The two tobacco companies Altria and Philip Morris International combined made up 2% of the branded plastic litter found, both Danone and Nestlé each produced 3% of it, PepsiCo was responsible for 5% of the discarded packaging, and 11% of branded plastic waste could be traced to the Coca-Cola company.
Imagine how much plastic waste could be eliminated if Coke and Pepsi just went back to glass bottles?
Imagine how much plastic waste could be eliminated if we just boycotted these companies.
You are going to have a much harder time convincing people to give up on their soda addiction than you are finding a way to get the soda addicts to get Coke and Pepsi to switch back to glass.
Cans exist? I haven’t bought a bottle of soda pop in god knows how long. Cans or bust.
Cans have plastic in them
Probably less than a bottle and cans get recycled for aluminium, which probably means the plastic gets burned off.
Not saying that’s great but in comparison it is better.
Oh absolutely it is. But glass is even better between the two.
Any win is a win though :)
Perhaps so, alas. And the rates of obesity and diabetes continue to rise. sigh.
That’s the thing about addiction. You keep using even though it’s really bad for you.
I did notice Altria / Phillip Morris were also in that list. :-(
All those cigarette packages wrapped in plastic.
I haven’t had a drop of either in 20 years and the mess has only grown larger.
Really? That’s strange. I could have sworn the fault was on individuals and not the companies producing these mountains of shit.
Well, you see, you complain about society and yet you are part of it.
Is glass litter better?
We should also account for extra emissions due to higher weight and lower density in transportation. Glass is significantly heavier, and you need more of it per item for the same strength, so you’ll be moving fewer total bottles per truckload.
Aluminum is also recyclable, durable, light, and cheap, though I don’t know if aluminum litter is better than plastic. I assume it is since I’ve not heard of micro-aluminum causing environmental damage (yet).
Unfortunately the coating they put on the inside of alu cans is pretty terrible so they are slightly less good than glass in that regard
Yes.
Aluminium and glass is close to infinitely recyclable.
Better yet, glass bottles can be reused up to 7 times.
But it costs more than a returnable plastic bottle. Which obviously costs more than a sturdy as a trashbag plastic bottle.
Why 7 specifically?
That’s just a number based on experience. Some bottles break first time out of the factory… others last 15 times. They are used untill they are too degraded for reuse.
Ah, so this was about melting the bottle down and making a new bottle 7 times? As opposed to washing the bottle and reusing it as it was. Makes much more sense now. :)
No 7 times is for washing. Melting and reshaping is a new bottle. But with glass bottles break and scuff
Glass isn’t easy to recycle because just a little bit of the wrong stuff can mess up a batch.
It is reusable, though, and you can shatter it and get aggregate for concrete which is getting rare these days as all the obvious places to get sand from, such as deserts, have grains that are way too round. In that case it doesn’t matter if there’s the occasional mug or drinking glass or window pane in the recycling, concrete doesn’t care.
PET is actually excellent for recycling provided that you actually recycle it, i.e. have a deposit scheme that works. Like the German 25ct/bottle one. Provides a very clean recycling stream, the product is light and doesn’t use much volume at all when shipped to the bottling plant (they’re expanding the bottles on site), etc. Also, nature apparently is learning how to break up PET.
Glass litter? Not necessarily, but glass is essentially infinitely recyclable, unlike plastic.
We should also account for extra emissions due to higher weight and lower density in transportation.
That’s more a consequence of business efforts to minimize labor costs. There’s very little reason not to produce, recycle, and dispose of glass waste locally, unless you’re trying to leverage cheap fossil fuel energy in order to get around the domestic wage rates.
Yup and these 60 companies are using their insane profits to lobby the government to ensure nothing ever changes.
Yay capitalism.
Soooo, they manufacture their goods with a lot of plastics around them and then directly dump them into the environment? Or is there another step in between where some of the responsibility might be located as well?
No, collection and burning is though.
Yes, not open burning of course, but burning in power plants with proper filtering. That is about the only way to avoid the introduction of more microplastic particles.
If you don’t want the world to drown in its own filth, it is your personal responsibility to boycott everything these 60 firms produce. Since at least one of them is an electronics company, that means I’m allowed to say you’re responsible for this mess because you’re using a computer.
In our little town, we have a shop that is plastic free. We refill everything we can there: detergent, dishwashing soap, shampoo, deodorant, shampoo, shaving cream, you name it. On top of that Ive minimized as best I can (although a work in progress) my use of single use plastics.
