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My parents collect cans for a living

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Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#161

Post by KptMarchewa »

pxtail wrote: post #142
kebman wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of food is suppressed, because our elites, leaders and politicians know what happens when that too is subjected to inflation as well, and that is revolution. Meanwhile, as far as I can see, the frog-boiling of regular people has been steady at least since the 60's. Back then the cost of a nice apartment was about one or two years pay. Today it's easily 10 years pay, and so the former middle class opt out of…

> former middle class opt out of having children because all value property is too high for them to afford Don't worry, just go ahead and don't forget to wince when looking at demographics stats, South Korea and Japan will be your guide.

Yet in Japan housing is a deflationary asset for at least last 20 years.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#162

Post by zeckalpha »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #68
smt88 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's worse somewhere else" isn't relevant to whether it's acceptable in the US. The US has the resources to reward hard workers with financial stability. It also benefits from brain-draining other countries with this promise. If the US continues to slide away from the "American Dream," the brains and prosperity will end up somewhere else.

So how much do you want to pay for bottle collecting? When you say "the US has the resources to reward hard workers", in this case you mean everybody who buys a bottle should pay more. Or how would you envision it to play out?

Many places use a deposit system, where if you return the packaging for recycling, you get your money back. This cuts down on litter, at no cost to those who recycle.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#163

Post by ls15 »

Semaphor wrote: post #148
kwhitefoot wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Norway a half litre or smaller container has a deposit of 2 kr, bigger containers are 3 kr (22 and 33 US cent respectively). But it isn't the size of the deposit that drives the return rate (95% or more here in Norway) it is the ease of doing it. Here all shops that sell such goods are required to accept the containers in return even if they were not purchased in that shop and even if they are of a different…

Same in Germany, there is also the "Pfand gehört daneben" (Deposit [bottles] belong next [to the trashcan]) campaign, often with bottle holder on the trash can. The whole deposit system is extremely convenient when you are drinking in the park or beach, where you usually don't want to bring all the bottles back again, but you'll get people coming by and ask if you have any deposit bottles to give to them.

> Same in Germany

Too many stores refuse to take bottle types that they don't sell though. I am often left with one or two bottles that technically should be eligible, but I have to take them back with me. The Norwegian way seems more convenient for consumers.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#164

Post by throwaway0a5e »

namdnay wrote: post #154
kebman wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘It is incredible what people can pay in tax if they just get used to it.’ — Erik Brofoss, former Norwegian minister of finance and director of the IMF.

It’s not a tax..

Just because you get a rebate for engaging in "desired behavior" doesn't make it not a tax.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#165

Post by throwaway0a5e »

mft_ wrote: post #78
dmurray wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, it would increase the attractiveness of fraud where the same bottle is sold in multiple jurisdictions with different deposit rates. Instead of collecting trash across the border, buy cans there by the truckload, bring them back across state lines, empty them and redeem them for the "deposit" you never paid. Of course, there are some plausible technological or political solutions to this. But it does change t…

…which is easy enough to fix with bar codes. This is how it works in Germany. You pay a deposit on every bottle. To get your money back requires a machine to recognise each bottle/can as legitimate, based on the bar code. Now, yes, people could print stickers with fake bar codes on… but I don’t think that would work well at the scale of the major fraud operation you’re envisaging…

After the can gets accepted by the machine it gets crushed and sold in bulk to a 3rd party. That 3rd party is buying and selling by weigh and is usually the one who's usually getting the government check. So all barcodes do is reduce casual fraud. The pros are already injecting it higher up the supply chain.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#166

Post by DarylZero »

larodi wrote: post #160

Ever thought that these people are straight out of the holy books - have little themselves, struggle, and in the same time save the rest of the world by recycling what others would not…? We praise monks in monasteries, but forget to hail those who do the dirt.

> We praise monks in monasteries

Do we?

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#167

Post by callmeal »

mise_en_place wrote: post #39
callmeal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now they are servants, beholden to the corrupted members of our government. ITYM corporations. The government is desperately trying to help and corporate interests (in the form of Joe Manchin's blocking of the BBB act) are how we got to this point. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/12/joe-man... Most people have forgotten that we "solved" the ozone hole problem through regulation. We could have done…

Nope, the worst thing a corporation can do is try to sell me something I don’t want. The worst the federal govt can do to me is imprison me, or worse, kill me. It’s time we hold these fascists accountable.

>Nope, the worst thing a corporation can do is try to sell me something I don’t want.

How quickly we forget.

https://www.marketplace.org/2019/10/16/the-20-year-legal-bat...

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/radium-girls-radioacti...

There's more. A lot, lot more.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#168

Post by throwaway0a5e »

mschuster91 wrote: post #98
dmurray wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This is almost the opposite of a market-based system. Aluminium cans are artificially made available only at tens or hundreds of times their cost to produce.

> Aluminium cans are artificially made available only at tens or hundreds of times their cost to produce. You forgot externalized costs... add the cost of cleaning up after irresponsible people leaving behind their cans wherever they want or the added costs and pollution of making a can from fresh aluminium ore (bauxite), and suddenly that "ten or hundred times" becomes "at cost". Deposits are a regulatory way to acc…

The deposit has nothing to do with the dirtiness of mining. It's so that people like you don't see a can blowing in the wind.

If it were about the mining the deposit would be on everything else made of aluminum too.

Of all the things to let into the environment aluminum is one of the least worst. As with everything else, it's yet another story about how narratives, marketing, knee jerk reactions and bike shedding are the name of the game when it comes to public policy.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#169

Post by ubercore »

EE84M3i wrote: post #108
kwhitefoot wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Norway a half litre or smaller container has a deposit of 2 kr, bigger containers are 3 kr (22 and 33 US cent respectively). But it isn't the size of the deposit that drives the return rate (95% or more here in Norway) it is the ease of doing it. Here all shops that sell such goods are required to accept the containers in return even if they were not purchased in that shop and even if they are of a different…

>Here all shops that sell such goods are required to accept the containers in return How does this work for convenience stores or other non-supermarkets that incidentally sell drinks in cans/bottles? They have to have a machine?

At least where I am in Norway, there are far more grocery stores, but they're all smaller. So there are, relative to the US, fewer pure "convenience" stores, and more small groceries. Not sure if this holds true everywhere, but thought it added some context to your question.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#170

Post by namdnay »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #164
namdnay wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a tax..

Just because you get a rebate for engaging in "desired behavior" doesn't make it not a tax.

when it's a 100% rebate for the vast majority of people i think it does? the money doesn't go to the state, it goes to the organisation that handles the recycling, and you get a 100% rebate for doing the normal thing
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