How China Broke the World's Recycling
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Writing by Sam Denby
Research by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation by Josh Sherrington
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster
Select footage courtesy the AP Archive
References:
[1] docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/...
[2] docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/FE_...
[3] www.dakotavalleyrecycling.org...
[4] www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692...
[5] www.bottledwater.org/rpet-facts
[6] www.ft.com/content/360e2524-d...
[7] www.businessinsider.com/plast...
Musicbed SyncID:
MB01KINKY2UTHEQ
China did nothing to break the world's recycling. All it did was tell the rest of the world to recycle their own messes in their own countries. Which sounds completely logical and rational to me.
Especially if the countries making the messes are large and wealthy and can afford to reduce their GNP by a tiny amount to clean up their own mess. The rate than the billionaires are going, it should soon be possible to load up enormous rockets and set the controls for the hearts of the sun.
They kind of did though. The world's system was dumping all of it's less valuable recyclables on China. China stopped accepting them, so the system crumbled. However, and as this video itself states, it was a broken and corrupted system from the start and should have never been.
@@ding9916 Yeah the title is only slightly misleading, but the content seems solid, and he never throws shade on China's decision, whatever else China is guilty of. The system was broken from the start and only existed in the first place so Capitalists could make money, a weirdly repetitive story from America's history.
The off balance comes from the massive amount of cheap plastics originating in China and being exported. There previously would have been sanctions that would be punishing not to receive them back, but with China’s rising power, it is no longer an issue.
China actually did the right things for once, how surprising
In the UK: the council fines you for not separating your recyclables correctly, then sends all waste to the same landfill.
Welcome to Europe saving the world :D
Almost like we need to regulate company behavior rather than individual
In the UK you can be arrested for being impolite.
What? Ive never heard of this fine, where do you live?
the Western world hypocrisy in a nutshell
The biggest problem with plastic is that it's a very durable and long-lasting material being marketed as a single-use throwaway material. We do need to realize that finding an alternative material to plastic for single-use applications is like the only really sustainable option left to us at this rate.
We have biodegradable materials with similar properties. They're a bit more expensive to produce, since they don't have the same established infrastructure behind them at scale that plastic does by now - so without any regulation at all, producers do not adopt them. Whoops! Unchecked capitalism at work.
Use plastic as a fuel after it was used as a package. Problem solved. Expand usage aluminum and glass and tin cans.
@@skipperg4436 Bruh burning plastic is fucking hazardous as fuck. The toxic gases it releases are insane.
@@NAMEMERKEN mate its more complex: there are ways to "prepare" plastic so its combustion won't be releasing toxic gases. For example, if you put plastic in sealed pressure vessel and heat it to afaik 700 C (and add a little bit water) plastic will become methane and carbon dioxide. Combustion of that methane can run turbine that run power generator and provide heat for the process. Less efficient than just burning methane (aka "natural gas") that is extracted from the ground but it solves the plastic wastes issue. Fuel pellets I mentioned use different chemistry details of which I am not familiar with, but it must be something of similar nature. Trash processing plants do sell these fuel pellets to public so I assume its reasonably safe.
Wow I'm sure NO ONE ever thought of that. So I'm guessing you don't use plastic?
5:00 Regulations Timeline 6:25 Why plastic recycling is a dead end 8:00 How plastic recycling is profitable in China 11:00 The turning point
That’s why I refuse to take cups at McDonalds and chug directly from the fountain...and they look at me like I am the idiot.🤦♂️
I would respect that
Epic comment 👍
I bring my own 32 oz bottle. Thus I don't have to pay anything and can get more that the super size cups with lids that fall off.
are mcDonalds cups in the US made of plastic?
@@xekolaxo No, they are paper.
Im from Guangzhou, China. I remember the day it was banned by China, everyone was super happy. The plastic recycling companies often illegally dump the wasted into the pearl river, contaminating the environment. I remember a stream of peral river near my house smelled like sewage cause the stream passes near plastic recycling place
@123 123 i don't think he's still there seeing as he's on a banned site
@123 123 ... if he's using a vpn to access illegal sites he's clearly not here to praise the chinese government. he's only hear to dunk on dodgy companies.
he was smart enough not to disclose his actual location. I'm satisfied with that.
@@shale6422 Please try to educate yourself before you write an uneducated comment again. China's Great Firewall is simply them refusing to host a series of websites that they deem unfit on their domestic servers. Hence why Chinese people use VPNs to access Western websites, the sites aren't illegal to access, they just aren't hosted by any servers in China.
@@treymiller2275 alright I admit my mistake. he's accessing sites that are *discouraged* by the ccp, not illegal. sorry.
I'd love to see a video about the actual cargo ships themselves, why many aren't lost to storms, how that/they are tracked, how they can be so collosal but why we don't make them bigger, etc. The shipping container video was very informative, too.
There is a limit to what size ships ports can accommodate. Ships that need to transit through, say, the panama canal can also not exceed a certain size or they just won't fit. Some countries also have limits on what size ship can sail on their waterways.
I worked in the trash industry , and there was a standard we weren't meeting as a country. He missed this fact in the video. Processed plastics works off a rating system say 5/10 is acceptable. We repeatedly did not meet this 5/10 standard and this was the biggest reason. It was costing them too much to sort already sorted plastic
Title: How China Broke Recycling Video: How Recycling was broken from the beginning
Touché
Anything subsidized is doomed to fail bc it wouldn't exist otherwise.
@@nunyabizness8799 The problem is that companies do not have to pay the price for their product being recycled. Charge them for it and trash will go down in a day... Instead we hope people will put in work for free, while the government do not want to put in the money to keep the chain alive. If every bit of plastic used in a product increases the taxes they have to pay, you won't find a lot of plastic in products anymore...
HOW china breaks y
Sinophobic title sells
The video dug deeper to reveal how the industry works as a whole, instead of just putting the blame on China like what most news media would opt for. Respect.
I don't see how you could blame China. If anything they did good for decades. They turned a completely broken system into a slightly broken system for quite some time. Regardless of the motivation, they are the heroes of this story.
@@CaptNSquared So all those plastics processors are shut down and haven't simply transitioned to processing China's domestically produced plastic waste?
@@SBBurzmali Doesn't matter. Presumably in the early days China had hardly any waste plastic as a nation just starting to develop, and as the video said demand was way higher then supply so whatever local plastic they had it wasn't enough. This means they were handling plastic that otherwise would have been landfilled and weren't ignoring local plastics. Nowadays, even if a 100% perfect transition was made overnight form foreign to local, that's better. It means the exact same amount of plastic is being recycled but this time it is traveling a MUCH shorter distance. However a 100% perfect transition with the same supply as before seems incredibly unlikely. America produces a lot of waste plastic (and the video said "the west's recycling program". So if the rest of the west did this too then that's even more) I find it hard to believe China had a local surplus of waste plastic equal to what was being imported ready to fill the void. But again even the best, case scenario where they did is better on a global scale. And when it comes to the environment (and the vast majority of things really), that's the only scale that matters.
Public or private, media is power. Those whose power motive is self-actualization and truth will produce content without bias.
It is the West that exploited and took advantage of China to ship billions tons of toxic plastic waste to China over the last few decades. Good to see China stop doing the dirty jobs for the West. Every country must recycle their own waste.
Fun fact the most recyclable type of plastic in the world is also the one of the most durable and could be used to make things like bottle caps but they just don't and the low temperature requirements for recycling the material into a usable State unless you're trying to burn off the dye is so low you can do it at home
what is this plastic?
