everything they try and push on us as more environmentally friendly is bullshit. solar panels lying in fields unable to decompose and leaking their poisonous decay into the groundwater. acres upon acres of EV batteries again just sitting there slowly leaking lithium and cobalt into our drinking water. it is all, unequivocally, bullshit
I remember standing in line at a grocery store and the lady in front of me asked for paper. Ted Turner grabbed her by her ankles and dragged her out of the store. No one saw her ever again.
It's actually a matter of some debate whether paper or plastic is more environmentally friendly overall, however the MOST environmentally friendly option is and will always be REUSABLE BAGS. Single-use anything is bad.
Don't worry, between when plastics became mass produced in the fifties and today (70 years) global life expectancy also grew 25 years and is 74 years currently.
On the bright side, aluminum recycling not just works, but is far more efficient than mining & refining new aluminum, so we got that going for us at least.
@@dabritian After finding out about plastic my friend stopped recycling altogether, metal also. Aluminium recycling is the easiest win we have, a true 100% infinitely recyclable material where we can legitimately look forward to a future where we stop mining bauxite, but because of plastic its seen as the same scam. Its now an uphill battle to get people to do as simple as put Al cans in the correct bin, perhaps we don't deserve a future
Got into an argument years ago with a (former) friend, who was super into environmentalism, over the issue with recycling. She was super adamant that it wasn't a scam and that "putting things in the correct bin" was the most important thing ever, while my argument was that 1. plastic can only be recycled a finite amount of times and 2. The waste from the different bins all goes to the same tip (source was another friend who drove the bin lorries)
@@MarkNiceyard You've seen the movie "The Matrix" yes? In it, Morpheus offers Neo the blue and the red pill, symbolising a choice between reality and the Matrix, if he would've taken blue, he would've stayed in the simulation none the wiser about it, taking the red woke him up to the reality of the world, there's no "black pill" in the movie though, but we're getting there. Some people have equated the black pill to be an incel thing, because the term has been used quite a lot in those circles, but it means waking up to a reality that you can see no hope in and no amount of struggle could change anything (gee, i wonder why incels adopted this in their victimhood?). Now i'm not saying that the OP is an incel, i'm saying that "getting black pilled" can mean different things in different contexts, in this case realizing that plastic recycling is a greenwashing lie concocted up by corporations.
I've read that of 4800 tons of microplastic produced every years in my country, 3600 comes from tires and road markings slowly eroded away into the environment. the next big part is coming from construction materials or even some building paint. plastic are used for so many things, it is like every single object we can own is part of the problem.
That's what its all about, money, and they can donate to politicians ensuring nothing will be done about this. The USA with 5% of the world's population produces 20% of the world's pollution and they don't look like improving with many of its population claiming there is no problem. Until USA and other 'advanced' countries get their act together any improvements in the rest of the world will make little difference.
The line about us consuming a credit card of plastic is actually from a paper that says we consume “up to” a credit card worth of plastic a week. A credit card is about 5 grams and we consume between 0.1 to 5 grams of plastic a week, which is a very different claim. It’s from a study published by the Journal of Hazardous Materials, should be easy to find online.
Thanks Georg! I only follow you because of this type of content and think on the same lines pretty much. "It's the consumers who decide, consumer is the king" - being as misinformed as we are, so no we don't. We consumers are marionettes of the markets, some less, some more, but we're all lead by the marketing by industry and commerce.
Single use plastics should be illegal. In 2020, I wondered through a field which had been plowed to get ready to build yet more houses on the greenbelt. I think there used to be a farmhouse there in the 1800s, because I kept finding pieces of glass bottles and other pottery. I knew they were from the 1800s because I was able to Google and identify what the bottles and items were. One fragment I discovered was part of a ceramic toothpaste container….. let that sink in.
Fleece clothing made with recycled plastic bottles, etc. I bought a warm top to use when camping - come to find that each time recycled plastic bottle clothing is washed (by hand or machine), micro-plastic fibers are released into our waterways and earth.
When I first learned about the little numbers in the triangle logo, I immediately realized this is a scam. Additional differences in chemical composition aside, the practical impossibility of separating these pieces of waste into their respective groups just makes the whole thing a non-starter, with today's applied technology at least.
They can detect the different types now by shining an infrared light through it apparently. That's why the supermarkets stopped using black plastic for food trays. The light can't get through it.
@@punkgift no thje black pplastic is less stavle and leaks into you body more and the FDA and other reglatory systems step in because it ussaly had a lot of BPA in it to stabilize. the difficulty with recycling was just the cherry on top. Dont use black plastic is really bad for the envoirment. Thin things also like your black computer and kurigs
I remember when after soviet block fell, 1991-1995, almost all drinks and brands were sold in either glass bottles or plastic lined cartons. Gradually, the concept that plastic is safe, durable, modern, and standard for westerners and theirs "better" society compared to post-soviet region grew in. Now everything is labeled "remember to recycle". Huge plastic, mostly single use, wrappings or containers are labeled "be ECO! recycle", "reduce your carbon and plastic footprints!", "go green! recycle this plastic container!" -why is this mess still pushed on the consumer, when there's no alternative?
