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Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

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Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#141

Post by dillonmckay »

pokeymcsnatch wrote: post #114
cannonedhamster wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's food/greade on the item that can't be removed for one reason or another toss it, it can't be recycled efficiently. There solved your moral dilemma. Generally only clean paper, glass, and metal are recyclable. Plastics depend entirely on the locality and still require it to be clean. Also I work at a food pantry. Donations of canned goods are always welcome, same for razors, toiletries, etc. Anything that c…

> There solved your moral dilemma. Recycling has built up such inertia as the "moral" path, regardless of its inefficiencies for most materials, that it's become an unsustainable clusterfuck that we can't move away. Where I live, it's been codified- municipalities must recycle, and also must discourage landfill-bound waste. The result is that I've been issued a 64-gallon mixed-recycling bin that is picked up once a w…

I don’t think it would be political suicide to reform recycling laws. It would help move the conversation forward.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#142

Post by jl2718 »

Just want to say that my grandfather, while working at Hughes, was one of the earliest proponents of aluminum recycling, but everybody was mad at him because they had to pay CRV (which is a terribly-designed incentive actually). Then he was one of the earliest opponents of recycling plastics, and he received nearly universal excoriation, including from my own family. Now the facts are slowly trickling out of the cultural taboos, and perhaps rationality will prevail either way, but it’s been about 50 years now, and it seems like maybe cultural consensus on technical topics is a poor indicator of fact.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#143

Post by em-bee »

bdamm wrote: post #107
daxfohl wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in old times it may be less true than you'd think. I was recently reading one of the Little House books to my kid and there's few sentences in there in their move to the west, how Ma cleaned up their lunch scraps and packing them along when on the pioneer trail in the middle of otherwise nowhere in their journey across the Dakotas.

Food for the chickens, perhaps?

those people were moving to the west in search for a place to live. they moved because they couldn't live where they were. if they could afford to throw stuff away they probably would not have moved in the first place

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#144

Post by dillonmckay »

henrikschroder wrote: post #92
harimau777 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is recycling plastic and paper not effective? I have some anxiety issue and one of the ways that they manifest is obsessing about recycling so not having to worry about plastic and paper would be a huge improvement in my quality of life. Edit: I should clarify, I realize that the article is saying that recycling plastic and paper isn't worth it, but is that a mainstream opinion?

"paper" is a broad category of garbage. Newspapers are worth recycling, because they can be turned into new newspapers again, removing the ink and the metal can be done fairly efficiently. Cardboard can be recycled fairly efficiently, and can be turned into new cardboard. Plastic-covered/glued/glossy/window envelopes/food containers/other contaminated papers can't be recycled. Just incinerate it, or turn it into pell…

How much energy does it take to recycle newsprint into blank newsprint?

What chemicals are involved in that process?

Is cardboard similar?

Does this take into account the logistics costs?

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#145

Post by dillonmckay »

melling wrote: post #2

NYC ships its garbage hundreds, and even thousands of miles in some cases: https://www.freshairfortheeastside.com/latestnews/2018/1/22/... There’s even a poop train to Alabama: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/...

Poop and sewer sludge are not the same thing.

It is almost the last step in the treatment process, using a centrifuge to remove the majority of liquid.

Some municipalities will sell the sludge, and it is spread on agriculture fields.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#146

Post by dillonmckay »

heymijo wrote: post #9
melling wrote: post #2

NYC ships its garbage hundreds, and even thousands of miles in some cases: https://www.freshairfortheeastside.com/latestnews/2018/1/22/... There’s even a poop train to Alabama: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/...

> There's even a poop train to Alabama An NYC poop train bound for other parts played a big role in season 4 of the television show Billions. https://uproxx.com/tv/billions-stock-watch-poop-train/

Poop != sludge

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#147

Post by drongoking »

As a meta observation, he seems to assume that materials production and disposal would improve over time while recycling technology would not, and that the economics wouldn't change either. Some of the sources he cites for the inefficiency of recycling date from the 1990s and he's obliged to find something more recent.

Arguably recycling technology has more potential to improve since large-scale recycling efforts in the US have only been around since the 1980s. Landfills have been around forever.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#148

Post by btomtom5 »

shkkmo wrote: post #103
spodek wrote: post #54

Reducing is strategic. Reusing and recycling are tactical. If your strategy is in place, use all the tactics that contribute to it. But if you don't have your strategy in place, tactics can do nothing or even move you backward. Corporations like recycling because it promotes growth -- the opposite of reduction. We are stepping on the gas, thinking we're stepping on the brake. Covered in episode 183 of Leadership and…

> Corporations like recycling because it promotes growth -- the opposite of reduction. I don't think this is strictly true. It certainly is not the explanation for why we have most of the recycling programs we do have. Overpaying for unnecessary recycling reduces growth. Economically efficient recycling increases it. Both corporations and environmentalists should support efficient recycling and oppose innefficient re…

If the alternative to recycling is reduction by creating products that last longer, then recycling would increase profits and growth.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#149

Post by Tagbert »

Liron wrote: post #43
Skunkleton wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea was that hybrid cars are a sort of local maxima that has stalled real progress (alternative energy cars).

Yeah, hybrid cars might be called a "local maximum"... at best. "Local" because they were always predictably a technological dead end. "Maximum" because they maybe gave us a slight improvement in fuel efficiency, although gas-efficient internal combustion engine cars may have been the more energy-efficient option all along when you consider the up-front cost and maintenance complexity of hybrid cars' dual engines. Th…

"maintenance complexity of hybrid cars' dual engines"

This is an oft repeated accusation by people who only know the concept of hybrids and have no actual experience with them.

The electrical system of hybrids are inherently low maintenance and the gasoline engines run under very low stress conditions for an engine. The result is that the gasoline engine needs much less maintenance. And the brakes are barely used.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#150

Post by nordsieck »

yongjik wrote: post #49
Liron wrote: post #30

We really shot ourselves in the foot with this whole pointless "recycling paper and plastic" thing huh? 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…

> The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization ... I think you got it backwards. Throwing stuff away was the normal way of life before modern civilization arrived, just like defecating wherever you find convenient, hunting animals for dinner, or riding hoses on whatever side of road you like. The wonder of modern civilization gave us so much power to produce stuff that it's no longer…

> Throwing stuff away was the normal way of life before modern civilization arrived

What? Absolutely not. Things were precious and labor was cheap back in the day.

Anything that could be repaired was. Ever heard of "darning socks"? Yeah - no one would do that today, but it was common 100 years ago.

> just like defecating wherever you find convenient

Lol.

People found out pretty quickly that you have to give a crap about where you give a crap or people get sick and die. This is 2000 BC social technology.

> The wonder of modern civilization gave us so much power to produce stuff that it's no longer feasible to just "throw away" stuff we don't need.

BS.

The earth is big. Really big. Stupendously big. Conceptually it's trivial to make a landfill large enough for anything we will make in the next 100 years with space left over.

We don't do this because it's cheaper to have small landfills closer to cities, but that's an economic limitation, not a technical one.

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