It's a miraculous thing corporations have done convincing us that we're the ones polluting the environment.

codingdave a day ago | parent | next [-]

We do pollute. They are worse, but we still do it. And sometimes change needs to start from where you are at, not waiting for someone else to go first.

Relevant fallacy: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

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polalavik 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I grapple with this all the time. my wife is very eco-conscious and will scrub out a deeply moldy glass jar just to recycle it (whether the recycling system works is a separate issue here). On one hand there is some truth to the fact that if we all just work together to do the right thing the world is a much better place to live in. Sometimes i don't want to do this (scrub gross shit out) because i'm lazy, other times it feels futile. or maybe its just that the latter is a good excuse to be lazy.

I'd argue that even thinking about the idea of recycling and eco-conscious behavior is something only the already wealthy (with respect to the rest of the world) can do. There are plenty of developing nations where consumption and pollution run rampant and unchecked and unregulated which do tons more damage than me throwing 1 glass jar into a semi well managed landfill.

I mean theres just so many facets to this - does recycle work, does collective action work, or are corporations the real devils here doing much more bad than the collective at large?

i feel that the only way to change anything is through government level policy (which also feels futile), but individual actions do little without policy+propoganda to disseminate the right message and change collective behavior.

	▲	ZeroGravitas 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Developing nations generally leapfrog by adopting the latest generation of developed world tech. Imagine people saying they didn't want to adopt mobile phones because developing nations didn't have traditional telephones yet. This applies to both green tech and to green regulations. They'll look to the EU and China for that as the US is going this one alone again. China recycles 30% of its plastic compared with 12% in the US. Presumably they look at it as an engineering problem to solve and not a fake culture war to protect the oil industry. Slightly older data here but the trend and the major outlier of the US visible here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-plastic-waste-recyc...
	▲	hedgehog 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		If you have a dishwasher that will get the jar plenty clean to be recycled and not smell up your house while it's waiting to be taken out.
	▲	timeon 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> I'd argue that even thinking about the idea of recycling and eco-conscious behavior is something only the already wealthy (with respect to the rest of the world) can do. On the other hand, growing poor behind Iron Curtain, thinking about not recycling glass jars was crazy. The thing is wealthy societies just buy things. We were not only washing those jars but re-filling as well with what we have produced. And I think same goes when one is 'eco-conscious'. Recycle sure, but buy less.

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parineum 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Corporations don't do things that people don't want to pay for.

The entire purpose of their existence is to provide products to customers that want them.

The miraculous thing is people eschewing responsibility by putting blaming the person selling products to the people that want them.

If ot weren't for all those drug dealers, we wouldn't have any addicts.

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odie5533 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Your explanation assumes that 1) people have full knowledge of everything corporations do and 2) corporations aren't hiding what they do.

Corporations actively use addiction and psychological manipulation. They're not just passively filling consumer wants.

Your drug dealer analogy actually proves the opposite: we hold dealers responsible precisely because we recognize supply drives addiction. That's exactly why we have laws against dealing rather than just treating addiction as purely a demand-side problem. By your analogy, drug dealing should be legal because it gives the people what they want.

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parineum a day ago | parent [-]

> Corporations actively use addiction and psychological manipulation. They're not just passively filling consumer wants.

Are you suggesting people have a plastic bag addiction? What exactly are the plastic bag manufacturers doing that is unethical? Let's use real examples instead of vague accusations. I'm not going to start with your assumptions that corporations are all evil and are definitely doing bad stuff so you're going to need to cite examples about this specific case.

> By your analogy, drug dealing should be legal because it gives the people what they want.

How much of the harm of drugs comes from the illegality of the market? What of the drugs that are legal, why aren't they so harmful? There's a great case study about the effects of black markets when the US banned alcohol, caused a massive surge in organized crime, then reversed the ban and solved the problem they created.

Drugs cause harm. So do cars, so do plastic bags, so do knives, so do guns, etc. Harm to users/consumers sometimes a good reason, sometimes not, to make things illegal.

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odie5533 a day ago | parent [-]

Do you work for a plastic bag company?

The American Progressive Bag Alliance (representing Novolex, Hilex Poly, Superbag, and Advance Polybag) has:

- Spent $6+ million fighting California's bag ban through misleading ballot measures https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2016/08/17/plastic-b...

- Funded studies claiming reusable bags harbor dangerous bacteria (while omitting that washing eliminates this) https://archive.is/p7Qza

- Sued cities implementing bag bans, forcing expensive legal defenses https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/20/plastic-bags-have-l...

