Is Recycling Worth It Anymore? The Truth Is Complicated.
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- Опубліковано 20 кві 2021
- America produces more waste per capita than any other country in the world. And recycling, which was once considered the solution to that problem, isn’t really working anymore.
Recycling works, but it’s not magic. As America continues to lead the world in per capita waste production, it’s becoming more and more clear that everybody-- manufacturer and consumers-- “over-believe” in recycling.
This film is based in part on Throughline's podcast episode "The Litter Myth". Listen here:
www.npr.org/2019/09/04/757539...
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"I wish we could take the word 'recycling' out of this equation and just talk about consumption and waste, as if there was no recycling. Because it has enabled some of the worst behavior I have ever seen."
Killer quote at the end.
Fr it’s really about consumption and waste
Only 10% gets recycled, so really it the petroleum companies making the profit off shilling the notion that "recycling" is any step towards a better, brighter future; thus allowing them to still sell the byproduct of raw oil to be made into polymer plastics.
"You guys want to take a bale home. I'll sign it." ROFL (followed by tears)
Oh stop. You’re part of the problem not part of the solution. Internet Eco Warrior. 😂
The focus on recycling was the idea of the petroleum producers and plastics manufacturers. It turned out that using some small bit of recycled product mixed in with virgin plastics was a cost-saver for them. Hence, they created the plastics ID icon, which looks a lot like the old "Reduce - Reuse - Recycle" triangle, on purpose.
If we spent MORE efforts on reduce, and then re-use, we would have much less to "recycle."
There's a detail that I'm sure others noticed too - the recycling specialist's desk has a post-it with 3 Rs on it, but instead of the usual three, its "Refuse, Reduce, Reuse". The fact that the RECYCLING specialist omitted recycling from the 3 Rs is extremely powerful.
The other one was obese and had a XL soda from subway in a PLASTIC CUP W/PLASTIC STRAW on her desk. 🤦🏻♂️
As a kid in the 90's, I learned that the 3 R's were: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. But, regardless of the era, the key point that seems to be lost in the messaging is that this is the order in which we should approach how and what we consume and it begins with overall reduction of wasteful behaviors.
Refuse: as in; All refuse in the *Black* bin is the easiest path
@@Fio8os Exactly. We've placed too much emphasis on Recycling and treated like a magical solution while forgetting the other two R's.
Recycling all on it's own isn't a solution
@@petemitchell6788 She probably got it refilled. I believe Subway does that. I know places like 7-11 do.
someone at amazon is breathing a sigh of relief for not having been mentioned as carrying this torch for the last decade.
Well said. I am surprised they didn’t cover e-retail.
Everything delivered from Amazon has been way Over packaged!!
The thing is- Amazon is a retailer. They do not manufacture and distribute their own products. They essentially host the sale of, and transport, other peoples products. They do a lot of damage by selling cheap bullshit from overseas; but AliExpress and DHGate, etc are probably more responsible for that shit. I think food and drink packaging is the main problem, and those are the people manufacturing their own items. I could be fucking totally lost though.
@@timeittakestoletgo1687 That's not entirely true. Amazon has several products that their company makes, all the smart home stuff, books published on the site, and the wide range of Amazon Essentials products. Plus they are still in control of how they package the items they just ship.
@@timeittakestoletgo1687 amazon and aliexpress/dhgate are literally almost the exact same, in fact amazon actually produces a lot of their own products so is therefore still worse...
I worked at a recycling plant. We only resold half what we received after grinding plastics or shredding and compressing paper products, but alot of the mixed stuff, and all medical products went to the landfill. I always figured factories used our service so they could claim all waste is recycled and let us throw it away
Huh that's interesting and disappointing
I'd almost guarantee you're correct.
Thank you for your insight and your honesty. We consumers must come to grips with these facts. It appears to be an industry problem hidden in marketing.
Like donating your really shitty stuff that no one would want to goodwill so that they can throw it away instead and you can lie to yourself about your good deed
Oh that’s so true, I work at a recycling centre too. It makes me laugh that the video of the processing line shows the material on the belt looking all clean, evenly spaced, and easy to pick up, the reality is so different, huge mountains passing us by, we drag off what we can.
Find it interesting that they didn't bring up how manufacturers used to have the responsibility of taking care of their own waste. Like glass milk bottles used to be collected by the milk companies to be reused. But now manufacturers have signed off on all the responsibility.
Yep. Business has essentially done the same thing with the concept of the carbon footprint. Instead of understanding what the carbon footprint of a business is we've all been told to focus on and manage our own individual carbon footprint.
That's the only solution I can see, make all manufactured products come with end-of-life solutions included in the purchase price, the whole eol process including logistics of getting from the consumer to it's destination whether that means a returns area at place of purchase or paying a recycling/waste depot network
10:45
It costs more to transport, collect, transport back and wash glass bottles than to make and transport new plastic ones (in terms of resources and money.) Tastes better in glass though.
"But now manufacturers have signed off on all the responsibility."
And they are still trying to further get rid of it.
Five years ago in Germany Coca Cola had taken their 0,5 - 1,5 litre reusable bottles out of program and are lobbying against the introduction in other EU countrys.
there truly should be greater pressure on producers to reduce packaging and make packaging easily reused and recycled
Especially in Thailand. A cookie is wrapped by a single plastic wrap that is also wrapped by another plastic wrap that is likely wrapped by another plastic wrap. it's nuts!
@@yoursubconscious yes thailand is the problem here xD america produces 1/3 more waste than thailand per capita ;)
@@IIkillyou75 everyone is the problem, just because your not the biggest dose not mean you don't contribute. That mindset is not going to solve anything, "it's someone else that's the problem, not me", Everyone needs to get there shit together including America.
Yesssssssssssssssss👐🏽👐🏽👐🏽👐🏽👐🏽👐🏽👐🏽👐🏽 yes. I agree 100%
A simple one is clam shell plastics.
1) Standardize the shape, size and material;
2) Have labels that can be easily removed;
3) Have the consumer remove the label prior to adding them to the recycling bin;
4) Have recycler wash and send the clam shell back to producer; and
5) Producer commits to using recycled containers before new ones.
There is fuel and human cost there, but as long as the container gets used enough times, it will offset that cost. The reason I put the cost on the recycler and not the producer, is that the recycler can't compete cost wise when the producer can get new clam shells for a few pennies with free shipping from China. Just give them back the containers so they don't cry about it. ALL they have to do is reuse the containers... I'd like to think they can handle that without turning it into a goddamn lobby.
I noticed a few lush containers. They have a package return program. If a customer brings in 5 empty containers they get a free product. The local stores will put it into a bin, and when the bin is full they send it to one of their production facilities to be sanitized, relabeled and reused. There are very few companies that do that, but of those companies very few of their customers care enough to participate.
Yo that's cool I may need to look into lush
It's the information that is given, as you're doing, people will comply if they know. The many don't, can't worry about the few.
MAC cosmetics also has a Back to Mac program where you can return packages.
It encourages consumption, first you have to buy 5.
@@littlesometinas a business strategy it could potentially be useful in reducing single use items though. Imagine how many people might find use in returning five multi-use starbucks coffee cups for a free coffee.
I just realized what a strange idea it is to buy something and then throw it away just a few moments later...
that's consumerism 101
...like trash bags
You buy the product for its content. The packaging is useless once you get what's inside.
“They think that the recycling container is a portal to another universe.” 😂. That’s the best recycling comment I’ve ever heard.
Well thar's the solution, a portal to another universe......preferably a universe that can't dump back on us.
Hello? Narnia? You in there?
Technically we can, just trash it to the outer space like the old satellite when it is out of its functional use! Problem solved for now! It may create problem in the future though
@@slothypunk Space trash is actually a huge problem, because the more trash we have in orbit, the likelier it is to damage our space infrastructure (satellites, etc.), to the point where if it gets worse, then we wouldn't even be able to sustain a satellite in space. So sadly, no, sending our trash to space is not a good idea.
@@insertchannelnamehere8685 satellite in itself is a space trash after it ends its usage life, so why not just double down, there is no other way if the trash is proportional with the growth of human population
I work in the recycling industry every day and have always said if we don’t control packaging this will never be under control. Packaging must be designed with recycling in mind for this to work.
As was said in the video, minimizing packaging is also important to keep in mind.
Which is 100% not a consumer issue, but this video completely misses the mark. Feels like NPR is covering for corporations.
@TheHumanGerm Huh?
Yeah, especially the new packaging with severall layers of different materials are nearly unrecyclabel, chemical recycling would help, but that technology has a long way to go.
@@theinvisibleman2070 Moreg like refillable glass bottles with a bottle collection.
It’s so frustrating that so many people don’t even know this issue is a thing.
It seems insurmountable… but we have to start somewhere. I can change my footprint.
YES!
Your lifestyle choices are one thing, but please also vote. The companies do what they can get away with, so tighter regulations and harsher punishments WILL help.
i always felt this way. Like all my effort is like trying to stop a flooding kitchen with a thimble. In my head I'm screaming, "Why doesn't someone turn off the faucet?! Have we gone mad?!"
