I'm doing my part!
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The thing is just that its not that one woman, but hundreds of millions if not billions of people that follow trash separation rules.
This would actually have a pretty large effect, however sadly the recycling system is broken and often just a complete lie in many places in the world.The latter half of your comment is why I dont even bother. The "recycling" here is picked up and dumped into the same truck, there is no separation facility, just a landfill/incinerator.
Im not paying extra to lie to myself.
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It's a fair observation and very agreeable when the intent is to focus deserved ire on the primary element responsible for the wretched state of the world. But this could also be used to absolve oneself of inaction, deny any personal responsibility, to justify exhibiting similar selfish behavior oneself, or to feel smug about demoralizing or shitting on people who seek to improve society somewhat.
As the meme itself implies, the exploitation class is the problem that needs to be addressed. No need for anyone else to catch strays.
It really just highlights the growing injustice in the world and that our problems are growing too severe to solve them with personal responsibility. We need to make billionaires illegal or things with keep spiraling downwards.
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I don't see it as a way to justify inaction. I see it as a way to be forgiving of myself if I mess up sometimes.
Example: in the worst of my grief, I threw away some recyclables because I just couldn't wash them out properly. It took everything just to eat.
I didn't pile guilt on myself over it. I recycle 99% of the time, I never litter. I have to check my pockets for random trash before doing laundry.
Utility companies, corporations, and rich people are not cleaning up after themselves and their inaction almost negates everything me and everyone I personally know can possibly do.
Knowing they are dumping faster than I can shovel doesn't mean I stop shoveling. I still want and actively work to leave this place better than I found it.
Those 91 jets just mean I don't feel overwhelming guilt when I fail. I just try to do better next time.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Utility companies, corporations, and rich people are not cleaning up after themselves and their inaction
almostnegates everything me and everyone I personally know can possibly do.There's no almost about it. On an individual level, anything you and I do to recycle is dwarfed by the callous usage of resources by corporations.
You and I are out here doing our best to recycle the vast majority of our plastic waste when one of the local factories throws away more than a month's worth of your plastic refuse every shift when they throw away the plastic wrapping on just supply pallets. They may recycle the cardboard, but so much pallet shrink wrap would get thrown away at receiving and a shit ton more applied at shipping.
I fucking hated working for one of the local places and just watched all the plastic waste build up every shift. I still recycle because something is better than nothing, but it's still infuriating to have corpos guilt us about this shit while they do fuck all about it themselves.
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Well put. Don't insult the person doing what they can.
instead, redirect them to better use their limited energy
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I don't see it as a way to justify inaction. I see it as a way to be forgiving of myself if I mess up sometimes.
Example: in the worst of my grief, I threw away some recyclables because I just couldn't wash them out properly. It took everything just to eat.
I didn't pile guilt on myself over it. I recycle 99% of the time, I never litter. I have to check my pockets for random trash before doing laundry.
Utility companies, corporations, and rich people are not cleaning up after themselves and their inaction almost negates everything me and everyone I personally know can possibly do.
Knowing they are dumping faster than I can shovel doesn't mean I stop shoveling. I still want and actively work to leave this place better than I found it.
Those 91 jets just mean I don't feel overwhelming guilt when I fail. I just try to do better next time.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Do you think they feel “overwhelming guilt” about those jets?
The idea is to blame you for all the plastic shit they have forced you to buy because you need to eat and wipe your ass and clean your floor.
They don’t care what bin you put that shit in. It all goes to the same place anyway since they have admitted recycling is a scam and has been for the last 40 years.
It’s like conserving water. In the 80s, when there were “droughts” in California, they told people not to flush their toilets. 98% of water is used by commercial agriculture. THEY should be more efficient about their water use. We are subsidizing them. And they export a ton of this shit. Like almonds. Which take a ton of water to grow. (Spoiler alert on where they export that to…)
You ever see those public trash cans with like different holes for landfill and recycle, and then see underneath that it all goes into the same bag?
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Eat the rich, but not with plastic cutlery!
please don't eat apex predators, they're high in lead content and other toxins
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Wait till you hear how much pollution the army creates when they decide to mobilize an entire camp for no reason
It may have changed now but when I was in the Navy in the late 80s we just tossed all our trash into the ocean twice a day. Everything: paint cans, medical waste, regular trash. It was disgusting
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Wow, I'm starting to think the military might be a net negative on this earth.
Navy just dumping jets in the ocean, like fuck it.
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In the US it's nearly impossible since the pandemic. Most waste collection firms are dumping both cans in the same truck and not recycling anything. Plastic recycling in particular turned out to be much more expensive than waste management was prepared to keep doing so they stopped.
Got a source on that “most”? The ones around here DEFINITELY don’t do that.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote on last edited by [email protected]
You know what's also shitty about recycling? The companies that pick that up bin in some areas throw it in another bin which gets shipped to an "out of country" recycling company to make it someone else's problem. In the shipping process, that plastic falls off into the ocean making a worse problem now than just throwing it into regular waste management. Also, the process to recycle is more toxic than just throwing it away because the companies use really old processes; like paper for example. I gave up recycling except for metals.
edit: I guess i forgot to add "In the US" for the Europeans. Yeah, it's a US problem and nowhere else does this happen I guess.
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You know what's also shitty about recycling? The companies that pick that up bin in some areas throw it in another bin which gets shipped to an "out of country" recycling company to make it someone else's problem. In the shipping process, that plastic falls off into the ocean making a worse problem now than just throwing it into regular waste management. Also, the process to recycle is more toxic than just throwing it away because the companies use really old processes; like paper for example. I gave up recycling except for metals.
edit: I guess i forgot to add "In the US" for the Europeans. Yeah, it's a US problem and nowhere else does this happen I guess.
