My neighbor, whose political affiliation you can guess, actively gives us shit for recycling. It is a free service where we are, and I don't bother recycling the low-value plastic crap, primarily thick dry cardboard, glass and metal, and this dude still pokes fun at it every time he sees the bin. Just the dumbest damn people.
Here's a strategy that I've found works decently with these people: frame it in terms of (1) being resourceful (2) being responsible and preserving resources for the next generation (especially their children, if they have them) (3) not being "lazy and wasteful" (you might not like that framing, but it kind of works better for that kind of personality) and (4) national sovereignty (the more wasteful we are with resources, the more we have to depend on other governments for them).
There's also a few good ones for moving away from ICEs: (1) I'd rather make things out of oil/plastic than just burn it up (2) national sovereignty and (3) resilience in case of war or disaster.
Relatedly, I don't think I've every heard an environmentalist use these points. Any idea what that is?
The best argument for EVs is putting them on the passenger seat of a Tesla Model 3 Performance, and putting the hammer down.
Stop arguing with abstract concepts, benefits for society, and dishonest framing (people are really allergic to anything they perceive as being lied to). Show the immediate, direct, tangible benefits they get.
I don't argue in FB about the environmental benefits of EVs, but rather hype immediate benefits: faster on the 0-40 times than most cars (even beating some sports cars), less maintenance, and never having to hit the gas station. Just plug in at night.
they do all the time, it doesn't work. people might be dumb but they are not dumb enough to know when they're being pandered to. they have a cultural signifier and they like it that way.
Probably because in most of the US recycling is fake and it all ends up in the landfill anyway, or the amount of energy spent recycling outweighs the savings.
Recycling is something the oil companies came up with to whitewash their image, and justify single use plastics, it doesn’t work, has never worked and it’s hard to see how it would work. This is the real “Inconvenient Truth.”
If you really wanna “do your part to fight climate change,” you’re better off trying to live like someone out of 1890 before plastics was a thing, and people repaired/patched 100x before even considering replacements. You’ll have less time for arguing with idiots like me online but you’ll be much happier and actually be making a positive contribution.
> Probably because in most of the US recycling is fake and it all ends up in the landfill anyway, or the amount of energy spent recycling outweighs the savings.
> Recycling is something the oil companies came up with to whitewash their image, and justify single use plastics, it doesn’t work, has never worked and it’s hard to see how it would work.
No, it's because he's an idiot whose brain is turned to mush from obsessing about culture war politics.
The plastic recycling history is vaguely interesting for some plastics and completely irrelevant for glass and metals which are profitably recycled due to the economics of recycling them vs. creating them from scratch.
In any case, the local waste plant recycles what they can and then burns the rest for energy so I'll let them make the call on what's profitable to process.
All fired silicon materials are more stable when they have been fired at least twice. If you make ceramics, you save all your failures to make grog, which is basically ceramic sand or dust. Mixed in with fresh clay it reduced the expansion ratio and the internal stresses.
Bottles with recycled material are more sturdy than those without. I don’t know how the process of bringing a bottle plant online works, but if it doesn’t include either buying grog from a supplier or feeding all the glass from the test runs into a hopper I would be very surprised.
I have never heard a physicist explain this phenomenon, but if you crush something it tends to break along the weakest points, so crushed silicon has selected out many of the weakest grains and left the strongest ones. Then either they continue to grow or they just increase the ratio of strong to weak.
There is a quickly growing movement for multi-use consumables. Its become a huge thing among the youngest complete with Instagram "influencers" peddling reusability to consumer brand companies releasing products that are meant to be "re-filled" instead of just tossing out containers and buying another. In the cities stores are popping up that specialize in selling "refills" to consumables that you come by with your own container and pay by weight.
Things such as refillable water bottles are simple examples of this as well.
Of course MAGA country is a laggard so this will probably take another 5-10 years to become adopted after it becomes the norm in the left cities->suburbs>rural.
> Of course MAGA country is a laggard so this will probably take another 5-10 years to become adopted after it becomes the norm in the left cities->suburbs>rural.
Perfect example of an unnecessary vile comment.
Most rural people already reuse and repurpose many things, they don’t have trash pick every week if at all and like to have a clean area for their children and grandchildren. It’s in their blood to find innovative ways to use something again in a different way. Your hate is coming from somewhere gross and you should consider some introspection on why you have so much of it in your heart.