"Why doesn't someone turn off the faucet?!"
Because you keep your cup under it. We all do. You're watching this video on a piece of glass and plastic and mined metals including rare earths. It's just the way it is.
@@jasondashney Did you miss the propaganda part? People bought the products because they were TOLD to, that it was the right thing to do. It's economic! It's the future! A time-saver! Your kids will love you and your neighbors will be jealous! And marketing goes way deeper and more insidious than that. They play a deep misinformation game to make you believe that you're really making the most sound, logical choice by participating. They do this ON PURPOSE, FOR MONEY. If I hand you a poisoned apple and say "Eat this, it's healthy", and you eat it, I'M THE ASSHOLE, and I need to be STOPPED.
@@Queer_Nerd_For_Human_Justice And yet here you are, on the same device I'm talking about, consuming.
Some people feel the need to have someone else protect them from themselves. Others do not.
The problem isn't just the fact we're "passing it on to the next person" it's also that the products stocking every store in America are made of materials that we have no clue what to do with or how it was made in the first place. How is the common person supposed to do anything? Companies making these products should be responsible for their clean up.
Precisely but since the 40s-50s the government has just been letting them take/giving companies more and more power. Companies used to be responsible for sterilizing and reusing glass bottles for milk, soda, juice, etc. But it was hurting their bottom line.
Companies aren’t going to do anything about it if people keep buying it. Unless legislation is passed, the best thing we can do is try to be more mindful about consumption.
first, the common person must think. this is a huge hurdle. then, the common person must choose. and this must avoid the influence of advertising, social status, and employ long term thinking. you see, we are back at the root issue, the common person must think..
Manufacture of chemicals is in fact heavily regulated. However, there is no transparency when packaging is collected.
Yeah. The source of the problem is the manufacturers. Yes, you can vote with your money, but if there aren’t other semi-affordable options available for something what choice do we have? Our nation needs to start holding these huge manufacturing companies accountable.
Remember when Sun Chips came out with a compostable bag and people complained that it was too crinkly, so they went back to the original?
Oh, I loved Sun Chips for those bags! Had no idea people complain about them. 😪
Pepsi should have to put all their brands of chips in that
Oh, I 'member 🫐
Pepperidge Farm remembers 🚜
Crinkly? Seriously? I still remember the day some jerk brought in a big of bag of Lays potato chips into the movie theater. There were no signs saying you couldn’t. I think the reason theaters ban outside food, isn’t so much as the fact that they get the bulk of their money from the sale of food, but the fact that they are LOUD A F! Seriously! Screw that guy for bringing in bags of chips into a movie theater! How were Sun Chips “crinkly” and all the other bags not?
@@UmmYeahOk if you consider these videos to be accurate, I would say it was a significant increase in the irritability if not pure volume. Enough of a difference for some people to convince them not to purchase the chips. One would hope that Frito-Lay would’ve kept the bags on principle, but it bent the knee like any other corporation once its bottom dollar was endangered.
m.ua-cam.com/video/sbgKvtu4820/v-deo.html
m.ua-cam.com/video/XkHxHmx_vBw/v-deo.html
As kids in the 90s we were lied to. We were told we were recycling when it was all just being dumped in the ocean.
or sent to poor countries
Yes
I have never 'recycled' my plastic waste here in the UK - on principle.
I do not believe/trust these companies that say it is being repurposed....because, I believe, it is not cost effective to do so. Especially, when it is 'dumped' off-shore to other 'poorer' counties at great fossil-fuel shipping costs.
It's been a con from the start, imo. Moreso, with these 'green credits'
I dump all my plastic into my own county's landfill - I'd rather pollute my soil before I do of any other.
@@WhoAmEye_WhoAreEwe Honestly kind of badass of you. At least it won't end up in the ocean. And there's always room for reducing and reusing with that model. But please check to see if there's a clean-burning incinerator you can bring it to. When plastic burns hot enough, it turns into water and oxygen, and these plants provide energy to the grid and keep the landfills filling a little more slowly.
@@Queer_Nerd_For_Human_Justice
"....At least it won't end up in the ocean..."
"....check to see if there's a clean-burning incinerator you can bring it to. When plastic burns hot enough, it turns into water and oxygen..."
Appreciate your reply, citizen.
Funnily enough, there isn't. I did enquire to my local council what happens/ where/ to whom my plastic waste goes. It is for that reason I put plastic in my 'own backyard' council landfill.
:)
I want all the details of that volcano experiment though...
It's just like throwing garbage in a fire. The stuff is incinerated and all the toxic gases imaginable are released directly into the atmosphere.
It would create a uncontrollable amount of air pollution and C02 reslease...
Lava lakes are unstable beneath their semi-solid, comparatively cool upper layer. If you pierce their surfaces with a relatively cold object, like a piece of trash, the sudden transfer of heat could trigger a chain reaction of explosions. The upper layer starts melting down, releasing pressurized acidic steam and fumes from the vaporized trash. A single tin can might serve as a trigger to start this chain reaction and invoke the wrath of the previously stagnant lava lake! Which in short, this could be catastrophic. Imagine, you could start the vulcano eruption with your trash.
@@nehemialalang7878 this is what i thought! Imagine a truck dumping a ton of garbage in there, it could very well cause the volcano to erupt and kill everyone around it. Not to mention the amount of pollution and chemicals and gases it would release. I think recycling was invented as a way to make people consume more and feel no guilt about it, like the woman said in the video. Such a shame that these big companies just think about money money money :C
That footage is from ua-cam.com/video/kq7DDk8eLs8/v-deo.html
A good quote I heard some where: "There is a reason that recycle _is last_ in the phrase *reduce, reuse,* recycle"
But recycling is the easiest one that people can virtue-signal with, which is why it has been so popular with Leftists.
But Saturday morning cartoons in the early 90's taught us to, "Recycle, Reduce, Reuse and close the Loop!"
Actually this is why leftists rigtfully are against corporations.
And it was designed that way - in a prioritizing order - but it just got viewed as having all 3 lumped together when the difference between the first and last is enormous.
@@jeffw8218 Stop making everything about left vs. right. We all create way too much waste and we all have to tackle that problem.
This needs to be seen by everyone in this country
It won't be.
And those who see it are unlikely to change anything significant because of having watched it.
It's hard to do anything about it on a personal level (other than reducing and reusing) until there's a systemic change to what materials are used, how manufactures and consumers are charged for the materials, and what the market/government rewards/punishes
Which country are you referring to?
@@TerkanTyr I just put everything in the black waste bin now... Recycling is a sham
this needs to be seen by everyone.
The volcano solution needs a whole show on it's own. lol
Here in Japan the plastic usage is outta control. Single pieces of fruit are wrapped in plastic, takeaway lunch boxes etc are 80 percent plastic 20 percent food. . Only recently they started to encourage people to bring their own bags and charged for plastic bags. (they're still stupidly cheap so not much incentive to switch). It drives me insane.
I looked into this and you are only partially right. I travel to Japan frequently for work and yes, Japan use a lot of packaging and wrapping but they are very very thin on most cases, If you take an average product and weigh its packaging, American products still weigh more in material. Japan is really innovative in packaging design that they manage to thin out the material but managed to keep the integrity in all the right places. In addition, i weighed plastic bags between the two countries. 1 US Walmart reusable plastic bag (in grey color with green print) is about 16 to 17x of a plastic bag in Japan. Sadly that one Walmart reusable plastic bag will never be used 16 or 17 times in its life. Things like the California plastic bag ban, while well intended, actually have an opposite effect of wasting more plastic.
I noticed that but I thought it wasn’t the worst because of Japan’s really detailed recycling system and people willing to sort it. But any extra plastic is bad.
After spending nearly a decade in rural Japan, this irks me... hard.
There, a rotation of volunteers (that means people work for free) from each community get together **one hour a month** to collect, oversee, and meticulously separate **clean** recyclables from people in their community who bring their own recyclables:
Batteries and bulbs in their own bins.
Styrofoam food trays in a couple massive nets (one for white trays and another for patterned).
Different colored, cleaned glass, green, brown, clear, & blue, each in their own bin.
Cardboard, flattened and tied together with a specific type of string, gets it's own spot.
Newsprint in its own.
Other paper, its own.
Electronics, etc. have a place.
Metals, their own, too.
And a big ol' bag for misc. stuff.
Show up with a soup can that hasn't been washed and dried and an 85-year-old baba that lives 5 doors down will set you straight (firmly, but kindly)!!! lol
In a country the size of California, with about 40% of the population of the U.S., you don't have the luxury of the endless landfills. People take responsibility for their own waste. It's even hard to find a trash can in public. But it's a surprisingly clean country. I've even seen 'kind litter'--people will put all their garbage neatly in a plastic bag and toss it out the window on a mountain road instead of letting it fly everywhere.
Now that I've been back in the States for a couple years and been re-exposed to the general lack of care given and, as it was put in this video, people feeling as though they're 'done with it'--feeling they have done their part--I've become really quite disturbed.
