Do you actually care about the environment?

[HamsterKebab]

I think a lot of people say they care, but do you really? Have you adjusted your life with wildlife or the climate in mind? Or does convenience come first?

Im genuinely interested in how much the general public truly cares about biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution. Does it bother you or do you just think ‘someone else will deal with it’. I’m not judging, I genuinely want to know how people honestly feel rather than what they say out loud.

I'm not in the UK, but there are very definitely only some plastics here which will be accepted for recycling. The rules are constantly being publicised, it most certainly is not a case of people making assumptions. In the part of the country where I live the bins for soft plastic disappeared years ago, so all soft plastic now has to go into the general rubbish, along with all plastic which isn't labelled with one of three numbers. It's infuriating that products are still being packaged with non recyclable plastic. It is only recently that the whole country has adopted the same recycling rules.

No soft plastics at all recyclable by my Council.. infuriates me when i see recyclable labelling and think not here matey!

I do care for future generations and have made some adjustments but like many probably could do better

A lot of supermarkets have soft plastic recycling points

"if China and the US don't make a dent, what is the point in the UK doing anything? We wont make a dent"

^ is how I feel about the environment. So yes, I will recycle, I mostly walk and cycle to get about, I will save energy where I can, I take the boat or train where possible. But I'm not giving up holidays, flights, my fireplace, and a nice fucking steak from time to time while all that shit is going on across the world, private jets, the US, China etc...

I do care and I do what I can

i think the natural rise of global temperatures is being exploited by governments for compliance. I don’t see the friends of rich politicians and royals doing much to decrease their ‘carbon footprint’

Slight problem there @platinumplus in i dont own a car anymore, and my nearest supermarket (rural Wales) is 20 miles away.. if they dont recycle its a 2 hour round trip by bus to the next nearest!

This is the problem

And the luvvies l

I care but find it so stressful, so I do some things but not everything. I try to buy UK produced food, we take water bottles out with us, have solar panels, use reusables wherever possible, including sanitary products, walk journeys of a mile or less, I also buy second hand when possible.
But I do have a couple of European flights a year, I want my child to be able to see some of the world and explore different cultures, and with the flights of celebrities, politicians the very rich etc I feel our couple of flights are a drop in the ocean.

You do know don't you that half of all our 'recycling' is sold abroad and not recycled at all? Just ends up being buried under arable land, dumped, or blowing around on someone else's grass verge . . .

So yes, still pointless.

I recycle, but it is futile. I prefer to not buy it in the first place.

As for Temu - they have hard targeted millions of children in the UK who are now child consumers of the tat. Just not buying it yourself isn't enough. This kind of thing needs to be banned. It won't be, because we're too far up the arse of the countries producing it. And so it goes on.

Ah ok that makes it a difficult situation for you

You do know don't you that half of all our 'recycling' is sold abroad and not recycled at all? Just ends up being buried under arable land, dumped, or blowing around on someone else's grass verge . . .

How does that contradict what I said?

Also, I 100% support a ban or heavy taxation on companies like Temu. They're killing our small businesses as well (and to be honest, even bigger chains, it's out of hand).

But will you suddenly start by Temu just because there's no legislation stopping them? I'm guessing not. I won't be. So there you go, you haven't changed the world, but at least your not driving demand and making it worse.

If everyone stopped buying it, it wouldn't exist.

I have always lived my life with wildlife & climate in mind.
So there wasn't much to adjust. I didn't change so not adjusted.
Why is it assumed that the default was to be wasteful & people had to "change".

I don't meet a perfect standard, either. I don't know who does.

Well said.

I wasn't attempting to contradict you. I just don't agree that if we recycle 40% of our waste, that equals 40% less waste blowing around destroying the environment. It just blows around somewhere else, unfortunately.

I care but I also feel like I've entered a place of resignation. I used to do loads; walk everywhere, clean with white vinegar, take my tubs and cloth bags when i went shopping. Then I realised the scale of the problem and felt like I was making a lot of extra work for myself with literally no impact at all.

Now I feel that, just like with CFCs in the 80s, it'll take legislation to make a meaningful difference.

Yes I care a lot. I've made big changes.

Maybe my changes are a drop in the ocean, but my teens are scared about the future and it feels good to be doing something.

We can also vote with the climate in mind (see https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/take-action/project-climate-vote/) Ultimately the government can make much bigger changes than we can as individuals but we need to put pressure on our MPs to do so.

We can make consumer choices that will nudge companies to adopt better practices. Money talks!

Saying that there's no point because x, y and z is a cop-out. It's like saying your vote doesn't count in an election. It does! Small changes add up.

Also, your behaviour can influence the people around you. I can't change Taylor Swift's behaviour but I can reduce my own impact on the planet. And maybe my friends will make small changes, and their friends...

Many people around me like to justify themselves eg "Yes I fly but I don't drive, I always recycle, etc". Have you actually calculated your carbon footprint? It's an interesting thing to do: https://climate-calculator.climatehero.org/?source=GoogleKeywords&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAibeuBhAAEiwAiXBoJJ8ahGLumy7GjNjxtiRtEOEqZkPds4Itx5gfD96hq2T2QAZkEhYZwBoCROkQAvD_BwE

Mine was at 5 tons and now it's at 4. If everyone reduced their carbon footprint by 20% YES it would make a difference.

Saying that there's no point because x, y and z is a cop-out. It's like saying your vote doesn't count in an election. It does! Small changes add up.

It's not a cop out, it's just realistic. By the way, I do everything bar getting rid of my car and giving up holidays. I eat organic food, I eat small amount of meat and eggs from a local farm, I don't buy anything that isn't essential, I water the garden with bath water blah blah blah blah blah. But it is all pointless. Sorry but it is.
You can't turn the tide on climate change and environmental damage when deforestation, overfishing, coal powered energy, oil consumption and creation of plastic is still the norm for a vast majority of the planet. There are millions of tonnes of pharmaceuticals peed into the water every day.

I still do it, but recycling is literally pissing in the wind. I'm pretty sure the government only collect it so they can send it abroad and not put it in landfill here - more cost effective, nothing to do with being green at all. More like - less shit in our back yard.
I recycle and reuse, mend and rehome automatically but I know it wont stop the poisoning of our land and seas and definitely won't stop climate change.

Everything we do makes a difference. If everyone on mumsnet suddenly decided they were no longer going to buy a particular product that we were all previously buying on a regular basis, there are enough MN users that it would affect sales. If everyone in the country decided it then that product would no longer be sold in the country.

I'm sorry. I was talking about UK recycling only because that's my only experience.There is much variation in UK between different councils. I said that people make assumptions because they do. There is still a belief that, generally speaking, plastic is only recyclable in a few specific cases, but things have moved on from the days when this was true. I check packaging because I'm constantly surprised by things that I can recycle this week that I couldn't last week. It might all turn out to be a massive scam by the big supermarkets etc but in the meantime I'll do my bit in good faith.

Quite. Together we are incredibly powerful and absolutely can make a difference.

Agree. Make changes, it’s due to demand that we have what we do

I do care, but I find it a problem so overwhelming and so absolutely massive tat I feel my small contributions make zero difference. I have also seen first hand the despair and grief of activists suffering from climate grief - and to be honest I don't want that for myself . so I do what I can, and am guilty of a bit if 'lalalal' about all the rest