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Topic: Climate Change and You (Read 4771 times)

Re: Climate Change and You

Reply #50
Any more elaborately manufactured "paper", such as paper cups or dishes, include plastic. Glanzpapier is probably mostly plastic. A paper newspaper has no plastic, but look up the list of chemicals used in the washing process to get the paper to be as white as we want it...
I can't quite tell if life is so different in the east or if you're just being argumentative because a company like McDonald's exists and apparently promulgates certain practices.

Take a box intended to protect some fruit. This box can be either simply brown or it can be whitened or otherwise colored. This box can have plastic wrap added to keep the environment relatively sealed. That describes the old situation from the '80s, but it continued into the '90s and 2000s. The post let's say 2010 development is that these boxes stick to their natural brownish color and the additional wrapping plastic has been removed, not dissimilar to how it was back in the 1960s.

Edit: incidentally, I seemed to remember reading something about reusable cups being enforced now in certain contexts, which will likely expand: https://www.brusselstimes.com/1196524/record-number-of-reusable-cups-at-belgian-festivals

Re: Climate Change and You

Reply #51
Edit: incidentally, I seemed to remember reading something about reusable cups being enforced now in certain contexts, which will likely expand: https://www.brusselstimes.com/1196524/record-number-of-reusable-cups-at-belgian-festivals
This is clearly a planted promo article for a company called Ecocup. Let's take a look what the have on offer.
Nos verres réutilisables en polypropylène sont recyclables et garantis sans bisphénol A et sont une excellente alternative aux gobelets à usage unique.
Conclusion: Everything under the modern "reusable" hype label is a lie. It's the same single-use crap, but you are encouraged to use it a few more times than once. And obviously it's plastic.

Seriously, anything wrong with real glass and metal cups? I know what the problem is. Glass and metal are *actually* reusable and that's the problem: Not enough turnover.

Re: Climate Change and You

Reply #52
If glass didn't have certain obvious issues they'd simply use it at festivals. Regular glass is used in cafés and restaurants, and everyone prefers it over a plastic cup. But indeed it must be cheaper than stainless steel or aluminium cups. I believe some festival regulars are known to take those along themselves.

Re: Climate Change and You

Reply #53
Every aspect of recycling has improved greatly over the last 30 years, not to speak of the last 60 years. Ersi is griping for the sake of griping.

Here is a Swedish instruction video from 1964 how to responsibly get rid of garbage. TL;DR: you pack it in a box together with some stones and drop it to the bottom of the sea. (That was the responsible method to get rid of old cars as well, you drove it out on the lake during winter and let the wreck stay there until spring thaw.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t03saJVFkv4

Sweden has spent 50 years cleaning up from the spills made in the previous 100. Not quite done yet, especially not the waterways.

Today, households produce dramatically less trash than they used to. And while I consider waste sorting at source a transitional stage, it is certainly way more convenient and efficient than it used to be. 



While there is something to be said for the model of garbage collectors buying and reselling household garbage, it's not a viable long-term solution with increasing affluence. 

We are far better at life-cycle management, and designing for reuse and recycling. 



We hardly have a circular economy, but we're getting a few steps closer. Waste is turning into resources.

Re: Climate Change and You

Reply #54
Every aspect of recycling has improved greatly over the last 30 years, not to speak of the last 60 years. Ersi is griping for the sake of griping.
Then why after acid rains and ozone depletion did we end up with global warming?

We are far better at life-cycle management, and designing for reuse and recycling.



We hardly have a circular economy, but we're getting a few steps closer. Waste is turning into resources.
Ah, I get it. We are better at designing and planning and such. Sustainable production and reduction of pollution is always in the plans for the future, but will never become reality. We are getting better at environmentalist propaganda, not at actual environmentalism.

Edit: Actually, even the propaganda is not that good. It is good only at obfuscating as follows:

Today, households produce dramatically less trash than they used to. And while I consider waste sorting at source...
Where I live, households never produced any significant trash. Most trash ends up at households only as un-reusable packages (nowadays often ironically labelled "reusable" and "recyclable") that come with stuff bought at supermarkets. Forty years ago, there was hardly any such trash. Now it is a never-ending stream of crap. It has massively increased, not the other way round.

Consequently, "waste sorting at source" should reasonably mean anywhere else except households. It should be the supermarkets or the manufacturers, but the current regulations put the burden on households. So, obfuscation, upside down, completely wrong and not even beginning to describe reality.

 

Re: Climate Change and You

Reply #55
The latest edition of the Living Planet Report, which measures the average change in population sizes of more than 5,000 vertebrate species, shows a decline of 73% between 1970 and 2020.

The report identifies five tipping points:
- The Amazon drying rainforest
- Coral reef die-off
- Melting ice sheets
- Atlantic ocean circulation
- Permafrost thaw

No issue with forest depletion in the temperate climate zone? Or are temperate forests already beyond tipping point and irreversibly beyond hope, therefore no reason to mention them?

Get the full pdf for some cute nature pics https://wwflpr.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/2024-living-planet-report-a-system-in-peril.pdf