@@nospeakgames8802 HDPE it use make water jugs milk jugs another types of waterproof plastic containers and under special conditions you can even be 3D printed. It also melts at a lower temperature than it off gases allowing people to recast it by melting it down. It's quite literally the same principle that they used to make the jugs just backwards. And so long as you get pure HDPE you can basically melt it down to a multiple temperature and only lose a small portion of its overall volume.
Sure, it may be recyclable, but it’s not sourced sustainably. The best option we have right now is PLA, but that has issues because it’s glass transition is at like 60C. Basically-we have a lot of work to do.
I've been arguing for elimination of plastics from food packaging from a purely nutritional and social perspective but this is a whole different angle. Good stuff.
Nutritional? Negligible traces of microplastic are not healthy to ingest, but they're healthier than ingesting whatever god-forsaken contaminants passed through a paper-based wrapper in the long logistics chain that goes from factory to consumer. "Social perspective"? You mean the perspective of "let's force manufacturers to use more expensive and less nutritionally safe materials that the consumers will have to pay for, all in the name of 'saving the planet'"? Any type of manufacture produces undesirable side-effects, not just plastic. Unless you plan on offing yourself in order to prevent the amount of garbage you will produce in your lifetime, it's time to get used to this fact. Thinking about possible solutions to this problem is fine and desirable, but falling for nonsensical "solutions" that are actually worse overall, but make one feel "goody goody planet saver"; is not the way forward.
@@lako8368 social perspective meaning to encourage local food production and consumption
@@lako8368 I'm not an environmentalist, I'm a conservationist. I think people should eat locally produced food, store it in glass containers and try to be a good warden of your local wildlife. I don't, for example, villianize hydrocarbon fuels, logging, etc. I'm just against centralized industrial agriculture and extreme urbanization in general. Calm down
I'm from Kenya, our government banned plastic bags almost two years now, we use cloth bags for shopping and to be honest I dont miss plastic. I always thought it would be a hard transition but it wasn't and I can already see the positive impact on the environment in that short period of time. It still shocks me to see people in other countries using plastic bags for shopping, I just hope other governments follows suit so that we can save the planet.
@@marasotu5969 people like you make me feel ashamed to be Turkish
Not using plastic bags sounds like a good idea, but I am not so sure after all. How do you deal with your trash etc? Just today, I went to the store and even though I usually bring a bag with my bike I didn't this time because I need a plastic bag for my bottle recycling. If I do not use plastic bags for shopping, I will have to buy the bags separately. Incidentally, the plastic bags at least here are 90% made out of recycled plastic so banning them takes away demand for recycling. Also the cloth bags have much bigger impact on the climate, like 100x bigger.
same in mexico
@@tygmy its been banned for a while in mexico and we still have plastic bags from years ago at home also they still sell trash bags that are not made of cheap plastic that cant be recycled what? arent shopping plastic bags not recyclable because of how bad they are? they even showed that on the video also you realize that recycling pollutes a lot too? its not a magic solution either, sadly
@@MacetazzOpina You can not recycle the plastic forever, it degrades in quality and ends up being some kind of waxy substance. Could be that the shopping bags are made of the worst possible plastic that is already recycled many times. I am not an expert, but sounds like a really bad idea to buy plastic bags made of good quality plastic. Shopping bags and garbage bags seem like the best thing to use recycled plastic. Making them out of good quality plastic just increase the demand for new plastic and that way increase production. If only plastic shopping bags are banned, I think people will still have to buy their garbage bags separately. Eventually you will run out of accumulated bags too. The plastic bag issue is more complex than what it seems, for example the climate impact calculation is heavily affect by whether the plastic shopping bag is used as a garbage bag after or not. You also have to reuse the cloth bag like 150 times and then you can still probably reuse it as like a cleaning rag instead of buying some actual rag. Not easy to see what is the best.
The simple solution is to get rid of that woman in Colorado buying all that yogurt.
Or do away with the packaging and make her eat it out of a large communal vat with everyone else
Or we ban all food that requires packaging. Bananas for all!!
This would be the CCP solution. And you could harvest organs too - win-win.
But, I really like yogurt for breakfast!
@@Sagittarius-A-Star how about get rid of the entire America. I would love to see that happen.
Good overview in the recycling dilemma, as someone who collects waste plastics at an individual level, I appreciate you shedding some light on the problems and even more the potential solutions to our situation. I wonder how many people actually understand recycling, and because of this video, millions!! Hoping that number hits a billion soon. I am currently thinking the solution is always the consumer demand, after all the consumer on masse, is facilitating the problem. but how to get the global conscious demand onboard is the big ask. Thanks for sharing! Great video! Well done
This is one of the reasons I try to go out of my way to buy things that aren't packaged in plastic. Beverages almost always taste better when bottled in glass or in aluminum cans and most consumer goods can easily be packaged in cardboard and moulded/recycled fiber board. It may not save the environment but at least those materials are easily recyclable and/or decomposable.
Aluminum cans are an energy consumption nightmare though
It's simply affordable and cheaper to use Plastic than aluminum and glass. I do agree with that but the sad reality is that private companies will do anything to be profitable.
Its just like in the movies. By "the world" is really meant "the US"
This idea is so hard to comprehend by the Americans since 5% of the population creates almost 90% of content online
@@AquaticPrayer Of course United States is the world! Other countries are not as equal as U.S.
MJ: that’s not what I meant when I wrote “We are the World”
@@keyboardmanyoutube3189 👏👏
@@yudax5057 the lymph nodes,
Don't forget what you learned back in the third grade; it's reduce, reuse and THEN recycle. We forgot about the first two, much more important elements to waste reduction.
true. remember how we used to fix things but now its cheaper to buy new one. messed up.
Underrated comment
It's a nice idea for future plastic, but doesn't fix the problem of all the tons of existing disposed plastic not being recycled.
@@DiegoCandel It has to start somewhere. Even if the existing disposed plastic is just ultimately fished out and burned down in plants.
@@Puleczech I agree. In fact, i would argue it started a long time ago with individual efforts (from indigenous people opposing pipelines and preserving flora and fauna, people cleaning beaches and landscapes to NGOs cleaning parts of the oceans). But that's going beyond the 3 Rs. It's adding "Cleaning" to the package. But perhaps it's also time manufacturing companies should join in fixing the mess they've created. If those companies would've to be made responsible for cleaning and recycling the disposed plastic, the situation would be completely different.
It should never have been something to profit from but a necessary cost.
Greed drives the world to ruin. We have the ability to solve every problem in the world today with our current tech and yet the biggest issue is a human one.
@@alargecorgi2199 Some business owners are poor. A business can be a single woman braiding hair. I saw some regular people said the couldn't afford to, were too busy, or said environmentalism is a luxury. They said that if businesses or groups provide environmentally friendly things and at a affordable price then they'll support that. We shouldn't be harsh on people and should help people too. There are simple little things people can do.
wow..very eye opening video.. these ancient systems need to be changed!!
Back when the 3 R's came out, there was also Reduce & Reuse. Sad those don't get the same marketing as Recycle.
Reduce really means reducing the numbers of humans. Then we won't need to use plastics to replace natural materials.
Reduce doesn't help big corporations, although they have made little steps like further concentrating certain products (laundry detergent, dish soap etc.). Reuse is getting a bit of a look in with the things like metal straws and stores that allow the purchase of loose grain, but a lot of those need to be reused an absurd number of times before there is actually an improvement.
