Sunil Bagaria, who runs recycling company GDB International, took his colleagues to task. “Forever, we have depended on shipping our scrap overseas,” he bemoaned. “Let’s stop that.” European countries, he added, “are recycling 35% to 40% [of their plastic waste]. The U.S. only recycles 10%. How tragic is that?”
After a couple of days of this, a woman named Kara Pochiro from the Association of Plastic Recyclers stood up and said not to panic. “Plastic recycling isn’t dead, and it works, and it’s important to protecting our environment, and it’s essential to the circular economy,” she reassured.
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The offshoring phenomenon works least well, it turns out, with the more undesirable industries. Things that are vitally local and stinky and a pain in the ass are… forever so long as we live.
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With the proviso that it’s recognised even 35-40% recycling isn’t enough.
One of the inconvenient truths is that we need to use less stuff, period, and that means changing how we do things. We’ve glorified bolting out the door, buying breakfast at the most convenient choice shop, lunch at a cafeteria or fast food joint, dinner by way of delivery or take-away. And we say we have to because there’s no time, must get to soccer practice it work late or whatever.
It’s time to recognise the big lies of that lifestyle.
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Getting food on the go has always been a thing in cities because it’s efficient. What’s inefficient, ultimately, is the franchise meal packed in plastic and made somewhat cheaper by owning the supply chain and shorting everyone’s wages. And destroying the sustainability of agriculture in the process.
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THE WORLD IS FLAT, THE ECONOMY IS ROUND
So if a new circular plastics economy recycles — that is, reuses — more old plastic, why is the petrochemical industry spending billions of dollars for a boom in new plastic? Where is all that new plastic going to go? It seems the industry isn’t too worried. The American Chemistry Council’s analysis includes this statement about new plastic: “In a virtuous cycle, as the manufacturing renaissance accelerates, demand for plastic products will be generated, reinforcing resin [raw plastic] demand.”
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Lately my Twitter feed has been full of people either laughing at Trump for trying to buy Greenland, or else aghast he’s trying to buy Greenland. The MSM reports I’ve seen aren’t any better.
This bothers me because to me, it makes it clear he’s not really a climate change denier, and he’s trying to get in on the post-apocalypse real estate action.
Chinese business people have already been trying to buy up large swathes of underpopulated regions of Iceland. They’re all trying to own what will be the inhabitable bits of land once the glaciers melt away.
(@Wanderfound might want to consider buying land in Tasmania. I suspect it will get a lot more, er, gentrified there in the next few decades.)
Of course, Denmark isn’t stupid, and that’s why they’re not willing to sell.
And Canada? As usual we’re under-defended and screwed. The only “good thing” is the northern swamps will remain thawed all year long and therefore won’t be that inhabitable. For once the plague of blackflies will be a benefit to more than the birds.
Edit: autocorrect weirdness
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Canada could always sell itself to Denmark
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Now that I could get into.
Ohh, that would mean a British Commonwealth country would be joining the EU at nigh the same time Brexit is happening. There’s a thought.
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But if everything isn’t disposable, if people only need to buy things one time, then how would we keep the economy growing? How would we keep people working 60-80 hour weeks if they only actually needed to work 15 hours?
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Here’s Sarah Kendzior weighing in on the Greenland thing:
One thing I wonder about: in a world where the old alliances are smashed, how’s the rule of civil (not military, civil) law going to get held up? It only works where these yahoos have money people need, and the worth of currency could deflate very quickly.
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I think that’s the plan.
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Also goes here.
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he Sackler family would give up ownership of Purdue Pharma, the company blamed for much of the opioid epidemic, and pay $3 billion of their own money under terms of a settlement proposal to resolve thousands of federal and state lawsuits, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.
The value of the profits from the new trust and the drug donations is estimated to total between $7 billion and $8 billion. In addition to their $3 billion cash payout, the Sacklers would sell another drug company they own, Mundipharma, and contribute an additional $1.5 billion from the proceeds.
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Somewhere in all the print it will absolve them from any and all criminal compatibility.
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Money talks…
Mr. Epstein’s companies repeatedly were allowed to participate in a United States Virgin Islands tax-cut program that allows certain people and businesses that invest at least $100,000 locally to have their income and other tax rates cut substantially or eliminated altogether.
A memo from the agency’s wildlife chief in 2010 noted that Mr. Epstein’s properties had “a long history of egregious and blatant disregard for environmental regulations.” Projects there had “introduced several non-native species to the island.” The arrival of one invasive species, the Cuban treefrog, led to a recommendation that all landscaping and building materials be inspected, the memo said.
Mr. Epstein’s lawyers resolved some disputes by paying fines, retroactively applying for permits and making donations, sometimes using funds from his charities.
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