Benefits of trying to go zero plastic is: you can eat healthier. No highly processed food, sodas and all this industrial shit. It’s mostly fresh fruits, veggies, cereals, and once in a while, a bit of meat straight from the butcher or local market. And ok, you can’t be sure it wasn’t wrapped in plastic until it arrived in your kitchen, but at least, you have less garbage to throw out.
I'm doing my part!
Submitted 8 months ago by balderdash9@lemmy.zip to [deleted]
https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/57dc6a2b-09c4-45ea-af39-0395d1a0d0cf.webp
Comments
tino@lemmy.world 8 months ago
SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Not to mention avoiding plastic leeching.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
This is exactly why I don’t beat myself up over any of this shit… I will do what I can within my own power, but I don’t go out of my way to stop using plastic forks or anything like that.
atticus88th@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It feels pointless until a corporate drone tells you that you are a part of the problem and about a new law designed to punish you for taking “shortcuts” in life. Like I have to pay an additional tax in my area to help salmon streams but a few miles away is an oil refinery that gets tax breaks yet the water surrounding them is devoid of life… somehow I’m a part of the problem and I have to pay for it.
yarr@feddit.nl 8 months ago
Being ecologically friendly is its own reward.
If your neighbor’s house and lawn is cluttered with garbage and rotting food, do you also let your house gather the same?
Or do you wish they did a better job and kept your house clean all the same?
What if you had 95 neighbors all full of garbage and rotted food? Is there any number that would make you do the same?
adidev@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Not quite a compare - you can move house, you can’t move planet. It’s not that I would stop looking after my own garden if my neighbours weren’t looking after theirs. It just feels pointless. Using your analogy, if all surrounding neighbours had rotten rubbish in their garden, no matter what you would do, it would still stink in your garden.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 8 months ago
If you had 95 messy roommates would you not clean the kitchen sink?
yarr@feddit.nl 8 months ago
I hear this argument over and over again: “Why should I bother recycling? China is poisoning the planet.” It’s like reverse-whataboutism. I find it really lazy and a pointless attitude. The argument generalizes to: “Why do anything good when bad exists in the world?”
Cleanliness is its own reward. I can tell you if I lived in stink-town where 100% of everyone else’s house was a festering mess, I would keep mine clean.
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
so what’s the verdict on hot sauce and yogurt
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Seth Meyers just had one of his podcast eps where Ike Barinholtz talked about getting a sunburn and trying to do a gig the same night and because he looked so rough between sets a waitress at the club suggested he use yogurt to cool down his thighs. He ended up smearing it around with his pants down when some random woman walked into his dressing room thinking it was the bathroom.
Story’s toward the end of the clip:
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
this is an epic level comment to find 19 days later bravo
x0x7@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Don’t worry. When he recycles those jets next weekend he’ll separate the plastics from the metals.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 8 months ago
My Air conditioner tells me to conserve energy for the environment, when it gets warm out. Meanwhile the mall behind my house runs the lights and AC 24/7 even when closed
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
I’m kinda to the point where it feels like nothing us normies do will change anything so until billionaires are illegal it’s basically like fuck it.
okmko@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Sounds like the wrong thing is being fucked.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Eating one billionaire would do more for the environment than all the conservation and recycling we do
FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 8 months ago
My nest app tells me the same, while there’s a strip mall of 8 stores with neon bright signs that stay on 24/7 directly across from my apt balcony. I’d have a great view of the mountains in the AC but nah the fuckin tanning salon deserves that juice
squaresinger@lemmy.world 8 months ago
A while ago, when the energy crisis was in full swing, I emailed a corporation that owns a large office building in town, that’s completely covered with a light display (basically tower-scale christmas lights) that they should please turn off that energy waster.
Their response was like “Our lighting is eco-friendly, because once a month we turn it green to show our commitment to green energy, and that offsets all the energy consumption.”
Njos2SQEZtPVRhH@piefed.social 8 months ago
I get the feeling this is somehow also criticizing this particular woman. Someone did a small good thing, while others do bad things on a very large scale. What a naive idiot! Not a very helpful sentiment. One needs to look up for moral guidance, not down.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I feel this is cooked up by energy company’s in the same way that “snowballs in july” was but I’m not sure how.