Where do we go from here?
This place is in rough shape and this recycling endemic is just a small slice of it.
When's the pressure going to produce a diamond?
And how much micro plastic will the diamond contain?
I wish we did more sorting of the recyclables in the US. Not a solution, but it could help
@@SethWilhelm producers are still inventing more convenient packaging,,,, That you can't clean out to recycle God Capitalism Loves garbage!!!!!!??????????????
Then there's New York...
Styrofoam? Colored glasses separated? OK, that's nice that they do all that, I guess. But how much of that actually gets recycled into new products?
Sounds like a Disney story, what rural village did you stay?
Is it also taking place in the cities of Japan?
I remember going to school in the early 90's and a teacher telling us to reject paper bags at the grocery store. Say "No thanks. I'd rather have the tree." Opt for plastic bags instead, because they aren't made out of tree. I spent so long thinking paper was bad for the environment because "tree" for the longest time. Meanwhile, plastic is the real problem, and has been for decades.
Yes. Also, pretty sure no turtle or bird or any other animal has died because of a carelessly disposed of paper sack. TBH, I don't ever remember seeing random paper sacks tossed around the streets and parking lots - maybe downtown where the homeless were you might see one with an empty 40 in it :/
Just make sure not to use cotton bags. You'd have to use them around 7 000 times in order to break even with its environmental impact. Compared to around 50 times on a paper bag.
Plastic bags cost less to make and are reused more than paper bags. The problem is proper disposal, not elimination entirely. I need a liner for my bathroom trashcan; if I do not use the plastic bag from the grocery store, I'll just end up buying a roll of plastic bags anyway.
Plastic is also toxic and disgusting
@@biggusdickus9809 - Not necessarily; it can also be sanitary. Our food is wrapped in plastic, vaccines are administered in plastic syringes, plastic is used for sandwich gloves, the list goes on. If you mean plastic creation is a toxic and disgusting process, I agree, however, paper bag production and cotton bag production is equally as toxic and disgusting.
I'm surprised that there was no mention of forcing manufacturers to shift to biodegradable plastics such as hemp plastic. That seems like the only logical solution at this point
Me too
I would love to see that happen!
Right, it seemed like they recycling centers also blamed the consumer when it’s manufacturers who should stop using plastic to make their products in the first place. I’m surprised there’s no federal regulation on environmental damage and what businesses can and can’t do.
Hemp plastic? Keep dreaming, hippie.
@@ber1779 that's because of political lobbyists paying the right Congress people to keep it out of the possible solutions.
I didn't think recycling was ever meant to be profitable. I'm happy to pay $5 more a month if it meant funding the actual reuse of all those bales. And yes, I do think it would only take that much from each payer to fund it.
If the manufacturers can't make a profit, they're not interested. Governments let businesses get away with it as always.
@@Veeger I meant profitable for the consumer. I've heard people ask why companies don't pay them for their recycling and I just shake my head.
The point is if they can't sell it, it doesn't go anywhere. people have to want it before it can be used. Meaning, if you want to pay for it to be used, you have to be the one using it.
@@Queer_Nerd_For_Human_Justiceexactly. It’s not just about profit it’s about what to do with the “merchandise”
At the end of the video: recycling guy to the NPR crew: "You want to take a bale home? I'll sign it." And chuckles, ironically. Best video outro ever.
Non-native English speaker here. Can you explain it please?
@@pardisranjbarnoiey6356 the bale is the cube of trash sitting behind him. when he says he'll sign it, he means like a famous person autographing (signing) a photo of themselvea, basically making fun that he is famous now.
@@tonydelamancha5513 Ah! Makes sense now. Thanks!
"We found a live snake. We were able to save him and release him into a nature preserve."
There ya go. Snake recycled, job done! Everyone make sure your snake has the chasing arrows stamped on it somewhere.
No, that snake was reused.
...and put in to a habitat where it will invade and dominate the food chain...
@@csn583 exactly, my boots are recycled snake.
If you didn't watch it yet, here is a new documentary on youtube: The Connections (2021)
I heard that, in a landfill, snakes take over 10 thousand years to break down. Also that if we stop the unregulated dumping of snakes into rivers and the ocean that in fifteen years we could reverse ocean acidity. AND that if every adult in the US recycled one snake daily, the climate crisis could be eliminated by 2050. Stop denying!
Never knew pringles cans weren’t recyclable. This was eye opening as I am definitely a wishful recycler.
You can get a one time use from a Pringle's can. It can be used as a container to hold urine.
@@markmyjak7739 or a #2.
The CAN be recycled if recycling plnat have proper technology (machines). You shred it, soak it in water so that paper separate from the aluminum foil, and then you collect all the aluminum foil which falls to the bottom. It CAN be done, and it IS done at some places. But it is true that the majority of recyling centers don't have the proper equipment to recycle it.
@@velikdole9712 it is true, but those are more complex recycling plants. These type of recycling plants consume a lot more energy to run all those processes than typical simple plastic, metal, food recycling plants. Expensive equipment and processes with high energy and water consumption, don't make much sense or attract many investors.
@@YouBazinga No, the do not consume significantly more energy to run, just the processes are not yet adapted to this king of recycliables. Equipment is not any more expensive (not significantly), and all the water is recycled and reused in the process. The reason they are not installed more is there is a lot of other stuff to recycle and not many equpment manufactureres are out there.
I can't even get my household to separate trash from recycling properly. I have to sort them before putting in recycling. This is America. We have so much freedom but lack of responsibility.
I dispute the premise that recycling was meant to save money. It's purpose is to reuse the waste products, but no one WANTED to reuse the materials because they found out it cost more to do so. So we shipped it to other countries and TURNED it into a money gain (until recently) Not really the same thing 😕
In theory though, recycled material shouldn’t cost more then virgin material to produce. So it’s understandable why so many use that premise.
@@FatLava why shouldn't it? It has to be sorted and re melted down.
It was also a way to expand government and create otherwise needless make-work jobs. Everything is political.
@@greenmumm So do raw resources. Different process, but turning oil into plastic is a lot of work, and it still needs to be extracted and shipped from a distant location. And you have to consider the cost of disposing of the recycling material some other way. Whether you burn it, bury it, chuck it in the ocean or leave it rotting in the street, it's going to cost someone money.
@@smithsmith6402 na, it's cheap cuz it's a byproduct of petroleum refining which is subsidised by the US government... if they subsidised recycling plastics that would probably be cheap too but it's easier to just blame the consumer...
Everyone needs to watch this. This should be the type of stuff that goes viral.
too inconvenient
Everyone needs to go to the dump where they bury our trash into the ground. I felt like that Indian shedding that year in the commercial.
Yes
I love how the recycle lady has one use cups next to her desk and a bigass subway slurper plastic mug right on it, whilst talking about how nobody cares.
Someone didn't watch the whole video . . .
@@jacobcarter5923 14:30 it is right at the end, so how could i not watched the whole video? She is talking about how people should reuse plastic products, meanwhile her desk is full of plastic one time use shit from china.
People like you are the problem. You literally didn't even watch the video or have a complete lack of critical thinking skills; either way - you're a problem.
@@dtdt6027 damn dude, that´s a lot of unaimed rage you are radiating, did your tamagotchi die?
I thought the same thing! I don't know why everyone is freaking at you... guess that's the internet. But I was hoping she would say something like "I choose to buy the full size large bottle, and even if I don't reuse the bottle it's one container one lid, instead of packaging, 6 bottoms and 6 tops for less applesauce than the normal bottle." (I love plastic bottles for my garden and houseplants) Seemed like her only "square" was I hope:) which seems disconnected.
I ran a tri-county recycling operation in love late 80's, early 90's. At that time the markets for recycled resources were in their infancy and incredibly unstable. Sounds like not much has changed.
My family lives in the midwest and they don't have any incentives to recycle in their city. It all goes into 1 trashbin. The city doesn't care about recycling and it's one of the larger cities in the state.
Our federal government needs to mandate strict packaging laws. What we’re doing isn’t working. The further you start up a stream the cleaner the rest the stream can be. If you’re trying to sort plastics, it’s easier to 1 million things into three or four bins instead of trying to sort into eight or nine. Just like the breweries have to get approval for their labels by the SLA for compliance and accuracy to federal standards. The packaging producing company should have to submit samples for chemical composition and the manufacturer should have to submit samples for wasteful packaging and use approval
Agreed! 👏
I hate to be pessimistic but the problem is, that type of regulation will be met fiercely by opposition and ads that will somehow convince the dumbest 50% of us that these changes will be bad for them because it will cost jobs or it will make big government, making it a costly political move, despite the outright good it would cause. It's happened before and it'll happen again.
@@Kabcr This is what Nestlé and Coca-Cola do to kill bottle deposit bills across different states and to limit the programs already in place in 10 states to prevent them from modernizing.
I run a recycling pickup service - we sort everything at the clients home and leave contaminates. Everything we collect is sorted and ready to be baled and purchased - so we're doing our best. But I would love to be out out of business by reduce, reuse, refuse, repurpose, etc.