In the US the majority of recycling isn't.
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The latter half of your comment is why I dont even bother. The "recycling" here is picked up and dumped into the same truck, there is no separation facility, just a landfill/incinerator.
Im not paying extra to lie to myself.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]i lost faith in recycling the more I read about it.
especially when most recycling is sent to poor countries to be burned, and if it is actually recycled it is then shipped back again as a single use spoon, then sent back... all the way to less quality materials, and some uses are for fleece that produces a shit ton of microplastics.
real solutions is to ban single use plastics (maybe exceptions for medical uses).
now I'm in the States and I have no idea how to recycle where I am anyways.
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The thing is just that its not that one woman, but hundreds of millions if not billions of people that follow trash separation rules.
This would actually have a pretty large effect, however sadly the recycling system is broken and often just a complete lie in many places in the world.the recycling system is broken and often just a complete lie in many places in the world.
In many places in the world, or mainly the US? I keep seeing this claim repeated but usually any proof is just about the US
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In the US the majority of recycling isn't.
Yeah this is largely a US problem. Not that some of this doesnt happen in other countries but at least in my part of Canada most of the recycling is sold to in-province companies. A few get exported to the states. A very small amount goes to Europe or Asia.
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Even better: compost the rich!
How much plastic and silicone will go to the plants?
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In the US it's nearly impossible since the pandemic. Most waste collection firms are dumping both cans in the same truck and not recycling anything. Plastic recycling in particular turned out to be much more expensive than waste management was prepared to keep doing so they stopped.
notice how you're immediately moving the goalposts: you're not talking about an individual separating packaging, you're talking about the industrial process.
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the recycling system is broken and often just a complete lie in many places in the world.
In many places in the world, or mainly the US? I keep seeing this claim repeated but usually any proof is just about the US
I think a lot of first world countries like do it (e.g. the UK sends around 60% away), because recycling elsewhere is cheaper than doing it at home.
And it's cheaper still if you don't bother to check that it hasn't just ended up in a landfill in Bangladesh or something.
I think also part of the issue is that plastic can be recycled, but not in the same way as metals or glass. That plastic bottle might get shredded and used in road surfacing (where it will doubtless leak micro plastics everywhere), which is probably not what most people envisage when they clean it up and separate it nicely.
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I think a lot of first world countries like do it (e.g. the UK sends around 60% away), because recycling elsewhere is cheaper than doing it at home.
And it's cheaper still if you don't bother to check that it hasn't just ended up in a landfill in Bangladesh or something.
I think also part of the issue is that plastic can be recycled, but not in the same way as metals or glass. That plastic bottle might get shredded and used in road surfacing (where it will doubtless leak micro plastics everywhere), which is probably not what most people envisage when they clean it up and separate it nicely.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I had to check, and it looks like at least as far as plastic goes, in Finland it's sent to two domestic recycling plants, and everything they don't have the capacity to handle is shipped to Sweden's Site Zero in Motala (dunno where they go from there.)
But yeah, something like using shredded plastic for road surfacing definitely isn't what I'd call a sensible way to recycle the material. It's just adding an extra step before getting to "microplastic endocrine disruptors EVERYWHERE"
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the recycling system is broken and often just a complete lie in many places in the world.
In many places in the world, or mainly the US? I keep seeing this claim repeated but usually any proof is just about the US
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I've ranted in various places over the years but it's 100% true in my city in Canada.
Decades ago we built a massive publicly-funded recycling system because the City could actually draw profit from the collection and sale of materials.
But about 15 years ago China stopped buying the waste, and it became a new shell-game of collecting the material but literally unable to do anything with it or sell it, so any that does get sold mostly ends up in the down-stream recycling economy, where the bulk of it ends up being burned. The rest goes into the regular old landfill. Even waste cardboard has no value anymore.
People who separate recycling in our city now, are just pre-sorting it for the waste management company and keeping it out of their regular waste (profit) stream.
We do have our ewaste centers but knowing people that work there, I can say anecdotally I've been informed that the metal and rare metal waste is collected and sent for processing in Ontario, the rest of the bits (all the plastic which is 90% of eWaste) goes into the regular waste stream where it's buried or burned, but never recycled.
Notice how Pepsi and Coke don't use recycled plastic? If that doesn't condemn the whole recycling "meme" as a sham, I don't know what would.
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I've ranted in various places over the years but it's 100% true in my city in Canada.
Decades ago we built a massive publicly-funded recycling system because the City could actually draw profit from the collection and sale of materials.
But about 15 years ago China stopped buying the waste, and it became a new shell-game of collecting the material but literally unable to do anything with it or sell it, so any that does get sold mostly ends up in the down-stream recycling economy, where the bulk of it ends up being burned. The rest goes into the regular old landfill. Even waste cardboard has no value anymore.
People who separate recycling in our city now, are just pre-sorting it for the waste management company and keeping it out of their regular waste (profit) stream.
We do have our ewaste centers but knowing people that work there, I can say anecdotally I've been informed that the metal and rare metal waste is collected and sent for processing in Ontario, the rest of the bits (all the plastic which is 90% of eWaste) goes into the regular waste stream where it's buried or burned, but never recycled.
Notice how Pepsi and Coke don't use recycled plastic? If that doesn't condemn the whole recycling "meme" as a sham, I don't know what would.
But about 15 years ago China stopped buying the waste
Guess where that waste used to go
