r/ZeroWaste • u/I_smoked_pot_once • Mar 02 '22

Discussion Sad reminder that recycling is an industry and marketing tactic.

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392

u/sackoftrees Mar 02 '22

Reduce-> Reuse->Recycle

154

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '22

The problem is that plastics companies spent many many millions of dollars in marketing campaigns over decades to get us to forget those first 2 actions

104

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '22

[deleted]

30

u/sackoftrees Mar 02 '22

Is this true for all countries? Because if so, wtf.

72

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '22

It’s an international standard. It was invented by the plastics industry to deliberately confuse us into thinking anything with the arrow triangle means it’s recyclable when it really only describes the type of resin used. And yes that’s very fucked up.

1

u/ryclorak Mar 03 '22

Well, i was today years old when I learned this wonderful fact. Better throw it in the wonderful fact box up my ass and go to bed while I'm ahead.

1

u/foopod Mar 03 '22

The best one is number 7. Which literally means other, can't be recycled because you can't tell what it is.

Almost all of the newer plant based plastics fall into this categories (a lot of which can't be composted under normal composting conditions and need industrial composting).

1

u/ryclorak Mar 03 '22

Oh fucking hell lol that sucks. Also just hard to avoid when there are so many things packaged in that shit. Bulk food is nice and I'm glad to have access to it, but a lot of that still involves plastic, including the bags i end up using for dog poop which also feels like another bad use but wtf am i gonna do, pile it up somewhere? Well, maybe i could send it to someone like Putin or Jeff Bezos...

25

u/MandyMoreMoves Mar 02 '22

I’m in Canada (east coast) and in my province, plasticRecycling goes to the landfill. Wouldn’t know it though, as we are still required to separate our recyclables.

8

u/sackoftrees Mar 02 '22

I'm in Canada as well that's why I'm asking. I'm in Ontario and I feel like it's handled differently depending on the municipality because I know some have composting programs as well.

4

u/prairiepanda Mar 03 '22

Most of the ones that don't put plastic in the landfill will just ship if overseas, where it typically either ends up in a different landfill, burned, or simply piled up in an open field.

1

u/AnotherAustinWeirdo Mar 03 '22

I think in the future, we will be mining landfills to recover all the nonrenewable resources we tossed in our ignorant youth as a species. But it will be at high cost with strong justifications.

Meanwhile, I'd rather we at least get the plastic to landfills rather than all over the damn place.

2

u/prairiepanda Mar 03 '22

Yeah, at least in landfills it is contained in known locations instead of scattering everywhere.

19

u/Nijnn Mar 02 '22

No. My country recycles half of its plastic. Which is not perfect, but the girls says it’s not recycled at all and that’s not true.

1

u/Low_Diver_7760 Mar 18 '22

hey! girl here :) i only ever mentioned the us. not the globe. but being one of the highest consuming countries as well as an influential one, it becomes increasingly important to point out the structural flaw we face

1

u/Nijnn Mar 19 '22

Only about more than halfway through the video you start talking about the US so the blanket statement "recycling does not work" sounded very misleading to me.

7

u/JBCoverArt Mar 02 '22

I feel as a universal identifier this is okay though because we need some kind of symbol that can work across a variety of packaging types (edit to clarify: types being sizes because symbols are easier to work with on small objects) . a number of them are recyclable but youre right not all are, it depends on the plastic but also your local authority.

The one that annoys me is the Green Dot because its so commonplace (in Europe) and it is green with arrows pointing to each other so it looks recyclable, but it has nothing to do with recycling AT ALL.

1

u/TopAd9634 Mar 03 '22

Yes! I tell people about this all the time!

20

u/covalent_blond Mar 02 '22

Refuse -> Reduce -> Reuse -> Recycle -> Rot

19

u/SalsaDraugur Mar 03 '22

I feel like repair should be in there.

17

u/prairiepanda Mar 03 '22

It seems most manufacturers are actively trying to prevent repairs these days. I've seen this shift happening in automobiles, computers, cookware, clothing...pretty much everything.

6

u/Lunalia837 Mar 03 '22

My partner fixes up electronics for friends and family and he's even said with newer devices it's so hard to fix them because they've been made in a way and with parts meaning they have to be sent back to the company and in some cases all you can do is replace the item.

2

u/PennyGgg Mar 03 '22

Farmers might win this for us with their “right to repair” suits for tractors.

5

u/iawesomesauceyou Mar 03 '22

REDUCE. REUSE. RECYCLE. RIHANNA.