This is why I try not to to-go buy drinks at places that won't let me use my own cup. That's one of the biggest sources of plastic waste in my home. Some coffee shop type places are okay, but some will make the drink in a plastic cup and pour it into mine, then toss the plastic cup, defeating the purpose. Gas stations always charge me for the largest size, even if I have a cup that is smaller, because my cup is insulated and looks bigger than it is. Fast food ignores me and gives me a plastic cup even if I go in because their policy is strict. I've been trying to switch to reusable bags as well, even though they get me harrassed for my receipt and the "loss prevention" guard rifles through my bags when I try to leave at every non-Aldi store. It would really help if businesses were less hostile to people trying to be environmentally friendly.
That doesn't scan, need a different saying like "every yin has a yang" or "there's no free lunch", never heard anyone try to claim every "miracle" is a curse.
@@prw56I think you're both saying the same thing, a version of "for every action there is a reaction". If we take "miracle" as a concept here to mean anything that violates the natural order, that allows you to get a certain result or a benefit without the usually required effort/resources/worthiness, that you can say it always creates a commensurate "curse", which is all of that downside reified that you have to pay at some point. More grounded terms, Plastics allow us to produce and consume so much at a much higher rate than we ever could have before and make a profusion of material goods, but the very fact that we can do that without the previous hardship or cost is it self causing us to destroy our own society. One follows the principle that everything that you don't earn in a metaphysical sense ultimately corrupts you, then every blessing, unless it is properly accounted for, results in a damning as well.
@@Laotzu.Goldbug I know what he's trying to say, what I'm saying is the "saying" he's trying to make doesn't make sense b/c the word "miracle", at least anytime I've heard it used, doesn't have any negative consequences or implication. Usually when that is the intention some other word is used that does have those attachments. That's why I say it doesn't scan.
I appreciate that you can make these super informative videos with depressing but important news and still put in little goofs that make me chuckle almost every single time. You are a global treasure, sir. I thank you 🙏
Fastest click of my life. I've legitimately wanted to know more about this for a while now but didn't really look into it. Great surprise getting a video about it from one of the most underrated YT creators. Cheers
It's already becoming true. When it comes to the birth rate, most of the world is either at replacement level or below it, in some cases like in east Asia it's far below replacement level. Obviously there are other factors causing it too, but lower food quality due to plastic as shown in this video does contribute somewhat.
"Always pissed me off seeing 'influencers' espousing..." anything really, with the sole aim to encourage more unecessary consumption, preferably pointless stuff that no one actually need.
Plastics were virtually unknown in the USSR for single-use goods. For food mostly paper and glass were used - and you would get a bit of money back for returning the glass. Some people, particularly in the liberal intelligentsia, suggested we didn't have fancy plastic packaging because we were poor and backward, and some even collected the empty packaging from Western goods brought back from abroad (i.e. literally trash) on their shelves. Looking back at the absurdity of it all reminds me of the Indians who traded their land away for some beads.
I used to surf, but the amount of plastics lapping up against me out on the water has soured my experience. Every time I swallow water, I'm not thinking of the fish spunk but the microplastics
I really like the variety of topics you pick for your channel recently. And all of them are well researched and presented in your unique style. Thank you!
Apparently, that microdust is FAR worse than anything else. Which makes sense, since it's constantly getting aerosolized merely by people driving everywhere.
@@Novastar.SaberCombat When you consider that most car noise we hear is the rubber being physically stripped from their tyres, it really puts the scale of it into perspective.
now there are news about Asian American women having disproportionately high lung cancer rates. What if it's due to microplastics in the air and them being shorter on average than any other population group (except kids of course who haven't yet lived long enough to develope cancer because of it).
as far as I understood, all aluminum cans have plastic lining, because it supposdely protects the metal from being degraded by food. Canned fish, vegies, beer, everything. And milk cartons too, because carton wouldn't hold up otherwise. And foods containing fats make plastic release toxic additives much quicker because all of them are fat soluble. It's so grim, I have no words.
I'm grateful for your work and for the clarity of your writing. Your choice of stock footage can be so thoughtful, compelling, and sickeningly accurate. I know Adam Curtis had access to some amazing collections to draw from, and yours often rival his artful and obscure shots of lifeless mechanisms and industrial minutiae. (If only you could use music the same way, but of course youtube wouldn't have it.) Your incisiveness and the ease with which you seem to produce these things continues to grow, despite your *ahem* longevity and exhaustive pace. Thank you (all) and please don't burn out. Keep it up, and don't take any of us too seriously. Your Peter O'Toole impression is a bit rough. Blah blah blah.
A big reason why "at least right now it would be difficult to substitute other materials for medical devices and supplies" is due to the sunk cost of the current production process, not due to the inherent superiority of plastics over, say, polymers made of bamboo, hemp, seaweed, or fungus.
"Credit card of plastic every week" is actually a misrepresentation. You should go read the original study, the paper in 2000 Journal of Hazardous Materials by Kala Senathirajah et al, Estimation of the Mass of Microplastics Ingested... The study is methodologically pretty flimsy, so you can't put much stake in it outright, i can explain what's wrong with it in a separate comment, and comes up with an estimate with upper bound of 5.5g/week and lower bound of 0.1g/week. The researchers' best-effort highest-likelihood estimate overall is 0.7g/week, and i have reason to believe that this is an overestimation as well. When WWF was reporting on the study, they chose to word it as "a person might be ingesting up to 5g a week of microplastics", leaning right against the top-end estimate, which is... well technically true, but misleading, since when publications reported on the WWF report, the words "up to" magically disappear. And thus now people have it in their heads that they eat 5g of microplastics a week, for which there is ABSOLUTELY NO FOUNDATION.
