Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated • Hacker News Board

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#221

Post by frafra » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 10:32 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #72

harimau777 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is recycling plastic and paper not effective? I have some anxiety issue and one of the ways that they manifest is obsessing about recycling so not having to worry about plastic and paper would be a huge improvement in my quality of life. Edit: I should clarify, I realize that the article is saying that recycling plastic and paper isn't worth it, but is that a mainstream opinion?

It's strangely mainstream in American libertarian circles (and therefore places like HN), but even they seem to spend most of their time railing against the sheep-like masses who have been hoodwinked so I guess even that is a tacit admission that it's not mainstream. The article likewise cites a whole bunch of libertarian sources that unsurprisingly conclude that government interference is bad. On the other hand, her…

+1: landfills is the worst option and should be never used for non-inert materials (that is why EU mandates incineration before bringing waste to the landfill). It is very hard and expensive to do it properly, with a perfect first layer, in a stable place, putting a lot of heterogeneous compounds doing a lot of different (and even unexpected) chemical reactions, using pipes to exchange air and drain/burn methane, maintenance and monitoring the site even for hundreds of year after closing it. It is a nightmare to handle that kind of landfills. Please incinerate everything first, and maybe reuse the ashes for public roads, benches and so on.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#222

Post by agent008t » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 10:51 AM UTC

duxup wrote: post #8

Bworkbwork wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets haven't been doing a good job of it so far, why would they in the future?

Yeah we live in the time where companies look quarter to quarter....or are rewarded by the market by growing like Uber where profits don't even matter. Not sure we can hope for them to look into the future very far / care.

The likes of Uber are valued highly precisely because investors are looking very far into the future where these companies might become highly profitable.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#223

Post by EmpirePhoenix » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 11:00 AM UTC

flamtap wrote: post #80

throwawaysea wrote: post #76

And yet no one is talking about limiting population growth.

Do ethical strategies to accomplish that exist?

Sure, depends only on your ethic. E.G (note devils advocate) A utilitarist might argue, that killing of a larger amount of humans that are not worth it might be for the greater good of all

A extremist fascist even has a pretty clear definition of worth added to that

Asimovs concept of being killed instead of retirement

Various concepts in fiction of adding globally some additions to drinking water to lower fertility on global scale

Chinas politic of one child per family was even somewhat fair as it discriminates equally

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#224

Post by pfdietz » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 11:11 AM UTC

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #59

The real problem is we are using a long term material for short term purposes only because it seems cheap. All plastic will be with us for generations if not forever in terms of human time. We can and should produce an alternative and not poison the environment if we work at it. Yes it's not as bad as we thought but it certainly is bad. Plastic has a place in our daily life but not as a use once and throw away. I'm o…

We're annually putting hundreds of megatons of plastic into the environment, much of it reduced to microscopic particles and fibers. I think we're going to see increasing adaptation of microorganisms to eating the stuff, to the point it all becomes biodegradable.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#225

Post by wastedhours » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 11:16 AM UTC

jdnenej wrote: post #191

karthikb wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reduces the moral barrier to buying new stuff. “Just buy it and recycle when you’re done!” The companies don’t deal with the costs of disposal.

Governments should tax products for their disposal costs. Eventually everything needs to be disposed of so charge it at purchase time and remove the costs the individual pays later for garbage collection. This would mean products that don't use wasteful packaging become cheaper and people would buy less junk.

Every board room: "Just put some soil and seeds into this used plastic bottle and it becomes a handy plant pot - therefore it has an extended use and shouldn't need disposing of, hence zero disposal tax!"

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#226

Post by Firadeoclus » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 11:23 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #186

contactlight11 wrote: post #154

How about this information from CT's DEEP which quotes the EPA for the majority of it's information? Compared to virgin materials, using recycled materials more efficient by: - 40% for paper - 60-74% for steel and tin cans - 33% for plastics - 30% for glass - 5% for aluminum cans These numbers appear to be referencing the generation of new products using recycled vs new materials, but do they fail to take in to accou…

> first step realize that happiness is not automatically linked to consumption I’ve always thought that framing the issue like this is both smug and dishonest. Smug because you’re essentially saying that people are wrong about the things they believe bring them satisfaction and comfort. Dishonest because reduce in this context will always mean a reduction in quality of life. Aside from being an ineffective way to con…

How would you frame it?

People saying this are frequently those who would also admit that they were wrong about the things they believed to bring them satisfaction and comfort. From their own experience they know that it did not mean a reduction in quality of life for them. That doesn't mean it works that way for everyone, but it's not dishonest.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#227

Post by C1sc0cat » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 11:25 AM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #184

Point 5 misses a bit of facts. The reason the US and the UK don't seep garbage into the ocean is we export a bit[0] of it to...guess where? Places like China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. This[1] is relevant. Idk, that refutation alone makes one wonder how effective landfills are in the west if we must send our trash to other countries to keep from filling our own landfills. As mentioned elsewhere in this comment s…

Landfill is taxed in the UK which might explain some of it.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#228

Post by C1sc0cat » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 11:29 AM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #18

guitarbill wrote: post #5

> Plastics come from oil, which we are gradually running out of, though not quickly. I guess it depends on your definition of "quickly", or it would be good to see a citation on this one. Personally, I believe that if we encourage recycling more, that creates an opportunity for companies to innovate in that space and come up with better recycling methods. So in that respect, I'd prefer to over-recycle than under-recy…

Recycling consumes energy. The better strategy is by far designing products that last longer or can be reused.

On a related point this green new deal housing plan that is being mooted will presumably mandate 200 years design life and much stricter build quality to reduce energy use?

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#229

Post by Firadeoclus » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 11:31 AM UTC

nordsieck wrote: post #150

yongjik wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The convenience of throwing something away is a triumph of modern civilization ... I think you got it backwards. Throwing stuff away was the normal way of life before modern civilization arrived, just like defecating wherever you find convenient, hunting animals for dinner, or riding hoses on whatever side of road you like. The wonder of modern civilization gave us so much power to produce stuff that it's no longer…

> Throwing stuff away was the normal way of life before modern civilization arrived What? Absolutely not. Things were precious and labor was cheap back in the day. Anything that could be repaired was. Ever heard of "darning socks"? Yeah - no one would do that today, but it was common 100 years ago. > just like defecating wherever you find convenient Lol. People found out pretty quickly that you have to give a crap ab…

Conceptually, 100 years is also a very short amount of time for humanity.

Re: Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated

#230

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 11:34 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #180

spodek wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It promotes their growth -- say packaged good companies like Coca-Cola, Trader Joe's, or Starbucks. Clothing companies like H&M and Zara. Most unnecessary material stuff. A statistic from The Story of Stuff https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-stuff comes to mind that something like 99% of things Americans buy end up in landfills within one year. Manufacturers slap the word "recyclable" on those products to get p…

> 99% of things Americans buy end up in landfills within one year. What "things" means here? A car is a "thing" and a toothpick is a "thing". I can use the car for 10 years and I use several toothpicks per day. So on average, I throw nearly everything very quickly, but the picture seems to be misleading if we remember we're comparing toothpicks to cars...

Another way to put it is whether this is 99% of “individual items” or 99% by mass or volume, etc., and which such way of measuring gives the fairest picture of the lifecycle of products going to landfills.