> more or less every non-durable product manufacturer (say, lifespan less than 5 years) should be required to take the product back at end of life and dispose of it properly

Yeah, we had that. Glass milk bottles and coke bottles and bulk goods sold out of barrels by the lb rather than in plastic bags.

But then plastic took off and soon after Big Sugar paid a PR/lobbying firm to run a campaign with a fake Indian crying a single tear and calling every Tom Dick and Harry a “litterbug” and now the pile of garbage is our fault, not the manufacturers.

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tomcam 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It was amazing being a kid back then because you could earn some decent coin returning bottles

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teiferer 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Nowadays the homeless or other less-than-living-wage earners do that for us. You can see them everywhere in cities all over north america and europe if you pay attention.

	▲	pjmlp an hour ago \| parent [-]
		As European that is not spread everywhere, while you can get some money back in Germany and Greece, there is none to be had in Portugal. In Germany, it is such a big issue with people not having other source of income, that there is a culture where and how to leave the bottles around so that they are easier to collect.

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4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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foolfoolz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

there are still people today who roam neighborhoods collecting bottles and cans

	▲	tombert 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My neighborhood recycling occurs on Thursday night, so I take all my empty cans and put them in a clear plastic back and put them next to my trash. I do not think that the garbage people have ever gotten the cans; there is always a homeless person that will walk around and pick up the bag of empties, presumably to redeem them somewhere. I don’t have an issue with it, if they want to do what I am too lazy to do, more power to them.

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venturecruelty 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Listen, we can hold Big Plastic accountable and also not throw trash out of our cars, I think.

	▲	lostlogin 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What’s something we have managed to do this with? Maybe the process could be emulated.