Well they require pretty specific environments to grow, so it's not really a solution. Also putting a novel bacterium into the ecosystem of the entire planet might be a bad idea.
Can't be any worse than what we're already doing. We could modify it to not affect us and survive in any kind of environment, if it doesn't already. @PlatinumAltaria
@@mattd5240 Can't be worse? Says who? Just think of invasive species going from one continent to the next, wreaking havoc, destroying whole ecosystems. These are just ordinary living species that accidentally have gone from their original place to someplace they do not originate from. Cute bunnies, ants, camels and foxes brought to another continent, can't be bad right? Ask Australia. Can't be worse? Says who?
You missed the part where MacDonald's have bin lids which have 2 parts, one side says recycling, and lots of people have been showing that if you open the cupboard door under it, they both lead to the same single bin. Recycling is all optics and we are continually lied to. in the UK we were told our paper and card was being recycled, but it wasn't. It was being sold to the Chinese. Then one day the Chinese said "we have enough of it now, thanks" and suddenly we have all this paper and card that we couldn't get rid of. I remember the bins were overflowing outside our home and not being collected.
Classic Georg, after talking about plastic apocalypse and nightmares: Don't let it get you down... 🙂Never change Georg, only the truth can help make the future a little better...
I lived in Missouri for a couple of years. They don't Recycle Plastic - they burn it for Fuel. It uses more energy to Recycle Plastic than to simply burn it as you would Petroleum. Missouri is simply a State that is simply honest...
The other fun thing you learn about recycling is they send a lot of that stuff to other countries and it pollutes their water and their public spaces and otherwise. So much of this stuff if you actually take time to research it just makes you realize how much snake oil they’re selling to people and pointing it out makes you look crazy to them. Why, yes, companies do try to make them look benevolent to sell more products without you fully understanding the consequences of their actions. It’s called marketing and propaganda. I don’t say this because I have a solution or because I’m smarter than the average bear, but because I notice things; and that’s a problem for the people trying to sell you the snake oil. It’s like how Apple and other companies want to convince you that their products being unrepairable is better for security; but it just produces far more waste than if I could upgrade my device the way I see fit. Then they try to offer parts, price them ridiculously compared to the cost of buying a working used device, then blame you for noticing this.
The solution is simple - not to produce plastic as much as possible. Sure, there will always be things where it will be used, like electronics or medical equipment, but I think that a lot of other things should be produced out of different materials (glass bottles, wooden furniture, natural clothes etc...). A year ago I started to buy only natural fibers clothes and I will continue to avoid plastics in anything (where it's possible of course).
This is depressing, that heads of industries knew about the dangers of plastics for decades but they didn't care whatsoever. It made them super wealthy in the short term, they dont care about screwing humanity in the long term. They will never experience the damage that they've done, since they will be long gone by then. That is a harrowing thought, to intentionally cause harm for your own profit, but to never experience the effects of the harm yourself.
Was also surprised to later find out that the "bags of milk" the school gave our elementary school as a kid were because "it takes up less space than the cartons and is more eco-friendly". Little plastic baggies more eco-friendly than similar size cartons? I mean, even if the cartons have issues that make them less recyclable, I'm pretty sure replacing it with a literal plastic bag is not the solution.
Boy this video wouldn’t pull the barrel from the roof of your mouth, but this is critical information that we all need to know and use to help save the future from being bleak
Supposedly, using intense heat and pressure, we can reconvert plastic into a form of crude oil. This process requires a lot of energy, so the development of a stronger nuclear energy program becomes necessitated.
THANK YOU! I've been trying to tell everyone and their dog about this, but most people thing I am some sort of conspiracy theorist! Recycling and the circular-economy are one of the biggest lies and one one of the biggest marketing scams of the modern era!
USA plastics used to go to China. Before 2017 China realised that the industry made little money, but caused expensive healthcare costs for the workers in the 'recycling' factories. They stopped doing it. Some countries still allow this, but won't for long. No, I didn't type this on a TEMU keyboard, but it is still plastic.
When they can't ship the problems elsewhere they'll start passing the cost onto us, the consumer, all while demonising those who dare question it - and most people will go along with it. After all, they don't want to be a "plastic denier" or whatever term they make up to describe people who don't want to pay corporations to "recycle" the plastic THEY made.
To help people changing their view about single use plastic, thereìs the Precious Plastic Community, amongst others, transforming single use waste into beautiful durable products.
Like how big stores like Target get SO busy that they just throw the recycle plastic bags in the compactor instead of processing them for recycling (cough) i was one (cough)
90% of plastics contains certain fluoride chemicals (as well as Bromium) so that they can resist UV and consequently not break up. These chemicals are endocrine disruptors and can cause sterilization; they are known for this property since 40s since some good guys wanted to enforce them during the Morgentau project; thankfully they enforced them to everyone, and I give them credit for showing their intentions, to the whole world. P.S. Yes, I don't sleep well at night. Children of Men is for me a reality the last 40 years.
The most efficient recycling program I have ever seen is the 10 cents on alcoholic beverage containers here in Ontario... I used to keep enough bottles to get over 100$ back. (I understand this is mostly metal, glass) ... these days I'm too lazy and every 2 weeks on plastics recycling time... I have 2 bins, one of them for alcohol bottles that some local desperate person ALWAYS picks up. I admire their hustle and feel that I would probably use that strategy if/when I become homeless 😅
Wishcycling. Many people burn natural gas or electric to heat water in order to wash plastic heading to the landfilll. These people often say it's the recycler's "fault."
