Thanks for watching! I agree, it's soul crushing. Sadly, big corporations have the capacity to manipulate institutions through the tactics shared in this video, even if some NGOs have tried to counteract. There should be laws to limit their capacity to lobby.
There are ways for us citizens to counteract this BS. However, there is no good way for us to compete with full-time fully funded lobbying firms. The best proxy is to donate to NGOs that do the counter lobbying for us... they will always be small. And for the truly important stuff we need to go on the streets, but that is a tradeoff where one really needs to "pick your battles", or otherwise you will demonstrate every day of the year.
That's the issue. We are talking about large global companies that can easily invest millions in lobbying and employ smart, competent people. It's hard to compete with that. We need NGOs doing "good lobbying". But there will always be a need for social mobilization. So that they know that these shady moves don't go unnoticed @@MrRecorder1
That's a hard one. It's also easy to replace McDonald's with new large companies that end up doing the same. That being said, I'm not familiar with the situation in Russia in that regard.
Beyond that (even though in some cases it's definitely true), corporate lobbies have a lot of visibility and access to politicians, and politicians cannot have technical knowledge about all topics. So we also need measures to limit their capacity to access politicians and manipulate them. And as somebody else said, support organisations that do "good lobbying" to counteract.
@@PigeonsSoapbox good lobbying leads to bad lobbying. Get rid of the money outright. It’s shouldn’t be the side that pays the most gets their way it should be the side that votes the most. Only then do we know the legislation produced is a representation of the wider population’s beliefs. Believe me the poor man isn’t lobbying and the rich aren’t doing it for him.
Tin foil is recyclable, better than plastic for instance. However, if it's very contaminated with food residue, it cannot be recycled, and it can even disrupt the process. It's also quite energy intensive. The best option is always waste prevention and re-usable packaging.
@@PigeonsSoapbox I have thought about this, but I could be wrong. I looked at the glass bottle system from my country England. Milk used to come in glass bottles. It needed dedicated trucks travelling round to collect them. It then required water and chemicals to sterilise and clean the bottles. That's a lot of chemical waste and energy needed for heating and cleaning them. Then the bottles needed replacing every month if used daily (25-30 use times they had to be thrown away). This is glass - the hardest and strongest material we have available. And it requires massive amounts of energy to collect, process, clean, sterilise use again. If we picked a weaker material, such as plastic or cardboard, how many uses would we get from each container? Since a lot more material is used in these new containers, how many uses would we get and how much more energy would be used in the distribution and cleaning systems? Would many people just throw them away so end up using a lot more material/plastic? How would we know that our food wasn't then covered in more micro plastics? Would it create a bigger problem? Paper, foil and cardboard seem a lot easier and cleaner to me (as a consumer). What exactly were people saying would be the better option? What would reusable containers look like?
Hi Marcus - very interesting comment! Obviously, re-usable packaging has an environmental impact. All human activities have an impact. The issue is to choose those that have the lowest impact possible. And the majority of studies point to re-usable packaging as the best option (after prevention, of course). Let's see an example. As you say, a re-usable glass bottle system for milk will have some impacts. However, the most common option today (carton packages, mostly Tetra Brik) has quite a negative impact, as the cartons are made from multiple energy-intensive materials (paperboard, plastic, and aluminum), which makes recycling very difficult or impossible. Of course, you need well-designed re-usable packaging systems, e.g. making it a local system to avoid unnecessary travel and promoting standarisation to facilitate cleaning and logistics. In some cases you will need single-use packaging, e.g. paper or tin foil as you say, but when possible, the ideal is to prevent waste. If you are curious about the impacts & practicalities of re-usable packaging systems, I recommend the two following reports: zerowasteeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/zwe_reloop_report_reusable-vs-single-use-packaging-a-review-of-environmental-impact_en.pdf.pdf_v2.pdf and zerowasteeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-SB-ZWE-The-economics-of-reuse-systems.pdf
@@PigeonsSoapbox interesting. The second one you gave said that it will take a while It said For the first packaging category, takeaway food containers, the study finds that reusable containers are more profitable for users, and return on investment can be reached by system providers between years 3 and 4. I may have misunderstood, because that sounds like once you factor in all the extra facilities, energy, workers, vehicles, chemicals, lost packaging and costs for everything else it would take years before one of these packages would pay for itself. I don't think the packaging would last so many years On the other hand, if they are saying it would be financially beneficial for large corporations to set up these huge chemical/carbon emitting circular cycles, then surely they would be happy to do so if it truly meant they can do it cheaper than using paper, foil or cardboard I think it seems strange to me that anyone would suggest that we should replace paper and cardboard with plastic containers that needs lot and lots of work to clean and maintain and requires massive amounts of energy and chemicals and water 🌊💦 is this truly supposed to help? I feel like any solution is probably worse than the problem