This is incredible! I know it costs money and takes more time, but I think this is how people will truly learn what they can and can't recycle. I'm sure I'm putting stuff in that can't be recycled or I'm not putting in the right way, but I'll never know because they just take everything
How do you decide what's recyclable?
@@cpiccerilli "I know it costs money and takes more time," Buying things from thrift stores, or using craigslist, nextdoor, offerup, facebook marketplace etc to get things free or cheap does not cost more money and often takes less time because they are close by and you don't shop an entire store.
Staff at the local recycling center tell me - I went through a training, and if I'm ever not sure about an item I can ask the staff member at the recycling center who can contact the buyer to ask if it's acceptable.
@@cpiccerilli I think you missed the point of the video. This is what big companies have been doing, trying to pass on the responsibility on to others. The harder recycling becomes the less likely it is for people to do, on top of that the lack of federal regulation makes it extremely hard already. What we need is for the federal government to incentivize, or discourage big companies from creating single use plastics etc. That way we can actually recycle, reuse and repurpose those materials.
BIG shout out to the Editor of this piece, they did a FANTASTIC job!
When I was a kid (early 70s), a lot of "disposable plastics" (butter tubs, microwave dinner plates, etc.) were actually sturdy enough for long term use and were designed to be attractive for reuse. Like, margarine didn't just come in a thin bowl, it came in soup mugs, tumblers, and salad bowls. Jelly often came in cute, printed, collectable glasses. My dad would use the lidded LeMenu microwave dinner plates to take his lunch to work in. There was a time when those "decorative tins" people buy empty to set on a shelf actually came containing foods. I remember Charles' Chips coming in a tin like popcorn does at Christmas, and I still have a Saltines tin. IDK if "plastic garbage bags" were even a thing - we always used the paper bags our groceries came in, and tried to produce as little "wet waste" as we could. Paper bags were awesome - quite sturdy - and we used them a lot, not just to make book covers for school. One of the worst things about disposable plastic grocery bags is that they are manufactured so thin, everything has to be double/triple bagged, and it takes 4 of them to hold what one paper bag did, so 90% of them go straight into the trash. Yes, all those containers I mentioned would eventually wind up in the trash, but at a much slower rate. My parent's kitchen cabinet still has some butter mugs from '74 in it - still looking great. It's not enough to look at how a product ends, we need to look at its life cycle and use that to measure its impact on the environment.
Absolutely! Bring back that containers that were sturdy and decorated. We used those for years!
the thing is though, even with the multi-use plastics, is that you quickly accumulate way more than you can use.
@@kevinhawkshaw8784 Exactly. People are deluding themselves if they think making the packaging reusable is going to improve matters. Quite the contrary: you still go through the same amount of product, you still buy the same number of containers. There's only so many soup bowls and drinking glasses you can use, and the rest ends up in the trash anyway. Except that now, on account of being reusable as mugs/glasses/bowls/..., they contain more plastic, of a sturdier and less recyclable type.
No, reuse is not the answer. At most you'll delay the moment you throw out your first empty package, but after that delay, you're still throwing it out at the same rate as if you hadn't bothered reusing.
The thing is, logistics. The weight of all the extra glass, plastic and metal takes its toll on trucks, gas mileage and workers that have to lug this stuff around. It's why can openers don't work anymore. They're based on an old patent from back when cans used to be a lot thicker. Everything has been made super light to accommodate the sheer volume of trucking and shipping.
@@kevinhawkshaw8784 Precisely. She says in the video she keeps her single-use apple sauce containers and reuses them, but depending on what she's doing with them, her house will be made out of apple sauce containers eventually. They'll all end up in the same place, too.
Recycling at the consumer level was never going to do anything. Corporations need to be forced to deal with their own waste.
It isn’t their waste though, once you buy it it’s yours. There should be regulations on what packaging is appropriate in the first place.
@@soulfuzz368 There should be regulations on all their wasteful management. There’s no other solution to this
@@popopop984 I don’t disagree but there has to be a big cultural shift in the way we consume before any meaningful regulation will take hold. People are lazy so they usually prefer the easy way. A government can force it on the people but if they don’t like it, next election they can vote to get their dirty crap back. That’s what happened where I live.
Wrong. Corporations sell wwhat people DEMAND. It's not the corp makign you buy 10 small plastic bottles instead of 1 big glass one. YOU are doing it because it's more COMFORTABLE for you to use plastics. CONSUMERS are the problem.Not "companies". Companies are an EXCUSE you spineless idiots use. You just watched a 1 hour doc about how the recycling problem gets SHIFTED from one entity to the other...and what you do? YOU DO THE SAME! Shifting the blame on another scapegoat..the "evil companeis". Shame on you
......So you'll have ten companies stop by your house to pick up the waste?
There needs to be a deposit paid on packaging, and it is returned to the manufacturer. They would find a way to reduce and reuse fast. In Korea there are lots of restaurants that deliver food in returnable reusable containers, when you are finished, you put the dishes out side your apt and they pick them up. They still use returnable beer bottles too.
imagine picking up recycled trash take out boxes from other people's appartments. these jobs pay very little. no wonder suicide is so high in south korea
In Germany too. Returnable and reusable to-go containers, beer bottles, even some plastic bottles are reusable. Nearly all plastic bottles have a €0.25 deposit on them. That's at least a start!
@@jasmina.8473 Rather do that than inseminate turkeys. I have done that.
@@MarcAntaya Germany has returnable food containers? Sweden doesn't, for all the hype about how green Sweden is, I sure don't see it. People will throw stuff willy nilly in which ever bin they feel like. They don't take Ikea stuff when they move, goes in the burn bins. There is a charity clothes box 20 meters from the recycling shed, but there always lots of useable clothes in the burn bin. Thanks for reading my rant🐴 Guess the good thing is I haven't had to buy house hold goods, or furniture in ten years
i mean we used to do this in america, think of the milk man delivering milk in glass containers.
will someone explain to me why the government doesn't just regulate the packaging materials that big producers make, and draft a standardized sizing/shape/sorting system on the federal level? this is what the EPA and FDA and all those acronyms are supposed to do right? that's state responsibility, producers responsibility is to follow those guidelines. or laws? i don't know, someone please educate me.
As a consumer, I’m attempting to take responsibility by reinventing my own consumer habits. Namely, I’m exploring every opportunity to not buy in the first place. Maybe when the companies come up with an actual solution to the problem their products impose, I’ll considering giving them my money again.
What I love about your comment, is that it is action we can all take right now.
And if enough of us do it, product suppliers will respond.
Taking yourself out of the cycle is a great choice. Going 100% is hard, but it starts opening up some really interesting doors. Did you know soap literally grows on trees?
I've found that the 3.5 inch plastic prescription pill bottles are the perfect length and width to hold 14 home rolled cigarettes.
I once brought an empty bottle back to the pharmacy and asked if they could put my new prescription in the old bottle to be told "no, we're not legally allowed to do that".
That's good info, I might sell some I rolled that way!
Really insane when it it a chronic condition so you get the same meds. Just slap a new label on the thing...
I use those bottles to hold seeds. The only downside is that they're harder to store than seeds in their paper packets.
@@pompe221 Oh smart, I'm gona take a page.
It’s very good that they are not allowed to do that.
I live in Toronto, Canada. Near my home and all around the city are two bins side-by-side, one for recycling, another for regular garbage. The recycle bin has stickers all over it, the largest showing what not to put in it. I saw both bins being emptied the other day by city workers - to my surprise, both recycling and regular garbage bins were emptied into the same truck - no separate compartments. I guess these labels are really only put there to make us feel better about ourselves.
Many have forgotten the sudden change to recycling a few years ago when the Chinese decided to stop receiving our waste. There’s no market for much of it anymore. The intention at first was to recycle. Now it’s likely going into the landfills.
@@BillLaBrie Yes, China is no longer taking recycled materials from America. So waste to energy (Incineration) may be the best (and only) illusion.
And to your surprise 99% of our recycle trash actually goes to a landfill anyways. That's why I don't and never bother to recycle.
Basically, they destroy your work. For me it is not feeling better, it is more like desire to punish them.
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex ua-cam.com/video/oMozyspFuBM/v-deo.html numbers still underestimated....
The amount of plastic and paper waste from covid is insane. Disposable masks, take-out packaging, plastic partitions etc.
But hey you won some political points, and thats good
Yea welcome to humans, we tend to use more resources when there is a crises. In this example, we had a pandemic which lead to an increase in mask/glove/take-out packaging etc.
So although it is "insane" its warranted, and temporary as afterwards people will go back to what we're used too. Unfortunately we'll have an increase in plastic waste for a while but this can be dealt with in time if we can figure out how to deal with our trash issue.
God forbid Our infrastructure actually improves to create a unified system that forces manufacturers to abide by a specific system, using only specific plastics or packaging to ease to ability to recycle.
