used again. In Germany, this is already done for some drinks and dairy products.
Dont fool yourself. Glass bottles are heavy and cleaning costs energy too. So transportation costs will skyrocket. And with transportation costs i mean: you will burn more gasoline. Instead you could have burned the plastic in the first place with the same result.
Burning plastic IS the solution. Burn it whenever solar or wind doesn't produce energy and you can replace a coal power plant with it.
Again: Recycling is good. But not for plastic.
Replacing doesn't change anything. But i definitaly support reduction.
You do you. We'll do us
Well unfortunately a lot of plastic for recycling in Germany is not recycled , it is sold to waste incineration facilities as they can't burn the waste anymore as it's too moist . The recycling Companys do make quite a lot of money out of this system.
@Ba.Fi. while we get taxed for using plastic bags by our local govt
In the US, getting money returned happens. At Whole foods, the milk sold in glass is supposed to be returned. You will receive a deposit back and the milk company
Recycles the glass and reuses it.
Many people hate whole foods but they are doing a lot for the environment.
Also, there are 10 states in the US that will give you money back for plastic plastic bottles, glass bottles or metal cans.
For example, in Michigan, almost every grocery stoe has the machine that you're talking about.
This just needs to be expanded..
"The generator is the consumer, not the producer" - that's a convenient way for producers to wash their hands of their responsibility. I don't know anyone who asked for additional plastic packaging on food or replacing tinfoil, paper, glass and aluminum for plastic in almost everything we use. Those materials can be repurposed or recycled quite efficiently. Plastic I can mostly only throw away. Weren't the companies saying bottled water was healthier even in areas where there's nothing wrong with tap water? They produce, market, sell, increase their profit, push producers of better materials out of business, and then pin all the consequences on someone else. I'm not buying that crap anymore.
Oh yes I do. The tree huggers were worried about using up the forests. Remember at grocery check out they asked "paper or plastic",meaning what kind of bag, paper or plastic. Do you even see paper bags any more? And you got alot of use out of those paper bags. And talk about a renewable resourse, trees definately are.
omg, "raises the question" instead of "begs the question". Music to my ears. Thank you.
Sabine, my siblings and I grew up on the Texas coast. Our parents were amazing at taking us camping and for weekends at coastal motels. I took my wife back to meet family in Texas a few years ago and we camped for four days at Padre Island National Seashore. The pristine beaches Id known as a kid (ok, with scattered blobs of tar that get stuck to your feet, this is Texas after all), the beaches were covered with tons of plastic waste per kilometer! It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen!
Ain’t that America. ( heavy sigh)
I always wondered why we can't standardise plastic products. We don't need 100 different types of shampoo bottles with different colours and different additives. Governments could enforce just a few different sets of standard plastic bottles similar to how we have a few different standard aluminium can or glass bottles. This would make reuse and recycling a lot more efficient.
Absolutely!
We didn't really standardize can afaik. It was produce that way because it is more or less the most cost competitive way of producing it.
But even then, it does not stop company from getting a little bit creative with their packaging with metal and especially glass container.
For plastic stuff, there are practically no limits to how it can be produced. Years of marketing data shows it is better to spend just a little bit more on the packaging so your brand stands out among all the competitions product.
Oh, it is also much easier to modify your packaging in a way to hide shrink flatiron with plastic container.
Company then will use pr mechanism to turn people against any such legislation. Of course they will also strategically allocate funding toward the right government officials.
Maybe it is possible in EU, but I genuinely see no hope in changing anything here in the US.
Just consider how many use cases exist (a lot) for the plastic in your daily life, from durable PVC pipes and mopping buckets to shampoo bottles, transparent cheese slices containers and thin plastic bags to put your food in.
@@jintsuubest9331 It's not much better in the EU. Public opinion and politics can still be easily manipulated by industry PR, if industry decides to spend the effort. However, there is a certain public trend that plastic waste should be avoided. But it didn't have much impact so far.
we don't like strong government, we like strong multinational corporations :+!
If our "Chain Of Accountability" held the PRODUCERS most responsible, things would change and solutions would be developed swiftly.
Petroleum producers will eternally lobby lawmakers to NOT hold them accountable, but it's they whom are the best resource to develop methods to manage the disposal of the many substances WHICH THEY produce because after all it's THEY whom have the engineering staff which is the most capable (holding specific knowledge & expeience) to address and solve the disposal issues.
We LOVE you Sabine!!!
I've started using laundry detergent sheets (instead of liquid in plastic jugs), and shampoo and body soap bars (instead of liquid shampoo and body wash in plastic bottles). It's a start.
I'm using the detergent sheets and will start with bar shampoo when my bottled shampoo is gone.
When I was a kid in the 1970s in the UK, we did recycling. We had a milkman and we had glass milk bottles. When they were empty, they were collected by the milkman, who took them back to the dairy to be sterilised then reused. The same went for pop bottles. You bought a bottle of cola in a glass bottle, you took it back to the shop when it was empty, and you got 5 pence back for each bottle. Again they went back to the manufacturer of the soft drink, it was sterilised and reused.
With recycling of aluminium cans. To the best of my knowledge, they are worth recycling because aluminium is expensive to produce.
Plastic is so widespread now because companies wanting cheaper production. However, you cannot take it back to the vendor to be reused by the manufacturer of the food or drink you bought. Plastic used for food and drinks is fragile and is essentially a one shot deal. And even if they were able to re-use the products returned to them, companies would not want reusable plastic, because it would cut into their profits in terms of having to either sterilise in-house or pay for a specialist company to do it.
Increasingly, everything is made of plastic. There is a big fuss over the use of petrol and diesel cars but look at how much plastic is used on ALL cars and this includes the sacred EV which is full of it. The problem consumers have, is that there is NO CHOICE. Everything you buy is packaged in plastic. You rarely find an alternative. People try to do their bit and the manufacturers lie about what happens when the product is taken to the so-called recycling plant.
The petrochemical industry knows that petrol and diesel vehicles are on the way out so they are investing heavily in plastics to keep their industry going and this will continue until the source has dried up. As a species, we are very bad at changing our ways. Business always wins out, and getting businesses to change its modes of operation is near impossible because, again, it will cut into their profits and the profits of their shareholders and backers.
There is no choice. 100% with you there. Been saying this for so long.
@@DragoNate Even if there is a choice it breaks down at economics. Buying stuff without plastic is quite often more expensive and takes more time. Ressources the economically weak - and thereby the vast majority of people - cannot just freely spend, because those who do not spend those ressources will be able to work longer hours for less money. Hence these kinds of problems can always only be combatted by market regulation. In case of combatting plastic waste and climate change this however always means deciding to have a sustainable but less efficient economy and thereby lowering the standard of living and prosperity purposefully. Easy to be advocated for by those, who are rather well-off. An absolute nightmare for those, who aren't. Hence, these are issues that are heavily straining capitalist democracies. So for actual sufficient political action you need to either make sure everyone is economically in the same boat and therefore more interested in sustainability than immediate prosperity (getting rid of capitalism) or you need to make sure the people most affected by lowering the standard of living don't get a say (getting rid of democracy). That's why we always opt for the hail mary third option: Pray that industrial and technological innovation will fix it.
@@JoniWan77 yeah that's exactly it which is why the whole thing p's me off.
it's just not that simple to "ban plastic", stop buying it or something.
@@DragoNate The arrogance and ignorance of this simplification is infuriating.
"As a species, we are very bad at changing our ways. Business always wins out" - I agree. We COULD design better rules about how business works (taxes, regulations / laws), but I doubt our society is sophisticated enough to accomplish it to the extent necessary. There's too much lobbyism going on that perpetuates the status quo and politicians have little incentive to listen to experts who don't have an agenda.
