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Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

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Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#141

Post by fetbaffe »

jpttsn wrote: post #138
fetbaffe wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Nothing is free. We pay the most taxes in the world. 2) We don't accept based on academic merit. We accept based on government unemployment programs. Edit: Spello

> We don't accept based on academic merit. We accept based on government unemployment programs That's overly pessimistic. Compared to most of the world, the fact that the size of your wallet doesn't directly determine which schools we can go to is remarkable.

But now you are saying that has do with the size of your wallet (or rather lack of), which is true, but that does not mean we are basing it on academic merit. That is jumping to conclusions and assumptions.

What is the academic merits to become a teacher today? Zero?

Edit: Added extra paragraph.

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#142

Post by hvidgaard »

yason wrote: post #137
gvr wrote: post #46

My dad's condo [edit: condo complex] in Sweden has 10+ different trash cans. You divide your trash into individuals cans for batteries, bulbs, cardboard, paper, compostables, and so forth. I don't know but I assume that part of the reason that Swedes are able to deal effectively with the trash is that they sort it properly at the source, so that they more easily can process it. When I read stuff like this it honestly…

In Finland, neighbouring Sweden, we also have more different containers for different trash than you'd care for. It takes time to learn all that and when you've finally sorted out all your trash properly to different bins, you sit on your balcony and look at the garbage truck reversing to the yard. The guy goes inside the garbage shed and brings out one bin of certain color, empties it in the truck, and drives away t…

It depends on the scale. In Denmark, while we can do it privately by driving to recycle stations - highly inefficient as you mention. The sorting in urban areas however, is mostly glass, paper (and the like), and general waste - it does not matter if a truck picks this up, because he would have to do so as general waste anyway, if it wasn't sorted. Many larger stores also have facilities for batteries, but I'm unsure how many uses them as most people I know toss them in with the general waste.

It has also been tried many times to separate organic matter from the rest (different colour of bags), and using automatic systems to sort it. It has been mostly dropped because it's more expensive than just burning everything unfortunately. Which brings me to the main point. We can be very efficient and recycle most of the waste, find a optimum point where we minimize the environmental footprint - it's just expensive, and the first thing to go when the city need to save money. People just don't care about future generations, or don't believe it's a problem, to accept the cost of recycling.

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#143

Post by jpttsn »

mhb wrote: post #62
philsnow wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's inefficient to do 10+ cans per person. I think he means that there are 10 cans for the entire condo complex. Also, forcing individual _taxpayers_ to sort trash really keeps environmentalism in the forefront of voters' minds, which I imagine makes it much easier to keep environment-friendly legislation and public works projects going. Consider the opposite extreme, having a single bin that absolutely everything…

It's counterintuive to me that forcing people to sort their trash will lead to a fondness for recycling. Did the draft engender a fondness for the Vietnam war? A different approach would be to charge people for trash pickup. If the cost for sorted trash removal is enough of a savings, then people will do it.

Equating these uses of "force" is an almost troll-like stretch.

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#144

Post by jpttsn »

fetbaffe wrote: post #141
jpttsn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't accept based on academic merit. We accept based on government unemployment programs That's overly pessimistic. Compared to most of the world, the fact that the size of your wallet doesn't directly determine which schools we can go to is remarkable.

But now you are saying that has do with the size of your wallet (or rather lack of), which is true, but that does not mean we are basing it on academic merit. That is jumping to conclusions and assumptions. What is the academic merits to become a teacher today? Zero? Edit: Added extra paragraph.

> That is jumping to conclusions and assumptions.

Sure. I didn't arrive at this through reasoning, it's a contingency. I hope I didn't leave anything non-obvious out:

* In most places, you have to afford the school and you need the grades/SAT scores (academic merit).

* In Sweden, you don't need to afford the school: you only need the grades/SAT scores (academic merit).

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#145

Post by roel_v »

millstone wrote: post #127
prawn wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case you charge for rubbish collection on a combination of weight/volume and make it a premium for unsorted refuse. That gives people a choice. Pay the premium if they want someone else to do it, or take extra care themselves and save a bit of money. I think in Paris (?) they have some underground storage for recycling on street corners. Someone was telling me about that when I was there. In New Zealand (and…

Does requiring people to sort their trash actually work? What sort of feedback and enforcement is in place? Where I live in California, we are given a large recyclables bin and a small trash bin, with the option to pay more for a larger trash bin. This sounds like an incentive to recycle, but it's a perverse one. If I were to just put all my trash in the recycle bin, there would be no consequences at all for me, beca…

"Does requiring people to sort their trash actually work? What sort of feedback and enforcement is in place?"