But unfortunately cost of living will increase as manufacturers pass the new costs onto their customers. They don't want that profit margin to drop, increase cost of goods and place blame. This happens after minimum wage increases but hey - "its not supposed too!" people are people, of course it will.
Anyways i'm on a rant here. This is an issue that would need real attention placed upon it by the higher ups, but the western worlds been a little stagnant on improving their own countries.
And the litter wow. I go on a walk and its like spot the masks discarded along the way. People are just ridiculous
How fucking dare you question COVID policy’s. You are clearly anti science, good day sir!
The masks alone have created a massive amount of waste, but people were using the drive thru at restaurants almost exclusively way before the pandemic. The amount of car pollution and excess packaging generated by this has been and will continue to be a horrendous problem.
Here's a thought, don't try and make recycling a business of selling waste material but a public service of processing that waste material into usable raw material and then selling it.
Yay more taxes. Great plan
@@bobspizza7444 We'll all be paying for it sooner or later might aswell be proactive about it.
This has been bothering me greatly since I briefly worked at a plastics manufacturer for food containers. Literally made me want to run and join a commune. Blaming the consumer for capitalist greed(or laziness) is counterintuitive.
Right! This is the most sensible comment I've read on this video. Duh! They are the real problem and not the consumers. Some things are just basic common sense. The earth is being destroyed as we speak. A shame indeed.
This is also why things like Right to Repair are important as well. Too many worship at the alter of the dollar though and this flies in the face of the creed of the dollar. Profit at all costs.
I absolutely agree! I makes me insane when a small appliance breaks and can't be repaired, or costs more to repair than a new item. It hurts my wallet, but hurts even more having to throw it in the trash knowing it will end up in a landfill. Planned obsolescence needs to be a thing of the past!
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex ua-cam.com/video/oMozyspFuBM/v-deo.html numbers still underestimated....
@@wildflower1397 Agreed. However, the problem with many small appliances is that making them more repairable will only make them a bit more expensive, but not sufficiently so that repairing the broken appliance makes economic sense compared to buying a new one. Small appliance repair only makes sense if you're capable and willing to do it yourself, because labour costs in the West make it cost prohibitive to have a technician look at a $20 item.
@@EvenTheDogAgrees Exactly. If they designed things so they are easy for the average person to repair, and provide parts, it would solve a lot of problems. Also, make them sturdy enough to last a long time, so repairing is worth it. :)
@@wildflower1397 Certainly there is some planned obsolescence, but I suggest the problem is less insidious. The manufacturer uses good enough parts that keep the price down, otherwise the competition runs them out of the business; look up Curtis Mathes. The second factor is the repair cost; who will pay $250 ($150 labor, $75 travel, $25 parts) to repair a $100 microwave? So we have products that are inexpensive because they are built at the lowest cost to meet expectations which makes repairs more expensive than replacement.
Penn & Teller were talking about this over 2 decades ago, but barely anyone listened.
I give up on people more and more nowadays lol
I listened to them and more and what I discovered is the real value and meaning behind the proverb "ignorance is bliss"
Indeed, plenty of people gave them shit for it in the comments.
they came at it from a completely different angle though. they're libertarians, they definitely don't want the responsibility to be on the manufacturer. they just complained that they don't want to have to deal with it. they want more of a free market, which would actually make the problem worse, since lack of democratic control over industry is what led to this problem in the first place.
@@breearbor4275 "democratic control over industry" - literally how fascism is defined
I put my name on my luggage so that if I lose it, it will be returned to me. I might even offer a reward!
Now apply that to a Coca-Cola bottle or a McDonalds cup.
Ok, the theory is nice. But what do I do with that bottle that keeps showing up? Should we just have burn pits behind our house? Or should we pay to send it to someone who knows how to dispose of it properly?
Where I live plastic bottles are actually collected by their manufacturers (like coca cola). You actual pay a deposit on the bottles which you get back after returning the bottle undamaged.
Props for finding and rescuing that snake =)
Please note that the recycle percentage is different in each country. In Holland it's roughly 30%. Which is still not great, but it's always better than 0%.
I try to explain this to my wife every week. The crazy stuff she puts in the recycling bin boggles my mind.
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex ua-cam.com/video/oMozyspFuBM/v-deo.html numbers still underestimated...
There should be more clear information but how to know one plastic from another besides the numbers on the container. If it can’t be recycled it shouldn’t be produced- legally . People shouldn’t have to guess or know the numbers - it’s rediculous
Rita Hall The mind set has to be "I shouldn't contaminate the recycling bin with unrecyclable garbage." Where I live, in Southern Ontario, landfill is a fake problem. Yes, diverting waste from landfills is good, but if recycling is too expensive, it isn't worth it. We have city run composting here which diverts a huge amount. If you also recycle paper, including cardboard, aluminum cans, glass, and most single use plastics, you're doing great. The problem comes when things that combine several materials get thrown in, or when garbage goes into the recycling.
@@makinoahcelloduo9008 It’s too expensive to make plastics and combination of materials that is not recyclable or regulated by the government. Thanks for the unsolicited educational tutorial. Sorry you missed my point .
Rita Hall the point is, if you don't know, put it in the garbage.
She's got a one-use subway cup on her desk. If I had her job I wouldn't be able to use one of those.
Instead of individual cups of applesauce, you buy in glass which is much more recyclable than any plastic.
Not just that. She had a bunch of single use containers on her desk! Her whole office was made of plastic. I couldn’t stop staring at the background every time she was on screen. 😆
Many municipalities are refusing to recycle glass anymore as it weighs more and costs too much to transport.
@@katiecommon3614 Well that's just super. I guess we're going to be carrying home food in our hands in the future. Still, a bigger container served into a bowl rather than single cups of applesauce would surely be better.
@@LifeAdviceSite I was looking at the bins too, but her having them doesn't mean that she purchased them/has had them a short period of time. It's best to use the plastics that you already have/acquire secondhand rather than buying someone new that was made more sustainably, as you're saving resources. But def agree on the cups.
I understood her point about the A-cups to be that they are not easily recyclable. Sure everyone has a great opinion how she can do better and trying to make her look like a hypocrite, when in reality she is like the rest of us who are left with little or no choice because that is what the vendors offer us. Sure we can get the smaller paper cup at Subway, but why is it her fault that the larger, more economical, more satisfying, larger cup is plastic? Why isn't is Subway's fault for not offering all their cups in paper? Ahhh, because then people complain the cup gets 'soggy' before it is empty. Sounds like a no win situation to me; unless we figure out a solution to truly make the larger cup both functional and environmentally sustainable.
It’s on manufacturers to “design for recycling”. These are solvable problems if producers take responsibility for the life cycle of the items they produce.
We need to make laws that force manufacturers to take back their products/packaging and recycle them. No exporting it to other countries, no burying it, no burning it. If they produced it, they have to recycle it.
One of the problems right now is that if you're a manufacturer who wants to be earth-friendly you're at a competitive disadvantage because it costs more. If we make everyone play by the same rules this disadvantage will no longer exist. Instead, the opposite would happen. Companies that use less materials and/or more easily recyclable materials will be more profitable.
Guilt tripping the consumer is not going to accomplish anything. If the people in power *actually* want change, they need to pass legislature instead of wagging their finger.
Anyone who's been recycling all these years will have to accept the fact that you were being used as the middle man to help the waste industry make money. You sorted, they profited. Thanks for the free work!
I realized that a long time ago. I dont recycle at all. Everything goes in the towns trash compactor. Even though there are dumpsters for plastic and cardboard.
My family recycled for the past few years, when we moved to a complex that doesn't recycle I felt bad about throwing everything in the trash- after watching this, im not sure im that disappointed anymore.
It's true, but is it not still better that when it's in the recycling center, it has a non-zero chance of avoiding the landfill?
So basically the manufacturers need to be held responsible for their product containers, making them in a way that can actually be recycled.
Well yeah, but be careful not to just push the blame and responsibility on them. You can still practice reduce and reuse yourself.
Besides, I don't think they will stop unless the government forces them or people stop buying those products.
@@carstan62 They wont stop because the current practices are the cheapest and there's no incentive not to use them. Cheaper containers = lower overall cost = more units shipped = more customers = more end profit.
Just dont buy it. Dont demand the government get involved unless you want them involved in EVERYTHING, history shows that government intervention really is a "give an inch, take a mile" proposition.
@@bobw1678 I honestly don't think either of the things I said might get companies to stop their current ways have a shadow of a chance at happening. I wasn't suggesting anything except that you reduce and reuse as an individual.
And so what is your solution... Just buy and carry everything in the palm or your hand? Waste to energy (Incineration) may be the best illusion.
Or reused, or use degradable materials. When I was a kid we drank from glass bottles with a deposit on them (like the glass bottles of milk). You have soda and return the bottle to the retailer right away to get some money back. Book stores used to use strings to tie your books and you could hold the knot and carry your books home. In some places people used a straw to tie a piece of meat from the market and you carry it home. No plastic used.
Thank you, NPR, for this absolutely fascinating and informative documentary.