As the owner of a zero waste shop, I'd really appreciate if everyone could support their local independent ones. Reduce is the first of the three words for a reason. It's literally the biggest priority.
I have always wondered, who regulates what constitutes a zero waste business? Because most of the time the business says it's zero waste, but only as a front or referring to plastic.
I appreciate your thought and effort but I doubt your supply chain is zero waste? So it's really just the end bit that consumers can feel good about?
I'm totally up for minimizing plastics and waste and I make thoughtful decisions to that end but at a gross level, popular culture is willingly oblivious to total resource use.
Question: have you done a thorough scientific analysis into if your ‘zero waste’ shop actually makes a positive, net difference to the environment in general, compared to other methods of retail? What were the results and do you have a link to them? If not, how do you even know if it’s worth doing? Like, have you considered that it might be actually less environmentally impactful not to set up a shop at all in the first place, given the efficiency and economies of scale in supermarkets etc?
@@TheCatvolador it's a good question. For the sake of comprehension, I used the words Zero Waste because more people get what that means, but realistically it's a refill shop with waste limited to the highest practical amount, so I often refer to it as a low waste, eco refill shop in normal conversation.
Certain food products will *have* to arrive in plastics for hygiene reasons (oats can arrive in 25kg paper sacks, but sticky prunes etc... need plastic). The idea is that the surface area of 1x5kg bag of prunes is less than the total of 50 x 100g bags, and we know I'm responsibly recycling the plastic that has come to me before being decanted into glass jars for refills. A lot of them also come in compostable or oxy biodegradable plastic too.
For the refills of liquids like laundry, washing up etc... it is actually a closed loop system. I send them back to the supplier when they deliver, and they refill them for another customer to use. When they're damaged beyond use, they get recycled. Again, the surface area of one 20 litre laundry liquid is less plastic than 20 x 1 litre bottles, plus they get reused.
Other things I sell are paper tubes of deodorant sticks, loose soaps and compostable cling film (saran wrap to Americans, I believe?).
@@raytheonbuna1021 see the response to TheCatvolador. Yes, it is sometimes misleading to say Zero Waste, but it is as close to being "zero" as is realistically possible.
But how will companies make absurd profits off of expendable packaging? Those billionaires and shareholders need money!!!
The best thing is that the idea of pretending something is more 'green' and 'environmentally friendly' when it's actually way worse is happening AGAIN, now with EVs.
But it will keep happening because it makes people feel virtuous.
Companies are to blame they only turned to plastic due to low costs. Then lobbied governments to make up false information about recycling.
Not just low costs. Glass bottles aren't more expensive when you account for the reuse part (which was a standard way to deal with glass bottles in Europe before plastic bottles started to be pushed); they don't pose any practical logistics concerns either (in fact, the empty bottles just got a free ride back to the bottling plant, win-win). The point was mainly to get rid of the responsibility for waste - drink companies managed to, ehm, convince governments that while glass bottles are reusable (and thus the waste is the responsibility of the plant), plastic bottles are _disposable_ (and thus the waste is the responsibility of the customer). And then it took a lot of advertising and lying, of course.
We abandoned everyday paper products to save the environs. In hindsight paper is way more recyclable and trees do grow like weeds.
we still use paper straws, though
Trees DO grow like weeds. You should SEE my side yard full of stray trees.
@@meixo9083 those are by far the least useful option.
@@meixo9083 They are shit though. That's why plastic stook over, they're cheap and convenient.
Paper straws are good for five minutes and then you're trying to drink through a limp noodle.
Glass bottles sound like a great idea except even if the glass is free they take up a lot of space, they break and are heavy AF which means more logistic costs in transporting and stocking them which are passed on to the consumer (and remember the trucks transporting them run on Diesel).
All kinds of everyday household items, car parts, ubiquitous things like knobs, handles, buttons all around you are made of plastic via injection moulding because that's an easy and cheap way of making bespoke parts in very large numbers quickly and cheapy, the same parts made of aluminium or steel will cost 10x as much. Everybody agrees that plastic is bad but next time your shower head breaks are you willing to pay 200$ for a metal one?
Plastic is useful for VERY specific uses. Beyond the inclusion in usable products, it should never be produced en mass as containers or packaging. At least if we burn it, we get something out of it.
Thank you, Sabine. You found the right words!
The problem is the difference between something "can be recycled" and "it is recycled in praxis". As long as mineral oil is that cheap (because of sponsorship with our taxes), the products which eventually become waste are more expensive than virgin material directly produced from oil. We know since decades about lack of practical recyclability of post-consumer plastic waste - yes, better gain thermal energy from everything you get back through collection! At the same time we know quite well about the effect a deposit return system has on return quantities. Putting either a return fee or a buyback price on all and everything (not only glass, metal and paper) almost guarantees a high collection efficiency. Return fee and incineration sounds like the most simple system to get rid of heaps of plastic ending up in the environment. And it will not require new laws or orders and will avoid limiting the personal freedom of people.
The system may work as long as there is mineral oil ...
In Finland, people happily put plastics and other materials in the trash knowing it will be burnt to produce electricity and hot water heating for homes. If we want improvements, push for industries to better filter the energy plant's the exhaust gases.
Damn right, fellow incinerator enjoyer.
Around 3 years ago, my girlfriend and I decided to stop buying anything that came in plastic. Grocery shopping has become a very different experience. I know we’re not making a measurable difference, but the vindication feels somewhat good.
I am mostly a carnivore. Meat is still wrapped in plastic but the amount of trash at home is considerably less than it was before.
@@marlan5470 You can buy primal cuts from a local butcher and cut your steaks yourself. Not only does this mean each cut isn't individually wrapped in plastic, it's also a lot cheaper than buying separate steaks. Not sure how easy it is to do something like this with other meats than beef though.
It's healthier
@@marlan5470 Then (that's just another opportunity to) stop buying meat, or to buy more plant food and less meat, which is by itself a big environmental issue, along with all animal agriculture and products, even bigger than the plastic, and which is neither a neccesity, nor the healthiest, the most sustainable and the most affordable/cheap food.
@@viraviraktihe already said he is a carnivore...as someone also loves eating meat, just let us be. Thank you.
Plastic has been the biggest scam - seeing it everywhere makes me so incredibly sad
The corporations clearly have no interest in making the needed changes
The key to recycling is to control how the original package is produced.
Standardize shape, size, color additives, etc. to achieve the most recyclable package.
Still the missing part: How dirty is that original plastic comig back to recycling...what contamination is still on the surface. Not from the plastic producer but from the stuff that container was used for.
@@reiniernn9071 True, but from I understand this is not a major issue compared to the other issues. Getting better is the goal even if we cannot make the process perfect.
Can you imagine, the package shape regulation ministry? 😂😂😂
@@DrDeuteron Sounds like something EU would like.
I've had this same thought for a while
We need to go back to using glass bottles instead of plastic. I remember when you bought a soft drink in a used glass bottle that was returned for money. As a kid I would walk down the road picking up beer bottles to get some deposit money.
I love that idea. Only problem is that glass takes more energy to transport, which adds more carbon to the atmosphere.
@@NauerBauerYou know that trucks that deliver the full bottles also pick up the empties? Small increase in the fuel used by the delivery trucks. Return them directly to the plant to be sanitized and refilled.
@@NauerBauerThat's a good point, but at least we don't end up eating glass. We have to put on the balance the carbon emissions from production, transportation and disposal/reuse of glass vs. plastics, and also the cost because at the end of the day it's regular people who will suffer from higher prices, not companies.
