21–30 of 344 posts
This is why markets should make decisions about this stuff (with appropriate taxes for externalities) rather than politicians with their gut instinct... "We're doing nothing for the environment" doesn't get one elected tho...
Markets have no interest in environmental outcomes, and most consumers have greedy ones at best. There needs to be some oversight to ensure optimal outcomes for all.
>Properly run landfill doesn’t hurt the environment in itself. >[...] But a well run landfill site has [...] electricity generation from gases produced by decaying matter, This sounds like a pipe dream. We don't even have reliable estimates on how much landfill outgas there is, much less a good system for burning it. It's believed to be largely methane, which would be valuable without further processing if it could b…
three main issues: 1) yes the Earth is huge but cities really don't have easy access to landfill, and many are in fact running out of it because transporting garbage is expensive. 2) podcasts aren't convincing sources for a debate. 3) the real debate is "how do we reduce waste", not "landfill vs recycling".
To reduce waste, you'd have to make things more repairable -> But the labor costs in developed economies discourages that If you make things more repairable -> net consumption might go down -> this might lead to loss of jobs. Does my analysis make any sense?
... Yea, b/c the developed nations of the world don't send their trash to "poorer riverine countries" to get dumped in the ocean. /s
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/28/treated-...
> Properly run landfill doesn’t hurt the environment in itself. ... and properly written software has no security vulnerabilities.
> Plastics come from oil, which we are gradually running out of, though not quickly. I guess it depends on your definition of "quickly", or it would be good to see a citation on this one. Personally, I believe that if we encourage recycling more, that creates an opportunity for companies to innovate in that space and come up with better recycling methods. So in that respect, I'd prefer to over-recycle than under-recy…
Recycling consumes energy. The better strategy is by far designing products that last longer or can be reused.
tl;dr: As a sustainable (heh!) solution to the current waste crisis, landfilling everything is not a good solution. We tried it for many centuries and are still paying the price for that approach today. The only people who will benefit from a 'landfill everything' strategy will be 23rd century archaeologists.
As the UK is mentioned a couple of times in the article, I'll add a link to the Wikipedia article on UK National Waste Strategies, as it includes links to the various strategies published by various Governments across the UK since 2000 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Waste_Strategy
While those documents are a bit on the long side, they are very informative about the many, many (many!) complex systems that contribute to planning for, managing, and attempting to reduce waste in a large, rich European nation state.
(Disclaimer: I was part of the team that developed and published the Waste Strategy for England in 2000).
> Plastics come from oil, which we are gradually running out of, though not quickly. I guess it depends on your definition of "quickly", or it would be good to see a citation on this one. Personally, I believe that if we encourage recycling more, that creates an opportunity for companies to innovate in that space and come up with better recycling methods. So in that respect, I'd prefer to over-recycle than under-recy…
Recycling consumes energy. The better strategy is by far designing products that last longer or can be reused.
If you Reduce, you get an easy win by not needing the resource in the first place; Reuse achieves orders of magnitude of efficiency in the resource's utility (a glass mason jar can be used thousands of times, compared to a plastic one designed to used once and disposed). Recycling is often fraught with inefficiencies of both energy and waste byproducts.
I would love to see more economic incentives around direct reuse (such as Pigovian taxes on disposable plastics, and consumer incentives to return glassware to the grocer and then the manufacturer for direct reuse).
As clickbait, I have to applaud the author. tl;dr: As a sustainable (heh!) solution to the current waste crisis, landfilling everything is not a good solution. We tried it for many centuries and are still paying the price for that approach today. The only people who will benefit from a 'landfill everything' strategy will be 23rd century archaeologists. As the UK is mentioned a couple of times in the article, I'll add…
Can you elaborate on this? I'm not aware of centuries-old landfills clogging up the landscape and (to any meaningful extent) impinging upon the availability of land.
The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization and one of life's little pleasures, and we had to ruin it by acting like it's wrong when it's actually not.
When I walk up to some wastebins holding a papery-plasticky object with a bit of food stuck to it, my heart sinks. Now I have to think about classifying it into one of 2-4 inconsistent-looking bins, and I feel guilty that the classification isn't perfect - which would be okay if it was for a good cause, but the whole concept of recycling paper and plastic was a net-negative to begin with.
Recycling is one of those things that feels like it solves a problem but doesn't at all - like hybrid cars, US-style airport security, or donating cans of food.