This is the answer. Recycling is supposed to be the last option. Reduce your consumption, and reuse the empty container that you do buy. Buy in bulk what you can to reduce the amount of container material per unit of product. And humanity has already created compostable containers - they just need to be mandated for use by varying levels of government. I say varying levels because this is action that can take place at the local level. Corn, hemp, sugarcane...we even have a variety of these things. And we can produce them in North America. Lastly, solid waste isn't a problem because of the solids - it's a problem because of the fuel we burn to transport them around. The atmosphere is going to harm us far faster than the landfill is.
Yeah, the big corporate execs are too far removed from the average store. All they can see is numbers, and WE have to make the change and start manipulating the numbers by reusing, making the choice to reduce our consumption if it is unsustainable, etc. This can't come from the government, and it simply won't come from companies themselves, it has to start with us. But here in the US, people love their bread and circuses, it will be very hard to convince them to give up short term comfort even if it means long term sustainability.
I agree. The three R's they are in order of importance. Reduce first, reuse second, recycle least important at third.
That's why you use the 5 Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle! Follow in that order. Recycling should be people's last option; refusing should be people's first.
Not a lot of ability to "refuse" when pretty much everything at the store is in a container.
It's still just 3 R's. Refusing is reducing your consumption, and repurposing is reusing. You just duplicated 2 of them.
@@KaiserMattTygore927 that's where the tough choices come in. Buy a different product that has better packaging or write to the company to pressure them into changing their packaging.
@@vancel35 The problem with that approach is that in order to make those "tough choices", you'd need to be educated on the supply chains and relative life-cycle profiles of all the prospective products you can choose from, and basically nobody is. Instead, people will most likely buy something that has a green label on it and is packaged in glass, paper or wood, and in most cases is way less environmentally friendly than their first choice.
@@vancel35 Exactly: It's still just 3 R's. Refusing is reducing your consumption, and repurposing is reusing. You just duplicated 2 of them
We need to go back to how it was in the early 20th century when you'd get a carton of milk in glass containers one day and leave the glass containers on the front porch to be reused the following week
You could easily fix recycling. Ban companies using virgin plastic unless there isn't a recycled plastic alternative.
i still dont get why humans thought that using a super durable and long lasting material for packaging that you are meant to throw away was a good idea
Because humans.
imagine if you made the average soda bottle twice or trice as thick/dense. And other packaging you use as a container or to carry stuff. It would be unbreakable. Especially if it was resistant to UV light, it could probably last for several hundred years. But the plastic industry would go bankrupt if people stopped constantly buying new products.
Sadly cuz it's Hella cheap. Any other material with as much durability costs s lot more, which just leads to the question "why all this unnecessary packaging in the first place? Why the frick does everything come in two plastic bags sealed with Styrofoam then in a cardboard box with shrinkwrap???" That's the bizarre part I don't understand.
Capitalism.
Humans take everything for granted.
Better thread title: "How China stopped being the world's dumping ground". The US needs to subsidize plastic recycling or it doesn't make sense economically.
yes. help america become more independent and help the envirement
@@leosong829 actually it would probably make good cost more and honestly it might create more jobs but less paying jobs
$0.50 have been deposited to your account
@@delayed_control beat me to it... Lmao
Why not just fucking tax plastic? People shouldn't be buying that shit in the first place.
I had no idea recycling has such issues, and it was very interesting to find out. Your videos are awesome, guys, keep it up!!
I have always hated plastic as a chef and someone who worked in and around the food industry. Liquids don’t seem to be affected by most kinds of plastics, but I don’t like storing food in it. I am in the process of creating/opening a new company and my new product will be sold in stainless steel containers. Not glass. Not plastic!
"Oh China got wise to taking the world's trash? Okay, lets send it to Malaysia"
Some corrupted and short sighted official probably approved it
Even Malaysia is diverting them
Narrator: "And thus we solved the trash problem, once and for all." A kid in the audience: "But..." Narrator: "ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!"
If a regime like that of China, which doesn't give a single flying fuck about the human conditions, or human rights won't do it. One of the most corrupt and sociopathic regimes in all of human history. If they won't do it, you can be damn well assured it isn't sustainable, and won't last anywhere. They simply crunched the numbers, and I doubt the findings are disputable.
They should just recycle their own trash, why is it another country's fault if they refuse
So basically it went like: -Hey China, do you want my trash ?! -*Uh no ?* -WHYYYYYYY
Wendover Productions: did you say China?! WRITE THAT DOWN!
accurate
China puts China first
@@BigYoshi826 Nothing wrong with that right?
@@hwg5039 It's _exemplary..._
in my area, We had this bamboo knitted bag idk the english name for it, bamboo straw & stuff and we started to get used to it. hopefully it can spread city-wide, nationally or globally. Not necesary need to be bamboo, but whatever friendly & abundant resource they can find in their country, creativity is the key
It seems like the solution has to be a global plastics tax making the purchase of new petroplastics more expensive than recycled or degradable bioplastics, creating national money and balancing the industry. This, combined with subsidies for new ventures to find and monetise new uses for waste petroplastics (Scandanavia notoriously make money from their recycling operations, and new companies insist petroplastics can be broken down into recycled fuels, such as ecosene). I'd love to see another video on this, as I've heard all sorts of things about how this market can turn around.
"How China Broke the World's Recycling" or How US had to deal with its own trash
or does not.
yeah it's a very clickbait-y title... if China broke anything it's the illusion of a working system by actually improving the lives of their own citizens.
Same thing happens with Canada in which Southeast Asian countries are rejecting western trash which may be bad for the west but it’s a good way for Asian countries to stand up for themselves
@@boff__ i wish i could have all that plastic would you tell the Americans and Canadians to give me citizen ship so i can have all that plastic for my self?!
I can't believe such a video with so many biases and pre-determine "China always wrong" can still be published by a KZheadr with more than 2 millions subscriber, it is ridiculous. China is just like most of the big country in the world, it has a free economy, free speech right, everyone has a chance to be successful in China. Maybe the freedom definition is different from western, but Chinese very rarely said China is a country with limited freedom, even after they spend decades lived in western countries. It is still a developing country, there are some terrible things that happened, the bad things also happened in any other big human societies, China is changing every day and mostly towards a good direction. People from all around the world are really strict to China, If something bad happens to China, they will deny China as a whole, believing that everyone in China is suffering at all times. In fact, 20 years ago, these things happened more frequently in their country, people who have been to China before will deny almost all Western media’s evil propaganda against China. Western netizens would not believe it no matter how hard people try, they would think that this is Communist propaganda or just a liar, but the fact is like what I wrote. Some people say that they don’t believe it, actually, they don’t want to believe that a developing country has such great power. They want to continue to control the whole world and let this world work for them so that they can live a good life without having to work. But a good life belongs to hardworking, intelligent and kind people, not where you are from or what race you are, I think time will prove everything.
The used Yogurt cup has traveled more than me in 2020
Send this one to the top!!!
It didn't travel far at all
seeing that bong laying on the beach next to a doll reminds me of where I grew up
My workplace generates about 10 bales of shrink wrap type plastics each week. Two different types of plastics go into these (separated) at a ratio of 7-8/3-2. The smaller volume gets recycled, the larger goes to landfill.
Back in the old days, we used glass bottles, and got a refund when we'd return them.
