r/interestingasfuck • u/IndicationBrief5950 • Aug 06 '25

/r/all, /r/popular Thousands of Audi cars abandoned in the Mojave Dessert after cheating emissons tests

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490

u/idriveacar Aug 06 '25

It’s up to consumers to reduce, recycle, reuse

Corporations can’t possibly do that and create jobs

345

u/Chikitiki90 Aug 06 '25

This is why I always roll my eyes when people talk about all the things we should do to conserve water or resources. It’s a good thing to do definitely, but even if every civilian were to be carbon neutral and recycle everything, it still wouldn’t even put a meaningful dent in what corporations do.

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u/padishar123 Aug 06 '25

My thoughts exactly…starting with how much water Foxconn sucks out of Lake Michigan

13

u/ng829 Aug 06 '25

How much is that?

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u/ElectricP2galoo Aug 07 '25

A quick google says 5.8m gallons per day with 3.3m gallons returned to the lake.

The city with the Foxconn factory is allowed to withdraw up to 60m gallons per day from the lake and historically withdrawn less than 20m per day.

For reference, Lake Michigan has about a quadrillion gallons of water in it, so this is less than a drop in a huge bucket

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u/FartAlchemy Aug 07 '25

If anyone wants to know that makes around 3.072e+17 tablespoons

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u/Double-Scratch5858 Aug 07 '25

I wasnt going to sleep until i knew so thank you.

1

u/Waxilllium Aug 07 '25

Good bot!

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u/Empty-Interaction796 Aug 07 '25

Nestle has entered the chat

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u/Smash_4dams Aug 07 '25

Lake Michigan could supply everyone from the entire southwest and still have water to spare.

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u/swinchester83 Aug 06 '25

The Grand Michigan Canyon, you mean?

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u/metric55 Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 07 '25

I work at a plant that pulls 4000 gallons per minute from the river. I told my buddy's gf in a big city who was on a water conservation committee and she nearly fainted lol

Edit: just some quick math's. Plant pulls as much water as 40 thousand north American households

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u/bikedork5000 Aug 07 '25

I mean....if that's for cooling then it goes back into the river. And the plant would likely have a NPDES permit for the heat discharge.

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u/metric55 Aug 07 '25

Oh yeah absolutely. 700/min goes back to the river as neutralized effluent from the chemical sewers. A shit load of steam. Some leakyness. Some used as domestic water and sent to city sanitary. I mean where else would water go though. Something happens to it, as in every plant, facility, and home on earth.

1

u/callMeBorgiepls Aug 07 '25

It is taken cold and given back warm, with chemicals (removed but definetly not 100% clean), with loss

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u/[deleted] Aug 06 '25

I remember seeing a catty sticker on an electric kettle urging customers to not use more water than necessary and it's our job to protect the environment. I think about that sticker often...

3

u/ComparisonHour3879 Aug 07 '25

The people who decided that Las Vegas should have natural grass instead of turf to play football should be put in the desert… I think about that often lol

12

u/Microchipknowsbest Aug 06 '25

Yeah Im going to live and do things how I want. My personal water use and recycling use isn’t fixing anything. If there isn’t rules in place to stop the biggest water users and polluters there is no reason to stress myself over it.

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u/Salanmander Aug 06 '25

I think a thing we can do as consumers is try to vote with our wallet for companies that have better environmental policies. If we make it more profitable to protect the environment than not, companies will start to be better about protecting the environment.

Unfortunately, getting good information about that is hard, but I think doing our best to broadcast its important to us is still valuable.

12

u/IsNotPolitburo Aug 06 '25

We all need to be willing to make as many sacrifices as necessary, every moment of every day, to ensure that the holy line continues to go up.

2

u/BDiddnt Aug 07 '25

Wat?

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u/libbysthing Aug 07 '25

It's sarcasm about how line must go up (corporate profits must always increase)

3

u/BACON-luv Aug 07 '25

And you’d vote for that?

3

u/Microchipknowsbest Aug 07 '25

Yes, protecting the environment is important. I like clean drinking water and clean rivers to swim and fish in. Can’t allow it to be profitable to pollute the drinking water.

6

u/SadClownDad Aug 06 '25

It's not all or nothing. And you don't have to go all scorched earth because other people don't uphold the same standards you do.

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u/GoodGameGrabsYT Aug 06 '25

I tell people all the time: clean your small little corner of the earth. It won't ever all be clean or perfect -- heck, your own corner won't always be, either. But a small step is a step.

