Valuetainment - The Disturbing Truth About Recycling

00:00:00.000 We're going to go down the rabbit hole of plastic recycling today, and it's absolutely crazy.

00:00:03.600 Did you know paper, you and I, we recycle 66% of all the paper we use every year.

00:00:08.860 But do you know what percentage of plastic we recycle every year?

00:00:11.120 5 to 6%.

00:00:13.040 Did you know, roughly, worldwide, we generate 400 million tons of plastic every year,

00:00:18.340 of which 42 million of it is in U.S.?

00:00:20.520 And we, you and I, back in 1980, we used to waste plastic 60 pounds per year.

00:00:25.940 You know what we're doing today? Over $220 billion per year.

00:00:30.440 And we've known about this problem, that nobody is recycling.

00:00:34.380 Because of a study that was done by Vinyl Institute, they came up with a conclusion in 1986

00:00:39.300 that recycling merely postpones disposal without offering a permanent solution.

00:00:44.740 A bunch of other numbers I want to share with you, which is kind of wild.

00:00:47.320 We're going to talk about that today.

00:00:49.080 Okay, so if you get value out of this video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel.

00:00:52.080 Let's get right into it.

00:00:52.820 Did you know plastic became available, the first product, in 1907?

00:00:56.620 But mass production didn't start until 1952.

00:00:59.380 As a matter of fact, if you look at this chart here,

00:01:01.180 this is how much plastic production was taking place annually, worldwide.

00:01:05.760 Look at 1950. Nothing.

00:01:07.580 Look at 1976. Bingo.

00:01:09.840 89. Double again.

00:01:11.180 2002. Double again.

00:01:13.120 And then looking from 2002 till today, to where we are today, it's absolutely wild.

00:01:18.020 400 million tons of plastic every year.

00:01:20.140 By the way, just 70 years ago, it was nothing.

00:01:23.580 Meaning, this is not yet a problem that we all know a lot about.

00:01:27.980 The right people know it's a big problem, but they're not talking about it.

00:01:31.860 Very similar to the oil and the tobacco industry.

00:01:34.380 For example, the tobacco industry, many, many years ago, they knew this was a problem.

00:01:39.020 They knew tobacco was a problem.

00:01:40.260 They knew about this early on in the 50s when documents revealed that tobacco companies had internal research

00:01:46.040 showing the link between smoking and lung cancer, but didn't tell you about us.

00:01:50.220 They marketed kids, they marketed women, and minorities, despite knowing the health risks. 0.65

00:01:55.800 Which eventually led to, in 1998, major tobacco companies reached a historic settlement

00:02:00.020 with 46 U.S. states agreeing to pay billions of dollars in compensation and fund anti-smoking campaigns.

00:02:06.880 It was so bad that in 2005, they made a movie called Thank You for Smoking, and Aaron Eckhart was in it.

00:02:11.500 The whole thing was about how lobbyists played a big role in making sure you and I thought it was cool

00:02:15.700 to be smoking doctors, smoke cigarettes, and they're so cool, we gotta go do this.

00:02:20.200 Well, by the way, oil companies went through the same thing as well.

00:02:22.560 Let me give you some stuff on what happened with oil companies.

00:02:24.820 Companies like ExxonMobil revealed in the 70s that there's a link between what fossil fuel emissions do with the climate,

00:02:31.360 but they didn't want you and I to know about it, right?

00:02:32.940 And by the way, many of these guys paid big money in fines.

00:02:35.620 BP paid $29 billion in fines.

00:02:37.720 I think Exxon paid $1.5 billion in fines, 388 different settlements.

00:02:41.740 There's a list of things I can talk to you about, and according to the International Energy Agency,

00:02:45.880 the burning of fossil fuel accounted for around 73% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020.

00:02:51.780 But guess who they also hired?

00:02:53.140 A lot of lobbyists.

00:02:54.300 Why?

00:02:54.620 Because there's a lot of money in oil, which is fine.

00:02:56.520 They're being capitalists, but not when it comes down to our risk, our health, right?

00:03:01.200 And by the way, this is oil and tobacco, right?

00:03:02.700 Let's go back to the plastic recycling watches.

00:03:04.380 Remember when I said to you 400 million tons of plastic waste is every year?

00:03:08.580 Do you know what percent of it ends up in landfills in our natural environment?

00:03:11.980 Ready?

00:03:12.440 60% of it.

00:03:13.460 That's $240 billion.

00:03:15.180 But let me continue.

00:03:16.120 Let me continue.

00:03:16.840 In comparison, U.S.

00:03:18.520 Remember how we said 42 million metric tons of plastic every year?

00:03:22.220 Highest in the world?

00:03:23.220 In comparison, the U.S. produces almost twice as much as China,

00:03:26.500 and more than all of the countries in EU combined.

00:03:29.840 This next one's pretty crazy.

00:03:31.900 More than 8 million tons of plastic enters the ocean every year.

00:03:35.680 It is estimated that roughly 40% of ocean surface is covered in plastic debris.

00:03:41.220 And if our plastic consumption behavior continues,

00:03:43.440 scientists warn that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean as soon as 2030.

00:03:47.520 This may be a little bit of fear porn by the scientists,

00:03:49.680 but do you believe the fact that there's a lot of plastic and trash in the ocean?

00:03:53.140 How often do you go to the beach?

00:03:54.120 You're like, what the hell is this all about?

00:03:55.400 Or you're going with the boat.