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
I think it’s more like a response to the way one of these things is given a disproportionate amount of time and attention. We’re all expected to micromanage every aspect of our lives to diminish our comparatively miniscule impact of personal choice while the state and the ruling class just do whatever the fuck they want actively slaughtering the environment for fun.
You know what would help me minimize my carbon footprint a lot? Public transportation. A renewable energy grid. Affordable food created along sustainable and environmentally conscious supply chains. Electronics and clothing that is manufactured with long term use, maintenance, and recyclability in mind.
Those things are all out of my reach to implement. Me properly sorting my recyclables (which i do) is such a minor impact compared with those other things. Any offsetting done by proper recycling is immediately undone the moment i step into a grocery store, having driven there in my car for lack of public transportation, and buy food that was wastefully produced and transported to my grocery store via fossil fuel based energy.
The majority of our time and energy should be going into fighting back against the state and the ruling class who refuse to structure society around environmental impact, not on almost the almost irrelevant impact of individual workers. We can and should promote recycling, but we can hammer home that point when our whole society isn’t top down engineered with total indifference to the environment.
Asswardbackaddict@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think it’s more of a comment on futility than her being native, if you’re looking at what her role is in this meme.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s not the woman that’s being criticized, it’s the people claiming that the ones not doing that bear all the blame for all environmental damage.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 8 months ago
except it reads as if its all useless and dumb
Lucelu2@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Can I have a fucking plastic bendy straw now?
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’d rather have a regular one, no idea why you want a bendy straw that fucks.
tempest@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Honestly I don’t give one shit about the paper straws. I wonder if the people who don’t like them let their drinks sit for hours and chew on the straw till their soggy. Every paper straw I’ve had has lasted the length of time it takes me to drink the drink.
Still banning those things but not fucking everything else in the supermarket that is packaged in plastic is such a massive and stupid waste of everyone’s time and effort. Such an imperceptible inch forward they almost deserve no praise at all.
howrar@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
I wonder if the people who don’t like them let their drinks sit for hours
Yes
and chew on the straw till they’re soggy
No
derpgon@programming.dev 8 months ago
It is always “Look, we are actually trying to help the climate” types of government. Helping to build sustainable shit? Put money towards developing open, essy to implement, and easy to service standards? Nah, we will pay a billion dollars towards some bullshit that will be forgotten in a year and 80% (if not more) of the cash will be pocketed by billionaires (to use towards lobbying either against shit that will lose em money or shit that will make em money) because the contract was overpriced.
Fuck humanity, seriously. I just wish we will get a revolution before we burn to a crisp.
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
It was a surprisingly fast change, to the extent that I wonder if they weren’t planning something along those lines as an industry wide PR stunt or lobbied industry takeover already. Or maybe paper straw machines are just really easy to setup.
It does show that widespread lasting change is possible. Even if it’s just a single step, we won’t get anywhere if we stop taking them.
ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Slightly off topic, but I find it goddamn funny that someone like MrBeast made a bootleg copy of squid game on his YouTube channel, considering the entire point of the programme was to show that billionaires will do whatever evil they please and get away without any single negative consequence. Not that the premise was too subtle, considering that the villains use humans as literal footrests. How someone can be this tone deaf or uncaring is beyond my understanding.
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 8 months ago
the irony is lost in them. but at the same time, reinforces the point of the show
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 8 months ago
He wasn’t allowed to kill them, though, so he’s not quite on that level yet.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Private Jets MUST be outlawed
Mio@feddit.nu 8 months ago
And all the other things they spend billions on. Guess what? Most of it is not good for the environment. It is just that the rich can do a lot of the bad stuff.
What if the super rich had to compensate climate wise with 1:100. They can afford it. Or if they actually have to compensate for all the damage done to create their wealth. Think of all plastic going through Amazon…
weissbinder@feddit.org 8 months ago
Private Jets are not the problem. The top 1% must be outlawed.
buttnugget@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I would say both. Multifaceted approach. If there’s a legitimate use case for private jets, maybe they could be allowed once we’ve transitioned to clean energy.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 8 months ago
we’re all online on a computer. Aren’t we the global 1%?
