At the risk of injecting extra negativity into the thread: what about the recent revelations that a lot of (if not most) recycling is really shipping the trash to poorer nations to be dumped there?
Yeah ... I've not investigated that yet. But I have seen some of our local recycling facilities and they seem to be operating rather than secretly filling shipping containers.
It does trouble me visiting my town's rubbish dump, there is so much usable stuff in the skips, so much waste.
Presumably China now refusing other country's trash is shedding new light on these issues.
I think we have to fix our entire economic systems in order to solve this, and I don't think that's going to work readily because people will always exploit others for financial/political gain at the expense of the environment. We're going to have to seriously curtail individual freedoms that allow people to make excessive use of resources. We can't do that under our current market-based systems.
Take a simple example, fleece fabric is great, cheap, used widely but is a massive source of microplastic pollution - we're going to have to make it expensive, and stop people from throwing it away, and use the income to do proper filtration and recycling.
We're going to need to start treating fraud wrt environmental issues as akin to manslaughter - actually put businessmen in jail who are responsible (knowingly, or unknowingly through negligence) for things like shipping recycling abroad and not confirming it is recycled, or lying about car MPGs, or failing to filter effluent, or allowing runoff to poison water sources, ....
We probably need something akin to a global one-child policy as well. We can't go on increasing population and just expect resources to stretch. Things are going to break much harder with population rates left as they are.
Hah, don't worry about /rant, I agree with you. In particular wrt. treating environmental fraud issues akin to manslaughter, or at least intentionally causing bodily harm. Because that's what it is, except stretched over time and applying to more people. We have an issue like this close to home - apparently in Poland there are people who offer very cheap disposal of toxic waste. They take that waste and just dump it illegally. I'd like to see them - and those who in full knowledge use their services - to be dragged in front of the courts and jailed.
Yes, in UK too. AIUI we've implemented a system of tracking the waste to the originators, who can't use the excuse "I paid someone" as they are jointly responsible for safe disposal. Waste disposal operatives have therefore to have licenses and domestic users must check the license so they can be assured the waste will be disposed of, use unlicensed operators, get fined. It seems to be working to some extent but as costs for proper disposal increase the "benefits" of fraud for the waste operatives increase too.
That's one of the most important jobs of a politician. Make the hard decisions and convince people that they are needed, even if they don't see it right now. Politicians who don't do that don't do their job. And yes, that means we are in the West (and probably elsewhere) in a veritable political crisis. Not because we have some nutjobs run around "it's all a myth! we don't need to do anything!" but because politicians don't work anymore against it and instead take the lazy path to votes and just agree with it, even if the long-term consequences will be disastrous for humanity.
These initiatives will create a lot of jobs: engineers, administrators, electricians, construction workers. Many of those in areas that were hit hard by manufacturing moving away.
> How could be people convinced about importance of this if it doesn't or won't impact them enough?
As engineers, I feel it's our responsibility to make environmentally friendly solutions that are simply more economically viable than the unclean/unsustainable alternative. I'm working on the oceanic shipping industry myself.
One thing that might help is that longevity research is going on well. Hopefully in 10-20 years it will produce enough results for the general public to start believing that saving the Earth is not just about their children.
Yes, "think about our children" is good, but in the end people are still selfish and will think that it's not their problem.