Plenty of people around me just don’t give a shit. It’s cheaper and easier to just go to target and get it or order it off of Amazon.
Too many people using the excuse of “I can’t be perfect, so it’s not my responsibility” as a reason to do nothing.
Don’t be those people.
Too many people using the excuse of “I can’t be perfect, so it’s not my responsibility” as a reason to do nothing.
I mean, pure convenience really is at the heart of it. The worst thing to happen to bottled water companies was pipes and if Nestle or Ozarka could ripe out everyone’s plumbing they’d do it in a heartbeat.
Its very cool to have a shop that’s plastic free in your little town, but I’ll be damned if I can find an equivalent in America’s Third Biggest City of Houston, TX. At least, not one that’s 30 minutes drive.
Don’t be those people.
At some level, you have to concede its the structure and not the people. I don’t think anyone really wants to be hauling 40 lbs of trash to the curb every week. But when we’re inundated with it, avoiding waste becomes a job in and of itself.
It shouldn’t have to be a struggle to avoid generating trash.
The worst thing to happen to bottled water companies was pipes and if Nestle or Ozarka could ripe out everyone’s plumbing they’d do it in a heartbeat.
I’m not defending these companies, just pointing out that using the companies as an excuse to change nothing about your own habits makes no sense.
Its very cool to have a shop that’s plastic free in your little town, but I’ll be damned if I can find an equivalent in America’s Third Biggest City of Houston, TX. At least, not one that’s 30 minutes drive.
Right in the center of Houston. Although having lived in Houston for a number of years, I understand that you could still easily live a half hour from here. But if you work in downtown, it’s always the option to grab it on your way home.
But, also, keep in mind that you are right now trying to make excuses rather than look for solutions. I’m not saying you have to shop at one of these places, I offered my experience to demonstrate how, even when it’s available, people would still rather buy the convenient disposable crap.
At some level, you have to concede its the structure and not the people.
It’s both. This is my point. Too many people don’t want to put in any effort to make things better, they just want to point at corporations and say “not my problem.” It’s how they deal with the cognitive dissonance of claiming to care about this issue, but at the same time not doing anything about it. “Well, what can I do?” A lot. You can do a lot. If you frequent that store in Houston, and encourage more people to, they can open up other locations make it even more convenient for more people. We all have to shift our behaviors to make it work.
It shouldn’t have to be a struggle to avoid generating trash.
Also agreed. However, again, not an excuse to change none of your own behaviors. You can both try to do better and push for better policy.
Right in the center of Houston.
Which is 30 minutes drive from anyone outside 610.
But if you work in downtown, it’s always the option to grab it on your way home.
That’s true, assuming traffic in that area isn’t miserable. There’s also a WholeFoods in the Galleria Area that has had similiar services, but I don’t even try to get near it during rush hour, because its pure gridlock.
Too many people don’t want to put in any effort to make things better, they just want to point at corporations and say “not my problem.”
I don’t think that’s true. What I have found to be the case is that independent action is expensive and time-consuming. You need some kind of business model to make it work, and that quickly turns “community effort” into “full-time job”. And if you’ve already got a full-time job, you’re not going to be able to afford to sidestep all the businesses on every corner offering you the easy way out.
At some level, it absolutely is a corporate problem. Because even if you do succeed at a local level, you’re working in the scale of gallons while they’re working in the scale of mega-barrels. Systematic problems require systematic solutions. It can’t just be half a dozen people on one street in Houston changing where they shop.
You can both try to do better and push for better policy.
Okay, but then when do you have time to do anything else?
No one is denying it is a corporate problem too, they have the lions share of it; the only one denying responsibility here is you.
And you are (implicitly) arguing that you can’t put any effort in, because it’s either do nothing or it’s a full time job. This is nonsense. I go to this store once, maybe twice a month. But the latter only because it’s convenient. It’s not even remotely a full time job.
But also no one is saying you have to do everything at once. I even noted i’m still very much a work in progress.
The important thing is to try, rather than just throw your hands up and claim you have no responsibility.
the only one denying responsibility here is you.
Oh good. Then there’s no problem. My output is infinitesimal on a global scale.
I was worried for a minute, but I guess since everyone else is taking this problem seriously, it should be fixed shortly.
The important thing is to try
An individual endlessly forced to attempt an exhausting futile endeavor is a punishment in Greek Mythology.
But on Lemmy, its supposed to be a panacea.
Yes, we are all responsible for using toxic products that we need to survive in the modern world. More responsible then the companies producing these toxic products, who should be required to research non-toxic alternatives. Let’s all band together and take a step back from the information age. Surely that will fix the problem.
