As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling • Hacker News Board

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#11

Post by ddebernardy » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

tyoma wrote: post #4

andrewstuart wrote: post #2

The packaging industry is going to fight tooth and nail so it can continue to spew out single use plastics for every single sales transaction that occurs. There's big money involved. Imagine the costs to the packaging industry if it was no longer allowed to create infinite garbage. I do find it strange that there seems to be zero noticeable social pressure on bottled drink companies to stop using single use plastic b…

As a counterpoint, single use packaging is a godsend to people with food allergies.

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with single use paper packaging or some other non-plastic alternative to the same effect?

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#12

Post by maxxxxx » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

In Germany you pay a deposit when you buy a bottle and when you bring it back, you get your money back. At least when I lived there the system worked well. there is always a lot of pressure from industry to go one-way though.

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#13

Post by maxxxxx » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #10

This is a market opportunity to come up with less costly systems that can operate at slim margins and with scale. Recycling will never be the greatest of businesses. However the scale of demand in a country as large as the US is extraordinary. 5% margins at $100 billion in sales is ultimately a giant, $60-$80 billion market cap business. That's the kind of opportunity this presents for an enterprise that can quickly…

I always think this is a great opportunity for AI and Robotics. Sorting recycling automatically would be a huge improvement.

Edit: I know you are not supposed to ask about downvotes but I have no idea why this got downvoted. This would finally be an application of AI that benefits mankind instead of more surveillance for ads.

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#14

Post by aviv » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

Recycling is treating the symptom and not the root cause. The real problem is people buying too much crap they don't really need or shouldn't consume in the first place.

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#15

Post by i_cant_speel » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #12

In Germany you pay a deposit when you buy a bottle and when you bring it back, you get your money back. At least when I lived there the system worked well. there is always a lot of pressure from industry to go one-way though.

That is also a thing in a few states. But based on the labels on the bottles, I believe it's maybe 4-7 states that participate in that program.

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#16

Post by coldtea » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

Recycling was always a lipstick on a pig. Inefficient, subsidized, hypocrisy.

Wanna help the environment? Reduce consumption overall.

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#17

Post by NullPrefix » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

cc81 wrote: post #8

outside1234 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic lasts essential forever - aluminum and steel do not

In countries with good waste management I assume they are burned if they are not recycled. Other containers such as paper might sometimes even be worse as it will cost more energy to produce them than plastic.

>paper might sometimes even be worse as it will cost more energy to produce them than plastic

That's the point. Plastic is cheap to produce but costly to look after. Paper is costly to produce but cheap to look after.

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#18

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

It makes me wonder if we were ever really recycling, or if "recycling" was a marketing buzzword for "cheaply dumping your trash in China".

I seem to remember a lot of controversy over recycling in the 80s and early 90s, with my local town government insisting it was too expensive. Suddenly everything changed in the late 90s, right around the time that globalization took off, and recycle bins took off everywhere. By the late 2000s everything was moving to "single stream recycling", where you just throw all your trash, cardboard, plastic, etc. in one bin and somehow it'd magically get sorted at the facility. That frankly seemed a little too good to be true to me, but everybody was buying into it.

Suddenly Plastic China comes out, China stops accepting recyclables, and we're back to where we were in the early 90s. What if all the "progress" was just an illusion where companies figured they could brand trash-hauling as recycling for eco-friendly customers, charge more for it, and then dump the trash on an unregulated Chinese buyer who could do whatever they want with it?

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#19

Post by rdtsc » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

> In Memphis, the international airport still has recycling bins around the terminals, but every collected can, bottle and newspaper is sent to a landfill.

I heard other cities doing that. It is interesting in municipalities where people diligently separate their recycling into multiple streams, everything neatly going into a separate bins and so on, and then it all goes and gets dumped in the landfill.

That says something about human psychology. People need to engage in this ritual because it makes them feel better. They might say to themselves "I am separating my glass, from metal, from plastic, I am saving the environment! I feel good about myself". The economy doesn't work out in the end, but nobody dares to tell the people that, so they happily continue to sort their trash. It's kind of a dystopian win-win situation.

Re: As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

#20

Post by nraynaud » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #16

Recycling was always a lipstick on a pig. Inefficient, subsidized, hypocrisy. Wanna help the environment? Reduce consumption overall.

very specifically: don't take the plane, don't got to work with your car, and live in high density housing.