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Man decides it’s just easier to become climate change denier than waste his life washing out food containers

https://newsthump.com/2024/05/07/man-decides-its-just-easier-to-become-climate-change-denier-than-waste-his-life-washing-out-food-containers/

A man has decided it’s easier to become a climate change denier than spend 90% of his free time scrubbing out the remnants of an M&S Broccoli Cheese or Waitrose Cannelloni in order to recycle …

34 comments

Gradually_Adjusting

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The real joke is how annoying it is to clean plastic waste before recycling it, only for it to end up not getting recycled at all

We have been played for actual fools

TWeaK

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The real joke is plastic recycling to begin with. It's an inferior product, one much more likely to produce harmful microplastics.

Almost as bad as biodegradable plastics.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Recycling is supposed to be the last resort, not the first choice for profits.

HubertManne

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What really gets me is when I was young there was little to no plastic and we had plenty of convenience food with mainly paper, glass, and metal.

Mouselemming

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Personally, I think the 1982 Tylenol Murders were the flashpoint that ignited the rise of overpackaging. Everything is tamper-proof sealed, which means more plastic.

metaStatic

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capitalism isn't concerned with any of the Rs

pivot_root

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There are some Rs that they like, though:

Revenue
Republicans; and
Registered trademarks

metaStatic

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Don't forget the hard one

Maalus

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Am doing work with plastics. When someone says "made with 100% recycled plastic" I automatically know it'll be brittle and it'll suck. Sadly, plastic isn't really recyclable. The bonds break down in the injection machine itself if you leave it a minute too long (heated). Now imagine getting a product that was injected properly, cutting it up, then remelting it, making pellets out of it and then melting those pellets to inject again. Plastic isn't metal, it doesn't melt and freeze without loss of strength.

daltotron

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I seem to remember some of the biodegradable plastics being chill and some of them just decomposing into like micro plastics way faster which doesn't matter at all and sucks, somebody reading this get me a source on that it's 12:16 and I'm tired

TWeaK

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I'm not sure about the chill ones, but most of them just put starch in the polymer chain at various intervals. Bacteria break down the starch, which visibly breaks down the plastic, however it leaves behind tiny polymer chunks - microplastics.

I imagine a good biodegradable plastic is quite expensive, probably more so than other green alternatives.

_haha_oh_wow_

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Corporations have been doing this shit for 50+ years and have never been held accountable.

HubertManne

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its worse living in a condo. The chance everyone will put in appropriate things 100% each week to the recycling dumpster is pretty much nill and then it gets mixed up in a truck with the other area condos. I wash my stuff but am almost certain its all going to landfills.

Kernal64

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Sorting at the consumer level isn't even the real problem. It's the fact that most plastic isn't even recyclable and of the kinds that are, there's no guarantee that your town has the facilities to recycle those. The whole system is broken and never actually worked.

Starbuck

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Remember in the 90s when everyone switched to plastic bags to save the trees or some bullshit? The manufacturers / oil companies knew that plastic recycling didn’t work and they pushed it so hard anyways.

Evil_incarnate

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I sort my stuff only to open the mixed waste bin to put in my small mixed bag and I see bags of clearly sorted plastics and cardboard thrown in there.

Grass

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Ugh I forgot about that after losing my job, going broke, and moving back in with the parents. I still get pissed that at least one of the coworkers can't get it right though.

Abrinoxus

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Cleaning plastic for recycling and believing it gets recycled is important to make people accept plastic in their lives. It was never really about recycling.

snownyte

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The world isn't going to end by nuclear warfare.

It's not going to end by a great famine.

It's not going to end by an asteroid.

It's not going to end by a cataclysmic shift of some sort involving space that's out of our control.

It's going to end by plastic.

HowManyNimons

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Isn't that the whole point of climate denial? It's easier to pretend it doesn't exist. Yes. How is this a joke?

Nero

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Satire isn't always pure fiction. Sometimes it's just reiterating a stupid point to highlight how ridiculous it is. Satire doesn't mean "fake" and the success of the joke is not dependant on whether or not people are making those same arguments themselves. In fact, a lot of the best satire assumes the headline you're putting forward is mocking genuine but daft arguments.

IzzyScissor

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The Onion ran out of satire years ago. Now they're just accurately reporting on real life stories.

can

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OP is from another satire site

Edit: once again I'm reminded not to swipe type blindly

Swedneck

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what's up with all the fatalists here?

AncientFutureNow

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I affirm climate change by throwing them out before the recyclers get a chance to throw them out.

someguy3

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Understandable.

But also, how about actually cooking food.

oehm

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Plenty of ingredients for cooking come in single use containers

someguy3

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Not ones that you wash out to recycle.

HowManyNimons

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Meat trays would like a word with you.

someguy3

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Mine are all Styrofoam. What do you have?

pupbiru

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styrofoam is recyclable and requires rinsing before recycling

someguy3

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Quick search says

Styrofoam is recyclable, but it is only accepted by a very small number of recycling facilities.

So maybe technically but not in practice in most places.

HowManyNimons

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The ones around here are made of P.E.T. Recyclable and washable.

i_stole_ur_taco

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Cauliflower? Wrapped in plastic.

Cucumber? Individually wrapped in plastic, or in a bag.

All protein? Plastic film and maybe some styrofoam for good measure.

Asian pears? INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED IN STRYOFOAM MESH

Small tomatoes or berries? Plastic container.

If someone buys their fresh foods from a grocery store, some things are impossible to find without already being wrapped in a ton of plastic. And they came in on a truck where the pallet was wrapped with another metric ton of plastic wrap.

It’s everywhere. Even when you’re not buying something wrapped in plastic, it was probably already wrapped in plastic and the store already threw it out for you.

someguy3

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None of which is recyclable, except the berry container.