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1. Embed this notice
   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Dec-2025 02:18:17 JST Paul Cantrell

   • Jonathan Wight

   I’m sympathetic to this from @schwa, but my patience for that learning process is short because the wrongheaded “plastic recycling is 100% hoax!!” canard quickly gets turned into “ALL recycling is 100% hoax!!” by right-wingers. It’s a learning process, yes, but a learning process that bad actors have been actively exploiting for at least a decade.

   https://mastodon.social/@schwa/115651093211678205

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Dec-2025 04:49:29 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Robin Barton

     Many of us are in @Robo105 and @Fishercat ’s situation here: plastics are collected for recycling, but few/none enter the recycling stream. In that situation:

     - Robin’s response is the first and best one: use less.

     - In addition, I’d advocate for (1) continuing to recycle what you can’t avoid using and (2) give that city gov endless headaches about their failure to recycle. Show there’s demand for recyclability, get whatever tiny fraction does get recycled out of the waste stream, •and• make headaches for people in positions of power for plastic failing to live up to that demand.

     I would •not• just stop recycling. Don’t just give up. My 2¢.

     https://mastodon.social/@Robo105/115651167356290774

     https://kolektiva.social/@Fishercat/115651193778282604

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Dec-2025 04:53:22 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     I strongly endorse the first part of what @tarheel said here: make plastic more expensive. Bake its human and environmental costs into the price of the products that use it.

     I’m not optimistic about that happening under anything like current political conditions, but still important to note what a good idea that would be if we did it.

     https://mstdn.io/@tarheel/115651260261673168

   • Embed this notice
     Jonathan Wight (schwa@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Dec-2025 04:53:51 JST Jonathan Wight

     in reply to

     @inthehands Right wingers are going to be cunts no matter what.

     Maybe take it up with them?

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Dec-2025 04:58:22 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jonathan Wight

     @schwa
     It is possible for us not to communicate true things in ways that inadvertently help bad actors. Even the slightest awareness of the scams they’re running can help.

   • Embed this notice
     Oma_Trisha_F (oma_trisha_f@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Dec-2025 06:37:25 JST Oma_Trisha_F

     in reply to

     @inthehands I would agree IF the current regime gave half a fuck about destroying the planet. Maybe if we ever wrest the country out of their ignorant little hands we'll have a better chance.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Dec-2025 06:37:25 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Oma_Trisha_F

     @Oma_Trisha_F
     Even beyond the horrible current regime, the larger picture of extreme wealth disparity and regulatory capture makes me pessimistic about any policymaking managing to take a bite out of petrochem. But we should still keep trying!

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Dec-2025 06:44:16 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     @ddrake
     Carbon taxes are a good example, in that they’ve never come even within an order of magnitude of being substantial enough to actually reflect true costs. Bog-standard case of pricing in externalities — and bog-standard case of regulatory capture.

   • Embed this notice
     Dan Drake 🦆 (ddrake@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Dec-2025 06:44:17 JST Dan Drake 🦆

     in reply to

     @inthehands this seems pretty obvious, and effective, right?

     We have carbon tax for CO2 emissions; all sorts of sin taxes on tobacco and alcohol; related taxes on sugary drinks in some places -- and, very closely related to plastic in general, there's research showing that taxes on plastic bags are very effective: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp9274

     This seems like a bog-standard case of increasing the market price to reflect economic externalities...