No!!! That is much worse situation 1) it do weight more so more transportation costs 2) it is thicker than the plastic bottle so less litres/gallons in one pallet - more transportation costs 3) it do broke easier - more wasted products - more costs. Broken glass do make injuries 4) again because the weight and size, more transportation costs when transported to recycling 5) recycling needs more investments than recycling plastics so less companies which can recycle, more transported kilometres/miles - more costs 6) recycling, and manufacturing, needs more energy that recycling plastics Solution is: 1) as less as possible laminated products so no aluminium and plastics together 2) good enough markings which type of plastics 3) separate different plastics AT THE MOMENT it becomes waste so at home/office/workplace/shop 4) separate recycling bins 5) local recycling One key factor is the price of energy
They still do this in Germany. You take the empty bottles to your favorite brewery and they refill them for you. Much more efficient than what we do in the USA
@@SCHMALLZZZ hmmm
@@SCHMALLZZZ yeah, each bottle 0.25 or 0.15 euro
we do still do that in Tunisia. and glass is very resistant, so it's just desinfected, refilled and reselled. they don't even bother to put another sticker on ot if it's gone. although if the bottle is broken, they recycle it. when third world countries have the best solutions to climate change lol
Thank you for the video, but why do you. End. All. Yoursentences. Like. This?
To. Prove. A. POINT!.
The Shatner effect in a nutshell. Basically, William Shatner noticed while performing a Shakespeare play that performing classically meant people were leaving the theatre in boredom. By changing which words were stressed in a sentence, he had grabbed their attention and they kept their bums in their seats the whole way through. It sounds stupid, but it's effective.
Very annoying yes lol
... you literally just ruined his videos for me.. I seriously never really noticed but now because of what you said it's all I can notice
What. The. Hell.
I just recently watched a couple of videos of a process where you can either melt down the plastic to be reused, and turning used plastic items that often rejected for recycling into a diesel engine fuel. One video took Styrofoam and added solvent to create a water proof mixture they used to seal outdoor wood furniture and seal cement blocks etc. Bypassing the local garbage pickup, processing recycling sorting and ultimately the landfill. IF the fuel industry can not responsibly do business without polluting and the manufacturing industry won't step up to the task of finding solutions to reduce the waste
I think we're close to the point where a lot of us could be recycling stuff ourselves on a near individual level. However manufacturers and product designers still refuse to change their ways and make some probably fairly simple changes to enable this.
As someone who owns plastic recycling companies, I can't agree more with this video. The best explanation of the industry I have ever seen.
Hi Steven, if not too busy, I was wondering: as someone who is in that industry, what do you think would help with the plastic waste/recycle problem? 1. Standardizing the shape of plastic containers? (E.g. Imposing a set shape for 12 oz drinks; a set shape for 32 oz yogurt containers so that all 32 oz yogurt containers can be stacked taking minimal space - is this a consideration?) 2. Standardizing the type of plastics that can be used? (E.g. restricting to only a few types of plastics) 3. More granular sorting of recycles (e.g. separating plastics, paper, metal, and glass). 4. Better consumer education? 5. A tax on new plastic/subsidies on recycling plastics to increase the cost of new plastics while decreasing the cost of recycling plastic? Other things? Thanks in advanced! Side question: is there a type or types of plastics that most plastic recycling plants can recycle or is it a mix - some plants can recycle some types, other plants can recycle others?
Do you own any in Ontario Canada
@@joseville following.
Any idea if anyone is looking at solar-thermal powered synthesis yet? I frankly think that anything notably dissimilar is ultimately only going to work for specialized domains like milk cartons.
Posting this cause I am looking for an answer to the first reply
I remember when Philippines gave their trash back to Canada, that was hilariously brilliant move!
And American problems are that China will not accept the waste manufactured originally in China.
I think PH also did that to South Korea
@@allangibson2408 But it's all made with oil that the US and China steal by cooperating together. There can't be peace in the middle east because there's too much profit in its resources.
@@allangibson2408 though China is manufacturing these items to specs provided by American companies, so it's not like we're blameless in the materials being used.
@@moodist1er the us is a net exporter of oil my friend.
If there is enough space, I would argue that landfilling those plastics is actually _better_ than incineration in the long run. There will be an era when making new plastics from oil becomes much *much* more expensive, and thus more and more recycling turns profitable. Eventually, it will be profitable to reclaim materials stored in landfills, e.g. _landfill mining._ This option is simply not there if the material is destroyed by incineration.
The answer is clear: the profitability should not be the main goal of human race anymore. But this demands another system, you are absolutely right!
tell that to business owners.
@@NightWear21 aha, ask them politely, lol
yeah just rebuild everything from the ground up, why didn't anyone else think of that? so simple!
"How China Revealed the World's Recycling System was Always Broken"
I agree with your title.
Don't worry they're still committing genocide.
That is literally the ending sentiment of the video, great job genius.
@@m_lies But the same thing happened with plenty of other countries around the world
But if you called it that, all the China haters in the US would be downvoting it without even watching it.
After watching my daughter unbox a new Barbie doll and seeing the amount of packaging they use - absolutely insane amount - I was wishing that there was a regulator that encouraged minimal packaging by imposing a plastic levy on any company that feels it necessary to put more plastic into their packaging, than in the product that's inside.
Just increase the doll's cost while keeping the package?
doll cost would increase that way... plastic will not go down, think about it, first you need a replacement for plastic, levying heavy taxes on plastic will make it valuable and equal to GOLD, that is not the solution, plastic is a necessity right now, it is light weighted, durable, resistant and almost permanent lasting, can take any shape and size easily, has 1000000s of different uses, just commenting here bla bla bla doesn't work, do your research first, is your house and daily usage plastic free ?
@@memd777 minimal packaging. MINIMAL is the key word here. Plastic might be a necessity for many things, but it isn't in many cases. Next few things you open, just think about whether all the plastic in that packaging is needed. You get a phone in a box, headphones in a separate plastic bag, charging cable in a separate plastic bag. Last laptop I purchased, every single instruction booklet, and there were 4 of them, was in a separate plastic bag. You're not going to tell me that multi-billion dollar companies have not figured out ways to transport these without that extra packaging, considering the fact that these individual "components" are usually made in the same Chinese city or region. Same with food. Does every single avocado have to be packed in a plastic bag (with holes for air mind you, so not offering much benefit in terms of preserving the food)? The supermarket chain I go to is notorious for selling cucumbers that are wrapped in plastic film, cut in half and then each half is packaged again in a plastic bag to be sold separately. None of these are examples of minimal packaging.
@@mateuszmalenta4570 I work for a produce company. All the cucumbers are either individually wrapped, or wrapped in bundles with an insane amount of plastic. It's so much plastic that it raises the heat on the cucumbers, which make them spoil faster.
@@memd777 I suggest you do your research. Look at the things we buy. Batteries recently went from a small paper cardboard sheet with a thin plastic film over them. They now come in hard plastic sleeves inside of a cardboard box. Raising the price. So that goes both ways. This isn't the 1900's anymore. We absolutely have better materials. You have to follow the money.
This was a good summary, except you left out viable options, and assert a false dilemma at 17:00. Other options are gasification and pyrolysis. They are more like distillation, separating by boiling point, then processing the fractions separately, with the result of low emissions, allowing output streams to go through carbon sequestering or other processes, and potentially recycle some fractions to product. I think it would have to be run nonprofit, for best environmental results. The energy produced can run the process, and any energy excess could be used for further refining emissions instead of feeding the grid. I also think gasification could be used to just remove light hydrocarbons (all volatile compounds, actually) from garbage, and then landfill the remainder.
Just reminded me of this old lady at this educational institution, after every day of classes she goes through all the bins and collects the cans. Not for the sole reason of recycling but to exchange for cash. Although its a small amount i respect her grind, she never misses a day.
It was already broken, China just let everybody know
More like China stopped being the fall guy for their virtue signaling.