I got tested for microplastics in my bloodstream and the results came back very low, so my doctor prescribed me to eat the drone shown at 13:37. It's a bit difficult to chew, but it's actually surprisingly good with some creamy chipotle ranch.
Glass is such a superior material for a lot of applications, especially containers. Unfortunately here in the USA we cannot buy borosilicate pyrex anymore so everything is soda-lime glass and it shatters easily
Could we legislate a standardization of plastic containers, so that instead of a thousand varieties there are legitimately 4, no color, and all recyclable? Every houshold could have a little smelter which turns the plastic into a cube. See, problem solved!
I mean, it'd be as hard as passing any other landmark piece of regulatory legislation... That is, if it does manage to get through it'll have a million different loopholes snuck into it by lobbyists, the problem will have grown bigger in scope than the law was initially created to deal with, and it'll be 25 years too late anyway.
I remember reading about bacteria that can digest plastic. Research by the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. Quote, The bacterium Rhodococcus ruber eats and actually digests plastic..
You've heard of the Pleistocene Epoch. Now, welcome to the Plasticene! By "now" I mean, most of us were born into it and have very little power to change anything outside of our own households.
Plastic bottles are recycled into polyester, which is used for clothing and other applications. I grant that this is "down-cycling," but it sure beats throwing bottles into landfill and not getting that use out of them (and driving demand for virgin plastics in that realm).
That's actually super interesting. I've never heard anyone explain that saying in a tiers sense, but now that I've thought about it the order does make sense.
Do you remember when they switched from paper grocery bags to plastic bags because plastic was more environmentally friendly?
everything they try and push on us as more environmentally friendly is bullshit. solar panels lying in fields unable to decompose and leaking their poisonous decay into the groundwater. acres upon acres of EV batteries again just sitting there slowly leaking lithium and cobalt into our drinking water. it is all, unequivocally, bullshit
Save the trees!
Do you remember when it was "reduce, reuse, recycle?" Often forgotten
I remember standing in line at a grocery store and the lady in front of me asked for paper. Ted Turner grabbed her by her ankles and dragged her out of the store. No one saw her ever again.
I remember when the environment was in trouble 20yrs ago back in school
It's actually a matter of some debate whether paper or plastic is more environmentally friendly overall, however the MOST environmentally friendly option is and will always be REUSABLE BAGS. Single-use anything is bad.
Ah a good old existential crisis on a Friday.
Don't worry, between when plastics became mass produced in the fifties and today (70 years) global life expectancy also grew 25 years and is 74 years currently.
@@AcuraAddictedlife expectancy is falling.
Humanity devouring itself
@@AcuraAddicted Now give us the life expectancy figures from the world in which plastics _didn't_ become mass produced.
Nothing in my life has black pilled me more than when I learned about the reality of plastic recycling
On the bright side, aluminum recycling not just works, but is far more efficient than mining & refining new aluminum, so we got that going for us at least.
@@dabritian After finding out about plastic my friend stopped recycling altogether, metal also. Aluminium recycling is the easiest win we have, a true 100% infinitely recyclable material where we can legitimately look forward to a future where we stop mining bauxite, but because of plastic its seen as the same scam. Its now an uphill battle to get people to do as simple as put Al cans in the correct bin, perhaps we don't deserve a future
Got into an argument years ago with a (former) friend, who was super into environmentalism, over the issue with recycling.
She was super adamant that it wasn't a scam and that "putting things in the correct bin" was the most important thing ever, while my argument was that 1. plastic can only be recycled a finite amount of times and 2. The waste from the different bins all goes to the same tip (source was another friend who drove the bin lorries)
what does black pilled mean?
@@MarkNiceyard You've seen the movie "The Matrix" yes?
In it, Morpheus offers Neo the blue and the red pill, symbolising a choice between reality and the Matrix, if he would've taken blue, he would've stayed in the simulation none the wiser about it, taking the red woke him up to the reality of the world, there's no "black pill" in the movie though, but we're getting there.
Some people have equated the black pill to be an incel thing, because the term has been used quite a lot in those circles, but it means waking up to a reality that you can see no hope in and no amount of struggle could change anything (gee, i wonder why incels adopted this in their victimhood?).
Now i'm not saying that the OP is an incel, i'm saying that "getting black pilled" can mean different things in different contexts, in this case realizing that plastic recycling is a greenwashing lie concocted up by corporations.
I've read that of 4800 tons of microplastic produced every years in my country, 3600 comes from tires and road markings slowly eroded away into the environment.
the next big part is coming from construction materials or even some building paint.
plastic are used for so many things, it is like every single object we can own is part of the problem.
A CREDIT CARD A WEEK?! that cant be right, what about the 3 credit cards I ate today alone
It's all in the - balance. I'll see myself out.
I think there must be a one credit card limit coded into our genes preventing the other two from being absorbed. Just as God intended.
Why do they have to make credit cards so damn DELICIOUS?
Eating your way out of debt!
Long term average
But at least rich companies made a pot of money, so, there’s that.
That's what its all about, money, and they can donate to politicians ensuring nothing will be done about this. The USA with 5% of the world's population produces 20% of the world's pollution and they don't look like improving with many of its population claiming there is no problem.
Until USA and other 'advanced' countries get their act together any improvements in the rest of the world will make little difference.
"Here's some of the worst, most existentially terrifying news out there. Don't let it get you down, though!"
Why, life expectancy is risen over the last century.
@@саднакаце But it isn't.