Lobby? They basically own government. I don’t think people realize how big business’s only fight is amongst other big business. They don’t fight with law makers, they make them.
Yes. Lobby. That is HOW corporations own the government.
They pay people off. They even plant them. Either way they are using their huge sack of cash to manipulate the world around them to their benefit.
Don’t worry about these big guys. The straws are gonna save the planet.
You could always not buy their completely non essential products, but suggesting that rarely gets a good reception from the “obsessively whining about straws” crows.
That’s what’s always a bit maddening about these conversations. It’s not like companies are just shredding plastic into the atmosphere because they’re cartoon villains who love evil.
They’re making cheap plastic shit because we love cheap plastic shit. They’re making this stuff in response to explicit consumer prioritization of low costs above all other factors. If consumers broadly demanded soda in glass bottles and expressed a willingness to pay the extra cost that this entails, every soda company would use glass.
I’m not saying that you individually should be blamed for all environmental pollution, but we have to realize that companies are responding to the exact same incentives that we do. They’re obviously operating at a much larger scale, but they use cheap plastic shit for the exact same reason we do. If you’re looking for policy solutions, a great option would be to introduce an externality tax on plastic so that this environmental cost is actually factored into the production and end price and can fund remediate the damage, similar to carbon taxes. Of course though, the moment you say the word ‘tax’ people’s brains completely shut off, so this is probably a non-starter.
They’re making cheap plastic shit because we love cheap plastic shit
No. They’re making cheap plastic shit because their constant lobbying against common sense regulation and a living wage means that the cheap plastic shit is all most of us can afford.
explicit consumer prioritization of low costs above all other factors
Also known as a consumer prioritization of being able to survive without being TOO crushed by debt. You’re really slathering the victim blaming on thick.
If consumers broadly demanded soda in glass bottles and expressed a willingness to pay the extra cost that this entails, every soda company would use glass
Bullshit. You have the power relationship backwards. The vast majority of humanity can’t afford high quality sustainable packaging because the premium companies demand for it is ridiculous. Because they know they can as long as useful fools blame the consumers.
I’m not saying that you individually should be blamed for all environmental pollution
Sounds awfully close to just that, though.
we have to realize that companies are responding to the exact same incentives that we do.
They absolutely are not. A company has the option to make the packaging better at the same price in exchange for a couple cents less profit per bottle. A customer, who already doesn’t have the vast resources with which to choose that a company has, would have to pay several times that, often several dollars, extra to get the “premium” glass bottle.
They’re obviously operating at a much larger scale
That’s like saying that the Sultan of Brunei’s palace is obviously much larger than my apartment: while technically true, the difference of scale is so vast that any direct comparison is effectively meaningless.
they use cheap plastic shit for the exact same reason we do.
Nope. They produce cheap plastic shit to maximize profits because they’re allowed to. We buy cheap plastic shit to minimize costs because we have to. Those are not the same reason.
If you’re looking for policy solutions
Yes! This better be good…
a great option would be to introduce an externality tax on plastic so that this environmental cost is actually factored into the production and end price
Companies would just pass the cost on to consumers as always. If you do that AND price control, then we have something!
similar to carbon taxes
Another example of something that’s a great idea in theory but end up not working as intended because it’s too easy for big companies to avoid the intended consequences. Carbon taxes with no transferrable carbon credits and the aforementioned price control could work, though.
the moment you say the word ‘tax’ people’s brains completely shut off,
Taxes work. You just need additional mechanisms too, to prevent the kind of fuckery companies get up to.
In no universe is coca cola “all you can afford”. You could replace it with tap water and be better off in every way.
Yeah because there’s nothing physically, mentally and even socially addictive about the number one brand in the world, packed with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and/or questionable sweeteners 🙄
Next you’re gonna share the brilliant insight that it’s cheaper to not smoke tobacco…
Are you suggesting people should not be encouraged to quit smoking?
No, I’m saying that it’s not that simple to just forgo something addictive.
I’m an ex smoker (and ex drinker) myself, so while I would never recommend smoking (or drinking to excess), I have very little patience for people assuming or implying that addictions are easily kicked.
That shit can control significant parts of your whole life, sometimes in subtle ways you weren’t even aware of.
I don’t think consumers in general have a direct say in the matter though, regardless of their impact. Blaming every individual for it is inefficient, and ultimately is only useful for deferring blame when you don’t want to solve the actual problem.
