Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 241 posts

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#181

Post by andrekandre »

capableweb wrote: post #164
franciscop wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, packaging (and thus plastic waste) in Japan is next-level ridiculous. A fancier food present will be often wrapped in at least 3 layers, and I've counted u to 5: bag, present paper, normal box, group package, individual package.

On the other foot, Japan is next-level clean and don't think I've ever seen trash there on the streets, especially not like in South America. So more plastic in packaging but more goes into bins, wonder if it equalizes out on harm-done compared to Japan?

> So more plastic in packaging but more goes into bins, wonder if it equalizes out on harm-done compared to Japan?

in japan, most trash is incinerated... ive never looked into it, but i suspect that some amount of that turns into fine-grained soot (e.g not very healthy)

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#182

Post by landemva »

pfdietz wrote: post #104
saddlerustle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If cost of recycling is high, what is the benefit? It's not significantly reduced carbon emissions (a person's average annual plastic usage is priced at only tens of dollars worth of carbon emissions under a system like the EU ETS), and in the US it's not land shortage (an order of magnitude more land is used by golf corses than landfills), and modern landfills don't pollute the surrounding environment.

Recycling is a hack to try to fix the downside of another hack. The other hack is that the cost of trash disposal is artificially depressed to reduce the incentive to dispose of refuse by illegal dumping. But this means refuse is overproduced. Recycling is an attempt to reduce this increased volume of refuse going into landfills. The better strategy would be to charge a fee, up front, for all goods that reflects thei…

Another fee will not solve the problem. 1) Dump tip fees are not artificially low where I am. 2) The cities and county together conspired to pass business licensing requirement that anyone in business collecting trash is not allowed to dump it outside the county. 3) The State where I live has a tire reclamation fee at time of purchase to prevent tires from being disposed whole in landfills.

This year I learned with my own eyes how that fee is spent. The landfill buys a shredder ($300,000+) a conveyor ($50,000+) to stack a big pile and a wheel loader ($200,000+) to sprinkle the shreds into the incoming trash stream.

Non-productive and energy intensive green wash with the material ending up in the same place. But it is no longer "whole".

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#183

Post by neltnerb »

landemva wrote: post #172
neltnerb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main value would be keeping it out of the landfill, in my opinion. At least glass melts back down pretty clean, I just think given how easy it is to use either existing glass or fresh sand interchangeably it's worth a little extra to keep the pre-used glass out of the landfill.

I was working at a Waste Management landfill and noticed it had acres and acres of 10 foot tall mounds of glass. The workers didn't know the plan for it. I suppose eventually it might be valuable to recycle it. But somebody used energy to wash it out, sort it, and transport it. Seems like a marketing green wash. If it is not economical to recycle, let's admit the facts rather than pretend to make people falsely feel…

I think I'll have to just agree to disagree with you on that one, I think that glass will eventually be used even if it's not the right time today. I think it is worth the investment to separate it out since it is comparatively low hanging fruit to get out of our landfills later.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#184

Post by franciscop »

andrekandre wrote: post #181
capableweb wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other foot, Japan is next-level clean and don't think I've ever seen trash there on the streets, especially not like in South America. So more plastic in packaging but more goes into bins, wonder if it equalizes out on harm-done compared to Japan?

> So more plastic in packaging but more goes into bins, wonder if it equalizes out on harm-done compared to Japan? in japan, most trash is incinerated... ive never looked into it, but i suspect that some amount of that turns into fine-grained soot (e.g not very healthy)

They have these very fancy incineration towers distributed around Tokyo, I suspect they do filter a lot of the stuff being burned since I have never even seen them throw smoke nor smelled any burning:

https://www.tokyotimes.com/mysterious-tower-in-tokyo/

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#185

Post by pvorb »

greedo wrote: post #114
maxk42 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically green and brown bottles are cost-effective to recycle. Clear bottles typically are not.

One of the dairies nearby sells their milk in heavy glass bottles. They charge a $2 surcharge that's refundable when you return the bottle, and they reuse all the bottles they get that aren't damaged. I wonder how many cycles they typically get out of a bottle before it's no longer useful.