@@HiNickCares yes, I love my plastic little life
This man just gave me some existential dread on my birthday. Thank you George.
Happy Birthday, :)
The line about us consuming a credit card of plastic is actually from a paper that says we consume “up to” a credit card worth of plastic a week. A credit card is about 5 grams and we consume between 0.1 to 5 grams of plastic a week, which is a very different claim. It’s from a study published by the Journal of Hazardous Materials, should be easy to find online.
Doesn’t change how horrifying this is
Any amount of plastic is not good. At all.
The notion that I consume a measurable amount of plastic on a regular basis and there’s nothing I can do about it is appalling in and of itself
I'm sure such a journal has a trillion papers on plastics, please cite the actual study to narrow it down for interested readers
This comment has micro plastics in it.
Thanks Georg! I only follow you because of this type of content and think on the same lines pretty much. "It's the consumers who decide, consumer is the king" - being as misinformed as we are, so no we don't. We consumers are marionettes of the markets, some less, some more, but we're all lead by the marketing by industry and commerce.
Couldn’t have said it better.
Delicious. Thank you Georg, I needed some more bleakness this morning.
Single use plastics should be illegal. In 2020, I wondered through a field which had been plowed to get ready to build yet more houses on the greenbelt. I think there used to be a farmhouse there in the 1800s, because I kept finding pieces of glass bottles and other pottery. I knew they were from the 1800s because I was able to Google and identify what the bottles and items were. One fragment I discovered was part of a ceramic toothpaste container….. let that sink in.
Fleece clothing made with recycled plastic bottles, etc. I bought a warm top to use when camping - come to find that each time recycled plastic bottle clothing is washed (by hand or machine), micro-plastic fibers are released into our waterways and earth.
they are released even during wear, unfortunately.
When I first learned about the little numbers in the triangle logo, I immediately realized this is a scam. Additional differences in chemical composition aside, the practical impossibility of separating these pieces of waste into their respective groups just makes the whole thing a non-starter, with today's applied technology at least.
They can detect the different types now by shining an infrared light through it apparently. That's why the supermarkets stopped using black plastic for food trays. The light can't get through it.
@@punkgift no thje black pplastic is less stavle and leaks into you body more and the FDA and other reglatory systems step in because it ussaly had a lot of BPA in it to stabilize. the difficulty with recycling was just the cherry on top. Dont use black plastic is really bad for the envoirment. Thin things also like your black computer and kurigs
I remember when after soviet block fell, 1991-1995, almost all drinks and brands were sold in either glass bottles or plastic lined cartons.
Gradually, the concept that plastic is safe, durable, modern, and standard for westerners and theirs "better" society compared to post-soviet region grew in.
Now everything is labeled "remember to recycle".
Huge plastic, mostly single use, wrappings or containers are labeled "be ECO! recycle", "reduce your carbon and plastic footprints!", "go green! recycle this plastic container!" -why is this mess still pushed on the consumer, when there's no alternative?
This is why I try not to to-go buy drinks at places that won't let me use my own cup. That's one of the biggest sources of plastic waste in my home. Some coffee shop type places are okay, but some will make the drink in a plastic cup and pour it into mine, then toss the plastic cup, defeating the purpose. Gas stations always charge me for the largest size, even if I have a cup that is smaller, because my cup is insulated and looks bigger than it is. Fast food ignores me and gives me a plastic cup even if I go in because their policy is strict.
I've been trying to switch to reusable bags as well, even though they get me harrassed for my receipt and the "loss prevention" guard rifles through my bags when I try to leave at every non-Aldi store. It would really help if businesses were less hostile to people trying to be environmentally friendly.
Well that sure is going to out a pin on the course we are on...
This channel talks about such important things, why is this not getting a million views per episode!?
He's spoken about it before. I believe it's something to the effect of him being shadow banned by youtube
@@milliman4 the truth sucks and people have been conditioned to only want to hear positive, feel good things
Thats exactly why
Because almost every advertiser is implicated in some way
TH-cam wants ticktock style short form content. Have for years. They don’t want people like him
Here's the thing. Plastics ARE Miraculous!
Here's the problem. Every Miracle is also a curse.
oh no
More like a monkey paw wish...
That doesn't scan, need a different saying like "every yin has a yang" or "there's no free lunch", never heard anyone try to claim every "miracle" is a curse.
@@prw56I think you're both saying the same thing, a version of "for every action there is a reaction".
If we take "miracle" as a concept here to mean anything that violates the natural order, that allows you to get a certain result or a benefit without the usually required effort/resources/worthiness, that you can say it always creates a commensurate "curse", which is all of that downside reified that you have to pay at some point.
More grounded terms, Plastics allow us to produce and consume so much at a much higher rate than we ever could have before and make a profusion of material goods, but the very fact that we can do that without the previous hardship or cost is it self causing us to destroy our own society.
One follows the principle that everything that you don't earn in a metaphysical sense ultimately corrupts you, then every blessing, unless it is properly accounted for, results in a damning as well.
@@Laotzu.Goldbug I know what he's trying to say, what I'm saying is the "saying" he's trying to make doesn't make sense b/c the word "miracle", at least anytime I've heard it used, doesn't have any negative consequences or implication. Usually when that is the intention some other word is used that does have those attachments.
That's why I say it doesn't scan.
Just a comment for the algorithm to keep Georg posting about interesting and important topics.