No it doesn't. I live in so-called 'progressive' Holland where separate waste collection has been done for years. It's not efficient now any more (in 2013 we have better waste separation methods as was had in the 1990's) but people have become conditioned to 'separating waste = green' that it's hard to reverse now. Plus, the whole infrastructure exists now anyway, so the switching costs would take another decade to make back - an investment for which there is simply no room in these times.

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#146

Post by roel_v »

willvarfar wrote: post #83
mhb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's counterintuive to me that forcing people to sort their trash will lead to a fondness for recycling. Did the draft engender a fondness for the Vietnam war? A different approach would be to charge people for trash pickup. If the cost for sorted trash removal is enough of a savings, then people will do it.

(Living in Sweden) Actually, the Swedes really do believe in this. Everyone I know conscientiously sorts their trash. A Swede will happy carry their own bags up to their rooms in hotels, too. Most hotels don't have porters. They don't have the whole tipping thing either generally. You go through life doing things for yourself, not paying others to do things for you. Maybe its the US psyche and is some kind of superio…

"Actually, the Swedes really do believe in this. Everyone I know conscientiously sorts their trash."

Too bad they're wrong though. Talk about 'Stockholm syndrome' (get it? I'm so funny)

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#147

Post by smcl »

briandear wrote: post #108
kamakazizuru wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its counterintuitive to me that you think something intelligent and good for society like sorting the trash that you generate is even remotely comparable to fighting a war that shouldn't have happened to start with - and spraying agent orange at a bunch of innocents.

I won't defend the Vietnam War, however generalizing the bunch innocents is a bit daft. The US gets criticized for torture yet the US version of torture compared in no way to the torture perpetuated by that 'bunch of innocents.' Let's not even get into that 'peaceful' Communist group just across te border known as the Khmer Rouge. It's stylish to be a Che Guevara-shirt wearing anti-American granola eating hippy, yet…

Your post could've done without the first paragraph - the "I prefer that we kept all politics off Hacker News" was sufficient without the over-the-top generalisations like "anti-American granola eating hippy".

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#148

Post by ZeroGravitas »

memnips wrote: post #12

For a different perspective I found this older article which ponders the economic impact of forcing 9 million people to spend time and energy sorting their trash: http://mises.org/daily/2855

Libertarians don't like recycling because it's a political intervention into the market.

Not only do they dislike that on principal, if people start to like any one particular intervention (which many people do with recycling) then it undermines their entire political approach.

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#149

Post by roel_v »

westicle wrote: post #100
belorn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, forcing individual _taxpayers_ to sort trash really keeps environmentalism in the forefront of voters' minds, which I imagine makes it much easier to keep environment-friendly legislation and public works projects going. Indeed. I always get a bit surprised when I see visiting people throwing cans out of the car window, or a plastic wrapper while walking down the street. I guess its a wonder that they only re…

Cultural norms... When I was in certain large, developed cities in China (nearly 15 years ago now) most of the toddlers I saw in public had "open bottom" outfits on; they literally used the street as a toilet. Some parents would hold them over the bin when they needed to go. Many wouldn't.

I was in a train going North-East from Beijing (can't remember where we were going, or more to the point, whether it was a 'rural' train or not) as little as 5 years ago, and the grandmother in the section opposite the corridor from us made here grandson go nr 2 right there in the middle of the train. Every time the train would swerve, the turds would roll from left to right and back :O| Cultural differences be damned, who in their right mind would accept this as a common practice...

Re: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage With Waste-to-Energy

#150

Post by roel_v »

rorrr2 wrote: post #86
3pt14159 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inefficient to do 10+ cans per person. It is more efficient to sort it at the garbage transfer station the way Canadians do. Most places have 3 cans. General, glass/plastic/cardboard, and biodegradable. Also, SF is considered "progressive" for many of its completely unsustainable policies, like housing controls, which ultimately lead to further economic inefficiency. A truly progressive society is more like Toro…

> It's inefficient to do 10+ cans per person It's actually much more efficient. Sorting is expensive. Collecting cans is trivial. I would love to have 10 cans and help the environment. Something like this: Glass, plastic, paper, metal, bio/food, electronics, rubber, textiles, everything else. Right now most of that stuff gets mixed and gets piled up polluting ground water.

"It's actually much more efficient. Sorting is expensive. Collecting cans is trivial."

Nope. 10 years ago it was like that, not any more. Sorting technology has gotten much better. Here is the thing: you need to sort anyway, even if you collect waste separately, because you can't rely on everybody being 100% correct in putting stuff in the right container. So 2 decades ago when people started collecting separately, the sorting stations were partly automated and could only process relatively small amounts of 'pollution' (e.g. cans in heaps of paper), and the rest was done manually. Nowadays machines can handle much more capacity, and the overhead of collecting things separately has become higher than the costs of processing everything from a big heap of mixed materials.

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