Climate Town
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2021–2026
8:45 · 1.9M views · Dec 17, 2020
Climate Town gives a comedic, fast-paced account of how the plastics industry promoted recycling, including the resin-code recycling symbol, while knowing most plastic could not be economically recycled. It points viewers to the Frontline documentary Plastic Wars for a deeper treatment.
Commenters send it as a short, entertaining explanation of why people believe plastic is recyclable and how industry PR created that belief.
7 comments from Hacker News
It makes a lot of sense. Corporations make more money the more junk they produce. If you have 10 minutes I recommend watching this video about how the lobby groups invented the whole idea of recycling plastic with the little numbered resin identification code that looks like a recycling symbol. this video
Would it surprise you to hear that the plastics industry came up with that symbol in order to make it confusing to the layperson to differentiate between recyclables and single-use plastics? "Source" (not a primary source): this video <-- which has some links to further reading/viewing and a few sources.
This youtube video explains why plastic recycling exists, how it's mostly ineffective and why is it a scam created to normalize one-use plastic. This basically applies to electronics and others. "Why would I reuse or reduce, I can buy, consume an recycle". this video
> Why do we buy so much single-use packaging It's designed to be that way by the PR guys that created the plastic recycling logo. This video is under 10mins and features a lot of the PR adverts. this video
A lot of things you'd think can be recycled actually can't be. This video gives a good overview about the reason this belief is so prevalent.: this video