Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market • Hacker News Board

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#101

Post by throwaway1777 » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:24 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #60

uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

I’m not outraged that the shoes were reused instead of recycled; I agree with you about that probably being a better outcome. I don’t think that was the article’s purpose, however: the purpose was to show that companies like Dow can’t be taken at their word when it comes to environmental initiatives. The outcome in this case was preferential, but all evidence points to that outcome being the product of Dow simply not…

Can’t take governments at their words either. How many times have governments lied about the environment. Can’t take anyone at their word. Trust but verify.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#102

Post by prepend » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:26 PM UTC

throw_away1525 wrote: post #13

My city has a waste to energy plant. Anything I put in the waste bin gets burned, and the energy is used to generate power or heat for the city. I have a hell of a time convincing my wife that we ought to just chuck all plastics into the waste rather than stick them in the recycling bin, since only God knows where the plastics in the recycling bin end up. Maybe they get recycled, maybe they get dumped onto a smolderi…

> since only God knows where the plastics in the recycling bin end up.

They likely end up in the same place as your waste.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#103

Post by prepend » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:27 PM UTC

ianburrell wrote: post #43

kzrdude wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landfilling still seems very inefficient. As Sweden has done for a long time: what ever you put in "regular waste" goes to incineration. The heat is used for district heating. Remains from incineration can be landfilled. Exhaust gases are monitored and cleaned. Regular landfills have thus been abolished, which is a success. It's a small step, but IMO a very notable achievement. And it has outraged some that plastic "…

Burning trash produces CO2 and that needs to be factored in. My guess is that CO2 produced transporting waste to landfill is less than that produced by burning. With landfills, there is problem with food and wharf waste producing methane. Separating that out and composting it, which produces CO2, is solution that my city does. Sending waste to well-run landfill feels wrong but can be best alternative. We should proba…

> Burning trash produces CO2 and that needs to be factored in.

My understanding is that waste incineration includes co2 scrubbers to capture co2 so it isn’t released into the atmosphere.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#104

Post by woodruffw » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:30 PM UTC

oblib wrote: post #88

woodruffw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not outraged that the shoes were reused instead of recycled; I agree with you about that probably being a better outcome. I don’t think that was the article’s purpose, however: the purpose was to show that companies like Dow can’t be taken at their word when it comes to environmental initiatives. The outcome in this case was preferential, but all evidence points to that outcome being the product of Dow simply not…

I'm not really seeing how giving preowned shoes to folks is not "recycling" them. When I was young we'd take glass soda bottles back to the store to be cleaned and refilled and we'd get a little money back. That was "recycling".

In the taxonomy of consumer/industrial waste, that's "reuse" instead of "recycling."

But that's not really the issue at stake (reuse is good!). The issue is that Dow is lying, at the bare minimum, about their ability to enact a particular recycling program.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#105

Post by pmorici » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #60

uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

I’m not outraged that the shoes were reused instead of recycled; I agree with you about that probably being a better outcome. I don’t think that was the article’s purpose, however: the purpose was to show that companies like Dow can’t be taken at their word when it comes to environmental initiatives. The outcome in this case was preferential, but all evidence points to that outcome being the product of Dow simply not…

Seems like the article wants you to accept a very narrow definition of recycling. reusing perfectly good shoes fits the definition of recycling in my book.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#106

Post by woodruffw » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

aeternum wrote: post #94

woodruffw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not outraged that the shoes were reused instead of recycled; I agree with you about that probably being a better outcome. I don’t think that was the article’s purpose, however: the purpose was to show that companies like Dow can’t be taken at their word when it comes to environmental initiatives. The outcome in this case was preferential, but all evidence points to that outcome being the product of Dow simply not…

Why isn't this caring more? It is a much better outcome than grinding up the shoes and trying to use them as playground fill or something.

"Caring more" requires us to believe that Dow knows and intended for this to happen, rather than it being a beneficial outcome of local economic pressures. That seems unlikely; why go to the effort of publicizing a specific recycling program (one that's worse!) when you're secretly going to do a better thing?

The much more likely explanation is that Dow doesn't care, and expressed that lack of care by paying someone even less scrupulous to "care" for them. That party in turn doesn't care (because they can see Dow doesn't), and simply did whatever made them the most money.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#107

Post by woodruffw » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:34 PM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #105

woodruffw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not outraged that the shoes were reused instead of recycled; I agree with you about that probably being a better outcome. I don’t think that was the article’s purpose, however: the purpose was to show that companies like Dow can’t be taken at their word when it comes to environmental initiatives. The outcome in this case was preferential, but all evidence points to that outcome being the product of Dow simply not…

Seems like the article wants you to accept a very narrow definition of recycling. reusing perfectly good shoes fits the definition of recycling in my book.

The phrase is "reduce, reuse, recycle" because it's intended to be an ordered taxonomy: reduction comes first, following by reusing existing materials, followed by recycling them into new materials.

Reusing perfectly good shoes is a good outcome, and nobody in this thread has suggested otherwise. But it isn't recycling in the way that Dow stated, either literally (since they claimed a polar opposite use) or definitionally (since the shoes aren't turned into new shoes).

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#108

Post by serf » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:44 PM UTC

uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

>However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle".

corporations will never take a more costly and less profitable approach towards productions unless regulations and watchdogs keep them to their word -- this outrage is a necessary function to a degree , if you care to hold corporate groups to the same mantra.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#109

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:44 PM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #65

uberman wrote: post #2

I kind of see where the "outrage" might come from in the lead as apparently they promised that the shoes were going to be recycled. However, the mantra is "reduce reuse recycle". Clearly it is better in the save the planet sense that perfectly good shoes were reused rather than destroyed for playground padding. I'm a liberal in general but this kind of false outrage makes us look foolish.

> A torrent of cheap, unregulated second-hand clothing flowing into Indonesia also adds to the country’s mounting garbage problem, said Dharmesh Shah, a policy advisor to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, a nonprofit working on waste pollution. He said much of that merchandise is in such poor condition that vendors can’t resell it. > “They sort through it and a very small percentage is actually reusab…

Yeah I don't think anyone would be too upset if they plucked out the 10% of shoes that are in good-enough condition to actually resell in Indonesia, before grinding the rest up to make sports tracks.

The issue is that it seems like all the shoes were sent to Indonesia, regardless of reusability, and they turned a blind eye to what happened to them after that.

Re: Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

#110

Post by jrmg » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 8:45 PM UTC

This might be too optimistically naive, but I wonder if they’re treating the shoes as a commodity. Like, for every 1000 shoes in Dow collection bins, they’re using 1000 shoes in the recycling-to-sports-surfaces projects, but they’re not the same shoes. Hopefully they’re the more worn-out shoes, and thats why the nicer shoes ‘donated’ for this article were not used.