phil53 wrote:Grelinette wrote: the paradox of ecology that everyone agrees with, that everyone practices individually, but that no one supports at the national level.
grelinette, maybe on this forum but in life a good half of the population doesn't care
Ecology passes for many after their little comfort, ease of personal life.
Me too somewhere, in some cases!
I don't think it's as simple as saying everyone doesn't care. I think that with all the noise and the more or less guilty slogans, we end up saying that there is a confusion somewhere!
For example, currently carpooling is recommended, and if you are looking for work, most job postings mention "personal vehicle required".
For selective sorting, it's the same: there is an important communication to encourage the population to make selective sorting, and in some cases the recommendations go far: on our premises, we received an explanatory note to explain to us how well to make the selective sorting: such bottle, such plastic pot or such packaging is to be recycled, but such other which is almost the same is not! ...
There is even on the instructions the indication "Thoroughly clean metal cans before putting them in the appropriate container". I don't see myself doing the dishes of my empty cans before going to put them in the container.
Another problem that I know well: the plastic caps that are collected from traders and then recycled, with the fallacious argument "For so many caps collected, a wheelchair offered to a disabled" ...
In reality, the big winners are the manufacturers who have rubbed their hands in calculating the savings they have made (free raw material, sorting, storage, etc.)
I know the subject well because I worked in a Help Center for the disabled. The center had a contract to collect the corks, store them, sort them and clean them, then bring them to the manufacturer.
Morality, the whole population played the game, the quantities of corks collected were HUGE and the center had to rent trucks to collect bags of corks from traders, rent a shed to store them (imagine a shed of 1000 m² with a pile of loose stoppers 5 meters high!), buy machines to sort the stoppers because it was necessary to remove all the bits of aluminum and plastic on the necks, then transport everything, very clean, well sort everything by categories to the industrialist, who, in his great generosity, and has great reinforcement of communication in the press, the radio and the local tv, offered a wheelchair! ...
In the end, it was the State that paid the high bill by subsidizing the operation (which still lasts!).
In short, ecology, for the moment, is more a commercial argument and a motive for transferring costs on the population, than a real concern for protecting the environment.
It is still the economic law of Pareto (law of 20/80, moreover today closer to 10/90
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principe_de_Pareto): the 10% of the population who hold 90% of power (politicians, industrialists, lobbies, etc.) prefer to make the constraints of ecology bear the 90% of the population who only hold 10% of make things change.
Finally, it reminds me of an interview with Edouard Leclerc a few years ago, who explained that as a fan of marine ecology, he found it unacceptable to see all these plastic bags floating in the sea ...
And when the journalist asked him: "So you are going to provide biodegradable bags in your supermarkets? ...", and his answer: "Ha, but it is not possible, we will do it in a few years when we are obliged, because the additional cost of a few cents per bag is not economically bearable by our group ... ".