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

nytimes.com

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

#31

Post by dade_ »

rdtsc wrote: post #19

> 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 som…

It is common in Starbucks. I don't think anyone can recycle their disposable coffee cups, but they have blue bins with a separate coffee cup hole that winds up in the same pile of trash at the end of the day.

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

#32

Post by golemiprague »

nostrademons wrote: post #18

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 t…

That's part of the reason people are sceptic with programs to "solve" climate change and other various green initiatives, there is too much politics and money involved and it is very hard to understand what's going on, what are the right solution and who is earning from what. As per usual, letting the market do its own thing will probably be the best solution, if recycling makes sense the free market will figure it out, same goes for all other green initiatives, take it out of the government hands and let the market comes with solutions.

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

#33

Post by Semaphor »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #26
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.

California has this as well -- CRV, but I dont see too many people taking advantage of it. Part of the problem is that most stores dont accept the bottles back -- you need to bring them to a recycling dropoff point that seem to be relatively rare and far in between.

Here in Germany, almost every store takes almost every bottle.

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

#36

Post by crygin »

thundergolfer wrote: post #28
nraynaud wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And have a vegan/vegetarian diet.

Sarah Taber explained the complexity of this aspect of dietary environmentalism better than I ever could in this thread on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/100636377572388864...

tl;dr: the effectiveness of vegetarian diets is dependent on local conditions. Vegetarianism in a globalized world relies on fossil-fuel-based transport or farming techniques.

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

#37

Post by maxxxxx »

Semaphor wrote: post #33
genocidicbunny wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has this as well -- CRV, but I dont see too many people taking advantage of it. Part of the problem is that most stores dont accept the bottles back -- you need to bring them to a recycling dropoff point that seem to be relatively rare and far in between.

Here in Germany, almost every store takes almost every bottle.

Is there a law or is it voluntary? I don't remember.

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

#38

Post by jandrese »

nostrademons wrote: post #18

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 t…

I suspect you are correct here. We were shoving "recycling" in otherwise empty shipping containers and sending them to China where they get dumped on the ground and the poorest of the poor pick through them for the few things that are actually recyclable.

I saw at least one person say back in the 2000s that single stream recycling was basically a lie, but it was worth it to get people into the recycling mindset. This is the same reason many towns still do "recycling" pickup, but then haul all of that straight to the dump. Personally, if it's just not feasible I'd rather they go back to only taking aluminum, steel, and maybe glass than try to pretend that they're actually reusing any of that plastic or paper.

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

#39

Post by saboot »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #26
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.

California has this as well -- CRV, but I dont see too many people taking advantage of it. Part of the problem is that most stores dont accept the bottles back -- you need to bring them to a recycling dropoff point that seem to be relatively rare and far in between.

It's now become a weird social welfare system for the homeless, some go around collecting large bags and drop them off at recycling areas for cash in urban areas.

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

#40

Post by dredmorbius »

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…

That's been a very long-term strategy. See Annie Leonard's "Moving from Individual Change to Societal Change":

In one of the most iconic ads of the twentieth century, a Native American (actually, it was an Italian dressed up as a Native American) canoes through a river strewn with trash. He disembarks and walks along the shore as the passenger in a car driving past throws a bag of litter out the window. As the camera zooms in to a single tear rolling down his cheek, the narrator announces, “People start pollution. People can stop it.”

This 1971 ad, just a year after the first national Earth Day celebration, had a huge impact on a generation awakening to environmental concerns. Children and young adults watched it over and over, shared the faux-Indian’s grief, and vowed to make changes in their individual lives to stop pollution. That response was exactly what the ad’s creators hoped for: individual action. For the ad was produced not by a campaign to protect the environment but by a campaign to protect the garbage-makers themselves.

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/sustainabilitypossible/wp-conten...

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