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

reuters.com

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

#191

Post by hgsgm »

joshuaissac wrote: post #120
maximus-decimus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if they literally have free clothing, doesn't it make that local industry useless? Literally provides no value at that point. This only seems like a problem to me if people literally can't provide value in any other way. To which the solution would seem to create a new type of industry, not create an artificial need by creating a clothes penury on purpose.

In isolation, yes. It is better for the locals to get clothes for free than for local resources (whether capital or labour) to be expended to produce them locally. But having a strong textile manufacturing industry promotes the development of other adjacent industries (e.g. dyes, chemicals) that would not be able to stand on their own initially, and can output products that are useful to more than just textile manufa…

The government can raise taxes from Al the people who aren't wasting money on shoes to pay for all that extra industry that they want to subsidize.

In no way is being poorer the solution to not being able to afford things.

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

#192

Post by hgsgm »

paulmd wrote: post #86
kube-system wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put a shoemaker out of a job and give them free shoes, they now can’t afford anything other than shoes. Economies grow prosperous when there are more opportunities for economic exchange.

the terrible thing about economics is that it's very complex - "the parable of the broken window" is only a parable. the entire field of keynesian economics says that yes, you can break a window and then pay someone to fix it and increase net economic activity, as long as it's not crowding out actual economic activity that would otherwise have occurred. the "burying jars of money in the desert and paying people to di…

Keynes' point is that money stimulates economic activity, breaking deadlocks. Paying people to do useless work is only helpful because it is more socially acceptable than paying people to do no work. In no case is the useless production valuable.

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

#193

Post by TheRealPomax »

It looks like most people didn't make it to this part of the article:

>In 2015, Indonesia’s Ministry of Trade introduced the Prohibition of the Import of Used Clothing regulation. The measure banned the import of used clothes and footwear over concerns about hygiene and the potential of these items to spread disease, as well as the need to protect the local textile industry.

Part of the problem here is that, yes, reuse is better than recycle, but these shoes were illegally sent into the second hand market of a country that DOW cannot be prosecuted in.

These shoes were guaranteed not first disinfected, they were just put in a bag, illegally shipped into India, unbagged, and then put on a shelf.

"Reduce, reuse, resell, recycle", but not if the step you decided to go with requires actively breaking the law and compromising the health and already health compromised billion-plus population country. Then you get articles like this, which quite rightly call out DOW over what they did.

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

#194

Post by melagonster »

bee_rider wrote: post #130
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.

Reusing the shoes doesn’t make them vanish. If they are being reused that’s fine, actually better than fine, that’s great. But how will Dow track the shows through various secondhand markets to make sure they ultimately fulfill their promise to recycle them in the end? I think that will be basically impossible.

these shoes were donated to Dow. they had changed the company which treat shoes.

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

#195

Post by Dalewyn »

woodruffw wrote: post #162
dawatchusay wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Innocent until proven guilty

This is an Internet forum, not a court of law.

Innocent until proven guilty is a standard that should be applied anywhere accusations are laid.

Many nasty things will occur if this is violated.

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

#196

Post by nradov »

Ekaros wrote: post #171
nradov wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those countries had craft clothing production, hardly anything that could be legitimately called an industry . You haven't proposed a viable alternative. Should developed countries voluntarily stop exporting used clothing? Would that actually make people in poor countries better off?

Why don't developed countries reuse the clothing there? Save the shipping. Maybe force the stores also to sell second-hand clothes with new clothes.

Government can't reasonably force stores to sell particular products. Most don't even have space for that. And outside of a few fashion items, used clothes have almost no value in developed countries anymore. They can barely be given away. Many are simply shredded for use as rags.

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

#197

Post by prepend »

Scoundreller wrote: post #165
prepend wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

More likely SO2 scrubbers. Incinerator scrubbed CO2 would be incredibly dirty for most industrial CO2 uses.

The purpose is not to reuse the co2 but to prevent it from entering the atmosphere. And there are co2 scrubbers on waste to energy plants.

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

#198

Post by fsckboy »

dahdum wrote: post #182
lazide wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're judging them by their perceived level of caring and knowledge, even though you have no evidence of it, and the outcome was better than expected . Sounds like hell?

> So you're judging them by their perceived level of caring and knowledge, even though you have no evidence of it, and the outcome was better than expected. They solicited donations under false pretenses for PR points and then gave (or worse, sold) them to an exporter. If they want to be seen as trustworthy or given the benefit of the doubt...well they've had 126 years and consistently shown ethical behavior is not a…

>They solicited donations under false pretenses for PR points and then gave (or worse, sold) them to an exporter.

you don't know any of this, you're making it all up to please you misplaced sense of priorities. Perhaps they solicited the donations knowing that they would sell them to a recycler, and the recycler knew they could recover costs or even profit from selling much of this stream to flea markets, and recycle the rest. No false pretenses, not "or worse sold", just an "it's Uber Eats for old shoes" elevator pitch.

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

#199

Post by jessaustin »

smugma wrote: post #124
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“They said it’s not uncommon to throw out half the shoes they receive because the footwear is not good enough to sell.” Apparently it may be closer to half than 10%. And protectionism in Indonesia makes it illegal to import used shoes because of “hygiene”. I’m not absolving Dow, but there was a lot to get angry about in the article.

Why believe the shoe seller? Perhaps half of the shoes appear usable and are sold as such, but most of those quickly disintegrate when worn. After all there are plenty of people in Singapore who will happily buy used and usable shoes. Anything that falls through this sieve to be exported is probably trash, which the Indonesians well know. It is reasonable for them to reject imports of which 1% are unusable, let alone 50%.

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

#200

Post by skolsuper »

lazide wrote: post #169
woodruffw wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m operating based on all available evidence in the article. I welcome any evidence to the contrary. If “hell” means “telling the truth” or “acting with basic diligence,” well.

From the article - a subcontractor of a subcontractor exported them instead of shredding them. It's at least 3 levels removed from Dow, and likely the Singapore Gov't that did it, as these are Singaporean companies. And they picked them up from the bins, they weren't delivered them by someone else. What level of diligence should Dow be doing here, especially since the outcome doesn't seem to be a bad one - if anythin…

Indonesia bans the import of 2nd-hand clothing and footwear, specifically because a large proportion of it ends up in landfill or incinerators. That definitely would be a worse environmental outcome than being recycled into running track. I suspect the reason the shoes from the article did not go to landfill was probably because they were in unusually good condition.
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