As I understand it is not about the packages per se paying for themselves, but the overall investment in infrastructure. The issue about whether it will be financially beneficial for large corporations is the main question mark. It depends on the way they handle the transition, but also policies and taxes. For instance, re-usable packaging is more labour-intensive, but less environmentally damaging. If you change taxes, reducing labour taxes, and increasing taxes on resources consumption & waste generation, you are definitely creating the right incentives. And yes, I really believe re-usable packaging will help. With the same logic, we should use disposable paper and cardboard in restaurants, instead of re-usable glasses, plates, cutlery. Same at home. Yes, it will require investment, and yes, of course re-usable packaging has some impacts - but less than single use. Re-usable packaging requires energy, chemicals and water as you say, but single use packaging requries all that (e.g. water to grow trees, energy and chemicals to produce the packaging) PLUS resource consumption and waste generation. Thanks for the interesting insights!
Thanks so much for watching!
If you enjoyed the video, please consider subscribing. Is the easiest way you can help me grow the channel 😌
Great video! I hope that voices such as yours get as much attention from as many people possible. Kudos to you
Thanks so much! We need more videos and articles focusing on these topics. Lobbying does not receive enough attention.
I want to see more investigation like this!
Haha thank you! More videos soon 🙂
A timely bit of fine journalism. McDonald's should be called out as much as possible.
I agree. Not many people know about it. And then McDonald's will speak about "their commitment to sustainability".
They make good ice cream 😅🍦
They make good ice cream 😅🍦
Thank you for this video. It's absolutely soul crushing to see how the EU can't see through the b*lls*it
Thanks for watching! I agree, it's soul crushing. Sadly, big corporations have the capacity to manipulate institutions through the tactics shared in this video, even if some NGOs have tried to counteract. There should be laws to limit their capacity to lobby.
There are ways for us citizens to counteract this BS. However, there is no good way for us to compete with full-time fully funded lobbying firms. The best proxy is to donate to NGOs that do the counter lobbying for us... they will always be small. And for the truly important stuff we need to go on the streets, but that is a tradeoff where one really needs to "pick your battles", or otherwise you will demonstrate every day of the year.
That's the issue. We are talking about large global companies that can easily invest millions in lobbying and employ smart, competent people. It's hard to compete with that. We need NGOs doing "good lobbying". But there will always be a need for social mobilization. So that they know that these shady moves don't go unnoticed @@MrRecorder1
pristine content. Seeing these convinces me that it is good Mac left Russia because smaller companies = less political influence of said companies.
That's a hard one. It's also easy to replace McDonald's with new large companies that end up doing the same. That being said, I'm not familiar with the situation in Russia in that regard.
Great research, i hope it reaches many people soon
Thanks for watching! I wish the media covered these issues more often.
The thumbnail is crazy
Haha crazy good or crazy bad? I hope you enjoyed the video!
You are so underrated
Haha I'm just getting started! Thanks for your kind comment. Subscribe for more similar videos 😉
That's why I go to Burger King instead! Just kidding - really good video. You've earned another subscriber.
I will have to do some research about what Burger King is up to, to compensate!
Thanks so much for the kind comment, it means a lot :)
Great video showing the problems in our society! We really need to wake up from all the bs that coperations are doing in our world :(
Thanks man! Yes, it's so much bullshit that it's hard to catch up. And the strategies are constantly evolving.
The average person hates lobbying, the only reason it’s there is because politicians want money and corporations want money. Fight the system.
Beyond that (even though in some cases it's definitely true), corporate lobbies have a lot of visibility and access to politicians, and politicians cannot have technical knowledge about all topics. So we also need measures to limit their capacity to access politicians and manipulate them. And as somebody else said, support organisations that do "good lobbying" to counteract.
@@PigeonsSoapbox good lobbying leads to bad lobbying. Get rid of the money outright. It’s shouldn’t be the side that pays the most gets their way it should be the side that votes the most. Only then do we know the legislation produced is a representation of the wider population’s beliefs. Believe me the poor man isn’t lobbying and the rich aren’t doing it for him.
