I don't know how to articulate to my friends why I hate whole economy of environmentally conscious products. Obviously it's good to be do as much as we can, but I have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that puts aside mass organizing in favor of a different palette of consumption. I don't know how to talk about this without sounding like an annoying contrarian. Also the minimalist marketing sucks so hard. Maybe I'm the asshole.
Focus on what is corporate PR (like most recycling efforts) and what is real and can be organized around (like transforming production).
Also, focus on collaborative criticism. "Recycling doesn't matter anyways" will come across as being a doomer or denialist. As if you're implying we should just give up. Instead, something like, "it pisses me off that nearly all plastics aren't even recyclable but corporations keep telling us it's our job to fix the problem by putting our bottles in the right bin". Then you both get to be frustratef with th same group - and the right one at which to direct action. Even better if you have concrete ideas for advocacy, since individual action is all that liberals are usually familiar with. "Come join my environmental working group, we're doing an event on X date and could use your help".