The Story of Plastic: Where Your Recycled Plastic Ends Up

The mass production of single-use plastic has put us in the biggest recycling crisis in history.
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[@joadhenry]

plastics manufacturers need to be sued into the stone age

[@rainbowbgood]

Yes, you can sue for making fasle claims! Products they say are recylable which are NOT!! Ruining the solution spreading hopelessness.

[@SulcataGrove]

Thank you - more people need to be aware. Many use “it can be recycled” as an excuse for buying single use plastic. I love that you shared about how governments pressured collectors to accept more plastics that can’t/aren’t being recycled. None of the plastic, paper, or cardboard put into our recycle bins in our area are being recycled in the USA - confirmed by our distribution center.

[@BethGrantDeRoos]

Pay ATTENTION where at the 0.12 second mark it states 'it STARTS when the oil and gas leave the oil head' and the show an OIL pump. In 2011 I read Plastic: A Toxic Love Story by Susan Freinkel where she speaks of the millions of barrels of oil that it takes to make plastic goods. According to the plastics manufacturing industry (2006) , it takes around 3.4 megajoules of energy to make a typical one-liter plastic bottle, cap, and packaging. Making enough plastic to bottle 31.2 billion liters of water required more than 106 BILLION megajoules of energy. Because a barrel of oil contains around 6 thousand megajoules, the Pacific Institute estimates that the equivalent of more than 17 MILLION barrels of oil were needed to produce the plastic bottles. Thus that one bottle of water in a plastic bottle is basically 1/3 oil. So it is getting off petroleum products like oil that is key! Beth Terry has a good website and book about her Plastic Free Life. And look in the mirror if you want to see who needs to accept some of the blame! How many things in your home have plastic. Be it the bottle of beverage, food container, disposable diapers, grocery items, personal hygiene items.

[@youtubewatcher1555]

Exactly, plastics directly tie in to climate change, and could be responsible for up to 13% of the carbon budget of 1.5C by 2050. amp.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/15/single-use-plastics-a-serious-climate-change-hazard-study-warns

[@gundimytube]

Just go plastic free for god's sake!!!!😤

[@zbynekcodykolacek]

Recycling is not ultimate solution. Just do not buy it in plastic...

[@paulopereira7069]

True, but need more alternatives. Right now, there aren't many.

[@zbynekcodykolacek]

Maybe, no alternative? Do not buy it.

[@unegawoya1]

I wonder what would happen if we started taking the plastic wrappers/containers off of products and leaving them to the stores selling the product to have to do something with?

[@j_jinxer]

Earth Day!!!! 2K19 #savetheearth #earth

[@tomkelly8827]

Sweden and Japan have the right idea, incinerate low level waste to make heat and electricity and have high quality emission control for the smoke stacks. Incineration is a key to this puzzle, not the only one but a very important one Of course reducing your plastic consumption is the first step though

[@rainbowbgood]

I guess you didn't hear that in Fall 2019 thousands of Chinese were out in the streets protesting another garbage incinerator being built too close to residences. This was in Wuhan actually, where they already have a few garbage incinerators and they have seen what this has done to their air quality and subsequently their health which has been declining in the past few years. Lockdown means no more protests.

[@zbynekcodykolacek]

What TF we have done...!

[@naturescenes-naturemediati8444]

The key is reduce firstly ... first we must break the shackles of consumerism and materialism in our communities but with the hyped of lifestyles and promotion of excess on social media is not teaching the new generations what is truely important

[@naturescenes-naturemediati8444]

So sad I have been a minamilist since 18 years old and will continue throughout my life . Focusing more on experience and reducing , reusing and recycling . Completed many no buy years and only by the basics expect for travel ...

[@lauraw.7008]

How about the costs transferred to Proctor & Gamble? The companies buying and using all these containers should take responsibility. If packagers had to pay, packaging wouldn't be so cheap.

[@keheungan]

how did it end up in a small village in indonesia? are there recycling facilities there?

