How China Broke the World's Recycling 

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

@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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

@@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.

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.

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,

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

Send this one to the top!!!

It didn't travel far at all

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.

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.

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.

Wendover Productions: did you say China?! WRITE THAT DOWN!

accurate

China puts China first

@@BigYoshi826 Nothing wrong with that right?

@@hwg5039 It's _exemplary..._

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

RU-vid 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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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...

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.

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 RU-vidr 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.

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

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.

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.

The dad jokes are the best here! I understand why they're not here; but cherish them deeply

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

nice one

Ikr fed up with the crap

World: *surprised pikachu face*

🙊

That's literally not what happened. Did you not watch the video? The system wasn't sustainable from the start.

Nope. It’s the consumer’s fault. Entirely.

@@RojaJaneman Consumers are only part of the picture and often do NOT have a say in what they buying being packaged in plastic. It's the fault of the companies for doing it and governments for not properly regulating this. As it has been established here that not turning a profit is why it isn't properly recycled, it's capitalism's fault.

@@KeeperOfTheSevenKeys. True. I really like the point he made at the end of the video, that the simple act of promoting recycled plastic and persuading consumers to prefer it over fresh-made plastic can make a difference.

@@RojaJaneman How is it the consumers fault entirely? Wendover himself said consumers were led to believe recycling plastics meant they got reused.

China sucks. You’re sticking up for nazis

@@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?

yes you are really correct.

NM$L

not true, did u watch the video? We learned it wasn't profitable so we just dump it and pretend it gets recycled.

True

@@frankfontaine6725 ?

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

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.

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.)

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

But the white people will think they're doing a good job with all that recycling not knowing it's ending up in poor countries. But Karen can talk about how much she does for the planet.

Really interesting to read this comment with the emphasis given by recent news of soft plastics no longer being collected at woolies or Coles!

Why are environmental groups not campaigning for Red Cycle to be re activated. Maybe we should sent the soft plastics back to the food manufacturer for them to deal with it.

​@@snuffoutrouge5109 I agree then they might do something about the amount of plastic they put on their products.

@@snuffoutrouge5109 The issue is that Red Cycle is shit. Most people do not want to have to return crap to the store and lug it around, *especially* anyone with little space wherever they're living. What needs to happen is we need a better recycling system. We shouldn't need to take soft plastics to a particular place, it should be able to just go in the damn recycling bin. THAT is why people just throw it in the regular waste, that or put it in recycling anyway and hope they can do something with it.

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