Though, to be honest, plastic recycling is mostly a myth in in the first place. For most plastics, the “recycling” procedure consists of paying some impoverished country to let you dump them there.
Basically, every plastic bottle can be assumed to contribute to microplastics contamination sooner or later. Glass and aluminum bottles are better (as are cans); both of those are economically feasible to recycle.
That is all true, but still not an excuse to drop your plastic bottle beside a trash can and when called out about it go “it’s all part of my evil plan”. These kinds of comics, regardless of their intention, will be used as a reason for people to say “recycling doesn’t work, so whatever I do, nothing will change, so I can pollute at will”.
The comic does point out that the litterer is not a good person, though. You could argue that this cutesy depiction of a gleefully evil person serves to normalize misbehavior but it doesn’t try to hide the fact that it’s misbehavior.
I agree that Mimi is being a dick in this comic and that anyone acting like that in real life is a dick.
That being said, dropping the plastic bottle in the generic trash hole is something I could ignore. (And if your area has a bottle deposit I damn well expect you to put the bottle beside the trash can so less fortunate people can at least get your deposit – of course a gleefully evil person wouldn’t do it in this case.)
Though, to be honest, plastic recycling is mostly a myth in in the first place. For most plastics, the “recycling” procedure consists of paying some impoverished country to let you dump them there.
Basically, every plastic bottle can be assumed to contribute to microplastics contamination sooner or later. Glass and aluminum bottles are better (as are cans); both of those are economically feasible to recycle.
That is all true, but still not an excuse to drop your plastic bottle beside a trash can and when called out about it go “it’s all part of my evil plan”. These kinds of comics, regardless of their intention, will be used as a reason for people to say “recycling doesn’t work, so whatever I do, nothing will change, so I can pollute at will”.
The comic does point out that the litterer is not a good person, though. You could argue that this cutesy depiction of a gleefully evil person serves to normalize misbehavior but it doesn’t try to hide the fact that it’s misbehavior.
Nowhere in the comic does it do that. It just shows a humanoid with cat ears.
I agree that Mimi is being a dick in this comic and that anyone acting like that in real life is a dick.
That being said, dropping the plastic bottle in the generic trash hole is something I could ignore. (And if your area has a bottle deposit I damn well expect you to put the bottle beside the trash can so less fortunate people can at least get your deposit – of course a gleefully evil person wouldn’t do it in this case.)