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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

#71

Post by hocuspocus »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #57
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.

Isn't it also the case that the bottles are reused, rather than recycled?

Standard shape glass bottles are, and those have the smallest deposit too: beer, soft drinks, water, I believe that's it? Non-standard glass bottles are recycled. PET and aluminum cans are obviously recycled, not reused, and have a steep 25¢ deposit.

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

#72

Post by mymythisisthis »

opportune wrote: post #49

Not sure about burning recyclables, but burning trash in general is more environmentally friendly than it seems. Sure it releases CO2 (which isn't really an issue if that energy would otherwise come from fossil fuels) but it's possible to scrub out most other contaminants, and it prevents the burnable materials from languishing in a landfill producing methane. It's not recycling, but it is reusing. I'm kind of skepti…

High temperature burning is a bit better environmentally than people just burning garbage at home. The extremely high temp is the key.

There is a demand for aluminum and metal, many people make a bit of a living collecting these for money.

The problem with glass is that it has food residue on it. This causes leaching in the landfills.

Farmers need COMPOST! Soil around the world is nearly depleted. We need an efficient way of cleaning out the food particles from food containers, before disposing or recycle, and having those particles end up on farms.

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

#73

Post by almost_usual »

nraynaud wrote: post #20
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.

If you live rural in a rural area, use solar for electricity, work remotely, and grow your own food you are probably producing a lot less garbage than someone in a high density major metro.

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

#74

Post by mymythisisthis »

dade_ wrote: post #21

I think that we should have started with municipal composting, paper recycle and plastic Reduce programs. Most of the contamination is from food waste and it makes up most of the weight of trash (obviously because of water content) and I imagine is the major source of methane in our landfills. Somehow we started with recycling plastics programs (perhaps industry manipulation) which is a complicated mess. Where I live…

I can't even find a way of properly recycling batteries. It would be nice if all the fire halls allowed you to drop-off batteries, and old fire-alarms (they contain radioactive material).

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

#75

Post by damoe »

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.

I was a kid in Oregon in the early 70's when they implemented a bottle deposit. It was $.05 then which would be $.30 today. To bad they haven't increased the deposit amount.

You also could return older, non-deposit containers at the beginning. This spurred me and my friends to clean every roadside and field within reach of our bikes. For a month we made more money than we had known in our entire lives. Then it was over and a valuable lesson was learned.

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

#76

Post by blablablabla991 »

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…

I don't get the logic behind this?

How can the packaging industry force companies to order superfluous packaging?

And if it isn't superfluous, getting rid of it might be a net negative?

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

#78

Post by therealx »

maxxxxx wrote: post #13
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.

I didn't down vote you, but I do know that some robotics is used now. In addition with different sized mesh screens to filter size. Then they use float/sink and melting point to further separate.

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

#79

Post by nullc »

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.

The recycling locations also significantly underpay CRV in my experience: if you show up with more than a small amount (I think the threshold is about 40 items) they'll only "pay by weight" at a rate that seems to be maybe half of the per item CRV (based on a single time I bothered to count it out in advance).

Going more frequently with smaller amounts would pay more but waste more time... and I estimated that it didn't make sense to do so unless you valued the cost of the trip at less than about $1.

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

#80

Post by rland »

abainbridge wrote: post #29
ddebernardy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Broadly speaking, I expect the answer is that plastic better prolongs shelf life and leads to less food waste. And plastic is cheaper.

I wonder what's worse, food waste or plastic waste.

Food waste: water pollution, pesticides, destruction of biodiversity

Plastic waste: fossil fuel consumption, plastic pollution into ecosystems

My first thought is that I'd prefer food waste, because the image of "albatross/sea turtle choking on plastic junk" comes to mind. But then again, farming is pretty destructive and invasive too.

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