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Is recycling a scam? (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca
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I've randomly heard various iterations of the claim recycling is a scam but never received a fleshed-out explanation or anything

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[โ€“] 4 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

Basic materials like glass and metal sure, but is also true for complex things like E-Waste and machines, for chemicals or oils, or for things made from toxic or dangerous substances like asbestos.

The scam remains though, glass and aluminium are particularly recyclable, but a lot of the time it is still pushed to the consumer and local government to deal with cleaning it up.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, that is also true. In the end it's way easier to list the recyclable things that are not a scam than the opposite. In term of volume though I guess glass and metal are still significant.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 6 months ago

    Yeah and at the end of the day the cost to make things more recyclable will still likely be born by the consumer in higher prices instead of higher local government rates, but we could at least be forcing more recyclable packaging and better product choices with circular lifecycles.

    Unbridled capitalism sucks. The drive for ever increasing profits is a race to find the most loopholes. We as consumers have mechanisms to protect the things we care about in government and regulation and it should be working for us collectively, not to just help a few sociopathic arseholes consume harder than anyone with another private yacht. Sadly government tends to be easily captured by private industry.

    The solution is simple, have government regulate effectively. Sadly the steps to get there are complex and a lot of them seem almost insurmountable.

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