@@NauerBauermore energy doesn't need to mean more carbon. At least in principle we can get it in all sorts of non-carbon intensive ways
The Swedish alcohol retail monopoly are trying to be more environmentally friendly. One of the ways they do that is to push the use of plastic bottles (PET) over glass bottles.
We have to remember that a the sicker we are the more business opportunities there exist for anyone in the right position to exploit it.
In the RRR model, recycling is the last step and should almost be seen as the last resort, because it takes so much energy to do. The "on-the-go" model of delivery, carryout and bottled drinks is a huge contributor. I once ordered noodles and it came with over 20 pieces of trash, most of which were not recyclable. At a certain point, people need to put aside the "Convenience" factor in favor of not making tons of waste. Food is better at home or in restaurants anyways.
Waaaaait a minute, consumers have no influence on how anything is packaged. We got suckered into buying everything in plastic packaging. Those sudies Sabine showed exactly that.
Completely false.
things didn't switch instantly multiple generations of consumers repeatedly chose plastic over and over and over and over again. likewise anytime you make the choice to buy a product that uses plastic > glass packaging you're continuing to reinforce that choice.
@@TheInfectous Because it was often the only option available and the common zeitgeist / information the public was fed was that plastic was fine as long as you recycled it? Joe Blogs public wasn't exactly aware that the things with the recycling arrows were just being put in landfills half the time because the only way it was economic to recycle it was to ship it off to a 3rd world country and have them sort it out for slave wages, which even China stopped doing after the medical costs of taking care of the health issues outweighed the income.
There are supposed to be institutions in place to inform the public, they have done a pretty dreadful job at it.
Learned powerlessness on display right here. You have more power than they want you to believe.
@@TheInfectousand that's because plastic it's less expensive to produce and not as brittle (edit: and heavy) as glass. The solution to this problem is to tax plastic producers such that plastic packaging becomes more expensive, which in turn would disincentivize people from buying plastic products and thereby pollute the environment. However, that could work only in highly developed countries (which admittedly consume more per capita), but not in developing countries (which don't consume as much per capita, but are nevertheless more populous).
Packaging should either be biologically degradable or have a "reasonable alternative use" after its contents has been consumed.
We used to have mustard in the supermarkets that was "packaged" in glass that you could just use for drinking from afterwards. Where has that gone?
@@doesnotcompute6078 well sure it's more expensive but if a new material that increased cancer by 500% came out but was 5% cheaper to produce guess what, it'd be cheaper on the shelf as well, if you want options that don't increase the cost of living long term (things that don't cause health issues) you've got to be able to pay for processes that may be more expensive.
also when you say glass shortage it sort of implies we can't make enough of it due to natural factors... we can, we just have supply chain issues, the same thing could happen to plastic, this is a solvable issue and not a real reason to not use glass in applicable places.
I prefer glass too, and it's easily recyclable, but glass is heavier than plastic, thus more expensive to transport. That's a primary reason why food giants switched from glass to plastic packaging, to lower their costs. They never pass along any of their savings to consumers though.
@@doesnotcompute6078hmm maybe because the computer industry consumes a lot of sand(silicone). Or different sands needed for these industries?
There's actually a worldwide sand shortage.
We are so wasteful
I have seen several times stupid cashiers grab a plastic bag, and when I say I do not want to use a bag, they chuck it in the trash. It absolutely enfuriates me. A lot of these people are from other countries and could care less about what happens to that extra trash.
How were we able to tackle big tobacco for misleading the public, covering up health studies, and marketing towards kids.. but when done by Big Oil.. we seem incapable of implementing the same standard of justice?
I have been directly recycling plastic bottles into filament for my 3d printer for several years.
The filabot is an open source project that provides plans for the machines to perform the conversion.
Doesn't solve the problem. What do you do with filament?
What happens do your prints when you no longer need them? Are you shredding the plastic back down to make new filament? If so, you're releasing vast amounts of microplastics into your immediate environment. If not, are you trashing it or incinerating it? You're delaying the release of the plastic/carbon back to the environment, sure, but not stopping it.
That sounds like it has some large scale possibilities
It's a nice idea but how much this could actually reuse? Even if we would use much more this recycled products?
@@Mareczekw30 It's a process that ultimately saturates at extremely low levels. It's useful for the hobbyist but not a feasible industrial scale approach. And as I mention above, it doesn't actually resolve the problem -- eventually the plastic still has to get discarded.
Plastic recycling gives recycling a bad name. Glass and metal recycling have been standard operating procedure for centuries, and paper recycling has become economically advantageous too. What we really need is a plastic tax to discourage consumption of single use plastic. Bottled water is usually just municipal water that's been bottled up wherever it's cheapest. Unless you're in Flint or something, it's no better than drinking out of the tap. If you have bad well water, there's fixes for that.
Bottled water is the only sensible option if your community adds fluoride to your drinking water.
Why would you tax a consumer for using a product they never asked for? I don’t like plastic, I want my Coke in a glass bottle but Coca-Cola won’t provide it to me. So your suggestion is for me to be forced to pay the gov’t money? Why would I do that when they’re the ones who have the power to compel companies to stop using plastic. Your logic is all over the place, you want to punish the people who it’s forced on & reward the people who created the problem
@@koobs4549you know, there are taxes for things for industrial uses too... so, tax the import cost of the raw materials, thats either gonna result in this plastics price going up or companies start looking for alternatives if its enough
plastic tax won't fix anything, it will just make it more expensive to the people that benefit the most from it. plastic is so cheap and practical that even if you tax it, companies will still use it, and poor people will just bite the extra cost because its still cheaper/better than buying fresh products or with different packages. here our government started forcing plastic bags to need to be sold to discorage use and sell cheap burlap bags instead, guess what ? the use of plastic bags almost didn't fell, but now people have to pay for them, that is because plastic bags are too useful and too practical.
Taxes have never solved any problem for consumers. All they've done is make things more expensive. My own government has been increasing taxes and adding taxes to 'discourage' people from doing certain things. Hasn't helped one bit, but what it has done is increase poverty, increase living costs, increase daily costs, etc.
One thing to consider: the carbon cost of moving heavier materials. Plastics, being lighter, are so much more efficient to transport that we don't even understand what the carbon impact would be of switching to heavier packaging
Great for the oceans, too ! No packaging would work ! Stop consuming so much and want less to have more .
Howdy Sabine, I’m a retired geophysicist and responsible for some of the hydrocarbons creating environmental issues today.
My efforts these days are reducing single use plastics and improving organic content in the soil around my house and garden.
Can you expand on why plastics in the landfill are not a good idea, I would have guessed it would be a way of sequestering carbon. If it’s because of microplastics , why cannot we do better in lining landfills more efficiently?
well, for one thing, plastics made from petrochemicals can take anywhere from 50 to 500 years to decompose when buried in landfills. how many more landfills should we appropriate from nature to keep burying our plastic waste?
@@techcafe0 I’m not sure what plastics decompose into, but seems to me that they become smaller pieces of plastic and the long hydrocarbon chains remain. I don’t think it decompose into methane. There might be few places in the eastern US available for landfill, but there are wide open spaces in the western US, maybe the Williston basin area where much of the petroleum was originally exploited.
My post was almost exactly what you said! I'm a biologist and I too don't see a better containment of plastics then burying them.
@@techcafe0 We should not be generating so much plastic waste, obviously. But for the plastic that we have now, would you rather burn it, putting CO2 into the air, or sequester it underground? Two of our major problems are climate change and microplastic pollution. Burying plastic in a landfill contributes to neither of those problems. It's true that landfills take up space, but so do roads, parking lots, and shopping malls. Landfill space doesn't seem like all that much of a problem.