00:03:56.120 You're like, why is it so dirty over here?

00:03:57.280 I believe that.

00:03:58.000 100,000 animals die from plastic entangling every year.

00:04:00.720 Let me give you a couple more here.

00:04:01.880 Humans ingest five grams of plastic every week.

00:04:04.640 You know what that is?

00:04:05.360 That's one credit card every week.

00:04:06.520 Every week, you and I eat one credit card,

00:04:08.220 which, by the way, in 10 years' time,

00:04:10.200 we would have eaten five pounds of plastic

00:04:12.800 and 44 pounds worth of plastic over the course of our lifetime.

00:04:16.820 We eat a lot of plastic, folks.

00:04:18.500 COVID-19 added another 26,000 tons of plastic pollution in the ocean,

00:04:23.740 the whole mask and everything that we have going on.

00:04:25.860 That's a whole different story that we're talking about.

00:04:27.840 And by the way, the list is long,

00:04:28.740 so a lot of companies want to be able to say,

00:04:30.040 well, we do recycling.

00:04:31.120 We do all this stuff.

00:04:31.660 Even Starbucks.

00:04:32.220 Check this out.

00:04:32.720 Not one of these plastic food service items,

00:04:34.940 including the polypropylene cup lids

00:04:37.520 that Starbucks touts as recyclable,

00:04:39.960 has ever met the FTC Green Guide Legal Definition of Recyclability.

00:04:46.600 As if you're not already overload on all this data,

00:04:48.720 I'll give you another one.

00:04:49.380 Do you know how long it takes for plastic to decompose?

00:04:52.340 Ready?

00:04:52.540 So I'm reaching 20 to 500 years.

00:04:55.200 That's a long time.

00:04:56.200 This is kind of complicated because there's an element of,

00:04:58.660 you know, where you're going to need the private

00:04:59.880 and the public sector to solve the problem.

00:05:02.020 And on the public side, the government,

00:05:03.620 you and I are going to be paying for it.

00:05:04.660 Private sector, because a lot of these companies

00:05:06.440 have to figure out a way to come up with better stories

00:05:08.640 for you to say, I want to buy from this company

00:05:10.400 because it's doing X, Y, Z.

00:05:11.580 So let me kind of unpack how I'm viewing this.

00:05:13.220 EU comes out and says,

00:05:14.160 by 2025, all beverage bottle made of PET plastic

00:05:17.320 must contain at least 25% of recycled content.

00:05:20.500 Okay, fine, we're going that direction.

00:05:22.380 That's a good progress that they're making.

00:05:23.960 However, in a consumer economy like America,

00:05:26.840 fast fashion, why are we buying so many more clothes

00:05:28.880 than we did before?

00:05:29.760 We're throwing away 81 and a half pounds of clothes

00:05:31.720 every year, not buying, throwing away 81 and a half pounds.

00:05:34.740 What are we doing with all this stuff?

00:05:35.740 Why is our closet so full of stuff

00:05:37.140 that we're never going to be using?

00:05:38.300 It is an element where this has to be education

00:05:40.620 from top down because remember,

00:05:42.280 this is just the 70-year problem, not even 70.

00:05:45.020 Even when plastic came out in 50s,

00:05:46.540 we were not making that many of them.

00:05:48.000 Even in 70s, we were making a lot of them.

00:05:49.960 It's in the 80s than 2000 when this just took off.

00:05:52.540 So even if we look at this chart,

00:05:54.540 2002 till today is when it skyrocketed,

00:05:58.740 which is what?

00:05:59.500 Only 22 years.

00:06:01.040 What does it tell you?

00:06:01.980 It doesn't take 22 years to be a crisis,

00:06:04.380 but go 40 years, 60 years, 80 years.

00:06:06.500 You and I may not even see the price of this, okay?

00:06:09.100 I don't know how old you are.

00:06:09.940 I'm 45, but our kids will and our grandkids will.

00:06:12.920 So should we kind of like delay the problem, let it go?

00:06:15.640 I don't think so.

00:06:16.300 I think we need to kind of partner a private and public sector to work together,

00:06:20.200 maybe create certain incentives for companies who choose to do it in the proper way,

00:06:24.640 and let's recognize them.

00:06:25.900 And others, you don't recognize them.

00:06:27.820 And also incentivize some entrepreneurs to choose ways that they can help clear these landfills

00:06:32.960 and work with the public sector to say,

00:06:35.140 hey, here's my offer.

00:06:36.200 This is what I can do and help you clean it up.

00:06:37.880 Hey, government, what are you willing to do for it?

00:06:39.440 And maybe those two team up together to make something happen here,

00:06:42.180 because I don't think this is a small problem, 400 million tons a year.

00:06:46.800 We're not talking about a decade, what we've done the last 20 years.

00:06:50.400 That's per year, and U.S. is 42 of it.

00:06:53.160 So lots of thoughts here on how to fix them.

00:06:55.180 We got a bunch of ideas here.

00:06:56.620 I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

00:06:58.160 If you have any ideas or thoughts, comment below.

00:07:00.300 Okay, so if you got value out of this video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel.

00:07:03.400 And if you enjoyed this video, there's another video I did on fast fashion.

00:07:06.320 If you've never seen it, click here to watch it.

00:07:08.380 Take care, everybody.

00:07:09.120 Bye-bye, bye-bye.

00:07:12.180 Bye-bye, bye-bye.

Valuetainment - March 18, 2024

The Disturbing Truth About Recycling

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