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parineum a day ago | parent [-]

> Spent $6+ million fighting California's bag ban through misleading ballot measures

"Misleading". 6m is hardly anything in a CA election. The article even agrees, “[The $6.1 million spent by manufacturers] is big money, but in California, for 17 ballot measures, it’s essentially petty cash,” he said.

How much evil money did the ban supporters spend? It's funny how negative you phrase the actions taken by the side you don't support.

And yet the ban exists.

> Funded studies claiming reusable bags harbor dangerous bacteria (while omitting that washing eliminates this)

I know lots of people that use re-useable cloth bags that don't wash them. How many studies did the environmental lobbies spend proving that plastic is horrible, ignoring the fact that most retailers simply replace cheap plastic bags with heavy duty "re-useable" plastic?

> Sued cities implementing bag bans, forcing expensive legal defenses

Nobody should sue cities now? That's pretty rich considering how often governments are sued by environmental groups.

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odie5533 a day ago | parent [-]

You skipped my question.

Do you work for a plastic manufacturer or are otherwise involved in plastic use or manufacturing?

	▲	parineum a day ago \| parent [-]
		No. Believe it or not, everyone who disagrees with you isn't a shill.

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makeitdouble 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The entire purpose of their existence is

to make money.

Customers wanting or not the product is only one of the path to that. Aligning with competitors to avoid profit reducing change to the market is one way to optimize for money while giving the middle finger to customers.

> people eschewing responsibility by putting blaming the person selling

Eschewing the responsibility of companies with money flow the size of a small nation, crazy marketing budgets, plenty access to lobbying and political power at an international level is way worse in my book.

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lm28469 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Corporations don't do things that people don't want to pay for

Have you heard about lobbies and the billion of dollars companies spend in advertising targeting everyone from the moment their mom shits them out in the world?

Are people born wanting an iPhone 98 Max S pro and a Ford mustang gt5000 7.0 ultimate? I doubt it, but they sure are influenced by comics/movies/ads 24/7 into wanting them.

Do you think the average Joe stands a chance again zuck and his friends hiring the top behavioral scientists and paying the 1m a year to make sure their ad delivery platform are addictive as possible?

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pnt12 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Agreed with first sentence ( and only). That's why the state must legislate and fiscalize rules that benefit the population.

I don't even condemn businesses (too much). For a single business to be more eco friendly it must raise costs anf lose competitiveness. For a state to mandate these stuff, all businesses will be on the same level - and they'll have to compete for practical or cheaoet ways to be eco friendly.

It's the tragedy of the Commons, and the only way to win is to enforce rules for everyone.

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milch 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Every person I know that works "back of the house" says the amount of plastic that you don't even see as a consumer is at least 10x of the final consumer packaging

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fractallyte 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I've been down this road before, and been brutally downvoted, but I'll say it again:

- corporations are responsible for creating products which can be recycled;

- the consumer is responsible for proper disposal of their waste, and also for electing officials who have actual policies on reducing or eliminating pollution;

- local government is responsible for setting up recycling centers, and for enforcing correct behavior in consumers.

The consumer is at the bottom of all this, directly responsible for polluting the environment.

Oft-stated opinions like yours are lazy and ignorant.

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qwerty_clicks 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

It’s not a radical thought to hold corporations accountable after they have limited our choices and controlled markets. So many things most Americans buy are manufactured needs so built into the culture that we think we need it. Proctor and gamble have written books about strategy that synthesize a market.

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lentil_soup 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

ok, but I find this simplification to be what is lazy. Obviously the world isn't as clear cut as only those 3 groups as if they're not intertwined.

And what does "directly responsible for polluting the environment" even mean? If I pay someone to take my trash out and throw it in the ocean am I all of a sudden excempt because I'm not the one "directly" polluting?

Pollution comes from a complex system so it has to be solved as such. Blaming individual participants (specially the ones with less money and power) is reducing the responsability of the rest which is the perfect excuse to do nothing

	▲	fractallyte a day ago \| parent [-]
		I'm furious because I see a non-stop behavior of consumers dumping their garbage, either in nature, or in municipal waste sites next to bins because they're too goddamned lazy to literally lift up their arms - let alone not sorting garbage for recycling. And this is in a major city in middle Europe, one of the centers of "civilization". If it's this bad here, what must it be like in countries with less developed social and economic systems? This is the core of consumer responsibility, and it's a dismal failure.

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weq 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

dudes never heard of industrial waste :D ^^^ ?

	▲	fractallyte 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's a whole other argument about which I have even stronger opinions - namely about the dismal failure of government, and the flaws in our democratic systems that allow corporations to infiltrate governments and manipulate policies.