I'm not sure about those milk bottles, but in Germany the "Mehrwegpfandsystem" typically gets 40 to 50 cycles from a glass bottle and up to 25 cycles out of a PET bottle. Unfortunately, this system has been on the decline in recent years and customers often choose single-use plastic bottles.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#186

Post by PeterisP »

pfdietz wrote: post #104
saddlerustle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If cost of recycling is high, what is the benefit? It's not significantly reduced carbon emissions (a person's average annual plastic usage is priced at only tens of dollars worth of carbon emissions under a system like the EU ETS), and in the US it's not land shortage (an order of magnitude more land is used by golf corses than landfills), and modern landfills don't pollute the surrounding environment.

Recycling is a hack to try to fix the downside of another hack. The other hack is that the cost of trash disposal is artificially depressed to reduce the incentive to dispose of refuse by illegal dumping. But this means refuse is overproduced. Recycling is an attempt to reduce this increased volume of refuse going into landfills. The better strategy would be to charge a fee, up front, for all goods that reflects thei…

"The better strategy would be to charge a fee, up front, for all goods that reflects their cost of disposal."

That's exactly how it's done in multiple European countries (IIRC Netherlands was the pioneer there, but there are others) - there's a tax on packaging and in some cases disposable plastic stuff, it gets collected at the point of manufacture or first sale and is used to subsidize sorting/collecting/recycling or reprocessing or incineration, just as you propose.

Alternatively, there are schemes such as Germany where the manufacturers are responsible for ensuring that their packaging gets mostly collected and reprocessed afterwards, so instead of a tax, most manufacturers cooperate to directly fund a private program ('green dot') which organizes collection from households and recycling/reprocessing/other elimination of that packaging waste.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#187

Post by macinjosh »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #34

Almost all the plastic trash I see is due to food takeout. If we simply were to require that food take out use reusable containers (special bins in public spaces, deliver people transport back to restaurant for home deliver) I think NYC could cut its waste by a huge portion.

I am sick of people saying problems are easy to fix by just enacting new laws or regulations. It is so naive. Reusable containers are relatively heavy and take up space in delivery vehicles. It will cost the restaurants time and money to do this. People won’t spend the time to take the containers back so they will end up in the trash or people will find use for them. So all you’ve done is drive up food costs for low income folks and created more wasteful containers. How dumb is that?

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#188

Post by jonplackett »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #28
jonplackett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just realised it would probably just be a world filled with coal smoke, but at least less plastic pollution!

A jump from coal straight to nuclear and renewables would have been possible. That said, there are an innumerable number of side effects from cheap fossil fuels that would change present reality as we know it were they removed. Removing cheap fossil fuel energy could have drastically slowed down emigration from cities to the burbs, so it’s also fun to imagine a different present where there’s dozens of New York Citie…

I wonder what could have replaced all the plastic though?

And what would China be like if they never got to grow by making so much cheap plastic stuff to get them up the ladder to making so much tech stuff.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#189

Post by macinjosh »

fsflover wrote: post #129
aaron695 wrote: post #89

I'm sick of stupid people. This was never a secret. If you were dumb enough to think recycling works for anything other than aluminium you are the problem. Penn and Tell even did a Bullshit, for pre internet times. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0771119/ ( although it was a awful episode )

Most of people are "dumb enough" to believe what TV says, because they expect the government should put in jail everyone who openly lies for profit.

Exactly. Too many people see the government’s role to be their parent and protect them from every bad thing in the world. Grow up folks.

If everyone who lied for their own gain were to be sent to prison we’d have no politicians left in government. Come to think of it we would all probably be in jail at some point.

Maybe just don’t believe everything you hear.

Re: Oil Companies Touted Recycling to Sell More Plastic

#190

Post by pfdietz »

thayne wrote: post #165
pfdietz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a paper envelope or cardboard is way better than a plastic one, even if it's bigger/heavier. Why is it better? Because the plastic comes from fossil fuels that cause CO2 emissions? The solution there is a CO2 tax on fossil fuels, not trying to special case the waste disposal fee.

Because it decomposes, instead of remaining unchanged in the ground for thousands of years.

And that is an advantage... why?
Post reply on HN