Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill • Hacker News Board

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#191

Post by mumblemumble » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

handrous wrote: post #190

legerdemain wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and I remember beer in iron cans... and that's about as relevant to the majority of consumers.

Sure, it's just that not that long ago, it was economically feasible, so it's not like it's some kind of unattainable fantasy. A couple laws, and a 5-10% hike on the costs of drinks distributed in bottles (thanks to the added costs of handling & recycling glass), and we'd be back there. It's something we definitely could do. But yes, right now the main glass recycler in our area just crushes everything up and turns i…

Another challenge with bringing back reusable glass bottles is that that approach belonged to an era with more local brands and a smaller variety of products. There were a few brands of soft drink that were all being mixed and bottled at local distributors, and cities had their own breweries that mostly only distributed locally.

Now that we have enough different brands of soda and beer to cover three sides of a convenience store, all made and packaged at one location and then shipped across the continent, I don't know that glass can be considered a less wasteful option. It's not just about the actual piece of packaging, it's also about how much diesel fuel is being burned in shipping such heavy packaging over long distances.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#192

Post by legerdemain » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #191

handrous wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's just that not that long ago, it was economically feasible, so it's not like it's some kind of unattainable fantasy. A couple laws, and a 5-10% hike on the costs of drinks distributed in bottles (thanks to the added costs of handling & recycling glass), and we'd be back there. It's something we definitely could do. But yes, right now the main glass recycler in our area just crushes everything up and turns i…

Another challenge with bringing back reusable glass bottles is that that approach belonged to an era with more local brands and a smaller variety of products. There were a few brands of soft drink that were all being mixed and bottled at local distributors, and cities had their own breweries that mostly only distributed locally. Now that we have enough different brands of soda and beer to cover three sides of a conve…

Reusable glass bottles also mean that you either bring the exact bottle to the exact retailer to get refilled with the exact product, or brands lose the ability to use the container for advertising and brand identity.

Even the frou-frou dairies that let you bring in their reusable bottles only want you to bring back their reusable bottles with their stenciled logos on them.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#193

Post by detaro » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #191

handrous wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's just that not that long ago, it was economically feasible, so it's not like it's some kind of unattainable fantasy. A couple laws, and a 5-10% hike on the costs of drinks distributed in bottles (thanks to the added costs of handling & recycling glass), and we'd be back there. It's something we definitely could do. But yes, right now the main glass recycler in our area just crushes everything up and turns i…

Another challenge with bringing back reusable glass bottles is that that approach belonged to an era with more local brands and a smaller variety of products. There were a few brands of soft drink that were all being mixed and bottled at local distributors, and cities had their own breweries that mostly only distributed locally. Now that we have enough different brands of soda and beer to cover three sides of a conve…

Glass return schemes basically require standardized bottles. That's how it works in part in Germany: there's a small number of standard shapes of beer bottles, breweries get their share of bottles from return locations around them where possible. It breaks down with more and more breweries using custom bottles, which do need to be sorted out and returned separately, over large distances.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#194

Post by pmyteh » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

legerdemain wrote: post #192

mumblemumble wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another challenge with bringing back reusable glass bottles is that that approach belonged to an era with more local brands and a smaller variety of products. There were a few brands of soft drink that were all being mixed and bottled at local distributors, and cities had their own breweries that mostly only distributed locally. Now that we have enough different brands of soda and beer to cover three sides of a conve…

Reusable glass bottles also mean that you either bring the exact bottle to the exact retailer to get refilled with the exact product, or brands lose the ability to use the container for advertising and brand identity. Even the frou-frou dairies that let you bring in their reusable bottles only want you to bring back their reusable bottles with their stenciled logos on them.

In the UK there is (still, in some places) milk delivery to the doorstep in 1 pint bottles. These are all a standard size, and they're all branded by the dairy. But interestingly the dairies are perfectly happy to use another company's bottles if they end up with them - branding be damned.

When I lived in a place with only one delivering dairy, this was quite rare. In Liverpool, I'd say that 10% of the bottles I get are 'foreign'.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#195

Post by jbc1 » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

handrous wrote: post #190

legerdemain wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and I remember beer in iron cans... and that's about as relevant to the majority of consumers.

Sure, it's just that not that long ago, it was economically feasible, so it's not like it's some kind of unattainable fantasy. A couple laws, and a 5-10% hike on the costs of drinks distributed in bottles (thanks to the added costs of handling & recycling glass), and we'd be back there. It's something we definitely could do. But yes, right now the main glass recycler in our area just crushes everything up and turns i…

Cheaper is often because something was easier to make. Less materials and less energy.

That's certainly the case on a one plastic bottle to one glass bottle ratio, but I wonder just how energy efficient is making that bottle over the glass one? Twice? Ten times? A hundred? Then how many times will a glass bottle get reused on average? What sort of resources are used in the process of bringing them back and cleaning them?

This might be my bias as an Australian, tons of space but already having our natural wonder smashed by climate change, but I'm very uninterested in 'pro environment' moves that results in trading higher emissions for less land fill.

Although potentially an argument could be made that because ocean waste is less contained and more harmful than landfill, a 5-10% hike on plastic bottle drinks in low water polluting countries and using it to subsidise glass bottle drinks in high water polluting countries would be worthwhile.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#196

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

handrous wrote: post #106

mumblemumble wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to what others have said, I think that a lot of people have this idea that "trash = bad" so deeply internalized that they're heavily biased toward only putting things in the bin when there can be no doubt whatsoever that it is garbage. You also see this when people put greasy paper take-out food containers in the recycling. No, it's not recyclable, and worse, it might further contaminate other things and rende…

> You also see this when people put greasy paper take-out food containers in the recycling. No, it's not recyclable, and worse, it might further contaminate other things and render them non-recyclable as well. But, when I ask houseguests not to put them in our recycle bin, they seem to be honestly startled by the request. Oftentimes they assume it's because I'm a lax recycler and would rather throw things away than s…

If they are, then that's still better than the alternative.