If you are interested in an actual solution you go to the source, and regulate the corporations.
Regulation is fine, but people need to realize that there are always downstream effects that often result in a less efficient version of the same outcome.
For instance, say you just pass a blanket ban on plastic soda bottles and mandate glass. Production costs immediately go up (not to mention transportation and logistics), and those costs are naturally passed onto the consumer, so the prices of all sodas go up.
Has this really improved things? There are real questions about the environment impact of glass, since they’re significantly heavier and thus require more carbon emissions to transport. Glass is better if it’s reused, but there are situations where it’s unlikely to be reused. Soda is now more expensive, just as it would have been under a plastic tax (and because lower income people tend to drink more soda, you’ve hit them extra hard relatively), but now you’ve also eliminated the ability for plastic bottles to be used in situations where they truly are called for; for instance, you probably don’t want to be selling glass bottles at a music festival, so an organizer will need to instead purchase extra plastic cups instead, resulting in the consumption of extra glass and plastic.
I know people have this idea that the only factor that goes into a price is how greedy the CEO happens to feel that morning, but that’s simply not the case. Prices are set by market circumstances, not greed. It’s not like NYC landlords suddenly got less greedy in 2020; the market radically changed. They’re already charging the most that the market will bear. In terms of regulation, it’s almost always more effective to go after the market incentives - that is, price signals - instead of just taking a hammer to the thing you don’t like and hoping it doesn’t have any bad effects.
Ok, but i was taught as a child about the need to recycle. What percent of the population recycles? What percent even have access to recycle programs? What percent of recycle programs don’t just throw the bags into the normal trash dumps?
You say cost will go up if actual change is introduced and consumers will be upset. I agree, but the opinions and the cost are not being considered. Should they be? And if they make it untenable, what does that say about the product?
You frame this as a ‘there is no solution i can see that’s worth it so why bother’ and this tells me you are not interested in a solution. There are solutions out there right now we could be doing but don’t. And some progress is better then nothing. Not to mention drinking from plastic bottles has apparently been poisoning us.
As for housing, they are charging the most the market can bear…. After the land lords manipulated the housing market so that the market could be forced into bearing more than it could healthily. Again because they are not properly regulated.
You frame this as a ‘there is no solution i can see that’s worth it so why bother’ and this tells me you are not interested in a solution.
That is the exact opposite of what I’m saying. I’m saying that an externality tax to capture the actual cost of single-use plastics would do a lot to reduce their use without distorting markets and causing unintended side effects while likely being more effective than blanket bans.
So, you want to regulate the use of plastic via an indulgence tax. But instead of charging the corporation, you want to add an additional tax to every single individual transaction? Or do you want to tax the corporation once and have the cost of the product go up. The end result is the same, except one is more efficient.
That and an indulgence tax does not solve the problem. The intention is not to get more money from taxes, or to lower the pores access to normal goods, it’s decentivise its use. And by definition the amount you would have to tax to achieve this has to be so much that it destabilizes the market. Thats the point.
Oh yay, blame the consumers not the ones making the trash, worked so well the past 50 years
Nah consume consume consume, shirk blame
Actively reject education, then refuse any blame. That sounds like the best plan!!
Or we can acknowledge that our society is not conducive to the type of living required to effect change in the way necessary to solve this. That boycotts do not work, and historically the best course of action would be to put controls on the corporations backed with actual teeth. Blaming the consumer is ineffectual if the goal is to actual solve the problem. But works if the goal is to defer blame to not have to fix the problem
I hate corporations so I am going to continue buying sugary bullshit that I don’t need, and get pissed off at anyone who suggests I give the worst polluters less of my money
-the anti corporate position.
You did not listen to what i had said, you just repeated what was said above.
There are problems with blaming the individual. One is that you are not naming the individual, when you appeal to a nebulous blame, no one is at fault. Also, the sugary drinks you are referring to, are laced with the worlds 2 most addictive substances, has their impact on people lies about in falsified studies, and lobbies against its regulation by…. Corporations.
Blaming the individual is inefficient. And not conducive to actual change
so instead we get pissy about plastic straws, a regulation imposed on corporations by the government.
Nah nah see if we can’t solve it ourselves at home fully then we should just point our fingers and pretend that’s all we can do. /s
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More than one person is to blame. For example, within every single corporation, decisions are often made by committee and even when it’s a unilateral decision, others can speak out if it’s an immoral one.