BTW, Organic matter that's buried in a landfill can take up to 80 years to decompose. Decomposition is not really a thing that landfills do very well.
@@incognitotorpedo42 I think a better destination for organic waste would be a composting worm farm. I don’t let my banana peels, coffee grounds or spent tea leaves go into a landfill. My worms love it and paper towels etc. I’m sure a little bit is released as CO2 but the little decomposers mainly poop good soil organics. I have no idea how much they exhale without lungs or if they pass methane, but I’m sure it’s minuscule.
Thank you Sabine.. this is a very pertinent issue. Apparently a study published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests a link between microplastics and plaque build-up in carotid arteries.
Just as an addendum, there was another study from the University of Nebraska which found microwaving plastic food containers sends a shower of microplastics into the contents.
Cite sources.
@@obsidianjane4413 My understanding is that TH-cam no longer allows links in the comments. Please let me know if you can prove otherwise.
@@m.e.345Search for yourself, you lazy person
@@obsidianjane4413 don't be lazy, it took me less than 10 seconds to find the papers
@@m.e.345you can share the paper's title, date and journal.
Excellent video and while these stats are not new it is important we keep beating the conversation drum. I find many people when asked will either say things like, "everything is bad for you" or "what can I do" while many others just do not care. While the consumer is ultimately responsible for what happens to waste, what can we do when so much of what we buy is prepackaged? If we don't buy it the way it is sold then we don 't have it, plain and simple. I ordered a USB drive of the Zon awhile ago, it came in a box and was encased in plastic so tough I almost sliced my hand open trying to get it out. How are consumers at fault for that? That said we all can do better at separating plastics and papers, but why bother when very little gets recyled anyway. I'm sorry I can't pretend with blank smile anymore that recycling is worth the effort. Now the next topic, EVs...
When I was a kid in the 50s, I used to go to the grocery with my Mom. When we checked out, there was literally NO plastic in that grocery cart. We recycled almost all glass bottles. Plastic is about cost and convenience, but in the long run, certainly not worth it.
I saw it coming and said it to my enyourage, FIFTY YEARS AGO when I started to see plastic bottles etc in nature ! Pollution and waste of a limited ressource !
I remember the switch from broken glass everywhere to plastic everywhere. And then there's the question no one asks: How much crude oil and natural gas does it take to produce a glass bottle? I found out as a rule of thumb it takes about 1/4 the capacity in crude oil to produce a plastic bottle and as a rule of thumb it takes about 25 times as much energy to produce a glass bottle, much of this is in natural gas.
@nonyadamnbusiness9887 there was less glass and glass is inert ! Most botle were reused. Glass is easy to sort anf recycle. Chemicals and ground plastic is now in the food chain, not just mixed with beach sand..
Microplastics are already in our blood
@@nonyadamnbusiness9887 Thank you! I'm much younger (31years) than remembering that, but I appreciate that you exist and remember! All this plastic fear-mongering and other eco-shit are just stupid short-sighted solutions to stupid, short-sighted pattern recognition. Dangerous as microplastics may be, but shards of glass everywhere damage animals more than microplastics. At least microplastics kill you in the wrong run. Animals die in a few days most from cuts. They don't have antibiotics. Plants can also incorporate micro-plastic easier than they can broken glass. Also, what is the estimated plastic degradation timescale? 500, 1000 years? Glass is all over the ancient archaeological record, surviving timescales of thousands of years, from a period when it wasn't even ubiquitos, but cutting edge technology, and thus, not omnipresent. Glas also doesn't degrade in UV light. We're better of with plastic and we sure don't have the dramatic effect on this planet that we imagine. Sure, we're contributing to global warming, but we're doing that in a period of NATURAL global warming, with orders of magnitude more energy involved that we are able to bring on the table. The glaciers covering Europe melted without human interference, in like what? 20.000 years tops?. THAT was Global Warming, not what we experience today.
@@nonyadamnbusiness9887 your first fault is thinking carbon is bad, planet is pretty starved of it currently was much higher in earlier periods of this planets history which was known for being mostly lush forests, plants need it to breathe. Worked in too many greenhouses I know the benefits it has on plant life it grows faster requires less water is more disease and fungal resistant they conduct photosynthesis at a much higher and efficient rate and allows it to metabolize and produce more sugars leading to faster food production and the standard used is about 3x the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere it is a trace gas. It is a non issue that y'all act is some catastrophe cause some scientists on a payroll told you so. More CO2 in the atmosphere means faster growing more robust plants, plants that will convert that CO2 at higher rates, more CO2 equates to higher food production, even if you stopped all carbon humans produce that would only be 16-20% of what the Earth produces naturally.
The other alternative is repurpose it. There have been a number of practical applications where ground up plastic is used as a filler for concrete. Also, used in flooring materials. Also used as artificial wood for decking materials and patio furniture.
Another idea is simple reuse. Today plastic bottles are made as thin as practical. However , if we made them thicker and designed them to be cleaned efficiently, they could be reused multiple times. Imagine a bottle of Tide laundry detergent where the bottle wall is much thicker than today. You use up your detergent, then take the bottle back to the store to get a small discount on your next bottle. The old bottle goes back to the manufacturer where the label is stripped, the bottle is steam cleaned, maybe it is flash heated to fix small scratches, it's relabeled, fresh product is put in, and it makes it's way back to your store. As bottles get too old and too ugly for reuse, since they are all exactly the same chemical formulation, there is much greater likelihood that they could be recycled.This is not too dissimilar to the way CocaCola bottles used to be reused.
Every little bit helps, and detergent is not food, so food grade not needed.
But in the SPECIFIC case of laundry detergent you can now use washer detergent SHEETS like dryer sheets, they are premeasured and nobody has to pay to ship that water weight!
@@eric2500 I agree... and yet the shelves are still full of liquid laundry detergent.
We tried the pods for a while and the soluble casings are not 100% soluble, so we had residue on the clothes and I had to spend a couple of hours cleaning the machine... the wife looked into the sheets, but a neighbor said she had the same solubility issues... so we are back to the liquids.
Also, we found the pods and the sheets to be about 50% to 80% higher cost per load, so it may cost lest for shipping, but it's the manufacturers that are reaping those benefits. Just another form of shrinkflation.
@@scytaleghola5969 cost is a big issue as well as you state. I can buy a sheet that comes in a paper box or a thin walled pod that comes in a tin cylinder but I have to buy them mail order and if it were a case of being able to feed my family or wash clothes I’d be switching back to the cheapest detergent that did a good job, packaging be damned.
My wife is from the Dominican Republic and I thought it was a beautiful place until I seen it for myself. The people live like animals throwing all kinds of trash and oil on the ground everywhere.
It's a lot better than Haiti. And it is a beautiful place, it's poor though. The people there live like people do in most of the 3rd world, travel more and you'll see what I mean.
The thing most people don't know about metal containers is that everything is coated in plastic now. Pop cans are lined, same with steel cans. even when you pick a recyclable option you still can't get away from plastic.
I've used ground news before, but now that I see it advertized on TH-cam, I'm like, "is something wrong with it?"
it was actually being advertised by the channels for more than a year already. At least that's how long I can remember having seen it there.
from what I know there is nothing wrong with it, youtube advertising is just very effective and very targeted.
they sponsor so many ads on yt theyre as obnoxious as nordvpn
what?
I actually got it. It's a good price for the value it adds. For certain topics, especially the more highly politicized ones (naturally) it can be eye-opening. It's also nice to have an idea how factually based the reporting is, regardless of one's politics.
