this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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The memes of the climate
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Hello, this feels like an appropriate place for me to plug a service I recently discovered: Ridwell!
Obviously it sucks that most plastic isn’t being recycled and I wish this service could be offered free of charge, but if you have the means it’s a great way to reduce your plastic waste! I swear I don’t work for them, I just really like that a big chunk of my plastic waste is suddenly being repurposed instead of landfilled.
And they also help me recycle some things I’ve been collecting forever without understanding how to properly dispose of, like batteries, old clothes, and electronics.
I hope to god you are not getting scammed on just like this one did:
German documentary. Skip to minuite 57. The company did round about the same that your example does. Everyone was happy and believed them. In this specific minuite the reporters show one of the volunteering persons, that helped collect the trash for the company for years, that even her neatly packaged plastic waste from herself and her neighbourghood just simply got shipped across the sea and dumped on a landfill.
The company made some lucrative business here. On the back of naive enough citicen, that wanted to improve the situation.
https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/dokumentation-und-reportage/dokumentarfilm-im-ersten-die-recyclingluege/das-erste/Y3JpZDovL2Rhc2Vyc3RlLmRlL3JlcG9ydGFnZSBfIGRva3VtZW50YXRpb24gaW0gZXJzdGVuLzIwMjItMDYtMjBfMjItNTAtTUVTWg
I can’t get anything other than an ad to play on that site and I don’t speak German so I wasn’t able to poke around - so I’ll take your word for it. I suppose there’s definitely a risk here, but my hope is that since the plastic is being repurposed for construction in a for-profit company, there’s more incentive to actually do it. The alternative being actually recycling the plastic back into its constituent forms, which I imagine is harder and less profitable. Is the latter what the documentary company was doing?
They claimed to be splitting the wastes and claimed to recylcle. The company then made deals with major companies so that they can claim, that they are recycling. The waste ended up in a landfill in a third world country. When the company was confronted they claimed it was a one time issue with a subcontractor. Business excuses as usual.
I hope the company u named is honest but I would have strong doubts. The industry is hella lucrative.
This company is great but we need more.
We need governments to push for complete and proper waste disposal. You can't require people to correctly separate their garbage all the time or trust them to do it well. Have all garbage mixed, and sent to proper recycling facilities where everything is separated correctly, and where we'll try to reuse everything properly or if not possible, dispose off without polluting, without CO2 (so no burning)
We also gotta work on the other end. No more products that is more packaging than product. No more products that are containers in containers in containers in containers. When a customer buys it, it is one product in one container, period. Containers always must be as small as possible, period.
We also have to drop one day shipping and buying everything online and have everything brought to the door by car. It's hugely polluting and not needed. Yes, it's a nice little convenience, but you don't need it.
Then I can keep on going, we need to redesign and rebuild our cities. No more endless suburbs that is only one style huge houses and nothing else. It's depressing for people, you can only get in or out by car, kids can't go anywhere without their parents driving them. Make mixed use neighborhoods, with shops, bars, cares, restaurants, offices, recreational facilities all mixed in. You should be able to walk to your bakery on most places in most cities but you can't.
Basically, our current situation is just the result of a whole bunch of bad regulations pushed (mostly) by companies and people in charge of places they don't know shit about. We need to start listening to the results of scientific research and push rules that will actually make our lives better, while we still can.