Some nations just burn their trash, with energy recovery, and then extract any metals from the ashes. Again still notably better than landfilling in a modern, well designed landfill, which in turn is better than unregulated landfills which are better than open burning.

The media seem to love "shocking" people with stories about how recycling might not be 100% perfect. Is it still a useful thing that all sensibly run countries do a continually increasing amount of. Yes, even the US where it continues to be a weirdly political topic along with climate change and evolution for no obvious reason and so there's no real federal support for it.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#197

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

legerdemain wrote: post #182

Clubber wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic recycling is a sham. We were paying China to take it, and they were putting it in a landfill (probably). China won't take our trash, I mean recycling anymore, so now we're putting it in landfills. General rule of thumb is if you can get money for scrapping it, it's recyclable (aluminum, glass, steel, etc). Companies use plastic because it's cheap and the government won't regulate it. I remember when sodas use…

Glass is mostly "recycled" by crushing, mostly to reduce the hazard of broken glass littering the street. In many states, buying a drink in a glass container carries a nominal extra fee to cover the "recycling." No one actually wants to buy your used glass containers for their own sake.

In the UK 70% of a typical green glass wine bottle will be recycled material and the limiting factor is the availability of the recycled material, the manufacturers would use more if they could get it, since it saves energy to do so.

And we generally don't offer deposits. When we did, the bottles were actually re-used directly.

When recycled, it is crushed, that creates something called "cullet" which can be used in the glassmaking process and is easier to transport. But I don't see the link to keeping broken glass of the street, that should be possible without crushing or recycling.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#198

Post by mulmen » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

netrus wrote: post #123

dylan604 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why would anyone "donate" these is a different matter This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking? There's a difference between no longer wearing something because it no longer fits but is otherwise in good condition to not being used because it's completely ruined. What mental block exists in the original owner from just throwing away the ruined items vs just holding onto them to donate so someone e…

Clothes only get worse while being used (or cleaned). Thus, all clothes I donate are basically in a condition that I considered "fit-to-wear" just one usage ago. Is it a stretch that someone would be happy to get for free what worked for me just until now? That being said, after reading articles like this some years ago, I started to throw everything that is actually damaged to the trash (even if it is only a small h…

Those damaged clothes can be repaired, used as fabric in new clothes, cut into rags or shredded into filling. Throwing them in the trash is the most wasteful thing you can do. All the energy involved in making that fabric is lost.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#199

Post by handrous » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

jbc1 wrote: post #195

handrous wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's just that not that long ago, it was economically feasible, so it's not like it's some kind of unattainable fantasy. A couple laws, and a 5-10% hike on the costs of drinks distributed in bottles (thanks to the added costs of handling & recycling glass), and we'd be back there. It's something we definitely could do. But yes, right now the main glass recycler in our area just crushes everything up and turns i…

Cheaper is often because something was easier to make. Less materials and less energy. That's certainly the case on a one plastic bottle to one glass bottle ratio, but I wonder just how energy efficient is making that bottle over the glass one? Twice? Ten times? A hundred? Then how many times will a glass bottle get reused on average? What sort of resources are used in the process of bringing them back and cleaning t…

I'd expect there are lots of factors with glass. Making a new plastic bottle every time might be cheaper on a resource-use than making a glass bottle and washing it for re-use (which uses energy, and water) some average number of times before it gets broken (5? 20? 50? No clue). But it might not.

However, other factors include: labor; transportation & waste costs (glass is heavier and breaks easier); and labor-geographic efficiency enabled by lower transport costs—for example, you might choose fewer bottling plants farther apart for cost efficiency, so you can reduce overhead and concentrate your labor costs in cheap locations, rather than every town having a small bottling plant, or stores having fill-n-cap stations directly in them, or whatever.

[EDIT] that is, with lower transportation costs of plastic you might be able to concentrate production in places with cheaper labor.

Re: Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill

#200

Post by mulmen » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

elric wrote: post #128

dylan604 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why would anyone "donate" these is a different matter This is a very big question though. WTF are people thinking? There's a difference between no longer wearing something because it no longer fits but is otherwise in good condition to not being used because it's completely ruined. What mental block exists in the original owner from just throwing away the ruined items vs just holding onto them to donate so someone e…

This is highly location-dependent, but in some areas, charities will come to collect used items (say a big bag of clothes) free of charge, whereas throwing that same bag out in the trash is costly. So sneaking in a couple of shitty items basically saves money. Trash collection is -- no pun intended -- a mess.

With all the different types of plastic and how easy it apparently is to contaminate a batch I feel like sorting has to basically be perfect at the collection facility. At that point can't we just put everything in the trash and assume it will be sorted? Expecting individuals to do this perfectly across the entire population seems like it would never work.

Separating donate from trash clearly makes sense. And maybe compost from trash? Maybe? But is there ever a "clean" batch of recycling? Does a truck ever get through a full route without running in to that one household that tossed their produce bags in the recycle or didn't completely rinse the yogurt tub? Is that tub even recyclable? Isn't recycling just the subset of trash that doesn't have to be landfilled or incinerated?