> which environmentalists embrace deeply as a core value
Environmentalists say "reduce, re-use, recycle" - recycling is the last, worst, option in this phrase. Reducing the stuff you buy being the first, best, option.
Environmentalists say "reduce, re-use, recycle" - recycling is the last, worst, option in this phrase. Reducing the stuff you buy being the first, best, option.
Everybody doing "some reducing" isn't going to stop an entire industry dedicated solely to creating garbage.
All the graphics designers who design it, all the printers who print it, all the plastic manufacturers who make it, all the software developers who write software to support all these industries, and the brands who buy the garbage/packaging to put their products in. They're all filling every nook and cranny of this earth with garbage.
It's not about "using less". It's about a war that we need to have with every element of the packaging/garbage creation/recycling industry.
And it has to be a war, because the packaging/garbage creation industry isn't going to go without a fight. WE pay them to create garbage by buying products that are delivered in garbage.
We have to hold the brands to account who ship their products wrapped in garbage headed for the ocean.
But all those garbage creation jobs must go. All that garbage creation money must go.
And the smoke screen that we all use to feel OK about packaging... the smoke screen/lie that we call "recycling", it has to go too, because that's what it legitimizing the packaging industries ruin of our earth.
Once you stop believing in recycling, you start questioning why we accept the infinite flow of garbage that this industry creates.
I'm at work so I cannot give you a source, but look at the environmental impact of producing meat vs the packaging.
Switching to reusable containers sounds wonderful, but it's a very hard sell. Standardized sizes would waste a lot of energy in transporting, and proper washing and sanitization will add a significant environmental impact as well, either by energy use, or production of chemicals. Whether or not this is a net positive remains to be determined.
/edit: spelling mistakes
Why?
All I can see is how this would save a lot of energy in transporting by making it easier to stack things together, as well as making it a little more difficult for companies to play games with packaging size and form factor.
If you use standard reusable sizes, cleaning and sanitazation requirements must come first, and it will inevitably be heavier as well.
I suppose the situation is much different in B2B and bulk orders (like gastronomy), when the packaging is not also fulfilling a marketing role.
> If you use standard reusable sizes, cleaning and sanitazation requirements must come first, and it will inevitably be heavier as well.
Yes. But it will not be throwaway anymore. It would be great if someone did the math on that. My gut tells me that even the repeated extra cost of shipping additional mass around is much less than it costs to make and dispose of packaging (the bulk of it being probably in the disposal, which producers externalize on the society, and so they prefer churning out new packaging).
Thinking that emotion invalidates any argument, the dumbest fallacy of all.
Maybe name them?
> manufacturing industry has in fact worked out how to "own" the environmental movement by pushing "recycling" as the "balance" to the spewing forth of garbage from the packaging industry
Maybe this is just to save costs? This can't be presented as a fact unless there is hard proof.
> Seems to me that world MUST eventually move to a solution which is a set of standardized containers for all products, which are durable, washable, have a refund value attached, and may have paper corporate brand stuck on them after being washed
This is just throwing out a solution. How heavier a standard package would be? What about special cases like materials which are shock sensitive, leaky, smelly, corrosive, ... How costly would be washing them?
> They're all filling every nook and cranny of this earth with garbage.
There must be some data about how are we filling the earth with garbage. Is recycling really useless to combat this?
Isn't the only harm it causes done when it's left to float around the ocean or get eaten by birds? As long as we keep our rubbish more secure and bury it properly, in places that won't leach into water supplies, what's the harm?
No one said that. Read again.