Unless we hold any business responsible for the end use of their product, change will never happen. Big corporations have too much clout.
Imagine how serviceable and repairable various devices would be, if the manufacturers were made responsible for disposal and consumers could send them right back for that reason.
Have you noticed how massively the corporate world is championing the rainbow-cause in the past few years?
Is it possible that all this plastic and chemical waste that contaminates all our bodies now has some role in the explosion of gender dysphoria? Just as with lead, asbestos and tobacco, is it possible that yet another industry is trying to distract us from questioning whether or not exposure to all these whack chemicals over the past 50 years, chemicals which likely never before existed in the history of the planet, might in fact be destroying our bodies?
There wouldn't be enough money in the universe to pay out that kind of compensation...
@@pauljs75 The Japanese model for waste management includes total a product lifecycle paradigm. 0 waste to landfill, Manufactures are incentivized to design and build for recycling municipalities have disassembly facilities to reduce transportation costs. The cost is high. $300/ton there verses $75/ton here average. And there is a lot of mass incineration of plastic and everything that is "safe" to burn. I do like the idea of manufactures having disposal of products at the end of their service life duck taped to them. Stuff like auto tires are still a problem.
How To Live In Harmony With Nature And Reduce Pollution
1. Many Production Which We Do Not Need Actually For Human Beings Has To Be Stopped
We manufacture so many products and it is creating pollution. So if we minimise our products, pollution would be less.
We produce so many things which we do not need, like cold drinks, leather products, potato wafers, chips, fruit juices, chocolates, biscuits, pickles, ice creams, etc.
Cold drinks, fruit juices, pickles, ice creams, etc. Should be cooked at home only.
If we stopped producing this things which are not required for humans, so much pollution could be reduced.
If we colour the clothes pollution occurs. So if we don't colour our clothes, the pollution resulting from colouring the clothes can be stopped. Let everything remain in natural colour.
2. We Should Cook Foods In Its Natural Form
We can cook rice and wheat in our homes and eat it. Rice and Wheat is produced in farms. Then it is packed and transported to big warehouses, then wholesalers buy from them and supply to retail shops.
But if a manufacturing company makes bread from rice and wheat, then to make bread a manufacturing company has to be set up, machines and working staffs are needed. When a company is built many other things are also needed. Then at last a plastic pack is required to pack the breads.
So if we start cooking eatable things in its natural form then we do not need many companies like bread manufacturing company, tomato ketchup, noodles, fruit jam, pizza, burger, etc., the things required for the company and the plastic pack, paper box pack and glass bottles. If done like this, so many companies will not be required and hence less pollution for the world.
Also we could save our money like this. If you buy a packet of bread, it would cost you more money than if you cook wheat and rice in home.
Previously before industrial revolution, we didn't have technology, but our foods were rich with nutrients. Now we have technology, but technology is polluting our foods and our foods are not rich with nutrients, and because of that also we have health problems.
If this is done, then many jobs would be lost. For that many peoples should do farming and they should be given loans if they do not have enough money to start farming on their own.
Food, Medicines, Surgeries and Education's should be made free to the world till the world settles down with farming. After that food, medicines, surgeries and education's should be stopped free to the world.
Many people should study botany subject so that they have knowledge of plants and they should do farming.
Is their any another solution, that humans won't lose jobs and also pollution would decrease. Humans have to take this step certainly instead of going on polluting the earth, making wildlife extinct and also mass extinctions of humans in future.
3. Electricity Pollution
We create electricity from many types of sources like coal, water, etc., but it creates pollution. If electricity created from windmill and solar energy then no pollution occurs in the creation process. But still to manufacture windmill and solar machines pollution would occur.
As I previously said that if we shut down many manufacturing companies which are producing things which are not needed for humans, then the world would not require so much electricity. If less electricity required, then less pollution generated.
4. Could We Stop Drinking Cow's and Buffalo's Milk
Whatever vitamins and nutrients we get from milk, if we can get it from other eatable things, then we can stop drinking cow's and buffalo's milk. As milk has to be packed in glass bottles and plastic packs and then transported to places. All of this can be stopped.
For infants whose mother's have died or mother's who cannot breast feed their infants, only for them cow's and buffalo's milk should be given. We use milk in tea and coffee. Instead of milk we must use coconut milk with tea.
5. How Much Should Be The World's Population
Every place should have a single house. No buildings, everything ground floor. If we do this and the whole lands of our planet earth would be occupied one day with homes, farms, forests, schools, hospitals, etc., then we would come to know how much our planet earth can have maximum population.
Once the population is determined, then we have to maintain that population. For example if our earth can have a population of 10 billion peoples, then when the population reaches 10 billion, then everyone should have only one child till the population reaches 9 billion peoples. As if we have only one child then the population decreases. When population is 9 billion peoples, then everyone should have 2 children's till the population reaches 10 billion peoples. After that again we should have only one child. In this way population can be maintained.
@@luck484 Interesting. My line of thought is geared mainly at e-waste with electronics and appliances. Because it's usually a battery or a single-component failure that renders the whole thing inoperable. Such things would have a significantly longer useful life if if my point were made a reality. It's just that the planned obsolescence model of business is one of the most environmentally harmful practices ever to be invented. And this doesn't even touch on the newer and worse practice that adds software and internet service as part of operability to the mix in that regard. Companies that purposely brick things or cut off service because the next year's model is coming out are some of the most environmentally harmful ones out there.
My friend and I run a plastic recycling company in Taiwan. The biggest issue we has is finding scrap plastic suppliers to sell us scrap plastic for recycling. Go figure.
The world used to function quite happily before plastic. The trouble nowadays is so much technology requires plastic in its construction and nobody wants to lose mobile phones, laptops, cars, televisions et al.
In Zurich I live next to a burning facility and I must say it’s a good option especially knowing about effective filters which prevent various chemicals from entering the air.
and then we get remote heat and electricity back into our houses. Good way of recycling.
This is revisionist history. I worked in the plastic recycling business in the late 80s and early 90s. I designed the plants and worked on two plant startups. Not only was it feasible, it was cheaper than virgin plastic for a few years. She cites some paper from the 70s saying, "The very success of package makers in marrying dissimilar materials has made packaging materials virtually unrecoverable after use." That's because multilayer injection molding hadn't been invented yet. Coca-Cola and Continental Can spent millions of dollars on this technology to create multilayer PET bottles suitable for food use. At the time, the industry fully believed the "peak oil" predictions would send the cost of PET skyrocketing to an unsustainable level. That's why they invested so heavily in recycling.
Of course, advancements in oil drilling technology destroyed the peak oil predictions, and those doomsday scenarios of cost-prohibitive PET never materialized. So it's not that recycling "wouldn't work." It did, and that was 30 years ago. So for her to say that the industry was "well aware that it wouldn't work" is complete misinformation.
Incidentally, most of the problems she cites about contaminated streams go away with bottle bills. But those are unpopular policies and never really caught on. I'm not advocating for recycling. I'm just saying she got an awful lot wrong in this video, which makes me suspicious about her channel now.
Meanwhile, around the same time I know that (at least some) garbage collection companies in Germany just dumped everything on the same heap and either burned it, shipped it off abroad or buried it. Because they considered recycling it a waste of time and money.
I'm not saying that what you experienced didn't happen - obviously you know it did. It's just that both your and my perspective is limited and that the world is a complex place. Many things can be true at the same time.
If it were economically feasible, why isn't it done? Economics produces what is economically feasible. Heck, why don't you run a recycling company if there's money to be made from it? You are claiming to have both the insider knowledge and experience for it.
