LastWeekTonight
1 HN recommender · recommended in 4 months, 2021
22:24 · 4.6M views · Mar 22, 2021
John Oliver explains how plastics harm the planet and why recycling is not the solution consumers have been led to believe. He argues corporations and policymakers must act, not just individuals.
HN cites it as a clear explanation of how industry shifted recycling responsibility onto consumers and why most plastic isn't recycled.
5 comments from Hacker News
> I'm all for greater accountability of big corp when it comes to climate change, but did I miss where they said "it's not us, we swear"? Corporations gaslight consumers all the time for anything inconvenient to them and their profits. If you want to see a good case made for one example of it, plastics and plastic recycling, check out John Oliver's Last Week Tonight on plastics (you probably even believe a few of the lies they've been telling everyone about plastic recycling yourself right now. it even surprised me and I already knew plastic recycling was a little bit bullshit already). this video Here's a whole 11 episode podcast put out by the BBC called "How They Made Us Doubt Everything" about big business using the same techniques to tell us lies about smoking causing cancer to make us doubt climate change. I just found out about this now but I do intend to give it a listen: [LINK] Here's an article that's an excerpt from a book called "The New Climate War" that Michael Mann wrote about this very topic: "Then there’s the now iconic “Crying Indian” ad. Some readers may recall the commercial from the early 1970s. Featuring a tearful Indian named “Iron Eyes Cody,” it alerted viewers to the accumulating bottle and can waste littering our countryside. The ad, however, wasn’t quite what it appeared to be on the surface. A bit of sleuthing reveals that it was actually the centerpiece of a massive deflection campaign engineered by the beverage industry, which sought to point the fi
"Not recyclable" in the literal sense. You have lower yields when you reform plastics and there's always contaminants which are difficult (read "we don't know how to") remove. This is a complicated technical challenge. In fact, the recent John Oliver episode was on this topic[0]. There's kinda this weird conspiracy about this, which is more about shifting responsibility. Though the more honest answer is closer to "mostly not recyclable, a bit not economically viable". But that also depends what we mean by "economically viable". If we're using it in the typical sense of "slightly more expensive for producers" then a small percentage increase. But if we're talking about "if producers had infinite resources" then well still no, but we'd be able to recycle a bit more (we're still not talking much more). I'm assuming the former because the latter is an absurd position. [0] this video
Why do we need a separate business for this? Apple should be made to pay for it. If anyone finds an Airpod on the street or in trash/landfills, they should be able to take it to the nearest Apple store or mail it and get 20-40$ back for it. This should be the law for _all_ and any products, not just electronics. Large corporations have cleverly shifted the responsibility of recycling on the consumer, while they get to reap all the profits and benefits. This was recently well explained in a John Oliver segment: this video
Somewhat related: John Oliver recently did a segment [0] on plastics and how we recycle it (spoiler: mostly we can't). It seems regulations are sorely needed: differentiating domestic plastic waste will not get us very far. Still, research on waste reuse must continue: I'm afraid we won't put effort into really cleaning up our mess unless it becomes a somewhat profitable business. [0] this video
John Oliver did a rant on plastics recycling, a few weeks ago[0]. TL;DR: Anything with a "Number in triangle" over 2, is probably not going to be recycled, and you might as well toss it in the trash, as that's where it will end up, anyway[1]. Different from this symbol, and probably won't be affected, but recycling has a great deal of "PR spin" to it. [0] this video [1] [LINK]