No country wants to accept their mistake and from the current scenario that China has become enemy of many countries in west , so west having done something wrong won’t be accepted by their government but they will blame it on China
@@rj5848 in majority of the cases China are to blame. Alot of the cheap, single-use products originate from them. You can't be the biggest producer of crappy plastic items and then take no responsibility for their recycling. Also, what the video fails to mention is the amount of plastic products Chinese shipping companies dump around Africa (and probably elsewhere, including the Pacific). Imagine a container with defective / returned / unsold merchandise being loaded back on a ship from an EU country. Now you might think that it is cheaper to return it back to China and fix / resell it. Well no. It is actually cheaper for them to dump it in the sea around African shores (somewhere in the Atlantic) and not drag it back for a few thousand miles. This is predominately why China is and will continue to be for a long time now - the biggest polluter in the world...
@@Qtechbh It's not about who produces them, it's about who needs and uses them.
@@Qtechbh Why do you think China produces the product to begin with? It's not the western cooperation's greed? It's not the western people's consumerism? If it's not China producing then it'll be someone else. It's interesting to see how western people consumes all the resources and product and blame other people for the garbage they produce.
I was surprised to learn that bottle caps are considered low value. Here in Italy there are a few charity organizations that collect them and gift a wheelchair to someone in need for every 100kg of bottle caps. I thought that it would have been considered a good plastic to recycle if separated from the bottles.
me too
My city couple years ago had a big recycling education mail letter telling people to separate the cap and the seal ring from the bottle before recycling and toss the cap and seal ring into the trash (seal ring - the part that break from the cap but remain on the bottle neck)
as he said.. the biggest problem is sorting. There is a awesome video about recycling , unfortunately in German. You eat a joghurt... you throw that joghurt into the recycling. So far so good. But what do most people do? Put the lid (aluminium) into the cup, the cup gets squeezed.... and the aluminum is out of the process. The cup too as it can't be recycled. Similar to the bottles with the plastic wraps around (Müller Milk f.e. ) both different kind of plastic, machines can't separate them , gets tossed out and burned. If you would separate it before both could be recycled and therefore would be valuable. I guess same goes for the caps.... you sorted them out before.
Lol, actually they are ok, theres far worse stuff. I work at a company that recyles stuff like that, we get huge bags filled with em, they arent as bad as portrait here... Also at least in europe we have/had PET bottles we returned to stores, in germany its still the default and even tin cans like coke etc are like that...
@@blubbber actually no, on bottles you dont need to bother sorting out caps or stickers, the PET does not swim, the rest does, its very easily sorted out. the leftovers are fine to use as well, not all but still, far better then just burning all. We usually pre sort em, shred em, wash em, put em through a flake sorter that sorts out per color and then remelt it.
6:28 i love how you added the "at least now" as if you had seen this war coming from a mile away
Recycling plastics inhouse is actually very profitable. I do R&D tax and I got a lady who did all the cleaning, granulating, recycling of the plastics and she was ballin
It’s all fun and games till glass and plastics start recycling us
Lmao
Can I be rebuilt as glass and plastics?
everybody gangsta until China starts recycling Hong Kong citzen
@@grazziotti7669 I mean everyone left that shitty city.
@@mervynlan7727 lol, you are working overtime in this comment section. You have been spreading pro-CCP propaganda all around. It isn't working lol
Wendover: *makes video about China* Polymatter: Wait, that's illegal.
Jonah Bellemans lol
Actually Polymatter made the exact same video like a year ago
@@Sabrintwitt3r but Polymatter came to much worse conclusions. I think, imma go rewatch his video now to confirm. It's been a while since i saw it and unsuscribed for how bad it was.
Business casual also made a similar video.
@@superj8502 actually Polymatter didn't even touch the recycling system being broken
Probably the third time I watched SFW. I work in industry and have tried to used recycled products. A question I’ve wondered about I the actual carbon and toxics footprint even if profitable. I think there remains a technical challenge in some markets according to an actual EDP disclosures standards. I know pavement works, recycled glass probably and stainless steel definitely. It’s surprising that in some cases, depending on how you account (to have to frac and distill the crude anyway to get fuels) the carbon footprint of making plastics may not be all that big. If you melt with coal based heat? This would tell us if or why a government might incentivize a waste stream. You could further ask if waste to energy needs another model. That is a dry waste stream that accepts that burning polymer is our best way. BTW don’t you think it’s funny that the recycle bins are made of plastic. Genius!
6:29 "oil is cheap at least now"
Clearly what needs to happen is for the cost of recycling be factored into its initial cost. If the price of virgin plastic includes the cost to recycle it, then the price of recycled plastic suddenly becomes much, much cheaper. Since recycled plastic would be in much higher demand, because it's cheaper than virgin plastic, the price would increase, providing recycling companies with a higher profit margin. The cost would fluctuate for a little while but would settle down to a point where virgin plastic remains a bit more expensive than recycled plastic, as it should be. The cost to dispose of stuff should always be factored into the initial cost to produce and sell it.
it's so obvious that the video not even mentioning it feels like a bit of a psy-op lol
Recycling costs and the cost to environment should get included in prices of all products. But it's not that simple and it's not a solution to end it all. For example, is not possible to effectively recycle all plastics forever. They get worse quality each time and are not really usable at some point . The real solution is to focus first on reducing and reusing. Recycling can only be a small part
@@jankoodziej877 Yes. Speaking of which... can we get other things for production of things? No more plastic. Yep, talking about dolls, and plastic toys. Would be bad for le plastic economy, ya. Poor billionaires. :(
There are probably plenty of technical solutions but we need the international laws and taxes first. If there was no competition of cheaper, dirty products then the profits would be the same too. For us finally, the price of the product would raise only slightly I think. There are now costs too.
This would mean cost for most things would go up. In a democracy the majority of people have to be willing to pay higher costs in order to vote this into law. Currently not enough people are willing to do that. But hopefully that number will go up in the decades ahead.
There's actually 3 solutions: Either the price of recycled plastic increase, the cost of producing it decrease or you tax the petrol and virgin plastic more to subsidized the recycling.
It all boils down to the consumer paying more.
So make me pay more, make me pay more, or make me pay more. No thanks. Tip: don’t waste money on an MBA. You wouldn’t last a minute in job interviews 😂
@@Lybrel If corporations are as innovative as they always claim, then a sufficiently high tax on plastic packaging should lead them to develop cheap non-plastic packaging to replace it, in order to avoid the tax and increase competitiveness. It would only cost the consumer extra in the short term, while the replacements are being developed.
Put two plastic bottles next to each other on a shelf with the same contents, but one bottle is more expensive by 1 cent because it was made from recycled plastic. You know what'll happen.
@@phoule76 That 1% means everything when you chug out products by the millions, it's called economy of scale boi
For those interested - planet money also has a great podcast episode on this topic that covers some of the history in america legistlation/lobbying.
The point about negative externalities is a good one, most companies operate this way, they internalize profits, whilst externalize harms.
Video should be renamed as "why china stopped taking overwhelming plastic trash generated by west" Edit : 😱omg so many likes that too on a comment where I'm taking China's side (which seldomly happens)
KZhead algorithm probably wouldn't promote it if the title didn't sound like it was bashing China.
generated by china for the west*
nobody would want to watch such a video...
@@snarkylive America designed the global trade rules and value chains. U eat some food cooked by someone and ask him to clearing your shit?
@CRAM MARC how and why? Where is America? China ever shipped plastic waste to America or other countries? America produced the most plastic waste per population, you know?