Governments would also subsidize such a company at the same time since there's general public demand for recycling plastics. So, plastic recycling doesn't even need to be profitable on its own but just in the ballpark of breaking even so you can pocket the government subsidies as profit.
The fact that this isn't the case tells me that it's not feasible with much more confidence than you saying that it is.
@@Bgrosz1 You didn't read my comment. I said it WAS profitable for a short period in the 80s and 90s. Those economics changed 30 years ago.
When we talk about recycling plastic, we usually mean clean rinsing our platic packages (consuming water), sending it off via a garbage truck, burning diesel, and processing in a factory (burning all sorts of energy and resources to run).
Ultimate recycling, where possible, is to take ur 2nd hand packaing, clean it and continue using it as personal storage. Quite a few shops these days seem to offer filling ur own containers with (usually liquid) product, charged by weight.
Consumers are for the vast majority blissfully unaware and uninformed and unable to do anything about lots of stuff. Therefor it is 100% the producers responsibility to clean up the mess.
All of it.
Plenty of blame to go around, but producers who profit from knowingly bad things need to be held accountable whereas the detrimental health effects are the primary "price" paid by an assortment of consumers and nonconsumers alike, each with wildly varying knowledge and participation.
But asking "who is to blame" is just another "recycling" myth. We end up laundering that blame while pretending it is compatible with the intended effects. Blame is neither currency nor does it hold anyone to account (unless it is within-community). Human effort is the only "real" currency and what healthy economics should encapsulate. "Money for results" is a useful fiction, especially when lying about or misdirection from results has an impressive economy of scale.
how did u comment on this six hours ago when it premiered 11 minutes ago?
@@matthewfors114 subscribers see it earlier
@@matthewfors114 Channel members / Patreon supporters get videos earlier than the free-to-view tier.
The reason why soft drinks and water from glass bottles taste better than plastic bottles is because the plastic leeches into the beverage. They absolutely know this. It might be why sperm count is so low in the West.
There has never been the *slightest confusion* over how or if you could recycle plastic efficiently. This is not "big oil" lying to you or promoting it knowing it wouldn't work. "Big oil" (AKA "people who actually know how everything works") told you it wouldn't work long before you started demanding everyone do it. Then, as now, people figure "big oil" was lying to them and demanded it be done anyway. Now, 50ish years later, the same basic facts still say it won't work, and now you are trying to claim that they were lying to you - about the very thing they told you would happen and you ignored?
How "clean" can plastic incineration be if done properly? Can't most hazardous residues be completely destroyed at the right temperatures?
Yes, depending of equipment. Plasma gasification can burn almost anything
You'd still need to filter out chlorine and fluorine, but plasma gasification sounded very promising 10 years ago. Organic molecules destroyed, other stuff melted into a solid.
Most EFW residues are toxic due to the heavy metals rather than the plastics. In most advanced plants the flue gas needs to be above 850°C for over 2s to break down any organic polutants. The flue gasses are then scrubbed to remove any acidic chemicals and filtered to remove particles before being sent to the flue stack. The sites generally do a very good job of emissions monitoring (due to laws limiting peaks and average values) and their waste outputs are significantly reduced in volume, some of which can be turned into building blocks or agregate for roads.
A lot of the dyes contain various metal ions (which are what ultimately provide the color). These get released into the atmosphere or scrubbed. Unfortunately, the form that scrubbing produces is not suitable generally for rework -- separating out unknown ratios of metals from each other is exceptionally difficult and even more exceptionally expensive.
I wonder if high temperature with forced oxygen supply can give a cleaner exhaust gases. And maybe ashes can be recycled for heavy metals and such
Selling products in disposable plastic should require a special permit and it should be illegal to switch any product currently packed in another material to plastic packaging. For example, latest example I've seen is soup now being sold in plastic pouches instead of cans. It just shouldn't be allowed. We need legal measures that have real teeth against plastic.
I’ve gone back to bar soap, powder detergent, soda in cans, cardboard tampons, & milk in cartons. I used them when I was young & they still work perfectly fine. If we all just make a few changes, it will at least slow down the plastic buildup.
Another issue is glass is currently also not economically viable for recycling. Paper and metal are pretty much it, and paper needs to be pretty much pristine or at least uncontaminated.
We could also see mycelium take up some of the slack from plastics if they end up taxing/banning single use plastics.
Noticed you didn't get too into the weeds with the myriad ways that plastic manufacturing has "gone around" the recycling issue. For example: some non-recyclable plastic is intentionally marked with a symbol that *looks* like a recycle symbol, but isn't.
Someone once pointed this out somewhere online, but it makes sense to me: there's a reason that the mantra has Reduce and Reuse before Recycle. If you *use* less, then there will be less to recycle.
In other words : "live worse peasant".
@@naamadossantossilva4736 Wow. I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Quality of life is not directly related to quantity of consumer goods. And for that matter, I don't think that reduction and reuse necessarily means fewer consumer goods. For example, are you worse off if you forego individually wrapped slices of American cheese for a block of Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese, which use less plastic wrap?
if we eat less, there will be less people to consume in the first place.
@@bashisobsolete.pythonismyn6321 He's a keyboard-jack and he's okay. He types all night and he sleeps all day. He wears pj's and fuzzy slippers, just like his dear ma-ma!
@@naamadossantossilva4736 Depends on what you mean by that. Some people don't have deliveries every day, but some people do. You know who you are and you know what you can and can't do.
The plastic producers knew it wasn’t possible but played dumb. It was on them to help congress understand. The consumer knew nothing.
This is something I have been trying to figure out a long term plan for a while. It's an ugly reality, that all of us have to confront. Problem solvers are most welcome
The thing about recycling is that it's "reduce, reuse, recycle" IN THAT ORDER. The number 1 priority is reducing plastic use. Recycling is only the last available option after the other 2.
But of course the big companies that are responsible for all that plastic production are actively fighting against reducing plastic use.
So no, the "least bad" option isn't to burn the stuff. The least bad option is to force big companies to actually start using alternatives instead of increasing plastic production. For some examples from the supermarket I go to: Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, fennel, spring onions, and most pre-cut fruit come in plastic packaging. Most of them with holes in the packaging as well. All of them don't need plastic packaging! Heck most of them don't really need packaging at all! Have the companies providing those products forcibly move away from plastic and onto bamboo or carton or something and we'd already be reducing plastic use by a lot!
I hate plastic and always have, i remember wooden boxes and glass bottles.
The question is what to replace it with?
Glass is heavy, fragile, and dangerous.
Wood and cardboard would mean huge amounts of deforestation in addition to what is already a global problem.
I’d like to see it gone but it’s so damned convenient.
You can cut and shape cardboard to do more with airspaces and use less cardboard. You can make cardboard peanuts when the cardboard starts to loose its shape and stiffness. *You need not use trees. People are growing cannabis plants for the leaves and the buds and wasting the woody stems.*
Aluminium, PLA, corn starch... There's loads of alternatives for single-use plastic packaging, the main limiting factor being price.
But far too often there's simply an excess of plastic used when it simply wasn't necessary in the first place. A more recent phenomenon, which I never saw up until maybe 10 years ago, is plastic labels on aluminium cans. For short runs of craft beer etc it's probably much cheaper to buy off-the-shelf unprinted aluminium cans and get some flat vinyl labels printed and just hire someone to stick the labels on the cans than to pay a supplier to gear up and print a small run of printed cans. But then we end up with a bunch of plastic in the aluminium recycling stream. D'oh!