As an in-home healthcare worker part time, I need to keep client active/entertained as well as meeting basic needs. So I reuse those little applesauce or yogurt cups as paint/paint water cups and to set up other little projects- beads, puzzle pieces, buttons, sewing materials, jewelry, just about everything! They keep small parts neat, separated, easy to see, impossible to roll away, and are basically unbreakable.
I also use some as scoops that stay inside larger snack containers. I need to record everything the client eats, so it makes it easy to just know the measurement of one of those cups and use it for nuts, granola, ect. They also serve as the bowl itself for desert/treat things like loose candies after dinner.
Gardening is another use- labeled cups with seeds and soil are lined up in a shallow box to start them off.
I think any parent, school teacher, gardener, crafter, sewing enthusiast, anyone who does anything can easily find a use for those things!
“Do you guys wanna take a bale home? I’ll sign it” 😭♥️
Thank you for bringing awareness to this extremely important topic! I am feeling very very thankful for all of our sanitation & recycling workers!! You guys put up with more than we will ever know. This starts at consumerism.
He killed me with that joke after such a nice serious quote. Hope things work out for him and the rest of the company 😔😔
Yeah, I'll take a bale. I'll put it in my recycling.
@@kenmore01 well yes if we had to keep all that junk in our yard we would be much more concerned ... and that was the case not so long ago.
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex ua-cam.com/video/oMozyspFuBM/v-deo.html numbers still underestimated...
1) We need to regulate packaging design with recycling in mind.
2) STOP single stream. Make consumers sort their items into things like plastic type A, B, aluminum, steel, glass etc.
You don’t have different bins for different types of waste? We have had recycling bins for paper and cardboard, plastic and tins. Then a regular bins for everyday trash that can’t be recycled. They use this as excuse to empty your bin less. The trash truck that used to come once a fortnight now only comes once a month. Anyway point is people in Scotland have been doing this for the past decade it’s just not enough to change anything globally.
Glass is incredibly expensive to ship because of how heavy it is.
@moon dude you’d be surprised it’s actually pretty easy to sort it’s not rocket science. All plastic go into the same bin. Paper and cardboard go in the blue bin an there’s a little tiny box for glass. You can get fined if you don’t correctly recycle but as you say it’s pretty hard to enforce so you won’t be fined if you’re having a busy day and stick everything in the green bin.
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex ua-cam.com/video/oMozyspFuBM/v-deo.html numbers still underestimated....
@moon dude it's not even that we're lazy, it's that we have fuckall time and energy after working underpaid jobs
Those little applesauce cups make great paint holder cups. Maybe dye cups for eggs or rocks too. Bet they'd be nice for starting seedlings too.
True, but reuse is not solving the problem. It's only delaying it, unfortunately. Instead of throwing it out right away, you're keeping it around for a little while, but eventually it still gets thrown out. And if you keep consuming applesauce at the same rate, you keep throwing away apple sauce cups at the same rate too.
It would be better to buy a bigger jar and use a durable, washable bowl
I work down the street from these fine folks and now I have a newfound respect for the work they do.
This video falls so short! Why did NPR neglect to talk about Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (EPR)? Brands can do more to fix this problem than consumers. Recycling starts at the design stage and brands aren't doing anything to make sure their products are designed to reduce waste and consumer confusion. The rest of the world has EPR and if the U.S. had it, brands would do their part to design for recyclability and reduction.
EPR is pointless? Americans should realize that recycling is pointless and they should stop pushing this culture onto the rest of the world
Exactly
This is correct.
Major fail by quasi-corporate NPR
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. People focus too much on the last option, when really we should be reducing and reusing more often. Some argue there is even one more R before these three - Refrain.
Yet, consumers will still order online and the privileged will lament their delayed shipments.
Great video editing btw.
The video made it clear that the real problem is with manufacturers not consumers, I think. They should be regulated to manufacture goods that can be easily recycled and they should be required to pay for their waste. It's impossible to regulate consumers. Take a look at something like the bottle return schemes in much of Europe. This needs to be implemented on a massive scale. Also, advertising saying that recycling is the solution needs to be banned immediately and replaced with reality.
Id think reduce covers refrain. Either way. The usa is failing in another way yet again.
@@robmaule4025 The problem is at every step of the process from the manufacturers to the recyclers and everybody in between. If the recyclers would be designing the collection program around the fact that people don't have time to be professional researchers about what goes where, that would make an impact. If consumers would avoid buying things with excess package, use the excess packaging for other purposes and use things until they break, that would have an impact. If manufacturers would stop counting on people buying the same things multiple times and produce something that's more expensive, but more likely to last, and with as little packaging material as practical, that would help a bunch.
At the end of the day though, the lack of decent regulations at every step in the process is part of why things aren't improving as much as they should be. We're not all at war with the environment like my wife is where she destroys things we have by being careless, refuses to do even basic sorting of items rather than chucking it all in the garbage and seems to be looking for ways to destroy the earth whenever possible.
@@nivoset Reduce and re-use essentially are both refrain. Both will lead to fewer new items needing to be manufactured and purchased.
Exactly. Too many people think it's just a slogan, "Reduce and Reuse; Recycle!".
It's really depressing to see no solutions on the horizon for this recycling mess we are in.
Best, most concise, yet informative, video I’ve seen yet on our waste problem. Next episode, an easy method to influence our manufacturers to fix this problem.
We didn't always have plastic, milk- in glass, soda - in glass (which by the way we all returned the empties back to grocer for our deposit- now how many of us ever get that nickel/dime back?).
We have a local milk producer that sells in glass. It's a full $2 cost and return, so most people do end up returning the containers for reuse.
You want someone to drive every few days to everyone’s house to deliver just one type of food? To waste that much water clearing between, then the company has to clean between. Then there is the breakage. Could be finding shards for months when one broke with little ones in the house. If you drop a carton or plastic gallon of milk there is no such worry and you can save product if there is a puncture. No to mention how heavy there are.
@@kristinesharp6286 No, just sell milk in glass containers like they do in other countries. Glass bottles are widely used in other sectors like the alcohol industry and I haven’t seen those complaints
Glass is heavier to transport than plastic. Plus the cleaning and sterilization of the bottles would likely drive the costs up.
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex anybody? Then please watch ua-cam.com/video/oMozyspFuBM/v-deo.html numbers still underestimated....
Corporate companies need to do better.
I once seen an entire long and tall dumpster completely full of waste plastic clothe hangers headed to the landfill from old navy. Seeing that made me think about my own waste. And how I could recycle my whole life and never catch up to what they can do in a week or month.
Yep. I'm not here to say that end users of these products should never stop and think about their own consumption. They should. BUT, the corporations are the real problem here, and they're never going to stop and think until regulation forces them to stop and think.
Corporations are always the problem. Name any waste product or resource problem. In anything you pick, corporations are the large majority contributing to the problem.
@@Apparat8 Everyone whines about corporate greed, corporate spending, corporate waste, corporate blah blah blah blah.....and then those same people sprint to buy the newest iphone even though theirs still works, and spend $500 on random junk on Amazon, and stuff their face with mcdonalds..... Corporations exist to service a demand. WE provide the demand! Maybe instead of b*tching about "corporations," we need to fix OURSELVES first!
The waste that huge corporations produce wasn't even touched upon in this video. I think that's telling.
This AND UNIVERSITIES/SCHOOLS. I went to public university that had an idyllic "green" image, boasting solar panels and compost/recycle/trash 3-bin set on every corner, dining hall, dorm room. When soccer season began and we had to get up at 3am for morning practice, I saw how they really collected the waste! All 3 bins were put in the same truck, unseparated and off to the landfill inland.
6:30 any tips for removing the metal bottom of these cleanly? I know I can't recycle the foil as it is bonded to plastic.
there has to be way more education around recycling too. I cant tell you how many people i see just throw all sorts of items in the bin. This is what schools should be teaching
When I moved from a state that had a bottle deposit to one that didn't, I was surprised to see how many bottles and cans I found thrown in the trash or simply littered. Those would have been worth five or ten cents each in Oregon.
Even worse moving from oregon to a southern state is the use of plastic bags. Just having only paper made a giant difference in portland. And I saw 50% less waste just in how the place I worked didnt have plastic products/containers out where people could grab what they want. If they have to ask for an employee to get it for them, the demand goes down a ton. It was so sad to go from that to texas where plastic just rules :/
I remember when you returned glass bottles for milk, soda, etc. We loved getting 10 cents back for our soda 20 oz.
We get 5 cents still in VT and NY
How do Americans buy their beer? Is it not in returnable crates (together with the bottles)?
10 cents in MI and OR.
@@celticwinter Beer is often packaged in aluminum cans, which are fairly easily recycled.
@@dlwatib ah, I was suspecting that from what I saw at walmart on a visit to the US.
I can get cans as an alternative here too, but the large majority of beer are bought in stackable ABS(?) plastic boxes, filled with glass bottles. Those then get returned to the seller, where the brewery collects, then disinfects and refills at their factory.