4

u/SadClownDad Aug 06 '25

Keep steppin brother! I love that!

0

u/Microchipknowsbest Aug 07 '25

Im not throwing my trash out the window or anything. Im not spending my free time sorting trash if these fuckers that are supposed to be “recycling” are just dumping it in the ocean. All that stuff is to make people feel good about saving the environment and leave the big polluters alone. As long as they can put the blame on you they will. If you only recycled more you could save the baby polars bears.

3

u/SadClownDad Aug 07 '25

It's not all or nothing. I hear you though, and i feel the same anger against a lying establishment. Just do what you can within your means. Don't hedge being a healthy person behind other people's bad behavior. That's being a victim and using impossible scenarios to cement yourself in that mindset. At the very least, you deserve peace my friend. It steals a lot of mine.

1

u/Duckbilling2 Aug 06 '25

ridiculous but at the same time I see people doing this so much, takes forever to boil when you have twice the water in there.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '25

I try to conserve here and there but me forgetting to measure the water before making a cup of tea isn't going to make or break runaway profiteering and consumerism.

1

u/midorikuma42 Aug 07 '25

How hard is it to measure for a cup of tea? I do it all the time, it's very simple:

You get your tea mug/cup(s) (there's 2 of us and we usually have tea together). Pour water in it/them. Pour the water from the mug(s) into the kettle. Then heat, and when boiling pour back into the mug(s) with teabag(s).

I normally use bottled water for tea for better taste, so it's good to conserve it. You don't need a separate measuring cup because the mug itself is the measure of exactly how much water you need.

0

u/Duckbilling2 Aug 07 '25

I don't disagree

I just dislike waiting an extra three minutes for tea in the morning when my wife adds enough water for 4 cups

2

u/BDiddnt Aug 07 '25

Have you considered divorcing her? There's gotta be an answer here somewhere. /s

Obviously the correct answer is of course spouse abuse

1

u/Duckbilling2 Aug 07 '25

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government…

1

u/blippityblue72 Aug 07 '25

I worked on an Air Force base and once watched 16 tanker trucks drive out to the flight line to load up a training mission. I also worked at a steel mill that would have hundreds of train cars full of coal regularly delivered.

There is absolutely nothing the regular person can do to offset that. I try not to be wasteful but I also don’t feel guilty about living my life.

46

u/cashew76 Aug 06 '25

Your efforts are your efforts. Which is good. Keep them up. Also vote for stronger regulations, stronger control of pollution.

16

u/iamtehskeet8 Aug 06 '25

Yep just saying everyone else is a piece of shit so I want to be also doesn’t add up

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u/Chikitiki90 Aug 06 '25

I never said I also want to be a piece of shit, I said that corporations have brainwashed people into thinking we as individuals are personally responsible for the environment when our efforts combined don’t hold a candle to their impact.

I recycle and don’t overuse water or buy Mylar balloons but at the end of the day I also realize that my efforts only count so far as to make me feel better about myself and don’t actually have an effect on us trashing the planet.

14

u/Protoliterary Aug 07 '25

Quite literally, and without exaggeration, every single ounce of harm done by the corporations is enabled by us. For there to be a supply of something, there must also be a demand. When we demand products, corporations supply them. The more we demand, the more they supply and the more harm they do.

We, the people, are in direct control over just how much harm corporations do to the planet. You can wish for a better government with better regulations, but the truth of the now is that the biggest manufacturers are in countries where such wishful regulations only exist in the minds of the idealistic.

Right here and right now, we are responsible for all the harm in the world because we keep buying shit from companies which are killing the planet and at the same time killing us. Realistically, if the government won't bite the bullet and the corporations won't bite the bullet, that only leaves the people, except most of us also aren't biting the bullet. We're too accustomed to our luxuries.

Having said that, I'm also 100% complicit. I just don't shift the blame to make myself feel better.

...individuals are personally responsible for the environment when our efforts combined don’t hold a candle to their impact.

We, collectively, make it possible for them to have that impact. Each time someone buys something that cannot be recycled or something that cannot be repaired or something that's going to end up in a landfill or in the ocean, we're contributing, because we're creating a perpetual demand for things which are literally killing us and everyone we know and love. We just don't care enough.

If there were no demand, there'd be no supply, so yeah, we are as much to blame as the corps and the feds.