I have seen "single serve hot dogs" individually wrapped in plastic, banana bunches in sealed plastic bags, kids plastic water guns wrapped in plastic bags inside of hard plastic water gun shaped display packages. I've received mail order shipments where the goods were wrapped in plastic bags, placed in a cardboard box that was shrink-wrapped in plastic, and then delivered in a plastic envelope to my door. A recent article in the WSJ noted that oil companies whose profits will shrink with the advent of more electric vehicles will turn to plastic production as their main source of profit over the next decades. To their credit, the publishers of National Geographic changed their mail order magazine packaging from a plastic wrap to a recyclable paper after running a story on the worldwide plastic problem. The consumer can only do so much. Manufacturers and the packaging industry HAVE to step up, and if they don't do it voluntarily, we need to pass international laws limiting plastic use.The insanity HAS to stop!
I said this a while ago. Sabine is a woman after my agreement heart.
It’s not just incineration, local incineration. No point shipping it about.
Also the kicker, the less plastic is in an item, the less economical it is to recycle and we've made companies use less plastic in items by weight yet require recyclability. Small and thin pieces of plastic don't melt well and degrade quickly....
I take my plastics to a local place to be recycled. I never even heard that it maybe doesn't get reused. If I knew that I'd not buy it. We need better spread of the info. Thank you for this!
I wonder who could possibly be in charge of making sure you don't know such things, so you continue to buy them. Hmmmmmmmmm. Who could it be.
The extent of actual recycling depends on the particular nation and particular area. Some do more work on it than others, and some councils make more effort than others to share what they know and to fund improvements. Maybe check what yours does?
@@Asdayasman Oil companies. I know what you're implying, though, and you'd better get out of here with that.
@@Katalci I was implying the oil companies what the fuck. Stop jumping at shadows.
I'm an architect, and one project involved designing a new Township recycling center. During my tour of the existing facility, the director showed us the giant railroad car sized containers filled with brown colored glass (mostly bottles), and said "these will all go to the dump, because nobody wants colored glass, but only clear glass". There were far more containers of colored glass than clear glass. I asked how much they get for one container of recyclable clear glass and the director said 'by the time we account for all the costs, we only show a profit of about $60 per container". To say I was a bit surprised was an understatement, as there is very little profit in recycling in the USA, and probably why only municipalites run such facilities to promote the 'public good'. The fantasy of recycling is mostly that - a fantasy.
That's weird, I worked several Bars, and sometimes we had out-side people set up Can and Bottling receptacles. For the glass, we had to sort them Clear and Brown together, and Green on its own.
They explained that whatever was used to dye the glass Green, would always taint the color of the glass, but Brown could be removed or bleached somehow. They also told me that they could actually sell both, but Green was worth less than the others, because, obviously, it is in less demand.
I think the problem with the "does it make economic sense" thinking is it leaves out the opportunity cost of not recycling. Which is literally drowning in trash. A lot of things are not profitable, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be done. Like public transport.
But at least glass is easier to dispose than plastic. Glass will just break down into its non-toxic constituent materials, so even if you lumped all the glass in the world into a landfill, it's not going to do anywhere near as much damage as plastic. Plastic is already having an effect on people and animals biologically.
Plastic should just be banned - other than in absolutely necessary cases where no other material could be possibly used, and even then only for non-disposable and high-quality products. Also, we should bring manufacturing back to the country of consumption (in America or elsewhere), so we're not buying gigatons of low-quality plastic shit from China.
Virtue signaling 😇
I can only imagine that they told you that so you would do the sorting for the garbage dump for them...call it pre processing for the dump. I wish it were otherwise, but companies that reuse recycled glass only want clear glass as it's the easiest to repurpose for other uses, like making colored glass. Oh the irony. @@lessanderfer7195
"Where there's a will, there's a way" in which case we (the part of humanity which has any contact with the stuff, are concerned with the residue and effects of them and so on), need to call a halt to our involvement with further production of it as much as possible or else be more imaginative with recycling.
Interview with plant manager at recycling facility says no matter what people say, they are able to recycle, at most, 10 percent of plastic sent to them.
easily the best re-use of plastics I have found so far is pyrolysis to make clean diesel. Very cheap to do, very useful fuel, absolutely miniscule amounts of waste deposits left over from the pyrolysis.
"Cheap to do" ... compared to what I pay at the pump?
yes, relative to drilling holes in the sea bed and piping crude to a distillery/refinery@@UncleKennysPlace
Pyrolysis is definitely the way to go, but it isn't cheap. Once a facility is up and running, it's very cost efficient, but the initial start-up infrastructure costs are high, hence there has only been limited take-up so far. If governments supported pyrolysis with large grants it would be a much better use of our taxes than things like HS2.
all costs are relative (to alternatives), but I admit that I have not run the figures personally @@thedogfather5445
@@thedogfather5445 The question then is how much input material coming in does it need to keep on working without a restart?
In Poland natural gas is so expensive people burn trash (plastics) to heat their homes. You can tell cause your eyes start to water as soon as you travel near populated areas.
Any materials where I can read up on that? No links, just tell me where to look.
The reason why Poland has the worst air in the world during winter.
Plastic burns cleanly in a power plant.
@@wetbadger2 Brother, that's not how it works. Plastic cannot burn cleanly. You can install filters, sure, but the thing itself never burns cleanly. And what power plants even burn plastic?
@@cavemann_Quite a lot of them in Denmark and Sweden
Money it all boils down to money. Getting away from what makes financial sense and moving to what's healthy for the environment and all living things is going to be the most difficult thing we have ever done.
Soon as I saw this, I started seeing plastic industry ads making all their vague promises and false claims.
We need to get rid of single use plastics outside of medical settings. Have substantial deposits on food/drink containers. Have a great incentive to return the containers to be sterilized for reuse or recycled, and if you choose to keep the container at home because it’s great for storage or a drinking glass, then you have bought the container! Who remembers those great biscuit tins that everyone’s grandparents kept for sewing or receipts? The tea tins that wound up full of screws or other workshop/hobby/garden shed/garage supplies? The daily glass milk bottles that were picked up and reused infinitely until they broke. Then recycled, because glass recycles so well. So does aluminium, and other metals afaik.
Not to mention the glass jars we continually reused by bottling up our homegrown produce :P It still feels ridiculous to me that today we just take a store-bought glass jar... and toss it in the bin. Glass recycling bin, sure, but still a massive waste of energy for no good reason - just because companies insist on having "unique" designs on their bottles. Standardize glass containers, reconstruct the reuse infrastructure and make the cycles great again :P
Agree with your points Sabine. And for me this shows why "reduce" is the biggest con out of the three parts of the recycling mantra. There are no signs anywhere in the Western capitalist economy that "reduce" is a viable tactic. On the contrary it's "increase" all the way as your plastic production graph shows. But it applies to everything economic. Asset values, consumer prices, population, housing etc is all based on growth and increase. You briefly mentioned pyrolysis as if it's a developing technology - it's not, it's as old as charcoal making, which is one form of pyrolysis. All over the world old tyres and plastic is recycled into syn diesel - this can be used as a feedstock to make new plastic, or as a fuel. "Reduce" needs to swapped out with "Replace".
Maybe you should check who produces the most plastic waste. Asia dwarfs what the "capitalist West" produces.
Worth another video on what the health effects of plastics are. Microplastics are known endocrine disrupters. So even if ultimately burnt there is still the exposure to microplastics caused by the use of the products and exposure to microplastics in the environment as a consequence of decades of littering.
I'm old enough to remember most products coming in paper or glass packaging, and storage being in glass or tin containers.
With more knowledge consumers might demand a choice between plastic and glass/paper packaging.
There are uses where plastic is hard to replace, but that can be used as a distraction from all the situations where plastic can be replaced.