Could they just wrap it in tin foil? Thats recyclable?
Tin foil is recyclable, better than plastic for instance. However, if it's very contaminated with food residue, it cannot be recycled, and it can even disrupt the process. It's also quite energy intensive. The best option is always waste prevention and re-usable packaging.
@@PigeonsSoapbox I have thought about this, but I could be wrong. I looked at the glass bottle system from my country England. Milk used to come in glass bottles. It needed dedicated trucks travelling round to collect them. It then required water and chemicals to sterilise and clean the bottles. That's a lot of chemical waste and energy needed for heating and cleaning them. Then the bottles needed replacing every month if used daily (25-30 use times they had to be thrown away).
This is glass - the hardest and strongest material we have available. And it requires massive amounts of energy to collect, process, clean, sterilise use again. If we picked a weaker material, such as plastic or cardboard, how many uses would we get from each container? Since a lot more material is used in these new containers, how many uses would we get and how much more energy would be used in the distribution and cleaning systems? Would many people just throw them away so end up using a lot more material/plastic? How would we know that our food wasn't then covered in more micro plastics? Would it create a bigger problem?
Paper, foil and cardboard seem a lot easier and cleaner to me (as a consumer). What exactly were people saying would be the better option? What would reusable containers look like?
Hi Marcus - very interesting comment!
Obviously, re-usable packaging has an environmental impact. All human activities have an impact. The issue is to choose those that have the lowest impact possible. And the majority of studies point to re-usable packaging as the best option (after prevention, of course).
Let's see an example. As you say, a re-usable glass bottle system for milk will have some impacts. However, the most common option today (carton packages, mostly Tetra Brik) has quite a negative impact, as the cartons are made from multiple energy-intensive materials (paperboard, plastic, and aluminum), which makes recycling very difficult or impossible.
Of course, you need well-designed re-usable packaging systems, e.g. making it a local system to avoid unnecessary travel and promoting standarisation to facilitate cleaning and logistics. In some cases you will need single-use packaging, e.g. paper or tin foil as you say, but when possible, the ideal is to prevent waste.
If you are curious about the impacts & practicalities of re-usable packaging systems, I recommend the two following reports: zerowasteeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/zwe_reloop_report_reusable-vs-single-use-packaging-a-review-of-environmental-impact_en.pdf.pdf_v2.pdf and zerowasteeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-SB-ZWE-The-economics-of-reuse-systems.pdf
@@PigeonsSoapbox interesting. The second one you gave said that it will take a while
It said For the first packaging category, takeaway food containers, the study finds that reusable containers are
more profitable for users, and return on investment can be reached by system providers between
years 3 and 4.
I may have misunderstood, because that sounds like once you factor in all the extra facilities, energy, workers, vehicles, chemicals, lost packaging and costs for everything else it would take years before one of these packages would pay for itself. I don't think the packaging would last so many years
On the other hand, if they are saying it would be financially beneficial for large corporations to set up these huge chemical/carbon emitting circular cycles, then surely they would be happy to do so if it truly meant they can do it cheaper than using paper, foil or cardboard
I think it seems strange to me that anyone would suggest that we should replace paper and cardboard with plastic containers that needs lot and lots of work to clean and maintain and requires massive amounts of energy and chemicals and water 🌊💦 is this truly supposed to help?
I feel like any solution is probably worse than the problem
As I understand it is not about the packages per se paying for themselves, but the overall investment in infrastructure. The issue about whether it will be financially beneficial for large corporations is the main question mark. It depends on the way they handle the transition, but also policies and taxes. For instance, re-usable packaging is more labour-intensive, but less environmentally damaging. If you change taxes, reducing labour taxes, and increasing taxes on resources consumption & waste generation, you are definitely creating the right incentives.
And yes, I really believe re-usable packaging will help. With the same logic, we should use disposable paper and cardboard in restaurants, instead of re-usable glasses, plates, cutlery. Same at home. Yes, it will require investment, and yes, of course re-usable packaging has some impacts - but less than single use. Re-usable packaging requires energy, chemicals and water as you say, but single use packaging requries all that (e.g. water to grow trees, energy and chemicals to produce the packaging) PLUS resource consumption and waste generation.
Thanks for the interesting insights!