RagingRobot@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That won’t happen when there are companies that make billions making them. They would for sure put up a fight
nthavoc@lemmy.today 8 months ago
You know what’s also shitty about recycling? The companies that pick that bin in some areas throw it in another bin which gets shipped an “out of country” recycling company to make it someone else’s problem. In the shipping process, that plastic falls off into the ocean making a worse problem now than just throwing it into regular waste management. Also, the process to recycle is more toxic than just throwing it away because the companies use really old processes; like paper for example. I gave up recycling except for metals.
Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Glass is good too AFAIK
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
In the US the majority of recycling isn’t.
PlaidBaron@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yeah this is largely a US problem. Not that some of this doesnt happen in other countries but at least in my part of Canada most of the recycling is sold to in-province companies. A few get exported to the states. A very small amount goes to Europe or Asia.
then_three_more@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Surely it’s fraud. They say they’re going to recycle (presumably charge whoever they charge based on that too) then just dump it.
Philharmonic3@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Welcome to dystopia. Time to choom it up or die trying.
Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 8 months ago
🚨 reduction in single use plastic and reduction in co2 emissions are two SEPARATE goals not one 🚨
Ougie@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Wait till you hear how much pollution the army creates when they decide to mobilize an entire camp for no reason
YaksDC@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
It may have changed now but when I was in the Navy in the late 80s we just tossed all our trash into the ocean twice a day. Everything: paint cans, medical waste, regular trash. It was disgusting
bigfondue@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Wow, I’m starting to think the military might be net negative on this earth.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Navy just dumping jets in the ocean, like fuck it.
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Just the army
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
The thing is just that its not that one woman, but hundreds of millions if not billions of people that follow trash separation rules.
This would actually have a pretty large effect, however sadly the recycling system is broken and often just a complete lie in many places in the world.starman2112@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Recycling does literally nothing, like it’s actually 0% helpful, as long as we’re producing more plastic than ever before every single year. We’re closing in on 500 million tonnes of plastic produced —not total, produced—annually. Every single person can put every single piece of plastic in the recycling bin, and we’ll still have more plastic than existed 50 years ago. There are many things that individual action can accomplish, and this is not one of them. We need legislation for this.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
IIRC plastic recycling is basically bullshit (except maybe PET bottles?) but aluminum is actually effective. Makes you wonder why we don’t use more aluminum packaging in general.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Plastic isnt the only material that you can recycle…
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Isn’t it somewhere like only 1% off the recycling stuff actually getting recycled? The rest goes to some kind of landfill to a poor country that decides to take it. I saw this in some documentary
basxto@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Like it’s been said that differs vastly by location. Afaik here in Germany it works quite okay … and European countries tend to have a higher incineration rate than the US. Burning the trash certainly isn’t the best solution, but at least it converts them into energy instead of just burying it somewhere.
But that aside, I like these “new” cups. It replaces part of the plastic with cardboard. That allows the plastic to be thinner, focusing on sealing it up and the cardboard handle the stability or even light protection. Though it can definitely be that there are some which are still as thick as they were, but that wouldn’t make sense for the producer. Here in Germany the plastic is often see-through and the cardboard printed on both sides. That’s usually used as advertising space, infos for waste disposal, but I’ve even seen it being used for cup noodles to mark the fill level.
Afaik paper is the thing where reycling works best currently, so it should be a win to replace plastic with paper.
The recycling rate increased in 2023. 79.3% of all paper and board consumed in Europe was recycled
match@pawb.social 8 months ago
about 21% of recyclables across the us: recyclingpartnership.org/residential-recycling-re…
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 8 months ago
For plastics, pretty much. The thing about plastic recycling is that it’s more expensive that making new plastic, and the recycled stuff is lower quality and unsuitable for many uses.
Metal.recycling, especially aluminum, makes economic sense and does better.
jaennaet@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
the recycling system is broken and often just a complete lie in many places in the world.
In many places in the world, or mainly the US? I keep seeing this claim repeated but usually any proof is just about the US
Gloomy@mander.xyz 8 months ago
Krudler@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’ve ranted in various places over the years but it’s 100% true in my city in Canada.
Decades ago we built a massive publicly-funded recycling system because the City could actually draw profit from the collection and sale of materials.
But about 15 years ago China stopped buying the waste, and it became a new shell-game of collecting the material but literally unable to do anything with it or sell it, so it any that gets does get sold mostly ends up in the down-stream recycling economy, where the bulk of it ends up being burned. The rest goes into the regular old landfill. Even waste cardboard has no value anymore.
