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India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

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Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#101

Post by CptFribble »

arvinsim wrote: post #96
djsumdog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the debate on human induced climate change is a red haring. It's so abstract, it basically invites conflict and CO2 is absolutely nothing compared to issues of mass consumption. There are huge floating patches of plastic waste our oceans, being swallowed by sea life, killing fish and making its way into our food supply. There are massive lakes of sludge in Chinese and South Pacific factory cities used to…

Essentially, we need a better system than capitalism.

That's too broad. We can have almost any system, as long as the incentives are aligned correctly.

We don't make companies pay for externalities, and we should. Maybe we could tax companies that sell plastic packaged things to pay for recovery costs, or make them recover it themselves.

There's lots of options and many of them could exist in a world where private interests make profit. We just can't let profit be the goal, it has to be the reward for acting responsibly.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#102

Post by k0t0n0 »

within India, we use lots of Plastic bags. GOV of India tried to ban it so many times but public and shop owners are not willing to give it up. on other hands, GOV doesn't oppose big corporations producing consumer food packages using plastic. This is really a big issue where I live (animals eating plastic; big dump of plastic in public place). in my view, we should totally ban plastic bags for consumers and for corporation usage.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#104

Post by JetSpiegel »

Apes wrote: post #75
avip wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need reducing, not recycling. Recycling is an amazingly inefficient and polluting solution to a problem that should not exist (in its current magnitude) in a sanely-managed planet.

Reduce is fine to a point, but populations are increasing faster than any policy of reduction can keep up with. Reuse is scalable, but is being completely ignored in our current disposable consumerism environment. There is almost no focus on reuse in the US. If you want to get groceries, you don't take a container to fill, you buy your food wastefully prepackaged. Fast food restaurants don't give you a plate and glas…

In many European countries, single use plastic bags for groceries almost disappeared overnight after a flat tax of 10 cents was slapped on it, I think they used less than 50% in 1 year or something like that.

The supermarket sold some sturdier and bigger bags for like 50 cents, who can be reused for years and they even replace it for you if the bag is ruined for some reason, but using this was socially frowned upon. After the tax, it is socially acceptable to reuse bags now.

It is possible to change this on a society level, and the change can be vary fast on our current hyper-connected economy.

A similar thing happened with lunches. Before 2008, people would never carried their own lunches from home, it was a total social faux-pa. The mix of economic downturn (even if the same people did not feel it), healthy lifestyles are trendy and the classic one-upmanship between who would bring the fanciest lunch lead to droves of people carrying their lunches on public transit almost overnight, special stores that sell thermos and special bags, and hundreds of cook books.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#105

Post by paulstovell »

As I read this I was reminded of how trees in prehistoric times piled up because no bacteria had evolved to eat them yet:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01...

We don’t feel so bad about using paper or wood because it now biodegrades, but if those organisms hadn’t evolved, we’d be worried about wood and paper the same way we worry about plastic.

This article suggests there are some bacteria that has already evolved to eat kinds of plastic:

http://theconversation.com/how-plastic-eating-bacteria-actua...

Maybe in a few decades with more research, we’ll have solutions for plastic that don’t involve sending it across the world?

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#106

Post by drilldrive »

zaroth wrote: post #7

I don’t know if this is correct, but here is my theory; Container ships have to make the voyage from the US back to China, why do it empty? They need massive tonnage to bring back, and the US just doesn’t export enough into China so let’s carry recycling? (This assumes the ships that bring X from China to the US can bring Y from the US back to Chine without expensive reconfiguration, and perhaps also that the ports o…

Obviously there is a great need for some good investigative journalism for this situation as to clear the air.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#107

Post by systematical »

PaulHoule wrote: post #18
andrewstuart wrote: post #4

The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…

Part of the problem is that markets for commodities are always volatile. That is, recycling plastic X might be very profitable in 2015 and not at all be profitable in 2019. It is the same problem that producers of oil, aluminum and everything else have from time to time. Prices go up and prices go down.

I wonder if a plastic credit system ala carbon credit system could work. This could prop up the recycling market.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#108

Post by peteretep »

quakeguy wrote: post #53
Tade0 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, my country - Poland, and what happens is this: 1. Some other country exports its trash to Poland. 2. The trash is stored at a specific place and not a few days go by until an "accidental" fire erupts. 3. The "entrepreneurs" who originally took the trash profit not only from that, but any potential insurance claim. 4. Rinse and repeat.

Who does profit from it?

I’ve no idea in practice in this case, but it’s certainly a common trope that organised crime sells expensive but safe waste disposal, then disposes of the waste cheaply and unsafely, and profits.

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#109

Post by akudha »

PaulHoule wrote: post #18
andrewstuart wrote: post #4

The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…

Part of the problem is that markets for commodities are always volatile. That is, recycling plastic X might be very profitable in 2015 and not at all be profitable in 2019. It is the same problem that producers of oil, aluminum and everything else have from time to time. Prices go up and prices go down.

I understand commerce makes the world go around, but why is anything and everything always measured in terms of profit and loss? We know plastic sucks and we know we need to reduce its usage, and yet we are still primarily talking about these things in terms of profit and loss, instead of talking about these problems in terms of welfare/sustainability/survival of this planet?

Re: India Imposes Complete Ban on Solid Plastic Waste Imports

#110

Post by Pristina »

andrewstuart wrote: post #4

The dumping of "recycling" onto other countries just goes to show what a lie recycling actually is. It's not recycling, it's just garbage, but the word recycling makes us feel good about sending it to some other country to be dumped. With India and China refusing it, look to the "recycling" companies to make deals with countries that don't have the political will to say no to accepting the worlds plastic and paper ga…

What annoys me is the consistent blaming on the 'industry' and 'profit' when industries only make thins people buy.

So why do people use single-use plastic? Because they are lazy, and it's convenient.

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