If everyone reduces first, then what you can't reduce, then reuse, then the last resort is recycle. Which a lot ends up in the landfill anyway. I have a moral vacillation with burning plastics which I KNOW is bad - but I think my surrounding forest likes the fluorocarbons
I was a sophomore in high school, 1970, San Clemente, and we celebrated Earth Day. It was initiated by the senator in Wisconsin who organized a national demonstration but it was the oil spill in Santa Barbara that got him going.
I was also a sophomore but in South Dakota. My biology teacher took us out along the freeway that was next to our high school to pick up litter. So I actually was a part of the first Earth Day!
Same, I didn't think it that was the answer either but still chose it cause I didn't think it was any of the others. My actual answer would have been like plastic bottles.
I mean, a few million straws every day would add up fast, I’d think. I would’ve selected manufacturing byproducts if it was there, but the others just didn’t seem likely.
💀 Asians & Africans are polluting the oceans of the world.
"Around 90% of the plastic that ends up in the world's oceans is carried there by just 10 rivers. These rivers are the Yangtze, Indus, Yellow, Hai, Nile, Ganges, Pearl, Amur, Niger, and Mekong"
Yeah, U.S. and European consumer recycling is probably a net negative for the environment.
How much of the stuff that we "recycled" ended up getting dumped in the ocean after being shipped to Asia. Wouldn't we have been better off just taking it the landfill?
Having my house get visited by three separate trucks on garbage day (recycling / trash / compost) can't be good for CO2 emissions either.
It started out as a good idea but the market for recycled plastic never developed very well. Not sure exactly why, but probably mostly because the economics didn't work as long as the price of oil stayed low, which was helped by fracking technology.
https://oceanliteracy.unesco.org/plastic-pollution-ocean/
"Around 90% of the plastic that ends up in the world's oceans is carried there by just 10 rivers. These rivers are the Yangtze, Indus, Yellow, Hai, Nile, Ganges, Pearl, Amur, Niger, and Mekong"
How much of the stuff that we "recycled" ended up getting dumped in the ocean after being shipped to Asia. Wouldn't we have been better off just taking it the landfill?
Having my house get visited by three separate trucks on garbage day (recycling / trash / compost) can't be good for CO2 emissions either.