Your lifestyle does not generate garbage. Companies that sell non recyclables and non compostsbles generate garbage. Why hasnt cocacola replaced their plastics with something compostable? There are new inventions for replacing plastics out each day, I wonder where those inventions end up.
If coca cola's your example, then I'm going to affirm that yes, it is the lifestyle that generates garbage. People don't _need_ soda. But they want it at a low price that's cheaper than Pepsi. You know what that means? Coke's going to be shipping in the cheapest container possible to keep the price edge - which is plastic.
If soda drinkers cared about plastic consumption, they would switch to anything that has glass containers and spend more - or just cut the habit due to the waste generated. But that's not happening.
Sure, there can be political will to force Coke to switch to something else - bypassing the need for the customer to do anything - but that would result in higher prices which makes people mad. Good luck asking a politician to do something that will upset their constituents
check to see what aluminum cans and even the cans of canned food are lined with... It doesnt look so good to me. Without that sealant, metal leeches into the product.
It's not Coke vs Pepsi and pricing competition (Coke costs more than it's competitors), it's using a useless manufacturered product and shipping water in a can instead of drinking from the tap and adding a scoop of sugar and spice of your want.
It is still a pricing competition. Sure Coke costs more, but they're also riding on their brand recognition to bump up their perceived value. No amount of brand loyalty would save them if they had to undergo the price jump that comes with a massive logistics change of switching off of plastic without a proven alternative.
It might cost a buck more per 6pack for Coke right now - but people aren't going to get it if it costs 2-3x more than Pepsi.
Not sure if that's true. Soda has tripled in the last few years mostly just due to corp greed and realizing people are very stuck (addicted?) to their preferred flavors. Pepsi and Coke are competitors but not substitutes.
I view recycling schemes for plastics as a way to make burning the stuff more convenient. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
After fossil fuels are done, the reduced carbon in the waste stream (including plastics, but also cellulosic materials) will become more valuable as feedstock for various chemical processes. Garbage refining will be a thing. It will be an aggressive chemical endeavor, more akin to petroleum refining than to recycling.
That's not plausible, IMO. Plastic may become somewhat more expensive, but it doesn't require fossil fuels. Overall secular increase in societal wealth should overcome any transient increase in price.
In Germany we have reusable thick plastic bottles, and a deposit system that's attractive enough for people to bother bringing them back (or for homeless people to collect them). Not perfect but much better than single use plastic
Where I grew up the reason stated when they replaced glass with plastic was that the weight of the glass alone caused more pollution from transport than the plastic bottles that replaced them
It's not just about emissions, though. Single-use plastics literally just accumulate in landfills until the end of time, while glass is highly recyclable (and one of the few economically viable ones).
Where I live, everyone can buy bottled water in glass bottles. I think there are now glass bottles with Coca Cola, too, though I'm not certain (I don't drink soda).
The gist: similar to Big Tobacco, etc., internally with the plastics industry, there seems to have been a much greater degree of pessimism about the long-term economic viability of plastics recycling, but it was sold to the public anyway via ad campaigns and lobbying to forestall regulation or legislation limiting plastics as public sentiment was shifting towards a greater sense of environmental awareness.
I guess it might refer to the fact that 80% of the plastic produced ends up in landfills and it's not recycled, for different reasons, one of them is that recycling plastic is very expensive.
Also there are several different types of plastic that do not melt together, or do not melt at all, and can't be easily recycled or reused. It also degrades and becomes more toxic on every cycle and, unlike glass, health safety of recycled plastic cannot be guaranteed so to package food the only safe option is to make new plastic.
Is the 80% a number for the US? In northern Europe I assume that a small percentage is recycled and the rest is incinerated for electricity and heat -- landfill usage has restrictions in the EU.
Some countries like Sweden and Finland use incineration to such extent that they have a lack of domestic waste and have to import it [0].
While we might think that much of the world's plastic waste is recycled, only 9% is. Half of the world's plastic still goes straight to landfill. Another fifth is mismanaged – meaning it is not recycled, incinerated, or kept in sealed landfills – putting it at risk of being leaked into rivers, lakes, and the ocean.
I misworded my first sentence, I meant that 80% either goes to the landfill or it's not recycled, but apparently it's more like 70%.
It takes mere moments to google "how much plastic is actually recycled"
You would have to be naive to believe that executives in the petroleum and plastic industries are unaware of how little plastic is actually recycled rather than complicit.
There have been a few articles about that recently. However, you can notice it for yourself if you notice how many products claim to be "recyclable" but how few are recycled.
If recycling were widespread, you'd expect the vast majority of products to be made with recycled plastic.
I particularly "admire" compostable cardboard hot food containers, which are coated with PFA forever chemicals to keep the food oils off the cardboard.
Why not add something to protect the web security?
XSS protection ?
CSRF protection?
We could do those things in the browser and not in every website in existance…
One word: Compatibility. There are already protections against XSS and CSRF build in, and adding stricter rules would cause sites to break. Do you want to maintain a list of all sites that need cross origin GET requests to function?
Same goes for news you see over TV, it does not have to be true. Its their platform.
How can you make an informed decision is all you’re being told is manufactured truth?
You read and watch the media that gives you the data you need. Ignore the others once you can verify the information. Wash, rinse and repeat. It’s supposed to be a free market. There’s no guarantee that government mandates will make the data any better
Citizens are not producing kgs of plastics a day! Companies are! Lets just start a movement to start unboxing everything in plastic after the purchase counter and before exit and leave supermarkets to deal with the plastics... then they’ll take note.
I’ve seen tens of inventions covering biological clear plastic alternatives, now we just need to make the companies apply them...