I appreciate that you can make these super informative videos with depressing but important news and still put in little goofs that make me chuckle almost every single time. You are a global treasure, sir. I thank you 🙏
Greed destroys everything.
ohhh i was so upset when i found out about this. i'd recycled assiduously since i was a kid. dissa-POINTING
I understood that Kevin Sorbo reference, lol. 😂
😊😊😊😅
Fastest click of my life.
I've legitimately wanted to know more about this for a while now but didn't really look into it. Great surprise getting a video about it from one of the most underrated YT creators. Cheers
They hand out plastic bags for the supposed recycling and people abuse that weekly.
This is how Children of men is going to come true.
It's already becoming true. When it comes to the birth rate, most of the world is either at replacement level or below it, in some cases like in east Asia it's far below replacement level. Obviously there are other factors causing it too, but lower food quality due to plastic as shown in this video does contribute somewhat.
You know what it is Theo? I just don't think about it
It'll probably be closer to "Idiocracy" at this rate
Always pissed me off seeing 'influencers' espousing the virtues of hydration whist constantly chugging on small, disposible bottles of water.
"Always pissed me off seeing 'influencers' espousing..." anything really, with the sole aim to encourage more unecessary consumption, preferably pointless stuff that no one actually need.
Big water can't just keep getting away with it!
EVEN OUR DOGS HAVE MICROPLASTICS IN THEIR TESTICLES.
I wonder what sicko volunteered to test that...
Ehem... Might be a sore point for some dogs...
@tttm99 by some you mean all. XD
And that's why you start and better, so they don't have (plastic in their) balls
It's a racket
What isn’t these days.
The modern world is, in many ways, utterly s**t.
Plastics were virtually unknown in the USSR for single-use goods. For food mostly paper and glass were used - and you would get a bit of money back for returning the glass. Some people, particularly in the liberal intelligentsia, suggested we didn't have fancy plastic packaging because we were poor and backward, and some even collected the empty packaging from Western goods brought back from abroad (i.e. literally trash) on their shelves. Looking back at the absurdity of it all reminds me of the Indians who traded their land away for some beads.
I used to surf, but the amount of plastics lapping up against me out on the water has soured my experience. Every time I swallow water, I'm not thinking of the fish spunk but the microplastics
Fish spunk is biological. Whatever that is worth...
I really like the variety of topics you pick for your channel recently. And all of them are well researched and presented in your unique style. Thank you!
Don't forget the microplastic pollution from tyres
Apparently, that microdust is FAR worse than anything else. Which makes sense, since it's constantly getting aerosolized merely by people driving everywhere.
@@Novastar.SaberCombat When you consider that most car noise we hear is the rubber being physically stripped from their tyres, it really puts the scale of it into perspective.
now there are news about Asian American women having disproportionately high lung cancer rates. What if it's due to microplastics in the air and them being shorter on average than any other population group (except kids of course who haven't yet lived long enough to develope cancer because of it).
THE PRIMARY SOURCE
@@Novastar.SaberCombat not really. Dust from tires is much bigger than nanoparticles from internal combustion engines
Inside some canned drinks is a thin type of plastic lining, and glass bottles with a metal lid sometimes has a bit of plastic underneath the lid.
as far as I understood, all aluminum cans have plastic lining, because it supposdely protects the metal from being degraded by food. Canned fish, vegies, beer, everything. And milk cartons too, because carton wouldn't hold up otherwise. And foods containing fats make plastic release toxic additives much quicker because all of them are fat soluble. It's so grim, I have no words.
@@Ira__L True yes and certainly grim.
Georg: "You consume a credit card worth of plastic per week."
Me: "Eh, surely it's more than that..."
*Realise he means literally ingest* 😮
Lol I made the exact same mistake… I thought “oh! That’s pretty good!”
Yeah, it's pretty bad. We gotta start working on upping these numbers. My kids are told to try to get at least a credit card a day into their tummies.
**Looks at plastic warhammer collection….** my god, what have I done ……..
Bring back metal minis!
WH Collection?
I think you meant "pile of shame".
As long as you don't throw it away, you're fine.
Dark elves?
I'm grateful for your work and for the clarity of your writing. Your choice of stock footage can be so thoughtful, compelling, and sickeningly accurate. I know Adam Curtis had access to some amazing collections to draw from, and yours often rival his artful and obscure shots of lifeless mechanisms and industrial minutiae. (If only you could use music the same way, but of course youtube wouldn't have it.) Your incisiveness and the ease with which you seem to produce these things continues to grow, despite your *ahem* longevity and exhaustive pace. Thank you (all) and please don't burn out. Keep it up, and don't take any of us too seriously. Your Peter O'Toole impression is a bit rough. Blah blah blah.
You posted a video and thus I was summoned.
A big reason why "at least right now it would be difficult to substitute other materials for medical devices and supplies" is due to the sunk cost of the current production process, not due to the inherent superiority of plastics over, say, polymers made of bamboo, hemp, seaweed, or fungus.
It takes energy to recycle it. Wether you want to or not
"Credit card of plastic every week" is actually a misrepresentation.
You should go read the original study, the paper in 2000 Journal of Hazardous Materials by Kala Senathirajah et al, Estimation of the Mass of Microplastics Ingested...
The study is methodologically pretty flimsy, so you can't put much stake in it outright, i can explain what's wrong with it in a separate comment, and comes up with an estimate with upper bound of 5.5g/week and lower bound of 0.1g/week. The researchers' best-effort highest-likelihood estimate overall is 0.7g/week, and i have reason to believe that this is an overestimation as well.