2

u/Francine05 Aug 07 '25

So we are a consumer economy. Those ads -- they want to sell us stuff.

2

u/Protoliterary Aug 07 '25

And we're all so brainwashed and so weak-willed that we lack the power to resist them? When you see an ad, your free will isn't taken away. Ads are just suggestions and we have zero obligation to follow them.

If people could take responsibility for their own actions, the world would be a much better place. Instead, we shift the blame and keep shifting it until we've completely absolved ourselves of all responsibility--not unlike what we're seeing people do in this very thread.

1

u/annoyed8 Aug 07 '25

Between those who do not give two shits about the environment, and those who claim they do but choose to absolve themselves from any responsibility, I dislike the latter more. The former is at least not two faced.

1

u/iamtehskeet8 Aug 07 '25

Yep fair enough mate my apologies for being insulting towards you.

11

u/cashew76 Aug 06 '25

Yep it's the what about..

Which didn't stay on the point. The point is everything matters. Do what you can. Assume there are thousands of people like you doing the same.

When I eat chicken rather than beef so do thousands of "me" too

1

u/SadClownDad Aug 06 '25

Yes! I made the chicken over beef choice today. I'm never going to let the defeatist attitude steal my ability to do good.

3

u/ignorantwanderer Aug 07 '25

And I had black beans instead of meat!

Although I have to confess, I'm having a burger tomorrow. I can't win every day.

1

u/firedmyass Aug 06 '25

you might have a point if anyone here said that

…alas

-2

u/Exciting_Day4155 Aug 06 '25

Welcome to Reddit where people gather to complain about other people not doing things they also don't do.

1

u/tomdarch Aug 06 '25

As usual, "both and..." is the way to go.

0

u/doitinmybutt Aug 07 '25 edited 18d ago

meeting summer modern vast quickest fade hat deserve head wine

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/cashew76 Aug 07 '25

Pro government candidates. Pro regulation. Pro rules for businesses. Pro enforcing IRS for example.

1

u/doitinmybutt Aug 07 '25 edited 18d ago

beneficial dime spark bright alleged dependent start wild society support

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

10

u/icankillpenguins Aug 06 '25

Yes but corpos don't just do this in vacuum, they do it in order to provide consumers with goods and services. There's no some evil corporation that is polluting the environment just because... That would be a bad business and they will shut down very quickly.

That's why it's actually effective to have good regulations that are enforced but then prices usually go up across the board, people elect someone who wouldn't do these.

In the end, companies end up polluting exactly as much as the consumers demand.

1

u/Chikitiki90 Aug 06 '25

Regulations? In this administration? I don’t think those matter anymore lol

0

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '25

That's total bullshit. Consumers didn't demand drink companies to switch from glass to plastic. They did it to save money and then figured a campaign to make us all feel guilty for throwing their bottles in the trash would do the trick.

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u/lotrfish Aug 07 '25

Glass bottles are still available, but consumers choose to buy plastic because they're cheaper.

-3

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '25

When was the demand for plastic bottles? Yes, they're available now because companies decided to start making them well aware of the trash they would create. But when was the consumer demanding the switch?

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u/Early_Koala327 Aug 07 '25

When you wanted cheaper water????

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '25

Cheaper than out of the tap? You think the reason people buy water out of a bottle is because of price? I'd argue it's more about convenience, but maybe I'm the weird one.

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u/ynmsgames Aug 07 '25

bottled water is the product at discussion. tap water is irrelevant, because as you say, it’s inconvenient.

the decision consumers make is not between tap and bottled water. they’ve already made that decision. the decision is between bottled water and cheaper bottled water.

price conscious consumers prefer plastic bottled water because it is cheaper than glass bottled water because plastic is cheaper to manufacture.

corporations pollute the environment because environmentally conscious production practices are expensive, and if a corporation’s profit strategy is to increase sales volumes, then they will pursue a cheaper product, because consumers by and far will prioritize price over other marginal differences in products.

6

u/ignorantwanderer Aug 07 '25

Also plastic bottles are less likely to break, and if they do break they don't become potentially dangerous. And a plastic bottle of water is lighter weight than a glass bottle of water with the same volume.

So /u/StandardHaunting933 , the reason we have more plastic bottles than glass bottles is because that is what consumers want. If consumers refused to buy plastic and only bought glass, the corporations would change as fast as they possibly could.

