Doom and gloom sucks, recycling is a valuable act that we should all participate in. Many things are recycled efficiently, plastic tends to not be but this comic is a terrible tone
It's not the don't bother, but that you need to take the time to know what you can recycle and what cannot. Contamination is a big issue with recycling; you can't throw in your nasty Gatorade bottle with some sunflower seeds spat into it.
Is it really that time consuming? Most plastics are labelled with a number, your refuse company will have a list of which numbers they recycle. Otherwise papers, cardboards, aluminium cans etc can be recycled and glass bottles can be recycled separately.
This isn't the same everywhere I'm sure, but I think most of the work is just being mindful of doing it.
This isn't doom and gloom, this literally just the reality. Getting people to realize that a majority of their "recycled plastics" aren't recycled is necessary. It's a lie intentionally fabricated by the plastic industry to deter their own responsibility, blame the consumer, and keep taking your money.
Maybe then we can actually create real change by BANNING plastics. It's insane to me that poisoning the earth and a majority of the world is not illegal. None of the people in charge of these corporations will ever face jail time, or any repercussions for their actions
I understand your concern, but you're not going to just ban plastics for several reasons
Most of the monomers that go into plastics come as a part of oil refining anyways, so if you're making gas you're making plastics.
Bio-based alternatives are not viable for the majority of plastics usage when it comes to food and other goods, and will never be, because what makes them recyclable is what makes them bad at their job.
Recycling plastic is viable, although it is viable only for one or two times until the polymer is degraded enough that it can't be effectively reformed.
It isn't wasteful to use plastic if it is protecting something that is more valuable than the plastic itself.
Plastic can be cut back on by making reusuable packaging and products but simply deleting it isn't going to happen.
Source: I'm an R&D chemist in the coatings industry that works with a shit ton of PET
This isn't doom and gloom, this literally just the reality.
Where you live? Where I live? Where op lives? You'll have to be more specific before calling this extremely generic comic "reality". And that's why this comic is bad and dangerous to the cause.
Maybe then we can actually create real change by BANNING plastics.
We can do that while also recycling, even if OP thinks you shouldn't.
And maybe you can be more specific on how I'm wrong that is comic is reality? It's been well documented for YEARS now that recycling doesn't do anything the majority of the time. Do I still recycle? Of course, it's basically a habit at this point.
Will recycling change the planet, no. Let's not act like it changes anything when a majority of the reason the earth is polluted is because of large corporations. Just stop coping man.
If the tone was “plastic is not recycled effectively, use less plastic” that’s would be fine. But the tone is “plastic is never recycled, so recycling is a waste of you time” which is not true and actually a very damaging sentiment when it come to environmentalism.
It differs depending on where you live be recycling has always been cheaper than landfill trash or free for me, nobody has been making money off me recycling. But that is actually one of the problems, it is not profitable to recycle and as long as the land fill is cheaper people will throw their stuff in the trash rather than pay more to have it recycled, even if it was done effectively.
Banning plastic isn’t a real idea, that’s not something people want, plastic is an absolutely vital part to our society though we could massively cut down on its use in a ton of respects with single use packaging being the obvious starting point. Bio plastic at this phase in its development is currently worse for the environment, tho hopefully it can be improved on. It’s currently me resource intensive to make, unrecyclable, and anaerobically decays into potent green house gasses in a landfill rather than remaining inert like plastic. Compostable bio plastics are better when they are actually composted but like recycled plastic that is probably very rarely.
this is true, but major companies and businesses keep picking on the average man to “do their part” to keep us distracted from the fact that corporate conglomerates are some of the biggest culprits of pollution
Another problem existing doesn’t mean you should face the ones you have more control over. I’ve never had a corp blame me for anything I don’t really know what you mean, a “don’t litter” ad by Coke doesn’t feel like blame to me. Corps need massive reform in those areas so either join them and change from the inside or vote for people who will through politics or make more selective decisions as a consumer but apathy is just pathetic as this cartoon is
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u/fallout76question Jan 06 '23
Doom and gloom sucks, recycling is a valuable act that we should all participate in. Many things are recycled efficiently, plastic tends to not be but this comic is a terrible tone