HAI Is that Funny kid in class whereas Wendover Productions is when he goes home
Nah it’s the other way around imo
“Funny”
@@TheMathBoi You had to do him like that
HAI is the kid who thinks he's funny and smarter than everyone else but who is actually just annoying.
@@olbradley Don't call us out like this
You missed some policy options. Price externalities (eg recycling costs and a bit of societal harm) into the cost of virgin plastics Also…possible technologies and innovation in sorting approaches seems to be worth a mention. It seems a lot of the headwinds come from the Sorting workflow
Interesting video. I find it fascinating how back in the 1950s and 60s, when plastic products were beginning to rise in popularity. The USA had the choice of making biodegradable plastics from algae or petroleum based plastics. It’s only right now that we’re going back to what was done right before in the past.
The title should be "How China stopped being the world's trash can"
Get educated. Recycling became trash when haulers went to Fully Automated Systems on their trucks. These large haulers (Waste Management) simply dumped ANYTHING that was placed into customers “Recycle carts” into their recycle loads. Customers being both greedy as well as stupid dumped tons and tons of raw garbage into those FREE OF CHARGE carts! The local counties and cities did nothing to fine or penalize customers who did that. The result? Garbage sent to China as “Recycling”. Most of the people given jobs as County or City waste and recycling council positions are complete morons. Ask me about it, I’ve been in this business 35 years. Hippy morons control the haulers and the garbage/Recycle programs.
@@w46try7 and his is not wrong.
the real reason China buy US soybeans and recyclable were concessions made to the US when it joined the WTO.
@@willengel2458, US is the Evil Empire. China did the right thing to stop importing toxic waste. The West must recycle their own waste.
@@w46try7 You should do a video please. These idiotic videos and comments are driving me crazy. Look at all the dumbasses, "dur ban assault plastic," while typing on their plastic computers.
There's something missing, even the best plastic can only be recycled a couple of times, then it all ends in a landfill.
Do what Japan does. Thermal recycling works!
@danielch6662 This is a technology from the UK, licensed to a Japanese company. It does look promising but uses super-critical liquid which requires high energy output (probable, if not guaranteed, hydrocarbon burning) as well as very well regulated and toleranced machinery
Plastic can only be recycled a few times. Each time they must add new virgin plastic and only a percentage recycled. Everytime it is recycles it is cut up. The polymer strands get shorter and shorter. Shorter polymer strands do not hold together as well. Imagine a bird making a nest. Only every year the nest is chopped up and used to make a new nest. Since it was cut up the grass and sticks get shorter and shorter each time. After a few times the grass and sticks are only one inch long. The bird nest will fall apart. Each time the bird needs to add 25% new grass and sticks so it holds together.
But the recycling problem is in essence technical. With a focus on lowering costs by using novel methods for sorting, transporting, and finally melting/decomposing (safely) into more material, costs can be driven down.
when i was younger and naïve in my high school, college days, i was totally into the recycling and a huge global warming activism supporter I washed all my recycle bottle/carryout/cans. in 2008, I got into a fight with my uncle during Thanksgiving back when he visited. he was throwing everything into the trash can and i was furious. He told me it doesn't matter, it all goes into the landfill/incinerator, and i was wasting water and time washing trash. He was a building contractor (which i became later, ironically lol) and told me construction waste is 1000X more wasteful (which i see everyday now), and the government and politicians are fooling the sheep with feel good policies. He dared me to look it up and do my own research. Well.... I looked, and i stopped recycling plastic. When my 14 year old Prius (2007) broke down, i bought a regular internal combustion car. since the fuel cost i saved didn't make up the price of the car, and i found out the Lithium battery went straight to the landfill. I became cynical and totally disenfranchised from the "Green" movement. My uncle's words echo frequently in my mind. and i see more and more "Greenwashing", "green profiteering", and "feel good policies" in the recent years.
correction : fuel cost i saved didn't make up the "Differences in the" price of the car,
The important part here is that you don't completely give up. Now you understand the magnitude of change that would be required to actually combat a system that is designed only for short-term profits. Even though you are no longer sorting your own plastic, you should still put pressure at the ballot, still prefer to buy products that are a high% post-consumer recycled, still keep an eye out for innovations that can *actually* be sustainable. Thanks for leaving this comment though, it can help people who think they are "doing their part" know what they are actually up against. The problem is systemic, and the solutions lie in policy, culture and large-scale social changes.
It's really really really hard to price in all of the consequences of any given action. The perfect example, in my mind, is plastic vs reusable shopping bags. Reusable shopping bags are notorious for becoming hard to remove litter, so the natural belief is that a reusable shopping bag is a win for the environment. But reusable shopping bags have a ton of external costs to production (like waste byproducts and energy cost), and they eventually wear out, so they are possibly worse for the environment in aggregate than the single-use bags that people hate.
@@jorgefigueroa7048 Plus, there's simply minimizing your consumption of goods and waste.
@@TheRationalPi I’m just reusing my plastic bags, at least four or five times, then use them to dispose my trash.
The economic solution is very simple: Make companies pay to deal with the trash they create. They'd all immediately switch to recyclable materials.
they actually do 😂 even individual households too lol. hi welcome to reality. where nothing is free
No, those extra cost will reflect on the price and the customers are paying for it. Price will just go higher this way
@@augustl607 Then they could make a bill making it illegal to raise prices. Companies must learn to thrive under less desirable profit margins. The world is ending and all anyone always talks about is money.
@@Firehawkness that sounds pretty much a big government will do. I highly doubt that us will adopt this idea
Same with damage caused by pollution. They should cover all environmental costs, including increased healthcare costs.
*Wendover Productions* always offers fascinating documentary journalism.
Definition of "Garbage" is items which have less value than the cost to fix/refurbish/reclaim them. It's silly that we invest so much effort in recovering plastics which end up in landfill anyway. It would be more efficient to discard those low-value plastics with the standard garbage to begin with.
As someone from China: other than the reasons listed, it’s also because we are also generating enough plastic compared to years ago. I remember when I was younger yogurt and sodas all came in glass containers that the manufactures would take back, wash and sterilize, and then reuse, now it’s all plastic. Not having to deal with the cost of reusing makes the products much cheaper, and people also liked not having to bring the bottles back when they are done consuming.
as a person who did not experience that era of China, I would love to see reused containers being reintroduced into the market tho it seems to be quite impossible
We had glass bottles few decades ago in in India aswell, we used to buy drinks for 10 rupees and get 1 rupee back if we gave the bottle back to the shopkeeper. Companies would get the empty bottles back and pay the shopkeeper some amount prob 1.x rupees per bottle.
I was very similar in socialist Bulgaria before 1989. Almost everything was backed in glass, meat and cheese were wrapped in paper, instead of plastic bags there were grocery nets. Only milk came in 1L plastic bags and you still had to return the bag to buy your next milk! Then came the free market, regulations were dropped and plastic trash was everywhere
As a senior/elder American, I remember growing up and everything was contained in glass, paper, and metal. Much was recycled back then, some not. There were NO disposable baby or adult diapers as people used cloth and cleaned them. But although there was those types of things, at that time, there was public ignorance about lead in gasoline, the pollution from smokestacks, the dumping of trash into the ocean & waterways, and agricultural pollution/poisoning. Humanity has become aware in the 1960s and made the needed changes and needs to strive towards that goal. Blessings to you.
@@staralioflundnv Did we make those changes? It's true that we've been aware of most problems since the 60's, but 60 years later we haven't done much about it, which is to be expected in a capitalist system, since being green isn't as profitable.
