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Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

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Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

#371
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It may reduce contamination of recycling streams, but does nothing to encourage less production. Sure it does. If you're going to slapped with a $200 fine every time you screw up with your recycling, and you have to pay by the bag to throw stuff in the landfill, if you have half a brain, you're going to think twice about every purchase you make, and if you really need it. That $1 water bottle that costs you $200 bec…

Or it may just create perverse incentives fir people to throw everything in landfill. Not 100% sure where to put that $1 drink bottle, throw in the trash and don't risk a $200. Not sure how that could be prevented.

Throwing recyclable goods in to the landfill bag nets you a fine. That's the whole point - you sort correctly, or you pay up. If you are unable to sort your trash - you don't buy stuff. The landfill bags are for non-recyclable items.

Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you can't easily put the blame on individuals doesn't mean they're not responsible. Our "system" is great at "blame laundering" or obfuscating ethical implications of decisions through diffusion of responsibility and removal of context at different boundaries. But the system itself is not a thing you can blame, as it's orchestrated by people who wanted it to work that way. Leaders who don't act to change…

> it's orchestrated by people who wanted it to work that way This is exactly what I'm talking about. Capitalism is basically a force of nature, like evolution. Claiming anyone can orchestrate it is analogous to intelligent design. I do agree that we all, and leaders more than most, bear responsibility to improve the system. But don't overestimate the capacity of any one person. If it were that easy to control complex…

I would replace "orchestrate" with "influence". It's obvious it can be influenced negatively, to make the situation worse in context of this discussion -- otherwise the concept of bearing responsibility to influence it positively, which you acknowledge, would make no sense.

As for "force of nature", that just sounds like what someone living under monarchy might say about monarchy, etc. Yes, trading things is very old and very useful, but from that doesn't follow that the whole package including "obfuscating ethical implications" is a "force of nature" (which to me doesn't really read differently than "the will of God" btw)

> But don't overestimate the capacity of any one person.

We're first and foremost talking about personal responsibility. To speak about "the system" we should "improve" while kinda skipping about that is like talking about a beach while ignoring the concept of a grain of sand. The system is the people, the beliefs they have about the world, the other people, and so on. If you take away the people, there is no system. With different people, there is a different system.

Yes, I cannot easily just change the behavior of others. However, I can change mine, and there are a lot of things I declined to do because I value being able to look at myself in the mirror more than temporary material profit. What force of nature? I only saw and see a bunch of mediocre, insecure people who failed to drag me into their games.

When a group of hooligans steals money from a beggar just to be cruel I may not be able or dare to do anything about it. But it's very easy for me to refrain from stealing from a beggar. It's actually way easier for me to refrain from it than to do it. Other people developed differently, probably had different childhoods and so on -- but we still live in the same "system", and "just" behave very differently in it. That matters.

Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

#373
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a big part of it and it's amazing that they get away with it. Case in point: Blue Apron. Blue Apron positioned itself as one of the more "recycle-friendly" food delivery services to try and fight the stigma against every delivery having bags upon bags of individually wrapped goods by providing recycling services. As a former Blue Apron customer, I loved that I could separate stuff out (hard plastic, soft…

This is what Blue Apron recommends for "recycling" their freezer packs: "We recommend cutting the ice pack open and disposing of the gel in the trash. You can then recycle on your own or send back to us!" [1] Yes, you take the stuff out of the freezer pack bag and put it into a new bag, and recycle the old bag. Where does the new bag go? In the trash. [1] https://twitter.com/blueapron/status/652141163948847104?lang..…

This exact same thing happened with Amazon Fresh. Used to have a way to return ice packs, now you cannot. The instructions are the same: cut the pack, drain gel, recycle?

Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

#374
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve teavelled entire Taiwan by car and did not notice any excessive dumping.

Yes, and that's a dataset of n=1. Things like littering have a million different factors go into them, including culture. It's not unreasonable to think that in other cultures, increasing the incentive to litter would in fact increase litter.

An exponential fine on littering would, however, absolutely destroy any incentives on littering. Starting with $10^n, where n is the n'th time you are caught littering. Also a corporate fine for dumping trash and waste illegally, $1000^n.

It really is not hard to take care of your environment!

Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

#376

This is a classic externality problem. We can berate consumers all day long to be more diligent in their recycling, but all that finger wagging is for show meant to distract from the real source of the garbage, the manufacturers. Just like the classic "blame the user" mentality, the users were given an impossibly complex system with barely any incentive to get it right. Nothing about the interface is intuitive or dis…

This is such a big part of it and it's amazing that they get away with it. Case in point: Blue Apron. Blue Apron positioned itself as one of the more "recycle-friendly" food delivery services to try and fight the stigma against every delivery having bags upon bags of individually wrapped goods by providing recycling services. As a former Blue Apron customer, I loved that I could separate stuff out (hard plastic, soft…

It is amazing how often humans continue to essentially create new problems that are easily solvable on their own. A culture of convenience and throw-away (not my problem) or "I don't have the time for x" is why we keep having mountains of waste. Anyone who is concerned with waste can make the conscious choices to eliminate or reduce that waste in a lot of areas of their life.

1. Buy real food and cook it 2. Grow food or contribute to local co-op or farms 3. Make stuff you use all the time 4. Bring your own containers/bags

Usually these are the only options for a lot of things. But there are other cases where just having consumers fed up with companies like in the case above you can shift market incentives with your choice. Lush is a good example of this for instance.

It's a combined effort, you have to not be lazy and actually care about the choices you are making with where you spend your money and companies will respond to the demand. Sometimes it takes more effort, or you can just not buy X and see if you can either make your own alternative or not need X at all.

There are tons and tons of homemade things you can do to eliminate waste by just making it yourself. I've found it generally comes to a few constant categories where I generally produce the most waste.

- Food + Beverages - Hygenics

Sure there are the other areas where I produce trash, but those two categories are the ones where waste is produced every single day so the impact is a lot higher. The solution is relatively straightforward, make more things by hand or purchase goods closer to raw form (Lush seems to be a great example of one that can replace just about all of my hygenic material waste). And second, make more recipes by hand closer to the raw material ingredients and bring your own containers.

Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

#377

This is a classic externality problem. We can berate consumers all day long to be more diligent in their recycling, but all that finger wagging is for show meant to distract from the real source of the garbage, the manufacturers. Just like the classic "blame the user" mentality, the users were given an impossibly complex system with barely any incentive to get it right. Nothing about the interface is intuitive or dis…

This conversation of externalised abstract costs is very closely related to the “true cost” of “fast fashion” (colloquialism for cheap and ephemeral but stylish clothing now available en masse). Those interested, please take some time to watch the documentary “the true cost” by Andrew Morgan. It is available on Netflix. While that movie is mostly about the human cost not being borne by the customers (because of the failure in the global system to impose the cost on manufacturers) - it touched upon the pollution cost as well.

Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

#378

This is a classic externality problem. We can berate consumers all day long to be more diligent in their recycling, but all that finger wagging is for show meant to distract from the real source of the garbage, the manufacturers. Just like the classic "blame the user" mentality, the users were given an impossibly complex system with barely any incentive to get it right. Nothing about the interface is intuitive or dis…

It's not impossible, you just have to take the time and effort to do the research.

https://zerowastehome.com/tips/

Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that's a dataset of n=1. Things like littering have a million different factors go into them, including culture. It's not unreasonable to think that in other cultures, increasing the incentive to litter would in fact increase litter.

An exponential fine on littering would, however, absolutely destroy any incentives on littering. Starting with $10^ n , where n is the n 'th time you are caught littering. Also a corporate fine for dumping trash and waste illegally, $1000^ n . It really is not hard to take care of your environment!

[deleted]

Re: Plastic recycling is a problem consumers can't solve

#380
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what Blue Apron recommends for "recycling" their freezer packs: "We recommend cutting the ice pack open and disposing of the gel in the trash. You can then recycle on your own or send back to us!" [1] Yes, you take the stuff out of the freezer pack bag and put it into a new bag, and recycle the old bag. Where does the new bag go? In the trash. [1] https://twitter.com/blueapron/status/652141163948847104?lang..…

This exact same thing happened with Amazon Fresh. Used to have a way to return ice packs, now you cannot. The instructions are the same: cut the pack, drain gel, recycle?

In Seattle, Amazon Fresh was using dry ice for a while. My friends and I would just cut up the block of dry ice and use it to smoke our cocktails.
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