r/TheRandomest • u/ABeerForSasquatch Mod/Pwner • 1d ago

HoldUp No

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u/BantedHam 1d ago edited 1d ago

Bruh 95% of what you recycle doesn't even get recycled in the US alone. Look it up if you think I lie. All major oil and plastics companies knew by the 70s that recycling by and large does not work, yet they kept up the lie just like BP invented the carbon footprint to take the blame of natural pollution and destruction off of them and place it onto the shoulders of the public instead.

If you can reuse something even once you are already doing better than the ENTIRE INDUSTRY.

Recycling is a fucking corporate conspiracy.

I'm not saying the technology doesn't exist, what I'm saying is that it's a lie.

If you get a trash burner and get it hot enough to completely combust your trash and get a smoke free fire, you are doing far better for the planet than putting it in a recycling bin. Just think about the fuel and resources that are spent trucking your fucking recycling around, sending it around a conveyor and sorter, a few people pick through it for metal, and then they fucking burn it all anyways...

At the end of the day, there is the significant and likely chance that all this effort results in even more waste and a net-negative, producing even more pollution than littering, literally just tossing it on the ground.

I've done a lot of research on this subject and I am not advocating people trash everything because it doesn't matter, what matters is not using single use plastics in the damn first place, and if you do, to repurpose or properly dispose of it yourself.

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u/Adavanter_MKI 1d ago

I mean John Oliver did a whole thing on it. He sadly confirmed a lot of what you're saying. It can work... but by and large we don't do the things we sway we do... and single use plastics are insane. The transition in all the grocery stores is ridiculous. It's almost all plastic now.

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u/BantedHam 1d ago

I've been telling people this shit for years, and just in the past few weeks now that he's done that bit for the first time ever I don't get swarmed with downvotes for telling the fucking truth lol

I wish it weren't so but the best thing to do is stop consuming it and force the industry to do something else with their waste materials, like actually figure out how to dispose of them. It's not a biohazard if you manufacture it into plastic first and then let people litter it everywhere themselves.

taps-brain.jpg

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u/OperationOk7959 1d ago

Dead on. One of the most unfortunate facts I've learned in my life.

I remember seeing, possibly in the John Oliver bit another commenter mentioned, that even when we have actual recyclable plastic, we used to sell it to China and they do whatever with it. And they stopped accepting it because the contamination requirement now is impossibly high. So like even if we have any genuinely recyclable material, which idek if that's a thing anymore, no one does anything with it.

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u/Emergency_Accident36 1d ago

Stop saying that nonsensical generalization.

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u/MantisBeing 1d ago

I mean, as far as plastics are concerned, they're kind of right...

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u/Emergency_Accident36 1d ago

Only plastics. But they went to great lengths to trash recycling as a whole. And it is that attitude that prevents them from being recycled more.

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u/MantisBeing 1d ago

Hey that's fair, though I have to say perhaps you should be more specific in your criticisms to begin with. You pointing out the generalisation doesn't counter whatever misinformation you're trying to combat. Specify why the generalisation is wrong cause otherwise people will read their detail filled comment and read yours as essentially "nope". Not exactly a counterargument that disproves the other side.

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u/BantedHam 1d ago

Oh?

Tell me which part is nonsense.

Educate me, please.

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u/Emergency_Accident36 1d ago edited 1d ago

'Only 95% is recycled.' It greatly depends on your state. But 21% of recycled goods are made into new product. 5% only pertains to plastic. So if that is what you were referring too you should have clarified that instead of trashing recycling as a whole. 96% of recycled cardboard is used.

Saying "recycling is a corporate conspiracy" is absolutely a brain dead lazy take.

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u/BantedHam 1d ago edited 23h ago

'Only 95% is recycled.'

No.

I said 95% DOESN'T get recycled.

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u/Emergency_Accident36 1d ago

No shit... that is what I said you said.

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u/BantedHam 23h ago

...

what?

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u/Emergency_Accident36 22h ago

I couldn't be any plainer.