Recycling Rethink: What to Do with Trash Now China Won’t Take It

Post by Scoundreller » Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 2:52 AM UTC

ars wrote: post #27

dig1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure are you serious about not seeing landfill connection with environmental problems or just being sarcastic. If landfills are not such a problem, why "developed" countries (I won't name them but we know who they are) are exporting junk to China, India and Africa? Why simply not set landfills near popular cities so we can all enjoy the beauty of "low environmental issue" problems ;) These days there is more…

Your information is incorrect. No countries are exporting junk, rather some countries buy recycling in order to profitably use it. And those developed countries were willing to sell it. And yes those developed countries do in fact have landfills and they use them. there are no countries that export pure trash to be landfilled in a third world country.

Post by Mountain_Skies » Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 3:09 AM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #50

There’s an easy solution: tax landfill by 1,000+%. If consumers had to pay a significant amount for each load of trash removed from their home, you’d see the market for ultra low waste products skyrocket. And then the economic value of recycling—from careful sorting by homeowners to the processing of material by recyclers—would immediately make sense.

Post by moosey » Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 3:35 AM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #50

There’s an easy solution: tax landfill by 1,000+%. If consumers had to pay a significant amount for each load of trash removed from their home, you’d see the market for ultra low waste products skyrocket. And then the economic value of recycling—from careful sorting by homeowners to the processing of material by recyclers—would immediately make sense.

Post by jdnenej » Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 3:46 AM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #46

electricslpnsld wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost of landfill is really low, so it wouldn’t make any difference if it were added to the cost of plastic. The cost isn’t just disposal, it’s also production. Plastic production (‘ethylene cracking’ specifically) is really environmentally gnarly. Communities across the US and internationally will be way better off once we move away from disposable consumer plastics.

Plastics takes fossil fuels and sequesters them for a while so we can't/don't release their carbon. If we made less plastic, would the decrease in gas/oil consumption just be increased in other processes?

Post by jdnenej » Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 3:49 AM UTC

techslave wrote: post #34

aSplash0fDerp wrote: post #18

Its the industries and businesses with the plastic addiction problem, not the consumer. This is similar to making a bad long-term bet and having to pay up. There are a lot of other attractive choices to plastic, but the window to transition seemlessly appears to be closing more and more each week. Seeing the death of coal should give them a map to follow. They made a bad bet on the future too.

it’s a tragedy of the commons problem. plastic is essentially free, so once one manufacturer can make the same consumer quality product with plastic instead of [whatever else], it forces the hands of all other manufacturers. this needs to be solved with regulation.