Wendover: "How China broke the world's recycling" Reality: "How China propped up the world's recycling for more than three decades"
I mean in the end they still broke it
and got laughed about it by bbc in a documentary as if all the rubbish were produced in China
Exactly. The system worked fine until Chinese labor costs rose to the point where recycling wasn't profitable for them any more.
@Chris King no actually obama/bloomberg were paying china to dump their shit and got aid from the lizardmen at facebook to prop up a new virus called covid that they planned 10 years before to increase the power of china and keep putin as a friend because libs are dibs and everyone is 360 amirite?
That's kind of the point. Propping up a system that doesn't work long enough that it becomes an institution is how they broke it. If they had never bought the no-profit plastics, the problem would have been apparent as the use of those plastics expanded, municipal complaints would have been addressed while they were low volume, and very likely we'd see a different type of plastic used that either recycles profitably or burns in a way municipalities are willing to ignore.
Levy a tax on all virgin low-value plastic products. That will make recycled plastic more competitive and encourage companies to eliminate unnecessary packaging.
Somebody Else's Problem always works. Until Somebody Else won't put up with your garbage anymore.
When USA was dumping their shit to China, meanwhile blaming China has severe pollution.
@@snarkylive but the trash like you is made in Us
@@snarkylive The US (per capita) produces more waste/pollution than China (per capita). Cope harder
@@kaahzvi5820 snarky is a trump supporter its like talking to a brick wall
@@liuyanze007 Thats a punchline overhere
@@snarkylive slave labor？I think that’s what the US prisons are doing. Where did you heard about the slave labor in China, did the media provide any evidence?
China broke a broken system - got it! Or - "How the Plastic industry relied on a broken system"
That would be a proper adjustment of the title. Unlike that vox one on wet markets
A very Sinophobic title the current one, imo
@@billymoran3138 yeah, so much sinophobic propoganda accessible everywhere. The title and video implies that China is stopped importing trash screwing over US plastic companies when China has no incentive to lose money to fulfill Western interests.
@@g.l7219 I mean, it's the current trend of social media users, to bash on China in any way they can. Doesn't matter if any claims are fabricated, as long as they're negative to China. Btw I'm not a communist, nor paid lmao and not everyone who disagrees with sinophobic propaganda is a wumao
@@g.l7219 While I 10000% agree with you, I don't think Wendover is Sinophobic, I think he's just trying to get more clicks with a clickbait title.
As clickbaity of a title as this is, it helps to put into perspective how important it is that we as consumers don’t doubt the viability of recycled plastics. The more consumers want it, the more likely it is to be implemented at all.
We bought keys at the hotel that I work in and they asked me to set up the keys so we had doubles. The amount of unnecessary plastic was beyond disturbing. Each part was in plastic. It was quite sad thinking these will just end up in the ocean
I rather like George Carlin’s take on this; “Maybe God wants a world filled with plastic and decided the best way to get there was to create mankind.”
It was just more cheaper to create Adam and Eve instead of creating all the plastic
Best comment of the video goes to you.
Division of labor.
what is the meaning of life? PLASTIC! mother earth wants to see all those ducks choke on plastic
@Garry Shearer Everyone knows that when you die your soul goes into a garage in Buffalo
In Rwanda we banned plastic bags 15 years ago, plastic is still used for beverages and bigger stuff but overall the country is pretty much plastic free.
Great job! I'm trying not to buy products wrapped in plastic. It's very difficult.
Congras! People in Australia still use plastic bags everyday, and we dump all the blames to China.
@@liujason2091 I'm at China now,they use plastic on every thing. (Not kidding, they use plastic as if they cost nothing)
@@lesleylee3755 The point is, consumes in developed nations had been doing that for many years, without that accumulative effect (as well as air pollution, etc) the reality will be much better. It is very unfair that only China get targeted-the whole western media are working very hard to accuse China on almost everything-from environmental issues, 5G, HK, TW, South China Sea, bl abla bla, to Covid-19. What is their motivation? People in the west tend to blame others when something went wrong, this may explain why they make progress, if any, much less and much slower, than Chinese, as they just don't know what is the best way to improve themselves.
@@liujason2091 And the reality is you are right, partly. You believe in progress,but i believe in democracy and democracy means everything must be discussed until the majority say yes. Yes,you can't make big progress in this way, Yes,this will cause a lot of problems. But it can make sure the true hazard like the Chinese and Russians had before won't happen. I know i can't convince you,i know you are very disappointed to your government. Yet,you must understand,human is a kind of creature that will make unknown either absolutely horrifying or absolutely beautiful. If you never lived in China, it's better seeing it with your own eyes one day. It's a place not as horrifying as the media told us and it's certainly not the kind of "heaven" you imagine
Switzerland doesn't dump waste into landfills anymore not only because we burn the stuff we can't recycle and use the thermal energy but because we also had several serious issues with landfills from the 60s/70s/80s where industries dumped absolutely every kind of hazardous stuff. I remember that some 10 years ago it was possible to recycle plastic at the recycling points and they made oil out of it but stopped doing so because it was very expensive
Electrolysis adaptations to 3D printing technology that can break any waste to it's elemental components that can then be used by the same adaptations to reassemble as anything at the elemental level, designed and powered by NLP Based OSes. When one highlights a problem, it is best to also offer solutions, so there's one for you.
Damn, guess I'm gonna have to start eating the yogurt cup when I'm done :(
I have been doing that for years. Eat the straw so the turtles don't.
I recommend Stonyfield yogurt. It's marketed for kids and babies, but it is way better than the 'adult' yogurts and the cups are made from plants
Or make your own yogurt - ideally plant-based to reduce the ecological footprint.
@gerhard goedhart Not at all simple. How much does that cost you? I can guarantee that it will be at least twice what the same volume of yogurt would cost in a plastic container. Some people literally cannot afford to make those choices. Of course we all have to work together to save the planet, but not everyone is able to do the same type of work. Please keep that in mind, because you will be more successful in persuading people to do good this way. If you go on the way you did in this comment, you will be written off as pretentious and privileged and you will get nowhere
@gerhard goedhart You're not feeding 3 young kids while you do all that extra work... and if you are, it's because you have a maid.
There's a reason why recycle was last in the hierarchy of reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Sadly nobody seems to be interested in reducing or reusing.
@@rivkahlevi6117 especially green signalers posting from their apple products ;3
@@woooweee because Samsung and the others don’t profit from what is essentially slave labor as well
How does one go about drastically reducing one's plastic consumption, though? There are some obvious ways to avoid excess waste, such as using non-disposable water bottles, but I'm looking for something much more comprehensive--something on the order of a 95% reduction below the average westerner's plastic consumption. Do you or anyone else reading this know of any resources for living a nearly plastic-free life? Every article that I can find on the subject either gives obvious tips like avoiding disposable water bottles, or focuses on products like makeup kits that I'm not inclined to use anyway. None of the ones that I've found deal with essential or basic goods, such as cereal.