Plastic companies should be held accountable like tobacco companies. Aluminum and glass are the future.
There are ways to "burn" plastic where you don't have any nasty exhaust. If heated in the absence of air, municipal plastic waste will decompose into a variety of monomers and oligomers which can be re-polymerized later. It would take some energy, but if you did it with solar heat that should make it cost-effective.
Just let that smoke go into the sky where it turns into stars
@@p60091 Fellow Real Sweet Kid?
TH-camr Joe Scott did a similar video on recycling recently, and he came to pretty much the same conclusion... I do my best to reuse and stuff, but pretty much the producers of the plastic containers and such just push it to the consumer to dispose of... I don't know how to dispose of all my household plastics, I put it in a bin and that's all I know. Now a new rule in California is that they take pictures of your recycled things when they are dumped into a special area of the truck, and the look at them... if you put something in there you shouldn't have, they'll fine you... JUST GREAT!!! We have recycling police... I'm sure that'll make things a lot cleaner.
You don't seem to like the recycling police, but our township had to stop the free recycling centers because so many people put the wrong stuff (such as styrofoam) and illegal stuff (appliances) in the bins. The township to the north of us has their centers are fire and police stations. No such problem!
cool, so if you dont like someone, just put something in their bin, Communists always want to oppress people who dont go along with their plans, instead of being constructive, its the manufacturers who should be incentivised,
99% of UK domestic plastic waste is collected weekly by the local authorities. The stuff never get s outside the home before it is put into the recycling container. My family recycles pretty much all groceries packaging. It is not rocket science.
I really enjoy watching this lady; she edits her videos with almost no pauses and is genuinely funny in the nicest way possible way, quote, "a chemists nightmare, which when you consider chemistry is a nightmare for most people, must be serious".
I am so glad we got everybody to say no to straws for 2 years. We did it, folks!
I know it’s hard to make a legal distinction between “evidence-based” and all other kinds of assertions… but what if we only did it to businesses? The very notion that a business is a “person” in legal terms is pretty recent, so while I’m not sure of my suggestion, I think I’m in the right zone. In finance, we simply define accountability for truth as the personal duty of the top two executives, piercing the veil of incorporation. We don’t care whether you are stupid or evil, you are going to pay.
Seems like corporations don’t get to vote. Thankfully. I’m wondering why they get to speak freely… Advertising is bad enough without also allowing infomercials, idea campaigns, and political contributions. I know my position is tenuous, but I think we have gone far enough, given the gullibility of the slow end of the bell curve for human potential.
Oh, corporations definitely get to vote in the US. Not on a ballot, but they actually have far greater influence.
Between the "right" of corporations to use money as "free speech" by directly funneling money to campaigns of politicians they like and the lobbies in DC representing their interests with fancy dinners and extravogent events, they have WAAAAY more voting power than any people do.
There's a reason the furthest "left" any viable political party gets here is neoliberalism.
I agree. I’d like to roll this stuff back, and we’re due for a pendulum swing.
Regulation, force companies to use the same type of packaging with, of course, standardised packaging for different types of ingredients, goods...
I agree. The reason this doesn't happen is mostly that the public would hate the increased prices and reduced convenience.
@@strategicsage7694 No increased prices. Regulation doesn't mean higher price, quite the contrary. Actually, now, you pay your product but also the marketing linked tot the packaging.
@@strategicsage7694How would standardization increase prices or reduce convenience?
The consumer of packaging is not us, the end users of products, but the manufacturers, supermarkets, etc. that put their products into bad packaging.
In other day I did a shopping in Walmart. I collected all my goids in my own cotton bag instead of Wallnart plastic bags.
The security stopped me at the exit door and checked my bills. Then he ordered me to use Wallmart plastic bags, instead of my own big bag.
😂 amaaaricha hell yea😊
Why do you think you have to take "orders" from a Walmart mall cop? You bought and paid for your stuff and have the receipts to prove it, so it's now yours and you can put it in whatever bag you want.
Id shop at a different time probably closer to close. Most overly zealous Karens idk the male term yet work mornings and afternoons. Most evening and overnight people are a lot more relaxed. It may reflect where I live though so Idk. It's definitely due to the individual not opinions held by most individuals working there. Most dont care and heck many dont even check receipts but if they do they arent going to care about a reusable bag especially if all your items are paid for. It may get you stopped more often due to theft using non Walmart plastic bags but you wont get in trouble. You'll just be inconvenienced. Honestly the increase in checking bags and receipts is due to the economy going to crap.
Screw Walmart ... For so many reasons.
But you won't because their stuff is a few pennies cheaper in the short view.
In my state, Walmart stopped providing plastic bags a year before they were required to. You have to either purchase reusable or paper bags or provide your own.
I was a baby in the 70 so don’t blame me! Plus, it wasn’t really consumers who said anything, it was governments. And government es just said what producers wanted them to say. So it has always been producers talking to themselves.
Unless you live in a dictatorship, ‘the government’ is you.
Gen-X were the victims of these excesses, we were kids when all sort of new experimental chemicals were widely distributed on the markets, often without any toxicity controls, long term effects were totally ignored!
Think asbestos, that creates cancer 20+ years after being inhaled...
DDT was freely in the 1970's despite an incredibly high toxicity! Sweden were the first tp ban it in 1970, but it was only banned in 1984 in the UK! Not a plastic, I know, but still.
Same for some carcinogenic nylons, etc.
Gen-X are often skeptics about unlimited and unrestricted growth for example, a few of us are at least...
It's not just governments, competition and free markets have negative consequences in some cases - and I'm not a marxist at all, more like a scientific ecologist, what I mean is that if chemists from different companies had to follow some rules or at least communicate their findings about toxicity, durability, recyclability, etc some problems could maybe have been prevented, and technology would be much more advanced when it comes to these criteria! Instead of that they keep their secrets for business reasons, not only the plastic industry, but even the medical industry, aka big pharma...
In Australia, our Prime Mininister (Albo) has just turned into a car salesman, pushing an EV revolution upon us by taxing all non EV consumers, farming, industry & trade deisel & petrol users out of existence without any reasonable or reliable infrastructure in place to replace what works for us now.
The EV idea is fraught with issues in Australia & has no place in the rural sectors, many cant afford a roof over their heads let alone an EV that won’t fair well when trying to flee a flood or bushfire that maybe an EV starts in the first place, it can’t be good for the economy!
Well Consumers vote those Partys out of government that want to ban things.
They hate on green policies because they believe those to be expensive.
We need to go forward to nation states guided by sound ecological values, able and willing to control global corporates.
I worked on an industrial pyrolysis machine to turn plastic into 'oil'. It worked, but gobbled up quite a lot of energy.
The fist step is to stop deceiving a gullible public and require accountability for anyone that collects something for recycling to assure that it actually got recycled.
Once the public has to admit that they are creating trash that goes into a landfill then they (maybe) we can change our habits.
its more environmentally friendly to put it in a landfill then to recycle it, the problem is landfills have been systematically demonized for 50 years by people subscribing to the anti humanist belief system that includes myths like, "we are running out of room for landfills" "garbage and sewege will be 6 feet high in the streets by 2020" and "billions of people will die of mass starvation by 2000 due to over population"
How exactly? My choices are these: want some vegetables - they come in plastic; want meat - plastic; want milk - plastic; want fruit - might still be in plastic; want yogurt - plastic. How many things even come in something other then plastic? Flour, bread, sugar? That's basically it, there's not much choice now is there?
@@user-uf4rx5ih3v A good start would be to require any company that claims to be a recycler to list the products they can recycle and be responsible for assuring they are recycled.