People who separate recycling in our city now, are just pre-sorting it for the waste management company and keeping it out of their regular waste (profit) stream.
We do have our ewaste centers but knowing people that work there, I can say anecdotally I’ve been informed that the metal and rare metal waste is collected and sent for processing in Ontario, the rest of the bits (all the plastic which is 90% of eWaste) goes into the regular waste stream where it’s buried or burned, but never recycled.
Notice how Pepsi and Coke don’t use recycled plastic? If that doesn’t condemn the whole recycling “meme” as a sham, I don’t know what would.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 8 months ago
I think a lot of first world countries like do it (e.g. the UK sends around 60% away), because recycling elsewhere is cheaper than doing it at home.
And it’s cheaper still if you don’t bother to check that it hasn’t just ended up in a landfill in Bangladesh or something.
I think also part of the issue is that plastic can be recycled, but not in the same way as metals or glass. That plastic bottle might get shredded and used in road surfacing (where it will doubtless leak micro plastics everywhere), which is probably not what most people envisage when they clean it up and separate it nicely.
Derpenheim@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
The latter half of your comment is why I dont even bother. The “recycling” here is picked up and dumped into the same truck, there is no separation facility, just a landfill/incinerator.
Im not paying extra to lie to myself.
onslaught545@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
We have separate trucks here, but I was behind the recycling truck one day and watched it pull into the landfill.
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 8 months ago
i lost faith in recycling the more I read about it.
especially when most recycling is sent to poor countries to be burned, and if it is actually recycled it is then shipped back again as a single use spoon, then sent back… all the way to less quality materials, and some uses are for fleece that produces a shit ton of microplastics.
real solutions is to ban single use plastics (maybe exceptions for medical uses).
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This is why I recycle.
But it still sucks to see so much work undone by a few greedy fucks.
jaykrown@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I appreciate your recycling efforts. I’m in Chicago where recycling rates are horrible. I’m building a plan to improve recycling rates for next year, but I still have a lot of work to do in terms of the system regarding transparency and user-friendliness.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
how hard is it to recycle, seriously? the way people complain about it you’d think it causes rashes…
hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world 8 months ago
In the US it’s nearly impossible since the pandemic. Most waste collection firms are dumping both cans in the same truck and not recycling anything. Plastic recycling in particular turned out to be much more expensive than waste management was prepared to keep doing so they stopped.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
notice how you’re immediately moving the goalposts: you’re not talking about an individual separating packaging, you’re talking about the industrial process.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Got a source on that “most”? The ones around here DEFINITELY don’t do that.
Siresly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
It’s a fair observation and very agreeable when the intent is to focus deserved ire on the primary element responsible for the wretched state of the world. But this could also be used to absolve oneself of inaction, deny any personal responsibility, to justify exhibiting similar selfish behavior oneself, or to feel smug about demoralizing or shitting on people who seek to improve society somewhat.
As the meme itself implies, the exploitation class is the problem that needs to be addressed. No need for anyone else to catch strays.
tatterdemalion@programming.dev 8 months ago
I think most of us understand that, and you’re just being obnoxious for pointing it out.
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It really just highlights the growing injustice in the world and that our problems are growing too severe to solve them with personal responsibility. We need to make billionaires illegal or things with keep spiraling downwards.
OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
It’s not attacking the girl or suggesting she should stop. She’s doing the right thing. It’s attacking the rich psychopaths ruining the environment is ways that are orders or magnitude greater than my life will ever do.
fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 8 months ago
The problem is interpretation. You read it one way because of your life context and frame of mind. Many others will have a different interpretation.
outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
We need collectively to be pinching pennies, but doing so when you cant pry yourself away from tge roulette wheel is nonsense.
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
What’s the point here? Shitting on a good deed because someone else has done something bad? Arguing that small contributions don’t matter because others cancel that out? Great, now everbody feels entitled to shitty behaviour because they’re not the most rotten apple in the barrel. I’m sure many good things will come from that line of thought.
The rule is “Don’t be a jerk”, not “Don’t be a jerk if you’re the only one”
Robin@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Eat the rich, but not with plastic cutlery!
Zdvarko@lemmy.world 8 months ago
9,769km from California to Venice one way which equates to 976.9kg of carbon per person (6,070 miles and 2153.7 pounds in Harley Davidson units)