Just like recycling, carbon offsets are a fucking lie
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
114 points (99.1% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5237 readers
334 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Recycling is highly variable by material.
It really happens with steel scrap, and makes a meaningful difference.
It's plastic where it's marketed as a thing but doesn't really happen except with a few percent of production.
Yeah plastics is what I was referring to mainly. Worked in a recycling sorting facility and yeah, it wasn't pretty.
Even that few percent, I bet a vanishingly small amount is post-consumer. They’re mainly taking the trimmed waste from molding and putting it back into the production line.
Recycling is weird. I think it works but it isn't as effective as we'd like to think.
Something I learned was the numbers inside the recycling symbol. I'd like to ask for correction but from what I remember, a 1 or 2 inside the symbol means that you can recycle it in the recycling bin. A 3 or 4 means it has to go to a special recycling facility. And a 5 or higher means that it is not recyclable.
Which plastics (if any) can actually be recycled varies by location. Check, don't assume
Recycling codes are used to identify the materials out of which the item is made, to facilitate easier recycling process. The presence on an item of a recycling code, a chasing arrows logo, or a resin code, is not an automatic indicator that a material is recyclable; it is an explanation of what the item is made of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_codes#Alternative_recycling_labels
Check this one for what I meant (and was apparently slightly mistaken)
I think we probably both agree that resin codes are originally and principally manufacturing specs. I don't know how many (lay) people correctly use them to guide how they should dispose of things. My biggest point though is that however resin codes were started, they have been taken over by a corporate desire to make things that aren't recyclable look recyclable. They give a facade of recycl-ability, so that plastic keeps being produced. People are also encouraged/tricked to put garbage that bears look-alike recycle codes into their municipal recycling. As a result, recycled plastics are contaminated, become garbage, and more new plastics are generated.
I concur
I always liken it to the sub-sub contracting retail giants finally did during the 90s and Jenny mccarthy’s crusade against child and slave labor.
These same retailers kept getting caught using unsafe factories in developing countries with children and people suffering basically indentured servitude. So, they came up with the idea to, basically, change the name.
They shoved the responsibility onto someone else—someone they hired specifically to shoulder the blame. So these fly by night companies would be “cut out” of the process when GAP was caught using child slaves again. “We conducted our own investigation and found the culprit to be ‘Downstream Company 7’ and we have severed ties with DS7.” And then a few months later, “We conducted our own investigation and found the culprit to be ‘Downstream Company 8’ and we have severed ties with DS8.”
They’re continuing on with business as usual because business relies on those low costs and zero accountability. This is all carbon credits are. “We have conducted our own investigation and found that ‘Carbon Offsetter 1’ didn’t plant any of the 8,982,758 trees needed to offset our emissions. We have cut ties with CO1.”
It’s all a shell game. They don’t give a shit about offsetting their emissions. They give a shit about profit and greenwashing. And they’re doing both.
Telling yourself you'll burn off those twinkies so its okay. And then youre too tired from the twinkies.
Offsets can work if you treat them like rent rather than purchases. ie: You hold carbon tokens for the carbon you emit, and the value of those tokens drops as the carbon from the fast carbon cycle goes back up, so you have to buy more as the tokens depreciate.