[@weepingod]

i have half a room of styrofoam 6 months worth of catering deliveries, i dont know what to do with it. as far as i know styrofoams cant be recycled

[@SusanHopkinson]

weepingod stop ordering food like this- you can ask your favourite restaurants to use reusable boxes that can be rinsed and swapped at each delivery. You have to throw styrofoam out, so it ends up in incinerators or the oceans.

[@bluebird1694]

You can melt them down in acetone fingernail polish remover

[@sirdeadlock]

There are recycling services. They're not the public city option, but facilities do exist. Styrofoam is like a grade 6 recyclable, which means the cost of processing it is HEAVY, so many places can't afford it. There's also the matter that the typical styrofoam container is used for food and discarded without being cleaned, but that makes it a further hazard to process.

[@weepingod]

@@bluebird1694 And create Napalm? I like how you think

[@weepingod]

@@sirdeadlock unfortunately i live in a third world country where the locals cut down their own rain forests with glee

[@meganr9280]

Companies that produce plastic should take it back and reuse it. They should be responsible for sanitizing or melting and re-shaping into new containers

[@sirdeadlock]

My grandma used to say we're one technological revolution away from solving our problems with plastic. When it becomes too valuable to throw away, we'll be mining dumps.

[@jcwandemberg8293]

We must address the root cause not the symptoms! The root cause are the perverse subsidies that make recycling economically unviable!

[@etiennekavousi]

The root cause: industries making the plastic are still making money - and they're greedy! Coca Cola sells Coke in plastic bottles in countries where recycling doesn't even exist, and they full well know it but don't care if they're killing the planet. Industries need to stop making plastic. We need to stop buying from these companies.

[@jcwandemberg8293]

@@etiennekavousi Plastic must be heavily taxed so manufacturers may look for other alternatives. The revenue from the taxes collected should subsidize recycling efforts.

[@realitycheck297]

Dumping plastic abroad is not recycling. we are constantly harangued and fined if we do not separate our waste into separate recycling bins but this video is stating that after we send it for recycling it is sent thousands of miles to be dumped in China or Asia. What is the truth. Are our Governments and Councils lying to us?????

[@rainbowbgood]

Meanwhile Oxygen levels (especially in Cities) are dropping like a tonne of bricks. But there's no funding to measure and record those numbers!! And no media concern about it! And since CO2 passed over 400ppm, I've been concerned about health effects of low oxygen in my city and I looked up COPD emergency call numbers and since passing 400ppm for 5 years COPD emergency calls have been increasing yearly exponentially! Why isn't that in the media?? Don't they care that people are dying!!

[@felixottesen9372]

How to cope with this? I think we should go back to the source, which is, dare I say, the fossil fuel companies. Who should be responsible for the pollution caused through the use of fossil fuels, be it non-renewable energy or plastics, and toxic chemicals, and even armaments? The end user, or the most wealthy corporations on the planet, the industries at the source? I think the latter. There needs to be a global response. This is where globalisation could work for the many, and not just for the few.

[@princess7strawberry]

This is definitely scary, and frustrating that average folks in developed areas don't think about the consequences when they are consuming heavily plastic-packaged products. The footage of Surabaya, Indonesia was devastating to watch. Imagine taking a walk in your city or town and seeing piles of garbage lining the streets (in fact, I would really love someone to create simulations of municipal areas with the disposables its citizens creates). But here are a few small steps that everyone can do in their everyday life- 1.) refuse buying products with plastic packaging... or with any packaging at all, if possible 2.) organize a brand audit and contact companies that are responsible for the trash pollution found 3.) for any products that must be bought in plastic, make sure that it is accepted in your local facility and it is CLEAN of any debris (recyclables not processed there or containers contaminated with food will not be taken and thus thrown out, negating the efforts to recycle)

[@lauraw.7008]

1. stop excess packaging 2. put a tax on plastic? We can do a better job.

[@ExLibris-Alys]

😦

[@geovanytrejos9952]

I think that individual contributions are not enough... I hope I am wrong too.

[@nr4393]

contribution to what? the pollution or the solution? we all worked hard and determinedly to get ourselves into this mess, we can do the same to get ourselves out of it. Stop recycling, and start refusing and reusing.