It was necessary to me, thats why I made it. Whether or not you consider it necessary has no bearing on me. Just downvote and move on.
>Most rural people already reuse and repurpose many things, they don’t have trash pick every week if at all and like to have a clean area for their children and grandchildren.
I think you are not descriptive enough when it comes to the term rural. I specifically said MAGA country. That does not encompass all of rural.
And to be clear, my point with "left cities->suburbs>rural" was to indicate that the concept of "stores that sell refills" as a concept is still a niche idea (in the US). It will begin in the cities and then once it becomes the norm there, it will expand to the suburbs and eventually become the norm in rural as well.
You saw this same concept in the adoption curve of many things such as electricity, internet access and well, even single use plastics (The rural areas were the last to ditch the milk man)
I’m saying you’re a hate-filled person and suggesting you investigate that hate with some introspection instead of spewing and spreading it.
Again, this comment is filled with vitriol and hostility. This is not a healthy way to live, I strongly encourage you to seek outside council on how to process these destructive feelings.
In the third world and perhaps depending on your income levels, all containers are refillable. we used to take Coca Coca bottles as water bottles to schools, the same for years. I think they would be usually thrown out.
Yeah you are right, this is not a new idea. In fact even in the US it used to be the norm. (ie. The Milk man making a milk delivery and you leave your old bottles out for him to collect and reuse).
The plastics era is slowly ending and being replaced by ideas that used to work fine.
The symbols we've come to associate with plastics being recyclable actually just indicate the material composition. And it isn't by accident that we assume that symbol means it's recyclable either.
Plastics like PET and HDPE are recyclable but sorting recyclable materials from non-recyclable ones is costly which meant a lot of recycling does end up as waste.
We need to start penalizing manufacturers and retailers for single-use plastics. Laws like those passed in Maine banned most single-use plastic bags and mandates that anyone offering them must also provide recycling a drop off bin.
Consumers mostly do not have a choice about how their products are packaged so the onus must be shifted onto retailers and manufacturers who make those decisions.
There is when the city is getting paid for the recycled material.
In fact some cities offset the price of trash service with the money from recycling. Which is part of the impetus to fine people for not separating. You’re costing the city money.
From what i've read, aluminum is about the only thing that is remotely valuable, and can deposits tend take care of that. Paper and glass especially are EV negative, and composting a la NYC is yuppie feel good nonsense.
Composting is bullshit until we’ve mandated that produce stickers be fully biodegradable. Nothing put me off city compost like finding microplastics everywhere in the pile.
They might be less stubborn if you were less condescending and spent more time actually trying to come up with good arguments to convince them. pretty clear that being arrogant never changes anyone's mind. inclined to believe that you don't actually care about convincing, just judging
Funny, I've been able to convince some of my conservative friends and family to recycle and change their minds on some conservation issues. maybe, like I suggested, the problem is that you're doing it wrong
I have convinced one or two to think differently, on one or two subjects, after them knowing me for long enough to not assume I'm some leather-chewing CNN puppet. I finally got my dad to say that "no one should die from lack of healthcare because they're poor" and that "the act of being a billionaire implies unethical behavior". But he doesn't think the government should do anything about any of it, all the Democrats are evil and corrupt, and Trump is the best president of the past 120 years.
Another relative, after one of the recent shootings, said there was nothing we can do about gun violence. I immediately named off a few modest proposals that don't involve mass registration or confiscation, and he immediately said "yeah those don't sound bad".
Both my parents were conservatives for a long time, but were not angry, bitter, finger-pointing people about it until they had a traumatic event happen, AND a black Democrat became president, AND they got access to high speed internet and Fox News in the same year - 2008.
Now they watch four+ hours of Fox propaganda per day, my mother more because she goes onto bona-fide hate and misinformation sites and prints out articles on how Ukraine is the hub for US bioweapons labs and World Order money laundering because Ukraine is literally the most corrupt government in the world. With bylines of made up names, whose biographies are empty when you click the hyperlink. But that is more trustworthy than the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times, or gasp NPR.
I've had experience in these conversations. I know that the approach is to get them talking about what matters to them first, and find common ground. Believe me, I'm not "doing it wrong".
Doing it, even doing it correctly, is exhausting, full stop.