When WWF was reporting on the study, they chose to word it as "a person might be ingesting up to 5g a week of microplastics", leaning right against the top-end estimate, which is... well technically true, but misleading, since when publications reported on the WWF report, the words "up to" magically disappear. And thus now people have it in their heads that they eat 5g of microplastics a week, for which there is ABSOLUTELY NO FOUNDATION.
"Why are we here? Plastic… asshole.” ― George Carlin
Earth Plus Plastic, that's the new paradigm.
Not mentioned, many microplastics in the environment are from the synthetic rubber in automobile tires wearing out.
The Amish were correct sticking to the horse and buggy
they used to teach us the 3 Rs, recycle, reuse, and reduce. focus on the reuse and reduce parts. just buy less plastic.
Whatever happened to plastic-eating bacteria?
Well they require pretty specific environments to grow, so it's not really a solution. Also putting a novel bacterium into the ecosystem of the entire planet might be a bad idea.
Can't be any worse than what we're already doing. We could modify it to not affect us and survive in any kind of environment, if it doesn't already.
@PlatinumAltaria
Fussy eaters. They dont eat all types.
@@mattd5240 Can't be worse? Says who? Just think of invasive species going from one continent to the next, wreaking havoc, destroying whole ecosystems. These are just ordinary living species that accidentally have gone from their original place to someplace they do not originate from. Cute bunnies, ants, camels and foxes brought to another continent, can't be bad right? Ask Australia. Can't be worse? Says who?
The bacteria got fat and exploded, then undigested plastic just went everywhere again 😅😆🤣
My two bugbears, bastard plastic and bastard palm oil. Wish they'd find a bastard alternative for both.
Corn-tainers
The alternative is eternal frugality.
Why do people start with the cry for alternatives. When most products appear for the greed of money. Go simple and basic and work with the planet.
@@ZappyOh
Do people even reuse their Stanley mugs?
Glass and metal like the old days! Although my baking is a little sharp.
I can't today Georg, Fridays are my blissfully ignorant day :(
You missed the part where MacDonald's have bin lids which have 2 parts, one side says recycling, and lots of people have been showing that if you open the cupboard door under it, they both lead to the same single bin.
Recycling is all optics and we are continually lied to.
in the UK we were told our paper and card was being recycled, but it wasn't. It was being sold to the Chinese. Then one day the Chinese said "we have enough of it now, thanks" and suddenly we have all this paper and card that we couldn't get rid of. I remember the bins were overflowing outside our home and not being collected.
So awesome how the government subsidizes the most powerful and rich industries.
Classic Georg, after talking about plastic apocalypse and nightmares: Don't let it get you down... 🙂Never change Georg, only the truth can help make the future a little better...
I lived in Missouri for a couple of years. They don't Recycle Plastic - they burn it for Fuel. It uses more energy to Recycle Plastic than to simply burn it as you would Petroleum. Missouri is simply a State that is simply honest...
you see that movie Crimes of the Future, damn good filum
The other fun thing you learn about recycling is they send a lot of that stuff to other countries and it pollutes their water and their public spaces and otherwise.
So much of this stuff if you actually take time to research it just makes you realize how much snake oil they’re selling to people and pointing it out makes you look crazy to them.
Why, yes, companies do try to make them look benevolent to sell more products without you fully understanding the consequences of their actions. It’s called marketing and propaganda.
I don’t say this because I have a solution or because I’m smarter than the average bear, but because I notice things; and that’s a problem for the people trying to sell you the snake oil.
It’s like how Apple and other companies want to convince you that their products being unrepairable is better for security; but it just produces far more waste than if I could upgrade my device the way I see fit. Then they try to offer parts, price them ridiculously compared to the cost of buying a working used device, then blame you for noticing this.
"Subscribe... Keep my chin up... And everything."
Got it, Georg, Thanks.
👍🏼
Subscription: LAMINATED!!!
The solution is simple - not to produce plastic as much as possible. Sure, there will always be things where it will be used, like electronics or medical equipment, but I think that a lot of other things should be produced out of different materials (glass bottles, wooden furniture, natural clothes etc...). A year ago I started to buy only natural fibers clothes and I will continue to avoid plastics in anything (where it's possible of course).
You always make my day in the most sombre way whenever you upload.
Melted plastic + Sand = incredible durable brick for walking ways, sidewalks and even wall covering tiles. This material is being used in poor places.
This is depressing, that heads of industries knew about the dangers of plastics for decades but they didn't care whatsoever.
It made them super wealthy in the short term, they dont care about screwing humanity in the long term. They will never experience the damage that they've done, since they will be long gone by then. That is a harrowing thought, to intentionally cause harm for your own profit, but to never experience the effects of the harm yourself.
Was also surprised to later find out that the "bags of milk" the school gave our elementary school as a kid were because "it takes up less space than the cartons and is more eco-friendly". Little plastic baggies more eco-friendly than similar size cartons? I mean, even if the cartons have issues that make them less recyclable, I'm pretty sure replacing it with a literal plastic bag is not the solution.
"Don't forget to laminate your subscription" HA! Genius!
Boy this video wouldn’t pull the barrel from the roof of your mouth, but this is critical information that we all need to know and use to help save the future from being bleak
Whenever I am feeling down, I can rely on Georg to raise my spirits.
What was that about the collapse of industrial output?
Supposedly, using intense heat and pressure, we can reconvert plastic into a form of crude oil. This process requires a lot of energy, so the development of a stronger nuclear energy program becomes necessitated.