That's why I was asking, I just had the insight of a tourist
Hi there I have an ecologic StartUp and I would like to take and some small bits of this short to address this problem in my community, can I do it without copy right infringement?? 🙏
Really appreciate this quality. This is so well made. Thanks npr.
“I have hope... and I have energy”. Oh that sounds really nice, can I get some of either?
I believe it’s sold beside “thoughts & prayers”, in the Feel Good But Ultimately Useless aisle... 😕
Hey Environmental Engineer here.
I’ll be honest; I’ve done a lot of wishcycling. Once I heard about it, I did my best to reeducate myself and my family about the purpose of recycling and how to do it correctly.
To tackle this recycling issue, it really starts with education. Not just educating about what is recyclable and what the recycle numbers mean but rather consumption. If I don’t need it, why buy it right? If I can reuse it indefinitely (i.e. a reusable water bottle rather than a single use plastic one) choose the alternative because it saves money and the environment. This is more of an individual, lifestyle choice. But to incentivize people who don’t care about the environment, just talk about the fact that they can save money by not having to repurchase the same item again.
The next problem are the manufacturers. I know businesses need to sell things at a low cost and plastics are cheap but in the end; it hurts all of us. They can’t sell things to consumers if people are dying from the plastics and its byproducts (i.e hormone disruptors, air pollution by generating plastics, contaminated waters, etc..). They can continue to sell items if items were made out of more sustainable and less harmful substances. And I know it may be expensive now to shift to a more sustainable raw material, but once it is industrialized, it will become cheaper. A great example are solar panels.
We need to start educating the newer generation on how to recycle and controlling consumption. We also need to start mandating stricter regulations on manufacturers and maybe even rejecting household recycling bins if certain families are unwilling to learn. It will always be another person’s problem when it comes to trash. Countries will reject other countries trash and now a new problem will emerge. Newer generations will reject the older generations trash.
How do we convince companies to start shifting to alternate packagings?
Regulations are a MUST!!
You have to target manufacturers with regulations, you can't expect to improve recycling by targeting consumer "education" Don't blame the consumer.
@@pdavis2207 Yep, that's my huge problem with this video. Everyone should do their part, but they spent way too much time blaming the end user and not nearly enough time blaming the corporations causing this problem. I can do my best to use _less_ plastic, but I can't use _no_ plastic because corporations make it unavoidable. Personal responsibility is important, but it only goes so far.
@@SkiftyKitty hi: sustainability student here! The age old saying “money talks!” Buy what already has minimal packaging. Send emails, pressure them!
We need to be able to repair things. Over here in the U.K. I’ve been told to scrap a perfectly working freezer that’s only 4yr old because there is a design fault with the door alarm that makes it “uneconomical to repair”. The wiring fix cost me £15 on eBay but the customer support at the manufacturers told me to scrap it and gave me £85 compensation. It’s bonkers.
You forget the value of your time is probably at least the £85. Most garages and repair places charge well over $100 an hour here.
@@just4funallday508 not really. It took less than 4 minutes.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. The order is intentional as you don't have to recycle what you reuse, and you don't have to reuse what you didn't use in the first place. And the impacts are non-linear.
NPR listener for 40 years, this is my first time watching an NPR video!
well made but I wish they had either given consumers more info about how to learn what's recyclable in your area or pushed more on regulating manufacturers. felt like this just ended without a call for action that could've been powerful
Go to the website of the people who take your trash and recyclables. They'll have a list of materials they accept and refuse.
Pretty obvious. Call your city hall or go to their website to find out.
Excellent video! Make me think what more each of us as a consumer can do to reduce and reuse as much plastic as possible! However we also need a responsible government to implement policies that will put pressure on companies to share the true cost of recycling of their products as well as policies to encourage & support development of alternate environmental friendly products. Last but not the least is to start living more frugally & buy only what we need & what we want! Thank you for reawakening my deeper awareness of the environmental impact of plastic!
I've been waiting for a credible piece on this subject, and I'm happy to see this one.
It seems we should restrict the amount of waste which people actually put out for pickup. We should limit to high value goods such as aluminum and clear, clean plastics.
Glass should not be recycled, it's made from silica and costs more to haul than it is worth.
The dirty peanut butter jar is such a great visual trope to illustrate how delusional the general public is. Complete loss of objective reality.
You are right. The amount of waste an individual household produces is shocking
How do I know if it is because the peanut butter jar was the wrong kind of plastic or had too much peanut butter (contamination) still in the jar? How much is too much? Is jelly OK because it washes out easier? What about yogurt cups? Is it better to use a lot of water washing out the jar or save the water and put the jar in the trash because that is where it is going to end up anyway? Oh, I'm so confused, all the possible solutions and what about those that just don't care to think about all this? Any real solution to managing waste has to be built into the manufacture and distribution of products such that it addresses the outcomes.
"We'r still collecting all these materials, we're still generating all these materials." This is the crux, the generation. Because if it isn't generated, it can't exist.
The lady at the recycling department had so many disposable cups 😄 a little ironic.
I thought, if the expert buys applesauce in individual serving packages what hope is there.
Right!? I was hoping she was going to say "I buy my apple sauce in the largest glass container I can find because it's more efficient than smaller plastic containers" I guess, though, that we all contribute in our own way and that's the point of the piece. There are no heroes.
@@seth_alapod It's the same issue as almost every other dire situation facing the planet. Externalities. Corporations making profits without having to calculate or pay for any of the costs to society. If petroleum companies had to pay the cost of global warming gas would probably cost 20x what it does and wouldn't be profitable vs green alternatives. If farmers had to pay the costs of the side effects they create when they clear cut the rainforests they'd have the most expensive produce on earth and wouldn't be profitable. Finally, if plastic producers had to pay the costs of pollution they create they'd probably find that recyclable alternatives are their only way of turning a profit. By letting these companies run rampant unregulated we are subsidizing their exitance. People claim that regulation is anti free market but it's the opposite. A truly capitalist system would consider all incurred costs.
The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex ua-cam.com/video/oMozyspFuBM/v-deo.html numbers still underestimated....
Ironic and just blind naivety that even reusing them once or twice more will make any difference
One of the best and accurate explanation of the true problem we face. Keep it up NPR!
can someone explain why I have a garbage and recycling bin I put out on the street but they both go into the same truck at the same time only difference is I'm only allowed to put both bins out every other week
The irony of the Subway cup sitting on that ladies desk is mind boggling.
Not to mention the plastic water bottle and stack of disposable cups!
You have to ask yourself though, when did she get it? Maybe that cup is a month old and she just keeps refilling it. Hard to say. Cant defend the stack of paper cups though
Perhaps she uses them as demonstration/teaching aids
Not to mention subway is disgusting, wasn’t there plastic in the bread at one point too?
A Subway mug doesn’t make her wrong though.
I like that note on that lady's desk:
*refuse*
reuse
recycle
Lol
"refuse, reduce, reuse."
Excellent video! I had long had an inkling that recycling was not the cure-all it's made out to be. But I didn't realize that at this point the process of actually *re*-*cycling* plastics and paper has in effect just come screeching to a halt.
As a side note: I wonder whether the title is giving the wrong idea, because it's not clear that the subject is recycling as a society-wide policy/system, rather than recycling as an individual behavior. The video title almost sounds like an invitation to consumers to feel more comfortable throwing all their junk directly in the trash.
My mom neighbourhood have the newly built recycling "points" but they are always locked and zero 'refuse, reduce, reuse' education from government ended up making these points look like garbage bins. And I still get stinky eyes for using my reusable bag when I go shopping
*The condensed version:* Manufacturers trick consumers into thinking it's okay to buy and throw away continuously without any thought because it makes the manufacturers rich. Recycling only works when it is profitable. Plastics and some paper products aren't profitable enough to warrant recycling and a lot of times just end up being sent to storage or landfill facilities.
*What you can do:*
#1 consume less
#2 buy things that come in minimal or no packaging
#3 reuse or upcycle 'disposable' items (a creative way to make use of discarded paper like junk mail is to shred it and use it as cat litter, for example)
#4 buy items that WILL be recycled and that come in packaging that WILL be recycled. Steel (like Campbell's soup cans), for example, is so profitable that it is almost always recycled. Aluminum (e.g. Coke cans) is recycled at a high rate as well. Glass is more complex because sometimes the cost of transport (due to the weight of glass) makes it less profitable to recycle and it ends up being landfilled instead. (My municipality has a glass cullet processor within the city limits so 100% of glass waste is recycled. That isn't always the case, check with your municipality to be sure they actually recycle glass.)
#5 when putting things in the recycle bin, make sure it is recyclable and that it has been properly cleaned and dried.
Pretty messed up that something corporations started for profit becomes something consumers should feel guilty about when their options are 1. Don't buy products in plastic containers that have no real alternatives and 2. Keep the trash in your house and try to make use of it.
“Recycling has enabled some of the worst behavior I’ve ever seen.” Absolutely, despite its promises, recycling gives consumers a false sense of hope, which is instilled by larger manufacturers who want to shift this issue from the producer side to consumer side. This video discusses the responsibility of the consumer, but what about the responsibility of producers?
