Sixth0795Sad but true
𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍I’m surprised the youth of Lemmy hasn’t picked up more on the “liquid soap is bad for the environment” thing. I got berated at length by my Millennial SIL (me, GenX) for using liquid soap, and because this was family, I actually did a deep dive into the subject so I could win the argument and put her in her fucking place, and it turns out she was right.
Why did I have to learn this in meatspace, and not on the internet from random kids? Things ain’t right, I tell you, when my extended family knows and/or cares more about an environmental topic than left-leaning Lemmy.
Why did I have to learn this in meatspace, and not on the internet from random kids? Things ain’t right, I tell you, when my extended family knows and/or cares more about an environmental topic than left-leaning Lemmy.
Because everything is on fire and while using less soap and laundry detergent bottles is certainly a good goal to aim for it is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic and worse it is rearranging deck chairs according to the directions of a captain who is trying to distract everyone from dealing with the fact that the ship is sinking.
Recycling by and large doesn’t work but corporations really don’t care because recycling is a great way to sell consumers the experience of being environmental when consuming and it provides way to shift blame and get people focused on recycling rather than the actions of big corporations.
The fact that as recycling implodes as this cultural practice of “doing your part” to save the environment there has been a rise in companies selling smaller detergent and soap bottles and I think it is just trying to fill the same emotional need.
Which isn’t to say these soap bottles aren’t a good thing, but if the left leaning people you interact with aren’t focused on this I… don’t think that is indicative of anything but the high number of existential environmental problems we face and the general refusal of neoliberal and rightwing governments to tackle them.
Not all recycling is useless. Aluminium and glass are two things that benefit greatly from recycling. Recycling aluminum takes 95% less energy than smelting it from ore, simply because it’s such a complex process. And recycling glass is just a matter of re-melting it.
Not debating that certain types of recycling work, but if we don’t disconnect the word “recycling” from “wholesome and good!” we are going to keep hallucinating that we are in a far different problem than we are. so I am hesitant to start immediately listing all the types of recycling that do work when having a conversation about how recycling doesn’t work because that just reframes the conversation under terms of a status quo “recycling just needs to be better and work for more things!” in the same way that “clean coal” research is a purposeful dead end taken to postpone an upheaval of the status quo.