THANK YOU! I've been trying to tell everyone and their dog about this, but most people thing I am some sort of conspiracy theorist! Recycling and the circular-economy are one of the biggest lies and one one of the biggest marketing scams of the modern era!
USA plastics used to go to China. Before 2017 China realised that the industry made little money, but caused expensive healthcare costs for the workers in the 'recycling' factories. They stopped doing it. Some countries still allow this, but won't for long. No, I didn't type this on a TEMU keyboard, but it is still plastic.
When they can't ship the problems elsewhere they'll start passing the cost onto us, the consumer, all while demonising those who dare question it - and most people will go along with it. After all, they don't want to be a "plastic denier" or whatever term they make up to describe people who don't want to pay corporations to "recycle" the plastic THEY made.
Remember when we put things in recyclable glass bottles and jars? I 'member.
Excellent.
To help people changing their view about single use plastic, thereìs the Precious Plastic Community, amongst others, transforming single use waste into beautiful durable products.
I remember when it came out that we were eating a credit card's worth of plastic a week.
..and then, wildly, nothing happened.
Mon Dieu! Tell us something we don't already know.
Utterly depressing. The real ecological disaster, opposed to man-made climate twaddle.
Thanks Georg. Always a delight 😭
Like how big stores like Target get SO busy that they just throw the recycle plastic bags in the compactor instead of processing them for recycling (cough) i was one (cough)
Look forward to when Plastic creates the real life version of "The Children of Men"
90% of plastics contains certain fluoride chemicals (as well as Bromium) so that they can resist UV and consequently not break up. These chemicals are endocrine disruptors and can cause sterilization; they are known for this property since 40s since some good guys wanted to enforce them during the Morgentau project; thankfully they enforced them to everyone, and I give them credit for showing their intentions, to the whole world. P.S. Yes, I don't sleep well at night. Children of Men is for me a reality the last 40 years.
You always bring the brightest up lifting stories. It’s the lava lamp. Gotta be.
Classic move. Shift the responsibility from the producer and from giant industrial users, to the individual end consumer.
The most efficient recycling program I have ever seen is the 10 cents on alcoholic beverage containers here in Ontario... I used to keep enough bottles to get over 100$ back. (I understand this is mostly metal, glass) ... these days I'm too lazy and every 2 weeks on plastics recycling time... I have 2 bins, one of them for alcohol bottles that some local desperate person ALWAYS picks up. I admire their hustle and feel that I would probably use that strategy if/when I become homeless 😅
'it's not finite, it will run out' (13:16).
i noticed that as well
checkmate atheists, another win for the plastics industry 😎
Wishcycling. Many people burn natural gas or electric to heat water in order to wash plastic heading to the landfilll. These people often say it's the recycler's "fault."
I got tested for microplastics in my bloodstream and the results came back very low, so my doctor prescribed me to eat the drone shown at 13:37. It's a bit difficult to chew, but it's actually surprisingly good with some creamy chipotle ranch.
listing to this on my plastic earbuds while shopping at the dollar store for ziplock bags. 150 of them. paid with my plastic card...
Don't forget to type away a nice reply on your plastic keyboard, sitting on your plastic chair, or drinking from your plastic cup.
This is scary as hell...
I’m sure that being made partially out of plastic will one day greatly benefit humanity.
As a seasoned doom scroller since the mid 90s; Georg is my kind of cynic... "laminate your subscription"
Glass is such a superior material for a lot of applications, especially containers. Unfortunately here in the USA we cannot buy borosilicate pyrex anymore so everything is soda-lime glass and it shatters easily
why the change? is it an EPA thing...OR???
Could we legislate a standardization of plastic containers, so that instead of a thousand varieties there are legitimately 4, no color, and all recyclable? Every houshold could have a little smelter which turns the plastic into a cube. See, problem solved!
I mean, it'd be as hard as passing any other landmark piece of regulatory legislation... That is, if it does manage to get through it'll have a million different loopholes snuck into it by lobbyists, the problem will have grown bigger in scope than the law was initially created to deal with, and it'll be 25 years too late anyway.
@@AirLancer way to land my balloon 😉
I remember reading about bacteria that can digest plastic. Research by the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. Quote, The bacterium Rhodococcus ruber eats and actually digests plastic..
Certain plastics, yes. It's frankly amazing how natural selection/evolution finds a way.
Thanks Georg. Really needed that extra push to want to end it
"Plastic is... inevitable" - Phanos
Thanks for addressing this. It's something I've known for a long time but everyone should talk about it
"it's terrible, but, whatcha gunna do?"
What is my purpose?
You make plastic.
You've heard of the Pleistocene Epoch. Now, welcome to the Plasticene! By "now" I mean, most of us were born into it and have very little power to change anything outside of our own households.
My home town throws out recycled plastic whenever they can't get a decent price on the commodities markets.
We're fucked - might as well kick back and have a beer...
I liked that Second Variety/Screamers reference at the end there.
Plastic bottles are recycled into polyester, which is used for clothing and other applications. I grant that this is "down-cycling," but it sure beats throwing bottles into landfill and not getting that use out of them (and driving demand for virgin plastics in that realm).
Lot of people failed to understand why it was "reuse" then recycle, as in tiers. Recycling for a lot of things is only slightly better than the dump.😢
That's actually super interesting. I've never heard anyone explain that saying in a tiers sense, but now that I've thought about it the order does make sense.