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

Recycling in America

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 77 posts

Re: Recycling in America

#31

Post by timboslice »

jgoewert wrote: post #19
Errorcod3 wrote: post #2

America is way behind from living overseas for 3 years. I have to pay extra to recycle, which I do not think is correct. Should be more like some areas in Germany where you pay for the amount of trash you have(weight), the more you throw away the more you pay -> encourages recycling! I also work for a brewery and it is sad that none will re-use bottles in the united states, all beer goes into brand new bottles :(

Yep. This happened in St. Louis county a few years ago. They gave all contracts to one company "to reduce costs" and made the payment mandatory for recycling whether you used it or not. I was forced to pay people to take my recycling, which I never had any of because I take it to the recycling center and get around 35-40 cents a pound.

Interesting, I'm in STL city and never heard about that. Granted, I rent and usually trash fees are paid by my landlord.

A similar thing happened to my parents, living in a Milwaukee suburb. They have a well drilled and use well water.

The city decided that this is a health hazard and is forcing everyone to be on well water. Not only do they tear up your yard to drop the pipes, you also have to pay a contractor to hook up the water main to your house. Non-compliance results in a fine. A FINE?! For using your own well water...

Re: Recycling in America

#32

Post by mikeash »

Hobotron1 wrote: post #21
ams6110 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would believe it. If the problem really is a supply/demand imbalance, the market should correct it. But nobody will pay me for my used plastic bottles.

Perhaps someone better versed in economics can help me here: isn't this the type of thing where a tax might be useful- for example, a tax on products that use 'new' plastic/glass as opposed to recycled? basically, convert the 'cost' of garbage everywhere into an actual cost?

I don't think it's necessary, because people already pay to dispose of garbage. The cost isn't borne by the manufacturer, but as long as it's borne by somebody involved in the transaction, it'll be accounted for.

Taxes are useful to capture externalities, where the costs imposed are on other people unrelated to the transaction. For example, taxing air pollution helps to capture the costs it imposes on the general population, which the manufacturer and their customer could otherwise ignore.

Re: Recycling in America

#33

Post by hn_ »

Errorcod3 wrote: post #2

America is way behind from living overseas for 3 years. I have to pay extra to recycle, which I do not think is correct. Should be more like some areas in Germany where you pay for the amount of trash you have(weight), the more you throw away the more you pay -> encourages recycling! I also work for a brewery and it is sad that none will re-use bottles in the united states, all beer goes into brand new bottles :(

"American" is not one place.

Many, many cities have policies just as you described - pay by usage.

Many cities have free recycling.

It is going to be different for every single city/town.

My garbage is picked up by a private company unfortunately. That means my landlord only pays them to pick up garbage, not recycling. The town picks up recycling for individual households for free but my complex has private dumpsters.

I know people who can only put their garbage out in special bags and they have to pay the company or city for the bags, so they pay per bag of garbage.

Re: Recycling in America

#34

Post by [deleted] »

philfrasty wrote: post #3

Will never forget how I (German) walked into a Safeway in San Francisco with my bag full of bottles and asked the cashier where the deposit-machine is. She had absolutely no clue what I was talking about.

[deleted]

Re: Recycling in America

#35

Post by joshuapants »

ptnapoleon wrote: post #10
JonnieCache wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have to pay extra to recycle, which I do not think is correct. what. Who's charging you? Local government?

In many municipalities, they contract trash and recycling collection out to private companies. Many times those companies charge separately for recycling collection.

Interesting. Where I live they do contract with a company, but the money just comes from the taxes we pay, just like it would have been when the town ran its own trucks.

Re: Recycling in America

#36

Post by ars »

America doesn't recycle more because it just isn't worth it to recycle things (except for metal). (And if you notice, this article, like most of them, talks about how it's worth it to recycling aluminum, and doesn't mention anything else.)

You can tell that metal is worth recycling because you have people driving around looking for metal scrap and taking it. No one takes plastic.

Cleaning, and sorting, plastic and paper takes more energy and water than using virgin.

Especially water, America does not have extra of, to spend on washing things.

It works in Europe because they make the consumers do all the sorting and washing, so recycling companies don't notice the extra expense. In particular the water, but also the use of time.

That has its own expense - you need like 10 different bins, and the consumers have to transport the garbage to the neighborhood recycling hall. That's fine if you are in a small dense city, not so simple in the US.

If you wanted to re-capture the energy in paper and plastic burn them for energy. Ignore glass, the crust of the planet is made of glass, there is absolutely no reason to recycle it.

Re: Recycling in America

#37

Post by morsch »

jobu wrote: post #6

"Most recycled materials should be cheaper than virgin commodities" Surprisingly this just isn't true. It takes a lot of work and chemicals to clean inks and glues out of paper for recycling. Penn & Teller looked into this in an episode of Bullshit! a while back - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rExEVZlQia4 Aluminum and clear glass are very efficient to recycle, plastics and colored glass depend on commodity prices,…

Conventional wisdom -- as well as Wikipedia and pretty much all other references I found -- says that recycling paper is better for the environment, because it uses fewer resources (energy, water), among other things. I'm not ruling out that conventional wisdom et al. are incorrect, but I think I'd prefer something other than a TV show.

Re: Recycling in America

#38

Post by ars »

pixl97 wrote: post #29
jobu wrote: post #6

"Most recycled materials should be cheaper than virgin commodities" Surprisingly this just isn't true. It takes a lot of work and chemicals to clean inks and glues out of paper for recycling. Penn & Teller looked into this in an episode of Bullshit! a while back - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rExEVZlQia4 Aluminum and clear glass are very efficient to recycle, plastics and colored glass depend on commodity prices,…

>then put that paper in landfills Shouldn't it be able to be downcycled cheaply? Like shredded paper products for things like insulation and other filler?

The paper would have to be perfectly clean. Post-comsumer paper is not.

Re: Recycling in America

#39

Post by fragmede »

jobu wrote: post #6

"Most recycled materials should be cheaper than virgin commodities" Surprisingly this just isn't true. It takes a lot of work and chemicals to clean inks and glues out of paper for recycling. Penn & Teller looked into this in an episode of Bullshit! a while back - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rExEVZlQia4 Aluminum and clear glass are very efficient to recycle, plastics and colored glass depend on commodity prices,…

That episode of Bullshit kinda missed the point, IIRC.

Energy consumption is an important thing to pay attention to, but the point of recycling is about not taking more stuff out of the ground.

Re: Recycling in America

#40

Post by steamy »

Hobotron1 wrote: post #21
ams6110 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would believe it. If the problem really is a supply/demand imbalance, the market should correct it. But nobody will pay me for my used plastic bottles.

Perhaps someone better versed in economics can help me here: isn't this the type of thing where a tax might be useful- for example, a tax on products that use 'new' plastic/glass as opposed to recycled? basically, convert the 'cost' of garbage everywhere into an actual cost?

Why do you go for the route of punishment (taxes) and not try positive reinforcement instead like incentives and or tax breaks?
Post reply on HN