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istanbullu ,

Recycling is mostly a scam. Most recycled trash is just dumped on third world countries.

Hegar ,
@Hegar@fedia.io avatar

Are you sure that's still the case? I know china stopped accepting it ages ago - that's why most recycling just goes to domestic landfill now.

Orbituary ,
@Orbituary@lemmy.world avatar

It’s still the case. India was a destination, too.

TheOctonaut ,

Even back then it just immediately started going other placed, eg Malaysia.

mozz ,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

Metal and paper recycling is super useful.

But yes, plastic recycling is a massive lie that probably does quite a bit more harm/waste than it would be just to throw it in the landfill

WolfLink ,

Metal and glass are recycleable. And if they do get into the environment, they are really just purified rocks and will gradually become sand in the weather. (Not that it’s great to have soda cans and broken glass in the sea, but to some extent it’s not as bad as microplastics).

Paper is recycleable.

Paper, wood, and other plant products (e.g. cotton) are biodegradable and come from plants that can be farmed.

In terms of sustainability it’s something like:

  1. Plant products
  2. Metal and glass
  3. Plastics

But also even more important than that, it’s far better to reuse something many times than to use single use products, regardless of the material they are made of.

nyankas ,

This is wrong, please stop spreading this misinformation.

It probably differs from country to country, but in Germany, for example, between 38-48% of plastic is recycled (source). Sure, that‘s far from all of it, but still far, far better than nothing. Falsely claiming that recycling is mostly a scam and, by that, implying that it doesn‘t make sense to try to recycle you trash, is a horrible idea and only makes the situation worse.

Sir_Kevin ,
@Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It’s pretty true in the United States at least.

DampSquid ,

And Australia.

nyankas ,

I‘m not even sure about that. According to EPA, the rate of recycling seems to be improving overall, paper and paperboard are recycled at 68.2% (2018), which is honestly a great rate. Sure, there‘s always going to be landfilling, be it because of the waste‘s quality, capacity issues, or, yes, even a bad actor. But generalizing recycling as a scam only leads people to think that it doesn‘t matter if you try to recycle or not. And that leads to 76% of recyclables never even getting the chance of being recycled.

nialv7 ,

Germany is the best at recycling plastics in the world, yet they recycle less than half of all plastics… I won’t call that misinformation based on this. Also please don’t twist our words, we aren’t saying recycling is a scam in general, just plastic recycling is a scam,

When we call plastic recycling a scam, we are advocating for not using plastics. Reduce, reuse, recycle, remember that.

Feathercrown ,

Also please don’t twist our words, we aren’t saying recycling is a scam in general, just plastic recycling is a scam,

Thread OP didn’t specify that

nyankas ,

Firstly, I‘m not twisting words, there is no mention of „plastic“ in the post I was replying to, just plain „recycling“.

Secondly, I’m sorry, but I really don‘t understand how a non-perfect rate makes plastic recycling a scam. Recycling is hard. There‘s no magic recycling machine, which just converts 100% of plastic waste to newly usable material. There are so many reasons for a less than perfect recycling rate (non-separated trash, contamination, badly designed packaging, technical limitations when sorting etc.pp.), that I find it just very strange and unhelpful to call it a scam without substantial support for that claim.

Sure, not using plastic would be best, but that‘s just more idealistic than realistic. I think that plastic is such an integral part of our lives right now, that it‘s not going to go away anytime soon. And that makes recycling, for now, an important step to reduce the total amount of plastic we use.

RecluseRamble ,

In addition to recycling quota OP also claimed that supposedly recycled trash is trash dumped on poor countries while it’s actually a trash management issue. The first comment is just pure populistic misinformation as you said.

Quik ,

Yeah I get all of that, but for a person living in Germany, the original comment is just plainly false and potentially harmful, so it should rather have been “plastic recycling is a scam in most of the world”, which makes regional differences clear and does not appear like there was something inherently non-functional with recycling plastic.

SaharaMaleikuhm ,

The other person called plastic recycling a massive lie that causes more harm than good. That is misinformation plain and simple.

BallsandBayonets ,

Since the lie that plastic can be recycled resulted in a massive increase in the amount of plastic being used over actually recyclable materials like glass and aluminum, it does, in fact, do more harm than good.

plz1 ,

You took the implication you wanted. Plastic recycling, as-is, is very much a scam, green-washing, or whatever, in all but a select few exceptions.

52-62% being not recycled still qualifies as “most”.

NauticalNoodle , (edited )

Basic economics dictates that recycling plastic isn’t profitable otherwise industry would be doing it, itself. –That doesn’t make it a scam. It’s more like bad marketing.

Some of it will be truly recycled like with hdpe. Some will be used more conscientiously by being sent for plasma gasification. Lots of it will still get sent to the landfill, but that’s better then sending all of it. Something rarely mentioned is that most plastics become less stable each time they’re melted down, making them increasingly difficult to recycle.

It’s believed that ~75% of all Aluminium that has ever been produced is still in use because it’s economically more viable to recycle old aluminum than refine new. Alumium refinement is a highly energy intensive process.

wabafee ,
@wabafee@lemmy.world avatar

Does this include aluminum used in chip bags?

inb4_FoundTheVegan ,
@inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world avatar

I fully support throwing AirTags, and really all Apple products, directly in the trash.

w2tpmf ,

The iSheep are down voting you. 😆

Too in love with their gadgets to take a joke.

lepinkainen ,

Would you be sad if they used a Tile or whatever copy-add crap Samsung has instead? 😀

inb4_FoundTheVegan ,
@inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world avatar

Nah. Unlike the iCrowd, I don’t have any emotional support corporations.

breakingcups ,

Oh wow, you’re so much better than the people you put down!