@@mvmlego1212 Here's the problem. Most of the time, the plastic people "consume" isn't there by itself. What I mean by that is most of the time plastic or other non biodegradable materials are used as part of the manufacturing process in the goods we commonly tend to buy. Just look at your computer or phone for instance. If you're typing on a computer then chances are that your keyboard is made of plastic. If not, then your mouse is. If not that then your Wi-Fi device or router almost certainly has a plastic body.That's the problem here. Electronics, Machinery, Clothing, Containers, Luxury goods, they ALL contain some amount of plastic is some shape or form. As individuals, we can "cut down" on our use of plastic as much as we like but we still won't make any noticeable difference because manufacturing companies include plastic in pretty much everything we use. In order for plastic consumption to be reduced, manufacturing companies would need to essentially find alternative (likely more expensive) materials to use as substitutes for plastic. That's very unlikely, since in most cases the larger a business, the more focused it is on greater profits, no matter the cost to humanity. The only way we can cut down on plastic is by collectively pushing for manufacturers to stop including plastics in their products and pushing them to use cleaner and more eco friendly techniques in their manufacturing process. Only trying to stop your own use of plastic is an exercise in futility unless you're also willing to cut away from 99% of modern goods you use on a daily basis.
Seems like the easy solution is to just introduce a tax on new plastic to make recycled plastic cost effective. No plastic bans needed. Just make the new plastic pay to clean up the existing plastic. Once it's cheaper to reuse, it _will_ get recycled again.
the answer is simple....Increase the price of virgin plastic to reflect the true environmental cost and there will be more demand for cheaper recycled plastic which will command a higher price.
I’ve been recycling for over 25 yrs (5 yrs in Germany were mandatory) and basically looked at it as a necessary evil. (I had to drive to the recycle center)…talked to the guy who picks up the containers. He told me the same story. Every piece of cardboard is sent by truck from the collection point to the next county, also by truck. It is then crushed and banded and shipped to China. Not one piece of cardboard is recycled for US consumption. Also, he said only two types of plastic can be recycled. #2 and #5 I think. Even then it can only be reused once, maybe twice.
Where I live in WA state, we have 3 pulp mills that turn every type of paper/cardboard waste in to rolls of pulpboard that will become some type of packaging material and 2 mills that make tissue paper & 1 mill that makes food grade packaging materials. But plastic & glass don't make money.
@@SuperBigblue19 It appears that it’s possibly a company thing (recycling for US) and we just have one that ships to China? We used to have to separate our recyclables but now they throw it all in one container and it’s done at the landfill. Which company runs the recycling mill, International Paper, by any chance? We have an IP here but they make the TP and tissue from raw materials, not recycled product as far as I know.
Munich built a trash burning power plant in the 90s - recycling made them not have enough quality trash to burn --' so they imported it from Czech republic.
There's a big difference between "can" and "economically viable"... pretty much all plastics *CAN* be recycled, we just don't f'ing do it. Almost all plastic is cheaper to make new than recycle. (styrofoam is the largest we-can't-bother product. it's so low density it costs a fortune to collect it -- or you need expensive gear on the dedicated trucks that collect it.)
Plastics Recycling industry: *uneconomical when externalities are accounted for* 'Virgin' Plastics industry, a subset of the oil industry: Don't look at me. Don't even look _near_ me. And whatever you do, don't you *dare* look at my 'externalities'.
The difference is their externalities are covered by profit.
Yeah, I was sad that a carbon tax on new plastic / oil in general (or some other mechanism for pricing in virgin plastic's externalities) wasn't brought up in addition to the "consumers should just take it upon themselves to guess at the externality costs and then buy things after factoring in those guesses" solution.
@@Fr33zeBurn Fun, perfectly normal questions, with absolutely no relevance to the previous comments: What is the the fair market value of the entire world's coral reefs, and all the species which rely thereon for survival? What is the fair market value of an entire nation state such as Tuvalu? What is the fair market value of the human habitability of nearly a fifth of the globe?
@@BardedWyrm The oil industry could probably cover it whatever it is ;)
@@Fr33zeBurn The problem isn't if they could, the problem is that they currently don't pay for these externalities. In general, if industries had to pay for the environmental impact they have there would be a lot more effort to move to greener practices, like recycling and use of renewable energy sources.
Other solution is to make companies that use plastic have to require a certain percentage of recycled in their lineup and charge the same price for either, once companies are forced to do something they will come around, but while they can take the easy route for filling bank accounts it'll never change.
6:26 you just described 100% of all human issues. Climate change adjusting / fixing / slowing down? "We COULD fix it... but... it's not profitable" Plastic pollution? "We COULD fix it... but... it's not profitable" Destruction of the environment and habitats for mining? "Yeah it's profitable" Curing diseases and improving medicine and health care?" "We COULD work.. but... it's not profitable. Humans will just reproduce producing new humans so why fix the broken humans?" Changing simple things that'd improve drastically lives for millions of people? But it's not profitable!!!! Yeah uh... Human greed is the cause for all issues we're facing, love it!
Alternative title: How China stopped being used by other countries as a trash bin.
and then being trashed for polluting the world.
Badass move
exactly
Remember: there is a whole dysfunctional continent of Africa.
@@BarbarellaCarpenter There's a dysfunctional 'first world' with the means to change but lack the willingness...
this sounds like me doing all the work in a group project but getting a worse grade than my partner
facts 😫😭
Yeah, thanks for that BTW!
Then buy your fr... youghurt in reusable glasses.
If it fits in your ridiculous wage budget...
BEEN THERE. I just straight up will kick the lard asses off the assignment now lol
This present dilemma does present us here in the US with the opportunity to improve our recycling processes so we can recycle lower value plastics here instead. I really hope we find an economical and ecologically sound solution soon.
they should probably then package items that don't need to be in plastic in biodegrading cardboard, and use high-value plastic with a deposit on more items. The deposit will drive up prices, but force more recovery of the materials.
I used to work at that exact MRF years ago. Worst job I ever had. I'm getting 'Nam flashbacks just watching this. The videos of American recycling plants aren't of the one in Colorado and having worked there I can only guess why they would never film there. Maybe its different now but back then (2013) it was a health and safety nightmare. Its was a lot more than just few bottles and pieces of paper coming down the line, it was a full blown river of trash. 12 hour shifts, 5 or 6 days a week for $8.00 an hour. Also, they don't let you keep the cool shit you find. 0/10 should have gone to college.
Name checks out
Imagine the nightmares suffered by the real victims of the Vietnam war....the people of Vietnam! Watching your mom/daughter getting their skin melted off from napalm would give anybody some serious PTSD.
There would be so much more tolerance for the job if they just treated people decently. Free drinks cooler on break, one beer is fine if you want it, and if you see something cool you can set it down by your feet where people can see it - stops anyone from going overboard with it or wasting time stowing things somewhere but it makes that one day a little better.
Fuck college. Become financially literate.
Mind if i ask? What cool shit did you find and did the company just melt it down or did management take it?
I'm from Eastern Europe. I remember when back in the '90s every bottle was "returnable". You would get a small amount of money if you returned it, and they would clean then reuse the same bottle. It worked well. But the system is gone...
Oh no... since when? I enjoyed that in Germany. Metro NYC does it also.
We used to do that in Australia too.
It stopped because it was discovered plastic does break down on a microscopic level by repeated use, and ingested micro plastics damage hormones. Happens in generic water system plastic pollution but also with plastic bottles used for a month.
We need glass bottles back. At least glass is much easier to recycle than plastic, and if it was thoroughly implemented by companies and governments like it once was, the cost would come down to be level, or even cheaper than using plastic bottles.
@@penzorphallos3199 No, it stopped because plastic bottles replaced glass ones. Back in the 90's, we had everything in glass bottles: milk, water, even cola. At least where I lived, only glass bottles were returnable (and there weren't enough plastic bottles around to bother doing the same for them anyway). Now everything uses plastic bottles to save the big corporations a couple cents.
Very well done, mate. Good video.
We can only say to the last generation of humans: "We are sorry but saving the planet wasn't profitable"