Extended Producer Responsibility is a policy that shifts the responsibility of packaging materials back to producers, meaning that manufactures must actively re-consider and take “a significant portion of responsibility for” the impact of the types of materials they use, their production cycle and the disposal of the material after consumption. It has already been implemented in some European countries like Germany, which has decreased excessive packaging and encouraged better disposal systems. However, these systems also entail higher costs of products for consumers and an additional enforcement cost, though I’m not sure how these costs counteract. Even with EPR isn’t implemented, consumers are still paying for waste disposal via municipal trash recycling centers in the US (your tax money goes to pay for city waste collection unless you privately purchase services from another waste processor, in which case you’re still paying for disposal).
The bottom line is that both consumers and producers need to take responsibility for the environmental impacts, but at this point, the producers are lagging, so they need to pick up the pace and take more responsibility. Perhaps we should consider EPR more seriously. At the end of the day, it’s very hard to expect all consumers to constantly fret about how to reuse that 1 single plastic applesauce container, when industrial producers are continually pumping out tons of plastic. Not to mention how many low income households might rely on plastic packaged goods which are often cheaper, so a discussion of access to “sustainable” products is also key.
Same false sense of hope from California plastic bag ban. We now throw a way bags that are 16 times thicker.
I would like to know which things to put into the recycling. I was told numbers 1-6 but I'm not sure that was correct.
It's usually state on your city's website.
Going to the grocery store makes me nauseous because practically everything is packaged in plastic. Who else is sick to death of companies packaging everything in plastic?
As opposed to what, cotton that uses up way more energy and land to produce? Paper we need to keep cutting down? What we need is new plastics that last exactly a month then disappear into harmless gases.
@@Keithustusi disagree. We need to completely redesign our supply chain so that all of this packaging is rendered unnecessary in the first place. We need to do much more to promote eating locally grown food that doesn't need all the shipping and packaging, rather than having what we eat be shipped to us from all over the country to our grocery stores. More bamboo- or hemp-based paper packaging could help a lot too, since both of those can be sustainably farmed.
It is going to be VERY difficult to convince manufacturers to end their practice of packaging their products which are smaller than a breadbox in 'architectural' packaging built from clear, rigid, heavy, and therefore SHARP(!) plastic. Why would it be that they'd be reluctant to redesign packaging which, at the present time, threatens to badly cut a consumer's hand as she/he TRIES to open it? The answer, in my opinion, is pretty simple: these elaborate, wasteful and even dangerous containers play the #1 role in LOSS PREVENTION. Put more simply, these containers are meant to thwart shoplifters. So, get the expensive designers on the horn! It's time to rethink the problem...again.
@@kriskeilman8124 Which is more important? Companies being able to grow their profits *right* now, or preventing global ecological collapse? I don't give a *fuck* that it's gonna be hard to get these companies to do what we need them to in order to not kill the planet. We have to *make* them do it through legislation - but in order to do that we need politicians who actually believe in green new deal-type policy.
@@thacrypt223 You're right, they're not. That's why we need to put ordinary, working people at the helm of our government instead of geriatric millionaires who only get involved so they can be bought out by the highest bidder.
Dang, this is powerful. Never considered that ‘recycling’ isn’t the silver bullet it’s made out to be. I already tried to reduce and reuse, but I’ll surely be trying a lot harder now. Good work NPR!
in small countries it is, like mine, portugal ,even some big ones, like sweeden or norway, especialy when the governament put introductions in laws that makes it mandatory for them to use recicled products before importing more plastic, paper, etc.. but asking that over corrupt potiticians in america it might be to much to ask for.
being honest the only solution i can think of in the situation you are in america is just starting to use more products that are paper based or glass based and get away from the plastic in order to drop profits on plastic, markets demands industry must comply, simple as that.
I think there’s a European vs US thing here because I don’t recognise the issue in the UK either. Or at least it’s not a big of a problem.
Burn all the garbage like japan does for energy. Problem f*cking solved!
@@whynot217 we have a sewer problem in every city in europe, especialy you guys there in london but not garbage, ill give you that XD
Would moving back to glass be viable for things such as milk, water, soda, etc
this is really awakening and enlightening. I completely changed my mind about disposability and recycling now. It is always easier said than done.
I have started filling those high tech ziplock bags with torn cardboard and shredded paper to create insulating cells. I am using these cells to insulate my metal garage. I have reused 5 years of stuff that would have gone to the landfill and have only insulated 5 percent of my garage. I think the key for trash to be useful is to clean it while washing the dishes. No one wants to clean someone else's trash.
Fascinating. Are the plastic bags reused? Hopefully whoever owns the house next won't promptly throw it all away. Is there a way to do this without the plastic bags?
@@benvoliothefirst yes the bags come from quinoa, dog treats, brown sugar, etc. I use them, because they are very durable, when not exposed to uv. They encapsulate the cellulose, so even if the wall is exposed to moisture, the actual insulating material will stay dry. And frankly, since covid and the inability to refill containers, I have alot of material that has no business in the landfills.
@@protyusgames4741 That's cool as heck!
This sounds like it would end up infested with rodents or a potential fire hazzard.
@@cupricthehorse2796 the bags, card and paper are all clean, prior to stuffing bags. The outer wall is metal and the inner is sheetrock. Can't really see rodents being more of and issue, and I'll take my chances with the fire. We'll see, not saying it is the greatest, but a second life is better than the landfill on the initial toss. I have wrestled with both of your concerns.
I’m one of the younger people in a 55-up condominium complex. Recycling means putting things in bins in a rectangle surrounded by shrubbery. No plastic bags are to be put in the bins - but they are, empty, or full of mixed recycling. Lots of wishcycling as well. Unwashed empty-ish jars of peanut butter...
This has pissed me off in the last 10 years of living in shared houses and flats. Some people don't even take grape stalks out of the packaging before throwing them in! 🤢
My in-laws actively ridicule me when they see me washing out recycling. "That's clean enough. It doesn't need to be washed out. You're just wasting water" etc. At home, I'll typically throw a peanut butter jar in the dishwasher before recycling it, and those aluminum take-out trays that catch food in all the little crevices ALWAYS go through the dishwasher, first (at home. I'm not actually sure even my own parents go quite that far, though Mom's the one I picked the idea up from). I'll tell ya, though: those clear plastic lids that come on those aluminum trays do NOT like the drying cycle. :)
@@c182SkylaneRG I used to run the peanut butter jar through the washer too! Now I make my own peanut butter in the blender (using shelled peanuts from Costco) and store it in a glass container in the fridge. I love peanut butter and take a PB&J sandwich to work every day 🥜😁
Btw I started making my own peanut butter when I saw on the label of some “natural” peanut butter that it contained 90% peanuts. I figured I could do better than that and haven’t looked back. 😎
@@radish6691 I had PB&J for lunch every single day for my entire schooling career (17 years) and continued to eat it at work thereafter, just because it was super easy to store the ingredients in my desk and slap one together. :) I've been on a small hiatus since last April (start of work-from-home), just because I have easier access to a stove (and in later laziness, leftovers :) ).
As for purchased Peanut Butter, I really like Teddy, though barring that, I'll sometimes settle for Smuckers Natural. Teddy is just peanuts. 100%. (At least, per the ingredients label). Smuckers can't help themselves but add a little salt. I also appreciate the glass jars with steel lids featured in both brands, and my jam always comes in a glass jar as well (usually with a steel lid on that, too). Now I'm just left dealing with the plastic bag that stores the bread...
I also have two plastic peanut butter jars that might be 15-20 years old now. :) They're "breakfast jars" for dry cereal (milk goes in a separate cup with a sippy-lid so the cereal doesn't get soggy), and are an EXCELLENT way of having breakfast in the car. :D The unfortunate part of reusing these things, though, is that eventually you wind up with more of them than you could ever reuse...
My old building had 12 different bins for everything you can think of but I would still find whole chickens in plastic containers sitting on top of the cardboard bin. Someone once dumped half a dozen used oil drums beside the "general" area and it cost thousands to get rid of.
In my country our Ice-cream comes in plastic containers. I like them. And use them for everything. They are food grade so any food you store in them will not taste like the plastic container. The plastic containers sold in plastics shops are not really made for long term food storage and can be very expensive. Cheaper to buy the ice-cream and enjoy the ice-cream and you have a dish that lasts and lasts. I use them to keep weavels out of my pastas. I use the dishes to keep small items in so as not to have a mess in my cupboards. Other items I reuse, are the KFC dishes for the Mash or coldslaw.
Glass jars for mayonase or peanutbutter, etc. I don't like them in plastic anyway, as they don't store well. And in many cases the tins some things come in rust very quickly these days, so I stick to glass if available. Even if it costs a little more. Any glass containers I don't use, get given to a friend who does painting of signs for a living so they can use them to mix thier paints. or are given to someone, that use the jars to put foods they have made for selling to others.