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Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

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Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#151

Post by Tagbert »

Skunkleton wrote: post #40
wbraun wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully share this cynicism about recycling things that are not aluminum or glass. It also seems that by making people feel better about generating nominally recyclable waste they are encouraged to consume more. I am at least familiar with arguments against US-style airport security and donating cans of food, but whats wrong with hybrid cars? I don't know of any arguments that they are net neutral / harmful.

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

No, the real progress has been stalled by low fuel prices. Most people would only buy EV (or Hybrids) if they could see a clear short term lower cost. The current high upfront cost of EVs completely outweighs the longer term savings (or other less tangible benefits) for most people. Hybrids were a good bridge solution with only a small incremental cost and significant savings but they are currently not in vogue with people who want something even more efficient, and the gas prices are so low as to be almost incidental to many buyers.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#152

Post by pauljurczak »

spodek wrote: post #124
viraptor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations like recycling because it promotes growth -- the opposite of reduction. What do you mean by "promotes growth" here? You pay for your recycling just like your trash. Why would any company like it more than reducing overall waste?

It promotes their growth -- say packaged good companies like Coca-Cola, Trader Joe's, or Starbucks. Clothing companies like H&M and Zara. Most unnecessary material stuff. A statistic from The Story of Stuff https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-stuff comes to mind that something like 99% of things Americans buy end up in landfills within one year. Manufacturers slap the word "recyclable" on those products to get p…

Slapping "recyclable" on the product also reduces guilt in buyers with some conscience, therefore it is a winning marketing strategy.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#153

Post by pokeymcsnatch »

triangulum wrote: post #129
pokeymcsnatch wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

That’s a good point: if municipalities want you to recycle, they need to provide the necessary infrastructure, and that means at least three source separated bins (ideally 5-7), and a clean container collection system. Otherwise it just turns people off the whole system. A financial incentive to save money when you don’t throw away as much into the landfill bin helps too. Any chance you could compost the kitchen scra…

With respect to composting- we're also issued a yard waste bin that's for a composting program (a good idea), so some kitchen scraps can go in there (I'm renting and good compost takes longer than I plan on staying here), but food waste/kitchen scraps aren't a large part of what we fill up our landfill bin with. It's mostly food packaging that's definitely too leaky/gross for the recycling bin and general household waste from stuff like emptying the vacuum cleaner or soiled paper towels.

Necessary infrastructure extends beyond just providing for recycling- households are going to produce waste that doesn't make economic or environmental sense to recycle, and all the encouragement and financial incentives in the world aren't going to stop that. Encouraging people to be less wasteful is important, but we need to stop demonizing landfills and use of the landfill bins because that sentiment has perverted the whole household recycling process.

It's gotten so bad here that a few months ago, they had city representatives on the radio threatening fines for people that put non-recyclable waste in their bins, as if that's the solution to mixed-recycling being uneconomical. They went as far as to say that it was malicious- that people were putting non-recyclable stuff, like used pizza boxes (their example), in the recycling bins to purposefully sabotage the whole system. The disconnect is huge and at some point the holier-than-thou attitude and the short-sighted laws passed with it are going to blow up in our collective faces.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#154

Post by contactlight11 »

How about this information from CT's DEEP which quotes the EPA for the majority of it's information? Compared to virgin materials, using recycled materials more efficient by:

- 40% for paper

- 60-74% for steel and tin cans

- 33% for plastics

- 30% for glass

- 5% for aluminum cans

These numbers appear to be referencing the generation of new products using recycled vs new materials, but do they fail to take in to account the cost of actually getting those recycled materials (ie going from trash to the recycled paper pulp)?

I always thought the 3 R's are in the order they are for a reason.

Reduce - first step realize that happiness is not automatically linked to consumption. This is harder than it seems because this extends beyond product consumption to other forms of material consumption like traveling by plane or car (IC vs EV vs hybrid is a whole other debate)

Reuse - once you have something, get the full use out of it, and try to repurpose it for other uses too if possible.

Recycle - once you have used something to the point that can no longer serve it's purpose adequately because it's worn out, place it or parts of it in a recycling bin if possible.

What this article and discussion has prompted me to do is research further into which parts of something deserve to be placed in the recycle bin (whether or not there is an established way to recycle them, ie plastics) and if certain reduction techniques aren't all they're cracked up to be (reusable straws and shopping bags)

Reference: https://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2714&q=440320

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#156

Post by fogetti »

gruez wrote: post #61
redder2 wrote: post #33

Some interesting arguments. I think the argument that he has better things to do then think of taking a bag "everythere". You do not need a bag small in hand purchases and when you really go shopping you should and can easily bring a bag when you go shopping. When it comes to regulations I would trust the US with nothing. The EU has probably way better regulations for landfills like for food and other things. While a…

>when you really go shopping you should and can easily bring a bag when you go shopping. There's a Danish study[1] that concluded that reusable bags require 50+ uses before breaking even with disposable plastic bags. And that's for one use. If you reuse the disposable bag once (to line your garbage bin, for example), the break even point is now 100+ uses. If you factor in cleaning costs for the reusable bags, I'd be…

I don't exactly understand what you are saying but the report you linked shows that the non-reusable plastic bags reach the same negative impact on climate change 150 times faster than reusable cotton bags. How is that good?

When you talk about breaking even you are talking about reaching the same negative impact, I hope, because that's what the report is about.

They even spell out those negative impacts: ozone depletion, terrestrial eutrophication, freshwater eutrophication and water use.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#157

Post by celeritascelery »

cobookman wrote: post #50
pier25 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recycling consumes energy. The better strategy is by far designing products that last longer or can be reused.

Or are compostible. All grocery packaging should either be multi use or compostible. I hate how plastics are used where they don't need to be

I love plastics bags because they get multiple uses in my house as lunch sacks, garbage can liners, etc. those are things that I would have to buy otherwise but now I get to resuse cheap plastics.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#158

Post by celeritascelery »

cperciva wrote: post #52
rikroots wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happily. Old landfill sites are not built to modern standards and are thus liable to erode, with the potential to contaminate the surrounding areas with a range of interesting toxins. They can also collapse (if they contained a significant amount of biodegradable waste) which is unfortunate if your house is built on top of it. A quick Google search gave me this link to some ongoing research conducted by Queen Mary Co…

Ok, but isn't the answer to "old landfill sites are not built to modern standards" that new landfill sites should be built to modern standards?

Exactly. It’s like saying that old sewage systems were not built to modern standards and that led to disease transmission. Therefore sewage systems are bad. That is the whole point of “modern standards”.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#159

Post by celeritascelery »

Areading314 wrote: post #16

I would add that compost is underrated. I also think that recycling allows companies to waste more, because consumers are more comfortable generating recycling waste than landfill waste, even though for plastics there isn't really much you can do to recycle them.

It sounds like recycling allows consumers to waste more, not companies.
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