Don't use this as an excuse to not recycle. I do my part by recycling what I can. It's a failure on our leaders not the people. I will continue to recycle with the piece of mind I did what I could. We can't force companies to change that's the government job all we can do is complain.

I beta test products and always ensure I give feedback on packaging to at least try to convince companies to not use styrofoam and plastic and just use cardboard.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you read up on the history of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, you'll find our plastics really aren't recyclable (much).

And your home recycling is a feel-good measure.

If you want to make a difference, start with verifying exactly what your city/county/state do with "recyclables", and follow that with looking into the recyclability of different plastics and how much each is produced.

It's eye opening.

[–] coffeejoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

Plastics absolutely are recyclable. It’s just not cost effective to do so because it’s so cheap to produce new plastic. We need to charge more for the production of plastics and force the producers to take back used plastic.

[–] towerful@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Reviews and feedback of packaging and non-sustainable materials is significant.
Businesses are extremely unlikely to change out of their own good will, unless there is some sort of review and something more sustainable ends up being cheaper. They'll only change due to consumer pressure.

Recycling eventually will catch up with our expectations.
Plastic may not be recycled now (well, certainly not to our expectations). But it will be, eventually. And hopefully the demand for recycled plastics will improve the whole cycle, where companies use recycled materials.

I always appreciate cardboard packaged products

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 2 points 2 months ago

I think that's the best angle to improve things right now, minimizing packaging, use other materials in place of plastic where we can, and what used to be the first R, Reduce consumption. The last one has a lot of parts to it, and attacking planned obsolescence is a big one. Things should work longer and be repairable.

Lastly, I hope there is a Hell and Edward Bernays is in it. Look him up to learn about the father of consumerism and how he changed how people act for the worse.