[@geovanytrejos9952]

@@nr4393 And do you believe that it is possible? (referring to "... get ourselves out of it."

[@nr4393]

@@geovanytrejos9952 if we don't try, we'll never know I guess? But like you said already, just me trying to reduce my waste, won't be enough, but it is a good place to start. I'm proving myself and the people around me that we don't need all this stuff we are pretty much forced to buy all the time (who the hell needs water in plastic bottles in cities with perfectly clean tap water??). The responsibility lies on the manufacturers and the governments, there's no doubt about it. But as long as we all literally buy their shit, we won't see much improvement. So while trying to reduce your own waste, the individual also needs to actively push the decision makers into building us a better future. And all of us need to start caring more about clean air and water rather than economic growth which less than 1% of the world's population is benefiting from anyway. You can't go vegan and still buy fast fashion. I mean, of course you can, but it only shows unwillingness to really change one's perspective on this twisted lifestyle we have all adopted so quickly without questioning it even once on the way.

[@geovanytrejos9952]

@@nr4393 Thanks for the answer :).

[@youtubewatcher1555]

Don't forget about social/behavioral contagion: for example, you bringing a reusable container and utensils to a party where everyone else is using disposables will probably increase the chance that other people will bring reusables, or even spark conversation about reducing plastics. This is similar to multi-level marketing where if each person marketed to 5 people, it only takes 13 cycles to reach the population of the Earth.

[@caroltillietmo6889]

Reading the labels is not accurate, that is where the product says it is made, when it can actually come from Chine. However, just in general the WORLD needs to become more efficient in dealing with waste!

[@tereseanneteoh2805]

we need governments to seriously ban the shipment of plastic from one country to another it's so unfair D"":

[@cherridenhour9797]

You Ave got to be kidding me.

[@terrikatz4854]

Grow up. Recycling does not exist. The plastic just gets shipped to the other side of the world then dumped in a landfill. Because, there is no demand for recycled plastic.

[@toni4729]

Are you ashamed? I sure am. When are we going to stop manufacturing crap that is sold in plastic packaging? It's not that hard to do. I've stopped buying things that come in plastic containers, I've really had enough of this. My ribish bins only go out once every six months now.

[@freelance_commie]

No ethical consumption under capitalism

[@carlacastiajo6272]

oh. recycling is no the solution

[@toni4729]

I look forward to the day when milk is delivered to people by the small tankar that we can fill ourselves from our own containers. This would be splendid. No waste at all.

[@CountofSerenno]

The only thing that could solve all problems related to exploitation of workers, developing countries, pollution, etc is world wide democratic control of work places including the management of waste. If everything is for profit then money will always be more important than people and the environment. Therefore socialism which democratic centralism such as Marxism-Leninism is the only way. However when a country attempts to adopt socialism the United States forces regime change through political meddling or military invasions and massacres. They do this because if a socialist country runs without any external aggression it will be more efficient and wealthy than a typical capitalist nation making the whole world switch to socialism and with a world wide alliance can invade and destroy the US. Give them a little taste of their own medicine if you will.

[@sirdeadlock]

Trotsky was better than Lenin. He got offed by Lenin and his crony thug Stalin. The trouble with applied socialism is that it has been the slogan lie of tyrants.

[@CountofSerenno]

@@sirdeadlock Didn't Trotsky believe that capitalism should be used until the entire world switched to socialism? And Stalin believed in socialism in one country and then exporting the ideology into other countries?

[@PistonAvatarGuy]

@@sirdeadlock Well said. No economic system, or system of government, is ever successful when people aren't free to choose and to govern their own country.

[@CountofSerenno]

@@PistonAvatarGuy technically socialism is the only system that puts the people in charge. With capitalism the rich corporations will always have dictator like control of us and the planet

[@CountofSerenno]

Marilynn DeSilva Why would the people democratically decide to exploit themselves or the planet? That just doesn’t make any sense. Right now the bourgeoisie control the world and our lives. If the ordinary working people were to democratically run the world with cooperation with environmental scientists among countless others to run society sustainability, fairly, and effectively.

[@lenoretalon9958]

Democrat idea. Washington forced recycling on you.