How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

[Jason]

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled

 

[Jason]

Beyond all the personal time and effort that's apparently been wasted on making sure to recycle plastic, I'd love an estimate on how much taxpayer money has apparently been wasted on city/county/state recycling programs.

[Chairslinger]

Quote

 

Yet the industry spent millions telling people to recycle, because, as one former top industry insider told NPR, selling recycling sold plastic, even if it wasn't true.

 

"If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment," Larry Thomas, former president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, known today as the Plastics Industry Association and one of the industry's most powerful trade groups in Washington, D.C., told NPR.

 

 

 

 

 

We're so damn evil

 

We deserve to have the planet shake us off like an invasive virus.

[Captain Pickle]

So should I stop recycling???

[Jason]

49 minutes ago, Captain Pickle said:

So should I stop recycling???

 

The article says paper and metal actually get recycled. I think glass does too. It also says some plastic gets recycled but that recycling centers reject most (but not all) of it.

 

It does sort of seem like cities wouldn't have bothered setting up plastic recycling systems in the first place if they'd known this up front though.

[Captain Pickle]

Yeah I figured glass and paper. I just meant plastic.  I kid though because they only pick up garbage ever two weeks so u gotta recycle lest you want a back up of garbage 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

HDPE can have a second life but yeah other than that I'm glad I no longer work in the chemical industry!

[TyphoidHater]

What is the efficiency of those projects where plastic trash is simply melted down into roads or bricks?

[Keyser_Soze]

If you go to an actual recycling place they are very picky about the types of plastic you can recycle there.

If you dump it in the bin at your home then you don't really know what's going to happen to it.

[Guest]

Keep America Beautiful was started by the corporate users of single use items of all sorts to pass the moral onus onto individuals to not ruin the planet. It will always be about the companies who willfully choose to use packaging they know just ends up in landfills and the oceans. No meaningful change will happen at the individual level. It frankly can’t.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

25 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Keep America Beautiful was started by the corporate users of single use items of all sorts to pass the moral onus onto individuals to not ruin the planet. It will always be about the companies who willfully choose to use packaging they know just ends up in landfills and the oceans. No meaningful change will happen at the individual level. It frankly can’t.

[mrbiggsly]

On 9/14/2020 at 11:51 AM, Keyser_Soze said:

If you dump it in the bin at your home then you don't really know what's going to happen to it.

It most likely gets sorted improperly before going wherever your garbage goes. But you feel better about it afterwards because you tried