CaptnNMorgan ,

Considering he’s putting down people who are loyal to a greedy, faceless corporation, I’d consider just about everybody, that isn’t directly hurting people, better than them

superb ,
@superb@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Where are those people though? It kinda seems like y’all are just getting huffy over an imagined caricature

felixthecat ,

You've never met an apple fan boy? Do you live under a rock?

Ffs I see people put apple logos on their cars.

superb ,
@superb@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

9/10 times if I see a thread of people complaining about apple fans it’s just a big circle jerk talking about all the awful things those nasty apple fans would be doing if they were here right now.

Sorry someone put a sticker on their car lol, that sounds rough

AhismaMiasma ,

Yeah pretty much.

inb4_FoundTheVegan ,
@inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world avatar

Yup. I’m def better than those who get feisty over jokes at corporations. 😂

hopesdead ,
@hopesdead@startrek.website avatar

I fully accept that what might be environmentally good today is not wholly obtainable. This things like this are what I must do as a part of the society that doesn’t have better means for whatever reason.

Quik ,

I’m actually not too sure about that. I am currently using an older iPhone (and I really dislike Apple, it’s just that the stupid device just does not stop working) and from an environmental perspective, throwing that away would surely be worse than continuing to use it, right?

IoSapsai ,

Exactly the reason I got a second hand iPhone coming from Android. All my androids would suddenly get a stroke after three years at best. My old boss would hold a funeral for his 10 year old iPhone which worked great but shattered after a bad drop.

JustARegularNerd ,

My initial thought of an “old” iPhone would be one without Touch ID (square home button), but it’s actually insane to think that a 10 year old iPhone today is the iPhone 6. That iPhone has (had?) 3D Touch, Touch ID, and Apple Pay. Those all still sound like modern features to me.

pop ,

I have devices with Android 4.4 still working smoothly. All these apple anecdotes that think Android just blows up after a few years is a shitty cope at best. There are also probably more old Android phones surviving in the wild considering how affordable they are and usually more repairable.

And guess what? without the OEM updates and playstore not having compatible apps usable anymore, there’s still troves of opensource apps and development going on that make it still viable as an alternative usage like media consumption, storage, security camera, and more.

Unlike Apple, where you’re just bound to a single store and no sideloading.

Android OEMs do suck at supporting their devices, is bloated but that doesn’t mean they all commit mass suicide after few years as sheeples think.

Alexstarfire ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/46bfa6a9-8b65-4e32-ae0e-cd0de36831cd.gif

ExtremeDullard ,
@ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

AirTag in the trash. Quite fitting…

LengAwaits ,

We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4 tCO2e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO2e saved per roundtrip transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per year). These actions have much greater potential to reduce emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling (four times less effective than a plant-based diet) or changing household lightbulbs (eight times less).

^iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/…/pdf^

KyuubiNoKitsune ,

I don’t see any of those things reducing microplastics in the environment nor plastic being dumped in the rivers and ocean. The motivation behind recycling has very little to do with climate change.

BallsandBayonets ,

Since I’m not planning on having any children, I can eat 7 times as much meat as I do now and still net a reduction in CO2! And I don’t like flying, so that brings me up to almost 10x as much meat in my diet!

JovialMicrobial ,

Same! No kids, no air travel(hate planes and have no real reason to be flying). I try to only eat chicken and fish(health reasons) so I guess I’m doing pretty good on my environmental impact.

veganpizza69 ,

It’s not an OR operator, doing all those actions would be better.

taiyang ,

I mean, it’s an interesting point but do keep in mind how much lower effort light bulbs are compared to a plant based diet. If you compare eating 1/8 less meat (like meatless Mondays) that’s still probably harder than swapping to less shitty light bulbs.

Messaging should include both, although I’m with you that the focus is disproportionately on less efficient methods (especially plastic recycling, which is mostly a way to pass blame to consumers).

veganpizza69 ,

This one is for Americans who use cars as shoes, umbrellas and shopping bags. Normally, the need to switch to a plant-based would be higher.

errer ,

I read the article, this is different from the other airtag exposes done on other recycling agencies: the plastic is still sitting on their property with a promise to be recycled later. They may break that promise at some point, but they haven’t yet, so the jury is still out IMO. Unlike other experiments like this where they find the airtags end up in a trash landfill or an incinerator.

jonne ,

Yeah, usually these companies just end up storing it all in a warehouse or a field until they go bankrupt, then the people behind that company start another company doing the same. And yeah, they promise they’re working on technology to do the actual future recycling, but it never pans out.

TheTechnician27 ,
@TheTechnician27@lemmy.world avatar

Whaaaaaaat? No waaaaaaay.

seaQueue ,
@seaQueue@lemmy.world avatar

The recycle bin? You mean the other landfill bin, right?

metaStatic ,

when I first moved into my current neighborhood we had a single truck collecting both bins but you could still get a fine for not sorting your 2nd landfill bin

CheeseNoodle ,

We have 3 seperate landfill bins where I live and the local government has been repeatedly caught dumping it all in local landfills, the one time they didn’t was because it was mysteriously dumped in the middle of the amazon jungle, seemingly from an aircraft.

cybervseas ,

Update: AG Ken Paxton sues Texas resident for exposing lack of actual recycling at a Houston Center.

WhyDoYouPersist ,

As of 2015, approximately 6300 Mt of plastic waste had been generated, around 9% of which had been recycled, 12% was incinerated, and 79% was accumulated in landfills or the natural environment. If current production and waste management trends continue, roughly 12,000 Mt of plastic waste will be in landfills or in the natural environment by 2050.

TokenBoomer ,

That’s a lot of Funko Pops. /s

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