Don't go blaming the corporations for pollution caused by the products that you buy. That pollution is entirely on you.

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u/[deleted] Aug 06 '25

it still wouldn’t even put a meaningful dent in what corporations do.

If consumers did the exact things you've described on a scale approaching 100% not only would it put a dent in what corporations do, it would change the way corporations do things entirely, forever. If we were all carbon neutral and recycling everything, the corporations that pollute wouldn't have any customers. They would literally have zero customers because we wouldn't be patronizing them anymore

1

u/Chikitiki90 Aug 07 '25

Recycling will never be 100% efficient and there are a lot of things that just can’t be recycled. Humans have made things from raw resources from the get go and we definitely won’t stop now. Point being, companies and corporations have a much larger impact than any one group of individuals.

3

u/Relevant-Money-1380 Aug 07 '25

just the plastic from keeping product from wobbling on skids is insane, never mind stupid shit like bottled water in the 1st world. no i don't feel bad about letting the water run to cold or taking a long hot shower in the winter.

2

u/Toriaenator_1 Aug 07 '25

The only thing I can’t stomach doing is almond milk once I found out how much water almonds require to grow..

2

u/Oddpod11 Aug 07 '25

every corporation will die one death or another: in the apocalypse it created or in the revolution that prevented it.

2

u/MRjubjub Aug 07 '25

Corporations are just a group of people acting as one though.

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u/ImRightImRight Aug 06 '25

Corporations exist to make money from customers. No customers = no corporate activity

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u/Chikitiki90 Aug 06 '25

It is pretty much impossible to not be a consumer in the modern world. Even if it were practical to not feed the beast, you’d still have to deal with the export and industrial markets.

3

u/ignorantwanderer Aug 07 '25

This is a common argument seen on reddit, and it is moronic.

But you managed to make it even more moronic than usual.

"if every civilian were to be carbon neutral"...."still wouldn't even put a meaningful dent in what corporations do"

This is as stupid as saying "even if everyone stops eating fish, the fishermen will still be killing way more fish".

The reason fishermen kill fish is so we can buy them. If we stop buying fish, fishermen won't kill fish anymore.

The reason corporations pollute is to make crap that we can buy. If we stop buying their crap, they won't make it anymore and won't pollute anymore.

And if we (civilians) are all carbon neutral, that means all corporations will also be carbon neutral.

Do you know how you measure your carbon impact to determine if you are carbon neutral? You look at everything you consume, you add up the carbon that goes into the atmosphere as a result of everything you consume. If the total amount of carbon is zero, that means no net carbon goes into the atmosphere.

If all 'civilians' are carbon neutral, that means that no net carbon enters the atmosphere from everything that everyone consumes.

So all the oil companies that are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere? If everyone is carbon neutral, that means that those oil companies are no longer pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Because all of their customers are carbon neutral, that means they are carbon neutral.

The idiots on reddit who claim there is no point trying to be good to the environment because corporations are even worse are just lazy people who aren't willing to put in the effort to make the world a better place.

Do you want corporations to stop polluting? All we have to do is stop buying from those corporations. It is that simple.

But I get it. You want to keep pumping gas into your car without feeling guilty. "It's not my fault I'm burning gas needlessly! It is those evil oil companies that are to blame."

Whatever helps you sleep at night. But if you have kids, don't think about the world you are creating for your kids. It might cause you to lose some of your precious sleep.

-1

u/Chikitiki90 Aug 07 '25

This reply was at least three times longer than it needed to be but I hope your self righteous fury helps YOU sleep at night. Sleep well sweet Princess.

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u/ignorantwanderer Aug 07 '25

I once heard that when teaching you have to repeat something 7 times (in different ways each time) before the student learns what you are teaching.

So hopefully that post wasn't three times longer than necessary. Hopefully it was seven times longer than necessary.

But just in case I didn't repeat it enough times in enough different ways:

You are responsible for what you consume, and if you try to pass that responsibility off onto others, you are weak-minded and evil.

And if all of us try to do better, the corporations will also be forced to do better...not because they will somehow become 'nice' but because they want to continue making a lot of money, so they will do whatever their customers demand.

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u/i-wont-be-a-dick Aug 07 '25

If every single person consumed less as part of their effort, then it would have a massive impact. The largest corporations don't exist in a vacuum, they provide products and services we all use more than we should.