Yes obviously companies being irresponsible is the biggest problem, but sitting on our hands at home because we can’t make as much of a difference adds up and I’m sick of seeing it excused. Your argument will be used as an excuse to be lazy more often than not.
Trick, unless you want to go all ecoterrorist right now, which I admit is looking enticing, the best plan of action is to put up corporate regulation. Finding a path forward to that, where individuals can sign petitions and get those enacted into laws, is probably the best path forward as destroying existing infrastructure will also hurt people and society.
you want to go all ecoterrorist right now
uh what?
the best plan of action is to put up corporate regulation
Obviously. People apparently just can’t seem to understand nuance. Either it’s all one group’s fault or all another’s. Also, it has to be a blame game. As if suggesting people try to minimize their home waste is somehow justifying corporate negligence…
I am not excusing laziness. I am just not interested in assigning blame. I am recognizing that when given the choice people will choose what they are used to, what is easy, and what is cheap. It is not in human nature to sacrifice the tangible to achieve nebulous and incalculably small overall change, especially when it’s out of sight out of mind. You are wasting your breath attempting to guilt every individual on the planet into living in a commune. You don’t even practice what you preach. It is a waste of time, and It. Will. Not. Work.
On a practicality standpoint. If you really want to solve this problem, the single most effective route is to regulate corporations. In places that the government did not regulate the use of asbestos, it is still in use for example.
If everybody individually behaved correctly, we wouldn’t need any laws.
But as the entire human history has shown us, that is not the case. Which is why societies have passed laws even before recorded history.Thanks, I truly had no idea why these “laws” exist
You could always not buy their completely non essential products
I’ve been trying this for decades, but it hasn’t put a dent in the global growth of waste.
Yeah you pretty much need to end Citizens United and ban corporate lobbying to even start talking about regulating correctly.
Said no one ever.
People so mad about straws act like you cannot possibly work against a problem in more than a single way.
The problem is we are not trying multiple ways. We only try the ineffective ones to avoid trying the effective ones.
And by “we” you mean actually “corporations”? Of course they aren’t willing to blame and fine themselves for saving money.
By “we” I mean the governments we elect.
Which are basically controlled by the corporations. My point is that there are many people who want to do more and several groups trying to make it happen. They aren’t up against an easy fight. So when a small win happens like plastic straw bans, maybe we can want more without dismissing it as bullshit.
Banning straws (generally, single-use plastics) as well as non-attached bottlecaps is the most effective way to keep EU beaches clean. They had a look at what’s out there and those were the big offenders that could be addressed so they’re doing it.
…also the only bad thing about those silicone straws I bought is that they’re too short for bottles. It really is the ideal material for the application.
Yeah, the beach nearest to me just had a coal power plant reactivated last year. Nothing we can do about that though.
I’m sure that something could be done, but it surely isn’t going to help with beach littering. Even if some coal ends up on the beach that’s really not an issue.
Is that coal power plant producing plastic waste or are you perhaps talking about an entirely different problem that need to be addressed by separate legislation?
But won’t somebody think of the mega corps?! 😭😭😭
Yay, all the ones to their eyeballs in regulatory capture.
Again? Guyyyyyys 🙄
It’s less to do with these companies and more to do with their consumers.
Could Coke and Pepsi cut plastic waste by switching back to glass bottles? Sure, but their shitty customers would just increase GLASS waste.
Changing the substance of the waste isn’t going to miraculously decrease waste. You have to change consumer habits to do that.
Those are not the same things… Glass is better for the environment, for one it doesn’t break down into microplastics which get everywhere. And glass can be recycled indefinitely (minus some loss due to impurities) whereas plastic can be recycled up 0-1 times usually.
Plus the whole “it’s up to consumers to solve this” is just corporate propaganda to absolve themselves of any responsibility, all the while not offering any alternatives that a consumer could pick from. Like literally, they paid for marketing campaigns to convince the public that it was our fault.
It’s still up to consumers to dispose of or recycle the trash correctly. Coke and Pepsi can’t do it for them.
But the problem is that these plastics even if disposed of properly by the consumer are still waste.
In the EU most of the bottles for soda have a deposit-scheme attached so they are returned in high percentages.
The issue is everything comes in plastic nowadays… even cucumbers are wrapped.
The manufacturers are the ones that select the packaging. They should be made responsible for the recycling. That will immediately make them switch to packaging that can be recycled. Glass, paper, cardboard… whatever. But plastics are bullshit for many applications… especially for those vanity packaging’s that make the product look larger by being in massive trays of plastics.
One of that firm is Taylor swift?
