When single-use plastics were removed, supermarkets adopted “environmentally conscious” multi-use bags at 15¢ a pop.

Many of these bags – worse for the environment than the bags they replaced – are used once and end up in landfill. Further, they become a revenue source for the supermarket chains. Queensland University of Technology academic Professor Gary Mortimer predicted the change to “reusable” plastic bags could deliver an extra $71 million a year in profits to retail giants Coles and Woolworths.

Again, it is part of an ideology that tells people they are individually responsible for environmental degradation when in fact it is a global profits system and a few hundred companies worldwide that are trashing the planet.

While the exact data are contested, a 2017 study argued that just 100 fossil fuel and cement companies contributed to 71 per cent of greenhouse pollution since 1988. Rather than tackle these polluting giants, individuals are asked to “do their bit”.

Individual recycling schemes, like carbon offset schemes, have more in common with religious penance than urgent action to deal with plastics pollution or greenhouse gas emissions.

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As pointed out some years ago by Carbon Trade Watch and UK research outfit The Corner House, the push to make individual consumers feel guilty and responsible and pay a “little bit more” has more in common with medieval indulgences than real action on the environment.

During Europe’s Dark Ages, the church told the benighted and sinning masses that the priesthood and assorted clergy had an abundance of holiness, while the individual believer was a sinner and damned to hell. But by purchasing indulgences from the church, they could transfer some of that holiness to their rotten lives, offsetting their sinful practices.

Sound familiar?

REDcycle does face prosecution in Victoria for failing to disclose its mountains of plastics. But the maximum fine is $165,000. Chicken feed.

In NSW, the Environment Protection Authority has told Woolworths and Coles to clear the REDcycle warehouses at a potential cost of $3.5 million. Together, both companies made about $2.5 billion in profit last year.

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These companies will get away with a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile, oil companies continue to pump plastics into the environment, governments greenwash and climate protestors are threatened with prison.

This tells us something about how seriously we are taking the climate crisis: punish the annoying Cassandras, let the real sinners off the hook.

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