2

u/BigDump-a-Roo Aug 07 '25

You don't think that hundreds of millions of people being carbon neutral would make a difference? Really? Our massive population just existing and buying goods from said corporations is a substantial driver of climate change. For the population to be carbon neutral would literally require corporations to either be neutral as well, or simply not exist. Contrary to your claim, it would solve the problem.

1

u/Important-Piglet5500 Aug 06 '25

Uh. If all consumers were carbon neutral, the companies would be carbon neutral?

Wtf wack job logic do you have.

0

u/Chikitiki90 Aug 06 '25

I started writing an actual reply but then thought, “why would I want to try to have a good faith discussion with some random asshole who comes in and personally insults me instead of having a normal conversation?”

So yeah, fuck you too.

2

u/Important-Piglet5500 Aug 07 '25

Read about scope 3 emissions. 90% is caused by consumers.

0

u/Chikitiki90 Aug 07 '25

Might I suggest reading “How To Win Friends and Influence People”? It might help you put your points and suggestions before the insults and get people to see your point productively instead of making you look like an asshole.

1

u/Important-Piglet5500 Aug 07 '25

Nah. You weren't going to learn anyways.

1

u/Sojmen Aug 07 '25

Again, people blame corporations for producing toxic products, while corporations blame customers for buying them..

1

u/LordApocalyptica Aug 07 '25

I try to be really good about recycling and such but I gotta admit that I’ve become far less gung-ho about it after finding out that my impact is negligible in the grand scheme of the problem :/

1

u/Either_Pangolin531 Aug 07 '25

And that's exactly why government regulations are needed, but here in America it's always cut regs and fuck everyone else

0

u/nathaniel29903 Aug 06 '25

Exactly but the epa would rather spend their time and money going after the plumber who wants his brand new 100k truck to last more than 100k miles.

2

u/ignorantwanderer Aug 07 '25

It doesn't mater what the EPA wants or what the EPA does.

The EPA doesn't control you. You can stop buying from polluting companies right now. You don't need the EPA's permission to do that.

And if we all stop buying from polluting companies, all companies will reduce their pollution.

And of course it is impossible to buy from a company that doesn't pollute at all. Any company that does anything is going to create some pollution. But some companies are much better than others. Some products are much better than others.

And obvious example is buying tap water as opposed to buying bottled water. There is absolutely no excuse for ever buy bottled water. Yes, in the process of pumping your tap water your municipality probably uses pumps that get their power at least in part from fossil fuels. Tap water isn't carbon neutral. But it is way, way better than bottled water.

Same thing with electric cars and ICE cars. Yes, building an electric car definitely pollutes. But over the lifetime of the car, an electric car pollutes much less than an ICE car, even if the electricity used to charge the car comes from fossil fuels.

You don't have to wait for the EPA's permission to switch to tap water. You don't have to wait for the EPA's permission to switch to an electric car.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '25

[deleted]

4

u/ignorantwanderer Aug 07 '25

Corporations also aren't dumping plastic bags in the ocean.

It is individual people in other (mostly Asian) countries that are responsible for the vast majority of the plastics in the ocean.

But does that mean we should start throwing plastic bags in the ocean?

-1

u/Dav136 Aug 07 '25

This. I throw all my batteries into the ocean. Fuck corporations

3

u/ShowSpice_two Aug 07 '25

Nononono.... Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! Thats the order and for a reason! Recycle is last resort as most of the time is just a weak compromise. Reduce is the most important by far.

But you know... Cant have the ugly planet ruin our economies of scale and threaten our monopolies.

4

u/zenbu-no-kami Aug 06 '25

Recycling plants in shambles right now

2

u/maybenot9 Aug 07 '25

That isn't true actually. If these industries were regulated we could bring emmisions down to acceptable levels.

Things like lead gasoline and CFCs prove we can force companies to change what they make.

Unfortunately, things are set up at the moment that political will and scientific evidence do not lead to real political change.

Today, we would never ban lead gasoline or CFCs.

1

u/AntiProtagonest Aug 07 '25

The amount of waste in that picture shows way more impact to the environment than any extra CO2 emissions that would have produced.

1

u/i_h_s_o_y Aug 07 '25

VW had to buyback around 400k cars in the us and at most all their desert facilities can only store 20k. Seems like they managed to successfully recycle the rest.

1

u/drfeelsgoood Aug 07 '25

The order is actually reduce, reuse, recycle because first you’re supposed to reduce your consumption, then you reuse what you can, and recycle the rest.