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[-] blind3rdeye@aussie.zone 2 points 14 hours ago

The phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle" was meant to be a hierarchy, where 'reduce' was by far the best option, and 'recycle' was the backup plan in cases where the others were not viable.

But somehow the message about recycling was twisted to the point where many people believe that mountains of waste are totally fine as long as it is 'recyclable'. And so instead of reducing waste per person, we've increased it. Advertising and convenience seems to overpower any kind of good intention. Perhaps regulation is the only way.

[-] Sarah@piefed.social 2 points 6 hours ago

I don't think there's any "perhaps" here...

[-] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Plastic recycling is a joke. If you look at the recycling they actually did, it was only a few smallish projects like plastic planks for walkways and benches, and plastic carts and shelved for some Woolworths branches to put at front of store with a label to greenwash the problem. Hooray, now those plastic walkways and benches will slowly deteriorate microplastics into the environment around them under full force of the sun and rain.

The only real solution is banning single use plastics and moving back to glass and cans - focus on things that actually are recyclable and get rid of all the plastic.

Will it be hard and more expensive? Yes. Is it worth it and will reduce long term cost of pollution cleanup? Also yes.

P. S. I am not saying that people who try to break their recycling down to recycle plastics are any part of the problem by the way - they're just trying to do their best effort in the system they've found themselves in. The system itself is a joke

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 11 points 1 day ago

Why are we acting like this is an insurmountable problem?

Hit the companies using it.

[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah this has always been the case but sadly it's just not how things roll in 2025.

I've always said, impose a levy on any product which contains plastic of any kind, and watch how quickly producers transition to something else. Start at 1% and increase by 1% per year. I bet plastic packaging would all but disappear from the super market by 2030.

The single use plastics thing makes me grumpy because it doesn't address the problem, but makes consumers feel like they've shouldered some of the burden so the problem must be fixed now.

[-] shirro@aussie.zone 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Saw a bit behind the scenes of another plastic recycling company once a long time ago. It looked very dodgy to me. I probably can't say much more since the fraud case ended with a not guilty verdict and I don't want to risk defaming anyone but the actual processing part looked like a pilot plant to me and couldn't have been doing much volume while the offices were in a high rent location. It didn't add up. I think it is in the interests of a lot of companies to green wash plastic packaging and some government funding of recycling operations has possibly been fraudulent.

Plastic packaging needs to be viewed as harmful waste again and not as a recyclable product and consumers need to change their purchasing habits to avoid it.

I am just old enough to remember there was barely any plastic packaging as a kid and we coped fine without it.

[-] tombruzzo@aussie.zone 8 points 1 day ago

This really pissed me off. I feel like some of the people behind redcycle should go to jail because they couldn't make recycling work and just hoped it would sort itself out. When else do people get away with that excuse?

[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

I'm not sure this is an accurate summation of the situation.

Recycling pretty much doesn't work practically or economically, never has. It's not possible to collect plastic, and convert it into a product that has value, at a cost of less than that provided value.

If this was possible, companies would do it. (I'll forego a rant about one of the few virtues of capitalism, anyway).

Redcycle collapsed after a fire at a warehouse or something. That's a bit like saying my wife asked for a divorce after I accidentally shit myself.

[-] tombruzzo@aussie.zone 2 points 23 hours ago

I thought I remembered reading they came out with this big promise to recycle soft plastics amd for everyone to redirect soft plastics to them.

Then reality hit and they found out soft plastics aren't that easy to recycle, and tried to keep things going anyway, in a way that wasn't representative of the company's situation

[-] Ilandar@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago

Does anyone else have a soft plastics recycling program run by their local council? We've had a trial for about a year, now in its second phase. Hopefully it can be successfully expanded to other households.

[-] BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 day ago

Lack of recyclability shits me. Especially when something that used to be packaged in cardboard is suddenly being sold in plastic.

Also, most plastic bottles are recyclable. Plastic bottles used for juice, flavoured milks, and water from the fridge section, recycle that shit! But not if it’s Ice Break. Those big chunky Ice Break bottles that seem no-brainer recyclable are clearly marked as non-recyclable.

[-] Salvo@aussie.zone 3 points 1 day ago

Soft plastics can be recycled, but the (trained) labour to sort is prohibitively expensive.

Tyres can also be recycled, but the labour liability makes them prohibitively expensive in first-world-countries.

They can also both also be processed as Biochar, but the environmental cost is also prohibitively expensive: tyres result in Sulfur-contaminated charcoal and soft plastics are not the most efficient material to convert into charcoal.

[-] appetizer@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago

My sister worked at a sorting facility. It is shutting down permanently at the end of the year.

Not a good sign :(

[-] TimePencil@infosec.exchange 1 points 1 day ago

@BlueSquid0741

Are Ice Break (2 litre) bottles not recyclable?

There's no deposit on them, but they're marked with "please recycle".

@Davriellelouna

The back of a 2 litre Ice Break (ice coffee) bottle.

[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

that "please recycle" triangle arrow thing is pretty much a scam.

That triangle arrow logo is a scam at the best of times. It's supposed to contain a number saying what type of plastic it is. In practice type "1", PET, is the only type that is viable for recycle. It may be possible to recycle other numbers but it's preclusively expensive. So while they've chosen a logo that makes plastic generally look like it's recyclable, it's not really the case.

Anyhow, with this particular logo there's no number. They've put it there to make it look like their product is recyclable, but it's just not.

[-] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Holy crap, @BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org is right about their lack of recyclability. Just think of the plastics garbage volume all our tradies will be generating! 😱

[-] BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I’ve never seen a 2l bottle of it. I think 750ml is the usual one?

But the ‘please recycle’ thing I believe is outdated. Packaging now tells you what to do with components of the packaging, as an example something might say “Bottle” and have a recycle symbol, “Cap” and have a recycle symbol, “Foil seal” and have a bin symbol.

Tetrapaks will have the recycle symbol but say under it “Check locally”. Well when I looked into that there’s almost nowhere in the country that accepts recycling of tetrapaks.

Anyway. I got an ice break a few months ago for the first time in years and I think it was either “Rubbish” or “check locally”. But I used ice break as an example because they annoyed me not using easily recyclable packaging like other flavoured milk bottles.

Contradicts what I said earlier I know. You got me thinking about it a bit more what I remember being on their bottle.

this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
48 points (100.0% liked)

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